OFF: What hi-fi equipment do you use to listen to Hawkwind?

[Alastair Sumner]

I just got back from my local hi-fi shop where I auditioned Rega P2 and P3
turntables in their listening room. I bought a Rega P3 with a decent
cartridge in the end. As reference vinyl I took the Charisma LPs -
Astounding Sounds, 25 Years On, Quark, PXR5 and Levitation on Bronze. These
LPs seem to be among the best produced of all Hawkwind albums to me.

The system they setup for me revealed a whole new level of detail. It's
hard to explain but you notice things you don't normally notice. You could
hear all the little variations and tones in Robert Calvert's voice on
Deathtrap. The "Deathtrap...deathtrap" background chorus became much more
apparent to. I might be mistaken but during Robot I swear I heard "engine"
noises which simply don't exist on my system. I actually turned the volume
right down thinking there was some interference or noise from outside. It
sounded like a car pulling away. The bass guitar on Freefall sounded really
good and the white noise effect through both speakers was so smooth and
seemed to span the whole wall.

Out of all the albums I listened to 25 Years On and PXR5 stood out the
most. I'm never sure if it is my imagination but PXR5 has always sounded
like a really well produced album to me. In the 80s I used to listen to a
PXR5 cassette through an old Ferguson cassette player. By holding the
cassette player in front of my face I discovered a stereo soundstage for
the first time. The illusion of space that you can get when speakers are
placed correctly still fascinates me and I sometimes think that alot of
people aren't really aware of what proper stereo is.

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:44:41 -0500, Doug Pearson <jasret at MINDSPRING.COM>
wrote:

>On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 10:33:06 -0500, Alastair Sumner
><alastair_sumner at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>>I was wondering what kind of hi-fi equipment people on this list use to
>>listen to Hawkwind. For the past ten years or so I've had a Nad 5220 CD
>>player, Nad 3020i amplifier and Mission speakers. Despite the clear sound
>>I've always felt frustrated at how neutral and lifeless it sounds. I can't
>>put my finger on it but I used to enjoy music more playing LPs through my
>>old Aiwa midi system.
>
>I use a NAD amplifier (can't remember the model number) and Vandersteen 1B
>speakers.  I'm not sure that I would recommend the speakers in your case,
>since they tend to reproduce sound very flatly and accurately (they're
>fantastic for reviewing studio mixes since their response is so much like
>studio monitors) and don't "color" the sound much (which is what it sounds
>like you're looking for).  In general, the speakers are the component that
>will have the most effect in that area, so all I can really recommend is
>auditioning a whole bunch of speakers at your local hi-fi shop.
>
>>Now I've decided to bring my vinyl back from the dead
>>and invest in a Rega P2 or P3 turntable and will probably build a new
>>system around it. So what kind of equipment do you use? And what do you
>>think makes Hawkwind come alive?
>
>Dual CS5000, which sounds great IMHO.  But even a low-end Rega is probably
>going to be just as good or better.
>
>Subjectively, I find that no CD beats the sound of *well-pressed* (this is
>the key!) vinyl.  The German pressing of 'Warrior' that I have sounds
>astounding.  On the other hand, playing any 80s Flicknife pressing on a
>decent turntable & system is a waste; those records will never sound
>great, and get noisy after just a couple plays.  (The original London
>pressings of the early ZZ Top albums [not the Warner Bros reissues!] are
>also great examples of well-pressed records, check out "Beer Drinkers and
>Hell Raisers" [as later covered by Motorhead] from 'Tres Hombres'.)
>
>And while it's true that CD's theoretically have a greater dynamic range
>than vinyl, the sad fact is that most modern mastering/remastering jobs
>squash everything into just a few dB's of variation in pathetic attempts
>to win the "loudness" wars, with the result being distorted transients,
>ear fatigue, and zero dynamics.  Great as the recent Litmus CD is, the
>drums sound like crap because of the mastering job!  Completely trashy and
>distorted; unlistenable with headphones :^(.  The most recent Rush album
>is another example (as I try to think of a particularly egregious large-
>selling recent instance) of horrid-sounding drums resulting from
>compression/mastering.  Mastering is a skill that takes *excellent* (i.e.
>way better than mine) ears to do right, and right now, the market is
>flooded with so-called experts who don't have that trait (and compound the
>problem by using cheap plug-ins on cheap computer systems but still
>consider themselves "professionals").
>
>    -Doug
>     jasret at mindspring.com