What CD Are You Hearing Now?

[Vlad Soare]

We have a thread about vinyl records, which has already accumulated over eight thousand pages and still counting, so why not one about CDs?
I find that CDs don't get so much love as LPs do, not even from people who still use them, which I think is a bit unfair. Let's see if we can change that.

I'll start with this one, which I have recently acquired by accident. I have a small internet radio device I listen to in the mornings, which is tuned to a Bavarian classical music station I'm sentimentally attached to (long story; I won't go into it here). One day Mozart's no. 10 concerto for two pianos was playing, and the performance was really great. I loved it. At the end the presenter told us that the soloists had been Daniel Barenboim and Georg Solti, with the English Chamber Orchestra. Up until that point I had only known Georg Solti as a conductor, not a pianist. But I digress. The point is, I loved the performance so much, that I started looking for a recording. And lo and behold, I found it on Discogs, and in mint condition to boot.
I love Discogs. For a music lover it's the best invention since sliced bread.










OK, I will admit that a photo of a CD player in action is not as glamorous as that of a turntable spinning a record, which the other thread is full of, but I guess it will have to do. At least until they invent a CD player with a transparent lid or something.
Maybe I'll just skip this from now on.

Now, I'm sure many of you have some real gems in your CD collection. Let us see them.

 

[Duane]

Thanks for starting this thread Vlad.

I really enjoy CDs and have since '85. My current players are not dedicated CD or SACD players but DVD and BD players. They do an ok job. I do listen to my miniscule collection on a regular basis. I also have a small LP collection as well and there are some duplicates in both formats and I generally prefer the CD over the LP when I do an A-B comparison.

I keep looking at both used and new CD players, but deep down, I just can't justify buying one. So my trusty OPPO 103 serves well enough.

Here's my current CD playing.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Thanks, Duane. That looks like a nice one.
So, let's keep this thread going. Hopefully more people will join soon. Currently listening to this:





I just love this concerto, and this is my favourite performance by far - at least for now. Rudolf Serkin, accompanied by George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra, does an absolutely wonderful job.

 

[eiraved]

We have a thread about vinyl records, which has already accumulated over eight thousand pages and still counting, so why not one about CDs?

There are a few threads out there...

What CD are you listening to? What CD Player?

I thought I would start this thread it's alot of fun to hear what everyone is listening to and what Player they are using. I have an older Phillips CDB650 playing Sibelius Symphony no. 2 in D -"Finlandia". Telarc CD-80095 Sounds great through my Martin Logans. I am being very patient guys...

audiokarma.org

 

[eiraved]

This one has the same title as yours.

What CD are You Hearing Now??

I did a search to see if there was already a thread like this but I didn't see one. A spinoff of the What Record are You Hearing Now?. I have hearing loss and now wear hearing aids. I found that the digital CD sounds better to me than analog since getting the aids. Over the past 4 or 5 years...

audiokarma.org

 

[Vlad Soare]

Sorry, I missed that. I didn't look in the Music section. I figured if the LP thread was in the Turntables forum, then a similar one about CDs should fit here.
My mistake. I will continue there.

 

[twiiii]

Reissue of Harry James Direct to disc recording by Sheffield labs. After that maybe some Les Brown and Band of Renown reissues. I am not in the mood for Beethoven, Bach and Brahms today, though I might listen to some Rossini and Rimsky-korsakov. Nah! we will skip the classical stuff today. Concert Wind Band might work however. Cleveland, North Texas, Michigan Univ, Dallas and maybe some Colliery Brass Bands. Grimethorpe, Black Dyke, Sellars as options. How about the service Bands? Marine, Navy, Air Force and Army?
Pick one or two for me.

 

[twiiii]

Christian Lindberg Trombone solos on CD and streamed musical selections that I have dubbed to CD. I also listened to some Rossini I dubbed to CD from Original Source Master LP's. A couple of Strauss CD's also. Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ein Straussfest on Telarc with all the waltzes and special effects. Tchaikovsky Sym. # 6 on CD, also. I watched a streamed piece about the life and times of Louis Armstrong on Apple TV. This after noon I may listen to some Brahms with Bruno Walter conducting the Columbia Symphony! A Thunder storm woke me at 5;30 AM so it been music music music since 6:15 AM or so.

 

[nikon f]

"The Shirelles, 25 All Time Greatest Hits" on an Onkyo C7030 player.

 

[Anton1975]

Great thread!
Listening to the Roy Hargrove big band, their only album, Emergence.

 

[DeadRock]

Tom Waits Rain Dogs

 

[Robint]

Whiteman plays American Classics. Gershwin Piano Concerto in F, Groffe Grand Canyon Suite.

 

[tourmax]

 

[twiiii]

I missed the Streaming of the live Berlin Philharmonic from Berlin yesterday. So I got up early this morning to hear the repeat. I was sadly disappointed. The sound was over compressed and the staging was just a well centered mono recording with a bit of ambient effects. . Some instrument were over emphasized too. I went in to their files and found a recording with Petrenko conducting the same piece last year and it was marvelous with great dynamics and expansive staging and imagining making you feel as if you were sitting out in concert hall in prime seating locations for the Tchaikovsky piece.

Now some times with other past concerts they remix the multi track sound recording for a much better presentation. I hope they do so with concert as I always enjoy Egmont by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. I had no complaints with the video portion of the presentation.

 

[Mark617]

 

[twiiii]

Ever buy one of the demo discs or LP's featuring thunder ? Well I got to hear a real live thunder concert with brief moments of light wind to quite anaoying rain sounds for about 3 hours last night starting at 4:05 AM. It wasn't the loud type thunder. This was a continuous rolling thunder with a few just above average accents all about 10 seconds in time trailing the flashing light. So when Mother Nature decides to put on a show in the desert area of West Texas she goes all out. El Paso is built around the southern tip of the Rockies called the Franklin Mountains. Normally the east side gets most of the moisture as its a shorter distance from the Gulf off Mexico than it is from the lower west coast of Old Mexico. But this storm came on shore some where around Acapulco so we got it last night on the westside of the mountain. It rained so hard in the Las Cruces area of New Mexico they had to close a bunch of roads. So now after a 3 hour concert of special affects and breakfast I think I will go take a nap. It ended up being a 2.5 hour siesta.

 

[twiiii]

I am listening to the BSO, Boston Symphony Orch. with Ozawa conducting Scheherazade recorded by DGG. I also have Telarc recordings and Reference Recording Albums on CD too. But I got this one for the hall sound the BSO concert hall is famous for. Probably the best in the good old USA. When you have line array speakers you can really decern the quality of a recording and how well the recording engineers and producers did their jobs. Most Berlin Orch recordings are miked to closely unless you go way back to when Karakan was directing and supervising the mix for albums being made at the time. I also wish Vienna orch. recordings were more consistent.

Its great to see DGG releasing their Quad recordings for the first time with analog mixing with no digital added going directly to the cutting lathe. Its almost like hearing direct to disc LP's again. Its a shame there is a lot tape print through on albums with great dynamics. Wonder how long before they release the recordings on CD or SACD?

 

[DeadTrader]

This thread is right down my alley. Since 79 I've been collecting live unreleased recordings, on cass & Reel. With the advent of the CD burners, my collection changed from tape to shiny discs. I was strictly digital till 2019, when a turntable re-entered my life. And now I'm ripping all those discs and loading them onto my 32 TB server. This particular CD

is in my CD cabinet in the garage.

So not sure if it counts as it is played from the server. But it still has to pass through my CD/Network Player Marantz ND 8006.

it has a great DAC but the Primaluna EVO100 is much better.

I have somewhere between 7 & 8k shiny discs and constantly loading to the server. I doubt I'll finish this task before I pass, but it'll keep me busy.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Well, because I had started this thread in error, being unaware that we already had two similar ones in the Music section, I've been avoiding posting in it since then, hoping that it would eventually fade away and my mistake would be forgotten.
But since it appears to be taking off anyway, and the moderators don't seem too upset about it, I will continue adding to it. Let's keep it alive and see how it goes.

I will post almost exclusively classical music, simply because that's what I happen to have on CD. I do listen to pop and rock quite frequently, but mostly on LP.

Although I've been a classical music lover my (almost) whole life, only very recently have I started taking to Bruckner. I used to consider him boring and tiring and unmelodious, but now I realize I couldn't have been more wrong. With the right orchestra and conductor he can be absolutely magnificent. So far, his fourth symphony is my favourite (perhaps not surprisingly, since it's also his most popular, and for good reason). And, of the three performances of this symphony that I currently own, my favourite is this one:

 

[Duane]

Brahms Sym. 3