Post by MartinT on Dec 13, 2020 17:49:43 GMT
My Shit-list - Great songs, poorly recorded
I'm going to maintain the list in this opening post with additions as and when I listen to proposed tracks.
Goldfrapp – Lovely Head
Goldfrapp have never been blessed with great recordings, which is a shame since Alison Goldfrapp has one of the best female voices out there. Lovely Head is from their trippy cinematic first album and uses a rudimentary effect on her voice, as well as a normal, but far from wonderful, microphone. It’s listenable, and there is a little more going on with a wider soundstage, but the sibilance is still there. Stunning song, though.
Sharon van Etten – Jupiter 4
Her voice is very harsh in this song but better digital streaming has revealed more detail and less harshness before. The recording does have good bass power, though. As elsewhere, this is a superb song.
Hawkind – Born To Go
Space Ritual has been a favourite of mine since my teen years. Seemingly recorded on a wax cylinder, it has responded remarkably well in recent times and now sounds half decent. You get a goodly dose of how it must have been live (I heard them later, in 1978) and I can almost see Stacia dancing stage front. It’s all a bit muddy but vastly better now on Qobuz in 24/48.
ELP – Karn Evil 9
The triple ELP album features their best rendition of Karn Evil 9 from the Brain Salad Surgery album (itself, quite poorly recorded). It’s a bit swimmy and reverberant but there is more to be gleaned from the live performance than before. Very exciting performance by ELP.
Lana Del Rey – Brooklyn Baby
Was it recorded in a bathroom, or possibly a warehouse? Hugely, ridiculously, reverberant and lacking in any finesse, Ultraviolence is another album to get the hi-res treatment (24/44). Why? Yes, more is revealed now, but how sad that such a strong album of songs received shocking treatment at the hands of the engineers.
Carly Simon – You’re So Vain
Recorded or mastered very ‘hot’, it’s a great song somewhat spoiled by being way too bright. It’s more listenable than before, but still painfully brightly balanced. Another epic song.
Feist - Undiscovered First
It features her strangely mic'd voice coupled with closely mic'd tambourines. There is a vast concentration of high frequency energy which gives a system a great deal of trouble separating it out. That's not the worst of it: when the children come in, all hell breaks loose in a narrow audio band of upper-mid / lower-treble. It's hugely satisfying getting my system to make sense of it as it's a unique and powerful song.
Kate Bush - Waking the Witch
John introduced this to me as a great system test. As with much of her middle output, it features heavy compression and muddy production on a poor system. Listen for the church bells and chanting during the frenzied section. A revelation on a well sorted system.
Wishbone Ash - The King Will Come
I'm going to maintain the list in this opening post with additions as and when I listen to proposed tracks.
Goldfrapp – Lovely Head
Goldfrapp have never been blessed with great recordings, which is a shame since Alison Goldfrapp has one of the best female voices out there. Lovely Head is from their trippy cinematic first album and uses a rudimentary effect on her voice, as well as a normal, but far from wonderful, microphone. It’s listenable, and there is a little more going on with a wider soundstage, but the sibilance is still there. Stunning song, though.
Sharon van Etten – Jupiter 4
Her voice is very harsh in this song but better digital streaming has revealed more detail and less harshness before. The recording does have good bass power, though. As elsewhere, this is a superb song.
Hawkind – Born To Go
Space Ritual has been a favourite of mine since my teen years. Seemingly recorded on a wax cylinder, it has responded remarkably well in recent times and now sounds half decent. You get a goodly dose of how it must have been live (I heard them later, in 1978) and I can almost see Stacia dancing stage front. It’s all a bit muddy but vastly better now on Qobuz in 24/48.
ELP – Karn Evil 9
The triple ELP album features their best rendition of Karn Evil 9 from the Brain Salad Surgery album (itself, quite poorly recorded). It’s a bit swimmy and reverberant but there is more to be gleaned from the live performance than before. Very exciting performance by ELP.
Lana Del Rey – Brooklyn Baby
Was it recorded in a bathroom, or possibly a warehouse? Hugely, ridiculously, reverberant and lacking in any finesse, Ultraviolence is another album to get the hi-res treatment (24/44). Why? Yes, more is revealed now, but how sad that such a strong album of songs received shocking treatment at the hands of the engineers.
Carly Simon – You’re So Vain
Recorded or mastered very ‘hot’, it’s a great song somewhat spoiled by being way too bright. It’s more listenable than before, but still painfully brightly balanced. Another epic song.
Feist - Undiscovered First
It features her strangely mic'd voice coupled with closely mic'd tambourines. There is a vast concentration of high frequency energy which gives a system a great deal of trouble separating it out. That's not the worst of it: when the children come in, all hell breaks loose in a narrow audio band of upper-mid / lower-treble. It's hugely satisfying getting my system to make sense of it as it's a unique and powerful song.
Kate Bush - Waking the Witch
John introduced this to me as a great system test. As with much of her middle output, it features heavy compression and muddy production on a poor system. Listen for the church bells and chanting during the frenzied section. A revelation on a well sorted system.
Wishbone Ash - The King Will Come
From the musically wonderful Argus album. Always known as a murky sounding album, the copy that Qobuz have is startlingly detailed and punchy with some strong bass content. A remarkable transformation.
John McCabe - Symphony No. 1, Snashall, LPO, Naxos
John McCabe - Symphony No. 1, Snashall, LPO, Naxos
The only existing recording is on the Naxos label available only on Spotify. Even worse, it's transcribed from LP together with the usual clicks and pops. It doesn't sound at all bad though, considering.
Roger Waters - Who Needs Information
Roger Waters' Radio KAOS is my favourite album of his, but boy it's engineered 'hot'. I don't know why it has such a sting in the treble (even the 24/44 hi-res stream on Qobuz), but the song Who Needs Information is a good one to try. Fantastic song, or spoiled by that top end brightness?
Major Lazer feat. Amber Coffman - Get Free
This song features Coffman singing a dance number that I picked up from an obscure Spanish film. In it, she hits some upper midrange notes that used to go right though my head and force me to turn the volume down. In my recent system tweaks, it's a lot better and those notes no longer have the same effect.
Steve Winwood - Higher Love
Another one recorded very bright and hot, painfully so on the LP as I remember. It's still bright with somewhat recessed bass which is a shame. However, while the higher band used to be obscured by tizz, it resolves a lot better in standard red book digital than I've heard it before.
This Category is for tracks that don't improve with system improvements
Coldplay – Fix You
There is no doubt about it, their X&Y album is one of the worst recordings of all time. So laughably bad are the digital processing artefacts that harshness does not even begin to cover it. Compressed, sibilant and totally ruined by treatment for the iPod generation. Unlistenable before, still unlistenable now. It’s astonishing that the band allowed it to go out like this. Now laughably in hi-res 24/96 on Qobuz. They would have been better off producing a decent 16/44 version rather than bothering with this complete waste of time.
Roger Waters - Who Needs Information
Roger Waters' Radio KAOS is my favourite album of his, but boy it's engineered 'hot'. I don't know why it has such a sting in the treble (even the 24/44 hi-res stream on Qobuz), but the song Who Needs Information is a good one to try. Fantastic song, or spoiled by that top end brightness?
Major Lazer feat. Amber Coffman - Get Free
This song features Coffman singing a dance number that I picked up from an obscure Spanish film. In it, she hits some upper midrange notes that used to go right though my head and force me to turn the volume down. In my recent system tweaks, it's a lot better and those notes no longer have the same effect.
Steve Winwood - Higher Love
Another one recorded very bright and hot, painfully so on the LP as I remember. It's still bright with somewhat recessed bass which is a shame. However, while the higher band used to be obscured by tizz, it resolves a lot better in standard red book digital than I've heard it before.
This Category is for tracks that don't improve with system improvements
Coldplay – Fix You
There is no doubt about it, their X&Y album is one of the worst recordings of all time. So laughably bad are the digital processing artefacts that harshness does not even begin to cover it. Compressed, sibilant and totally ruined by treatment for the iPod generation. Unlistenable before, still unlistenable now. It’s astonishing that the band allowed it to go out like this. Now laughably in hi-res 24/96 on Qobuz. They would have been better off producing a decent 16/44 version rather than bothering with this complete waste of time.