After spending a couple of days last week in Boston, this week I was once again in the North East. My day job called me there to conduct some training. While in New York City, I was able to sneak away to the Headquarters of Chesky Records.  WOW. Was able to spend some time with Lisa, who has been invaluable in working with Car Audio Nationals on our CD. She has also been awesome working on several other small projects that may bare fruit soon I hope.

While offices are offices, Lisa was able to sneak me into the studio that they have on premises. While in there I got to meet Nick, the recording engineer. He was busy creating the high definition tracks for the HDTracks.com website.  While in the studio, Lisa and Nick sat me down on the listening sofa.

WOW! WOW! WOW! Hearing the music in the studio was phenomenal. They had obviously spent much time and energy in getting the speaker placement and speakers setup just right. I was listening to  XXXX and was blown away. NEVER have I heard anything that imaged like that. Don't know if it was the fact that the room was designed by the guys who record the music or the gear in the room. (I would blame the former.... :-) The center was dead on, the tonality was awesome and the imaging and emotional involvement was all there. 

I kept looking for a center channel that I knew didn't exist, but my brain could not fathom that strong of a center with no speakers there. If this was being scored at a car audio competition, it would have been a 20/20 on the score sheet in every category.

In talking to many SQ Competitors, the one complaint that they often have is that mid bass / sub bass is lacking from Chesky's records. With a little teasing, Nick told me that most companies exaggerate the mid bass and sub bass, where as Chesky does not. And sure enough on a system that was obviously tuned for their records, everything sounded awesome. Just enough bass and all of the highs in balance. I am positive that Nick would love to have a conversation with any of us SQ junkies about the lack of bass in his records. :-)

Easily one of the most enjoyable hours I have spent anywhere. The team at Chesky was a pleasure to chat with and very informative. I left with several copies of their new CD's that will be reviewed here soon.

Here is a picture of Chesky's in-house studio. (Nick is on the left and Lisa on the right, in case you couldn't figure that out. :-) )