This was happening in my room last night. Cool!

I thought I'd take a break from hifi last night. I also wondered if, after all my hifi improvements, does my system, just ticks all the right audiophile boxes? or does it still have the pizzas to rock?

One of my all time favorite bands, Queen is always a good test! So I sat down and put in the Queen Greatest Hits CD in to my Marantz CD7 player. I have bought this CD 20 years ago and have listened to it more than a millionth times by now. I know all the songs by heart.

Queen Greatest Hits CD.

But last night, something magical took place, I was transported back in to the studios when the songs were recorded, for the very first time in a few years, no leap of faith was required. I finished the CD in no time, I reach for Queen Greatest Hits II, plonk it in to the CDP press play, and returned to the studio with Queen.

Queen Greatest Hits II.

The older Greatest Hits was more convincing in the illusion, despite the louder tape hiss! The rather cleaner sounding Greatest Hits II was clearer and had more definition, i.e. more hiss free, but proved just as fun. In the end the music took over, I played at near concert loud levels! yet my system never sounded noisy, staging and imaging was stable and it was never strained. Many a times when a system is pushed to the limits, harshness, staging and imaging disintegration sets in.

By the end of 2 hours, I was pretty tired, not from listening to music, but participating in music. Like I said, I knew all these songs by heart. I sang along side Freddie Mercury, played air guitar with Brian May, plucked bass lines with John Deacon , and jammed drums with Roger Taylor! I did a four things in rotation, as and when, what came naturally. No wonder I was tired.

It is rare days like this, when all the effort, money and time spent on improving the hifi pays off handsomely. For 2 hours, I was transported in to a musical event, and away from reality.

Bottom line is "My system still rocks!" and that, is a good feeling.

Now if only they were more days like this? Perhaps I am just in a good mood as weekend comes around again.

Paradise Remixed LP

If I can be allowed to be greedy and take one more last desert island disc, this would be it!

Inner City duo is Kevin Saunderson and Paris Grey. Their R&B flavoured dance music was the rave in the UK during the late eighties, when yours truly, was still considered a hip young fellow. I find their music to be very classy indeed.

Paradise CD

This is a remixed version of the originally released Paradise album. The remix version takes the biggest hits from Paradise, namely, Big Fun, Good Life, Ain't Nothing Better, Do You Love What You Feel? and Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin', remixed with harder hitting bass and more synthesizer effects and song lenghtened to allow dancing joy, as 3 minutes plus is too short a time to sweat it out! The bonus track, House Fever is just that, a filler.

The sound of this dance LP is excellent, with tight and pacey bass, very open mids, and extended highs. Unlike other dance mix, the beat doesn't drown out Paris Grey's beautifully sultry vocals at all.

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This 2CD concert set, features Jacky Cheung singing other people's tunes for charitable causes. I love this CD very much since the day I bought it. Just can't stop listening to it every now and then.

Jacky's vocal performance and the band's arrangement is first rate! Even though the song's are not originally his, he makes every one of them his own. Some tunes, I felt is even better than the original performer. That's how good Jacky Cheung is.

The concert recording is good, with plenty of hall ambiance and the band sound is warm and lush backing Jacky's distinctly accomplished vocals.

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Got this a few years ago while travelling to Hong Kong for work. It's a 2CD compilation set that contains the best known canto pop tunes, dating from the late 70's till the late 80's. To me, those were canto pop's golden years! During that time, most music was tied to a TVB serial drama release, as TVB (HK TV station) was working along side record companies to promote music. Some of the most memorable TVB music from this 2 CD set includes, The Shell Game, Shanghai Bund and Police Cadet amongst others.

Being mostly TVB drama serial tied songs, they also have the touch of Joseph Koo(Koo Kar Fai), TVB music director of the period. Joseph has the midas touch to fuse Chinese and Western classical instruments with modern musical instruments to create infectious canto pop melodies! In fact so many songs here bear that signature sound, you can more or less call this a Joseph Koo "Greatest Hits!"

Sound quality is variable, as usual for what is a compilation album. It ranges from song to song. It can be very good to reasonably poor, despite being DSD remastered depending on quality of the master tape.

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This ever popular CD, released in 1985, is my favorite amongst all the Tsai Chin's albums that I have. One of the very few audiophile CDs that I bought in the 90's. Amazingly, i still like this CD very much today.


The song collections are mostly Chinese tear jerk er oldies. Which despite my very minimal understanding of mandarin, somehow, still manages to evoke an emotional response from me every listening session without fail. And I have hear this CD like a millionth times by now. This is good music at it's very best!


Sonic wise is not great, with that over bloated bass lines, high (master?)tape hiss, that presents a somewhat overly warm sound. The beauty of the CD is that despite it's imperfect sound, it has enough musical brilliance that make it such a great listen, every time!


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This live recording of Patricia Barber performing at the Green Mill, Chicago, is my favourite amongst her albums that I have. I believe this is also a firm favourite of many audiophiles amongst our readers.


I don't need to describe the music in much detail except to say that in Patricia Barber's music, you'd either love it or hate it. This live recording is surely a "love it" even if you're not a fan of hers, you can't be helped by a really enthusiastic crowd.


The sonics are excellent. If you system is up to scratch, it'll present an intimate atmosphere of a jazz club, with a very realistic 3D sound stage in front of you and the audience surrounding the stage and your self. Couple that in a dimly lighted room, you can really "Be There", no leap of faith required. Now if only our hifi can also reproduce the smell of smoke and beer, that would really be perfect!



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This CD features some of Gary Moore's earlier works, which I personally felt was a period when he was musically most creative. I started checking out Gary's other works after I heard the "Still got the Blues" album. This is a compilation of Gary Moore in a more reflective, and certainly very romantic mood.

The album on the whole is very dark sounding to preserve the mood of music. My favorite track is no.4, Parisiene Walkways, a live take from the Blues Alive album, where the extremely long, intense guitar solo is worth the price to pay for the whole CD. Air guitar heads, ALERT!

Recording quality is pretty good for what is essentially a compilation album.

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This is one of my favorite classical CD featuring the guitar. Pepe Romero, by then declared a Spanish National Treasure performed, with the backing of Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.

Many would have probably heard the popular first two verses on Concierto De Aranjuez. And it is hauntingly beautiful in sound. The bitsream(predecessor of DSD) recording has a warm, golden hued tonality, with deep sound staging effect. The music can range from extremely quite guitar solo, before swelling full on with the orchestra joining in and back to guitar solo interplay.

Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre is the second guitar concerto piece composed by Rodrigo. Though less well known than the earlier work, is just as interesting.

This Philips 1994 release is one of those very first classical CDs I have bought.



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