Quality of recording vs Musical tastes

I'm totally into the remaster side of things,I've ended up with multiple versions of certain artists releases because of it.
I think that is a seperate point from Sean's original post though.
I also think regarding remasters it's nearly always stuff we've been familar with for a long time.
I hope my original post didn't infer that the quality of production wasn't important to me, it is and was even before I got into hi-fi on a serious level,even a basic system will reveal differences on production/sound quality.
However it isn't how I approach finding new music.........

I'd like to plead guilty, too. I listen to a lot more classical (Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Rossini, etc.) because of the beauty of the recordings. I also listen to more jazz, but prefer pre-60's recordings. I too have Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue and Companion (XRCD). I like about half of her stuff. More so her own originals, than her covers of other music. Jennifer Warnes, The Hunter and Famous Blue Raincoat. Jennifer's voice does a wonderful job of complimenting the lyrics of Leonard Cohen. David Byrne (formerly Talking Heads) produces very well recorded music. So does Joe Jackson. His latest recording of Heaven and Hell combines, classical, jazz, opera, and rock. As strange as that sounds, he makes it work and the soundstaging is awesome. Other good recordings are from the groups Pink Martini, and Barefoot. Barefoot is out-of-print, but if you see one of their two cd's in a used record shop, get it. It's world beat at it's best.

I am guilty of both things as well, and better off for it. Some of the ones I got on a whim/review/recommendation and ended up loving, for both musical values and recording quality:

Jennifer Warnes, Famous blue raincoat, the hunter, the well
Patricia Barber: Everything she's done. (Saw her live too.. very cool!)
The Chieftans: most of their stuff, esp. the most recent album.
Lorenna McKennitt - Irish(?) female singer, sort of like Enya.
Susan McKeowen (sp?) - Similiar to McKennitt - Irish singer, great voice, very moving traditional and new songs.
David Byrne - Look into the Eyeball - excellent album! Highly recommended, best of his solo work IMHO.
Betty Johnson - I did a web site for her, and ended up loving her music as well. (www.betty-johnson.com). Swing/Jazz stuff mostly.

Also got into some of the older classics too, like Ella, Miles, Frank Sinatra and even Elvis(!)... Elivs is Back is a good album with a stunning rendition of Peggy Lee's 'Fever'.

Remasters: have had some good luck with these, I admit I am a sucker for them too, esp. if I already have the original version. the Dire Straits ones are good, though their original versions are very good too. Also have been buying stuff on SACD that I have on CD already, like Santana's Abraxas (another great album I got on a recommendation from a friend).

Let's keep this going....it's more refreshing than talking about gear incessantly...

-Ed

Most of Miles Davis stuff from his "second great quintet" are great improvements on the remasters. ESP, Miles Smiles, Miles in the Sky are all great improvements from the orginial CD releases. I have also had good luck with some of the older blue stuff that has been remastered, mostly from the Chess label.

Ben, i think that you misunderstood my post or i was not real clear in what i wrote. I listen to ALL kinds of recordings, good and bad. Obviously, i prefer "good" recordings as i'm sure that everyone else here does too.

My point was that i have found "good" ( yet different than what i might normally listen to ) music and "new artists" ( at least to me ) simply because i bought discs that i knew or suspected were good recordings. I was not advocating buying and listening only to "audiophile approved" recordings, although some people obviously do that.

As such, i now have a collection of classical, jazz and blues that most of my friends think is "strange". Had i not been an "audiophile" and been seeking out good recordings, i might not have ever been exposed to or enjoyed different yet specific types of music or artists.

In my collection of discs, I also have a quite a few that were recorded excellently but do not move me. As such, i don't play them much. As your comments suggest and i do agree, a great recording of a poor performance is just a great recording that i really don't want to listen to. On the other hand, a great performance can overcome a mediocre recording. This is not to say that some recordings or performances don't grow on you, but i will typically play or listen to what i prefer without having to "work at it".

I do have to admit that i have a HARD time listening to recordings that are horribly done though. Not only does it sound like "crap", i tend to be overtly critical due to my background and experience in working mixers and pro sound reinforcement. As such, i sometimes end up critiquing the recording engineer / producer instead of listening to the music. I find myself doing this at live performances also, which can be a big drawback to my overall level of enjoyment.

Craig, you gave me the idea by stating that you had several XRCD's that you thought were good recordings but that you did not enjoy the performances on . As such, you provided the spark that led us here.... : ) Sean
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