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What are the "must have" HD Tracks albums?

HD Tracks is having a 20% off sale and I am wondering what recordings are worth buying from HD Tracks. I have read that there is a real range in the quality of the HD Tracks recordings and I wanted to make sure I only purchased the recordings that are worth the price premium of HD Tracks. I was thinking of buying the Marvin Gaye Collection and REM's Out of Time. Are there any others that are particularly recorded well in the HD format?
spacemanrick
richard_stacy
686 posts
 
Loving the remastered Nirvana Nevermind album, highly recommended. I also really enjoy Francesco Tristano's Idiosynkrasia which is one of the best sounding recordings I have as well. It's also a very unique blend of styles that is both interesting and extremely well played.
bongofury
1,160 posts
 
All the blues labels have interesting and obscure artists. Check some of those guys out. I especially like Hound Dog Taylor.
spacemanrick OP
25 posts
 
I haven't bought Hot Rocks yet but if anyone is interested, I just noticed Fleetwood Mack Rumors was released today on HD Tracks......I wonder how that one sounds compared to the CD?
mingles
791 posts
 
10-07-11: Richard_stacy
Loving the remastered Nirvana Nevermind album, highly recommended.
Richard, in my opinion, this type of music doesn't show improvements with HD. The intros to Come as You Are and Lithium are spectacular. I don't know if they're better than redbook, but they sound great. However, when these songs move into power guitar and drumming, there's no way to say the HD version is better. It's just loud. In general, this music doesn't convey subtly. I'd honestly be happy with redbook, but I suppose if it was one of my faves, I'd go for the HD. I just feel the need to say this for folks who are on the fence. And, of course, IMO.
richard_stacy
686 posts
 
Mingles...I could not disagree more. The dynamics are night and day with the redbook version and the space between instruments/voice are much more clearly defined. Their is much more detail visible on the 24/96 version as well. I suppose some may be dependent on a systems ability to resolve these as I have only listened on the higher end of things but I would guess that most of the benefit would be distinguishable on any system.

I honestly believe any recording, be it classical, vintage jazz, metal, ambient, techno, minimal, rap, r+b or plain old rock and roll would benefit greatly in higher resolution playback. I'd love for my entire catalog to be high resolution! I have 100's of high rez albums and there is not a single one that does not sound stellar, especially when compared to the original.
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