I got a little volume behind the system just now and did the old hand-on-the-sub - it's working. Sorry guys for asking a question I should've doublechecked on my own. Hopefully you at least glean some interest in the music from this thread!

I just googled the "Living Stereo" series and wow, this series is HUGE!

http://www.livingstereo-sacd.com/

click the Albums link...

RCA's living stereo, along with Everest, Mercury living presence, Westminster and a few others I probably can't recall were the standard of the day for the "golden age" of stereo in the 1950s and early 1960s. These were all recorded with very pure-sounding analog vacuum tube equipment, some on 35mm magnetic film, which is wider and moves faster than the standard analog magnetic tape.

Their sound quality has never since since been equalled with the exception of those recordings which use either vintage gear from that era (I do this for some of my recording signal chain), or use modern reproductions of vintage gear. Additionally there are many modern designs which use vacuum tube technology, and today's recording engineers value the sound of this highly. The microphones from this era fetch unreal amounts of money.

Jazz recordings from this era in particular benefit from the extremely "organic" sound of the vacuum tube gear and analog signal path.

RedSIinPA, I'm glad you like classical music but if you think of it as "soothing" I suggest a few ear openers: Orff's "Carmina Burana"; the last 2 movements of Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique"; the opening of the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth; any symphony by Gustav Mahler except maybe the Fourth (his music has the best claim to the word "titanic" of any I know); and of course Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", particularly the last section. Any of those ought to wake your ears up, biiig time. They're also tougher tests than ANY other type of material for the quality level, as well as power, of the whole reproducing chain.
I'm sure lots of you all reading this could name hundreds of others, no problem.

When I think of "soothing", string quartets come to mind. The potboiler symphonic works are generally not what I'd call soothing. Great music, yes. Soothing, not so.

Ralph Vaughan Williams'"Pastoral" symphony (#3)is soothing. His "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" is another "soothing" work, as is "Fantasia on Greensleeves".

Shostakovich is not what I'd call "soothing"....

Very good! - and I sure agree on the VW pieces and Shostakovich.

Then again, there's Vaughan Willaims' 4th symphony...... Maybe he finally got pissed off from writing so much "soothing" music and wanted to try something....er....different....

thank you for the recommendations!