We all know that Axioms can be demanding of source material in that they allow you to hear every flaw in a poorly mixed or engineered source. I've often thought that an ongoing thread regarding the Sound Quality of recordings (not the actual artsts' performance) would prove helpful to many. I know that in my case, I've purchased discs with high expectations only to be disappointed in the quality of the recording. Maybe, being able to search this forum for a band name could have saved me from buying the disc.

So... in the interest of getting things started:

If you're a Deep Purple fan, the 2CD 25th Anniversary edition of Machine Head Amazon Link sounds fantastic! An absolute testament as to why a person shouldn't be afraid of older recordings. The lack of compression (i.e., the dynamic range) in the disc is awesome…far, far better than most recent rock recordings and it literally sounds good enough to be considered a reference / demo disc.

(I did not hyperlink the text "Machine Head" because I'm not sure if that precludes it from being searchable!)

Mark,

I was just wondering how to get out my frustration over my recent purchase of Peter's White's 'Glow' CD. I absolutely love 'Bueno Funk' and I downloaded an MP3 only to find this terrible low drone of bass mud doo doo.

So I bought the CD thinking this would be much better but no. Unlistenable with this overpowering bass muddy mess. Really dispointing and no way to 'fix' other than turning the subby off.

I don't have a list of great recordings cause I'm just learning about sound but am anxious to learn of some great recordings.

Larry

Mark, as has often been pointed out, many pop recordings are almost uniformly loud and often add to that a little boost in the upper midrange/lower treble "presence" area, both of these being aimed at sounding more impressive than the competition, especially on mediocre equipment. Classical recordings are thankfully rarely manipulated in those ways and the dynamic range closely approaches that of the original performance. The distinction has been demonstrated even more clearly to me by other board members(more accustomed to typical pop recordings)who either in replies or in PMs have commented about turning the volume up on the often relatively quiet openings of classical CDs they've gotten on my suggestion and then being almost blasted out of their chairs on peaks. That's the way music is sometimes supposed to be, of course.

First priority is the attractiveness of the musical composition itself, then the quality of the performance followed by the quality of the sound, with price also being a consideration. Fortunately there're many available CDs that are attractive on all four points. The Planets CD that I constantly suggest is great example and some others on sale now that sound great are Alexander Nevsky and the Slavonic Dances .

John:
Yes, I missed the obvious point in my first post that this thread won't likely pertain to most classical recordings. And don't get me started on the current state of mixing and mastering of most of the other genres of music....I've been wanting to write the "Mother of All Posts Volume V" on that one for quite awhile, as the "mixing to the lowest common denominator" has been a very, very big pet peeve of mine for a couple of years now and it's only getting worse.

Over the last six months or so, since wanting to start this thread, a large part of that desire has been to simply warn people about crappy recordings. I would approximate only 5% of my listening to be Claassical or Jazz, so unfortunately, I run into crappy recordings often.... and am occasionally surprised by an excellent recording.

If I truly had the time and energy, I would try to organize a National boycott of crappy recordings. When the lousy quality recordings stop selling, record companies might change (the recording quality of) their tune.

Larry, I remembered that you are a fan of smooth jazz. I've noticed that for whatever reason, a lot of smooth jazz recordings have obnoxious bloated bass. I'm a big fan of Keiko Matsui, and in general, her recordings sound good except for the exaggerated bass. It's just seems overpowering at times.

Here's a link to a previous thread that debated the merits of remastered CD's. For those that don't want to (re)read the whole thing, I've summed it up in terms of discs and sound quality:

Rush Remasters series: an improvement over the originals, especially the 1970s material (2112, Hemispheres, etc)
Rush, Vapor Trails: TERRIBLE ("overbearing, too loud, distorted")
Rush, Presto; Test For Echo: also bad due to bad engineering
Rush R30 DVD: good
Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones first pressings: bad
Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones remastered: good
Van Halen originals: good
Van Halen remasters: bad (overly data compressed)
Pink Floyd remasters: good

Here's hoping this thread takes off and becomes a major resource for the board. It certainly has the potential!

This is a great idea for a thread. I am also continuously disappointed with the sound quality of CD’s that I buy. My primary listening choice is Rock (classical, Alt, metal, etc…), but I also listen to just about everything else - except Pop and Rap. So I’m wondering just what I should list here? I’ve got over 800 CD’s I know that many of you all have just as many if not more. Too bad this “thread” couldn’t be sorted into Genre’s?

Well here’s one CD that I have that sticks out to me as being mastered very well and sounds terrific on the ol’ M80’s. The disk I have was recorded in 89’ and it was not ever ‘remastered’. I did a quick Amazon search, and they have it, but the album description say’s it was recorded in 90’, so I don’t know if it’s the same one or not. If you like classic rock, you’ll like this one……..

Ten Years After, A Space in Time
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000003...5Fencoding=UTF8

I think the worst CD I have listened to, for both sound quality and content, is Metallica's St Anger. Really harsh sounding, especially on the drum symbols.

For one of the best rock CD recordings, I would have to go with the MFSL Gold Version of Guns N Roses' Apettite for Destruction. The beginning of "Mr Brownstone" is just amazing - really tight bass. For DVD-A/SACD, you really can't go wrong with The Who's "Tommy" on either hi-res format.

Sonic,

It's really interesting you have found the same thing to be true of smooth jazz recordings. One of my all time favorite bands is Four Play. The bass isn't overwhelming but very strong and difficult to control. I think may be the way of the recording world these days - make up for quality with quantity and I guess you sure wouldn't choose to exagerate some throbbing treble?

To me Norah Jones' 'Come Away With Me' seems like a great recording or maybe my M22's are made for her voice but it sounds so beautiful.

Also Andrea Botcelli's 'Amor' is a gorgeous recording with, again, not so much bass, which seems to be the killer for my listening tastes and ear.

I'll have to try a Keiko Matsui CD one of these days. Thanks for the reply and insight.

Larry

... BTW, that album in your avatar sounds really good over the Axioms...

You mean Green Day, American Idiot? <--- Searchable!

Yes, it does. Evidence again that even a hard rock album can be mastered well!

I have the Elton John sampler SACD (it's free btw) It has surprisingly great sound for such an old recording, the dynamics are great, …punchy drums particularly on the last song.

I also like the hybrid SACD/cd (re-master) of TOTO IV. The old vinyl LP recording sounded great, but the CD version is garbage. I was pleasantly surprise that the SACD version is a huge improvement.
~Jaime

I was going to mention St. Anger--it's like they did it on purpose, because occasionally there are bits that actually sound really good.

On the flip side, I often use Metallica's S&M for testing--it sounds really good! My favorite of theirs is the gold remaster of Master of Puppets--that sounds incredible!

I doubt anyone will ever look for it, but Gary Hoey's Bug Alley actually made me get into a car crash because it was mastered so badly! Tip--don't try and adjust the treble while driving. Not safe.

Alice in Chains: Unplugged sounds fantastic.

Tool - Aenima
Police - Every Breath You Take (The Singles)

Both of these were mastered very well. It's nice to have to turn the volume up on a cd every once in awhile.

Hi

I´m looking to buy Axiom speaker for listening music. All these diferences, bad and good mastered cd´s can be heard in any axiom or only M series??

I have small room so I think it´s better M22+sub

Regards

All axioms use the same drivers.

Mastering studios usually work with audiophiles speakers. Do you think axiom can be used for mastering??

The Dire Straits Money for Nothing cd as been and is still my reference to listen to new hardware Especially: 8. Walk Of Life, 9. Private Investigation, 11. Money For Nothing and my favorite 12. Brothers In Arms

I've got 2 M50s driven by a Yamaha RX-V1400and an old JBL PSW1200. Soon to be completed by 5 M3s

http://www.amazon.com/Money-Nothing-Dire...TF8&s=music

As soon as my 7.1 setup is completed, i'll buy it and will compare the 2 with let's say, money for nothing?? Did you know that Brothers in Arms was the first CD to reach a million sales...

I used to listed to it on my father's phono with a pre-amp setup :P Beta 30 and Alpha 130. Still love that Nikko setup...

Interesting, as I continue to use these in my listening sessions:

- Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms: Your Latest Trick
- Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love: Famous Last Words.

Both complete works are very good for a range of songs. I particularly like to torture amps and speakers with the Tears for Fears tune.....

I also meant to mention some others. There are already a hundred posts raving about the great sound of "NIN - The downward Spiral" and "Pink Floyd - Darks Side of the Moon" but they are definitely two of my top sounding CDs.

For crappy sounding CD's There are so many. But I will say I was very disappointed with "Evenescence - Fallen". I sooo looked forward to listening to this on my new system. Amy Lee's voice is like soft porn for me. Unfortunately, the engineering makes her sound like she has a lisp like Sid the Sloth from Ice Age.

For a similar voice but with a much smoother sound. Loreenna McKennitt's - Book of Secrets provides an even more amazing voice in haunting Celtic fashions. She has her own recording company so I guess that helps. I have great expectations for her new one, just released.

Back to disappointing - I expected much better from "Live", their two CD 'best of' collection. Can't remember the CD title. Their music can be genius but their recording studio's definitely are not.

Just a couple going both ways.

Quote:

---

Look what you've done, Phil Spector... BAD engineer! BAD!!

---

A couple of months ago, I PVR'd his biography on A&E. The stuff he did in the 60's & early 70's was brilliant. Too bad he lost his "touch". (Or didn't keep up with the times)

As far as good/bad recordings go, here are a few picks. These are regular CD's. No hi-res. No DTS.

Good:
AC/DC - Ballbreaker. Content 5. Recording 9.5. The best sounding AC/DC disc I've heard - including the Back in Black DualDisc. It's a shame nothing on the disc measures up to anything they've done in the past. Too bad, because the recording is that good.

Elton John - Greatest Hits Vol 3 79-87. Content 9. Recording 7.5 to 8. Really enjoy just sitting and listening to this one. Empty Garden is amazing.

Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman. Content 6.5. Recording 8.5.

The Donnas "spend the night" is the most frustrating engineering travesty for me. Content wise this is in the same league as early Van Halen- greatness created by gifted craftspeople. Every song just has to be cranked, Unfortunatly that is not really possible on a good system.
I've found it's much better through my ipod. The ipod actually saves some of these cds.
The cds that come to mind for quality are Craig Chaquico- Accoustic Highway and Sierra-devotion
It's pretty sad when 30 yr old vinyl sounds better than the reissue cd.

The first Rage Against the Machine disc (self titled) sounds fantastic. Suberb sounding electric guitar/bass, drums, no other junk/effects, no compression. Pure and simple recording, sounds like they're playing right in the room with you.

some of my favs (sound quality wise)

Dead Can Dance Amazing audio quality. Can you believe I got this box set on Ebay for $26?

Propellerheads One of the very best "electronica" cd's I've ever heard. Really great stuff. Very likely NOT what you'd expect from "electronic" music. Give it a try.

Norah Jones Is it safe to call this cd a modern classic?

Oscar Peterson I love Oscar Peterson, and of his stuff, I keep coming back to this disc.

Pink Martini Impossible to describe. Buy this cd. Track 9 makes me so happy to live in a world with music.

Van Halen Yeah...rock can sound great on a good system, and in my opinion this is one of the very greatest rock albums ever recorded. The remasters are terrific. Buy them all.

Bebel Gilberto As one amazon.com reviewer puts it...'Brazilliance!' 'nuff said.

Holst - The Planets If Holst can get better than this disc, please let me know. This is a must own in any cd collection.

Beethoven - Nine Symphonies A really great collection of all nine symphonies.

John Butler Trio Great material, great production quality

Godsmack My favorite piece of music currently with amazing sound quality

Velvet Revolver Great music, but horrible production quality, save this one for listening in the car

Great recordings:

Trentemoller - "The Last Resort";

Tiger Lou - "Is My Head Still On?";

M83 - "Don't Save Us From the Flames";

Plastikman - "Closer"; and my hometown hero,

Venetian Snares - "Rossz Csillag Allat Született"

J

Following up on Craig's excellent Planets and Beethoven Symphony suggestions, for those who don't have a complete Tchaikovsky Symphony collection(shame on you!)let me suggest this bargain 7-disc set . Everything is good, but the Manfred is outstanding, the best I've ever heard.

John you surprise me.

Classical music?? I was under the impression your taste in music was more like ... Pop Musik.

OK John, I'll get it. I reckon I need a little "culture".

I just bought this CD. Sounds great, great recording. Blue Ocean, Foiled. http://www.amazon.com/Foiled-Blue-Octobe...TF8&s=music

I was wondering where you'd link us to for music since the death of tower.

BTW...what do you suggest as the very best recording/performance of Tchaikovsky's 'Marche Slave'? Prefer SACD or DVD-A, but a great sounding CD would be fine.

Okay Craig, first, re Tower, the B&M stores have just closed or are about to close, but the Tower website was sold separately in the bankruptcy and is continuing in operation at least for the present. The reasons I linked Arkiv for the Muti set are that Tower doesn't have it in stock and I wanted to show Hurwitz's rave review(which I completely agree with; it's a sensational bargain).

Marche Slave lasts only about 9 minutes, so it's part of about a zillion different collections. Nevertheless, I have an excellent collection which includes it and Tower lists it(see!). Be that as it may, the Amazon site has it in immediate stock for $1 less and is eligible for their 4 for 3 sale. If you're interested I can make you up a 4 disc package for about $20-$25. Incidentally, if you haven't gotten the Mehta Planets we discussed some time ago, that can be part of the package.

Great recordings.

On the average, Sarah McLachlan's stuff is well recorded - had a buddy over that was looking at a 2.1 system in the new year, and he picked one of her albums out of Lisa's collection to listen to.

Well, that and Phantom of the Opera... not sure which of the million recordings of it, probably the original Brazilian midget cast?!?

Bren R.

Shame on me, I do not own a Tchaikovsky symphony set. I put the one you recommended in my cart.

I'd love to see what 4 cd package you'd come up with for me. (and no, I've not gotten the Mehta Planets yet.) Though I do know I received this from santa this year.

Listening to Mozarts' Piano Concerto #13 right now. Howard Shelley preforming. Excellent recording. As are most of the Chandos CD's in that set.
Here

On the rock and roll side.

Porcupine Tree: The best band I've found in years. Outstanding engineering, mixing and recording. A refreshing find.
Deadwing
In Abstensia

As for great sounding DVD's I was pleasantly surprised to find Rush's R-30 very Good.

R-30

I wish I could find more threads like this. It is so disappointing these days to find that the vast majority of music out there jsut sucks as far as the quality of the recorings /engineering go. Suffice it to say that ever since upgrading to a "real" audio system, 80% of my collection just doen't seem to cut it anymore. I'm now on a never ending quest for quality recordings. And in todays world of overcompressed MP3 dumbed down Ipod crap it's getting harder and harder.

Keep posting the good ones!

Craig, for the Amazon 4-for-3 sale I'd suggest getting this for Marche Slave. Then the Mehta Planets . My favorite Ma Vlast(My Country)of the five that I own is this one by Berglund . An outstanding Brahms Hungarian Dances is the Bogar . If you order these the lowest priced one is free and free shipping can be picked even though the net price is under the usual $25 requirement.

My favs that I can think of, in no particular order:

Patricia Barber - pretty much all of her records sounds great

NIN - Downward Spiral SACD, or CD, With Teeth DVD Audio, and Still

Tool - 10,000 days and Lateralus (the latter is an HDCD)

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue remastered

Stan Getz Joao Gilberto feat Antonio Carlos Jobim

Dead Can Dance - all albums that I have

Jorane - Evapore, and the live album

Lhasa - La Llorona

Radiohead - OK Computer

Peter Gabriel - Up CD and SACD

There are others, but if I keep going, I'll get carpal tunnel

John - I am searching through some of these old threads in anticipation of receiving my Axiom order. Your link to the "Slavonic Dances" just brings up the Tower site. I searched on "Slavonic Dances" and many selections came back. Can you post which specific CD you were calling out?

As an additional rookie question - I assume that CD's are preferred as opposed to MP3 downloads?

A friend gave me the Pink Floyd "Pulse" DVD.

I listened to it once before I had my surround sound set-up and SVS PB12/2 sub and found it nice with just HDTV sound bar.

I pulled it out last weekend and was blown away with LFE and side two DSOTM compilation in 7.1.

I have to rate this as one of the most amazing Audio and Video experiences since getting HDTV and 7.1.

This DVD was much more impressive than many of the B-RayD recordings I've come across.

To this point, I've found utilization of B-RayD potential from studios/producers sadly lacking despite being a huge fan of the technology.

Great thread; I have very much enjoyed it!

Is "Pulse" on BD?

Not BD... but if it was in BD packaging, I would never have questioned it.

It offers Dolby Digital 5.1/640kbps in audio setup.

With only PS3 upscalling I found it near BD quality.

Not sure if my AVR PL2 made it true 7.1 but sound was coming out of rear surrounds.

Oh, if you're asking if it has since been released as BD...

I don't know... wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Any recording from Otis Taylor is excellent, 'Rosa, Rosa' from the Truth Is Not Fiction disc is exceptional ... to the point that both my wife and I thought the surrounds were playing a couple of evenings ago whenever the system was in two channel stereo mode. 'Recapturing the Banjo' and 'Below The Fold' are the only disc I do not have of his.

'My Soul's In Louisiana' off of his White African disc is another exceptionally recorded song, it places the train passing the crossing right in your lap. Good stuff.

Rob, adding on to the other thread, the suggested Slavonic Dances(CD of course)would be the excellent version by Levi with the Atlanta Symphony on Telarc . Correcting the old Tower link for the Brahms Hungarian Dances, equally essential, it's here . A fine bargain Rimsky-Korsakov collection that was in the old list is this one .

peter gabriel so david sanborn close up, pink floyd dark side of the moon,acoustic alchemy against the grain and rush moving pictures remastered, also paul hardcastle for the bass.

Moving Pictures Remaster is good? Free from the intense compression they've been using for the last umpteen years?

The entire Damnation record by Opeth is an amazing listening experience.

It also happens to be death metal, but one'd never guess it from half the album.

I like CDs that I can put on and feel like listening to it is an experience that I can enjoy many times. That album takes me on a trip. I like albums that take me on a trip.

[Also posted in "So what are you listening too.."]

I haven't read all 400+ pages of this thread...so maybe these have been mentioned before. But the Deluxe 2 CD sets from Universal Records sound amazing...at least the two I have purchased: REM's Murmur and Who's Next by the Who.

Best Buy currently has a large number of the Universal Deluxe series CD's at $14.99 each. Packaging and sound quality are fantastic. Who's Next is taken from the original master tapes...supposedly for the first time on CD (I understand, though,that Steve Hoffman's earlier version was also taken from the original master tapes).

Anyway both discs sound amazing.

Hi all,

Here's one that is superbly recorded and is musically terrific. Some of the selections have a huge dynamic range and all have lovely melodies, played by an excellent orchestra. Most of the classical Reference Recordings engineered by "Dr." Keith Johnson have very natural hall ambience with a very deep 3-D soundstage. This is from a list of CDs that I compiled for a colleague, one of many I use for listening tests as well as personal enjoyment:

Exotic Dances from the Opera. Minnesota Orchestra, Eiji Oue, conductor (Reference Recordings RR-71CD). Track 1, track 3, track 6. Wonderfully natural big orchestral sound, great bass drum and percussion instruments, excellent sense of concert hall sound. Fine violins and brasses and tympani. All tracks excellent; ones listed have exceptional dynamics. Note: this and other Chesky recordings can be downloaded in high-resolution FLAC files, or high-quality MP3, for a fee, at http://www.HDTracks.com

Regards,

Alan

Thanks for the recommendation, Alan. I'll have to put that in my list.

Alan, although I'm familiar with all the music except the Rabaud, I wasn't aware of that disc, and thanks for bringing it to our attention. Listening to the 256Kbps samples on the Amazon site , it certainly does sound impressive.

Another one of "Dr." Johnson's productions that I am familiar with is the excellent disc featuring the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances .

Hi JohnK,

Thanks for alerting me to the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances disc. I don't think I have that one.

Incidentally, most of the Keith Johnson Reference Recordings are recorded in his "HDCD" proprietary dynamic-range expansion mode. I'd forgotten until I played one the other day and my H/K AVR's front-panel read out "HDCD". It's been a long time since I tested it but I seem to recall that if you have HDCD decoding, which my H/K has (I'd forgotten that as well!), there will be some dynamic-range expansion by at least a few dB. In any case, his recordings tend to be excellent with or without HDCD decoding.

Regards,
Alan

Thanks Alan, one clicked it from Amazon today. Also ordered Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances . Thanks all.

Good luck with Symphonic Dances. My Amazon order for that is 6 weeks old today. Of course, I used Amazon.ca. Can't remember if it was a sub-supplier or not, probably was.

Andrew, unless Amazon.Ca works entirely differently from the U.S. operation, you shouldn't have to "remember" the details of your order. Bringing up your account should show the order and current status. The 3rd party sellers on Amazon are supposed to ship within two days. Unless you ordered from Amazon itself and they showed it as being out of stock, you should have received that within two weeks.