My favorite Paul McCartney album by far is the live performance, Unplugged (The Official Bootleg), recorded in 1991 for the MTV Unplugged television series, in Limehouse Studios, Wembley, UK (MPL 7914131, LP, Limited Edition, Numbered).
The very enthusiastic audience got to hear Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Hamish Stuart, Robbie McIntosh, Paul "Wix" Wickens, and Blair Cunningham playing rock and roll, folk, country, and blues in their very best form on acoustic instruments.
Notably, the acoustic instruments were not plugged into amplifiers as in some other MTV Unplugged shows, but rather were mic'd with external microphones to maintain their "acoustic authenticity."
Is there a downside to this album? Actually, there is. This is a classic case of fantastic music on a crappy record. The album was issued on vinyl the thickness of a credit card, and if ever an album deserved to be re-released on premium vinyl, this is it. The recording itself was quite good, but would definitely benefit from "Tone Poet" or Chad Kassem-like remastering-reissue values.
Through the M8 RIAA and AN-S8L SUT combo, the sound of this recording was warm, rich, natural, highly resolved, and transparent, and made the music incredibly involving. The M8 propelled the music forward with its realistically powerful beat on "Be-Bop-A-Lula" and other rock and roll songs on the album.
The recording doesn't have a particularly wide soundstage, but decent depth and imaging, and yet the M8 still managed to fill my room with engaging, fun, and lively music that made me feel like I was there in person at the performance.
The music sounded bigger, more real, and more present in my room through the M8 RIAA and AN-S8L SUT. It was almost as if the entire soundstage expanded in space, moved forward deeper into my room, and provided a much greater feeling of there being "flesh and blood" musicians in the room with me, which elevated the sense of drama from the music in a rather spine-tingling way.
I've been entertained watching the Pink Panther films starring Peter Sellers since 1963. The bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau never fails to make me laugh out loud and feel good. The music from the film scores, composed and conducted by the talented Henry Mancini, has also always delighted me.
My copy of The Pink Panther (LSP-2795) is the Speakers Corner Records reissue version from 2011.
This is fun music, and is primarily a jazz soundtrack with a little bit of big band thrown in for good measure, with Mancini using a variety of dance rhythms and instrumental styles that will make you want to get up and dance to the music.
Listening to The Pink Panther with the M6 RIAA/AN-S4L SUT pairing was a blast. I heard beautiful instrumental timbre, a wide and deep soundstage with excellent imaging, and a rich and luxurious presentation of the music. It felt like the musicians were in my room with me, thanks to having lots of flesh and blood presence.
The overall tonality was utterly natural, with really beautiful sound quality. The dramatic nature of Mancini's compositions really came through with superb dynamics, a liquid flow of the music, engaging rhythms, gorgeous tone color, and the natural sounding decay of notes and overtones was impressive.
When I listened to The Pink Panther with the M6 RIAA/AN-S4L SUT pairing I thought, "It just doesn't get any better than this."
Then when I swapped back in the M8 RIAA/AN-S8L SUT pairing to listen to The Pink Panther, I was blown away by the increase in sound quality, overall refinement, and intense emotional connection to the music.
I heard more of a sense of space around the instruments. The soundstage was deeper, there was more of a flesh-and-blood image presence, and more of a continuous connection between instruments.
There is a lot more musical information coming through with the all-silver M8 RIAA/AN-S8L SUT pairing, as one would expect, but like you might not expect, that information comes through in a completely natural sounding way.
It's remarkable phenomena to hear, as the effect of more information coming through made the instruments and/or vocals sound more complete, revealed more nuance, more presence, more of everything, and as a result everything just sounded more real with ultra-fi sound quality.
As an aside, I think all that additional information coming through is how the M8 RIAA/AN-S8L SUT pairing makes lower-fidelity recordings sound so much better. It just fills in everything better that was missing, improving overall fidelity.
Essentially all recordings sound better, and higher-fidelity recordings are just off the charts in sound quality and musical engagement. The end result is that you have a much wider listening window, where a lot more albums sound really good, and the really great recordings are just out of this world.
On The Pink Panther that additional information made string tone and percussion sound noticeably more natural, with more resolution, more presence, and more richness.
With the M8 RIAA/AN-S8L SUT pairing it was like the music just opened up and bloomed, breathed and flowed with more spaciousness, was more transparent with greater clarity and resolution. The music got bigger, expanded further into my room, with a more flesh and blood presence of musicians, and a room filling sense of recorded ambience.
Along with my room, my gigantic Westminster loudspeakers just disappeared, immersing me into the recording. The dance tempos got my feet going, and I was filled with feelings of exhilaration.
This is fun music, just like the Pink Panther movies are fun, and I could feel it in my emotions, improving my mood, as the music played. It was exhilarating and satisfying to hear and feel this level of high-fidelity performance.
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