Here's a music recommendation for the furm. Seems like some of y'all have all the gear necessary to listen to this 'piece of music', and if you enjoy the band, The Flaming Lips, you might enjoy this one by them.
Its complicated in that its a 4-CD set which requires 4 separate stereos systems to play ... as all 4 discs have to play simultaneously - (so thats 4 cd players, hooked to 4 receivers, hooked to 8 speakers). You have to press "play" on all four simultaneously - which can be really tricky. The cover inset asserts that no 2 cd players play at the same speed (which was prob true at some time) I had 2 cd players keep up and 2 fall behind by about 1 second per song - so I had to pause and replay at the end of every song.
I also had some "technical difficulties" with some equipment during playback, but at times found that what I thought was noise or feedback in my system was actually recorded onto the tracks. If my memory serves correctly, at times ;-) there was one track on one cd that had a 20 hz signal and a 20khz signal... I felt like one of those japanese kids adversely affected by the cartoon rolling around on the floor uncontrollably . (may have just been par for my course tho...)
I'm not an audio reviewer, (so i'll put amazon's blip below):
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When a band is already one of the most unique, and among the most innovative in the music biz, what can they do to get even more innovative? The Flaming Lips answer that question in a unique and surreal way in "Zaireeka," which may be the most unique album ever recorded. Whether it's genius depends on how you view music.
It's hard to tell how clear the sound is because of its intensity; it sounds like there are dozens of melodies being played together at times. A mere disc couldn't hold this much sound. Dogs barking, surreal guitars, gothic organs and pounding drums are much louder here than anywhere else.
If you're in the mood for 4-D surreal soundscapes, then this is your thing. A marvelous album.
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I listened to it twice, second time was a conjunction of 'boomboxes' and other stereo speakers and it was hugely lacking in imaging, depth, quality, etc. etc.
It did sound awesome using the speaker arrangement shown below:
1L 2L 3L 4L - - - - 4R 3R 2R 1R
listener