What makes all this worth it?

[Murrfk]

All this time money and energy towards good hifi hardware. What makes it worth it? I am wondering which specific tracks have you listened to that you have felt were truly special. Not just good music but stunning. What have you been SO glad you had good equipment when you heard it? I realize people have a wide variety of tastes and preferences but would like to hear of what others think is the best of the best for hifi listening. Specific songs, tracks...maybe even albums.

What music makes this worth it, for you?

 

[DuxServit]

Music created by artists/musicians who have spent years & decades fine-tuning their expertise, coupled with engineers who love music and wish to create the best sound recordings possible.

For these kinds of works and recordings, I feel I’m doing them justice by always seeking the best hardware/software within reasonable budget (without falling into the BS of high-end bling audio).

This is why I always look forward to Amir’s reviews

 

[RayDunzl]

What? Music makes this worth it? For you?

Yes

(please excuse the minor adjustment to the quote)

 

[A800]

(Good) music and (good) reproduction of music is priceless.
There is no question.

 

[Murrfk]

I am hoping to get some suggestions of specific pieces of music to listen to that really shine through higher fidelity. Genre doesnt matter to me. Any suggestions?

 

[RayDunzl]

I am hoping to get some suggestions of specific pieces of music to listen to that really shine through higher fidelity. Genre doesnt matter to me. Any suggestions?

Carla Bley "Go Together" and "Duets" if you like Carla Bley on piano with Steve Swallow on bass guitar.

Carla Bley "Songs with Legs" if you need a saxophone on top of the above.

There are many more of other types that you won't like either, but I do.

 

[bigbag34]

I enjoy listening and trying to pick out / identify the bass guitar on tracks. I feel like it takes a decent system on some tracks to really follow the notes of the bass guitar. I don’t have specific tracks but on any track I “criticality” listen to I try and follow the bass guitar.

 

[ahofer]

I wish Qobuz or one of the other streaming services allowed ranking for audio quality of the recording. There are many I would like to rate. Recently I listened to an Ivo Pogorelich recording on Sony Classical that was outstanding. Another good recent Sony classical is Lucas Debargue’s Scarlatti compilation (and interesting interpretation). Most of Joey Alexander’s records are well recorded. Chandos recordings tend to be good in general. The old Bernstein recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies (DG) hold up incredibly well.

but I have trouble keeping track.

 

[RayDunzl]

I enjoy listening and trying to pick out / identify the bass guitar on tracks.

More difficult with lesser reproduction can be distinguishing reliably between bass guitar and string bass. Sometimes, the bass drum can add to the confusion depending upon its tuning and the notes being played by the other.

Audio buddy has, more than once, when listening to something not listened to for 50 years, noted "I didn't realize that was a (pick from above) and not a (pick from above)."

 

[MRC01]

I wish Qobuz or one of the other streaming services allowed ranking for audio quality of the recording. ...

Problem is, sound quality ratings would be totally meaningless because most people think heavy dynamic compression and massive EQ sound great. Recordings with big dynamics and natural realistic sounds they rate as "too quiet" or "dead" sounding. Even some professional reviewers do this.

All this time money and energy towards good hifi hardware. What makes it worth it? ...

As for music that makes the system worth the cost, I particularly like chamber music: quartets, quintets, solo piano, some small ensemble jazz and vocals. When you can hear whether the piano is a Steinway, Baldwin or Bosendorfer, and how the pianist voices the chords. When you can hear whether the flute is metal or wood. When you can hear the musicians all take a breath together, clothes rustling as they move. When you can hear the micro-dynamics and subtle micro-timbral tone colors they use when playing. It adds to the realism and makes the musical expression more articulate and powerful.

 

[frogmeat69]

The little things I might have missed in a song that I now hear with a good set of headphones and a competent system driving them makes it worth while.
One album I love to put on and get lost in wearing headphones is the Steven Wilson remaster of Jetrho Tull - Thick as a Brick.

 

[MRC01]

... One album I love to put on and get lost in wearing headphones is the Steven Wilson remaster of Jetrho Tull - Thick as a Brick.

I've got to pick that up one of these days. The Steven Wilson remixes of the first 5 Yes albums is absolutely fantastic, perfectly done, one of the best sounding rock albums I've heard.

 

[GD Fan]

I am hoping to get some suggestions of specific pieces of music to listen to that really shine through higher fidelity. Genre doesnt matter to me. Any suggestions?

Frayed Ends of Sanity on And Justice For All. The rising tornado of bass that starts around the 0:36 mark just doesn't come through on a muddy system.

 

[GD Fan]

The little things I might have missed in a song that I now hear with a good set of headphones and a competent system driving them makes it worth while.
One album I love to put on and get lost in wearing headphones is the Steven Wilson remaster of Jetrho Tull - Thick as a Brick.

Ditto for his remaster of Aqualung. Total game changer.

 

[Dimitri]

Ditto for his remaster of Aqualung. Total game changer.

Now my ears are itching
"The very best of jethro Tull - 2001 " sounds magical already. In which album did the remaster of Thick as a Brick appear and Aqualung appear ?

 

[TimF]

Today I went to a concert by the Mill City String Quartet. Their final piece was the Benjamin Britten String Quartet No. 2. It was a piece written at the end of WWII. Its final movement expresses great grief, but goes beyond that to address profound tragedy. World War II resulted in the near loss of an entire generation across much of the world, but it also shattered modernist ideas and idealism about human evolution and development. The greatest of wars showed the failure of humanity and indicated the great age of rationalism and the age of science (the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) did not lift mankind beyond its base brutalism and savagery. In the first third of the twentieth century megalomaniac psychopaths became world leaders in a number of key countries. The final movement of the Quartet expresses the profound tragedy of a species losing hope, and the challenge of despondency. It is well expressed in that final movement and beyond words. It is up to you to find music that matters to you. That is your task.

 

[GD Fan]

Now my ears are itching
"The very best of jethro Tull - 2001 " sounds magical already. In which album did the remaster of Thick as a Brick appear and Aqualung appear ?

I picked up that version of Aqualung on Amazon:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00VKS9OW6/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_track_package_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hopefully that link works.

 

[frogmeat69]

Now my ears are itching
"The very best of jethro Tull - 2001 " sounds magical already. In which album did the remaster of Thick as a Brick appear and Aqualung appear ?

I have the Hi Res downloads from HDtracks of Thick As A Brick and Aqualung. Same versions are available to stream on Qobuz, too.
If you look for the 40th Anniversary Editions of the CDs, they should have the Steven Wilson remix and masters.

 

[digicidal]

To me it's everything that was in any way touched by Donald Fagen or Frank Zappa. There are many others of course... but those definitely started the quest and continue to bring the same chills after hundreds of listens. Although Black Sabbath may be the primary influence of every band I listen to regularly... few if any of them have the same impact as listening to Pretzel Logic or The Nightfly or Joe's Garage.

Some of that is the content, but much of that is the production as well... neither men were the type to just hand things off to some engineer and accept the results. Don't know how accurate it is, but I feel like that makes their albums much more of a "masterpiece of art" as opposed to most pop music today.

I've recently been on a Alan Parsons Project kick, and I always spend an hour or so a week listening to Tool, Clutch, and Megadeth... but it's a different connection and a somewhat less satisfying overall experience from the former examples. Almost like those are "just collections of great songs"... while the others are like true man-made wonders of sound.

 

[mhardy6647]

Here're three that rarely fail to bring tears to my eyes.