What are you listening to right now?

[richidoo]

LP

Jazz nite!

[richidoo]

Binging on youtube Porsche 911 engine rebuilds. 

[tmazz]

I am on the management side of the Verizon strike, so for the last four weeks I have been out climbing poles for 12-14 hours a day, which leaves me no time for audio. just poked my head back here tonight to see what was up and am very disappointed to see that not one post has been made in this thread since I left for strike duty. Seems strange for a forum which is dedicated to a hobby that exists to facilitate the enjoyment of music ( or maybe I am just naive in thinking that.)

Perhaps I am just overtired and cranky from all the long hours, but seeing this thread go completely unused for a month makes me think that I am wasting my time posting here as nobody seems to give a crap.

Sad.......

[Triode Pete]

Vanessa Fernandez "Use Me" 180g 45rpm 2LP

Highly recommended!!! 

[ejk]

This is for Tmazz

Posting for you. Hope I'm not  on the opposite side come June 25th when my contract expires.




Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny, due May 6, 2016, on Nonesuch Records, joins guitarist, composer, and bandleader Pat Metheny with a trio led by longtime Pat Metheny Group trumpeter Cuong Vu. The album comprises five tunes written by Vu plus one by Metheny and one by Andrew D'Angelo.

The Cuong Vu Trio includes Stomu Takeishi on bass and Ted Poor on drums. Metheny says of his record with the Trio, "This project is something that Cuong and I have talked about doing for years. For as much as I loved what Cuong has brought to my bands along the way, I always wondered what it would be like to join his group for a project, to see what I might be able to offer those guys. Cuong came up with a great set of tunes for the project, and we all met in NYC for a few days and recorded this music quite quickly and spontaneously."

Vu, who first heard a cassette of Metheny's Travels as a teenager and credits it for leading him into a career in music, adds: "Pat came to the session and killed it, taking us to different territories. We (the Trio) assimilated his sound into ours and made music that still felt uniquely ours." The trumpeter has played with a wide range of artists, including Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Cibo Matto, and Mitchell Froom.

Great stuff

[richidoo]

Had a great listening session tonight.

Just got my tuner tuned up. New PS caps, some analog coupling caps and new dial lamps. Just using my old Samet 15W integrated amp. The radio station WCPE was playing their weekly "Monday Night at the Symphony" show, where they feature one symphony and play a bunch of recordings from that band.

Tonight was Pittsburg:


starting with Beethoven 7th symphony, Manfred Honeck. This one was just OK, I'm used to Vanska more straight up interpretation, this is more 50s style romantic interpretation, but not bad.


This one was jaw dropping. The Goldmark Concerto is extremely beautiful, harmonically very sophisticated but with feeling of simplicity and intimacy. Goldmark was a trained violinist so he knew how to write for it, and knew how to make it difficult and memorable. Perlman simply vaporizes it. I've never heard a violist play like this. It might be the most technically skilled thing I have ever seen/heard any human ever do. No modern players can touch this. 1974 w/Andre Previn.


This Karelia is very beautiful, Maazel conducts is perfectly. So beautiful, so rich.


Dvorak Rusalka Fantasy Manfred Honeck Pittsburg Symphony on Reference Recordings. Very beautiful, powerful, a prophecy of his later 9th symphony.

I adjusted my tweeter to tilt down a couple dB this weekend. What a difference it makes. I can sit and listen for hours now and music draws me in, no matter what the source. Plenty of treble to serve the music, but that extra sizzle for audiophile detailgasm is gone. What a relief. Feels like my old Legacys again!

[sleepyguy24]

Yay. One of my most favorite bands is back.

Garbage Strange Little Birds.

https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Little-Birds-Garbage/dp/B01EJQ0GBI

[tmazz]

Rich, What did you think of the sonics on the Reference Recordings disc? The Fresh series is kind of a budget line for RR. I have not heard any of the classical releases yet, but I did hear two of the blues albums and found the SQ to be a bit disappointing compare to the full freight RR albums. Not that it was bad, but it was just not up to the level of sonic excellence I had come to expect from Prof Johnson and company.

[etcarroll]

Since I stopped by, this is on....

[richidoo]

I've only heard it on radio so far, sounded fine, but lots of dynamic compression and a bit of transient softening from the station. I'll get the cd for bd in a couple days and let you know. It's a hybrid sacd.

[richidoo]

Got this LP recently:



http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-chopin-preludes.aspx

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/chopin-preludes-4

The playing is great - emotional, powerful, passionate. Recording is great, lots of space, excellent dynamics. Great piano tone, good acoustics. Lots of groove wind noise at the beginning of side A but it fades away toward the end of the side, but the clicks and pops start off slow and increase gradually to the end of the side. The 2nd side has much less noise, and even more dynamic playing.

The package includes a 2 sided, full color insert page with liner notes on one side and a blurry, b&w picture of the artist from the neck down running through a field of hay in her black lace gown.  But of even greater value than is a plastic card with an ID number allowing me to download the CD quality digital version of this record for free. Yeeha!

It's a heavy hifi disc, but after cleaning I noticed the record has a slight dish in it, but doesn't seem to affect playback.

[richidoo]

Rich, What did you think of the sonics on the Reference Recordings disc? The Fresh series is kind of a budget line for RR. I have not heard any of the classical releases yet, but I did hear two of the blues albums and found the SQ to be a bit disappointing compare to the full freight RR albums. Not that it was bad, but it was just not up to the level of sonic excellence I had come to expect from Prof Johnson and company.

Finally getting around to listening to this stack of CDs from Arkive. I forgot that I bought them for my birthday presents. duh.

The audio quality seems to be typical RR, clean, clear, big, open, spacious. Well balanced with ample bottom end. Very wide dynamics.  Performance is aggressive and powerful.

My little speakers not really up to this.

[richidoo]

Just heard this jazz pianist for the first time on Pandora Kenny Burrell station.  He is really great!

This is an older album, but a few newer ones with big name jazz rhythm sections. Check him out!

[richidoo]

Stephen Paulus, American composer, won posthumous Grammy award for best classical composition for "Prayers and Rememberances" on this new Reference Recordings CD. I think it is dedicated to 9/11 victims?

Sunday nights 6-9PM the classical station has a show called "Preview" where they play only new recordings released in the last year. It is streamed, so you can listen in and find some new records. wcpe.org 

They played the song, "I have called you by name," OMG heavy.

I bought it from ArkivMusik.com, along with another CD of his from Naxos, for which he won another grammy for organ concerto and other compositions.

If you go for religious choral music you don't want to miss this one on RR.

[richidoo]

Another Sunday evening, another episode of "Preview" on WCPE.... this week my mind is blown by this rendition of Schumann's Kreisleriana, Op. 16, a solo piano work. 8 movements of pure bliss. This is one of the best recorded pianos I've ever heard. Incredible deep bass, played softly and slowly. Played very tenderly and insightfully on this very intimate piece by American pianist Nicholas Angelich.

A "Gramophone Choice" recording, whatever that means.

From ArkivMusik notes:
"One of the most respected pianists of his generation, American Nicholas Angelich has a firm reputation as a soloist and chamber musician. Having made his concerto debut at the age of seven, he went on to study at the Paris Conservatoire with such renowned artists as Aldo Ciccolini, Yvonne Loriod, and Michel Beroff. He is a laureate of Casadesus and Gina Bachauer International Piano Competitions, as well as a recipient of the Schallplatten Prize and the Young Talent Award at the International Klavierfestival Ruhr, blablabla

"As the title suggests his the repertoire Angelich has selected comes full circle, by way of dedications from and to three of the 19th century’s greatest pianist/composers – Schumann’s Kreisleriana dedicated to Chopin, two of Chopin’s Op.10 Etudes dedicated to Liszt, and Liszt’s B minor Piano Sonata dedicated to Schumann."