The SH coolest-sounding stereo thread

Let's have a little fun and discuss the most pleasing use of stereo you've ever heard.

I'll start with a few:

Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Queen - Now I'm Here
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Susie Q

 

Interesting choice! Yes, the recording is suspect, but the presentation is very believable.

 

Lots of stage center, hard left and hard right Jazz. I prefer that type of set up and, just for a kick, some of the Santa Esmeralda stuff.

 

How about the whole "Honey" album by the Ohio Players?

Note: This 1975 album was originally mixed for surround sound. MoFi had prepared it for release in Dolby Surround before the company folded the first time. I would LOVE to hear it in SACD surround! Hell, i'll take DVD-A surround! The album was not intended to be mixed to stereo. Listening to tracks like "Fopp", you can clearly hear how it was intrended for surround.

 

Roy Orbison on Monument in GREAT stereo with those Strings....

Tube Mixing Console. Ampex 350

Oh Man!!

 

Most of the golden age audiophile classical labels (RCA Living Strereo, Mercury Living Prescence, Everest) presented the orchestra in widescreen stereo, allowing you to pinpoint almost every instrument in the soundstage. Not that you'd ever hear such a thing in a concert hall, but it's tremendous fun. More recent recordings tend to be more realistically mixed with a more distant perspective.

I enjoy the hard-right/hard-left stereo of some Beatles songs, allowing you to mix out certain instruments by twiddling the balance control. "Revolution" and "Lady Madonna" were probably the best sounding songs with one channel removed.

 

Pink Floyd: Echoes. I love the bit in the middle where the drum track splits with a delay on one side.

Here's a case of turning an analog vice into a virtue: There's a little groove pre/post echo on those "pings", and I like it. It adds to the mysterious feeling of the mix. (It took me a while to figure out they weren't supposed to be there.)

 

"AQUA" a solo album from Edgar Froese, of Tangerine Dream.
Great use of stereo effects, a real killer on headphones.

 

Grank Funk Railroad had a couple of tunes that I always liked going from left to right channels and back. One song being "Sins A God Man's Brother" and "I Can Feel Him In The Morning". How about Bowie's "Station To Station" intro with the train sound going from side to side.

 

My personal fav has always been "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts" by Santana.

 

I agree about Singing Winds... That whole Abaxas SACD is one great stereo presentation.

 

Strawberry Fields Forever - The version from the German Magical Mystery Tour. This remix version here was especially more effective IMO.

 

Don't Worry Baby-Beach Boys...

 

Buddy Holly "True Love Ways" ("From The Original Master Tapes" disc)

Beatles For Sale (copy sent to me by a fellow SH Forums reader)

The Who-Live At Leeds

 

'C Moon' from Wings - a headphones experience!

 

I think pretty much any Floyd is great stereo. Yes albums come to mind, and I've always liked Sgt. Pepper in stereo. Nothing against Pepper's mono mix, I like that too, but I grew up with the stereo version.

 

Nowhere Man from the Yellow Submarine Songtrack. This sounds absolutely breathtaking with the headphones.

 

BTW, that was on century on location recordings originally. Did Stan Ricker have anything to do with that one????

 

The Grass Roots "Lets Live For Today" with the lead vocal SSSLLLOOWWWLLLY moving from left to right from the beginning of the verse to the end of it.

 

I Can See For Miles. The ORIGINAL mix , with the moving guitar solo. Astley's version is the absolute worst of all of his Who-related horrors.

 

Yes, particularly that acappella opening.

 

From the A&M world, one of the neater-sounding stereo tracks is Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass' "Casino Royale". Great ping-ponging, call-and- answer arrangement.

Also, Julius Wechter's amazing tour-de-force on the marimba on "Sunrise, Sunset." The mics were set up so you could hear the high end on one side and the low end on the other. Neat!