Kevin Bresnahan

I just got off the phone and confirmed with Michael Cuscuna that Analogue Productions will be issuing 25 Blue Note titles on hybrid SACDs. No idea of the timetable, but I do know that the DSD masters are already done. They were made as they played back the masters during the 45 rpm LP mastering. The 25 titles are: Jackie McLean - Capuchin Swing John Patton - Along Came John Ike Quebec - It Might As Well Be Spring Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin' Hank Mobley - A Caddy For Daddy Jackie McLean - Jackie's Bag Dexter Gordon - Go Lou Donaldson - Blues Walk Dexter Gordon - Dexter Calling Fred Jackson - Hootin' 'N Tootin' Grant Green - Idle Moments Grant Green - Green Street Art Taylor - A.T.'s Delight Lee Morgan - Lee-way Paul Chambers - Whims of Chambers Joe Henderson - Page One Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else Ike Quebec - Soul Samba Bossa Nova Lou Donaldson - Here 'Tis Horace Silver - The Tokyo Blues John Coltrane - Blue Train Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue The Three Sounds - Bottom's Up Kenny Dorham - Whistle Stop Sonny Rollins - Vol. 2

Ah - I'd assumed that it had. Maybe I'll pass then. It doesn't have one, but it would be extremely simple to add one if you want. Your local hardware store will have a very thin sheet of plywood that would do the trick. Maybe a piece of luan?

Can someone verify the dimensions of this Ikea Expedit bookshelf? The website says it's 58 5/8" wide by 15 3/8" deep by 31 1/8" high. It looks like they switched the width & height. Kevin

I sold my rainbow LP many years ago when I heard the Conn CD. I remembered it sounding lousy. As I sit here listening to my newly acquired second copy of this Mobley classic ($5 at Stereo Jack's! ), I have to wonder what people are hearing when they play this LP, particularly side 2 with 'A Touch Of Blue'. I hear some nasty stuff on the highs. It's really bad on the cymbals. They don't sound "normal". I remember why I sold this the first time. It'll be good to have around when I want to spin some vinyl, but the Conn CD will get first play. I have to find a Conn LP to see if that is any better.

Last night, I spun the new Cisco LP of Herbie Hancock's "Takin' Off". I have to say, given that Cisco Music went out of business and these platters should start drying up, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this. Incredibly good-sounding LP. They claim they allowed the full spread stereo to come through. It sounds "different" because of it. The horns are more isolated and you hear the horns distinctly.

The mono tape for these Impulse! releases was created by summing the left & right of the stereo tape. RVG had stopped making a dedicated mono mix by the late 50's. If you can't afford one these pricy monos, just play the stereo version and use a Y cord to combine the two channels.

After you get in there, it may be worthwhile to check out the E-mail accounts. You may find stuff there that can be used in court to get some money back from the other guys. Kevin

Snap, crackle, pop! I just spun a very beat-up copy of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellowbrick Road". I really like "Funeral For A Friend". Next up is The Who's "Amazing Journey". Not a bad sounding hunk of plastic, even if it is digitally sourced. It's worth picking up if only for the artwork.

I believe you approached the situation backwards. You should have contacted the retailer first and if they don't address the problem, go to the manufacturer. That's the way it works in retail for small items. It's not like you're talking about a refrigerator here. If I bought a CD from Best Buy and it was messed up, the last place I would contact would be the manufacturer. Also, I bet if you contacted CD Universe first and they told you to buzz off, Concord would have helped. BTW, some manufacturers of large items like TVs don't have any corporate-level customer support. They require you to use the retailer and/or a local service provider for all repairs. I dread having to get my Mitsubishi LCD TV fixed when/if it breaks. Their "customer support" is non-existent. You have to use a local service company if you want it fixed.

Best Buy issued a vinyl version of a compilation by The Who called "Amazing Journey". I picked up a copy yesterday for $11.99. Unfortunately, Best Buy seems to have misjudged the demand. eBay already has one that went for $71.

As long as the money's not disintegrating, I've got a Sam Rivers Mosaic that I'd let go for $125.

I understand that you like these pressings, but clearly that gouge in that picture is not a minor flaw and all of the problems people are having with these $50 pressings is bad for business. Jee-zus. No kidding! Can you imagine how upset you'd be upon opening up an expensive LP purchase and finding that scratch? It's mind-boggling that RTI allowed that to leave their factory. Who would accept that? One of the worst things is that the buyers live all over the globe. There's someone saying that his Dexter Gordon LP arrived in Australia with scratches. Can you imagine the shipping charges for this screw up? Who "eats" this cost? Probably AP. How long can a little company like AP keep eating these additional costs? Maybe someone can ask the bean counters at Cisco Music. Oh, wait a minute, they exited this business - even though they had great pressings. And of course, the absolute worst thing about this is that it has killed the secondary market for sealed copies. I would only buy one of these from some place that accepts exchanges. I can't be the only person thinking this. This is really bad for the vinyl business. For someone like me who is only just dipping his toes back into the vinyl world, this brings back many horrible memories and reminds why I was in heaven when they introduced the CD. Kevin

I understand that you like these pressings, but clearly that gouge in that picture is not a minor flaw and all of the problems people are having with these $50 pressings is bad for business. RTI has some serious issues that they do not seem willing to fix. If they keep it up, vinyl might disappear again!

So here it is... almost 5 months later and Analogue Productions has shipped the first of 50 Blue Note 45 rpm vinyl titles. Has RTI fixed their problems? Well, not according to the guys over on the Steve Hoffman forums! Scratched, make that gouged, records. Noisy. Labels falling off. Duplicate LPs (two disc 1's). Check out the LP surface in the photo someone took. The price for this high-quality LP? $50! Kevin

For the use-cases you've described in this thread I'd go with Audacity. Plus, it's free. Before Audacity, I always used Groove Mechanic, but I doubt the free version is still around. It was hard to find a few years ago. I only used Groove Mechanic to separate tracks, not clean up the ticks & pops. As for ripping mp3s, I've pretty much switched over to Exact Audio Copy but in a pinch, I'll use CDex. Both use an external LAME compressor and support passing variables to the compressor. I pass a pretty long command line: -V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d For FLAC, I still use EAC but I have an add-on called AutoFLAC. It works very nicely with EAC.

http://stereocentral.tv/phpbb/index.php Lots of really hateful, juvenile stuff here, but also some funny (and warranted) bitching, mostly about the moderators and some of the more zealous sycophants. And no, I don't post there. Personally, I like Steve and his work, but some of his followers are a bit wacky. I wish I knew someone on this Hoffman parody board. There is no way to contact them at all. Weird to have a forum without any way to contact the moderator, even via e-mail. If anyone knows a member there, drop me a pm here. Kevin

I have never had any CDs that I could not rip to mp3. I even kept two of Sony's "root kit fiasco" CDs for future reference. I was able to copy those as well. Try Exact Audio Copy and see if it works. It seems able to ignore copy protection without any trouble.

In the feedback, there appears to be a buyer who gave him positive feedback and the seller reciprocated. I suppose that could be done to set up a future scam, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go through. I think it was just a uninformed seller - or maybe just a seller who had no clue how much he paid for them and missed the '3' in front of the 600 on the receipt.

Hold down the shift key as you close your CD tray to disable autostart. Once the disc is in there, any ripper will "see" it. I agree with everyone that a failing CD drive can cause read failure. If you are a newbie, be aware that Windows Media Player is not a great ripper and comes with a default setting to normalize the audio. It also defaults to .wma file format, which is copy-protected. Download CDex from www.download.com. Very easy to use and makes for nice rips. Set the LAME encoder for VBR Q2 and you'll make .mp3 files indistinguishable from the source CD.

I have always wished I could afford a pair of the (now deleted) Nautilus 805 Signature speakers in Tiger's Eye finish. I went and demo'ed a pair, and the lowest the guy would go was $3,800 a pair. The cheapest I have ever seen a pair before was $2650/pair. Then I saw this listing at AudiogoN the other day. $600 a pair?!?! Before I could reply to the ad, it was updated to reflect a "Sold" status. I E-mailed the seller to ask if he might have another pair. His one word response was "No." Wow... just wow. I wish I could have been that lucky buyer. $600? Later, Kevin

A Stereo Jack dollar bin deal: Tom Harrell - Total! (Pinnacle)

Just finished: Scott Robinson - Winds Of Change (Multijazz Records) I bought this from Scott at his University of New Hampshire show Monday night. He brought 2 LPs and I bought both of them. Up now: Ricky Ford - Tenor For The Times (Muse)

That makes me jealous. Ronnie Mathews is always a blast to hear, always swings like crazy. Still pumping out that great 'Rumproller' sound. Unfortunately, Ronnie didn't make the gig, and I was told his health isn't too good. His sub, Orrin Evans, seemed to a bit lost with the Jazz Messengers songbook. All in all, a decent show that would have been better if it were more organized. I've never seen a show where the band members were so confused as to which tune was next or who was up for the next solo. Jazzshrink gave it a B-, I'd give it a B+. I also dug Ralph Peterson's guest shot on two tunes. He is one powerful drummer.

PM coming for: STAN LEVY This Time The Drum's On Me Japanese Issue TOCJ 62027 With Conte Condoli, Dexter Gordon, Frank Rosolino, Leroy Vinegar, Lou Levy. Disc has 3 minor surface marks that don't affect play. Obi inlcuded. $9 THE POLL WINNERS Barney Kessel Shelly Manne Ray Brown XRCD JVCXR-0019-2 $9 The Complete GERRY MULLIGAN meets BEN WEBSTER Sessions VME 2 CD 314539052 $8 NO ROOM FOR SQUARES Japanese Blue Note 2 CD Sampler from the 4000 Series TOCJ 5755.56 $14 Kevin

Sitting in the lobby of the Guest Quarters Suite Hotel as I type this, waiting to see the Art Blakey Tribute band with Valery Ponomarev & Bobby Watson in the front line at Scullers Jazz club. I'm hoping that Ronnie Mathews is at the piano as I haven't seen him in ages. He played with this band last week in NJ.