Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Favorite CD and song at the moment...

Mine has got to be:

Peter Tschaikowsky - [Romeo and Juliet & The Nutcracker #01] Romeo and Juliet: Fantasy Overture after Shakespeare [22:08] ¤ CDDA ¤ 44100Hz ¤ Stereo.

Heh, I love the foobar2000 copy command (now that CDDB is enabled).

What's yours?

At this very moment? hmm...

I've listened to Johnny Cash American IV about 8 times in the last two days.

Toss up between Norah Jones's "Come Away With Me" CD and Mario Frangoulis's "Sometimes I Dream" CD. Utterly amazing talent, for both of them. And I dream about what it'll be like to listen to them when I eventually get my Axioms... heh heh heh

As far as favorite songs? Sheesh, I don't know... they're all so good.

Peter,

Thanks for the Frangoulis recommendation. I opened iTunes and looked him up in the music store. The only track they had -- Vincerò, Perderò -- was on a Sony Classical sampler called Classics for a New Century. Beautiful stuff.

So I went to Amazon and bought the CD.

PeterChenoweth... That Norah Jones album is GREAT! That along with the older Collective Soul (self titled album) from around 1995-6 were my favorites last week. Norah's voice flows from the Axiom drivers pretty well. Very smooth sound .

I agree w/ Norah Jones. In SACD, it's also great. I also experiencing renewed enjoyment from my Julia Fordham collection. And a new singer I'm waiting to get, www.amywinehouse.com.

You're welcome! If you liked Vincerò, Perderò, you'll *love* the rest of his CD. He's truly a nearly unknown talent in the US.

"My Baby don't Tolerate" from the CD of the same name by Lyle Lovett. Subtlety is not lost on that guy.

I just fell in love with these CDs -- something I don't usually listen much. Very, very pleasant strings...

not a lot of punk fans on this board to share this one with, but the Libertines "What a Waster" is probably my fave song right now, and I guess either that cd or the Mars Volta would be my favorite cd right now.

At this moment I am listening to the SACD version of "Dark Side of the Moon". I have listened to it twice in the last 24 hours. I have owned "Dark Side" in at least 4 different formats, and have listened to it literally thousands of times in the last 25 years, and I am now hearing things that I never heard before. What an achievement! The rest of the Pink Floyd catalogue begs for the same treatment! Wouldn't "Echoes" sound divine in 5.1?

I finally have my speakers positioned right for multi channel audio. At first, I was sending the rear channels to my surrounds (QS4's located about 4 feet above, 3 feet in front, and 8 feet to the side of my listening position). Now the rear channel signals are being sent to my rear speakers, a set of relatively ancient JBL Pro III's, located 1 foot behind, and six feet to the side of the listenting position at ear level.

What a difference! I am now firmly convinced that if one is going to play any multi channel audio, that the rear speakers of a 7.1 setup should be monopoles, set up close to ear level.

Right now my rears are on stands to the sides of my sofa, but I am going to get some M2's, and mount them with full metal brackets a couple of feet above the listening position (as a compromise to their function as rear surrounds for movies) 6-8 feet to the sides of, and slightly behind the listening position, aimed right at the listener.

The combination of M60 x 2, M2 x 2, VP100 and VTF-2 should make for awesome SACD and DVD-A listening!

Lately it's been Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Current favorites:
Song - One Thing by Finger Eleven
CD - The Commitments Soundtrack

Loved that movie.

for me, for the last two or three months, it has been Ray Montford's "Shed Your Skin" CD.

Dang! I listen to a lot of music genres, but the new Toby Keith CD is pretty fun. Sadly, I am limited to what is on my car radio (no CD in my work car) because my home is under a complete remodel and my stuff is all safely packed away.

The last week it has been "The Burly Brawl" from The Matrix Reloaded CD disc 2. I get goosebumps every time I play that on my M60's.

the new hatebreed cd has me this week,it definetly doesnt do the system any justice...one week hardcore....next week jazz...another week classical....i like to mix it up a lot....ron

Will, since you did say "song", although I greatly prefer orchestral music I'll again mention the incredibly beautiful rendition of the Rachmaninoff Vocalise by Anna Moffo on RCA 7831. What I'm listening to at the moment is the stirring Smetana Ma Vlast(My Country) with Berglund and the Dresden State Orchestra on Seraphim 73736.

Vaclav Nelhyber:Trittico
First Movement:Allegro maestoso
Frederick Fennell
Dallas Wind Symphony

and

DJ Tiesto
Track 8:Nyana

Joss Stone-The Soul Sessions
Van Morrison-Down the Road and I have just about worn out Audioslave.

We kicked off a dinner party with a little classic vinyl Saturday . . . Culture Club's celebrated "Color by Numbers" album . . .

You WHAT??? I'm sorry, but I think I will have to cancel the order I put in last week!

JUST KIDDING! But don't do that again! There's just something about Boy George that always "erked" me.

I'm really looking forward to not hearing CC on my new Axioms!

Lager,
Rocky

Oh yeah, the vinyl has some real winners in the collection . . . Ian has a Canadian classic band called "Martha and the Muffins" that we spin from time to time too! Tee hee! But there is some good stuff, I promise - and people like Bob Dylan sound better on vinyl in my opinion . . .

Culture Club is my all time favorite band! Seriously, I've followed the band (mostly Boy George) since 1985. Yeah, I'm a freak, but I'm not ashamed of it! If people would get past the persona of "Boy George", then I would think more people would appreciate the music (but afraid to admit it!). "Colour By Numbers" is an excellent album!

I agree on the CC CBN album, I don't have the LP though. Good stuff.

Being a HUGE Matrix fan this week I have been listening to the Revolutions CD, and really dig the Navras cut by Juno Reactor vs. Don Davis.

Ween; Chocolate & Cheese. Very good album. These guys are nuts. Take Beck, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Beatles(Yellow Submarine-like Beatles), numerous music genre's, and just plain weirdness and you kinda, sorda, but not really, get Ween. They are very hard to classify. Each song is completley different from the previous, they are just cool. They almost seem to be a satire of music in general.

You're just a karma (karma karma karma karma) chameleon. You come and go (x2).

I've been contemplating buying a turntable lately but frankly I fear the turntable. I read that you have to spend a bunch of money to get good sound from them. True? I also read that they have to be fiddled with to no end to keep the stylus on track and the cartridge aligned etc. True?

Does anyone have any thoughts(as if I have to ask) on living with vinyl? Recommendations? Any votes to "forget about it" and stick with digital?

Mike, forget about it and stick with digital.

Heh - mine just changed...

New 3 favorite songs:

Radiohead - Creep [Pablo Honey]
Radiohead - Paranoid Android [OK Computer]
Radiohead - Karma Police [OK Computer]

If you think of it as a hobby, and not the be all and end all, then vinyl is a fun way to go. These are the last few years of picking up treasures at garage sales, in attics, and from friends getting rid of their past lives. My advice is to do it all on the cheap. Grab a mint direct drive turntable (Denon,Teknics,Pioneer...)at the next yard sale you attend ($10) and then pick up a new bottom of the line (Ortofon, Grado, Audio Technica...) cartridge. A carbon fibre brush. and some distilled water for cleaning old albums, and you are in business. There are lots of websites that will show you how to align the cartridge and it is really easy. The counterweights on most turntables are fairly accurate, and the Japanese consumer tables keep their settings very well. I won't ever claim that the sound is more accurate than a good digital recording, but there is still something magical about sound coming out of a vinyl groove. There are many recordings that have never made it to disk, or have been mastered so poorly that the LP sounds better. The irony is that with records being all but extinct, today's technology allows them to sound better than they ever did.
A few simple rules. 1) use the high side of the downforce range for the cartridge. 2) Don't pay much for used records. You can't tell how they will sound by looking at surface scratches. The damage hides deep in the grooves. 3) Don't believe anything the high end turntable salespeople throw at you. If you think the people who sell cables are out to lunch, you won't believe what the vinyl faction sells as gospel.

I too have thought about buying a cheap record player. I have a ton of comedy on vinyl that I know has never been released on CD. I'd love to burn them to CD. What would be the easiest way to do that? (I only have a CD burner on my computer)

I'm sure you could figure out the hardware part. You'll need a record player, a phono pre-amp, some RCA cables, and a sound card with audio in.

Lucky for you, there is software designed specifically for recording LPs. Here's the one I'd start with:
LP Recorder

There's also software that you can use to clean up the recordigs and reduce pops, crackles, and other noise. Here's one:
Ray Gun

firesign theater?

Mostly some old Cosby stuff. I'm sure some of his stuff has found it's way to CD, but I have some rarer live recordings that I've never seen before as well.

It may be cheaper for me to find someone else who has the gear and would do it for me. What a fair price to pay someone to burn some LP's?

Yeah, my dad has a bunch of those old Cosby albums. I was thrilled when my wife bought me the 3 pack on CD that's out now, but that's certainly not all of it...