HiRez Poll Krauss, Alison - NEW FAVORITE [SACD]

[Cibola]

7.5 rounding up to 8. The sound quality is excellent and the content (music and lyrics) is equally pleasing to me. I find the mix a bit tame but it works well enough, more discrete surround elements would have been better but it could just be the nature of the genre. I was expecting more after having listened to the fine RB CD using DPLII so many times.

 

[beerking]

What a total delight this is.
Not really into Bluegrass but this is a nicely thought through recording.
The mix is not as aggressive as perhaps it could be but the music and singing is top notch.
As I'm a sucker for melt my heart female singers..

This is a pitch perfect 9

 

[sbrom]

What a total delight this is.
Not really into Bluegrass but this is a nicely thought through recording.
The mix is not as aggressive as perhaps it could be but the music and singing is top notch.
As I'm a sucker for melt my heart female singers..

This is a pitch perfect 9

Alison Krauss has one of those near-perfect voices! Not only do I love listening to her, that marvelous voice is great for wringing out your audio system and room. If room reflections aren't well controlled her vocals tend to "bloom" and sound unclear. I use this recording to make sure any changes I make to room decor or acoustical dampening are in line.

 

[sjcorne]

After searching for ages (and refusing to pay OOP prices), I happened to come across a sealed copy of this disc for about $30 (!).

The standout feature of this disc would have to be the fidelity - it sounds absolutely incredible! It’s mastered at a very low level, and is extremely crankable as a result.

The surround mix isn’t particularly aggressive, but I think it suits the material nicely. There’s a really nice ambient echo that makes it feel as if you’re in the same room as the players, as well as a multitude of discrete elements in the rear channels - usually strings, acoustic guitars, or vocal harmonies. There’s a particularly cool effect in the song "Daylight" where the backing vocals alternate back-and-forth between the rears.

The center channel isn’t used much at all - just as a slight reinforcement of the lead vocal, but the center imaging between the fronts is so spot-on that you’d never know it.

Content-wise, about half the album is made up of slow acoustic ballads sung by Alison Krauss, while the other half is more upbeat country/bluegrass (translation: lots of banjo) numbers sung by a male vocalist. The ballads are a bit samey, but for the most part I really like them - the upbeat songs not so much.

10 / 9 / 7 = 8

"Daylight":


"New Favorite":