Top 5 Demo Albums - What Are Yours?

[HamDog]

1. Thelma Houston - Sheffield Labs - Vinyl - Great imaging and Thelma's voice can really be a great test of any system. Too bad I don't have a turntable anymore, but I kept this album. I also have this on CD.

2. Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto - SACD (2-Channel) - Usually sets the perfect mood with "The Girl From Ipanema" with an awesome sounding recording and a great demo of imaging.

3. Deep Purple - Machine Head - DVD-Audio 5-channel - Crank up the track "Lazy". At the beginning, it throws the sound in and out of various speakers. Sounds trippy and fun! Great demo disc for multi-channel audio.

4. The Doors - LA Woman album - DVD-Audio 5-channel - The great demo song is "Riders On The Storm" in multi-channel. You are engulfed by the rain and thunder. Excellent recording and makes for a fun demo.

5. Groove Note - The Best of Groove Note - Volume 2 & 3 - SACD - 2-channel and a few multi-channel tracks. Both volumes are awesome quality recordings from various artists.

6. Movie Demo: The Art of Flight - Recorded in Dolby Tru-HD 7.1-channel - A snowboarding documentary. The picture and the sound will blow you away! This movie should be on everyone's demo list.

[allen_bh]

Originally Posted by Stereohead

Bryan...thanks for the info on Sea Change. Explains a lot about the mood of the album, which I love. I looked into amazon and I see that the price for the SACD is $80.00. Steep. Sounds a lot better than the redbook?

Yes, I highly recommend the SACD. I guess I got a deal when I bought it years ago at $25 from acoustic sounds. The SACD has a great deal of presence that the redbook CD doesn't. The imaging is probably one of the top 10 I've heard on SACD. It's very good.

[JohnJ]

Originally Posted by HamDog

6. Movie Demo: The Art of Flight - Recorded in Dolby Tru-HD 7.1-channel - A snowboarding documentary. The picture and the sound will blow you away! This movie should be on everyone's demo list.

+1 on Art of Flight. This has the best audio and video demo BR that I have.

John

[allen_bh]

One more I recently came across:

Lee Ritenour - Rhythm Sessions (hdtracks) - Track 2 "River Man" sung by Kurt Elling. His voice is creepy good in this recording. Just deep with tons of weight and fullness. The accoustic guitar is also incredibly live sounding. Very good track.

[asindc]

Originally Posted by allen_bh

One more I recently came across:

Lee Ritenour - Rhythm Sessions (hdtracks) - Track 2 "River Man" sung by Kurt Elling. His voice is creepy good in this recording. Just deep with tons of weight and fullness. The accoustic guitar is also incredibly live sounding. Very good track.

Kurt Elling is very underrated as a vocalist. Did you see him when he was at the Kennedy Center a few months ago? I actually won a free copy of his latest CD when I went.

[o0OBillO0o]

Originally Posted by allen_bh

One more I recently came across:

Lee Ritenour - Rhythm Sessions (hdtracks) - Track 2 "River Man" sung by Kurt Elling. His voice is creepy good in this recording. Just deep with tons of weight and fullness. The accoustic guitar is also incredibly live sounding. Very good track.

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[allen_bh]

Originally Posted by o0OBillO0o

Sent from my iPad using A.Aficionado

Yup, but it's delicious bass at that

@asindc: Damn. That's too bad. He came here and I missed it? Unfortunately, I didn't find out about Kurt Elling until I got the Lee Ritenour album from hdtracks. I liked his performance in that one song enough to go out and buy his last 4 CD's though if that says anything.

[allen_bh]

How about this one:
Trent Reznor - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Soundtrack - Track 23 (Disc 3) - "Is Your Love Strong Enough?"

It's a remake of the Bryan Ferry / Roxy Music song, and is sung by Mariqueen Maandig and performed by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. Mariqueen's voice has a great imaging in this recording and when the whole song crescendo comes to full bear it's a pretty amazing remake. A very good homage to Bryan Ferry's original. For those who truly love the ablum, you can get a 24Bit 96Khz version from Nullco's (Reznor's independent label) Website. But be warned, it costs $300! But for $14 you can currently download a FLAC (16/44) version of the complete album - which is reasonable.

[mraudio]

Steely Dan-The Royal Scam
Steely Dan-Two Against Nature
Common Threads-Songs of the Eagles
Elton John-Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
BlackBerry Smoke-The Whipperwill

[Puma Cat]

I am philosophically opposed to the concept of demo albums.