DrJ

Well, I finally got to listen to good tube gear today and I am sold, sold, sold. No comparison and not even close. Most natural sounding stuff I've ever heard. Anyone in the Sacramento area might want to check out Deetes Sound Room, run by Deetes Anderson, a heck of a nice and knowledgeable guy. Anyway, I'm pretty much sold on the following combination, which fits my price range and taste in sound: 1. Audio Note Meishu integrated tube amp (the Signature upgraded model with phono out). Simply gorgeous in its simplicity and sound, and right for me (the mono blocks sounded a smidge better but out of my range for now and less practical for us for a variety of reasons) 2. Zingali Overture 4 speakers - perfect match for this low watt tube amp and absolutely beautiful carved wood, as artistic in looks as in sound. Very efficient. I cannot believe how amazing this combo sounds Now I'm just needing help with the front end...Deetes is in the "high quality DAC would be the way to go" camp, and Audio Note has a couple dandies that eschew the upsampling trend in most of the industry. Sounded phenomenal with the above amp and speakers - but I'm wondering what people think about this issue. At about $3000 for the DAC I'm eyeing, would I get that much more mileage out of my Pioneer DV45A (which has pretty good DACs to begin with but which I'd connect to the DAC via a digital out) or would I be better off spending that kind of money on a whole new upsampling CD player (e.g. the Meridian G08)? Or other options?

This thread is a good example of why I love this board. Honestly I have never seen myself as a bulletin board type of guy because so many of them are just plain obnoxious and seem to attract a very "dittohead" type of crowd, all the same. But there really seems to be some diversity here, and folks are by and large really cool - not the least because they are honest but at the same time generally freely able to admit when they step over the line and (gasp!) even sometimes APOLOGIZE! Done it many times myself, and probably many more in the future. So welcome back Geoff, I think you'll enjoy it here.

There was no info on drummer or bassist for the Hutch/McLean/Moncur date, unfortunately.

Morganized, I'm not sure how your post relates to the issue at hand - you won't be able to even hope to hear any of the possible advantages of SACD without actually hearing the SACD layer. It isn't just "slowing down" the regular CD layer, it's a whole other technology that allows a much higher resolution signal with expanded dynamic range. Some times I will agree that on certain sessions I don't hear a dramatic improvement, but for most A/B'd, there is a sizeable difference from regular CD layer. I'll be interested to see if I still feel this way once I pick up a higher end standard CD player that upsamples etc - but I suspect there will still be a difference, because no matter how much you upsample you're still limited ultimately by the resolution of the source signal. So that brings me to the BLUE TRAIN SACD which I finally was able to pick up. So far, I'm pretty impressed and not sure what all the flap was about. It sounds pretty outstanding to me...definitely some improvements in the sonic detail over both the ULTIMATE CD and the CD layer on this disc (which is quite good), it's much more like the sound of a real trombone for example when Curtis Fuller plays, an instrument that is particularly hard to capture well on recordings unless they're really good ones. As I've observed for most SACDs, the sound is just, well, "smoother" or rounder and more vinyl-like - there none of the harshness you get even with some very well done CD remasterings, no doubt a result of the DSD technology. But with the added bonus of the incredible detail you get with digital and which I find lacking in even very high end vinyl. Perhaps there were some "lemon" versions that got out early, but this copy sure sounds great and I'm thrilled to have it, particularly at $14 something - a bargain given you can enjoy it in the listening room or on the road in the car player.

I'm sure SOMEONE has to have posted on this somewhere but couldn't find a thread quickly so... Anyone see in Downbeat the listing of these two live reunions coming up at Iridium? May 25-30: Jackie McLean, Grachan Moncur, and Bobby Hutcherson, joining up for the first time since the mid-60's. July 13-18: the John Handy Quintet (you know, the one that recorded LIVE IN MONTEREY), with Michael White, Jerry Hahn, Don Thompson, and Terry Clarke. HOLY SHIT! And we're not going to NYC this Spring or Summer 'cause it's too hard to travel with the little guy right now. Anyone planning to go to these? I hope some record label is smart enough to capture these for posterity, and if not - pocket recorders, people, what do you think about DAT?

BTW that last song reference got me thinking about all those great 80s R&B dance club things - "Let it Whip" by the Dazz Band, for example. That's a whole other thing, love hearing those tunes on the car radio. Not so much a dance club tune but Marvin's "Sexual Healing" is still a favorite, maybe not up with the stuff from his prime but still remarkably powerful pop music.

Well coming from someone who was a huge Game Theory, The Fall, Jam, Throwing Muses, etc fan - LOSE THE ATTITUDE ABOUT 80'S POP, you elitists! Jeez, lighten up, really. It wasn't that bad an era, and in fact it was a really good singles, "one hit wonder" era. There's hundreds of good examples - one I just remembered off the top of my head was "Send Me an Angel," by the Aussie band Real Life - good tune, one hit, over and out! Take 5 seconds to listen to pop radio NOW and you'll begin to appreciate just how many decent singles made it to the airwaves in the 80's. For that matter, listen to singles from ANY era...you simply get a skewed view of stuff from the 50's and 60's because they play the same 20 or 30 classic singles over and over again, but there were hundreds and hundreds of drecky things that have justly faded into obscurity. Many of us here are just too young to have ever heard them, but when you do, you'll realize pop has always been a hit and mostly miss proposition. But man, when people are so "embarrassed" to admit they like humming along with a stupid pop song in the car that they can't muster the guts to list actual popular songs (rather than the usual "legit" critic's choice bands - and hey, I loved 'em too) and write off an entire decade of music wholesale, it's a sure sign they either care WAY too much about what other people think, or need a good long vacation, or both. So throw on your skinny tie and go call your travel agent, and remember - NO PARKING ON THE DANCE FLOOR!

Actually (and I'm serious here) if you listen carefully to that "block that kick," it gradually starts to sound like "block that Nixon" which is weird, but was it intentional?

...and THAT ain't right!

"YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELLED OF ELDERBERRIES!!!!!" - The Abusive French Knight (aka John Cleese), top o'the castle, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

My Mommy and Daddy are RELATED!

Oh NO NO NO - that's a GREAT one to me, Eric. Spooky as shit too, love the way it's recorded, you have to kind of strain to hear much of it but then there's those great Ringo drum bits that pop through. And that ghost sound at the end. Yikes - "Revolution #9" is funny, this one is plain scary. There's some creepy stuff on THE BEATLES..."Cry Baby Cry" has always been one of my favorites, with an Addams Family vibe, excellent tune.

Somebody mentioned Elvis Costello as maybe not having anything quite popular enough, but two he was involved with were: "Every Day I Write the Book" - a great one that I think may have cracked the American Top 40 and with Squeeze (Elvis on backing vox) - "Black Coffee in Bed" another favorite that I think had a fair amount of success in the U.S.

I am very superficial when it comes by my understanding and knowledge of Jamaican music. But I will say that Black Uhuru was one of the best bands of the 80's, period, regardless of genre. I'm sure they are probably more crossed over/pop-influenced than some, but I loved that group. RED is a pinnacle, one of the greatest pop albums of all time. I haven't yet gotten around to picking up the new CD remastering yet, still love my vinyl. Anyone reading this thread looking to get a sense of how great the band was and wanting a sampler instead should pick up the 2 CD compliation put out by Island a couple years back called LIBERATION: THE ISLAND ANTHOLOGY. For people in the U.S. who never got to hear the original mixes of stuff off the album ANTHEM, as well as some of the other 12" and other material, it's a real gem.

Yeah, Waters was kind of a loon and turned out some overblown music for sure. But David Gilmour's glorious guitar playing made life worth living as a teenager - love the huge sound and drama of his two leads on "Comfortably Numb," plus I dig his singing. More than made up for Waters.

I'll second "Tempted" - Squeeze, a masterpiece "Raspberry Beret" - Prince (you could pick many by him) "The Look of Love" - ABC (followed closely by "Poison Arrow")

"Why Don't We Do It In the Road" is pretty bad...I like most of the little ditties/psychedelic stuff on THE BEATLES but that one is just plain annoying. I agree with Jim that around mid-65 the Beatles were sounding MIGHTY tired and burned out. Some weaker stuff then for sure - such as "Mr. Moonlight," which may be the worst ever (although I don't think written by them). Thing about the Beatles is even stuff that would probably have been horrible in other hands was usually elevated by SOMETHING - a fantastic vocal performance, great production, a nice riff, something. So you take a piece like "Only A Northern Song" off the YELLOW SUBMARINE soundtrack, and in lesser hands it would be flat our horrible but it actually sounds pretty cool in the execution there. Plus there's that wonderful "It doesn't really matter what clothes I wear..." part, a little song within a song, the kind of thing they used to just toss off as a secondary part of a tune, like eating doughnuts.

The only one of these Classics DADs I have is the Red Rodney 1957 date (originally on Xanadu I think). Two separate sessions actually, both recorded by Van Gelder, and it sounds fantastic, although I don't have any comparision with a prior verison.

If you like Cables you DO NOT want to miss NIGHT AND DAY (DIW), a fantastic trio album he led with Billy Hart and Cecil McBee also making strong contributions. Excellent recording, but the music is really what matters here. Boppish, full of fire as well as sensitive playing. Also (and I'm reading into B. Goren's original post that he's not into electric piano etc) it's all acoustic piano all the way.

Couple of last issues: 1. Anyone out there with either the Meridian G07 or G08 CD player (the latter upsamples)? I heard the G07 and was impressed and there are raves about the G08. 2. How about B&W 804 speakers? Heard those today too - purty to look at, plus remarkable clarity, sense of space and separation particularly in the mid and high range, not the most full bass but still remarkable. Anyone with favorable or unfavorable comments?

This is a great illustration of the point I made a while back - comparing the old Verve Elite series, which was a fantastic example of how to do a largish-jazz label reissue series the right way, and the new LPR series, which sure is getting some nice stuff out but ulitmately is a major disappointment in terms of inconsistent sound, lack of new notes/documentation, failure to add vault material/restore edited out stuff, etc etc etc. PLEASE bring back the Elite series, Verve! S'MAKE IT would have made a superb Elite with the Gilmore stuff restored (even if overall I still find it a middle-weight session).

Thanks for the ongoing comments folks, nothing's decided yet so much appreciated. I had figured the pre-amp option would be a good way to go for remote, and hadn't realized about the biwiring options. Re: the "match" of the Esoteric DV-50 with my budget, well, the budget may be getting revised up a bit wolff - as I mentioned if I can hear an appreciable difference I'm willing to pay more to a point, just not wanting to pay more just to say I did. Haven't made it to our local tube amp dealer (closed on Sundays) but did audition some nice integrated solid state stuff - was particularly impressed with the Meridian G51 which is unfortunately about 2-3 times the cost of the tube amps being discussed here. Still, it sounded awful good, and I'm thinking that I might be open to increasing my budget two-fold from what I'd planned if necessary (and only if necessary). I will also say that I'm rethinking the universal player approach, may just sit for a while with my Pioneer DV45A and put as much as possible into a killer standard CD player - Meridian also has an outstanding option there, the G07, sounded much better than a Mark Levinson player that was twice the price. Hope to get in some tube amp auditioning next weekend on Saturday, there's a local shop here (one) in Sacramento that specializes from what I hear. And I'm definitely checking out Audiogon for purchase, folks, registered yesterday.

Still shopping and learning...a couple more questions for the gallery: 1. Anyone heard the Jolida JD302B integrated tube amp? It has gotten some rave reviews from just about everyone and seems like an incredible bargain at about $1000, in the same ballpark as the Cayin TA-30 based on price and per the reviews I've seen. The Decware SE34-I integrated tube amp isn't too far out of that price range either at about $1500, and looks like a contender, but I am concerned about the much lower output rating (7 W per channel, versus 50 for the Jolida and 35 for the Cayin). I have a nice older pair of Infinity Crescendo 3009 series speakers that I think would handle the other two without problem based on their spec sheet I just re-reviewed, but might not do well with the Decware. Not a "deal breaker" problem as we need to buy a second pair of speakers either way (whether I use the Infinity's in my listening room or leave them with the home theater and get new speakers for the listening room) but this decision will obviously impact on my speaker shopping goals/strategy. The YBA suggestion was appreciated, but at more than twice the cost of these others with no clear consensus I've read about it being any better, it's fallen down on the list. 2. A more general question - are there any quality integrated tube amps in the price range of those that come with a remote? It's not an absolute necessity for me but would of course be a nice feature. I know the Jolida doesn't have one and it doesn't look like the Cayin does. 3. Coming from having a home theater combo listening/viewing/surround rig, I'm used to my receiver having digital inputs...but of course tube amps like the Jolida and Cayin don't have 'em. With a high quality front end combo player, and really good analog connectors, will I be missing anything (e.g. in terms of sonic detail) by not having direct digital ins? I'm assuming not and that I'll gain in warmth, spaciousness, midrange and high end clarity without harshness, etc, but just checking! 4. What about biwiring capability on the Cayin and Decware? It appears that the Jolida supports it, but can't tell about these other two. I am NOT interested in a debate about whether it makes a difference or not - on my current rig, my ears tell me that for me it makes a pretty substantial difference, so I'm interested although again this is not a deal breaker one way or the other. 5. Finally - Still leaning toward the Teac Esoteric DV-50 for front end...the Denon 5900 and Pioneer DV59-AVi look like great players for the price but don't come anywhere near the upsampling capabilities and flexibility in algorithms offered by the Esoteric machine. Anyone who has one that can comment?

Haven't yet made it through the full recording - with the baby, much of my listening is in 15-20 minute chunks in the car during the week. But partly this is because I keep restarting the disc as I've enjoyed the first 2 tracks so much I want to keep hearing them. Just Friends Star Eyes Are there any two better tunes for a great jazz improviser? There's two of those here. Every time you listen you hear something different, and the remarkable degree of interplay becomes more and more apparent. Some day I'll make it to the rest of the disc. So far the only slight down side is the recording - like a few of the Hat archival live recordings I've heard this sounds like it must have been cleaned up from either a cassette or otherwise not top of the line master, and there's far too much ambient "big room" sound for my taste, which puts a dent in what is clearly (from a musical standpoint) highly intimate music. It's not overly distracting but certainly unfortunate...I like this type of jazz with a much "closer" feeling in the recording, a la Getz/Dailey's POETRY that I've been raving about recently. Musically though, while clearly quite different in the approach of the artists, STAR EYES sits right up with that one.

I hear ya David, and it's quite groovy listening. Just didn't want you to get your hopes TOO far up, my friend! Otherwise this could happen to you: Peaking a little early?