I do believe that the only thing which may convince dyed in the wool lp fans would be to have lp surface noise added as a form mega-dither to cds so that they would not miss the one significant characteristic of lps. I have received last Saturday my first three XRCDs and the sound is excellent. Due to the age of the original recording one does have a fair amount of tape hiss, but I have always felt that hiss was not as bad as ticks and pops, since the sound is continuous and not made up of sharp attacks. I still find that my el-cheapo Sony SACD player sounds a tiny bit better than cds, but the difference is so slight that the refusal by almost every audiophile to go for multi-channel sound allied to the infinitesimal gap between the best cds and most sacds does not bode well for the acceptance of the SACD format. The two XRCDs that I would recommend, based on the very small sample that I have heard, are Kelly Blue by Wynton Kelly and Art Pepper + Eleven.
CD getting as good as LPs - recommendations
Having bought a German Audionet Art V-2 CD-transport anda Chord DAC64, I was delighted how good CD can sound these days. I think the rigid affirmations "CDs never can sound as good as LP" no longer hold true. There's by now a lot
of excellently produced, or remastered CDs (not SACD, DVD-Audio) that, given good CD-players, sound excellent, sometimes better than the old LPs.
Good examples are a lot of remastered CDs from the EMI "Great Recordings of the Century"-series. Then, there is the XRCD-series from JVC. In Germany,even high-end-die-hard-vinyl-pope Attila Csampai was forced to admit that they sounded better than the original LPs on his state-of-the-art turntable system. I did a vinyl-CD-comparison with a vinyl-fan, and even fooled him when playing from CD. Are there goners which made the same experience? And what are your recommendations for excellently recorded, or remastered CDs that make you smile?
of excellently produced, or remastered CDs (not SACD, DVD-Audio) that, given good CD-players, sound excellent, sometimes better than the old LPs.
Good examples are a lot of remastered CDs from the EMI "Great Recordings of the Century"-series. Then, there is the XRCD-series from JVC. In Germany,even high-end-die-hard-vinyl-pope Attila Csampai was forced to admit that they sounded better than the original LPs on his state-of-the-art turntable system. I did a vinyl-CD-comparison with a vinyl-fan, and even fooled him when playing from CD. Are there goners which made the same experience? And what are your recommendations for excellently recorded, or remastered CDs that make you smile?
11 responses Add your response
There are following label that have great quality but unfortunately not like vinyl: CMP even early ones sound great, Concord Jazz, ECM, Nonesuch... Make sure to get original and non-club versions. Also some of the experimental and small record companies such as Crammed. I also figured that eropean versions of CD sound much better than US(probably due to the pressing quality i.e. less flimsy, thicker...) Epic-Japan, EMI-Japan are superb. For the experimental stuff I buy anything that is on Avan-Japan. Chesky label solely oriented on sound and spirit of a voice and/or instrument but not the music... Sounds superb though. Patricia Barber's last albums recorded too bass-y where acoustic bass so-loved by all audiophiles dominates even over her ehem... voice. In general I want to point out that MUSIC is the ONLY thing that should be considered during recording and NOT the sound of instrument and/or voice. |
I really don't think in a well set up system either CD or vinyl has any great advantage over the other, just differences. However, it takes a lot of expertise to set up and maintain a turntable to get sound to equal a high quality CD system. And, ultimately it just depends which sound you prefer. They do not sound itentical. I just assume when someone rants over one or the other they really haven't spent time listening to quality reproduction from the one they are dis'ing. For me its about the music - thats it. For high quality CD's some labels which excel in classical are: BIS, Dorian, Delos, Harmonia Mundi, Hyperion, Chandos, Ondine, Telarc, Reference Recordings, and for jazz one label to investigate is Concord Jazz. |
Hassel; I'm in agreement with your premise, and find myself in agreement with Pbb's well stated post too. Two XRCDs that I really like are Jacintha's "Autumn Leaves" by FIM, and The Audioquest XRCD of Robert Lucas "Luke and the Locomotives", a blues-rock CD with wicked slide guitar. The Jacintha XRCD has some minor tape hiss but otherwise is excellent. Cheers. Craig |
I guess I'll be the lone dissenter. I'm currently using Goldmund transport and DAC in about the $20K range, not counting platforms, power cords, and a short list of tweaks. Though the best redbook combo I've heard, they don't hold up to the best that vinyl can produce. I agree Newbee, it is about the music, and the medium that gets me closer to the illusion of the performance is vinyl. Does all vinyl out perform CD? Of course, not. I'm referring to the best that CD has to offer versus the best from vinyl. I certainly enjoy CD through my digital gear, but I find that I'm much more emotionally connected to the music when listening to great vinyl. Perhaps it is the level of vinyl equipment that others and I use which has convinced us that vinyl still holds the upper hand. Maybe it is just a fondness for the ritual that surrounds vinyl playback or the personal involvement and effort that is required to extract the best from the equipment. Possibly it is all of the above. In any case, I believe that if you look around, you're likely to see that there more than a few of us who still prefer the best that vinyl has to offer. In the end, enjoy the music. |
We agree with Seandtaylor99 that the Decca Legend CDs are fantastic - and we have a very high resolution system (Audio Aero Capitole mk II, Lamm L2, Edge Signature monoblocks, Valhalla, Shunyata Anacondas, Acapella Campanile Highs). The CDs are all classical music, remastered at 24/96, and are recordings of some of the best performances of the last century. In general, I find them to be better than XRCDs (we have have about 20 XRCDs here, mostly jazz, and about 20 Decca Legends so far - but have just ordered the complete set) and they are MUCH cheaper ($12 at AMZN, $13 at iclassics.com). At iclassics you can see them all together (I have not found a way to search AMZN correctly to see an exhaustive list there): http://www.iclassics.com/iclassics/catalog_line_detail.jsp?catalogLineId=6 |
Yes, remasters continue to shine. I accidentally bought TWO sets of La Boheme recently, and am surprised to find that the 1969 budget set with Pavarotti on Opera D'Oro is preferable to the 2000 set with Bocelli on Decca! As well I'm a fan of the LSO's direct recordings, but was surprised to find that their most recent CD with Rostropovich is bettered by his 10yr old effort with the SAME orchestra! So surprises abound. A "live" recording on Pickwick of the 1990 performance of "Sacre" by Zander at Jordan Hall still makes my hair stand on end, as well Chesky's early transfer of Horenstein on Dvorak's New World. There are simply too many examples to note, but there IS a correlation with age and quality, although a fairly weak one. You gotta hunt and peck, as it's still mostly a function of the recording engineers, acoustics and mic placement...all occuring well before the ADCs, nevermind your transport and DAC choices. |