What are some well-mastered cd's?, Compact discs that you can actually listen to... Options

[Agitator]

New Iced Earth album 'Framing Armageddon' has a RG of -6.95dB which is pretty decent for a 2007 heavy metal release!


Wav form of track 02 'Something Wicked, Part 1'

To me it sounds pretty amazing, even on my Sennheiser PX100's headphones. And a great album too!

I heard a recent interview with Iced Earth-mainman Jon Schaffer, and he's in fact very aware of the loudness race, and has made a conscious choice of maintaining the dynamics from recording all the way through mastering. (Interview here: http://www.icedearth.com/media/interview_061608.mp3)

[Northpack]

I've only heard a couple of ECM label albums, but damn, they sounded nice! Am I just fooling myself?

Not at all. ECM ist an audiophile label for jazz and contemporary classic. All ECM cd's i've seen so far have Replaygain values at around +4db, so they seem to master their cds generally at -20db FS (no wonder, as Manfred Eicher, the founder of ECM and producer of almost all of their records is quoted on his philosophy to produce "the most beautiful sound next to silence"...) It's a nice change if you actually have to use Replaygain in order to get a CD loud enough on your iPod

This post has been edited by Northpack: Jul 21 2008, 15:58

[renderMan]

MA Recordings:

http://www.marecordings.com/

[greynol]

Oh dear!

http://www.marecordings.com/main/product_i...d13fb236c2e4e84

[mikenet]

MA Recordings:

http://www.marecordings.com/

Oh dear!

http://www.marecordings.com/main/product_i...d13fb236c2e4e84

I'm actually a big fan of MA. They have some AMAZING recordings of AMAZING music. I'm not really too excited about the music on many audiophile labels, but I find myself listening to to the MA stuff on barely functioning laptop speakers all the time . And then when I get back to a real system, the audio quality just blows me away.

I just gloss over any mention of cables in their literature. They're doing something right, and hopefully not spending too much time worrying over cable during the recording .

I don't know if it's still available, but I have one of their early samplers called "Music In a Bottle". I highly recommend getting a copy. I don't see it on their website(I think it was a promotional thing), but if you give them a phone call, they might be able to help you out. I did google for "6 moons" "music in a bottle", and found one shop selling it, although I don't read the language well enough to follow the details.

[n3tfury]

In our efforts to make for a more colorful sonic and musical experience, MA Recordings introduces the "Emerald Audiophile Series". MA’s "Emerald Audiophile Series" discs are actually made with a dark green polycarbonate, to help alleviate the potential problems associated with internal light refraction and enable a more accurate reading of the digital data from the optical disc.

LOL

[Axon]

It sounds like the main thing going for them is dual omni stereo recording and no postprocessing. Which to be honest is a great way to record music.

The DSD recording and the cable fetish is pretty unfortunate, though. They probably have what, $20,000 locked up in unnecessary equipment costs? They could probably knock a buck or two off the cost of each CD if they just stuck with 24/96 and Blue Jeans. Heh.

To be honest, I'd pay good money for this if it were released in FLAC. By "good" I mean about $8 an album. That's a little above the cost of a monthly subscription to yourmusic, and the music from MA is likely to be a lot better sounding, and more interesting, etc.

[mikenet]

In our efforts to make for a more colorful sonic and musical experience, MA Recordings introduces the "Emerald Audiophile Series". MA’s "Emerald Audiophile Series" discs are actually made with a dark green polycarbonate, to help alleviate the potential problems associated with internal light refraction and enable a more accurate reading of the digital data from the optical disc.

Heh, apparently my brain automatically filters out audiophile talk. I forgot about the emerald discs completely .

The recordings and music are very good though, so don't knock the label too hard. I try to listen to the music without drinking the audiophile kool-aid. And it is very good music.

[Livy]

For classical music, almost anything on the Chandos label is very good. Ditto for Griffin Recordings.