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Audiophile music

I do own some older audiophile releases from the likes of Sheffield Labs, Opus 3, Telarc and Chesky but they are not among my favourites musically although some are rather good. Hence my list of more everyman albums that to my ears sound good. But not what the OP asked but he is free to ignore them so no need for others to get all up in arms over it.
 
I don't listen to "audiophile recordings", not ever. I listen to the music I like. If it's well recorded so much the better but I just require acoustic instruments to sound natural with realistic timbre. No special enhancements. I find at least 50% of modern recordings of jazz and classical are perfectly adequate. I don't listen to rock music except for good songwriters like Randy Newman or Donald Fagen.

I think there were a lot of good Decca recordings made of classical music. I was told anecdotally that Decca carried on using valves in their consoles long after others went solid state.

If there's one CD I always recommend, because it's stonkingly good jazz and also very well recorded, it's "Keeping Tradition" by Dee Dee Bridgewater. You won't regret buying it. It has tracks I always use for demos and I never tire of the music - it's timeless.

 
Mike Hughes said:
I am strangely reassured by your list that audiophile music is nothing to aspire to at all. Roughly 10 shockingly bad albums in there that I could never listen to again if they were the finest quality recordings known to mankind but the inclusion of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers album is especially bewildering.

The album which defined the loudness wars. It has a massively reduced dynamic range; has been normalised to within an inch of its life and audibly distorts in a very bad way on multiple occasions across multiple tracks. I look forward to your detailed explanation as to its audiophile qualities.
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Blood Sugar Sex Magic is a bloody brilliant album. And the sound quality isn't half bad.
 
krenzler said:
Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks
Ben Harper - Welcome to the Cruel World
The Blue Nile - A Walk Across the Rooftops / Hats
Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Dire Straits - Dire Straits
Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Kashmir - Travelogue
k.d. lang - All You Can Eat
Level 42 - World Machine
Lou Reed - Transformer
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Melissa Etheridge - Melissa Etheridge
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Peter Gabriel - 4 (Security) / So
Phil Lynott - Solo in Soho
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Prince - Parade
Quincy Jones - Back on the Block
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones
Rush - Moving Pictures
Seal - Seal (1991)
Sinead O'Conner - The Lion and the Cobra
Sting - ...Nothing Like the Sun
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
The The - Dusk
Tina Dickow and Sheriff - Fuel
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Trentemøller - The Last Resort
Yosi Horikawa - Vapor

Randomly off the top of my head. :D Some have audiophile qualities - some not so much (covering my back here).
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We have similar tastes, I have pretty much all of those albums. I wouldn’t buy an album cos it’s an audiophile version if I didn’t like the music on it. I do have fancy versions and multiple pressings/formats of my fave albums like RLJ, LoG and So etc.
 
I have a Bobby Blue Bland best of which sounds astonishing, just a really good example of studio recording.

Steely Dan, JJ Cale, Supertramp also score highly. Again, not an important factor as I’m very much music first.
 
For me, an audiophile recording has to test a system. Try this for starters Levitation - Against Nature, the opening track from their debut album Need for Not.
On the wrong system, this can sound a mush or a cacophony at times but on the right system, you should be able to hear all the individual musical strands, the drummer driving the melody along; the timing should be just on it; and it should sound grand at the right moments. If you're not foot tapping or playing imaginary drum sticks to this, your system is hopeless.
 
Lou Reed "New York" and "Set The Twilight Reeling"
Talking Heads "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads"
XTC "English Settlement"
 
Never been nor wanted to go to a hifi show so I’m not familiar with the choice of music used to showcase equipment.

I‘ve no idea as to what music I own/listen to that would be considered “audiophile”, I doubt my fav techno tunes such as ”Slam - Positive Education“ or “Plastikman - Spastik” would endear me to others if I rocked up and played it.
 
Somafunk said:
Never been nor wanted to go to a hifi show so I’m not familiar with the choice of music used to showcase equipment.

I‘ve no idea as to what music I own/listen to that would be considered “audiophile”, I doubt my fav techno tunes such as ”Slam - Positive Education“ or “Plastikman - Spastik” would endear me to others if I rocked up and played it.
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It would me : )
 
Big Tabs said:
and what makes you think that?
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Because I like the Butthole Surfers, and I'm sure that nothing in my collection would qualify as audiophile. I don't own anything listed in this thread so far.

Having said that, the remastered version The Replacements Tim sounds really good, and a bit different than the original.
 
music fiend said:
Blood Sugar Sex Magic is a bloody brilliant album. And the sound quality isn't half bad.
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It’s a well known album which is okay. The sound quality is, at best, ordinary. This household has an original CD (not mine) and the DR is nowhere near the site measurement. There is audible and measurable distortion.
 
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