There is a cycle between audio and music. We need good music to full fill our great audio system, and good recordings require good audio system to produce its potential. Sometimes some music is boring but bring the effects of superb absolute terms, sometimes music is fantastic however the recording is not as good. Since I wrote Jacky Cheung album and received quite many emails, maybe I can use some spare weekend time here to recommend good music/good recordings to you.

Shelby Lynne – Just A Little Lovin’

A tribute album to Dusty Springfield by country music artist Shelby Lynne. If you have long enough time as an audiophile, you must know that “Dusty Springfield Casino Royale” James Bond movie soundtrack is one of the must have audiophile discs. The best version is either vinyl or HDAD (24/192) by Classic Records. A lot of audiophiles extract HDAD back to high res music files at 24bit/192kHz. Dusty Sprignfield “The look of love” is so groovy that makes you move, Shelby Lynne one is keeping that soulful sound, without the royal orchestra (strings/horn) arrangement but rather minimal piano,guitar and drum instruments country approach. It is produced by Phil Ramone, engineered and mixed by Al Schmitt and mastering by Doug Sax. Well, they are my most respected people in the industry, obvious the quality is extremely high. My favorite song is “You don’t have to say you love me”, a bitter sweet song that precisely represents the music and space of sound. A lot people in our local music scene talks about bad things of cover version. I believe there is it depends on how the rearrange, engineering of musical taste of the artist perspective. And this one is perfect in my book.

Sophie Milman – Take Love Easy

Sophie Milman is a Russian born Jazz vocalist who lives in Canada. Her albums reminds me the early Hole Cole Trio albums, which are very popular in audiophile circle because of their high quality production. This album is mastered by Joao Carvalho Mastering in Canada. He uses Wilson Audio Maxx as mastering monitor and full set of Weiss digital processors. The album includes my favorite song “My one and only love”. I am addicted to collect this song in good cover and even created my own engineered version, which you can download free high resolution from our sample page. The flow of Sophie Milman version is gorgeous sounding and ccordion solo arrangement reminds me of Ricky Lee Jones Pop Pop album. This album is great for a lazy saturday night with a bottle of good year Pichon-Longueville.

Have a good weekend~!