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The Tony Bennett - Bill Evans Album - XRCD2

This album is simply amazing. It is a musical masterpiece with the seamless duo of Tony Bennett's singing and Bill Evans mastery of piano, just beautiful. Mr. Evans' piano playing is just as much the melodic line and the main attraction as Mr. Bennett's singing, making this truly a duo album, not merely a crooner accompanied by piano.
The recording quality is jaw dropping, especially Mr. Bennett's singing. He was just so palpable, like he was just right there. The tinkling of piano, when the strings strike the hammer, they all just felt so PHYSICAL besides musical. This is an excellent XRCD - when listening to this, I can help but think 'why do I need SACD/DVDA?'.
The only strange thing, as with many multi-miked recordings, the piano seemed to spread across the soundstage from the left to right, so it seemed about 8 feet wide. But that happens also with many other recordings, e.g. the drum kit seemed spread from left to right in the background.
yr44
listener57
730 posts
 
I have the original "plain vinyl record" version, and it is great to learn your state of the art XRCD2 is bringing such listening pleasure. As you can imagine, with a chuckle, may I ask 'why do I need CD?'
The very best JVC proprietary manufacturing magic seems to allow the CD format to combine wonderful convenience, great sound, and even allow for a bit of further sound enhancement with CDP, and CD tweaks.
I have to agree that Bill Evans occasionally steals the show, but Tony Bennett quickly gets in his licks, and wins back the listener's admiration. I guess that fewer of us have heard Bill Evans, compared to Tony Bennett who has been a pop star for so long. Both contribute their considerable talents to this great duo performance.
SACD's certainly can sound excellent, but so can the best of CD's, and offering the SACD disc format to the public may soon be remembered as another step on the road to miniature hard drive storage of everything that matters in modern life, including our music preferences.
hodie
32 posts
 
And what about that stunning mid-70s ensemble Mr. Evans is wearing. Yikes! I have the vinyl version, but I'd like to compare it with the XRCD someday. Love "When in Rome."
Hodie
yr44 OP
57 posts
 
Listener57,

What's great about this is we both can enjoy this excellent work of art in the medium of our choice. :)
elgordo
530 posts
 
A full size grand piano is nine feet long. If Tony is standing on the side, in front of the open top, it should sound about eight feet wide.
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