DrJ

Glad to see your thumbs are up for this music, Shrdlu (and glad to see you on the board). While this is not epochal music like the Plugged Nickel dates, I am rather flabbergasted at some of the lukewarm reviews the Blackhawk music receives. I came to the new sets without ever having heard the music. In this remastering, and listening with no prior expectations, I have been THOROUGHLY enjoying this stuff. "All of You," leading off Disc 2, is a case in point, 15 minutes of swinging jazz filled with subtle improvisational feats by three of the greatest soloists ever. When I hear Mobley's playing on a track like this and then read comments in the Mobley thread about him not being an improviser of the level of quality of men like Rollins or Coltrane, I have to disagree wholeheartedly. He may not have been an INNOVATOR like those two, but I don't know how anyone could question his improvising credentials. In fact, given Rollins' descent alternately into self-doubt and self-indulgance ever since the late 60's, while Mobley was still evolving as late as the early 70's (see Cedar Walton's BREAKTHROUGH), I think Mobley was far more consistent throughout his sadly truncated career than Sonny has been.

I agree with Stefan on all accounts. Personally, I think the packaging is just fine - certainly FAR better than the stuff many collectors tolerate otherwise without ever complaining (CD-R's with grainy black and white photocopied tray cards, Fresh Sound and Collectibles cheesy looking jobs, etc). If by using the Digipack they can keep the price down to $11.99, sell more, and get more of the back-catalog out (such as the Billy Mitchell, the kind of stuff that used to only appear in the defunct Elite Edition series for almost twice the price), then BRING 'EM ON IN DIGIPACKS!

The nice thing is that the CD doesn't fall out of these newer contraptions. I have a lot of older jewel cases where after the CD has been put in and out of the case a few times, it gets too loose and WILL fall out. That seems pretty hazardous to the disc's health to me!

Agreed, nice list Dan. I went with Kynard.

Yes, Clunky, all the Pepper Galaxy stuff was recorded during exactly the era that I'm talking about, where the "twangy bass" sound was most prevalent. A huge number of titles in the Muse catalog also suffer from this, sadly.

Leeway, you might try these on for browsing: SACD link 1 SACD link 2 SACD link 3

montg - are you referring to the old CD remastering (from late 80's or early 90's) or the CD layer on the hybrid SACD? The old CD did sound horrid, I agree, but I'm surprised you feel that way about the CD layer on the hybrid SACD, if that's what you were commenting on. Maybe to really appreciate how good a job they did with salvaging the sound, you'd have to have heard the old CD! If you have, then certainly we may just disagree on this. B)

I picked this one up today, and it's definitely a keeper. The tracks with organ remind me a lot of some of Ike Quebec's later BN's with organ, given Mitchell's full tone and the stops Sleepy Anderson uses on the Hammond (a sound reminiscent of someone like Freddie Roach). Burns is fine, maybe not showcased as much as on his Vanguards but he sounds good. The real star is Mitchell though, he plays beautifully.

Uh, I'm also sure I'll "enjoy whatever I get" because as I said pretty clearly before in several threads you've been active on, I already HAVE a universal player and have been enjoying it now for several months. I would suggest the requisite "careful reading" before responding to others' comments.

Greg - just to set the record straight about the only points worth addressing specifically in your line-by-line dissection of my post: I have most definitely "done the requisite listening" to compare higher and lower end SACD players (I can't help chuckle a bit at that "requisite listening" part, it's so didactic sounding, like you're some audio professor assigning me my homework!). This is supposed to be FUN, dude. The other issue: I feel more than comfortable that your views about audio quality are at one far extreme compared to most jazz fans. That includes not only the 5 or 10 that post in the Audio Talk section of jazz discussion forums, but "the other 90%" too. For example, I have by far the best listening system of any jazz fan I personally know (not these bizarre Web relationships), and it's not pricey at all. Those folks all look at me like I'm obsessive. What would they think about spending $10,000 for a fancy CD player? The rest of your response to me (which is odd because my post was not directed at you for the most part) just reflects your evangelistic fervor and oracle-like predictions about what MIGHT come to pass with DVD, and which single instance there could be about one SACD somebody said sounded better than one DVD-A title, etc etc. You'll have to do better than this to convince me you've changed a whit since the BNBB days.

I only have a few so far...5 BY MONK BY 5, SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS, ART PEPPER MEETS THE RHYTHM SECTION, a couple others. All are Analogue Productions jobs and all are wonderful for sure. But I think the Sonny Clark grabbed me specifically because it was SUCH a huge jump forward in sound from the previous horrible early CD remastering I had.

Well, yours trumps mine!

Well, I would respectfully say that it's my firm guess that about 90% of the board members would never notice a decrement in quality between the SACD output of a universal player and a dedicated player, due to lack of that much ear discrimination, lack of a high-end enough system to make the difference apparent, etc. So while the "jack of all trades" argument may be true on one level, at a more practical level I don't think it's going to be an issue at all for most listeners. I think a universal player is a very economical way to get into the market, with a huge jump in sound quality from standard CD that is going to be readily apparent even to the most casual listeners given the typical home audio rig. At $400 for a player like the Pioneer that does all its functions extremely well, including DVD (which is how we conceptualized it when we bought it, as a really good mid-range DVD player in terms of video that has SUPERB DVD sound, with a lot of nice extras to replace our first-generation DVD player) you can always go for a "next generation" dedicated SACD player later on if you really get hooked. I know money is always an issue for many of us, but we're talking about spending a few $100 now to get into the game with a universal player. That will not put most people out of the running from spending a few hundred more a year or two down the road when SACD reaches its full potential if they decide to go for a high-end dedicated player. Also, there don't appear to be a lot of DVD-A advocates on the board, but I can say that for rock, and for modern pop music in particular (stuff like Bjork), overall I am finding that so far I actually prefer the sound impact of DVD-A over SACD by quite a large margin. I would really miss not having the option to play these discs.

Those are great stories, Chuck, thanks for sharing them!

Matt: You probably already saw my recent post in another thread about high resolution audio, but if not: I'm thrilled with the Pioneer DV45-A so far. It is really great to be able to enjoy DVD-A CDs as well, whether or not they can keep pace with SACD is really kind of irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, because I think there will continue to be a niche market at least for some time for DVD-A and some of the titles in that format may not be issued in SACD, or at least multichannel SACD. Extremely reasonable price, too. The way we looked at it, why limit yourself to one high res format? If you do some direct listening comparisons, please post about whether you appreciate any sonic differences for SACDs between these players!

Cool, let me know what you think - maybe I'm hallucinating! I would like to claim that I had great foresight in buying the AVR-3300, but I didn't - I just loved the way it sounded and its design. It's really fun to keep discovering at intervals just how much vision Denon had quite a few years back (in receiver technology time!) when they designed what was really a very moderately priced receiver, such as the capability for 6 channel SACD inputs with direct signal pass-through, the direct 24/96 pass-through option for DVDs and I presume standard CDs, etc. I think I made a much better purchase than I ever realized I was making at the time.

I think you are right that Rudy's vintage recordings tend to be light in the bass category. But upon reflection I think it's one reason I like them so much. I find they are truer to the sound captured in a good listening venue, say the Vanguard, when the bassist is using minimal or no amplification. It's a bit quieter than we're often used to, but it's still full and rich. There's a refreshing lack of boominess and artificial bottom end that plagues so many studio jazz recordings. On a slight tangent: what WAS the deal with the way bass was recorded in the early 70's through mid 80's? My God, THAT was a horrid sound - a weird, twangy, thin thing, without any sense of resonance, flat and dull. I hate to say this because I admire his reissue work so much, but many of the dates produced by Michael Cuscuna during that era are some of the worst offenders. Funny enough, I also find RVG's later recordings (e.g for Muse and Reservoir) often have a little of that horrid sound, he seems to have changed his approach (and I know there are also many other factors like digital recording technology).

Thanks Claude. No real revelations in those reviews, but I appreciate your comments. I had done a Web search before posting and couldn't find much, but just now searched again since you found some reviews I had not. Had to use a whole bunch of search strategies on Google, but finally found the answer on page 3 of this .pdf document: Denon PCM Mode This makes sense, because in doing my comparison tests I used the Pioneer DV45-A universal player, which does allow 24 bit/96 kHz output (no downsampling)! My multidisc Onkyo changer does not. So this probably explains why I am hearing the difference, which as I mentioned is most prominent on 24 bit/96 kHz remastered discs (as I mentioned the older discs don't sound a lot different, maybe somewhat but probably just because I was using a better CD player). They talk only about DVDs here, though, but the tech manual is probably several years old (the AVR-3300 has actually been discontined) and I don't think 24/96 CDs were even being made then. So I have to believe that if a standard CD has the high resolution information, and your player doesn't downsample it (which is true on both accounts), then the receiver in PCM mode is probably passing the info on without loss of resolution. I also used my wife as a gold standard, as I always do when I'm trying to decide if I'm "hearing" the sales pitch or a real sound difference...I also did a blinded comparison with her. She couldn't really care less about audio quality but has a great natural ear. She could definitely hear the difference, nailing the correct setting every time.

Also agree with Jim to a point, but CHAIRMAN is actually one of my favorite big band albums of that era. There is a restrained feel, but for that band I think it really worked - and there's always the Mosaic of live material if you are in the mood to hear them bust out a little more! Will be glad to replace my vinyl copy, which is a so-so repressing.

The Sonny Clark is probably the best-sounding SACD of 50's era jazz in my collection. Wonderful job. The standard CD layer is really a vast improvement on older editions, too. Please post a review about the Turrentine date when you get a chance!

Eventually, probably the whole batch, if the reviews on sound are good. These are pretty much all staples. I agree with Claude that the Analogue Productions SACDs have been wonderful - warm, full, real - so I'm curious about Fantasy's ability to reach those heights, especially because I find most of their 20 bit standard CD series is not a vast improvement on older versions.

Chris, you must not be too happy after last night! Giants are showing signs of awakening, which is good news to me. Dodgers are a tough team, especially their outstanding pitching staff - should be an interesting battle for the pennant. But boy, I thought Perez really showed that talent alone is not enough to be a big-leaguer with his temper tantrum after the balk. Getting yourself thrown out of the game over a call that shouldn't even have been argued is strictly bush league stuff. Talk about misplaced frustration; I'm sure he was just upset about Grissom golfing a damn good pitch out of the park!

I have a Denon AVR-3300 receiver. It has a PCM setting for playing digital signals that subtly but definitely increases the apparent dynamic range of the music compared with the "Auto" or regular setting on the receiver, particularly for recently mastered CDs. For example, 24 bit/96 KHz remasterings in the Verve Master Edition series sound much better with this setting. Nothing as dramatic as the difference between CD and SACD or DVD-A, but definitely an improvement. Truer bass, more shimmer at the high end, and also greater separation and sense of depth with truer soundstage imaging. A bit less of that "compressed" sound when playing older CDs (although it definitely won't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear). Now, I know that I am not hearing the music at true 24 bit/96 KHz resolution, since standard CDs, by my understanding, ultimately require "downsampling" (to 16 bit I believe) to be played (as opposed to SACDs), whether PCM mode is used or not. But my owner's manual says nothing about how this PCM setting works, and the Denon Web site info I could find says something about the 2-channel signal being routed through more D/A converters than usual, resulting in improved sound. But I'm just not clear on how that could fundamentally change anything - since ultimately there is still the downsampling issue. Can anybody in the know out there clear this issue up? Obviously it's not a big deal, since the sound is better and that's all I really care about, but my curiosity is piqued!

Hey guys, I'm not even remotely religous, but even I can't help hearing the following in the back of my head upon reading this thread: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Welcome Greg (Tony Jerant here, in case you didn't figure it out). Here's to hoping we can all just get along this time, agreeing to disagree when appropriate, and have some fun. Which is after all why we all come here in the first place, 'eh?

I think it was a very legit stop, that was a horrid cut. However, clearly Klitschko was the spiritual "winner" of the match, and Lewis looked pathetic afterward trying to maintain all the bluster in the face of a booing crowd and jibes from the press. In looking at the fight, I think Klitschko was just not quite able to put Lewis down...if he could have worn him down a few more rounds, it may have happened, but given Lewis' history of being knocked down, I can only conclude that maybe Klitschko just doesn't have a heavy enough "big punch" to put him on the canvas.