Dr. Chesky – The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Dr. Chesky – The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192kHz | Time – 1:30:00 minutes | 3,0 GB | Genre: Miscellaneous, Binaural+
Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | © Chesky Records

There’s no doubt about it; we’re living in the Golden Age of Headphone Design. At every price category, headphones have never sounded better. I’ve heard more than a few $10 in-ears that were pretty respectable, lots of mid-priced winners, and a couple of $5,000 state of the art, full-size beauties that blew my mind. Today’s best headphones are higher resolution devices than the finest $100,000 speakers. You can hear superior detailing and clarity from headphones and typical room acoustic problems with speakers are completely eliminated. With the best headphones you hear what the microphones “heard,” and nothing else.

Of course a stellar headphone can’t make a poor quality recording sound great, so if you want to hear your headphones’ full potential you have to listen to the best recordings. Now sure, sound quality is a matter of taste, but I prefer recordings that sound as much like the real thing as possible. In other words, recordings free of compression, peak limiting, equalization, digital reverberation, Auto-Tune, or any studio processing tricks. That describes the sound of every Chesky recording ever made. They’re always pure and natural. We’ve included an assortment of the latest Chesky recordings to show off the best of what your headphones can do.

We’ve all gotten used to hearing music mixed and mastered to sound consistently loud, so a whisper quiet vocal is as loud as a scream. The uncompressed music tracks on this sampler retain their natural soft-to-loud dynamics, so you’ll probably have to turn up the volume on your phone or amplifier a notch or two from your normal listening level to enjoy the music’s full dynamic range.

Over the last few years Chesky Records has used a B&K 4100 D Binaural “head” that has microphones where the head’s “ears” would be. That one B&K is the only mic present at the sessions; no other mics are used to pick up individual instruments or voices. These Chesky Binaural+ recordings can also be enjoyed over stereo speakers.

In addition to the music tracks we have included a selection of tracks that can test your headphone’s dynamic range and imaging capabilities. Bear in mind that Binaural+’s 360 degree spatial cues will sound very different on in-ear, on-ear, and over-the-ear headphones. With the best headphones you will experience an “ear-witness” perspective; you hear what the binaural head heard at the session, exactly. There’s no after the fact mixing or alteration to the balance. There can’t be, as it’s a live to two-track recording. So if you own a bunch of headphones, check out how different they sound on the music and test tracks. You might be surprised by what you hear.

Soft-to-loud dynamic range compression is often cited as the #1 problem affecting sound quality on nearly all contemporary recordings, and I have to agree. Sadly, few music lovers have ever heard uncompressed recordings. Dynamic range compression is unrelated to lossy data compression formats like MP3 or Dolby Digital. No, I’m referring to dynamic range compression, the intentional squashing of the naturally occurring soft-to loud dynamics of voices and instruments. That’s why we’ve included a series of test tracks that demonstrate the musically disastrous effects of compression. For each group of dynamic range tests you’ll first hear the music in its natural, uncompressed state, followed by the very same track with a moderate amount of compression, and then one more time with a maximally compressed and peak limited sound mix. The differences are far from subtle; it’s a shame that few artists ever release their music in an uncompressed, or even only a mildly compressed version. Once the original sound has been compressed, it can never sound completely natural.

—Steve Guttenberg, February, 2014

Produced by David Chesky & Steve Guttenberg
Recorded, edited, and mastered by Nicholas Prout

All tracks were recorded at the Hirsch Center, Brooklyn, New York, and St. Paul’s Church, in New York, with a B&K Binaural head, MSB A/D converter, and Crystal microphone cable.

This album was made with the purest audio path, using the very best microphones, mic preamps, analog-to-digital converters, recorders, and cables with careful attention to detail to produce the most transparent and natural sound available today.

Tracklist:

01-When the Saints Go Marching In
02-Don’t You
03-This Little Light of Mine
04-Three For All
05-Las Perlas de tu Boca
06-Ben’s Farm in Vermont
07-Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
08-Whip-poor-will
09-Ceremony_Evening
10-Transcendental Tripping
11-Wa Wa Wa
12-War
13-Rock and Roll
14-Test Tracks Introduction
15-Four Surround Voices _ Announcement
16-Four Surround Voices _ Test
17-Front, Rear Voices _ Announcement
18-Front, Rear Voices _ Test
19-Drum and Bell_ Walk Around the Mic _ Announcement
20-Drum and Bell_ Walk around the Mic _ Test
21-Shaker_ Walk Around the Mic _ Announcement
22-Shaker_ Walk Around the Mic _ Announcement
23-Height_ Center Shaker _ Announcement
24-Height_ Center Shaker _ Test
25-Height_ Left Channel Shaker _ Announcement
26-Height_ Left Channel _ Test
27-Height_ Right Channel Shaker _ Announcement
28-Height_ Right Channel _ Test
29-Height_ Center Bell _ Announcement
30-Height_ Center Bell _ Test
31-Height_ Left Channel Bell _ Announcement
32-Height_ Left Channel Bell _ Test
33-Height_ Right Channel Bell_ Announcement
34-Height_ Right Channel Bell_ Test
35-Voice_ Dynamic Range Uncompressed _ Announcement
36-Voice_ Dynamic Range Uncompressed _ Test
37-Voice_ Dynamic Range Mildly Compressed _ Announcement
38-Voice_ Dynamic Range Mildly Compressed _ Test
39-Voice_ Dynamic Range Heavily Compressed _ Announcement
40-Voice_ Dynamic Range Heavily Compressed _ Test
41-Cymbal_ Dynamic Range Uncompressed _ Announcement
42-Cymbal_ Dynamic Range Uncompressed _ Test
43-Cymbal_ Dynamic Range Mildly Compressed _ Announcement
44-Cymbal_ Dynamic Range Mildly Compressed _ Test
45-Cymbal_ Dynamic Range Heavily Compressed _ Announcement
46-Cymbal_ Dynamic Range Heavily Compressed _ Test
47-Drum Kit_ Dynamic Range Uncompressed _ Announcement
48-Drum Kit_ Dynamic Range Uncompressed _ Test
49-Drum Kit_ Dynamic Range Mildly Compressed _ Announcement
50-Drum Kit_ Dynamic Range Mildly Compressed _ Test
51-Drum Kit_ Dynamic Range Heavily Compressed _ Announcement
52-Drum Kit_ Dynamic Range Heavily Compressed _ Test
53-Heart Beat Tracks
54-Shake, Rattle, and Roll _ Announcement
55-Shake, Rattle, and Roll _ Test
56-Pink Noise _ Announcement
57-Pink Noise _ Mono
58-Pink Noise _ Stereo
59-Pink Noise _ Mono + Stereo