What type of music do Ascend aficionados listen to? Hoping to poll...

[Trench]

I've read that Ascend will reveal a bad recording for what it is. I don't listen to top-notch recordings of classical, jazz, or vocals. I like older stuff like Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Police, Eagles, Barry White...and just got new Rob Zombie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Lucinda Williams.

What are the hard-core Ascenders listening to? With a playlist like mine, am I setting up for disappointment or happiness?

[dpristin]

I’d say that every musical genre has its share of good and bad recordings. My preferences are mostly classical and jazz, plus some pop/rock (Peter Gabriel, Sting, Mark Knopfler etc. – can anyone classify them? By the way, Clapton's "Unplugged" is considered to be recorded very well, as well as, say, Knopfler's "Brothers in Arms"). If the recording is good – it’s a real treat. The downside is – when it stinks, you know that immediately. In fact, it can be quite frustrating when you love WHAT you hear, but hate HOW it’s recorded. My wife is not an audio aficionado in any way, but after a relatively short time since we’ve bought Ascends, she can tell when the recording stinks and when it’s great. I’d say – try them at home, all you risk is shipping. Get a pair of 170ES, take your time (a couple of days) to get used to the new sound, then decide if you going to keep them. So far I haven’t heard about too many people sending them back :-).

[curtis]

I would rather hear a crappy recording on my Ascends than a lesser speaker.

A lesser speaker will make a crappy recording even crappier. :)

[dpristin]

I think the bottom line is - once you hear a good recording played by a good pair of speakers (that you can actually afford) - there is no way back.

[shane55]

I agree.
Bad speakers (or a bad system altogether) will make any recording sound like crap. There is always a bit of GIGO to whatever you're listening to.

Lately I've gotten into some older classical recordings that have been beautifully restored onto SACD. I want to be able to appreciate them to the best of my ability, so shouldn't I play them through the best speakers/system I can afford?

Good speakers will make older, lousy recordings sound as good as they can, and they will make great recordings sound fantastic!

Bach, Clapton, Zep, Tull, Mozart, Miles, Trane, Rancid... whatever.

All better through my 340SE's.

shane

[drewface]

i listen to a lot of punk, ska, and general rock stuff. i can say without hesitation that rock sounds excellent on ascends. i don't know how "hardcore ascendian" i would be considered, but i, too, was worried that my rock (a lot of it underground, small-budget recordings) would sound bad, but nearly all of it sounds great regardless of recording quality.

i actually have a couple CDs that i've always thought were recorded really bad, but they sound 10x better on the ascends. likewise, i have some great cds that seem to lose something. the first time i listened to nirvana's "nevermind" album, it didn't sound too hot. last time i gave it a spin it wasn't bad, so i don't know what the deal was with it the first time.

anyways, don't worry about your music sounding bad on the ascends!

[cyberbri]

I listen to everything I used to. But now I am searching out more different genres and artists, and going back to a lot of stuff I haven't listened to in years, because it all sounds so good on these speakers. :D

[shane55]

I listen to everything I used to. But now I am searching out more different genres and artists, and going back to a lot of stuff I haven't listened to in years, because it all sounds so good on these speakers. :D
Good point.
It's like getting a new Plasma TV... you want to re-watch your collection.
With these speakers, you want to re-hear as well as make new discoveries.:D

shane

[BradJudy]

I've read that Ascend will reveal a bad recording for what it is. I don't listen to top-notch recordings of classical, jazz, or vocals. I like older stuff like Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Police, Eagles, Barry White...and just got new Rob Zombie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Lucinda Williams.

What are the hard-core Ascenders listening to? With a playlist like mine, am I setting up for disappointment or happiness?

I don't think you'll be disappointed. Just out of the bands you mentioned, Zep, Eagles, Rob Zombie (and White Zombie), Clapton and Lucinda are all in my collection and have been through the Ascends. Heck, some of those are reference tracks for listening.

I mainly listen to a combination of rock (Zombie, Audioslave, Evanescense, etc), female singer/songwriters (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, etc) and male fronted not as rock stuff (Counting Crows, Sting, etc). I also listen to a lesser amount of a several other genres (jazz, country, classical, etc).

The times when CD quality has annoyed me have been somewhat unlikely CDs that happen to have high noise levels in recording.

[kinggimp82]

I've read that Ascend will reveal a bad recording for what it is. I don't listen to top-notch recordings of classical, jazz, or vocals. I like older stuff like Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Police, Eagles, Barry White...and just got new Rob Zombie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Lucinda Williams.

What are the hard-core Ascenders listening to? With a playlist like mine, am I setting up for disappointment or happiness?



i dont listen to many of those artists you listed. ive listened to collective soul and pink floyd on my 170 se's. collective soul's self titled album sounds incredible. pink floyd sounds good also. not as good as collective soul but good. and im powering them with a crappy $200 pioneer receiver. :) for now anyway.

and as for my experience with bad recordings ted nudgents great gonzo's cd is horrid. it is way too bright and is basically just really loud.

i highly doubt ud be dissapointed


and thanks for reminding me about rob zombie. havent listened to that yet. :D

[Asliang]

I think "anime" based music is like 90% of my sound collection. Many of the top orchestral composers make songs for Japanese animation. It's kind of funny how I found my way here, I was a hollywood movie soundtrack (orchestral score) nut and I looked at some of the other works in their resume.

Great instrumentals, professional singers, epic movie sound-track style scores (think The Rock, Gladiator, etc). You can keep this kind of music on whether you are doing critical listening or sitting back and reading--it's all very nonfatiguing.

[Trench]

I think "anime" based music is like 90% of my sound collection. Many of the top orchestral composers make songs for Japanese animation. It's kind of funny how I found my way here, I was a hollywood movie soundtrack (orchestral score) nut and I looked at some of the other works in their resume.

Great instrumentals, professional singers, epic movie sound-track style scores (think The Rock, Gladiator, etc). You can keep this kind of music on whether you are doing critical listening or sitting back and reading--it's all very nonfatiguing.

Can you recommend a couple? What are you favorite ones?

[Asliang]

Can you recommend a couple? What are you favorite ones?


Hmm...without knowing your musical tastes its hard, but I'll take a stab...

The most popular anime composers are Yokko Kano and Yuki Kaijura. I think a couple of American composers have composed scores for anime before, like Mark Macina.

Yoko Kanno has a bit of electronica and pop rock, jazz, vocal harmony, male and female ochestral music, pretty demanding instrumentals. Her songs are designed for action-based shows, there's a mix of high energy songs and introspective songs. She herself has a pretty singing voice, and goes under the pseudonym "Gabriela Robin" when she is singing, probably to add mystique to the "Gabriela name" because she sings with a hodgepodge mix of about 7 languages simultaneously. As far as I know her works aren't liscensed in the US so bit torrent and isohunt can be your friend, but if not, forget I mentioned that and go into pandora.com, they have thousands of sample songs of all genres there. Kanno is pretty popular because she has a large group of singers from several countries and they all sing in different languages.

All her works are awesome, but her best are (as I would list them):

(1) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST 2--(18 tracks)music of all types, the instrumentals and vocals are off the charts. Probably her best work.

(2) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST1 (16 tracks)--Mostly instrumentals. Her song "Inner Universe" as well Propellerhead's "Her Majesty's Secret Service" are often used as speaker workouts to test a loudspeaker's abilities under demanding instrumentals.

(3) Wolf's Rain OST1 & 2 (18 tracks and 23 tracks)--I think the second OST one is slightly better, but like the the Ghost in the Shell OSTs, all of her works are very similar in nature--demanding instrumentals, angelic female singers of various nationalities, some great solo guitar & vocals from Steve Conte of the New York Dolls. There's more introspective "in the meadows" type music these OSTs, because Ghost in the Shell is a show about a SWAT team, so it has several tracks that are heavier in electronica (nothing like heavy metal tho).

(4) Cowboy Bebop OSTs--There's something like two hundred songs in this sound track. The best ones are "Goodnight Julia" (jazzy), "Space Lion/Jupiter Jazz Pt.2" (Jazz, bass, and some chanting natives), "What Planet is This" (jazz), "Ask DNA" (jazz and chorus vocals), "PAPA Plastic" (young female vocals, some bass guitar), "Words that we couldn't Say" (Steve Conte doing his thing), "Call me, Call me" (Again, Conte wonderfully doing his thing), "The Real Folk Blues" (jazz and rock mix, Kanno singing), and the best song in their lineup in my opinion, "Blue", which is "Gabriela" singing (Gabriela sings with a high voice using a bunch of languages, Kanno sings in a deeper voice, usually in English) with some light electronica. The show Cowboy Bebop is about a bunch of ex-cons turned into bounty hunters in the 22nd century, and the sadder, introspective parts of life. I think MTV ran this show nonstop for like 5 straight years, and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim ran the show for 5-6 years, because it was so popular, so that's a hell of a lot of re-runs for one show. Kanno tends to partner up with the same show producers, kind of like a James Newton Howard with summer blockbusters. There's probably a dozen or more songs that are excellent that I missed, but trying to find good ones out of 200+ songs, many of them remixes or mood pieces, is a little hard =P

Yuki Kaijura does a lot full orchestra pieces, while Kanno tends to reserve the full orchestra for set pieces like ending themes or for pivotal spots. Yuki Kaijura is very well known for her excellent use of violins, and strings done well do add a pang of sadness to the pieces.

(1) Mai Hime OSTs 1&2 (24 and 32 tracks) --the first soundtrack is the better one I think, but pretty much every song in either soundtrack either is a slow piece meant to pick your heartstrings or uplift you while you are hit by the entire orchestra. Tracks #14 (Duran Shoukan--slow, then fast), # (Koi wo Shita Kara--slow piece), #21 (Yoru no Soko ni Shizumu--a lot of violin and bass, probably the best song in the soundtrack), #22 (Tokiro no Mai), #23 (Mezame) are the best on the 1st OST. For the second, I would pick out #6, #7, #8, and #10 tracks as my favorites. I think this show had something to do with a bunch of girls who were in difficult situations and were given great powers to save themselves, at the cost of putting what was "most important" to themselves on the line. They later found out that they had to kill each other (all of them were friends at school), and well, their "most precious"--family, friends--were on the line. If they lost, people would die. Kind of a depressing show; it's highlander with a twist.

(2) Mai Otome OSTs (26 and 26 tracks)--very similar to the Mai Hime soundtracks. This is basically the sequel to the other show. The music is more upbeat and European (less violins, more guitar). It has a few great tracks but the songs are all very different. The Mai Hime soundtrack's songs are all very similar, and makes them easy to play all the way through--it keeps you in this fixed mood. This show was significantly less depressing than Mai Hime though, so its obvious why there are more types of songs rather than all of them "I'm about to kill my friend of 5 years" type songs.

Anyway, both of these are pretty popular composers. Another soundtrack I would suggest is "Witch Hunter Robin" (2 OSTs, 23 tracks each). These songs are either upbeat or moody, but are all really well made. I found this soundtrack online about 4 years ago and I think that's when I really started picking up on anime music--I thought it was from a movie or something! The show seems like it was inspired from X-Men. The government is trying to catch any "witches" off the streets (and do testing on them, the normal wicked routine), but the catch is they are recruiting "witches" to do the job. There's a lot of questions about morality and reasons why witch hunts have taken place over the centuries.

Hope these 7 recommendations start you off!

[boludaso]

Great stuff. I think my best recorded CD that i have is Fleetwood Mac's "The Dance". Its a live recording. This CD gave me a audio orgasm. Yeah, too much...

Not sure if any of you download music; if so try out this site. been using for a month and love it. www.allofmp3.com.

aside from that, to the original question, i listen to everything. The oldest music going back to the 60's, but mainly 80's music, Andrew Lloyd Webber plays, country, and all of Oingo Boingos and Jimmy Buffets music.

if any of you are looking for a good intro to classical music i'd start with these cds. they have the best of the best along with some great opera scores that astonished me that a voice could do what was done.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000241EG/qid=1152294831/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/102-7229259-8744944?s=music&v=glance&n=5174

or

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00065EDVG/qid=1152294831/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/102-7229259-8744944?s=music&v=glance&n=5174

does anyone have any recommendations for Pavaratti or Bocelli?

[BradJudy]

Not sure if any of you download music; if so try out this site. been using for a month and love it. www.allofmp3.com.


Keep in mind that this site is no more legal than downloading via P2P, you're just paying for convenience, not a legal license to the music. The only reason it hasn't been shut down is the difficulty in suing them in Russia. The UK music copyright group just got permission to sue them, so it will be interesting to see how it works out.

[Eddie]

I've read that Ascend will reveal a bad recording for what it is. I don't listen to top-notch recordings of classical, jazz, or vocals. I like older stuff like Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Police, Eagles, Barry White...and just got new Rob Zombie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Lucinda Williams.

What are the hard-core Ascenders listening to? With a playlist like mine, am I setting up for disappointment or happiness?

Mostly jazz (horns, vocals, piano), classical (strings and piano), instrumental music, vocal-dominated rock/alternative CD.

The quality of the recording is more important than the specific artist/genre. I have some ancient Zep CDs that sound better on my old Sony minisystem than on my main setup, but the newer remasters are fine. Playing with tone controls and DSP modes does patch up bad recordings somewhat though.