A music thread for diehard analog guys that get great sound from cd

The very best of Joan Armatrading

Bap Kennedy's LONELY STREET.  Masterful recording.  Sonics!

Even better, I bought the CD for $0.50.

Kairos Music, seems to be unable to release a bad sounding recording on CD. 

Not a shred of harshness that many associate with digital. Very natural soundstage with great imaging. Timbre sounds natural. And consistently good dynamics, detail, and attack/decay.

Musically speaking, the vast majority of their catalog is contemporary, avant-garde classical. So, YMMV with regards to the music, since it is not exactly easy listening.

But there is no arguing the sound quality. 

Kairos Music

For  jazz fans that go beyond the usual warhorses from the 50's and 60's ("oh wait, you mean jazz is actually a living, evolving art form?"), the label ECM is a great source for excellent sounding CD's. 

It did not take them long to do a good job remastering their analog recording for CD.

And now, they contemporary CD releases are universally excellent. 

Relaxed, open, great soundstage and imaging, with lots of "space". 

And they seem to continue discovering talented, creative, musicians, with their own voice.

Michal Formanek (bass), Craig Taborn (piano), Avashai Cohen (trumpet), Mette Henriette (sax), Thomas Strønen (percussion), Julia Hülsmann (piano), just to name a few.

Much of ECM's releases can he thought of as "chamber-jazz", IMO.

I called Mapleshade one Saturday morning and Pierre answered. We talked for more than thirty minutes without any hint of him needing to be doing something else. 

A story I have told before. At the ’96 Stereophile show at the N.Y. Waldorf, Pierre Sprey came into my room (Jadis) and handed me a Mapleshade cd of his, to demo. It was ’’Big Sweet N’ Blue"..."Norris Turney with his Quartet". There are a few tracks that are OUTSTANDING, all engineered by Pierre and digitally mastered by Bob Katz. Inserted between the front of the case and the booklet, was a printed label that read: Norris Turney: Demo Tracks # 1,2,10. Without question, the musical compositions and performances are great! I have a few others as well. 

I have the lp @bdp24   The lp sounds so natural. I forgot about this thread myself. My contribution is Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers "Live at The Fillmore 1997".

Wonderful!

I somehow missed this thread. One CD I have that features great sound AND music is:

- A Meeting By The River (on Water Lily Acoustics), an album of instrumental duets by Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Recorded by Kavichandran Alexander on a tube reel-to-reel machine (the electronics of which were custom designed and installed by Tim DeParavicini of EAR-Yoshino fame). Absolutely stunning!

I remember discovering MapleShade CDs long ago. I was really impressed with the recordings... I bought them all. I told a friend, who bought a few and said that the music was terrible (on the ones he bought), he couldn't understand why I recommended them. Then I realized that I was so impressed with the recordings... I wasn’t listening to the music... he was right (on some of the albums anyway).

Townes Van Zandt "Abnormal"

....this is sounding really good 

I realized since starting this thread, I should have worded it differently. Was hoping for favorite silver discs that are of exceptional sound quality that long time vinyl spinners are totally satisfied with. I listened to my three Mapleshade CDs recently and all were wonderful....

Bad Influence "Live at the Bad Habits Cafe"

Drink Small "Electric Blues Doctor, Live!"

Big Joe Maher/Jeff Sarli "Mojo"

I've found tremendous bargains on CDs, SACDs and HDCDs at local thrift stores, usually less than $2 each. Some remastered, some original releases. 

I don't stream nor do I spin vinyl. My only source is an SACD/CD player that I enjoy very much.

I grade each of my 800 or so albums A+, A,B,C or D based on sound quality.

Parameters listened for are the usual stuff- clarity, timbres, soundstage, imaging, air, bloom, cohesiveness, dynamics.

Remastered almost always sounds significantly better than the original, especially if the engineer was Bob Ludwig. There are a others that are good too.

SACDs usually sound better than the standard "red book" versions, but not always.

Same thing for HDCDs.

Some artists do consistently class A sound, especially when remastered. Dire Straits, Depeche Mode, Supertramp, Pink Floyd, Enya, Steely Dan, Wang Chung, INXS, Bob Seger, ABC, Ozzy (yes, Ozzy!)...

For me, it's a lot easier to relax and enjoy the music when it's sound quality is classes A or A+. Class B is tolerable to listen to.

Classes C and D are mostly used to let a guest hear how bad they sound and then how much better classes B, A and A+ sound. Like hearing a different system, but it's not!

@slaw I recently picked up about 30 SACD titles for $5 each at one of the local audio stores, mostly jazz titles.  Most of them sound incredible!

My McIntosh MCD600 makes wonderful, beautiful, great sound.

I don't miss my turntables. Sold the last one back in the 90s.

^ just a record club edition, not a specialty label

Holly Cole "Don't Smoke In Bed"

 Saw Dave Alvin and JD Gilmore at Levon Helms a few years ago. Great show!

@slaw -

Agree about Dave Alvin! He was/is fabulous with The Blasters, and has put out two really good CD's with Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

Dave Alvin is such an underappreciated guitarist.