Recommended high quality 16 bit recordings

Shawn Mullins, Soul's Core, is a wonderful album and brilliantly recorded.  I use it as my main test album whenever I change the system because it is so clear and realistic.  

Two old releases from No-Man that have been given a loving restoration.

'Speak' - 2009 - CD (kscope129M) / DL (from burningshed website). Available as a cassette in '93, the first CD edition of 'Speak' was issued by Materiali Sonori in 1999, this version includes a 12min extra track 'The Hidden Art Of Man Ray'.

'Together We're Stranger' - 2014 - CD (kscope298) - 1st released in 2003, remastered by Steven Wilson.

Oscar Peterson - we get requests, the version from analogue productions...

Of all the CDs available, which to choose??? This could/should make a pretty long list.

Nick Cave - The Boatmans Call

Neil Young - Most of his output, but if you want some personal stand outs - the HDCD of 'On the Beach',  'Freedom', and 'Massey Hall 1971'

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Eels - Beautiful Freak

Beck - Sea Change

Eno/Cale - Wrong Way Up

Michael Franks - Sleeping Gypsy

Most of Joni Mitchell - particularly the HDCDs

Most of Dylan - particularly the MFSLs

The Pentangle - s/t

King Crimson - Thraak

Grateful Dead - Reckoning

Most Jazz .....................................................

Sam Cooke - Night Beat

Rain Tree Crow - s/t

There are obvs many, many, many more ................

For a giggle try Elvis Presley's 'Fever' from 'Elvis is Back'. They sure aren't recording 'em like that any more.

And a bog standard 'Love in Vain'  from 'Let it Bleed' - up there with the best of 16 bit aural candy. 

If you are into classical music, the renown Mercury Living Presence recordings are a joy. They were originally recordeded by the outstanding engineer C. Robert Fine, and were later carefully mastered to 16 bit audio for CD by his equally renown wife Wilma Cozart Fine. Most of these CDs simply don't sound like regular CDs, they sound truly breathtaking.. and often more rewarding than their hidef equivalent recordings. It just shows what good audio engineering can achieve and that as a final mastered format 16/44.1 is more than ideal.

Simon

I think Daft Punk Random Access Memories set the bar higher in terms of what digital sound can do. I also recommend War on Drugs - Lost in a Dream and Tame Impla - Currents.   I am currently surprised on how good the sound is on a 80's indie album by The Go-Betweens 16 Lovers Lane.

David Sylvian & Stina Nordenstam are consistently excellent sonically.

G

This had better be good because I have just paid 1p for it from Zoverstocks!

This one and others like What's All About, Missory Sky.....are also good testimonies...

Pat's album 'Offramp' is very good too, but being an ECM recording, needless to say the vinyl is even better!

you can't pay too much for good music, I'm sure you will love it. 

Here is a selection of recordings that I feel are above average standard.  Not necessarily my absolute favourites in this regard, and in no particular order, just examples of albums that sound astounding on my Naim system, rather than just great.

Neil Cowley Trio - The Face of Mount Molehill
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine (original, not the 20th Anniversary Edition)
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Mighty Sam McClain - Journey
Tori Amos - Under The Pink
Seasick Steve - I started out with nothing...
PJ Harvery - Rid of Me (Really low record level, whack the volume up well beyond normal, it's worth it)
Get The Blessing - OCDC
Anne Bisson - Blue Mind

I thought Immediately of Rage Against the Machine and Tori Amos - Under the Pink, then I see Songstream has already worked this out above. On the metal side I just got Iron Maidens 'brave new world'cd which sounds excellent, much better recorded than most of their later work.

Great album, no question, I love listening to it.  Just thought i would comment though, I find the bass a little overboard with this one, and therefore, from a recording quality point of view, actually prefer her previous albums, which are also great musically.  It's not even really a negative, the overly upfront (in my view, on my setup) growly bass notes are quite fun in a way, but they seem quite inflated and unnatural to me.

Not only a good recording but also of historical significance...

Telarc ‎– 5038

Bert Schurink:

This one and others like What's All About, Missory Sky.....are also good testimonies...

Hi Bert,

I was bought this album a few years ago by a great friend of mine who also plays the organ at church, themes from this album are frequently to be heard before the services start!

M

Evanescence, Origin, brilliant SQ with great dynamics and timbre and a damned good album too

Kraftwerk - All the Kling Klang Digital Master series are wonderful. Better than the Capitol reissues for instance. No 'extras', and the art is pretty minimal but if you want to put something on to make your Qute/sub£1k speakers sound like a £50k system look no further.