I can't give advice on where to find specifics that fit your tastes, but I can tell you that the three Aix discs I have are awesome. Unfortunately one is not my cup of tea musically (Fred Sokolow, not bad, just not exciting - purchased because I'm a sucker for Junior Brown who accompanies him on some of the tracks). But the classical piece (Mozart's Jupiter) and the many tracks on the free sampler DVD are really impressive.

The AIX albums were engineered specifically for 5.1 channel sound and it really shows. My impression is that Aix's standards are way higher than the norm right now, so it might be worth it to pick a few titles from their collection that intrigue you and give them a shot, especially since Hirez audio is still in the infancy stage where a) you can't get too many titles by artist and b) even when you can, they are sometimes more gimmickry than recording artistry. (I understand some of the Neil Young titles available are well recorded, if that interests you.) The AIX discs offer really cool features. I appreciate the DD and DTS 5.1 options, since I don't yet have a DVD-Audio player, nor do I plan to get one until prices have come down and titles ramped up. Another cool feature of the AIX discs is that on many you can choose between either a "stage" option that represents the immersive, close sound experience a musician has on stage OR "audience" mode in which the surrounds bring out the ambience of a venue from the best seats in the house.

If you want to get into the artistry of the recording, look into these. I'm going right now in fact to lie on my living room floor surrounded by Mozart.


"These go to eleven."