Special AVS Deal From AIX Records - Page 2

My picks to try for a first timer:
Laurence Juber's - Guitar Noir
The AIX All Stars - Surrounded By Christmas

Laurence Juber's guitar playing is in a class all it's own. He's highly regarded.

The last one is just right for the Winter Holidays and sounds great! When you have friends and family over for the Holidays and you want to impress folks with your surround audio setup, this is it.

-t

While I am enjoying the two albums I bought (Firebird Suite and the a capella singing disc) and also the two samplers, I am not sure what other titles to purchase. The samplers are enjoyable but nothing in there makes me want to buy anything more. I just wish this technology and care could be applied to more mainstream artists or in the case of classical, more repertoire.

I sort of liked Laurence Juber but got distracted by the fret noise in all its MLP clarity!

Larry

I have 12 AIX plus the two free samplers. If I had to recommend only two, I'd say "Brand New Opry", for one. The songs are all good, and two or three are great. The video was shot using HD cameras, and it really does make for a better picture, even on these standard definition disks. I really feel that this disk, overall, including the video, puts it on a par with "Rumors". The other one I strongly recommend is "I Get Surround" by the Surf City Allstars. Just great surfer music, which I have always liked, and then with the great fidelity, it's wonderful.
If you like classical at all, and it can grow on you, try Bach's Brandenburg Concerto. You are right there in 1750 or so in a European concert hall, drinking in the genius, the fun, the playfulness, and the power of Bach. I love the way he had them drum on the harpsichord for a while, then let up and let the rest of the musicians do their thing for a while, then resume the drumming on the harpsichord. They didn't seem to use drums yet in classical music, and the harpsichord sort of provided the driving rhythm that drums provide in our music today. This piece is EXUBERANT! In the mid 1700's, intellectual life in Europe was sizzling. New discoveries were coming fast and furious- detailed understanding of how the solar system worked, progress in chemistry, anatomy, mechanical inventions. This music reflects that sense of rapid intellectual progress. I highly recommend it. This disk is Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 5. I have all six on a Barclay-Crocker tape, still sealed in its plastic wrap. I'll be unsealing it soon.
Note to Dr. Waldrep: I have a DVD-Video entitled "Ricky Nelson Sings", a compilation of him singing from the Ozzie and Harriet shows. It contains a couple of songs done by his sons Matthew, Gunnar and Sam Nelson, in vastly improved fidelity, of course. The great James Burton appears with them. (He's aged a little since the 60's, whereas I havn't). Keying off your productions of the Surf City Allstars and of Mel Torme's son, I suggest you think of doing one with Rick's sons. They are really good. I believe they perform(ed) as The Nelsons. If you could get James Burton for it too, it would be a gem. If they just performed Rick's great hits, I would be delighted. I was a huge Ricky Nelson fan, graduating from HS in 1960. It would be a disk aimed squarly at the Baby Boomers, all 73 million of them or whatever. I have always felt that James Burton was a genius. I saw a tape of him accompanying Elvis in Las Vegas, so Ricky and Elvis both hired him. Pretty strong recommendations.

I have listened to the Surf City Allstars sample on the web and also the sampler on the disc. It's quite interesting - just wasn't sure I would like the entire selection and Dean's voice has gone down an octave or so (I guess age affects us all).

I do like Bach and the Brandenburg could be a possibility. Might have to listen to the online sampler again

Larry

The sampler does not give you the whole picture by far of Surf City Allstars. Songs "Down at the Beach", "Little Old Lady From Pasadena", and "Sloop John B" arn't on the sampler and they are gems. It has a big, beautiful sound to it and, as I say, it's one of my two favorite Aix, along with Brand New Opry, out of the 12 I have. The Third would be Nitty Gritty Surround. Und Herr Bach ist auf sein Beste on the Brandenburg. Buy these four and you'll not feel cheated. BTW, if you order over $100 worth, shipping is free. I don't think these four quite add to $100. So to put you over the $100 mark, I'd buy one more and, in effect, apply the shipping you would pay to the price of the fifth selection. For just over $100 that is a very nice package and a LOT of stunning fidelity.

Just received a bunch of aix dvd-audio disks that I ordered, and I can't figure out what player to use in order to play the dvd-audio side. My old audigy2 card had it's own dedicated player that would play them without downsampling the audio. However I can't find any player to use with my xm card. I have tried windvd, wmp, powerdvd 7.3ultra and none will allow playback. I went to the xm site, hoping to find a dedicated player but didn't see one there either.

Does this mean I am screwed when it comes to dvd-audio on my xm card?
Man, that would be such a shame.....

To go along with the 6 titles I already have, I just ordered:

The Grant Geissman Quintet - There and Back Again
Paul Smith - Jazz Piano Trio
The 'Free' Sampler

Mark - Thanks for a great deal on some great music. Hopefully you can find a good replacement for Joplin. I emailed her good luck a while ago

The Paul Smith disc is a gem!
I'm happy I bought that one on a chance.

-t

I received my AIX order this weekend, and I am very impressed with the sound quality. Its definetly top notch.

I got Laurence Juber's - Guitar Noir, and both the free Samplers. The samplers are great because they give you a good feel for what each Artist sounds like, AND it makes for a great demo disk. There are many types of music and it is all very well done.

If you like the types of music that AIX offers, it is well worth getting a couple of thier offerings and the samplers. The sound quality is amazing.

Too bad my Phillips DVD963SA player supports SACD but not DVDA.

I also received my disks this weekend and have spent the last few days just listening to them and enjoying every minute. It's definately not my type of music, but the fidelity more than makes up for the music style.

I ordered guitar noir, cheryl bentyne, and both sample disks. All provide very good sound. Frankly I have never heard 5.1 sound that was so enveloping. I can see why these disks have won so many awards, and I'm certain the new download website is going to be a huge hit.

I'm going to relisten to a few of the disks tonight prior to going to difinitive audio either tomorrow or the next day. I want to pick out my favorites, and a few that don't sound quite right on my system. That way I can go hear these on a wilson, and b&w system that is setup properly by the real experts. I can't even begin to imagine what it's going to sound like on an ultra high end setup.

Also, I can confirm that you can use windvd 7 on vista to be able to playback the dvd-audio side of the disk. Dr. Aix was correct, no matter how hard I tried I could not hear a difference between the 96 and 192 audio tracks.

I'm playing MLP 5.1 with a modded X-Meridian analog out into multi channel in on a HTR 6090 using PDVD ultra. PDVD information window says 8000 kB/sec.

Played the Brandenburg 3, 5 disc. Sounds like the harpsichord is sitting in the living room.

Pdvd 7.3ultra will play the dvd-video side of the disk just fine and yes, I get the same information in the window. It's the dvd-audio side of the disk that it can't play. At least I get an error trying to play it. I was able to get windvd 7 to play the dvdaudio side just fine. I was only trying to see if I could hear a difference between the 192 and 96 tracks, which requires dvd-audio. By the way, I could not hear a difference. That really speaks to just how well the 96 is recorded, that or my ears are not as 'golden' as I thought they were lol....

Dr AIX: do you ship your discs to Canada?

On this disc (AIX Records: DVD-Audio/Video Start Here - A Demonstration and Test Disc) under:

I see 192/24 stereo is listed but on their individual webpages it is 96/24 stereo - so are they 192/24 stereo?

I know DVD-A supports 192/24 stereo but if recordings were 96/24 is there any point having 192/24 in the encode?

I can answer this one as I placed a recent order through http://www.aixrecords.com :

Definately 'yes'.

The shipping to Canada is as follows:

1 disc = $9
2 discs = $11
3 and 4 discs = $12
5 discs = $14
6 discs = $16

BTW I was not charged shipping for the Sampler disc when I ordered enough to get it free.

Thanks for the info. I must say $9 for one disc is a bit steep when it only costs $1.40 to send a CD via air mail from the US to Canada in a bubble bag.

Pays to order more then

Fair comment though. musicdirect and acousticsounds have high or higher rates to Canada.
I'm paying 1200Yen (about 12CAD) for EMS delivery of Japanese SACD's per disc from Tokyo to Vernon.

General eBay rates are 3.50 - 6.00USD per disc to Canada these days.
FWIW some titles from aix are available through amazon.ca:
http://t i n y u r l.com/yr596c remove spaces the filter at AVS is munging the URL
amazon.com has more titles with OK rates.

I have also picked up a couple on eBay and now directly through the aixrecords website for titles I have wanted but cannot find elsewhere. I was quite surprised at the rates, but have seen worse

Dr Waldrep: I am shopping for two surround speakers. On Friday, May 11, 2007 I heard some at the stand-alone Magnolia store on University Ave. in Palo Alto, Calif. I told them all about your great disks, and had them bring up your site on their computer. I gave them a five minute sales talk and told them which disks I like the best. I'll be back over there before long and I'll take a couple Aix in with me. I want to hear them on the superb equipment they have. One rack had three big Macintosh pieces, incl a 500 watt per ch. amp. Out of 6 or 7 speaker brands I heard, the Monitor Audio RS8 speakers sounded pretty good, on sale at $1398 a pair. I'll hear them again on next trip. If you could recommend surround speakers at $2,000 or less per pair, I'd sure like to know what you recommend.
BTW, see the review of the Denon AVR-2307CI receiver headlined on AVS forum today. Under listening tests, he discusses one of your disks near the end as one he used as a test.

Everyone, do yourself a favor and get the sampler disc. Great sounding recordings and some fine music too. Then , go and order what you enjoy most. I got the Hanna-McEuen ,"tried and True" and Brahms Piano Quintet. There are several other discs I will order when the credit card permits. What I like most, is the full range of dynamics with very no compression.The instruments sound alive ,not coming from speakers.Fine track from the sampler, "My Boy Lollipop", Ernest Ranglin with Alana Davis on vocals, what a trip...

See the headline article re the Demise of the CD today on AVS forum. If you read the entire article, then click on the forum at the end, on p.2 I just posted a long rave about Aix Records.
Thank you for recommending B and W 805 speakers, Dr. Waldrep. I'll look into them. I may try for 30 days the Axiom M-80s first as surrounds since they get good reviews. Only $1330 a pair.
To move to 5.1, I'm thinking of the new Onkyo Tx-NR905 receiver coming in August, 2007. It will have the best video scaler on the planet. MSRP $2,099. THX Ultra2 certified.
The alternative to the Onkyo would be the Emotiva IPS-1 7 channel power amp ($1199) and the successor to the MMC-1 pre pro coming in Jan. 2008 (also probably $1199). So $2,400 at worst, not much more than the Onkyo 905. And Emotiva is selling the IPS-1 amp and the current MMC-1 pre-pro for $2,199 as a pair!!! Just $100 more than the Onkyo will be. The upgrade to the MMC-1 will have HDMI switching and maybe the new hi res audio codecs. If one can get it in a pair for $2,199 I will be very tempted. They look fantastic, and people say they sound that way too. They look and sound like $6,000 apparently.
Congratulations on the good response at the shows. I had the Magnolia guys drooling as I told them about your disks. They thanked me for telling them about them. I had the store manager looking at your site. The average little, and I mean little, pre-war, 3 bedroom, 1 bath house in Palo Alto is $1.1 million, so to spread the word there seems like a good idea. I told my dentist in San Mateo about Aix too and he seemed "mad" that I was tempting him to spend money, but he sure was listening. He "only" lives in Redwood Shores where everything is way over a $ million.
Any news to report re the www.itrax.com site? And any idea of doing a project with Ricky Nelson's sons?

After listening to the Brandenburg disc DTS 5.1 and MLP 5.1 tracks with power dvd 7.3 from a X-Meridian Op-Amp modded sound card, I am convinced that MLP over 5.1 analog out sounds significently better than DTS over SPDIF. The difference might have as much to do with the sound card as the audio quality of the 2 recording methods though.

And that is what is wrong with the music and audio industry these days.