Brett Gideon: Stockfisch Records SACD sampler

I popped in to see Jason Parmenter on a recent trip to Muriwai Beach, mainly to grab a copy of his new Stockfisch Records SACD sampler disk but also to have a listen to his Quicksilver valve pre amp and monoblock power combo driving a set of Harbeth speakers. In a word – delectable but I’ll write that lot up when I manage to get the images uploaded.

The Stockfisch Records SACD sampler (Vol 1) went into my SACD player within a minute of me arriving home and I was chuffed to hear that it sounded bloody great on my system, quite different to the Quicksilver/Harbeth rig at Jason’s but that’s to be expected considering how far apart the two systems are – valves vs solid state etc. I suppose you’d expect a sampler of the best tracks from a no-apologies hardcore German audiophile label to sound good but the part I like is that the music is enjoyable as well. There are way too many audiophile compilations out there that have world class sonics but the music seems to have been chosen to pacify crying children or reanimate the fogies at the old folks home.

No this sampler isn’t loaded with hard rock and there are a few lullabies but some of it certainly has more life than I expected, the two tracks from Chris Jones are particularly impressive and I want the album they were taken off with a degree of urgency. I’ve already asked Jason to order me at least one of the Stockfisch 180gm DMM cut LPs but I see that Roadhouses & Automobiles by Chris Jones is only available on SACD, which is a pity (so I’m a vinyl nut – sue me). I’ll just have to choose something else on vinyl and get the Chris Jones SACD anyway.

I always like having a few disks like this around, where you know that anything missing is being left out by the playback chain, not the recording engineers. I’ve got some amazing recordings that I genuinely love but I could always use some suggestions for exceptional audiophile sample disks….