I bet nobody else around here has a spouse who has no idea why we would spend as much time and money on our audiophile hobby. The old joke goes: what’s the definition of an audiophile’s nightmare? It’s when he finds out his wife sold his equipment for what he told her he paid for it. Anyhow, my new listening room is almost complete. My wife hasn’t even looked at it, just griped about how much it has cost. So to try and demonstrate it to her, I’d like to butter her up by playing some music by Bruce Springsteen. I myself am not a huge BS fan, but she is obsessed with him, pretty much a groupie. Does anyone know of any Springsteen recordings that are particularly well recorded/produced? I won’t pretend she’s going to be convinced I’ve made a good decision on this thing, but at least I can try.
The Wrecking Ball album has tracks that are exceptional. Rocky Ground envelopes you with low frequency energy. The soundstage has depth. Most of the other tracks on this one are very good.
Vinyl or digital?
Tunnel of Love
Ghost of Tom Joad
Nebraska. Might not be highest of audiophile quality but sound quality is better than his earlier stuff
As vinyl I agree, it’s better than other earlier albums.
Vinyl or digital? The answer is YES. I do both. And thanks to all of you who replied. Why would I have ever doubted that I would get great responses here. I’ll probably go with Ghost of Tom Joad for digital and Wrecking Ball (if I can find my vinyl copy). Interesting story: I was really good friends with Eddie Horst, who wrote a lot of the string and horn arrangements for Bruce Springsteen, including Wrecking Ball - he signed my vinyl copy. Sad story - Eddie took his own life about 8 years ago - he suffered from terrible depression - they tried everything, but he just couldn’t deal with it any longer. I really miss him - one heck of a funny guy and incredibly creative.
Dagnabbit. I just looked and Eddie Horst didn’t work on Wrecking Ball - he arranged for Magic, Working on a Dream (the vinyl I have that Eddie signed), High Hopes, and Devils & Dust.
That’s sad to hear. Depression is a terrible and oftentimes difficult thing to deal with. Unfortunate.
Bruce has been releasing a lot of live archive recordings. One of my favorites is from the Roxy in West Hollywood, 10-18-1975. It opens with a very spare version of Thunder Road that just knocks me out. I sprang for the DSD128 version–expensive but sounds great. They are available from nugs.net.
I’m on fire
I would agree w Tom Joad. I can’t think of another. Wild innocent e street shuffle in 96/24 isn’t bad in my opinion.
I saw Muddy Waters there at the Roxy in '78. Great show!
As appropriate as nuts may be, you might want to change that to nugs. 
Good catch.
Thanks! Bruce’s catalog sounds quite good on Qobuz high res. I prefer his earlier releases when the band was still hungry over later releases. Their live shows are always worth attending.
Yes to live, huge catalogue and go on for at least 2hrs. Excellent band (even without Clarence).
Lots of fun.
I have this box set, which has an HDCD (but no SACD) layer…talk about a format that died and isn’t supported by many (any?) current players.
I started this thread by saying Bruce wasn’t normally in my favorite list, but I do have to admit he puts on an amazing show. Even in his sixties, the guy plays well over 2 hours with no break. And he truly LEADS a band, doesn’t just stand there and sing, but interacts with the other players to pull energy out of them. A few years ago, my wife got tickets to see him in Kansas City. The year before, he had to cancel his concert there for a family emergency, so he started this concert by apologizing for canceling and said he’d make up for it. And he did - 3 hour concert and played a couple of never-recorded songs, one of which was (of course) “Kansas City.”