Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining what the aim of his blog is:
A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE
We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love hearing music reproduced with higher fidelity and are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.
Here is Robert’s latest posting. He recently spent some time with our favorite recording of the Beethoven First Piano Concerto, and needless to say, he’s glad he did.
You may enjoy our piece on azimuth and other aspects of turntable setup in this posting from many years ago.
Lately we have been writing quite a bit about how pianos are good for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.
- We like our pianos to sound natural (however one chooses to define the term).
- We like them to be solidly weighted.
- We like them to be free of smear, a quality that is rarely mentioned in the audiophile record reviews we read.
Many of these piano recordings also make great test discs.
And, since we never tire of making lists for the amazingly well-recorded albums we’ve done shootouts for over the years, here are our twenty favorite piano concerto recordings with top quality sound.
Nothing will bring you as much joy as when you manage — by whatever means, probably against all odds — to make significant audio progress.
The more progress you make, the more enjoyment you will get from your favorite music. At least that was my experience as I set about making drastic changes to my system, room, cleaning equipment and a great deal more. I may have been guided by blind faith, but that turned out to be enough.
Without all that effort, I never would have had the chance to experience the superb recordings we discover year after year, mostly because my system from the early-2000s would not have been able to make them sound remotely as good as the system we now have does. These records come alive on big speakers at loud levels like nothing I have ever heard outside of the real thing.
Robert’s Approach
Robert has methodically and carefully — one might even say scientifically — approached the various problems he’s encountered in this hobby by doing the following:
- Improving his equipment,
- Teaching himself how to do a better job of dialing in his turntable setup.
- Learning how to do controlled shootouts for his favorite albums, and, most importantly,
- Being open to listening to someone who has been doing the above three for decades.
More on Robert’s system here. You may notice that it has a lot in common with the one we use. This is not an accident.
And it is also no accident that these two systems just happen to be very good at showing their owners the manifold shortcomings of the modern remastered LP, as well as the benefits to be gained by doing shootouts in order to find dramatically better sounding pressings to play.