Audio Advice & Exercises

  (Item #: thompshoot_loud) 



Yet another recording that really comes alive when you Turn Up Your Volume.

I've seen Richard Thompson on a number of occasions over the years, and as loud as my stereo will play, which is pretty darn loud, I've never been able to make his guitar solos 20 dB louder than everything else, because they're simply not on the record that way. That's why live music can't be reproduced faithfully in the home: the dynamic contrasts are much too great for the typical listener, or his stereo.

Having said that, when you actually do turn this record up, way up, you get the feeling of hearing live music, and that's not easy to do. Only the best recordings, in my experience, can begin to give you that feeling. (And of course it helps to have big dynamic speakers.)


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  (Item #: jacksjumpi_advice) 



Jumpin' Jive is one of these albums where it is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to make sure your stereo is running on good electricity before you attempt to play it.

So much of the aggressiveness, grit and grain that we hear in high energy recordings such as this are really the fault of the electricity feeding the stereo, not the fault of the record or the equipment used to play it.


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  (Item #: lisztpc12_setup) 



To be clear, "...a record like this" in the title refers to a Large Scale Classical Recording.

Classical music is really the ultimate test for proper turntable/arm/cartridge setup. The Liszt recording you see to the left is a great record for adjusting tracking weight, VTA, azimuth and the like. One of the reasons $10,000+ front ends even exist is to play large scale complex music such as Liszt’s piano concertos properly. You don’t need to spend that kind of money to play the record, but if you do, this may very well be the record that shows you what you got for your tens of thousands of dollars.

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  (Item #: aurios_letter_072509) 



This commentary was prompted by an email we received from a new customer who was, in his own words, blown away by the difference in the sound of his stereo before and after installing a set of Aurios Vibration Reducing Pucks, our favorite analog tweak.

He took a chance (not really all that much of one; we guarantee your satisfaction 100% or your money back) and now has much better sound to show for it. The question we find ourselves asking again and again is one we still can’t answer: why do so many audiophiles seem content with the status quo of their system when there are such huge gains to be had from making relatively easy and not particularly expensive changes?

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  (Item #: santasanta_vta) 



When this Heavy Vinyl pressing by Columbia came out back in 2003, I was dumbfounded at the incredible sound: huge depth and soundstage; an octave of bass below what would normally be considered bass (a 20 cycle note that sticks its head up from under the more common 40 cycle bass that drives the music); wonderful transparency and sweetness in the midrange; dynamics; and lastly, the kind of low-distortion, naturally un-hyped sound that this record shared with the Nirvana LP you’ve read about on the site. When you turn up the volume to very high levels, the sound gets better!

Like Nirvana, I played it for everybody who came over -- the perfect demo of what a good record on a monster speaker system driven by tubes can really do. But there was a problem.

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  (Item #: mapleshade) 



The latest Mapleshade catalog (Spring 09) has, along with hundreds of recommendations, this little piece of audio advice that caught my eye:

For much improved bass and huge soundstage, put your listening chair or sofa right against the wall behind you. Move your speakers in to 5’ in front of you and 7’ or more apart. No room treatments will yield this much bass improvement.

I literally had to read through it a couple of times to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating, but every time I read it it still said the same thing, so I know I can’t have been dreaming. This is crazy talk! What the hell is wrong with these people?

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  (Item #: weekend) 



We’ve mentioned how difficult some records are to reproduce: how the Revolutions in Audio of the last decade or so have profoundly changed the ability of the seriously dedicated audiophile to get records that never sounded good before to come to life musically in a way not thought possible -- until now.

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