Ron S

Speaking of which, I noticed that the OTHER team is called "Great Britain" and not "United Kingdom"--what's up with that? Does Ulster have its own team or something?

Dude, you're sounding like a preorder junkie.

Sounds like Joe's been workin' out with that Gripmaster:

I had a similar reaction when I ran an A/B comparison of the RVG and McMaster editions of "A Night In Tunisia" a week or two ago. The RVG was definitely louder and brighter, and also seemed to be boosted on the lower end. The McMaster sounded more natural and had more presence to me, and also seemed to reveal more detail. What would really be interesting, of course, would be a comparison of an RVG and a McMaster to an original LP or, even better yet, to the original source tape.

So let me get this straight. The guy is going 120mph, crashes his car, endangers the lives of who knows how many people, is drunk as a skunk, and claims that a guy named "Dietrich" was driving and he ran away. And the cops didn't arrest this guy?! Gee, let me try that one the next time I'm going 120mph in my minivan and get pulled over. WTF?! But Jim, you don't KNOW anyone named Dietrich. Better say it was Randy.

Sorry I'm even later! Happy Birthday!

Obviously! They're using it in the catalogue to sell the set!

Forget that. At these prices, you'll have plenty of equity in your new box sets.

I'm crumbling and placing an order as we speak, dammit... PS - Ordering WAYYY too much too I was tempted to order the Bill Evans Riverside but, as with the Wes Montgomery box for me, I already have almost everything that's in it. Even at these fantastic prices, it's hard to justify ordering box sets of stuff you already have.

I'd really be interested in your comparison of the two. I recently A/B'd the RVG and McMaster of one or two other titles and concluded that I like the McMaster better.

Wes Montgomery Riverside is also back (ahem, Erik).

Just received the latest Mosaic catalogue, and on the inside cover--lo and behold--a wonderful photo of Oliver Nelson with the following caption: "Nelson conducting the Jazz Interactions Orchestra in Central Park, NYC, on October 7, 1967. Photograph by Guy Kopelowicz/CTS Images." Gee, I wonder who that is? Way to go, Guy!

PHEW!!! For a minute there, I thought maybe something had happened to my old '84 Tercel:

And my understanding is that that's a REALLY big "if" for the near future--very expensive and not easily accomplished. When I'm not pursuing my full-time occupation of posting on this Board, I'm engaged in one of my many hobbies--building houses. And I can tell you that at the current time in the Philadelphia area (where Comcast is headquartered and Verizon started and maintains regional headquarters, by the way) Verizon still runs good-ol'-fashioned copper pairs, and not F/O, into newly constructed houses. Doesn't strike me as the move of a company that really believes it will be having F/O running into all homes at any time in the near future. My understanding is that once you get to the so-called "backbones" and "backhauls" of the internet, it's pretty much all F/O at this point in most places (such as the Comcast "macronetwork" you mentioned) . But, as you point out, the key to a whole new level of internet technology (such as the Internet2 currently being developed by a consortium of universities) will be running F/O into every home everywhere, and that ain't happenin' anytime soon with any telco or cable company (I've heard at least 10 years, but who knows?).

The Basie, Eldridge, Farlow, and Jazztet Mosaics are back in stock.

I haven't heard anything about Verizon backing off the build-out, just that it will take it several YEARS to get fiber to every street, and even longer to get fiber to every home for a truly complete fiber network. My understanding is that Verizon currently has fiber service with double-digit meg d/l in only a few small test communities--a far cry from the completely built-out network Comcast already has. I think I also read somewhere that Comcast has specifically rejected building a fiber network and, not surprisingly, believes it can get the best results using it's cable network. I can't point to any particular sources for this information--just basing it on things I've read and heard in the past.

I just want the record to reflect that I was the first one to bring up curling this year, here.

Speakeasy DOES have it's own national network, and is not merely a reseller. See this. Also, they DO offer 768K upload. See this. They're also consistently the top-ranked national DSL ISP on Broadband Reports (the leading ISP-rating web site), here (scroll down to "National ISPs/Telco ADSL"). I'm not pimping for them, although they've been my DSL provider for over 5 years, and they are the class act of DSL providers nationwide. However, in addition to Speakeasy, I also have Comcast cable broadband service coming into my house (provided by my wife's employer), so I actually have both kinds of broadband service here. I regularly test the download speeds of both services through the same Speakeasy server in NYC, and the cable is generally at least in the 3-4M range, whereas the DSL is in the 1.3M range. And apart from the speed tests, web pages seem to load much more quickly on the cable connection. Bottom line, in the next few months I plan to drop the DSL service and put both networks on the cable service. At least for now, and I think until the telcos have a true fiberoptic network widely in place (don't hold your breath on that for Verizon, according to what I've recently heard), you're generally going to get much higher speed for your money with cable. At least around these here parts.

Sorry I'm late, Hans, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! (I tried to make sure that wasn't too compressed and had excellent dynamics. )

That's sorta true for DSL, although DSL providers are now offering faster downloads for more money (e.g., Verizon offers a 3M download and my own ISP, Speakeasy, offers a 6M download). That is NOT the standard, however, for cable internet service--at least where I am. Comcast generally offers download speeds up to 6M, and 4-5M is pretty typical. And the speed test results reported in this thread are much FASTER, and not slower, than the 1.5M D/L speed you cited, and are typical of cable internet service--Jim A. at over 3.5M, Jim Sangrey at over 7M, 7/4 at over 3M, Weizen at almost 4.5M, and Shawn at almost 5.5M. You have to remember to convert the results they reported, in KILObits per second, into MEGAbits per second. And to further confuse things, these download tests also offer the equivalent transfer rates in kiloBYTES per second, which will seem much slower but really aren't--remember that there are 8 bits to every byte. In any event, from what I've seen, cable is going to get you generally higher download speeds these days than DSL, although the cable speeds will be more variable at any given time than DSL speeds. Still, a cable download speed that varies between, e.g., 3-5M is going to be better than a DSL speed that stays fairly constant at 1.3M (the true speed you get with a so-called 1.5M connection because of "overhead"). And I say that as someone who has DSL.

I actually have Speakeasy for my DSL service, and have been using that test site for years (I have it bookmarked). The key is to pick the server closest to you to get the most accurate reading of your speeds. Here is another site I occasionally use just to double-check the reading I get from the Speakeasy site (I believe the server for that test is in San Antonio, TX). Your upload speed is the speed at which data travels from your computer TO the internet, as opposed to download speed which is the speed at which data travels FROM the internet to your computer. Upload is generally capped by your ISP at a range much lower than your download speed to preserve bandwith (for example, the stated speeds of my DSL service are 1500 kilobits--or 1.5 megabits--per-second download and 384 kilobits-per-second upload). Generally, you don't need as much speed for upload since the typical internet user sends out only a fraction of the data volume (emails, requests for internet pages, etc.) that he or she downloads (web pages, multimedia files, etc.). So, unless you're operating your computer as a web server, you really don't need as much speed for upload as you do for download.

David's method doesn't seem to work for me (I don't get the choices he described when I click on the particular item in my order history). However, what I've always done is use this form to tell them about the problem. You may have to log in first to have the drop-down list under "Order Number" show your particular list of orders. You'll need to select the applicable order number (you can look under "Your Account" at the top of the page, and then under "Order History" on your account page to find the right order number). Describe the problem under "Questions/Comments" and then hit "Submit". Within a day or 2, you should receive an email responding to the problem. In the past, they would go ahead and immediately place an order for a replacement CD, and then follow up weeks later by sending you a COD return label for the defective disc, but I'm not sure if they're still sending the replacements before receiving the defective item.

Also Dexter Gordon Prestige and Sonny Rollins Freelance.

Listen, Dude--watch it with that playing-discs-in-reverse-order stuff, OK??? There's something kinda, um, I dunno . . . unnatural about it.

And that's what it now says on the web site.