Just evaluating a new DAC I'm quite liking so far but have found it potentially doesn't "do" soundstage quite as well as my previous. Not looking to discuss DACs in this thread though... I should take better notes or do memory exercises but I'm playing random albums in my library that have stood out in the past as having a good or interesting soundstage and I'm wondering about your favorites or suggestions. Can be just super well recorded or ones where the engineer has "cheated" with QSound and/or played with phase. I'll start: Roger Waters - Amused to Death Bill Frisell - East / West Shpongle - Have You Been Shrongled? Jimmy Smith - Root Down Niagara - Niagara Curtis Counce - Carl's Blues Cheers, Robert
Roger Waters Amused to Death won’t work cause it’s recorded in Q Sound. So that is done with phasing and all sorts of other methods to greatly expand the soundstage. It’s super cool tho. Unless this is just cool soundstage albums
Yeah, I know... The Bill Frisell album I mentioned is not just well placed and mixed microphones either, they are playing with phase too - and, I believe, Bill does this during performances too which would be mind blowing! So, yeah, not strictly ideal for checking a systems soundstaging ability, but so fun none the less... Cheers, Robert
Geezus. just goes to show how much we sometimes don’t read well. I totally missed what you wrote about cheating. Duh on me. super crazy sounding album. If I listen to a lot of the album tho, it gets tiring for some reason. Maybe it’s the phasing they use. Don’t know
Maybe a few less familiar. I’ll post specific tracks here. Tennyson - Like What (lots of interesting soundstage movements and placement) Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan (very wide soundstage Felix Laband - Whistling in Tongues (more weird placement and depth) Nala Sinephro - Space 7 (fun phase manipulation)
There are a ton out there. so I’ll say which most people don’t listen to. OPERA yeah I know I know. but put on something like The Marriage of Figaro - Rene Jacobs And you will be smiling ear to ear when you can pick out not just where the singers are on a huge stage beyond your speakers but the echo off the walls of the stage. not to mention it’s a beautiful opera.
Side 3 of The Wall is interesting (as is the entire album). On "Hey You" you can hear that you are in "Pink's" living room and can distinctly tell where the TV is and the open window letting in the sounds of cars driving by. Supertramp's - Crime Of The Century has fantastic imaging with some real depth to it.
Try Division Bell. Was spinning it on Vinyl yesterday. Mesmerizing. Also anything from the golden days of Alan Parsons project. I Robot first and foremost.
Ben Harper - the will to live Perturbator - I am the night Robin Trower - in city dreams 2-pac - all eyes on me Junko Mine - I wish you love The Future sound of london - lifeforms
Some good stuff here guys, some you've reminded me to try and some new stuff. @okc_craft - jeez dude, you nailed up my eclectic side. Nice! Now I'm gonna have to purchase one or two of those. Halfway through Whistling I Tongues I messed myself a little, thinking I had tubes crackling in my preamp... I prefer the Buggs Bunny cover of Marriage of Figaro, but admit that is a pretty steller recording. Cheers, Robert
On last recommendation Pino Palladino - Ekute (the horn blast at the beginning of the song always go way outside the speakers for me and the shaker in the intro should walk backwards, not fade out, which is hard for a lot of components to resolve)
Well recorded classical is good for exploring imaging precision. How well the imaging allows you to hear individual instrument positions and even which row they are sitting in. It's easier to hear that style of imaging precision in chamber orchestra recordings than full massed orchestra recordings. Good recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos in high-res are good for this. One that I have is this on on Harmonia Mundi in 24/192: Release “Brandenburg Concertos” by J.S. Bach; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Isabelle Faust, Antoine Tamestit - MusicBrainz It's available on Qobuz: J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin - Qobuz And other sources. There are parts of the Brandenburg Concertos where the theme gets passed around to different musicians like a hot potato. With a good recording like this and a good DAC you should be able to hear where each of the musicians who gets that hot potato is sitting. Which seat and which row.
I don't listen to classical much at all. However I did used to study to the Brandenburg Concertos in university days. I wonder if ghosts of laplace transforms dancing through my noodle will distract me. Probably past time to listen to them again and I'll try to follow the hot potato. Cheers, Robert
Quadrophenia by The Who side 4 is quit an album with a lot of orchestra and rock mixed. It's a nice vinyl to test soundstage and imagining.
This works well for just normal/pretty good old-fashioned stereo systems: - also small theatres/school aulas.
Off the top of my head: Monolake - Momentum Quicksand - Slip SRV - Couldn't Stand the Weather Echo & The Bunnymen - Heaven Up Here Tina Brooks - Back to The Tracks
Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia: Friday Night in San Francisco and Saturday Night in San Francisco
Most anything by Dire Straits. Telegraph Road and Calling Elvis in particular reach the walls convincingly while the intro for Money for Nothing is a great piece for dynamics as well as soundstage.
Patricia Barber - Companion A live recording with amazing sound quality. The performance is in a small jazz club, and the ambiance of the room and the audience within it sound practically three-dimensional. If your system is resolving enough and you listen closely, for example, you can hear how the Leslie rotating speaker for Barber's Hammond organ is spraying its sound around the room.
Gong--You It's an extremely well-executed example of the lessons learned in Electric Ladyland School of Production (the album not the studio).
Great thread. Going to be listening to some of these. I’m particularly interested in records recorded more or less live that try to capture the actual positions of the musicians.
