OTHER TECH

Last month, we began exploring "how to listen." Now it's time to audition your favorite CDs. Note what you like about each one. Is there a common thread among them in the genre of music or the style of production? What about this music attracts you? It could be that it's live and ambient-sounding, like the great club recording Etta James Rocks the House; dry and technically clean-sounding, like Steely Dan's Aja; natural and dynamic, like Buena Vista Social Club; or processed and compressed, like Supertramp's Crime of the Century.

How does the sound seem to add to or take away from the feel of the recording? A good example of the sound adding to the feel is the Keith Richards version of "You Win Again" on the Hank Williams tribute album Timeless. This track really captures the atmosphere of the room. Close your eyes and you'll see Keith singing and playing, with drums, bass, piano, horns, and pedal steel all around him.

On this recording, as Keith so aptly put it to me, "you can hear the room - the sixth member of the band." Because that sound was kept intact in the final mix, you, the listener, can get a sense of being in the room right alongside the musicians.

Pick recordings that sound best on the widest variety of systems, and whose balance changes the least when you switch among them. Some examples I've found: Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, the Band's Music from Big Pink, Donald Fagen's The Nightfly, Bob Marley and the Wailers' Natty Dread, and Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon. I've often used the latter two as references for the bottom end as well as for their great spatial characteristics.

Listen to your selections everywhere: on your reference system, with headphones, in the car. Note the differences in tone and realism, and how they affect your listening enjoyment. Also note the difference that playback level makes. My goal here is to help you understand what influences your preferences, and how music and equipment will influence them differently. In upcoming columns, I'll explore the effect that various analog and digital sources have on your psyche.

Rob Fraboni is a noted producer/engineer who's still allowed to call Eric Clapton "El."