What the hell is an audiophile recording?

they are having a stacking sale now so…

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I like the CD cover better. Photo is more centered.

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For an one mic recording to sound good the room has to sound good.
Here is a good series on room acoustics; Introduction to Room Acoustics: Part 1

Very nice video!
I’ll post it in another thread

Ok. Which one?

I posted it on a thread, about acoustic treatment, I opened a year ago :
The Listening Room Reality - #996 by Thomas

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Quite honestly from my experience, audiophile recordings are largely a waste of money. I have normal run of the mill recordings that blitz the few audiophile recordings I have.
Sure, there are plenty of crap standard recordings around where an audiophile recording of the same will be better but I’m not sure they are worth the $.

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Well in some instances I tend to agree but when listening to the various 2L, Reference Recordings and Sound Liaison ,to name a few of the audiophile downloads mentioned in this thread, then I could not disagree more.

But please post some of your favorite great sounding non audiophile albums. I would really like that.

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Here is one of mine;
Simply Stated is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard. The album was released on May 5, 1992, via Columbia.

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Charles Tolliver’s 1979 album with Music Inc, Compassion, is an amazing-sounding record. Not intended as an “:audiophile” recording, I suspect, but these guys knew what they were doing back then…

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That one for instance, that I bought on lp recently.

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Or that one, live from Bill Frisell. Cd.

image

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Bill Frisell albums are always well recorded or if there is one that is not, I don’t have it :grinning:

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I took the vinyl version into a high end audio store in NYC. The salesman looked at me strangely. Then he played it, and his jaw dropped. I have since replaced it with the CD, which sounds good too.

Sondheim’s next show was Sweeney Todd. That was supposed to be great on vinyl. However, oddly, I bought it on cassette. The first CD had edits to fit on one disc, which bothered the hell out of me. The current two disc CD is a victim of the loudness wars.

Thomas Z. Shepherd was doing outstanding work in the late 70s/early 80s.

I didn’t read all the posts. The simple answer is typically so-so music recorded really well. It makes your system sound amazing while you doze off in boredom.

I’ll take an average recording of great players making great music any day.

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Well, the Miles Davis audiophile albums (MFSL etc.) I own include:

Cooking
Relaxing
Working
Round About Midnight
Milestones
Porgy and Bess
Kind of Blue
Sketches of Spain
Someday My Prince Will Come
My Funny Valentine
Four and More
Sorcerer
Miles Smiles
Nefertiti
Filles de Kilmanjaro
In a Silent Way
Bitches Brew
Jack Johnson
On the Corner

(And Something Else if you want to call that a Miles album)

That’s a lot of so-so music. I have a few so-so albums by Coltrane as well. And many more.

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Thought I’d write a little more on this from a totally subjective perspective.

When I was quite young (age in single digits) the two albums played most in my house were Sinatra’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers and A Swingin’ Affair, My dad had purchased them when they were released. I loved them - on my dad’s record changer with a homemade speaker someone had made for him (horn speaker I think in retrospect). I loved them almost as much as he did.

When I left home, I bought copies myself, but I rarely played them. Not just because my tastes had change (which was true) but because they didn’t sound like I remembered. Sinatra’s voice was less dimensional, thin. I replaced them with CDs, but had the same experience.

It was maybe seven years ago that MFSL released remastered SACDs of those two albums - from the master tapes. I bought them immediately, put them in my player, and WOW - I was hearing Sinatra again, the richness of his voice, the three dimensionality. The Nelson Riddle arrangements were great too. This was what I remembered from childhood, but sounding even better on my stereo (although both albums are in mono).

That is what an audiophile release can do.

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I always thought that Supertramp’s Crime of the Century was really well mastered and recorded.

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You have doubts today?