What are you Listening To Right Now? - and more

Time for The Classical Coffee Hour.
J.S. Bach - Brandenburg Concerto's 1 - 6.
Yehudi Menuhin conducting The Bath Festival Orchestra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_Concertos

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Playing this on the big ol' Farnsworth BC-82.
Classical and Jazz both sound almost better to me on the Farnsworth because it focuses the sound more and the big wooden case resonates, allowing the music to sound warmer and fuller at low volumes.
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Morning, all.

Well, I have my coffee and picked out some "day off" music.

Douglas Guest playing the Westminster Abbey organ. The organ was first used for the coronation of George VI in 1937. This recording is from around 1963.

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Was this from the college library, Kev? That's the only way I would think it would end up with F 37 Sharpied on it.
 
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Good morning friends. Do me a favor and please re-read my post on the previous page to our friend Zebra03. I made some edits and clarifications. I would be very pleased to know your thoughts.

Thank You.
-Blitz

On the subject of mastering, I'm going with "If Blitz says it, then it must be true." I'm not knowledgeable enough about the processes involved to have an opinion. I know some recordings sound like crap, but couldn't point out why.
 
Hi Zebra03,

It all depends on how they ripped it to disk drive, meaning which encoding method they used. IMHO, the MFSL Gold Trilogy CD, Mastered by Steven Hoffman is likely unsurpassed, unless they reprocess his master tapes for SACD. Our friend here @Delmarva , has FLAC'S of it, and his assessment is this is best SQ he has ever heard of Trilogy :). If you have a means to play FLAC'S through your DAC, please let me know and I can arrange to drop you my MFSL Trilogy FLAC'S to evaluate and to see what your assesment is.

There are many modern remasters, where the mastering engineer has his/her head squarely up his/her rear-end. It is not uncommon for them to crank the gain to the Max and then limit the dynamic range (compress the hell out of it). I was burned by this with AC/DC, Metallica and Queensryche, to name a few. My original release CDs from the late 80's and early 90'ss sound far better than the so-called "modern" remasters. These examples I just mentioned are not uncommon, I found the same with some Styx remasters. These examples are pure rubbish. :( money wasted.

On initial play, some "modern" remasters tricks one, at first, because they sound louder, so one thinks WOW this sounds louder, it's got to be better, but then what one finds out is there's no dynamic range. It's like the whole album is the same loudness. @FOH Engineer and I have both discussed this topic in much detail and both concour about how some of the new, so called, "modern remasters" are this way.

Now, there are some modern remasters that are the Tops in SQ. Deep Purple - Machine Head 2012 Remaster, Zep Jimmy Page Remasters and Rush Bob Ludwig remasters are all good examples of modern remasters done right.

EDIT: In fact, I recently purchased the 1989 Rush 2112 MFSL Gold CD as an experiment. Certain aspects of it still sounds better than my highly regarded and much respected Bob Ludwig Rush Remasters. They are close to a tie, but the MFSL is slightly warmer sounding, more natural "analog sound". However, not enough for me to go drop another $200 on the other 3 remaining MFSL Rush released CD's from that era. So if you think about this, the Ludwig remasters were done in 2012 with all the latest and greatest processing equipment and by one of the world's greatest Mastering Engineers, as compared to what equipment was available in 1989. So, this is proof how outstanding the MFSL, Steven Hoffman "magical mastering touch" is/was. (He still consults for other HiFi grade labels to this date). My recent acquisition of DCC label, Steve Miller Band - Book of Dreams was done by him in ~2003 and has all the same excellent qualities of the mastering he'd done at MFSL up until ~1993. So anything vinyl or MFSL that has is touch is pretty much the tops in SQ.

EDIT: I have not looked or listened to the two YouTube links you've provided as of yet. Do they specify the encoding method used?

Anyway, please let me know about the Trilogy FLAC'S and I'll be happy to drop them to you.

Cheers,
-Blitz
I will certainly attest. At least in regards to the two 24K Gold Remasters that I've heard. The clarity and warmth are off the chart. I still prefer the vinyl experience, because it is an experience like nothing else. But if all my vinyl sounded like MFSL, and Ultra Disc 24K Gold CD's I'd be one happy camper.

EDIT: Went back and re-read your post. That Deep Purple: Machine Head remaster is impressive. It's something that I have on CD-R and is tucked into a notebook, so it rarely gets my attention when looking for something to play.
 
What about a biographical thread on the guy, concentrating on his musical career? It would make interesting reading.

I've read several times over the years that some people find it pointless to have more than a couple of albums by a particular artist. The alternative viewpoint could also be an eye opener.

I'll do it for sure. Give me some time to get it prepared as his catalog is massive.
 
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