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OT: what's in your cd player?


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Haven't had a stereo since college, never could stand to have a radio going in the car or while I was working. I don't have a clue who most of those singers are you guys are talking about. Pretty much the only music I listen to is when I'm on the 'phone on hold. Listened to country music growing up, most everyone in my town did.
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Matt - Buddha Bar, I'm impressed. I've introduced a lot of people to Buddha Bar over the past couple of years and they all love it.

 

Right now in the CD player is Velvet Revolver - Contraband.

 

In the DVD player is Stevie Ray Vaughan - Live at the El Mocombo

 

And in the minidisc is - Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions.

 

In one CD drive on my PC is Weezer - Green Album

 

and in the other CD drive is a psychedelic trance compilation by Tsuyoshi Suzuki.

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I found a new hybrid SACD (Super Audio CD)/ordinary CD reissue of Van Cliburn / Kondrashin's performance of the Tchaikovsky 1st piano concerto from the early 1960s. This cost me a princely $12 at Border's Bookstore this past weekend. The liner notes stated that this was one of the first stereo recordings ever made by RCA. They used a 2 or 3 track tape machine running at 30 tpi. The digital technology basically picked up everything that was on the master tape. Because of the nature of editing in those days (razor blade and glue), the sound engineers bascially didn't edit this performace at all - just took it in as it came. I was expecting a hissy, tinny performance with compressed dynamic range. I bought it really because Van Cliburn is one of the 20th century's best performers.<p>Well, I can't stop listening to this! IT'S FANTASTIC! The S/N ratio is so low that there is no audible tape hiss. The pianissimo sections are so soft that if I turn up the volume to hear it, the fortissimo sections blow out my eardrums. The dynamic range is fully there! The sound is rich and incredible. You hear every nuance out of Van Cliburn's Steinway. Every little detailed expression from the orchestra is there. This is one of the best concerto recordings I've ever heard.<p>There's great balance between the soloist and the symphony. On a lot of these concerto recordings, the soloist dominates the sound all the time, and the orchestra sounds as if they were playing 100 feet away in another room. NOT ON THIS ONE BABY!<p>Finally, as if this wasn't enough, the Tchaikovsky concerto is paired with Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto. This too, is one of the best performances that I've ever heard - and I've heard MANY of these concertos by the world's best both in concert and on recordings. This is a highly recommended mid-priced CD reissue. Don't just take my word for it. I later found out that this is THE recording that is recommended by the NPR Guide to Classical Music for both the Tchikovsky and Rachmaninoff 2nd.
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Robert, this may render you jealous, but I have attended a live Van Cliburn concert of

Tchaikovski's 1st piano concerto in Paris in the late 50s. If I remember well the very young

man he was at the time

had just won the Tchaikovski Competition in Moscow. I can still see him with his mass of

dark

curly hair sitting at the piano at the Palais de Chaillot. But I don't have his recording of the

concerto, "just" Martha Argerich's. Your post might entice me to go dig for it.

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It's late here; I've turned all the sounds off. If I wake up normally tomorrow I'll put on Martin Newell's mini-CD "Songs from the Station Hotel" but if I think I need a double shot of aural caffeine I'll put on either one or other of three compilations of raunchy, brassy Japanese pops from the early sixties: Eri Chiemi, the Peanuts, that kind of stuff (from back in the days when recording contracts were awards to voices and musicality rather than dance moves, trim thighs, and the ability to simper winsomely on the boob tube). "Come onna my house!"
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I just got the new Crosby, Still and Nash (no Young) greatest hits, and it goes from my living room to my cars and back pretty much each time I go somewhere.

 

I also have two Dire Straits discs in the home stereo CD changer, "Making Movies" and "Love over Gold". When the TV is boring, I hit these two discs back to back.

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