garbage1624705950 Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 i was tickled to read the music review portion of hifi+ to find them speaking of rammstein as audiophile music. no offense to rammstein, i like them, and i have most of their cds and even an lp. i played it once (the album "mutter") to a german friend and i think he was a little shock to learn that i like this group. way to go hifi+. i will take the music reviews with much salt.
ckng Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 I am always intrigued by the term "audiophile music". What actually constitutes "audiohile music"? Is it the 24/96 or 24/192 recording? Minimalist miking? DSD? SACD etc? I find it interesting that for the same album, you find the "regular" version at the regular section of a CD store (e.g. Jazz), but the SACD version will be placed in the "audiophile" section. I tend to take it more as a marketing thing these days. As long as the music is nice to me, I don't care if it's audiophile or not anymore. Enjoy the music. Regards CK
Chowbotak Posted January 20, 2010 Posted January 20, 2010 I find some cds on the American label to sound pretty good. Eg Slayer and Danzig. They are classified as "semi audiophile" in my collection ;D
garbage1624705950 Posted January 21, 2010 Author Posted January 21, 2010 I'm not sure, but for myself, the term "audiophile" has a negative conoctation. It's veering toward audio snoobs. Like some who view diy audio as a lesser sibling. Nowadays, I just listen to whatever that rocks my boat. Going to the audiophile section at music shops will increase the chances of me finding something that I like. Sometimes it is just a better recording, and sometimes the artist is just categorized there. Just like you won't find Snow Rose at the regular shelves. ;)
naglfar Posted January 21, 2010 Posted January 21, 2010 Audiophile or not, IMHO, really depends on how well the music is mix and mastered by the producer. Most of the bros here will be probably veer towards female vocals and jazz when talking about good recording, but personally for me, as a metal fan, I really admire producers metal like Colin Richardson, Fredrik Nordstrom and Devin Townsend. Mixing metal music is really a different ballgame altogether, especially genres like death metal. Take for example the new Nile album - to me, the producer did a really excellent job in capturing the essence of the music. There is a LOT of things going on in the music, from the guttural vocals, inhuman drumming, frantic guitar works and running bass notes, but yet all of these are captured just right in the mix. Not an easy task. \m/
yellowhandman Posted January 21, 2010 Posted January 21, 2010 Audiophile or not, IMHO, really depends on how well the music is mix and mastered by the producer. Most of the bros here will be probably veer towards female vocals and jazz when talking about good recording, but personally for me, as a metal fan, I really admire producers metal like Colin Richardson, Fredrik Nordstrom and Devin Townsend. Mixing metal music is really a different ballgame altogether, especially genres like death metal. Take for example the new Nile album - to me, the producer did a really excellent job in capturing the essence of the music. There is a LOT of things going on in the music, from the guttural vocals, inhuman drumming, frantic guitar works and running bass notes, but yet all of these are captured just right in the mix. Not an easy task. \m/ Agreed completely. 'Audiophile music', IMHO, is anything that has been recorded with great care, in order to ensure that it reproduces exactly what the musicians intended, and that when played on a good sound system will result in a good stereo (or multi-channel) imaging, with a realistic soundstage and the various elements being distinguishable yet well integrated. Of course, there are some bands - probably punk/metal - where the whole idea was to sound noisy, and the band themselves didn't really care about production. In those cases, then I wouldn't consider the recording 'audiophile music'. But that is because of the quality of the RECORDING, not because of the type of music itself. Speaking specifically of Rammstein, they are actually quite different from standard heavy metal bands, because they use a lot of synths as well - some songs are like Depeche Mode accompanied by insane guitarists and with Dave Gahan having been replaced/eaten by a manic German-speaking troll. But the contrasts between the thrashing guitars and synth riffs actually gives potential for a really good listening experience on a good system. BTW if you think the Depeche Mode comparison is weird, you need to listen to Rammstein's cover of Depeche's 'Stripped' - it's on the Depeche Mode tribute album, For The Masses, released several years ago.
garbage1624705950 Posted January 21, 2010 Author Posted January 21, 2010 BTW if you think the Depeche Mode comparison is weird, you need to listen to Rammstein's cover of Depeche's 'Stripped' - it's on the Depeche Mode tribute album, For The Masses, released several years ago. not at all. I have the live in Berlin DVD and I remembered seeing the hidden MTV for stripped there.
Quest88 Posted January 23, 2010 Posted January 23, 2010 Conversely I listen to trance most of the time on my system.. since its all digitally produced anyway, the recordings are of quite good quality if the transfer is good. so i will reserve my comments about rammstein till i hear it at home. :)
weibchen Posted January 23, 2010 Posted January 23, 2010 audiophile = high fidelity isn't it? So if they were to record and master the music with timbre and accuracy in mind, it may well be audiophile quality for industrial metal. Compared to the mastering to the bands now like megadeth's end game, the gain is crazy that it kills the whole album. And comparing to the albums prior during rust in peace and end game the difference is staggering. from a very nicely imaged 3D soundstage to a flat 2D one.
Doggie Howser Posted December 14, 2012 Posted December 14, 2012 Sorry to dig this up after such a long time, but it's an interesting topic. The reason I searched for Rammstein was because interestingly enough, this is one of the groups that Mike Lenehan listens to :) and of course the ML2 Reference we were listening to was ROCKING :) Mike listens to as eclectic collection as mine. He listens and records his own chamber orchestra recordings of the live outfit down the road from him and has a collection of rock from the 80s and 90s but this record totally blew me away.
naimster Posted December 15, 2012 Posted December 15, 2012 Which rammstein album was mike listening to?
Doggie Howser Posted December 15, 2012 Posted December 15, 2012 Made in Germany. We were blast Du Hast at 12am in his workshop and no other shop was open. Haha
naglfar Posted December 15, 2012 Posted December 15, 2012 If you like Rammstein's music, and would like to explore something similar (ie: catchy guitar hooks, mid-tempo industrial beats) but with more variation, do check out White Zombie's Astro Creep 2000, and also Rob Zombie's earlier studio albums. I do like Rammstein (Mutter is my favourite album), but after a while they do tend to sound a but derivative. When it comes to crazy catchy riffs (check YouTube for 'More Human Than Human'), they're quite up there.
naimster Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 Been listening to their last album "Liebe ist für alle da" recently .... And I love it, especially "fuhrling in Paris" and "itch tu dir weh". I really like the progressive build up in melodious fuhrling which starts off with just simple guitar strumming and climax with the rest kicking in. "Itch tu" will give the speakers a damn good work out. Weak drivers or amp may not be able to take the torture. :P Available in shm cd.
westendboy Posted December 17, 2012 Posted December 17, 2012 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rammstein-Videos-1995-2012-Blu-ray/dp/B00ABA1OP4/ref=zg_bs_383380011_64
naglfar Posted December 17, 2012 Posted December 17, 2012 I don't have much recollection of Liebe ist für alle da, except for the song Pussy. Probably the best and coolest music video ever made, if you had the chance to see the full-blown porno version. Liebe ist für alle da did sound a little too 'pop' for me if I compare to their earlier releases, maybe because of the guitar sound. My favourite Rammstein album would be Mutter. Time for me to dust off my Rammstein CDs for Christmas music :)
naimster Posted December 17, 2012 Posted December 17, 2012 U mean the song p*ssy? :) Actually I do not think Liebe ist für alle da is their best album especially for hard rock fans but for mainstream folks jumping into Rammstein it's certainly more palatable compared to their earlier albums and to my eara also less monotonous in some sense.
naglfar Posted December 17, 2012 Posted December 17, 2012 Sh!t...my post got censored. Yeah bro, PU55Y.
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