Daniel A

I've got both "Replica" and "ordinary" King issues of Herbie Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage', and while it was some time since I compared them I don't think the difference is that great between the two. So personally I don't worry that much if original tapes were used or not as long as the result is good - or even great - sound. Interesting information, though. Where did you learn this?

Maybe the thread title could have been a little more specific.

Is this the one with a black and orange cover? My father had this LP. Can't really remember much of the music except I thought it sounded like "old jazz", but I liked his version of "All the Things You Are". For some reason I decided to put it on my parents' answering machine as outgoing message. They were not enchanted.

Too bad that tone is reduced to a rubber band in a cardboard box on the RVG (except for the trio track). It seems that Van Gelder did not always record bassists (or other musicians, for that matter) in the same way. Compare how Ron Carter sounds on earlier Herbie Hancock albums with 'Speak Like a Child', where the bass sounds quite a bit thinner.

Victor Feldman 'It's a Wonderful World' (Vee-Jay, mono, Japanese pressing) Trio recording from 1964 with Monty Budwig and Colin Bailey (plus Bill Perkins on two tracks).

From one Daniel to another - happy birthday!!!

Conversion would only make sense if you've got to have them in MP3 format for some reason (for example if your portable doesn't support WMA), as the files would have to be de-encoded from WMA and then re-encoded at the risk of additional compression artifacts.

As I understand it, modern CDRs are designed for high speed burning, so using too low speed will increase the risk of failure as the laser will cause "bleeding". Many PC burners nowadays have anything below 8x disabled. The practical upper speed limit would probably be the hard disk and RAM speed, rather than the actual burning of the CDR. I'd think that you could safely try 16x burning.

I know, this is but one step away...

Predictably, the sound is very fine and the surface noise is at an absolute minimum. Only quibble: there is a faint noise at around 9 kHz (I checked it with frequency analysis software). It's not audible during the actual music, but can be heard at the end of the fade outs. Probably a tape machine problem. I don't know if this is on the original album (I've got a CDR of that somewhere). Not by any means a problem, but I thought I should mention it.

Sound clips available here: http://www.igorbutman.com/ as well as this quote from DeJohnette:

The Bernstein estate is holding up everything. A friend of mine did not get the permission to re-score Candide from symphony to wind orchestra. Boosey & Hawkes said "Well, had Lennie lived, things would probably have been different, but..."

That's what we're doing!

Yeah, full price here is around $29 for one CD. BTW I got the Shihab at 18.99 from Dusty. A steal!

Thanks for the suggestion! Actually, I don't have it, so I'll see if it shows up somewhere at a reasonable price.

A pity this one turned out too soapy. FWIW I much prefer the Ogerman/Oscar Peterson album 'Motions and Emotions' over the Bill Evans album mentioned.

John Dankworth 'The $1,000,000 Collection' (Stereo Fontana, US pressing). Not a best-of, but an orchestral suite inspired by a particular collection of paintings. Tony Coe and Kenny Wheeler are in the band.

Thanks Peter and Chuck for saving me from a pontentially life-long misconception regarding coloured Pacific Jazz pressings.

Yes, it's my impression too that only stereo copies were colored. Never seen blue or yellow, though! I think I've seen someone (possibly Chuck) state that the coloured vinyl was of inferior quality, so I've always avoided them, but some titles don't seem to turn up as stereo pressings on black vinyl too often. Mono copies seem to be a lot more common of many titles. How do you think the sound is on the red ones, Peter?

It was issued as an Epic CD some time in the 80s, but copies are scarce these days.

Still, a plain retroactive extension would be problematic one day. Contrary to what I've often seen stated, sound recordings will not automatically move into the public domain in the US 95 years after they were "published". According to the 1972 US copyright act all sound recordings in existence by then were considered published as of February 15, 1972 (as to replace an array of state copyright laws with a federal law) and subject to a 75-year protection. With the Bono act extension another 20 years were added, so in fact no sound recordings in the US will be in the public domain until February 15, 2067. Personally, I don't think that is reasonable.

Thanks for your link, Durium. That clip of "When Lights Are Low" is wonderful!

I think being an audiophile isn't just about the price of the equipment, it's as much getting the most out of the equipment you've got. Caring about the acoustics of a listening room, speaker placement etc. are also very important for the results. I definitely think you may be considered an audiophile without having to spend hundreds (or thousands) on cords. Edit: that should read "cords", not "chords"...

Not sure if this is of interest, but in my own collection I just discovered yet a variation of the PJ2b label (so maybe that should be PJ2c), which looks like the PJ2b but also says "A Division of Liberty Records, Inc." at the bottom (It's Clare Fischer's 'Manteca', cat no PJ-10096). The album cover features the "square" PJ logo found on the PJ3 label. When we're at it I could as well ask if anybody knows if red and black vinyl pressings of the same title were manufactured simultaneously, or if read vinyl at some point was the standard for new releases.

Great information! Thank you very much, Peter!