Radiohead: The King of Limbs (Review)
A new Radiohead album was released by the band:
Last night we heard the uncompressed WAV file burnt on to a black CD at 10X speed. We played it on both the Audio Note CDT-5 transport with the Fifth Element DAC, as well as the Emm Labs XDS1 CD player. Both digital front ends were going through the Audio Note M9 Phono and Audio Note Ongaku into the Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers.
The MUSIC
There are 8 songs for a total of about 38 minutes. They are a pretty direct descendant of their last album ‘In Rainbows’. Most of the songs have the recent signature Radiohead sound vis-a-vis an evident extreme attention to the detail of every single note and sound.
There is with a lot of stuff going on in these songs. creating an enveloping sonic ocean that, for me, appeals to the heart in equal proportions to the mind. The last song was a little different from the others – sounding a lot like Cocteau Twins but with the addition of a drum machine.
We liked it quite a bit, although it was much too short.
The SOUND
With all the evidence that CDs burnt from LPs and Reel-to-reel tapes can sound better than commercial CDs, I had wondered before I heard this whether this CD burnt directly from the WAV files directly from Radiohead might sound better than the typical commercial Radiohead CD.
In my opinion, this CD did not sound better than the typical Radiohead commercial CD. We need to do more back and forth listening, and I will update this if my opinion changes, but this CD is more reflective of the CD quality of, say, circa 1997-99. Plenty good for listening to – and enjoying – but not outstanding [for example, things like soundstage depth and harmonic purity were just average… actually a little below average].
Speaking of RadioHead…..and allowing for my occasional mental lapses, please tell me again the Radiohead cut and album you were carrying around CES 2011. And while you’re at it, and if I may askl, is this acoustic or electronic music? And if the latter, how can this serve be used as a reference in system evaluation when, I presume, it sounds different on different systems and yet what is the real norm here? How do you know which is closest to the “original”. Sure, different detail will be audible and, presumably the more the better, although perhaps an inexperienced listener could mistake an occasional tic or pop in an lp version as part of the music, particularly if it was a scratch that provided a rhythmic tic/pop totally in sync with the geat of the music……….In the world of classical music where live concerts with real instruments and an orchestral scorfe provide a reference if not a standard it seems it is much easier to assess the quality of source and reproduction. Your reference to “harmonic purity” in the context of “drum machine” and the like is puzzling but then I am, admittedly very ignorant of this group and its sound and “instrumental” components (beyond what I can imagine to be a “drum machine”).
Hi Jim 🙂
I was playing the 1st (and 2nd if the 1st was too difficult for the system) cuts off of the Radiohead ‘Amnesiac’ album.
My reference was to the harmonic purity of the album, not the drum machine. 🙂
The general point of your comment, however, has to do with, if I remember correctly, comparing things to the ‘absolute sound’ of unamplified acoustical instruments – whence the name of the magazine. I will put my comments in a separate post.
Take care,
-Mike
Thanks Mike. I’ll look forward to a follow-up. My apology for NOT correcting my terrible typing mistakes, by the way. Its probably an old and familiar issue for you: the “in comparison to what?” issue, (as in “This sounds amazingl”….in comparison to what?) and if I weren’t suffering a bit of audio fatigue at the moment I’d search through the blog for references since I feel certain you have covered this somewhere…..amazing how much really good information can be gleaned from your archives here. To the extent my interest in Amnesiac was to hear and enjoy the sound of the group….I wouldn’t have raised the question. But because I wanted to follow your example and also use it as a potential test track, I felt it would be more challenging for me on two accounts…(1) I don’t hear live music other than classical orchestras and therefore lack a “norm’ or “reference” for Radiohead music, and (2) on recollection, I’m not sure how much (any? all?) of the Radiohed music IS from acoustical instruments and how much is NOT…e.g., synthesizers, electronic such as organ, or amplified, or just plain old sound effects. I did ask you about that at CES when we were listening to the speakers enclosed in glass (sorry Alzheimer’s again) and you did answer it specifically in relation to, at least, base or low frequency reproduction, and especially the extent to which it did or did not balance the ribbon frequencies.
I listened to it on Youtube at 720p through an esoteric Technics receiver and state-of-the-art Bose acoustimass speakers and found it to be typical of Radiohead albums: ok until the beers and wine started flowing and the medical maryjane 🙂 was sparked after which time it bedazzled! It’s like the band was sitting on the sofa across from me, eating corn chips and drinking beer 🙂 which can’t be a bad thing.