sidewinder

All of the deck manufacturers seem to be gouging on the price of belts these days. The last one for the LP12 cost me 50 quid ! Wish I'd stockpiled a load at the old price. A replacement can make quite a difference to the sound though.

Eric Dolphy Prestige box and the Sonny Rollins Prestige box Mingus Complete Debut Box Complete Bill Evans on Verve

My Mosaic crate has 'landed' too...

Can't go wrong with the Dynavectors - the MC ones require careful impedance matching though with the appropriate board at the pre-amp input or a compatible phono amp stage.

I guess this is one instance where Geman efficiency is very much a bad thing..

and not forgetting..

I use a USB flash drive in the car, with a choice selection of current music. Even put Mosaic box sets on there, together with the big box cover art on the dashboard nav display.

Great - I will add it to my Vocalion CD, Japanese CD and Deram LP. The 'Original Peter' film is just great. In addition to the Westbrook Concert Band in their pomp it is a veritable time capsule of English culture and quirks circa 1970, with EU membership still some way off () and decimalisation just on the horizon. The likes of historian Dominic Sandbrook would have a field day with it. Where else can you see the Westbrook Orchestra playing along to a backdrop of Mr Punch running riot with GBH and puny-ish Wimpy burgers getting spurted with ketchup? Sadly, there would be no chance of it happening now. Not least - Health and Safety would ban even the merest mention of it !

Mines been gathering dust as well. Must put that right !

Ha ! BSR decks - I remember those. The 'Design Council' was an old UK institution, promoting excellence in design. Blast from the past !

All great but agree, sonically the Contemporary stuff can't be beaten. Re: CDs - its amazing how far they and the playback systems have come. My very first player, a Nakamichi, was fine but sounded noticeably digital and sort of thin. Just listening to Andrew Hill 'Grass Roots' and the sound is near analogue, with a lovely soundstage and clarity. A 'Conn' issue as well, not even one of those latest Japanese offerings - good times.

More a matter of the digital bit of my system finally catching up to a very capable analogue front end, not 'late to the game'. Given a vintage Blue Note LP in good nick though, it is the LP every time, given a good, well set up deck. Can't beat it ! You are broadly correct in saying that it is the remastering that is critical, especially so on those older recordings. The way things are going I expect to switch to a capable streamer at some stage but for the moment, more than happy with CD as the main digital source. I hope to be setting up a NAS drive with the core of my collection over the next year as a first step.

As if by magic...Original Peter The 1970 broadcast now up on Youtube. Totally bonkers - razor blade swallowing, knife throwing, hand balancing, painting cauliflowers, all in wrestling.... and Punch and Judy ! Lineup of the band the same as per the 'Love Songs' album by the look of it.

Sad news - he was a character, for sure. RIP. Saw him a couple of times. First time was with the ICP, when they covered quite a bit of Monk and Herbie Nichols in the performance. The second time was a solo piano recital, where he came on stage carrying an Asda supermarket carrier bag.

Ironically, I find myself playing more CDs than LPs these days ! Having upgraded the CD source, the playback is sometimes comparable to or better than vinyl, something I wouldn't have anticipated 5 years ago. For Mosaics, I'm a pretty happy camper with the CD sets these days. CDs - the new vinyl !

So sad - last time I saw him was about 10 years ago. Looked frail even then and was using a stick to get to the piano but once in place the block chording was solid and the performance very enjoyable. Even then though, couldn't compare to the performance I saw at Ronnie Scotts in 1981/82 which I still think (maybe Bill Evans excepted) is the greatest jazz I have ever witnessed.

Having seen McCoy play at or near his peak, that makes me really sad..

He was a youngster when I was just getting into jazz so have always and still think of him as a youngster ! Never seen him play either but wishing him an enjoyable retirement.

Spinning CDs 6 and 7 of this gem.

Congrats !

Wonderful box - remember when I bought it (one of the US Tower stores) thinking that all of my Xmases had come at once..

Happy Birthday !

LP4 - 'Newport Rebels'. Noticed that this set was mastered by RVG.