Most achingly-beautiful music

Ditto Satie's Gymnopedies 1-3; add Prince's, When You Were Mine and The Rolling Stone's, Moonlight Mile.

anyone heard any jerry douglas lately on a nice system .. ..severely wonderful Dobro guitar that can send you other places...also the grateful dead movie soundtrack..superb

Haven't been following this thread, so apologies if it has been mentioned. In terms of achingly beautiful, how about Patty Loveless "They Never Left Harlan Alive".

Well, I expect to have stones thrown at me for these suggestions, but I think the melodies are simply and yearningly beautiful:

Canon in D -- Pachelbel

Waltz from Sleeping Beauty Ballet -- Tschaikovsky

As a conductor once commanded: OK, let's play it again, and this time with a little schmaltz!

Jim Crane

Agreed, Jim.

And I would add well recorded piano solos of Brahms Waltz No. 3 and Moonlight Sonata to your short list! While all of like to show off our system with some huge, spectacular piece, it is the simple melodies and performances that move us the most.

I just bought an XRCD recording Super Double Bass by Gary Karr off eBay. The recording quality is absolutely stunning and the first cut "Amazing Grace" overwhelmed me to the point of tears - not something that recorded music can't accomplish very often!

Bill