I bought a Naim Amp & CD Player - Need some music for it!

[Sluggster]

I'm looking for some music to play on my new system. I don't care what it is as long as it's very well recorded - this is the important bit! Anyone got some suggestions? I'm enjoying the Naim Sampler vol2 at the moment.

Would like, maybe, some piano music, something with a bit of bass, I like acoustic guitar and stuff like Cherry Ghosts, Live, Geoff Buckley, System of a Down, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan compositions played by people who can sing very open, just want to try some new stuff. All suggestions welcome.

[EricHitchmo]

Skylarking by XTC
Master Of Puppets by Metallica
Music for the jilted generation by Prodigy


Great albums

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by Sluggster

I'm looking for some music to play on my new system. I don't care what it is as long as it's very well recorded - this is the important bit! Anyone got some suggestions? I'm enjoying the Naim Sampler vol2 at the moment.

Would like, maybe, some piano music, something with a bit of bass, I like acoustic guitar and stuff like Cherry Ghosts, Live, Geoff Buckley, System of a Down, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan compositions played by people who can sing very open, just want to try some new stuff. All suggestions welcome.

Thats not a good start really. You place big limits on your musical exploration by saying it has to be well recorded. Your tastes are pretty restrictive too, not sure where SOAD fit into that lot ?

Anyway, following SOAD thread. Try Janes Addiction - Ritual Lo Habitual, Tool- Lateralus, Aenima, Faith No More-Angel Dust, Deftones-White Pony, Metallica -Master of Puppets, Helmet-Meantime, Melvins-Houdini, Big Black -Songs about F, Sonic Youth-DayDream Nation, My Bloody Valentine- Loveless, Killing Joke (self titled first album is great on vinyl, latest self titled album is good on CD).

For other stuff. Nick Drake -Five leaves left, Patti Smith -Horses, Scott walker -Scott 4, Paul Simon, Tim Buckley.

Enough to get you started, some sound good, some not.

[Sluggster]

karkus30, thanks for your response. I have tons of badly recorded music - most CDs seem to be like that these days. This thread is not about buying more duff recordings to widen my musical horizons.

I'm looking for ANY well recorded music, jazz, country, rock, classical etc. Can't see how that restricts my choice. Anything (I don't care what it is as long as it's very well recorded - this is the important bit!) strikes me as being a pretty wide brief...........

The list of artists just happens to be what I'm listening to at the moment and if you happen to know of anything along those lines then all the better. Please don't restrict yourself to those types of music though.

With this in mind would you mind highlighting the albums you mention that are well recorded.

I'm looking for constructve input not 'your musical tastes are crap and too restrictive'. For instance, Rage Against the Machine's albums tend to be very well done and sound great on my system. The Blue Nile have superb recordings at Linn Studios, Naim do a lot of excellent recordings but some of the older ones contain a fair amount of hiss etc......

[karkus30]

Originally Posted by Sluggster

karkus30, thanks for your response. I have tons of badly recorded music - most CDs seem to be like that these days. This thread is not about buying more duff recordings to widen my musical horizons.

I'm looking for ANY well recorded music, jazz, country, rock, classical etc. Can't see how that restricts my choice. Anything (I don't care what it is as long as it's very well recorded - this is the important bit!) strikes me as being a pretty wide brief...........

The list of artists just happens to be what I'm listening to at the moment and if you happen to know of anything along those lines then all the better. Please don't restrict yourself to those types of music though.

With this in mind would you mind highlighting the albums you mention that are well recorded.

I'm looking for constructve input not 'your musical tastes are crap and too restrictive'. For instance, Rage Against the Machine's albums tend to be very well done and sound great on my system. The Blue Nile have superb recordings at Linn Studios, Naim do a lot of excellent recordings but some of the older ones contain a fair amount of hiss etc......

Apologies if that comment sounded a bit blunt. I have been where you are now and it leads in a very unspectacular direction. The thing about owning a good system is that it is able to let you enjoy music regardless of its recorded quality. Most of those albums that I mentioned are pretty good recordings..........the trouble with that is that you then have to decide if they are lifelike or not. For instance, Metallica's Black Album is well recorded but sounds too polished to my ears. Keep an ear open for any recordings that feature Andy Wallace as mixer or Bob Ludwig or Steve Albini (incredible energetic sound. The latest Shellac album is worth buying. He only likes analogue recordings) or Phil Ramone.

[steve1056]

I expect you might have some of these, but try....

Audioslave - Out Of Exile
Tracy Chapman - 1st Album
Marc Cohn - 1st Album
Shawn Covin - Fat City
Crowded House - Recurring Dream
Willy Deville - Miracle
Dire Straits - 1st Album
Newton Faulkner - Hand Built By Robots
Peter Gabriel - So
Incubus - Morning View
Jonny Lang - Lie To Me
Lyle Lovett - Joshua Judges Ruth
Peter Malick Group - Featuring Norah Jones
Amanda Marshall - 1st Album
Sarah Mclachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Surfacing & Afterglow
Keb Mo - Keb Mo
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia & Deadwing
Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
Paul Simon - Graceland
Steely Dan - Gaucho & Everything Must Go
James Taylor - Hourglass
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand The Weather & The Sky Is Crying
Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat & The Hunter

These all sound great on my current system. I had a number of them when I had my Naim based system and IIRC, they all sounded good on that.

[Sluggster]

Cheers Steve1056. quite a few of those are albums I owned at some point - some even on vinyl (in the days when I had an Ariston RD80 - could never afford a Sondek)!!

karkus30, thanks for the heads up on those guys.

These days I can have a quick 30 second listen on i-Tunes and take the ones i think I might like to the next level - buy it.

If your interested, the Naim Samplers (from the Naim website)are £5 and have about 12 tracks on them. They are very well recorded and they have some lovely records on them from a fairly broad range of types.