Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

I would be a liar if I claimed that we didn't love the Beatles catalog.  We have a large collection of pressings on vinyl, the stereo and mono CD sets released a few years ago, and they are in regular rotation.  Their music is timeless, and the enjoyment spans the generations in our house. The Beatles were late to the digital game, and only recently allowed their taped to be converted to digital .  After lengthy legal negotiations with all the estates and remaining band members, they ripped the tapes to 24/192, but for some reason, only 24/44.1 downsampled has seen the light of day.  Now we own and love the stereo box set.  Given the difficulty of locating an affordable copy of a quality pressing of their stereo albums, this was a godsend to many.  But ... purists complained (they always do!) that since it was rumored to have been mastered from those 24bit/44.1kHz digital files - the Vinyl fell short of expectations.  We had hoped the release wou...

Our top 5 ... what's yours? There are a ton of Christmas Albums out there - and nearly everyone has a collection, or a source of Christmas music that celebrates the Holiday.  These days it seems easier than ever. You find a station on Pandora (or equivalent), press "play" and your Holiday is sorted. Yeah, if you want to celebrate your music with predigested blandness ... So ... we'll list out 5 of our favorite Christmas Albums - and challenge you to go out yourself and find your own. So in no particular order ... 1.  Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas (Vinyl, SACD, CD, FLAC ... ) This is far an away our favorite Christmas album, when we play it, immediately the whole family knows that Christmas is around the corner.  Sure it goes with the TV special, but the Jazz is first rate, and is one of our favorite Jazz Albums of all time.  It is a shame it only fits best only one season out of the year! 2.  A Very Special Christmas (Vinyl, CD) ...

The Wisconsin Chair Company, decided to start a recording company, Paramount Records , to help sell phonographs they were marketing.  If this sounds familiar, this is not entirely unlike Apple launching iTunes in order to sell their iPods over a decade ago.  From 1917 until 1932, they were recording and releasing a lot of inexpensive records, but they were most famous for the so-called "Race Records" - which was early Jazz and Blues performed by African-Americans.  They may have recorded 100,000 78's by the time they stopped, and most of the artists are obscure, though Louis Armstrong, "Jelly Roll" Morton, and others got their starts with the label.  The recording quality, even for 78's, was never high, but the rarity and the excellent music make them a bit of a holy grail for people who collected 78's. A few years ago, a few collectors, including Jack White (of White Stripes fame, and currently the head of Third Man Records ) decided to put toget...

Mass-Market Pop music ... but you know what?  It's pretty good. With many "refined pleasures" there is often a "High" and "Low" ... and in music there is as well.  It's hard to imagine, I know, that many of the people who put together stereo systems that rival the price of a really nice car, listen to (and develop tastes for!) music that is as far away from Pop as Pat Robertson is from the latest meeting of Pagans United. But it is true.  In the audiophile world, Jazz is the most "popular" followed by "Blues" and "Classical."  There is special dispensation given for any music that is 20 years old or older.  Which serves a lot of music buffs, since it allows someone license to enjoy the music of their childhood. So it is a big step for us to admit that we both enjoy pop music.   ("Pop... pop... pop music")  We risk having our audiophile card revoked for this admission, but I'm tired of keeping this...

CD, Grado or Denon - which gives her the breath of life? Yes, we're sometimes late to the party, but we have listened to, and known of Florence and the Machine for awhile through the teens in the household.  And of course, they know if they suggest something on vinyl, it usually shows up and gets played.  So we have 2 of her albums on both CD and LP.  She's had one really big hit, "The Dog Days Are Over" and we admit, we love that song. When we listened to the CD through the Ayre C-5xeMP, playing the hit "The Dog Days are Over" - the song seemed like it is ever so slightly compromised in some manner: sounding nearly perfect but lacking a bit of humanity .  You hear forceful percussion, a lilting mandolin, and her voice coming through but not as clearly and as richly as you think her voice should sound - it gives the impression of the voice as another instrument in the band, and trying to argue a point.  We wanted to have a second opinion on the LP to ...

Istanbul, Not Constantinople Who knew?  They Might Be Giants' biggest hit "Istanbul, Not Constantinople" was a cover of one originally done by The Four Lads in 1953. You could have knocked us both over with a feather.  Seriously.   The song seemed so much like a They Might Be Giants song, we didn't even look and just ... assumed the hit peppered Flood album was all theirs. Then we found a small reference on the internet and our reality took a total warp. Who are these "Four Lads" and why do I keep thinking about my Grandmother when I hear the band name?  1953 ...  before Rock and Roll hit the big time, before Elvis and Bill Haley and the Comets had recorded anything popular , 4 guys - ahem- LADS - perhaps a barbershop quartet threw this song down.  A year later in 1954 it wouldn't have been possible given the explosion of Rock and Roll, or it would have been different for this pre-Rock hit. The Two Lads ... They Might be Lads? So ....

I asked my sister to write a review of The Might Be Giants kid's albums ( Here Come the A B C's and Here Come the 1, 2, 3s ) about numbers and letters in an attempt on getting a mom who is actively momming a 3 year old (she has her own blog about raising her wonderful daughter here ).  Well, I sent her the CD's and then called her, slightly inebriated and said she had to write an article.  I was shocked when she said "yes" and this is what she sent: To: Brent From:  Betsy DISCLAIMER FOR YOUR READERS:  I have no business writing anything in a blog for audiophiles.  When I am listening to music, it's mostly in my car.  My car that has the same CD player in it as when I bought it back in 2001.  I haven't even learned how to properly use the equalizer on the damn thing.  And I really don't have any business writing a music review.  I have no musical training whatsoever.  I don't even play an instrument.  Also, I've...

Etta James - she OWNED the song Did you know that Beyonce did a cover of Etta James's "At Last?" Etta James "owns" that song -why would anyone do that? She's not the only one - a relatively obscure singer, Eva Cassidy, did a cover of it as well. I think we have a second challenge. Ya think? Etta James Beyonce Knowles Eva Cassidy Audiophile Darling or serious Cover-Girl? Before we get too deep into this we have a few disclosures to make.  There are a ton of biases at play, and we will have some guest inputs as well from Anthony and Maria, Kathy's kids and my steps - who will weigh in as well the two of us. And Anthony loves Beyonce.  In fact, I think Maria might as well.  Kathy already dismissed Eva Cassidy as an "Audiophile Darling" with a motion of her hands that would make an Italian proud (She's half Italian and Half Basque - trouble if I have ever heard it). Hey! Yes, her rendition was just like this. Am I th...

If Pink Floyd was an acapella group this is how they would have done DSotM - honestly, it's that good Dark Side of the Moon (DSoTM is how I might refer to it to save typing) is a mainstay piece of music.  Not only is it the most popular Pink Floyd Album, I believe it was the artistic high-water-mark for the band.  And I love it.  I have about 4 different LP pressings (Including a treasured Mobile Fidelity copy that is astonishing in quality), a CD, and an SACD of this one album.  Once in awhile it needs to be played.  No one in the house complains, though I am pretty sure the kids aren't as in to it as I am.  In fact, I think Kathy doesn't like it as much as I do, either. When I got into audiophile gear, I also found out it was recorded very well, and is one of the audiophile standards where not only does it sound good - nearly everyone likes the music.  There is so much in the audiophile repertoire that isn't that way - its when you find yo...

Look what the arrived in the post yesterday?  I wonder what we'll do with them?  Stay tuned? What do all four have in common?

We were talking about what sort of post should be next in our blog, and hit a bit of a snag.  We were driving to a friend’s son’s graduation party and the discussion went like this: B: “I think we should review one of our favorite albums, like Ella and Louis” K: “That sounds hard … and I’m not sure a review would work on something we are so familiar with” B: “It doesn’t have to be very long … but I’d rather start with something like that, otherwise we’ll be reviewing equipment we have purchased - which is kind of … lame” K: “We do have that thing from the Kickstarter project coming up” B: “Yeah, we do, but who knows when that’s going to get here” K: “Well, we could talk about our reference music - explaining why each one is there. That was definitely new to me.” B: “Hey yeah, that sounds good” So here we are.  And anyone who already has a set of reference songs, you can skip right to the end where we talk about our reference music.  If you are scratching your head won...