Audiophile Prog
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Recommendations/Featured albums
Forum Description: Make or seek recommendations and discuss specific prog albums
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=111894
Printed Date: August 02 2025 at 16:34
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Audiophile Prog
Posted By: fronobulax
Subject: Audiophile Prog
Date Posted: September 12 2017 at 15:34
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Hi, Maybe this has been covered before, but I'm wondering what albums you esteemed folks think are stellar recordings. I have a pile of money sunk into two stereo systems, and I have sourced out some recommendations from this awesome site only to find that although the music is OK, the recordings are unlistenable, auto-tuney, or overly compressed, especially new releases. Drums and vocals are a huge part of this, and I always think a drum kit should sound full range and natural, with vocals avoiding the sort of compression that sounds too digital and unnatural.
For example, I love the sound of ELP's Trilogy, but not so much BSS. Close to the Edge sounds fantastic, however I find TFTO muddy, with drums sounding like they were recorded in a cardboard box. (The Steven Wilson two channel mix is really no better, and his mix of "Power and the Glory" is clear, but sucks the air out of the performance and seems to emphasize each instrument's track individually rather than the glorious whole. This could possibly be the result of trying to remix stuff primarily for 5.1 enthusiasts) I don't judge music based on the recordings. I love Ange's "Cimitiere des Arlequins," which you may or may not agree is a pretty muffled record. The latest Opeth also contains some interesting (muffled?) choices in the mixing of the drums...I still like it a lot. I guess what I was hoping was that you folks might have some more obscure recommendations. I discovered "Locanda Delle Fate" on this site last week, and WOW is that an incredible piece of engineering with an awesome soundstage! I think everyone agrees that Pink Floyd sounds good, so maybe we could avoid them, and help each other out! There's no point in getting too technical, with various pressings and stuff, just great bands recorded well. Thanks!!! |
Replies:
Posted By: Mascodagama
Date Posted: September 12 2017 at 15:52
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If your tastes inlude jazz-inflected, slightly experimental folk rock, try the s/t album by The Pentangle. A demonstration class recording since 1968. Any of Steely Dan's albums - but particularly The Royal Scam, Aja and Gaucho - should tickle your earbuds. ------------- Soldato of the Pan Head Mafia. We'll make you an offer you can't listen to. http://bandcamp.com/jpillbox" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp Profile |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: September 12 2017 at 16:04
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not prog, but if you want to test your stereo system to the limit I recommend "Crash" by drummer Charly Antolini -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Quinino
Date Posted: September 12 2017 at 16:10
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Scott, I think I know what you mean but can't see you reaching your goal this way, with no additional details to guide us - let me put it this way: Which genres do you like the most ? Your fav bands ? Media: Vinyl, CD, FLAC, mp3... Only Prog - or other styles as well? Otherwise we'll fall in a contradiction: you don't judge music based on the recordings BUT you call for recommendations based (only?) on the recordings - where do we stand? Sorry if I misunderstood your meaning, anyways to get the ball rolling let me suggest http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=52192" rel="nofollow - this fine album I bought on FLAC (unfortunately not 24/96) but good quality all around production/mixing and MUSIC |
Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: September 12 2017 at 17:51
| Try Jade Warrior's "Now". Great recording and great music as well. John Mitchell's "Lonely Robot" is another one I really enjoy, specially the mastering. |
Posted By: kozlorf
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 00:21
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I always test my stereo with either "The Game" or "The Works" from Queen - mainly due to great sounding drums and vocals - so exactly on par with what you're looking for (mind, that there are few songs with drum machine on the latter; I love the blend of machine and real drums on "Machines" though). No pure prog, but prog-related I guess. As far as prog goes, I've always considered Supertramp's "A Crime Of The Century" as another "Dark Side Of The Moon", in terms that it sounds amazingly good as for the release year (1974). On Gentle Giant's "Free Hand" there is in my opinion the best sounding bass line ever - in the song called "His Last Voyage". Zappa's "Joe's Garage" and "You Are What You Is" also sound great. |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 07:15
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My main system is: Pink Triangle Anniversary turntable SME series V arm Lyra Lydian cartridge Audiolab 8000C pre and 8000P power amps Mission 753 Freedom speakers A few vinyls which stand out from memory are: Solution - Fully Interlocking (the drum intro to Carousel is amazing) Joan Armatrading - Me Myself I Belinda Carlisle - Runaway Horses Steeleye Span - Below the Salt Moving Hearts - The Storm Gentle Giant - Free Hand ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: Kingsnake
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 07:34
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Gentle Giant - Free Hand indeed is a very good recording. You can't really go wrong with the Moody Blues-albums 1967-1972. ( alot going in the music, that normal earbuds can't translate to the human ear) Also the three Rupert Hine-albums of the early eighties (Immunity - Waving not Drowning - Wildest Wish to Fly) have superb production qualities. Perhaps if you like Pink Floyd, give Eloy a go. It's rather sterile, but Frank really knows how to mix.
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Posted By: Quinino
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 08:12
Quinino approves this message - Thank you Tony !  |
Hercules wrote:Posted By: Kepler62
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 08:20
| I avoid CDs and digital recordings as much as possible. Don't know if you're into Krautrock but there are quite a few decent recordings that I have on vinyl. Grobschnitt Solar Music Live, Guru Guru Live '78, Neu!. A lot of stuff on the Brain label sounds terrific. Not going to go through titles but Conny Plank did some great work during the seventies. I have yet to hear a Canadian pressing that sounds anything near what you're looking for. The Canadian pressings no matter how well engineered the recording are the worst. |
Posted By: hellogoodbye
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 12:09
| Cd is for audiophile, Vinyl for music lover. |
Posted By: progmatic
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 14:19
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Almost all of the albums from the 70s recorded on Decca and Deram labels feature awesome recordings. Philips too, for the most part. ------------- PROGMATIC |
Posted By: JD
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 17:03
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Absolutely agree with the Trilogy/BSS assessment. (huge ELP fan BTW). But the first one that popped into my head was Thomas Dolby - The Flat Earth. Stellar recording ! I once had a Half Speed Mastered vinyl of ELP's Pictures at an Ex. It made a huge difference on my platter compared to the regular release which I also had. Ahhhh, those were the days. ------------- Thank you for supporting independently produced music |
Posted By: zachfive
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 18:00
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Anything by the Alan Parsons Project. Production value is top notch by one of the best engineers in the biz. |
Posted By: Larkstongue41
Date Posted: September 13 2017 at 19:06
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+1 Aja +1 Alan Parsons Project +1 Anything Conny Plank Depois Do Fim by Bacamarte is very well mixed. Bowie's Berlin trilogy. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden, Oldfield - Tubular Bells, Kraftwerk - Ralf und Florian are always among the first 10 albums I listen to to test new audio equipment along with Aja and Alan Parsons Project's I Robot. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew is another must. Also this. Such a unique guitar tone which cannot be faithfully reproduced with poor audio (youtube doesn't help): Now can we talk about overproduced albums I feel like I have more examples there.  ------------- "Larks' tongues. Wrens' livers. Chaffinch brains. Jaguars' earlobes. Wolf nipple chips. Get 'em while they're hot. They're lovely. Dromedary pretzels, only half a denar." |
Posted By: synthonaplinth
Date Posted: December 21 2017 at 20:24
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There seem to be many stellar recordings to choose from nowadays. Here are a few which have been either impeccably engineered or brought to life again through great remastering, IMHO. Original mixes: Jukka Gustavson-Toden Toistoa Solution- Cordon Bleu Ashra- New Age of Earth, Blackouts Stackridge- The Man With The Bowler Hat, Friendliness Remasters: Starcastle-S/T, Fountains of Light Wigwam- Being Caravan-In The Land of The Grey and The Pink Solis Lacus (Belgian jazz)- S/T Patto-Hold Your Fire I agree with the earlier poster who said that the Steely Dan remasters were fantastic, the same could be said for 'The Nightfly' by Donald Fagen, though it was originally a digital master, in 1982! A good quality DAC can also give your music that extra something.
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Posted By: Mascodagama
Date Posted: December 21 2017 at 21:04
------------- Soldato of the Pan Head Mafia. We'll make you an offer you can't listen to. http://bandcamp.com/jpillbox" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp Profile |
Posted By: progmatic
Date Posted: December 22 2017 at 07:51
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All of the Caravan remasters are incredible, especially Live at the New Symphonia. The recording is incredible. Music's not too shabby either. ------------- PROGMATIC |
Posted By: Lewian
Date Posted: December 24 2017 at 17:15
! A friend of mine has perfect pitch and worked for some equipment companies as test listener. Through this he met Mark Hollis, who is very much into audiophile sound. In any case, the last three Talk Talk albums sound very special to me (can't claim to be a gifted audiophile myself though). Other artists that impress my through sound are Holger Czukay (The New Millenium, Good Morning Story) and Battles. |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: December 25 2017 at 12:01
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I'm not an audiophile.....my system is still the once I purchased 35 years ago...though I have had to change the cd player once...mid priced std equipment..Onkyo table, Onkyo receiver/amp, Sony cd player , Ortofon S4 cartridge and original Advent 3 speakers.........but these albums always sounded good to me...but as many have said it depends on one's ear also... Joni Mitchell -Blue Neil Young- After the Goldrush Traffic= Low Spark Happy The Man- Crafty Hands IQ- Frequency and Dark Matter ... ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: lostrom
Date Posted: December 25 2017 at 16:18
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Just beware of brick walled CD's, the loudness war has ruined soooo much. ------------- lostrom |
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: December 25 2017 at 16:23
| Anything mixed by Roine. |
Posted By: Quinino
Date Posted: December 25 2017 at 16:26
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^ Any example ? |
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: December 25 2017 at 16:31
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Posted By: Quinino
Date Posted: December 25 2017 at 16:52
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^ There you are - totally agree ! (thought you were thinking any other band but FK...) |
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: December 26 2017 at 05:56
| Albums by other bands like Dårskapens Monotoni (Kaipa DC) or Entering the Spectra (Karmakanic) also apply. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: December 29 2017 at 14:36
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As far as original issues some have been mentioned already like Supertramp~CotC, Steely Dan~Aja, PF~DSOtM. My original copy of Marillion~Misplaced Childhood is excellent, also The Cars~Candy-O and Yes~Fragile. Since pretty much all new recordings are saved as 24bit digital masters now, the downstream processing plays a vital role in a new issue sounding "excellent". Whether the format is CD, digital hi-rez file or vinyl...The CD has easily become the lower SQ of all formats today. I have done countless A/B comparisons with CD and Vinyl in my system and CD loses each time....again on my system, YMMV. For new vinyl issues I'd suggest: Peter Gabriel's I-IV, plus So and Us. Absolutely steller productions, remixing and cut as 45RPM... Steven Wilson's The Raven and Insurgentes, crazy dynamics and resolution. The reissues of Can's Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi are magical. The bass notes are deep and clean, nothing muddy about the mix, these are all done from the original tapes. Porcupine Tree, pretty much all of them......Deadwing is finally getting redone for Feb release as well as In Absentia. I have both on pre-order, I have In Absentia original issue and it is already an excellent one, but has been out of print for awhile. Dot3 is fantastic for testing detail of bass notes on ur system..... There are many others by Riverside, Haken and Marillion. Brave is magical, out of print though, I could get $300 bucks for it prolly....never sell! Also it does matter your system whether you will be able to hear these records in all their glory, another subject though. -------------   
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Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: December 29 2017 at 15:44
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Disregarding the whole 'which edition/remaster/mix is better' here are some personal faves in terms of production: Dead Can Dance - Toward The Within Lucio Battisti - Anima Latina Steven Wilson - Insurgents Ryley Walker - Primrose Green Ange - Emile Jacotey Hooffoot - s/t Jon Hassell w Brian Eno - Fourth World: Possible Musics vol.1 Klaus Schulze - X Sigur Ros - Ágætis Byrjun David Axelrod - Songs of Innocence Kayo Dot - Coffins on Io Paatos - Timeloss Björn J:Son Lindh - Från Storstad til Grodspad The Enid - The Seed & The Sower (more specifically the monumental track Reverberations) Genesis - A Trick of the Tail Alan Goraguer - La Planete Sauvage Pink Floyd - Delicate Sound of Thunder King Crimson - Disciplin ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: December 29 2017 at 21:42
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Personally i find electronic artists to have some of the most sophisticated production techniques My favorites include (but not limited to....) Infected Mushroom Shpongle Air Coil Tangerine Dream Klaus Schulze it has to do how carefully each sound is mixed, recorded, etc the newer releases are obviously more stellar on newer recording systems -------------  https://rateyourmusic.com/~siLLy_puPPy |