From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V16 #447 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, June 5 2012 Volume 16 : Number 447 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- What's the best-sounding record you ever heard? [Mike Connell Subject: What's the best-sounding record you ever heard? I read an interesting article on cnet.com this morning, which is below. Basically, at the end it asks more foucused from what the topic of this post is. It ends asking: "I recently asked Stereophile magazine's editor, John Atkinson, to name the record that made him take notice of the sound, and without hesitating for a second he said, "Jimi Hendrix, 'Electric Ladyland.'" Good choice! What about you? I want to hear how it hit you; was it on the radio, at a friend's house, or did you just buy something you read about?" and then has 5+ pages of responses from readers. Some quite interesting. I thought this would make an interesting topic here. After reading the article, for me the answer is a very clear memory even after nearly 40 years. A real "wow" for me. While I had already had a few dozen albums and lord knows how many 45s, I did not have a real stereo and the world was just mono to me...we didn't even have an FM radio in the house. Then I got my first stereo - a one-piece unit: turntable, AM-FM radio and a good ol' 8-track all rolled into one. I also got a set of Tandy/Radio Shack LV-10 headphones with it. The first song to ABSOLUTELY BLOW ME AWAY on headphones was "Hooked On A Feeling" by BJ Thomas. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNnnWfUpYGg ) I could not believe all the instruments and music I heard in that song. It was the beginning of me becoming an audiophile (within my budget stereo-wise in the 1980s upgrade), having 300+ albums by the time I went to back to college, even to the degree of purchasing dozens of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab albums and one UHQR in the 1980s. The article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57445385-47/whats-the-best-sounding-record-you-ever-heard/?tag=cnetRiver What's the best-sounding record you ever heard? Was it from long ago, or something more recent? What made it memorable? by Steve Guttenberg This might be a tough question for a lot of people: defining what good sound is, and separating sound from music isn't easy. It might be impossible to distill it to just one album or song. We tend to like the sound of music we like, and conflate good sound with good music. That's understandable, but when the sound jumps out and draws your attention, take, for example, the sound of Jimi Hendrix's feedback. It was Hendrix's distortion, not his songs, that forever changed the sound of electric guitars. Paul McCartney said it was the sound of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album that inspired the Beatles to radically change their sound and make "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." For me, it was the first Led Zeppelin album. The music hit me hard, of course, but it really was the power of the recording; everything else sounded like black-and-white, and Zeppelin's music was in Technicolor. Bonham's drums in particular were so much bigger, more immediate and driving than other records in the late 1960s. Motown and the Beatles records were way up there for me, but Zeppelin's sound was beyond the rest. I wanted to hear that sound more clearly, and that's how I became an audiophile. The first and second Zeppelin records were always with me when I was shopping for new hi-fi gear. The methodology was pretty straightforward; the speaker or amp had to unleash more of what was in the grooves, and the more exciting the sound was, the happier I was. I'd crank the volume way up and wait for something to happen. When a speaker or amp did the trick, I bought it. In the late 1970s, it was Brian Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets" (what a great title), "Another Green World," and "Before and After Science." Eno's soundscapes and use of space really fired my imagination. The sound was at once abstract and emotionally charged. I recently asked Stereophile magazine's editor, John Atkinson, to name the record that made him take notice of the sound, and without hesitating for a second he said, "Jimi Hendrix, 'Electric Ladyland.'" Good choice! What about you? I want to hear how it hit you; was it on the radio, at a friend's house, or did you just buy something you read about? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2012 23:31:09 -0400 From: rlovejoy@morrisbb.net Subject: Re: What's the best-sounding record you ever heard? All of Roy Halee's recordings sounded amazingly good. Simon & Garfunkel's Bookends was one of the first to grab me sonically. I was also blown away by the dynamic range and detail of Supertramp's Crime Of The Century. And many other great sounding records come to mind, our favorite band included! Bob L, audiophile emeritus PS. Classical albums usually sounded even better. A nod to the Swedish label Bis for their minimalist recorded excellence! - -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. Mike Connell wrote: I read an interesting article on cnet.com this morning, which is below. Basically, at the end it asks more foucused from what the topic of this post is. It ends asking: "I recently asked Stereophile magazine's editor, John Atkinson, to name the record that made him take notice of the sound, and without hesitating for a second he said, "Jimi Hendrix, 'Electric Ladyland.'" Good choice! What about you? I want to hear how it hit you; was it on the radio, at a friend's house, or did you just buy something you read about?" and then has 5+ pages of responses from readers. Some quite interesting. I thought this would make an interesting topic here. After reading the article, for me the answer is a very clear memory even after nearly 40 years. A real "wow" for me. While I had already had a few dozen albums and lord knows how many 45s, I did not have a real stereo and the world was just mono to me...we didn't even have an FM radio in the house. Then I got my first stereo - a one-piece unit: turntable, AM-FM radio and a good ol' 8-track all rolled into one. I also got a set of Tandy/Radio Shack LV-10 headphones with it. The first song to ABSOLUTELY BLOW ME AWAY on headphones was "Hooked On A Feeling" by BJ Thomas. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNnnWfUpYGg ) I could not believe all the instruments and music I heard in that song. It was the beginning of me becoming an audiophile (within my budget stereo-wise in the 1980s upgrade), having 300+ albums by the time I went to back to college, even to the degree of purchasing dozens of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab albums and one UHQR in the 1980s. The article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57445385-47/whats-the-best-sounding-record-you-ever-heard/?tag=cnetRiver What's the best-sounding record you ever heard? Was it from long ago, or something more recent? What made it memorable? by Steve Guttenberg This might be a tough question for a lot of people: defining what good sound is, and separating sound from music isn't easy. It might be impossible to distill it to just one album or song. We tend to like the sound of music we like, and conflate good sound with good music. That's understandable, but when the sound jumps out and draws your attention, take, for example, the sound of Jimi Hendrix's feedback. It was Hendrix's distortion, not his songs, that forever changed the sound of electric guitars. Paul McCartney said it was the sound of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album that inspired the Beatles to radically change their sound and make "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." For me, it was the first Led Zeppelin album. The music hit me hard, of course, but it really was the power of the recording; everything else sounded like black-and-white, and Zeppelin's music was in Technicolor. Bonham's drums in particular were so much bigger, more immediate and driving than other records in the late 1960s. Motown and the Beatles records were way up there for me, but Zeppelin's sound was beyond the rest. I wanted to hear that sound more clearly, and that's how I became an audiophile. The first and second Zeppelin records were always with me when I was shopping for new hi-fi gear. The methodology was pretty straightforward; the speaker or amp had to unleash more of what was in the grooves, and the more exciting the sound was, the happier I was. I'd crank the volume way up and wait for something to happen. When a speaker or amp did the trick, I bought it. In the late 1970s, it was Brian Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets" (what a great title), "Another Green World," and "Before and After Science." Eno's soundscapes and use of space really fired my imagination. The sound was at once abstract and emotionally charged. I recently asked Stereophile magazine's editor, John Atkinson, to name the record that made him take notice of the sound, and without hesitating for a second he said, "Jimi Hendrix, 'Electric Ladyland.'" Good choice! What about you? I want to hear how it hit you; was it on the radio, at a friend's house, or did you just buy something you read about? ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V16 #447 ***************************