Back in the '90s, my favourite hi-fi store was selling high-end gear made by a small Australian company, named after its founder, Kostas Metaxas. At the time it was impressively better than famous brand names (in Australia at least) for what they were asking. They certainly were pretty hard-core about their designs, for example:

Transistors: Every individual small signal transistor used in our amplifiers is selected and matched in lots of 10,000 to ensure sound quality consistency.

Transistors from each batch are checked for Hfe curves, breakdown voltage and noise figure to ensure that they meet our exacting level of quality. If the initial tests do not meet our specifications, the complete batch is rejected. It is only in this way that we can ensure the optimum quality of all our products.

Anyway, aside from that, I found they had put up some recording samples they'd made of jazz and classical, which, apart from a considerably amount of background hiss, are pretty good.

Metaxas Audio Systems

Hope you all enjoy them.

IIRC I posted this on a weekend, so I'm wondering if any of you actually saw this thread and tried any of the music?

I have subscribed (it's like $10US/yr) to his "service" and have downloaded several of the jazz and vocal pieces. Though I haven't been on in a few months.....

Really nice sound, a bit distant and mic'd well a la Chesky. But there's sometimes more "life" to his recordings I think. Reminds me a bit at times of Mapleshade in quality, though usually more of a distant perspective as mentioned. Still, pretty well recommended....not in LOVE with all the music, but it's not drivel.

I have subscribed (it's like $10US/yr) to his "service" and have downloaded several of the jazz and vocal pieces. Though I haven't been on in a few months.....

Really nice sound, a bit distant and mic'd well a la Chesky. But there's sometimes more "life" to his recordings I think. Reminds me a bit at times of Mapleshade in quality, though usually more of a distant perspective as mentioned. Still, pretty well recommended....not in LOVE with all the music, but it's not drivel.

Does the paid membership give you access to full concerts or are the files just snippets?

Does the paid membership give you access to full concerts or are the files just snippets?

I have downloaded full albums, ZIP files > 3-400Megs each......

I hadn't actually noticed the service last time I looked, so I might have to sign up as well. Hard to argue with the price. The music I was referring to is on the recordings page, where there's some interesting stuff. I agree there seems to be more life to the music than I'm used to. I would guess that no attempt was made to "clean up" the recordings afterwards before or after digitising them.