Chesky Records Releases The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc

March 25, 2014 – There’s no doubt about it; we are living in the Golden Age of Headphone Design. At every price category, headphones have never sounded better. You can hear superior detailing and clarity from headphones and typical room acoustic problems with speakers are completely eliminated. With the best headphones you hear what the microphones “heard,” and nothing else. Of course a stellar headphone can’t make a poor quality recording sound great, so if you want to hear your headphones’ full potential you have to listen to the best recordings. Gathered on this test disc is an assortment of the latest Chesky recordings to show off the best of what your headphones can do.

In addition to the music tracks, we have included a selection of tracks that can test your headphone’s dynamic range and imaging capabilities. We’ve all gotten used to hearing music mixed and mastered to sound consistently loud, so a whisper quiet vocal is as loud as a scream. The uncompressed music tracks on this sampler retain their natural soft-to-loud dynamics. Bear in mind that Binaural+’s 360 degree spatial cues will sound very different on in-ear, on-ear, and over-the-ear headphones. With the best headphones you will experience an “ear-witness” perspective; you hear what the binaural head heard at the session, exactly. There’s no after the fact mixing or alteration to the balance. There can’t be as it’s a live to two-track recording. So if you own a bunch of headphones, check out how different they sound on the music and test tracks. You might be surprised by what you hear.

Chesky Records is proud to introduce its new Binaural+ Series. Binaural sound has been around for a long time, but until now it was just for headphones and could not be enjoyed on speakers. Our Binaural+ Series recordings sound great on speakers and headphones, and capture the sound of music as you would if you were sitting in front of the band. The Binaural+ Series sessions were recorded in high-resolution 192-kHz/24-bit sound with a special Binaural head (a “dummy” human head with specially calibrated microphones where the ears would be).

Featuring recent all-star Chesky artists like Bucky Pizzarelli, Wycliffe Gordon, Candido Camero, and more

Available now on Chesky Records, HDtracks.com, and other fine outlets