Best Audiophile Voices II – When Familiar Songs Find a New Voice

There are albums that impress within seconds, and there are albums that slowly make the listening room feel like a different place. Best Audiophile Voices II, released by Premium Records, belongs firmly to the second category. Instead of relying on spectacular dynamics or overwhelming bass, this celebrated audiophile vocal collection draws the listener closer through beautifully recorded female voices, intimate arrangements and songs that often feel familiar before the first verse has even finished.

As the second volume in the famous Best Audiophile Voices series, the album brings together fifteen carefully selected performances from artists including Emi Fujita, Eva Cassidy, Andrea Zonn, Jean Frye Sidwell, Jheena Lodwick, Corrinne May, Etta Jones, Sofia Pettersson, Jeanette Lindström, Alison Krauss, Susannah McCorkle, Salena Jones, Jacqui Dankworth, Claire Martin and Tania Maria. Jazz, folk, soft pop and acoustic music meet naturally throughout the collection, but the real connection between these recordings is the human voice and the extraordinary amount of emotion that can be carried by it.

The journey begins with Emi Fujita’s interpretation of “Desperado,” a song almost everyone recognizes from the opening melody. Familiarity can be a powerful quality in an audiophile recording because it removes the need to discover the song itself and allows attention to move towards the performance. Fujita approaches the Eagles classic with characteristic restraint, giving the melody enough space to breathe. Through a transparent high-end audio system, the voice should appear naturally between the loudspeakers while the accompanying instruments establish their own positions around it, creating an intimate soundstage without exaggerating the recording.

Then comes Eva Cassidy with “Fields of Gold,” and suddenly the technical vocabulary becomes considerably less important. Cassidy’s interpretation of the Sting composition has become one of the most familiar female vocal reference tracks in the audiophile world, and it isn’t difficult to understand why. Her voice combines delicacy with emotional weight, while the uncluttered arrangement leaves enough acoustic space for every small change in phrasing to remain audible. It is an excellent recording for evaluating vocal realism, but treating it merely as a hi-fi test track almost misses the point. The reason people continue returning to this performance is not because it demonstrates their loudspeakers beautifully; it is because Cassidy makes the song feel entirely her own.

Andrea Zonn’s “Better Be Home Soon” follows, before Jean Frye Sidwell takes the collection into classic territory with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” These changes in musical character are important because a revealing audio system should preserve them rather than imposing the same sonic personality on every recording. One voice may sound light and delicate, another fuller and warmer, while the acoustic environment can change dramatically from track to track. The pleasure lies in hearing those differences and realizing that transparency is not simply about hearing more detail, but about hearing more of what makes each performance individual.

The fifth track introduces Jheena Lodwick with “Do That to Me One More Time,” followed by Corrinne May’s “Fly Away.” The atmosphere remains relaxed, but the voices are noticeably different in texture and presentation. This is where Best Audiophile Voices II becomes particularly useful as audiophile reference music. Human voices occupy the part of the frequency spectrum where our hearing is extraordinarily sensitive, so even relatively small changes in tonal balance can affect realism. An overly forward system can make sibilants distracting, while too much warmth can remove openness and give different singers an unnaturally similar character.

With Etta Jones singing “That Ole Devil Called Love,” the album moves deeper into jazz. Jones brings a mature, unmistakably individual vocal character to the collection, demonstrating that an audiophile voice doesn’t need to be delicate or polished to sound compelling. What matters is whether the recording preserves texture, phrasing and personality. Sofia Pettersson follows with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” before Jeanette Lindström and Steve Dobrogosz perform “Both Sides Now,” another familiar composition transformed by a different interpretation.

By this point, the album has established a wonderfully comfortable rhythm. There is no need to skip through tracks searching for the spectacular demonstration moment because the attraction lies in the consistency of the listening experience. Voices remain central, acoustic arrangements are given room to develop naturally and the recordings encourage attention to smaller details such as breath, instrumental decay and the silence surrounding individual phrases. These qualities make the collection particularly revealing when evaluating midrange transparency, stereo imaging and tonal balance, but they also make it ideal for an evening when evaluating equipment is the last thing on your mind.

Alison Krauss and “Stay” provide another highlight. Krauss possesses one of those voices that can immediately reveal whether a system is reproducing the upper midrange naturally. There should be clarity without hardness and detail without an artificial spotlight being placed on every breath. On a well-balanced system, the presentation feels effortless, allowing the voice to float naturally within the acoustic space rather than being pushed unnaturally towards the listener.

The collection then moves towards the Great American Songbook with Susannah McCorkle performing “Someone to Watch Over Me,” followed by Salena Jones with “My Foolish Heart.” Jacqui Dankworth’s interpretation of “In a Sentimental Mood” continues the late-night jazz atmosphere before Claire Martin sings “When I Fall in Love.” These are songs that have survived countless interpretations, and hearing them together makes the individual character of each singer particularly apparent. A transparent system should allow those differences to remain intact, from the weight and warmth of one voice to the lighter phrasing and more intimate presentation of another.

Finally, Tania Maria closes the original collection with “Cry Me a River.” After fifteen tracks built around some of the most recognizable female voices and melodies in audiophile music, the conclusion feels less like the end of a demonstration disc and more like the final performance in a small late-night club. The equipment may still be sitting in front of you, but hopefully it has become considerably less interesting than it was when the album began.

That is ultimately the great strength of Premium Records Best Audiophile Voices II. It certainly works as an audiophile reference album for speakers, headphones, amplifiers and DACs, particularly when listening for vocal presence, midrange warmth, smooth treble, stereo imaging and soundstage depth. The recordings are sufficiently revealing to expose differences in a system without relying on exaggerated effects, and the variety of singers makes it easy to hear whether equipment is preserving the unique character of every voice.

Yet the album’s reputation among audiophiles comes from more than recording quality. These performances are enjoyable enough that technical listening gradually becomes unnecessary. You may begin with Emi Fujita while concentrating on the center image, use Eva Cassidy to listen for vocal realism and pay attention to acoustic detail during Jeanette Lindström, but somewhere between Alison Krauss, Salena Jones and Claire Martin the temptation to analyse every note begins to disappear.

That transition is what the best audiophile female vocal recordings should achieve. High-end audio isn’t ultimately about hearing the loudspeakers produce more detail; it is about creating enough transparency that the loudspeakers themselves become less noticeable. The voice gains a believable position, the instruments establish an acoustic environment around it and the technology quietly retreats into the background.

Best Audiophile Voices II remains such an enjoyable collection because it understands that distinction. It offers beautiful sound without making sound quality the only reason to listen, combining familiar songs, distinctive female voices and intimate arrangements into an album that works equally well as serious reference material and relaxed late-night listening.

Start with Desperado and allow the collection to play without skipping ahead. By the time Tania Maria reaches the final notes of Cry Me a River, you may have learned quite a lot about your audio system.

Hopefully, however, you will have spent considerably more time listening to the voices.

Hi-Fi(ve),

Ronald – Your EarFluencer 🎧