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 May 15, 2006 My Five Favorite Demo CDs I’ve reviewed audio components for over ten years now, and as a result I’ve been asked plenty of times about my system, my room, and even the music I listen to. The answers, though, are almost always the same: my room has changed in the last two years only because I’ve moved, I buy new audio components only when something really bowls me over, and despite the fact that my CD collection has grown to well over 1000 titles, I’ve used the same small group of favorite demo CDs for years. I think this consistency is important: to evaluate something, you need fixed reference points. Whether it’s your room, your system, or the CDs you listen to, those reference points can’t change from week to week, or even from year to year. Some are surprised to learn that none of my favorite recordings was released by an "audiophile" label. The reason is simple: although some CDs from those labels may be very good in terms of sound quality, very few of them contain music that I can listen to enjoyably over the long term. My demo material mustn’t only sound good -- I’ve got to really enjoy the music, too. That way, I can listen to it over and over without wincing or groaning -- and when you evaluate as many components as I do, that’s important. In no particular order, my five favorite demo CDs are as follows:
Released just before Cockburn’s transition from acoustic to electric guitar, Humans is a ten-song wonder that I still often listen to straight through. Gene Martynec produced all of Cockburn’s albums from the 1970s through the beginning of the ’80s, and he gave Humans a punchy, vibrant sound that wonderfully conveys Cockburn’s music, although some might consider the ’70s-ish bloom on the drums a little dated. But that’s not why Humans is one of my reference discs; instead, I listen mostly to the sound of Cockburn’s deep, resonant voice. On this album, Cockburn’s voice and guitar are tonally dead-on. I’ve heard Humans so often -- and have seen Cockburn in concert more than a half-dozen times -- that I know his voice by heart. More important, I know when an audio component gets it right -- or wrong. But not all Humans are created equal. That first LP I owned sounded quite good but was physically lightweight and flimsy -- I more or less wore it out. And the first CD edition, which I bought when it was released in 1992, sounded dismal: thin and lacking in dynamics, it paled in comparison to even the flimsy LP. True North Records came through in 2003, though, with Humans: Deluxe Edition [TND 317], which featured a 24-bit/96kHz remastering job that bettered my original LP, and a bonus track: a live version of "Grim Travellers," the album’s opening track. Perhaps now that Humans has, 23 years after it was first released, finally received an "audiophile-grade" pressing -- on CD, mind you, not LP -- the Audio Ideas Guide reviewer has gotten his wish and everyone can consider it to be the masterpiece it is.
While the recording quality of my CD would not be considered the state of the art, what I like most about it is how much more I can hear on it today than I could when I bought it back in 1987 -- it’s as if I unearth a bit more from this treasure whenever my system takes another step forward. Back when I used a Denon DCD-1300 CD player, I could barely discern what some of the instruments were at the back of the hall. What’s more, the voices were obscured, and the sense of space was stunted to the point where the soundstage was more or less flat as a pancake. But as the digital sources I used improved, that steadily changed -- instruments were easier to discern, voices better delineated, and the sense of space exploded into my room. What had once been a pancake was now a balloon of sound breaking through the walls of my room. I chalk this up to resolution, and it’s why I always use The Mission to evaluate CD players and DACs -- as digital sources have improved over the last 20 years, the improvements I’ve heard in this recording have been astonishing. But by the time I reviewed the Zanden 5000 II and IV DACs and the Weiss Medea DAC a few years ago, I thought I’d heard everything The Mission had to offer. Then the Aurum Acoustics Integris CD player arrived (it’s still here; review forthcoming), and it has managed to convey a tiny bit more space and improve the delineation of the stage just a touch. Could there be any more information on The Mission that I have yet to hear? I have no idea, but I hope this original copy of mine keeps on playing; if it does, it will remain one of my references for many years to come.
Canada’s Blue Rodeo burst onto the music scene in 1987 with Outskirts, their amazing debut album. Outskirts won them a large fan base and high critical acclaim. Rolling Stone gave the album a rare five-star rating and went on to say that "The best new American band may very well be Canadian." In 1989, Blue Rodeo followed up Outskirts with the sprawling Diamond Mine, which I think is even better than Outskirts (six stars, perhaps?). Diamond Mine could have been an audiophile’s dream -- it was produced with plenty of natural-sounding miking and innovative image placement in the soundstage -- but it’s plagued by late-’80s steeliness and a lack of dynamic range. That is probably not the fault of the recording itself, but of the CD mastering process -- so many discs of that era sounded like that. (I still hope that someone, someday, will remaster it properly; this album is a treasure.) In 1991, Blue Rodeo hiccupped a bit with Casino -- Dwight Yoakam’s producer, Pete Anderson, was at the helm of an album designed from the get-go to be "radio friendly," and in the end, Casino was simply good, not great. In 1992 they lashed back with Lost Together, which I’ve grown to like more over time, but it still wasn’t quite of the caliber of Outskirts or Diamond Mine, and didn’t really move the band forward. In 1994, however, Blue Rodeo hit a home run with Five Days in July and its confusingly titled single, "Five Days in May." While I can’t say Five Days is necessarily better or worse than Outskirts or Diamond Mine, it’s easily their equal, and sonically superior (at least until someone remasters Mine). Supposedly, Five Days was recorded one summer in an Ontario farmhouse. One might also guess from the title that it was recorded in just five days, but I don’t know for sure. But where, when, and how this album was recorded don’t really matter -- the result is a countrified pop-rock phenomenon with gloriously rich sound, superbly recorded vocals, and a well-defined and atmospheric soundstage. I remember playing this disc in a crowded room at an audio show; 20 seconds into the first track, the room had gone silent. The exhibitor in charge sat down beside me and said, "That sounds amazing." Braverman was right.
If I had to pick my favorite Ani DiFranco album, it would probably be Not a Pretty Girl, which was released the year before Dilate -- I’d missed it by one year, then wasted the next five finding my way back. However, when it comes to musicianship and sound quality, Up Up Up Up Up Up gets the nod and has become a demo disc. I have no idea what DiFranco does to get such great sound on her CDs -- I watched a DVD of her in the recording studio, and her equipment appears to be nothing special whatsoever. But the sound quality of this and many of her other albums is reference-grade -- five stars and all that stuff. Up Up Up Up Up Up sounds rich, clean, and lively. Her voice is pristine, which is why I always use this disc to assess a component’s reproduction of female vocals. The album also has some of the most innovative image placement I’ve heard on any pop/rock release. Whenever I’m evaluating a component’s soundstage re-creation and image specificity, I always cue up track 7, "Everest," to see if the system can get it right. Reproduced correctly, DiFranco’s voice should be far toward the left-hand speaker and a little way behind the speaker plane -- it shouldn’t "pull" or be "smeared" toward the left-hand speaker but hover in space, not too big and not too small. It’s hard to get it just right -- which is exactly why this track is such a good test of systems and components.
But besides coming up with a gutsy, powerful sound, Rubin has also done some interesting things with soundstage re-creation and image placement, even if the stage presented here is a wholly "unnatural" result of studio mixing and manipulation, not something captured in a real space. Take track 4, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," a duet with Fiona Apple: The soundstage is huge, sprawling like a cloud in and around the speakers; Cash’s and Apple’s voices are rich, carved into the air with a defined sense of space. When speakers can handle it all -- as when I reviewed the MB Quart VS 1Fs and the PSB Platinum M2s, both driven by beefy amps -- the result is nothing short of glorious. Which is what the best of high-end audio should be about. …Doug Schneider
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Bruce Cockburn is an icon of the
Canadian folk music scene. His recording career began in 1970 with his self-titled debut
album, and he’s delivered more than 20 albums since. His 1980 release, Humans,
was his 11th, and was the first LP I bought after I got my first stereo system, in 1981. I
bought the record based on a review in Andrew Marshall’s Audio Ideas Guide
magazine, which for decades has been a mainstay of Canadian audio publishing. I don’t
even remember the reviewer’s name -- as I recall, it wasn’t Marshall himself --
but the review was a rave. The writer thought that if the LP could be released in a true
audiophile edition -- half-speed mastered and pressed on thick virgin vinyl, I suspect, as
those were hot at the time -- then it might well be considered a "masterpiece."
But I don’t think Humans needs any type of special treatment to be
considered a masterpiece because, musically, that’s exactly what it is. It also has
quite a special sound that I know very well.
Ennio Morricone’s music for the
1986 film The Mission won an Oscar for Best Original Score -- which is how I
learned about it. I bought the disc shortly after the Academy Awards ceremonies, and by
now it has earned not only that Oscar but the distinction of being the oldest demo CD I
own -- this same disc has spun in every system I’ve tried since I first brought it
home. The CD has since been rereleased a number of times -- the most recent edition
I’ve seen is EMI 811267 -- but I have no idea how any of those reissues sound. I know
only how my copy sounds: Virgin CDV 2402.
The Abso!ute Sound’s
Peter Braverman called Blue Rodeo’s Five Days in July [Discovery 77013]
"one of the best-sounding CDs I’ve ever heard." He was right -- but
it’s more than just a great-sounding CD; musically, this is a phenomenal blend of
rock, pop, country, and a little bit of folk.
The first time I tried
Ani DiFranco’s music on for size, I’d taken a friend’s recommendation and
bought her 1996 release, Dilate. Supposedly, it would give me a taste of what all
the "Ani fuss" was about. I hated it, and didn’t listen to another DiFranco
album for five years. Then, for no other reason than a good sale price, I bought Up Up
Up Up Up Up [Righteous Babe 13]. Listening to it, I learned that there might well be
something to this independent folk superstar. In fact, I was blown away -- it was nothing
like Dilate. I then went out and bought all of her other discs, all at once.
The fifth of my five
favorites is the fourth of Johnny Cash’s series for American Recordings produced by
Rick Rubin: American IV: The Man Comes Around [Universal 063339]. Released in 2003,
it’s the most recent addition to my top five, and features the robust, feisty,
visceral sound this series is known for. It’s not what audiophiles call
"natural"-sounding, because the vocals and the instruments are all very
close-miked -- it’s in your face. However, it’s also very clean sounding
and highly detailed, particularly Cash’s voice. These attributes make The Man
Comes Around very demanding of speakers and amplifiers -- I’ve had amps clip and
speakers distort as they try to play this disc at near-lifelike levels. It’s my acid
test for reproducing something that sounds raw and raucous: Speakers that can’t play
loud and amplifiers that can’t really put out don’t do well reproducing this
material.