What did you think of the album choices offered by Rega this year? Do you have any of them? Are any of them your favourites?
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Eva Cassidy - Songbird
Neil Young - Harvest
London Grimmer _If You Wait
It seems that many of the albums will be familiar to the visitors , and the equipment is âmid rangeâ by many peopleâs standards
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Politely⌠none of them surprise but goodness thatâs depressing. Music selected because itâs well recorded and will hide the flaws in what youâre hearing. No objection to having some familiar stuff in there as itâs a good way to judge whatâs going on. Itâs just that familiar is always confined to such a small list. Fleetwood Mac? Fancy. The same album from Daft Punk, Beck, Joan Armatrading. Lots of tasteful spacious music with plenty of room for you to rejoice in those reverb tails; celebrate the clarity of the ambience of the recording etc.
Personally those are things I do want to hear but if I really want to know what a system is doing then I want to hear what it does with cluttered music; what it does with compressed music; what it does with music recorded in a back room at little cost. Give me âWhere Itâs Atâ by Beck. Give me âYoshimi Battles The Pink Robotsâ by Flaming Lips. Give me the new Beyonce single. Give me Misty In Roots at the Counter Eurovision or âHow I Wrote Elastic Manâ by The Fall. Give me âTonyâ by Patty Griffin. Give me the complexity of âTijuana Moodsâ by Mingus.
After 20 mimutes of very impressive Kenny Burrell on a Naim CD5si I asked to hear The Flaming Lips. The rhythm of the track fell apart. There was silence for a moment after the track ended before the dealer said âWell that wasnât very good was it.â It wasnât a reference to the music.
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I have six out of those, but I now have some more listening to do.
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I think thereâs a distinction between music you want to hear when auditioning gear at your dealers - there you want to hear the âdifficultâ recordings as well as the âperfectâ ones - and those played by a manufacturer to show off their equipment at Hi-Fi shows - they are predictably excellent recorded discs that are designed to make you go wow !
Rega here aim to impress.
Shows really shouldnât be used as a place to audition potential purchases - or at least not only.
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I had a similar feeling but possibly for different reasons.
Most that I know apart from London Grammar and Daft Punk are decades old. That does not bode well for the industry.
I guess many are considered standards that people might know so in that sense if the Rega playback provides the listener with something new/different it could be a positive.
Far prefer earlier rawer Talk Talk no matter how good The Colour Of Spring might sound, but Iâd prefer that to Spirit of Eden which is one of the most overhyped albums in hi-fi circles ever in my view - YMMV. I was probably against it from the off as it was one of the first CDs I ever bought.
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I have 14 and put this one top of my list.
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Whatâs interesting is I have 8-9 of them, certainly donât like all of the ones I have that much, but most of the others I have never encountered and would struggle to name.
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I canât say the album choices are a surprise but I loved the lit cabinet for display!!
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Cheers, will check it out.
Only halfway through but that sounds really special. Iâd have purchased on that basis alone, but only streaming on Qobuz available along with a few other titles Iâd have purchased recently which seems odd.
Thanks for the recommendation.
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I think if nothing else, demos at shows or dealers can highlight albums you were unaware of which you wish youâd heard a lot earlier.
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I have 5.
I donât know who the artiste is bottom row second from the left, but wonder if it is indeed Rutling Orange Peel?
I have 13. To be fair to Rega, they were applauded for presenting the room like this last year, they are trying to get attention and from previous shows, along with Chord Company, Quadraspire (sadly they no longer attend), Audio Note, consistently manage to get good sounds in these rooms.
I agree the selection are not challenging, possibly Hugh Masekela an exception, but that brings to mind some years ago asking one demonstrator for a change of music, being told âI have to sit here for three days, Iâm going to listen to what I like.â
The note elsewhere about closed doors, possibly partly a legacy of the days when there was a significant AV presence and the row from overloud subwoofers was deafening. I was not able to go this year, but in the past, Audio Note always had a note on the door saying the door was closed to try and keep outside noise out.
The orange coloured cover bottom left is Ella and Louis.
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Bottom row is
Beck
Ella Fitzgerald/ Louis Armstrong
June Tabor
Daft punk random access memories
They played a visitorâs record while I was there; funkadelic âmaggot brainâ.
Iâm trying to remember the missing record top shelf âŚ. Got it, fugees âthe scoreâ.
Yes, an excellent album, as are her others.
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I have four of them. But as Iâd say to my dealer when doing a demo, âno, no, no, thatâs all very nice but we need some complex rock music to see what this baby can really do (or not, as the case may be)â.