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Webschwedenkreuz · Playlist · songs · K likes WebListen on Spotify: To accompany our list of 50 great albums for audiophiles, we picked some of our favourite songs from the list and made them into this playlist for you WebSome inclusions aren't surprising at all: benchmark albums include Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (15), Radiohead's OK Computer (36), Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys (18), the WebApr 15, · Subscribe: blogger.com (Bandcamp): blogger.com (iTunes): blogger.com by: Epic Soul WebDec 29, · Song year: The big kick drum on “A Milli” allows you to test just how deep your bass frequencies can go, and that certainly makes it worth a mention. Overall, ... read more
Listen to Toto IV by Toto on Tidal. At some point on March 12th , Sheffield-born singer Joe Cocker became aware that he was contractually obliged to perform a North American tour of 48 shows in 52 days, due to start in eight days' time. But unfortunately, he only came to this realisation right after sacking his entire band. So Cocker turned to his friend Leon Russell, a multi-instrumentalist and part of the notorious Wrecking Crew, for help. He quickly got to work putting together an ensemble of musicians, rehearsing them for less than a week before hitting the road. There are three drummers, each with their own drum kit. There are three guitar players, horn players… We decided we needed three girl singers — at least a dozen show up. But the success of the final mix, which preserves both the raucousness and the grandeur of the tour, is primarily due to famed producer Glyn Jones who took a break from recording the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers to fly in and help out Cordell and Russell.
After the tour was over, the two struggled to piece together the recordings in a way that would coherently recreate the energy of the live shows. Jones quickly realised the audio was salvageable and got to work cleaning it up, honing in on the large, frequently off-key choir that over the course of the tour had swelled to include many hangers-on. Unfortunately, the extravagance of the Mad Dogs And Englishman tour left Cocker financially out of pocket, disillusioned and on poor terms with Russell. Intense, visceral and wildly imperfect, Mad Dogs And Englishmen is an audio gem that could only have been forged in utter chaos yet manages to be a showcase for exquisite musicianship, cascading walls of sound and a vast dynamic range that boldly throws down the gauntlet to your hi-fi. Find Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Joe Cocker on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Joe Cocker on Apple Music opens in new tab. Meanwhile, on songs such as Fumilayo and Eyes On The Prize , fusions of call-and-response and funk, Duke showcases his talent for combining complex rhythmic textures, as interlocked beats and hooks skip together with clarity and ease.
Her voice is incredibly present with a naturally open sound that's often pushed to the extremities of her range, and, as a result, Never Too Far is full of expertly captured delicate moments of vulnerability. Find Never Too Far by Dianne Reeves on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Never Too Far by Dianne Reeves on Tidal. Often accused of being peddlers of yacht rock, Steely Dan are notorious for their obsessive studio process, strictly running their own sessions with military precision. This attention to detail garnered a clutch of Grammys for their long-time engineer Roger Nichols and producer Gary Katz, as well as the devotion of live sound engineers who rely on their brand of crisp, tightly honed funk to check their rigs are all in working order. Steely Dan's reputation for pathological rigour is well earned. On Aja , their sixth and most successful album, the band spent a year-and-a-half in the studio, remixing the album 13 times in the process and enlisting more than 40 session musicians with 19 different guitarists brought in to play versions of the guitar solo on Peg.
But to dismiss Steely Dan as sounding 'clinical' would be to deprive yourself of some of the most expert production ever committed to tape. In , Aja was added to the United States National Recording Registry for its artistic, historical and cultural significance. Even four decades after its release, it is one of the finest recordings ever made, transcending technology, taste and trend. Find Aja by Steely Dan on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Aja by Steely Dan on Tidal. As a producer, Björk is no stranger to constructing whole sonic universes. She invents a form of homespun electronica in which the interplay between synthetic and natural sounds forms an architecture of introverted chamber music. In an album where electronic sounds are the norm, traces of the analogue world — be it static and glitches on Cocoon , the warm harmonics of harpist Zeena Parkins or Björk's own vocals whispered at close proximity to the mic — provide welcome acoustic interjections with a sense of ecstatic domesticity and comfort in an icy landscape.
Find Vespertine by Björk on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Vespertine by Björk on Tidal. Fair to say was a difficult year for Isaac Hayes. After a decade at Stax Records as a session musician, producer and songwriter of hits including Soul Man and B-A-B-Y , he had finally released his debut album as a solo artist and it bombed. Stax itself was in a tumult: the Memphis label lost both its biggest star Otis Redding and four members of its house band in a plane crash the year prior. Oh, and its distribution deal with Atlantic had expired contentiously, resulting in the loss of its masters. To record a new back catalogue ASAP.
He demanded 27 new albums by mid and called upon Hayes to quickly turn out a follow-up to his flop. Hayes reluctantly agreed with the caveat of having complete creative control. This auteurism resulted in four tracks luxuriating out over 45 minutes, blending pristine production with an opulence-laced rawness that set a precedent other artists scrambled to replicate. That freedom of expression extended into post-production. For all its excesses, Hot Buttered Soul remains a tight, cogent, honest and intimate album with artistry infiltrating every part of the recording process. Find Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes on Tidal. Even more remarkable is that the record became their most commercially successful album, renowned for its sonic clarity and harmonic sweetness.
Despite the soap opera behind the scenes, in the studio the band were scrupulous when it came to detail, with Lindsey Buckingham re-stringing his guitar every 20 minutes to maintain the crispness of tone while recording Never Go Back Again , and Christine McVie's Songbird being tracked during an all-night session at Zellerbach Auditorium to achieve an authentic concert hall ambience. Songs were written by the individual members, without collaboration, the only exception being The Chain , which was cobbled together from four different tracks.
It was nearly left off the album before being resurrected after Buckingham asked for it to be spliced with blank tape to add the iconic kick drum of the verse. Listen closely before the start of the song and you'll hear him softly mutter an expletive, undoubtedly one of many. The radio-friendly sound producers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut achieved was a result of arduous hour days and an element of chance. For the first week, they struggled to get any sound out of the API console. We even taped two kick drums together out of frustration Finally, I got pissed off. I said, 'Goddamn it, what the hell's going on here? Find Rumours by Fleetwood Mac on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac on Tidal. There are more than a few reasons you might not fancy listening to a bit of Wagner.
Der Ring des Nibelungen was groundbreaking as the first opera ever recorded in a studio, and it demonstrated the potential that the stereo LP format could have in making performances accessible at a time when epics were too expensive to mount regularly. Recording took place over nine years from to, in the Sofiensaal in Vienna, a former sauna with a bright bathroom reverb. While sound effects such as thunder or the noise of Valhalla collapsing into ruin were added technically, the studio conditions gave Culshaw the opportunity to overcome the compromises of recording live. He revelled in detail and historic accuracy, going to great lengths to replicate the impractical orchestration Wagner had originally specified, including a section of six harps, medieval steer horns and 18 anvils to be hammered at brief interludes.
Full of energy and devastating dramatic power, Der Ring des Nibelungen was a huge commercial success, sharing chart space with Elvis, and galvanising the classical recording industry. Find Der Ring des Nibelungen by Georg Solti on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen by Georg Solti on Tidal. Still, while the lush melancholia of Pet Sounds took the long route to public acceptance, its sonic influence was felt immediately — not least by Paul McCartney, who has said that God Only Knows spurred the recording of Sgt. In this instance though, the material was pretty strong. The tense and expensive nine months of recording sessions were managed with an iron fist by Wilson, who regarded the album as a solo project and used a huge orchestral palette with the notorious Wrecking Crew of session musicians serving as the backbone of the album. Wilson, who is deaf in his right ear, created the final mono mix in a single nine-hour session to provide more consistency over how people would hear the album regardless of the quality or the placement of their home system.
And despite numerous re-releases, purists still swear by this version, complete with its quirks, such as an audible tape splice between the chorus and bridge of Wouldn't It Be Nice and chatting during the instrumental break of Here Today. Find Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys on Tidal. Jay-Z marked his first retirement the only way he knew how. He made an era-defining swansong, with nearly every track produced by a different luminary of the s: Just Blaze, Kanye West, The Neptunes, Eminem, DJ Quik, Timbaland, 9th Wonder and Rick Rubin. There are many details to admire, from Kanye West's magnificent dancehall track Lucifer , made at the apex of his chipmunk era with a blown-out bass with which many speakers will struggle to grapple, to the towering organ sample in Just Blaze's Public Service Announcement.
The Black Album is also notable for the production work that it inspired. Find The Black Album by Jay-Z on Amazon opens in new tab. Listen to The Black Album by Jay-Z on Tidal. Sign up below to get the latest from What Hi-Fi? Mary is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi? and has over a decade of experience working as a sound engineer mixing live events, music and theatre. Her mixing credits include productions at The National Theatre and in the West End, as well as original musicals composed by Mark Knopfler, Tori Amos, Guy Chambers, Howard Goodall and Dan Gillespie Sells. Open menu Close menu What Hifi What Hifi What Hi-Fi? THE WORLD'S 1 TECH BUYER'S GUIDE. opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab. AU Edition. Australian Hifi. Sound Image. It has put together a list of the 50 albums that its sound engineers, staff and hangers-on believe are the best sounding ever put down.
And the big surprise for me is that the stunning Miles Davis jazz classic from Kind of Blue has finished in second place, not first. The sheer dynamics on this early LP are extraordinary. The best album ever? Credit: Ian Warden. There is a smaller surprise, too. There are only three inclusions of classical music, and none of them are the famous Decca recordings of Sir Georg Solti doing Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen with the Vienna Philharmonic. This epic work was undertaken between and and is often cited as the greatest recording ever made. It prefers Colin Davis' Les Troyens The Trojans by Berlioz, recorded in in 32nd place , Valery Gergiev's treatment of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet of 33 , and Sir Simon Rattle's reading of Schumann's Das Paradies Und Die Peri Paradise and the Peri of Ah, my unforgivable cynicism kicks in.
Otherwise, this is a highly eclectic list of releases covering everything from Massive Attack to a little known album from Iceland which an extremely discerning nephew gave me for Christmas 10 years ago, Takk by Sigur Ros wall of sweetly recorded soundscapes that sooth and lift. Much of the album includes 'Hoplandic' lyrics — a language made up of nonsense and gibberish to achieve rhythmic effect. One of the first stereo rock'n'roll albums, Roy Orbison's Lonely and Blue from , finishes third and Elvis is fourth with Elvis is Back, also from An album recorded in just two sessions, Sam Cooke's Night Beat , is fifth.
Some inclusions aren't surprising at all: benchmark albums include Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon 15 , Radiohead's OK Computer 36 , Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys 18 , the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 9 and Carol King's Tapestry Van Morrison's seminal Astral Weeks is 11th.
With new features such as lossless music and podcasts, competition between Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music is hotter than ever. Music streaming services offer users a world of convenience and discovery, allowing people to listen to their favorite artists easily and quickly. In the past, some audiophiles may have scoffed at the quality of streamed music, but a growing number of providers include lossless and spatial Dolby Atmos audio at no extra charge. Besides that, there are numerous extra features, such as karaoke , podcasts and audiobooks , vying for your attention. If you're shopping around, the main two things you need to consider are monthly cost and connectivity. Most of the services have music catalogs with around million tracks, plus they enable you to stream from multiple devices.
I've checked out the biggest names, including Spotify , Apple Music , Amazon Music and YouTube Music , as well as smaller contenders such as Tidal , Qobuz , Deezer and Pandora Premium , to see how each platform stacks up for your subscription buck. It's worth noting that, in this roundup, I've purposefully left out services that can only play music in a radio format such as basic Pandora and UnRadio and that don't allow you to select your own songs. So which music streaming services offer the best combination of price, sound quality and library size? Read on to find an in-depth look at each of the services and a feature comparison, along with a full price breakdown in the chart at the bottom of the page. We'll update this list periodically. Read more: Apple Music vs. Spotify: Comparing the Top Music Streaming Services. Spotify is a pioneer in music streaming and is arguably the best-known service. It offers a number of curated music discovery services, including its Discover Weekly playlist, and is constantly implementing new ones, such as Stations.
It's also ramped up its nonmusic content with a push toward podcasts , which indirectly led to folk-rock icon Neil Young removing his music from the service. When it comes to choosing a service, it's a close race between Spotify Premium and Apple Music, but Spotify still wins as the best music streaming service overall. This is thanks to a fun, easy-to-use interface, an extensive catalog and the best device compatibility. Spotify also offers the best free tier: Without paying a dime or providing a credit card number, you can listen to millions of tunes and even stream Spotify Connect to numerous Wi-Fi devices. Unlike Spotify, competitors like Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited and Tidal are now offering lossless or even Dolby Atmos music at no extra charge.
Meanwhile, Spotify's planned HiFi lossless tier is still MIA and the company can't say when it will be coming. Best for: People who want a solid all-around service, and especially for people who love to make, browse and share playlists for any scenario. Read our Spotify Review. Despite a small price increase in , Apple Music is still able to offer a lot for the money, including million tracks and boasting both iOS and Android compatibility. The service runs second to Spotify in terms of subscribers, but surpasses its rival in one key respect. Yes, it has hi-res lossless and spatial audio albums at no extra charge, though Apple isn't saying how many of the total tracks this amounts to. While it makes the most sense if you're an Apple user, Music is an option if you've invested heavily in smart speakers including Google. If you own an Apple HomePod , Mini or Nest device you can summon Apple Music tracks with your voice. There are also a ton of curated playlists, many handcrafted by musicians and tastemakers, though it lacks the robust sharing options or cool add-ons available to Spotify.
Until recently, PC users have been in the dark as far as Apple Music is concerned as they lacked a dedicated app. However, this has changed with the release of a "preview" Music app for Windows 11 , giving PC fans a peek at what has been up to now a Mac-only experience. If you like to buy your own digital music, Apple Music is the only one of our top three with a digital locker to store your own library of songs -- YouTube Music, below, is the other music locker option. Best for: Those who are wrapped up in the Apple world, or who simply want excellent value for money. Read our Apple Music review. Qobuz offers hi-res audio streams too, and unlike Tidal you don't need a hardware MQA decoder to listen to them. They can sound great on an Android phone or a high-end music system, so it's flexible. Qobuz may not offer Dolby Atmos music, but the selection of 'immersive' songs on other services isn't that impressive anyway.
Uniquely, the service offers its own hi-res download store, and if you sign up for Sublime you get a discount on purchases. At 70 million tracks, Qobuz's streaming catalog rivals Tidal's and Spotify's in number, though it may not have the most obscure artists. Qobuz generally steers towards hi-res recordings so it is especially suited to jazz and classical fans, though its rock selection is fairly robust. Best for: Audiophiles who want hi-res music for a decent price plus the ability to buy and download albums. Now partly owned by Jack Dorsey's Block , Tidal has introduced some important changes recently: namely that it now has a free tier called, naturally, Tidal Free. Tidal HiFi Plus may be the most expensive of all the services, and while it offers hi-res and Dolby Atmos mixes, it now has another good reason for this.
Tidal's main hook has always been that its higher subscription price translates to better payouts to artists -- especially musicians who aren't at the top of the pop charts. Forget fractions of a cent for a play; with enough spins from enough people, this could mean serious money for your favorite band. While Tidal used to be the best option for audiophiles, Qobuz has caught up by promising arguably better sound quality no MQA decoder required , a cheaper price and some recent improvements in its catalog. Based on my own experience, Tidal still trumps it for breadth -- and it now exceeds 80 million tracks, including longtime holdouts Metallica. If you're an audiophile, a fan of urban music or a mix of both, then Tidal should appeal to you. Best for: Musically inclined purists who care deeply about sound quality and discovering new, up-and-coming artists.
Amazon Prime Music comes "free" as part of a Prime membership, but users can choose to upgrade to Music Unlimited. Music Unlimited now gives you access to millions of lossless tracks as well as over 1, "spatial" remixes, which can be played on Dolby Atmos soundbars, Android or iOS devices and the Amazon Echo Studio. In terms of usability, the Music Unlimited interface is also more powerful than before with playlists, genres and podcasts all accessible from the main page. Best for: Amazon Prime members who want to save a few bucks on a decent music catalog and higher-quality streams. Read our Amazon Music Android review. Without contracts it's pretty easy to cancel one service and start with another.
That said, swapping between music services isn't as straightforward, for example, as swapping between movie locker services using Movies Anywhere. If you don't want to have to rebuild your playlists and library from scratch when you switch, you have two main options -- a music locker service such as YouTube Music but this implies you have a library of ripped or bought MP3s , or the library import tool Soundiiz. Recently, Deezer has offered the ability for new users to convert their libraries from other services for free via another service called Tune My Music. The short answer is "no" and the long answer is "sort of, maybe. Apple may rave about how "magical" spatial music is, but unless you have an expensive Dolby Atmos system , you may not be able to hear the differences anyway.
In our own tests, we've found that a well-mixed Atmos track on a dedicated setup can be fun -- it's like a rollercoaster because it's great but you wouldn't want to use it as your sole form of transport. By comparison, using a pair of compatible AirPods we found the tracking to be laggy when attempting to move our heads around. On the other hand, spatial audio does make sense if you're watching a movie as you're not moving your head that much. The music industry tries unsuccessfully to push surround music every 20 years or so -- Quadraphonic in the s, DVD-Audio in the s -- but good old stereo will never go out of favor. At the time of writing, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited have the largest catalogs with million tracks each, followed by Spotify with 82 million. But that's not the end of the story: The number of songs offered by a music service used to be the main differentiator, but as always, it's quality over quantity that counts -- and particularly if you're looking for more obscure tracks.
Depending on your favorite genre, some of the services may offer a better catalog for under-the-radar Spotify , indie Apple or hip-hop artists Tidal. Users who are less ambitious about expanding their musical taste should be satisfied with the catalogs that all the services offer. Amazon was one of the first services to offer uploading your MP3 collection into the cloud, but this was officially discontinued in Meanwhile, both the Apple and YouTube services allow you to combine your personal music collection with the streaming catalog, though tagging and organization can be a time-consuming challenge your myriad live Phish tracks won't organize themselves. Still, if you've invested money in digital music over the years, those two services offer a patch to continue enjoying that music online.
AI-Drawn Comic Book in Trouble In Facebook Jail? Meta Will Explain Why Spotify's AI DJ ChatGPT, Dall-E FAQ Historic Snowstorm Brain Surgery 3, Years Ago 'Glass Onion' Director Commentary 7 Ways to Make Friends as an Adult. Your guide to a better future. Want CNET to notify you of price drops and the latest stories? No, thank you Accept. Why You Can Trust CNET. Ty Pendlebury. Ty Pendlebury Editor. Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio. Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast.
Credentials Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket. See full bio. Spotify Best music streaming service overall. See at Spotify. Apple Music Best alternative to Spotify. See at Apple. Qobuz Best for audiophiles. See at Qobuz. Tidal Best for compensating artists. See at Tidal. Amazon Music Unlimited Best for Prime members. See at Amazon. CNET Shopping Extension Get the lowest price on everything. Add CNET Shopping.
The Best Sounding Music Boxes We've Tested: Top Reviews by Experts,Sweet Baby James by James Taylor (1970)
WebFeb 21, · Size: cm*cm*5cm; Material: high quality wooden box and silver-plating metal, durable. more. ♬【Music theme】Tune of Davy Jones film theme music WebDec 29, · Song year: The big kick drum on “A Milli” allows you to test just how deep your bass frequencies can go, and that certainly makes it worth a mention. Overall, Webschwedenkreuz · Playlist · songs · K likes WebSome inclusions aren't surprising at all: benchmark albums include Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (15), Radiohead's OK Computer (36), Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys (18), the WebApr 15, · Subscribe: blogger.com (Bandcamp): blogger.com (iTunes): blogger.com by: Epic Soul WebListen on Spotify: To accompany our list of 50 great albums for audiophiles, we picked some of our favourite songs from the list and made them into this playlist for you ... read more
But although his consistent, present and some might say bland sound appears deceptively simple, it warrants much more careful listening. Listen to Vespertine by Björk on Tidal. But if Company B offers free replacement shipping when they find out there was damage during shipment as well as refunding , you might feel more eager to shop with them instead next time around. The masterstroke of the maestro of large-scale movie soundtracks is majestic and powerful and therefore demands a great deal from a system when it comes to scale and authority. When you close the flower girl necklace, it becomes a sunflower, which symbolizes health, happiness, vitality, and prosperity.
But Pink Floyd's landmark concept album, blending psychedelic rock, best sounding music, spoken word and sound effects, remains a remarkable piece of work that has had an inescapable influence on the music creation and production industry. Credentials Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. HomeChit is reader-supported. Trending Best Buys Newsletter Best wireless earbuds Best TVs Bristol Show Eventually, he committed himself into a psychiatric treatment facility and swiftly gained the distinction of becoming the first artist to leave Apple records. Tell best sounding music why! If you can do that, you have a fantastic system.
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