Ducatista47
12-09-2006, 02:28 PM
In the past there have been threads for subwoofer worthy recordings, but I have a candidate for an overall speaker quality CD.
I have been listening to music lately through my Mu stage preamped SET unit hooked up to Stax electrostatic headphones. Even with serious money to burn you would have trouble coming up with a more accurate, revealing system than that. I have resorted to this system to tide me over until my 4345's are back online, but that is another story.
In any case, the resolving power and ability to reveal the least fault, sibilance produced in the electronics chain for instance, is startling. I have found that one recording in particular that I have is a real barometer of how well a really good system is at dealing with the subtleties of musical information. It is very well recorded, of course. It is a CD. I know many here do not play vinyl. It has most of the material that really challenges a system. That would include the great pianist John Taylor, in a percussive mood no less. Piano played percussively is a real test of amps and speakers. Steve Swallow on bass, Ralph Towner on guitars, Patrice Heral on drums. But most of all, a female voice. In this case my favorite singer, Maria Pia De Vito. She is using all of her voice here, and she is capable of making an incredible range of sounds and styles. There is so much in her singing that you will never run out of subtleties to reveal, most of all on this album.
The one problem is...if one hundred of you heard this maybe one of you would like it. One could say she sings jazz and some world music, but that would be wrong, especially on this album, her solo effort. Here she pretty much pushes the envelope, and I would not expect anyone but me to enjoy it. I could point to one or two songs that might be more well received. One, Yearning, is perhaps the best test on the album and is easy to relate to.
Let me say that even I, Sun Ra lover and huge fan of this singer that I am, took a long time to warm up to some of the music on this CD. What did it was hearing it on the system I described. The clarity revealed more and more, and then more with each listening. When I could hear what they were really doing, in other words, I was in love with the music. But it takes one hell of a playback system to get that far, so it is a really fine test of a system. When you think this bunch is actually in the room with you, that will be really something!
After discovering all this I deliberately took the CD to my hi-fi shop and had it played on their best rig. It didn't sound nearly as good, kind of flat. Something like twenty or thirty thousand dollars US in amps, wires and speakers could not play it. This is a real test. Bear in mind, the speakers, while great, did not have any horns. ;) (I still don't see how to get the explosive transients of an acoustic grand piano right without a compression driver and horn. In person they actually hurt a little. If Steve Schell gets his system right I'm going to rob a bank to get it. Then there is the compression driver in the DD66000, which claims the best characteristics of the type coupled with the clarity of electrostatics. Please post some listening reports from CES, I can't go.)
The CD is Nel Respiro by Maria Pia De Vito. Provocateur Records PVC 1031
Verso, De Vito/Taylor/Towner, has the most important personel from Nel Respiro on it, if you do like the music. PVC 1023. A much more conventional presentation of her talents can be found on Still Life, Colin towns' Mask Quintet With Maria Pia De Vito. PVC 1015.
I had to order these from the Label in the UK. They should be easy to get in Europe. For all I know I may have the only copy of Nel Respiro in America. I'm not saying I'm a fan, but I have probably half of their catalog.
http://www.provocateurrecords.co.uk/
Clark in Peoria
I have been listening to music lately through my Mu stage preamped SET unit hooked up to Stax electrostatic headphones. Even with serious money to burn you would have trouble coming up with a more accurate, revealing system than that. I have resorted to this system to tide me over until my 4345's are back online, but that is another story.
In any case, the resolving power and ability to reveal the least fault, sibilance produced in the electronics chain for instance, is startling. I have found that one recording in particular that I have is a real barometer of how well a really good system is at dealing with the subtleties of musical information. It is very well recorded, of course. It is a CD. I know many here do not play vinyl. It has most of the material that really challenges a system. That would include the great pianist John Taylor, in a percussive mood no less. Piano played percussively is a real test of amps and speakers. Steve Swallow on bass, Ralph Towner on guitars, Patrice Heral on drums. But most of all, a female voice. In this case my favorite singer, Maria Pia De Vito. She is using all of her voice here, and she is capable of making an incredible range of sounds and styles. There is so much in her singing that you will never run out of subtleties to reveal, most of all on this album.
The one problem is...if one hundred of you heard this maybe one of you would like it. One could say she sings jazz and some world music, but that would be wrong, especially on this album, her solo effort. Here she pretty much pushes the envelope, and I would not expect anyone but me to enjoy it. I could point to one or two songs that might be more well received. One, Yearning, is perhaps the best test on the album and is easy to relate to.
Let me say that even I, Sun Ra lover and huge fan of this singer that I am, took a long time to warm up to some of the music on this CD. What did it was hearing it on the system I described. The clarity revealed more and more, and then more with each listening. When I could hear what they were really doing, in other words, I was in love with the music. But it takes one hell of a playback system to get that far, so it is a really fine test of a system. When you think this bunch is actually in the room with you, that will be really something!
After discovering all this I deliberately took the CD to my hi-fi shop and had it played on their best rig. It didn't sound nearly as good, kind of flat. Something like twenty or thirty thousand dollars US in amps, wires and speakers could not play it. This is a real test. Bear in mind, the speakers, while great, did not have any horns. ;) (I still don't see how to get the explosive transients of an acoustic grand piano right without a compression driver and horn. In person they actually hurt a little. If Steve Schell gets his system right I'm going to rob a bank to get it. Then there is the compression driver in the DD66000, which claims the best characteristics of the type coupled with the clarity of electrostatics. Please post some listening reports from CES, I can't go.)
The CD is Nel Respiro by Maria Pia De Vito. Provocateur Records PVC 1031
Verso, De Vito/Taylor/Towner, has the most important personel from Nel Respiro on it, if you do like the music. PVC 1023. A much more conventional presentation of her talents can be found on Still Life, Colin towns' Mask Quintet With Maria Pia De Vito. PVC 1015.
I had to order these from the Label in the UK. They should be easy to get in Europe. For all I know I may have the only copy of Nel Respiro in America. I'm not saying I'm a fan, but I have probably half of their catalog.
http://www.provocateurrecords.co.uk/
Clark in Peoria