Audiophilepure

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/craft-recordings-celebrates-miles-davis-100th-birthday-quite-prestigious-collection-miles

I could go on splitting more fine hairs like this side-for-side, but I think by now you get the idea that the new Miles 56 180g 4LP overview of Miles Davis’ work with his esteemed quintet in 1956 for Prestige is a very musical affair worthy of the attention of audiophiles and newer fans seeking a deep dive immersion into the artist.

As to the ratings, for the Music, Miles 56 gets an easy 10. As for Sound. I have no problem giving Miles 56 a solid 9, given that it has corrected timing/recording-speed issues and has also eliminated the blemishes of age that are magnetic tape dropouts. I did hear a bit of surface noise between some tracks (keeping me from going up to a 9.5), but that was not a dealbreaker for me. (AP editor Mike Mettler tells me he agrees with the 10 rating for the Music, but gives the Sound a 9.5, as none of the eight sides in his Miles 56 box displayed any surface-noise issues.)

Dollar for dollar, the Miles 56: The Prestige Recordings 180g 4LP box set is a great way to get terrific-sounding versions of Miles Davis’ music from this early career peak all in one place. If you don’t feel a particular need to hear all the tracks presented in the same running order as the original albums, and you don’t particularly care about owning the physical OG album covers, Miles 56 is also simply a great way to just immerse yourself in the heart of one of Miles Davis’ most important and productive musical years at a quite reasonable box-set price level.

I then put on “Bid you goodnight” from the Blue Coast Music album Producer’s Choice Volume 1. This track is a splendid example of how much care and attention the inimitable Cookie Marenco puts into her recordings. I have heard this track many times before on various loudspeakers, but I am quite certain that it did not sound this good on any sub US$7,000 speaker that I have heard before. The sheer intimacy embedded in the voices of Keith Greeninger and Dayan Kai, was present in spades with Keith’s gravelly voice tugging achingly at my heartstrings. The lovely guitar work on this track is also rendered with truly accurate tonality with the attack and decay of every guitar pluck coming through with impressive realism.

Next up was “Fur Elise – Klavierstuck Woo 59” played by the very talented Edna Stern and featured on the Beethoven Sonate Appsionatas album. The piano is one of the most difficult instruments for any speaker to reproduce accurately, because each note can have an almost infinite number of variations in terms of loudness, weight, duration and decay time that the piano player can chose from. This is why few instruments allow the musician to embed as much emotion into the performance as a piano.

I know from first-hand experience, that in the hands of the right musician, a piano can be manipulated to express love, sadness, loneliness, melancholy, anger, rage, love, hate, fear and every other human emotion, with aplomb. This makes it a real challenge for a recording engineer to capture all these emotions by choosing the right microphones, placing them appropriately and then mixing the sounds so that the full depth of the emotion is captured for posterity. It is equally challenging for the speaker to then reproduce the recording in a way where none of the emotion is lost. The Gold 300 6G reproduces piano performances with more finesse than most of the other speakers that I have heard in its price range.    

I finished the audition with the timeless classic “Stairway to Heaven” on the Led Zeppelin IV album. This is a great track to evaluate a speaker’s ability to deliver on various sonic fronts and the Gold 300 6G excelled in most of them. The PRaT and transients were spot on, the sound stage depth, layering and imaging were gloriously holographic, the percussions were crisp and the air between the different instruments were there in spades.

I was in audio heaven! The TLA electronics’ midrange is outstanding in timbre, tone color, and freedom from grain. I really enjoy listening to female vocalists so I put on Lady Blackbird’s outstanding recording of “Fix It” from her Black Acid Soul (Qobuz). The TLA combo has an uncanny ability to transport music in an ethereal way. I was shocked by the intense level of purity, immediacy, and solidity of her spellbinding, rich, smoky textured hypnotic voice. I felt as though she was in the room.  

The TLA SSA-350 mono power amplifiers and SSP-1 preamplifier worked flawlessly during the entire listening period and are super quiet. There is no hum or any tube noise to speak of and the components are super reliable, without a single glitch. The marvellous sound delivered by these exceptional electronics are world-class in every way this audiophile deems important. Both units are a perfect matching combo, designed together as one.