User Details - aubullience

library | recommendations


Name:
  SH
Details:
  My current collection (2014) consists of about 800-900 cds, 600-700 lps, close to 200 SACDs, and 15 dvd-a's. Cds dominate because they are convenient, have been around a while (I began collecting them in '85, SACDs only during the past five years or so) and by now cover the greatest number of selections- but I tend to greatly prefer SACDs and LPs- about equally so as a group. Due to what's out there in SACD format, about 75% of my SACDs are "classical/orchestral," 20% rock and "world" titles, and 5% jazz by genre, but overall my listening tends to be:

40% "classical"/orchestral/chamber/solo (medieval, renaissance, baroque, romantic, modernist, and contemporary eras- particularly works by british renaissance composers, marin marais, bach, debussy, ravel, piazzolla, prokofiev, shostakovich, stravinsky, ligeti, dutilleux, adams)
30% classic/contemporary rock (particularly grateful dead, beatles, steely dan, the police, beck, rolling stones, talking heads, neil young, black keys, white stripes)
10% "world" music (particularly tango, eastern european, african [gnawa, malian, ethiopian], middle eastern, indian, chinese, japanese)
10% R & B/'roots' music (including motown, james brown, acoustic delta blues, music of new orleans)
10% movie soundtracks
5% bebop and post-bebop jazz (particularly monk, ornette coleman, coltrane, marcus roberts, sun ra)

Yes, I know- that's 105%! I'm obsessive and compulsive, but not fanatical- I enjoy good, great, and awesome music in any and all formats, as long as it sounds as good as it reasonably can. I used to attend a lot of Dead and other rock, r & b, and "world" music concerts in the 80s and 90s, and "classical"/orchestral concerts in the 90s and 00's, but with a wife, young child, and busy career (plus LONG commute) now, that's pretty much on hiatus for awhile. The abundance of classical and chamber music performances I've attended, however, have shaped my sense of what good music playback sounds like.
Location:
  New Jersey and New York
HiFi:
  A system in progress:

Sources: Ayre C5xemp (univeral player) and SME 20/2 (turntable)
Isolation: Solid Tech Racks of Silence, Symposium Ultra Platforms and Rollerblocks
Electronics: Aesthetix Janus Signature linestage/phono stage, Ayre V5xe amp, and Ayre L5xe power filter
Cabling: Audioquest interconnects and speaker cable, Shunyata power cords
Speakers: Vandersteen 5's

It is, alas, two-channel only- I'd love to set up an additional multi-channel system, but currently can't afford it the way I'd want to do it after having bought my current system over the course of a decade and then having withdrawn from audio equipment expenditures in general. Perhaps a few years from now, if I have more time and money on my hands, I'll get the latest Oppo audiophile edition player and do it in another room with NAD or Parasound electronics and my Monitor Audio backup speakers with extra channels added.
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Posts:
  4

 
 
Reviews
Found: 5

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 - Sanderling        (4 of 4 found this review helpful)
  January 1, 2015

This is one of my favorite pieces of modern orchestral music, and certainly one of my favorite Shostakovich compositions; I've purchased and listened to ten or so interpretations of it, including (IMHO) strong ones by Ashkenazy and Solti, and weaker ones by Caetani, Pletnev, Jansons, and others. I ... more
The Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead        (5 of 5 found this review helpful)
  December 20, 2014

My sense of the strengths of Mofi's SACD of this album pretty much matches what I wrote for the American Beauty disc on its page on this site, so generally I won't repeat myself here, except to say that (with the potential exception of the hi-res download or 45 rpm lp set, neither of which I've ... more
Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz to Come        (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
  December 14, 2014

There's not much I can add to the fabulous review above except to second its impressions. This is a stellar SACD release, both in regard to the choice of music- a long-awaited classic for this format- and the quality of its audio presentation. The hi-res/DSD format allows the timbre of the ... more
The Grateful Dead: American Beauty        (7 of 7 found this review helpful)
  December 12, 2014

I'll strongly second the recommendation for this disc. Having long owned the dvd-a of this album that Micky Hart mixed (though admittedly only having heard its stereo presentation), I wondered how much better the Mofi disc would be. The answer, in my opinion: much, much better. While lacking some of ... more
Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues - Ras          (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
  March 30, 2014

I'm with beardawgs on this one- if you're a Shostakovich fan and an organ lover (no pun intended), you owe it to yourself to try to track down this disc somewhere (perhaps ebay one day if you keep it as a "followed" entry). These works actually translate nicely to the organ, at least in this case, ... more

 
 
Latest Posts

Discussion: The Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead
July 31, 2015
A new post on an old discussion- re. whether to get the SACD of Wkgman's Dead or American Beauty if you have the DVD-A versions, or instead of them, I'll just say that IMHO the SACD's sound much better. True, they're not multi-channel (and having an Ayre C5XEmp, a universal player that only plays in stereo, I can't comment on the relative merits of ... more
ORG Music SACDs - Release Program Canceled Due to Lack of Interest in SACD
March 30, 2014
I bought The Shape of Jazz to Come from ORG, and LOVED it- it gave me a whole new appreciation for the recording. While I regret no Free Jazz or This is Our Music from them on SACD (and where's the love for "Change of the Century"?- an even better album than "This is Our Music" to me), I am grateful that at least they got ONE of his classic ... more
Blu-ray Audio now live
March 30, 2014
Thanks! ... more
Blu-ray Audio now live
March 23, 2014
I've really valued this site for a few years now, and from what I've seen and learned on it, plus my own research, I've built up a collection of over 200 highly enjoyable SACD's, in addition to my lps and cds- and a couple dozen or so DVD-A's. While I think it's a great idea to expand the site to include other growing hi-res resources, I would ... more