The Sweet Spot

I was reading a review over at 6moons.com today about a preamp that looks pretty cool, and I was struck by a passage from the review. Srajan wrote:

When you compare components, a simple test is to start the volume at dead zero and incrementally inch your way up until the sound, top to bottom, locks in. Beyond that point, nothing changes except scale. Before that point, certain things are missing or only hinted at. The lower that point, the better.

This really hit home with me. That is the point I need to be looking for. So often when I am auditioning I like to crank up the sound to a "realistic" level. That is a level that I feel is realistic (or close to it) if I were hearing it at a concert. I still believe that there is some validity in doing that, but it should not be the only benchmark. As Srajan points out, in the real world we can not always listen at those levels, and it is a good idea to make sure that your system can give you the full sound at lower levels. We want to find systems that can not only bellow, but can whisper with equal fidelity.

Tasty Olive

A friend pointed me to this the other day. A high end CD player with built in storage for 1100 cds of music encoded in a lossless format. That is pretty sweet. There are also additional units you can buy for less than $200 that will stream the music from this player to other places in the house. I am not sure if it is better than rolling your own system with a Squeezebox and a computer or not. But it seems easier to set up and you don't need to have a computer on the network. Plus it already has high end DACs, so no need to mod. But it is $3000. Yikes! Anyway, looks pretty tasty to me!

UPDATE: Oooohh.. it will burn mix cds you create, as well as connect to your iPod and stream music from computers on your network...

Redbook

One of the most insteresting things I have noticed in my exploration of the high end audio world is the vast differences that exist in the quality of today's recordings. This was actually one of the more dissapointing discoveries I have made, as some of the high end systems I have listened to have really revealed the flaws in some of my favorite CDs. However there is a silver lining as I have discoverd some recordings that are absolutly amazing.

Now I am not talking about DVD-As or SACDs, I have heard some amazing recordings in high res formats, but that is a subject for another post.

What I am talking about are really well engineerd recordings on plain old redbook CD. I have found that there are a number of small recording labels out there that are producing some amazing stuff. The one that I am most familer with is Mapleshade Records. I have a CD sampler from them and the recordings on this disc sound better than some of the SACDs I have heard. One track in particular is a gospel piece, and I was listening to it the other day and if I closed my eyes I could pinpoint the hands of each of the choir members clapping along to the music. The track was perfectly imaged and it was as if the choir was right in front of me. I was talking about this with someone recently and they were saying that it is only now that recording engineers are getting the hang of recording for the redbook format. If this is the case, I am pretty excited to hear what they do next!

Tori Amos is in my room

I am having one of those moments of audio bliss right now. I am listening to Tori Amos' Boys for Peleand I do not know if it is that I am sitting in a different place (at my desk) or what, but her voice is perfectly imaged. It is right in between the two speakers, about 5.5 feet off the floor, right where I can imagine her head would be if she were standing there singing to me. I mean, I know she usually sits at the piano and such, but I can swear she is right there. Good times.