Are these exceptionally well recorded, or what?


I don’t know what just happened. My system suddenly started to sound much, much better. Particularly on the last three Qobuz hi-Rez downloads. What happened? The last change in my system was two months ago—added the new Bel Canto PRE5 preamp. It sounded great right from the start, and I probably have 120-150 hours on it. Can it have “snapped in” all of a sudden?  Is my power suddenly cleaner? Or did I stumble on three exceptionally well-recorded albums.  I’ll listen to my old standard references, but in the meantime, I’d like you opinion of these three:

Marie Stockman Becker: JS Bach Sonatas for Viola (on this album I can distinguish between filters on my Cambridge 851N, for the first time).

Veronica Swift: This Better Earth (opening song—she’s right there in the room)

Rattle and the LSO: Rachmaninoff 2nd (best sound staging I’ve heard on this system).

whattya think?
tomaswv
Jack audio,

Could you be more specific on the rach #2 suggestion.  Not sure which one.

Thanks
@yashu , you can find it in the complete set of Rachmaninov Symphonies, Ashkenazy conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on London/Decca.
https://open.qobuz.com/album/0002894557982
https://tidal.com/browse/album/4512925
The longer we listen to our system, the more we ignore the bad sounds and appreciate the good!
Tomaswv,

You have excellent taste in music!
Never heard of Veronica Swift before.
She’s great.
Bach and Rachmaninoff ain’t bad either.