Stevie Ray Vaughan was perhaps the best guitarist I have ever seen in a live performance. His playing was articulate, emotive, powerful and inspired. He incorporated blues, jazz and rock into a sound that was immediately recognizable. “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” was released in 1984. It wasn’t a perfect recording but it was well recorded and followed the successful first album Texas Flood.
There is literally no way to estimate how many times I have listened to this album since 1984 but recently it was as if I were hearing it for the very first time.
With anticipation I sat down to listen. Hearing is not listening. Interestingly we hear things all of the time but don’t really listen. My focus would purely on listening, but how could a recording I’ve heard countless times be a new experience?
Using the Roon Labs to manage our new affinity for music downloads; I picked out the DSD (Direct Stream Digital) version from HDtracks.
DSD is studio grade quality playback using a 1 bit oversampling method similar to the high end CD format S.A.C.D. (Super Audio Compact Disc).
My first impressions were very good. The soundstage was much more precise and open when compared to the original recording. Stevie’s voice was projected up high and in front of the rest of the band. The drum kit seemed to be in the back of the room and it was easy to imagine exactly where the cymbals and drums were located in that space. The bass was much stronger and more detailed than the original recording providing both a strong rhythmic and tonal foundation. Stevie’s guitar had an insane amount of detail and dynamics. There were times I could hear his guitar amplifier humming in the recording room distinctly separate from the amplified sound of his guitar in the mix. All great stuff…and then Tin Pan Alley came on.
Hearing this song on this system with this level of detail took me back to the days of hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble live at The Rome Inn in Austin Texas. Tin Pan Alley is not a SRV original yet it epitomizes the maturity as a singer and player that he had reached and the DSD download provided so much more. The line between what a recorded performance and a live performance sound like is becoming blurred.
The dynamics, power and palpable presence of a band in the room, were immediate. The cymbals and drums first appear in the very clearly defined in space. Next, the guitar and drums begin their slow burn. What you sense is the space around and between each of the instruments. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine seeing smoke moving in the stage lights as you feel you are in a room where magic is being made. Then Stevie’s voice is felt as much as it is heard. Impassioned, strong yet laid back and with an immense sense of subtle dynamics, Stevie’s voice is haunting.
We lost Steve Ray Vaughan tragically in 1990. His impact as a musician still reverberates today. Listening to the DSD download of Couldn’t Stand the Weather I heard things I had never heard or sensed. There is a feeling that the sounds of the instruments and voices are just hanging in space right in front of you and that you are in the presence of the actual performance. I know the Paradigm Persona speakers and the McIntosh electronics are doing their part because I never once thought about them….it was all about the music, and that’s is truly what it is all about.
If you haven’t been to The Media Room yet, you are missing out. Give Reggie a call at (970) 729-2248 and set up a time to hear and see what you have been missing.
In The Media Room | by Artistic Systems 