Recommend me something to show off my system!

[zooropa320]

...they all had an almost instant recognition of what sounded better.

There's no doubt that FLAC is better than MP3. However, those must have been poorly ripped and/or encoded mp3s for you and your extended family to distinguish them from the flacs so easily on your system. That's especially surprising for 192kbs files.

Glad to hear you enjoy the SB3 and are re-discovering your music.

[Chris OH]

Crooner - "Mighty Sam McClain: Give It Up To Love" - Flippin' 'eck! You're not wrong there! I picked up a copy this weekend. It is one of the best sounding albums I have ever heard.

This is on the Audioquest Label which made a lot of recordings in the early / mid 90s and were mainly on vinyl initially before they were forced to stop in favour of CD.

The recordings are direct to 2 track and entirely analogue. Mighty Sam has another on "Sledghammer Blues and Down Home Soul" which I also have and prefer.

The Audioquest label is definitely worth looking out for on the quality basis. Ronnie Earl's Still River - awesome blah, blah blah

Chris

PS: Leftfield "Leftism"

[Seineseeker]

Recoil - Unsound Methods.

An amazing multi layered CD.

[CardinalFang]

For some clever studio trickery, give Yello as whirl. My favourites are Stella (much plundered by advertising agencies) and You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess, but Flag and the Eye are superb slices of electronica that sound amazing on the right system.

[dwc]

Lynn Morrison - Cave of Gold

First track - she's in the room with you.
Second track is our fave, sounds great.

[pm314]

I usually try one (or more) of the following:
Nickle Creek - This Side
Lyle Lovett - Joshua Judges Ruth
Talkin Heads - Stop Making Sense: Special New Edition
Wilco - Any CD
Beck - Mutations
and (dont laugh....too hard anyway)
Thomas Dolby - Astronauts & Heretics

[PhilNYC]

Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band - Swingin' for the Fences (modern big band...huge brass sections and big-sound drummer)

Mino Cinelu (self-titled) (percussionist, track 6 - Oncoming Horizons)

Jimmy Smith and Joey DeFrancesco - Legacy (hammond b-3 jazz/funk)

American Beauty - Original Score ("world music" with deep deep bass - track 1)

Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live (acoustic guitar and vocals)

[Skunk]

How about going into your local HiFi and having them demo to Wilco's 'Less Than You Think' on _A Ghost is Born_. It begins with one of the best examples of recorded voice I have on cd, all the little noises singing mouths make are clearly audible, and sound incredibly 'wet'. It's solidly placed in the center and forward sounding, like he's in the room. The acoustic guitar the singer plays sounds tonally correct and like he's actually holding it, while the strings introduced later are brighter and drier sounding, more in the background- but in dischord, and of an instrument I can't place. They do some stuff with toy piano's and it sounds like the strings of it, or a violin are being struck. The real piano is very well recorded and tonally accurate sounding. Everything seems pretty normal, and the salesmen might think you actually picked a sensible audiophile track. All that gives way, however, to a ten minute+ ultra high frequency feedback journey- in which I swear it sounds like they stop by a TV repair shop to listen in on a malfunctioning flyback generator. I'm pretty sure my dog hates that song.

I'm also thinking they'll hate you, (and likely chase you out of the store) but it's a great indicator of potential fatigue and high frequency extension for me. My tube amp makes what could potentially be very annoying, sound slightly more justified (to my deluded audiophile head anyway). If only it didn't come up on random play so much.

[repman]

Definitively

Leftfield - Leftism

The ultimate twiddly nobs classic.

Chris

Absolutely top notch album ... one of my all time favs...

[CardinalFang]

Originally Posted by Chris OH
Definitively

Leftfield - Leftism

The ultimate twiddly nobs classic.

Chris

I trust what you meant was "twiddy *knobs*"... I'm not sure I have a fave record for the other twiddling described :-)

I have to disagree that it's the ultimate twiddly knobs classic though, good as it is, Yello or Scritti Politti have simply amazing production values - and of course for the some really visceral tunes there's always "Fat of the Land" by the Prodigy.

Also try the collection of James Bond themes by David Arnold -"Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project" - big, room filling sounds and great Bond theme tunes. The PropellerHeads mix of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is tops.

Paul