Pink Floyd, The Endless River - REVIEW

First let me state my bias, I am a HUGE Pink Floyd fan. I have been listening to them since their very first album came out back in the 60's. I knew before the debut that The Endless River (Called TER from this point on) would only have one vocal track so I am unbothered by what many people have pointed out.

I purchased both the CD and Vinyl from Amazon, and the 24/96 Flac download from HD Tracks. Like I said, a huge fan. My Reference system consists of a Audible Illusions Modulus 3B tube pre, Odyssey Stratos Extreme+++amp, VPI Scout and a ZU/Denon LD103 cartridge. The SUT is by Bob's Devices and Phono cables by VPI. I also used my Esoteric UX-3 player for the cd's. The High Rez files were played through an Asus laptop connected to a Musical Fidelity Musical Link 192 and a Wyred4Sound Dac1. Speakers are Von Schweikert VR-33.

The secondary system consisted of a Rogue Cronus Magnum Integrated, Sony SCD777ES sacd player and Odyssey Kismet Reference floorstanding speakers. I will get to the point why I mentioned the 2 systems in a minute.

TER has a very nice Pink Floyd type of flow through out the album. You know where the album starts and ends as it's all laid out in a logical order. The mostly unassuming and humble Richard Wright shows just how stunning he plays and how essential he is to the Pink Floyd sound. Without him, there would be no Pink Floyd. Many will argue that there hasn't been a real Pink Floyd since Roger Waters left all too many years ago. I won't argue that here.

I hear many familiar sounds from Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, DSOTM, Wish You Were Here and Animals. You have to listen carefully, but the references are definitely there. While this isn't Floyd's best work, it is rather good and a lot better than some of the tripe that passes for music these days. I give it 4 stars.

My reason for mentioning both systems is to show how different they are, but that the music sounded the same regardless of which format or system I played. What I found is that the highs seem very slightly rolled off. I noticed it on my reference system and also on the secondary system. I wonder if others could chime in here and tell me their impressions of that anomaly.

On a personal note, I am happy to hear any new music from Pink Floyd, even if it is more than 20 years old.