J Larsen

Man, I'm afraid I'm really going off the deep end now... I just upgraded the interconnect cable going from my CD player to my amp to the Kimber Hero, which cost more than a normal person spends on a CD player! I notice a *huge* improvement in the sound quality over using the stock cable that came with my CD player though; almost as big of an improvement as I got from swapping my Infity speakers for the B&Ws. I just have to make sure this doesn't develop into a habit...

Damnit, I was hoping this would be the Velvet Lounge on my block (although it would have been an odd match). I've seen Grimes with Roy Campbell Jr before several times with Marc Ribot's Ayler tribute band Spiritual Unity (great live band, not so great album). They're great together! Enjoy...

HOLY $*%(ING $(@#!!!!!!!! This was one of the best shows, if not the best show, I've ever seen. Thank you SO much for starting this thread, Chuck - I hadn't noticed it advertised anywhere. The *only* downside was that Henry Grimes had to use the house amp, which was obviously completely blown. However, I was sitting directly in front of him (and about 3 feet from Cecil Taylor), so I was one of about a half dozen people who could actually hear what he was playing. I'm going to be processing what went into my ears tonight for a long time. This was *not* a 60s revival thing, they were on to some new shit, and in a really good way. I really wish I had the talent some of you have for translating sound into words right now... Damn I feel lucky for having been there tonight.

Ten copies of the same disc?????

I'm soooo bummed that the Hill Mosaic went OOP while I was a completely broke grad student. I've found duplicate discs in my collection a couple times, too, but usually it's because I found something at a really good price and I couldn't remember if I already had it or not. Duplicate sealed cds is a bit of a different story!

Let me know if you're ever interested in trading vinyl...

Did they mix in artificial cracks and pops into the sound, as well? When you get to the end of "side 1" do you hear the needle hit the center label? (I think someone actually did do the latter on a cd once.)

What ever happened to Lon, anyway?

I won't diagree with you on that - they are definately a lot more detailed in the high-end than in the bass. This is offset a little by the fact that they are in a small room, where a lot of the extra bass that I would get from an upgrade would be wasted or even counterproductive anyway. On a good recording, the cymbals sound like they're in the room, and the bass... well, it sounds nice enough to me for now. Good tip on the XRCDs - I have an XRCD of Workin' that I picked up mispriced at Tower for about $12 a few years ago (is it my fault they went bankrupt???). I'll throw it in as soon as I get home.

704. I wasn't ready to spend more than a couple grand; I thought it better to ease my way into hi-fi. A coworker offered me his 802s for $3k delivered to my door, but I felt a little bad spending that much and didn't want to spoil my ears - going from the Inifitys to the 704s is a huge enough leap for right now.

Back when I had a 1993 Onkyo receiver hooked up to a pair of 1994 Infinity speakers and a Philips CD player, all bought from Circuit City when I was 20, I had absolutely no clue what you guys were talking about when discussing the relative merits of McMasters vs. RVGs, etc. Over the last few months, I've upgraded to a Rotel amp, NAD CD player, and B&Ws (which a few of you were kind enough to advise me on)... all I can say is WOW!!! You guys weren't crazy after all! Some of the remasters I've A/B'ed on my new system are like night and day... Sadly, I've found that some of my favorite discs are sort of lacking in the fidelity department (which doesn't make me love them any less). Anyway, I want to get a better sense of what my new gear is capable of, so I'm wondering what I might already have on my shelves that can really reveal its potential. So how about it? What are some of the best sounding discs in your collection? (God, I hope this doesn't mean I'm becoming an audio nerd...)

Thanks for posting this; somehow I hadn't heard about it until just now. Just made my reservation for the late show on Friday.

I guess Thurston can have whatever ten favorite "underground free jazz" records he wants to have. Back in the early mid-90s I knew a couple guys who made their living trading really rare punk/indie records, and I heard a couple stories about how Thurston was dumping a ton of that stuff so he could load up on free jazz.

I hope so; the mastering on the last cd version of Love Call is pretty bad. Great album, though.

Another vote for the Euro concerts box.

So far it's going great! From the very first track I played through the new speakers, the high-end detail was unbelievable - on a good recording, it sounds like the cymbals are right there in the room. Of course, this is a mixed blessing with poor quality recordings (I finally understand why people on the boards have complained about certain discs in the past), but overall I'm a very happy camper. I am finding that the bass quality is subtly changing as I break them in. The low end seems much more present tonight than it did yesterday afternoon... so far, so good, but if it becomes too much more present I may experiment with the foam plugs.

Thanks for the tips - based on these comments and advice from the one stereo store dude in NYC that I trust (Anthony at Stereo Exchange), I went with the Kimber 4TC. They told me that the speakers and cable will sound better after 400 hours of play - if that's true, I'm really excited to hear what they sound like in a few months, because they're already incredible to my ears (with the only drawback being that I can now hear imperfections in some of my favorite recordings that I had never noticed before).

I think Mingus is the most gaping whole in your collection right now. Blues and Roots and/or Black Saint and the Sinner Lady would be good places to start. Brilliant Corners, mentioned above, is one I came to way too late... if I had to build my collection all over again it would probably be one of the first ten I picked up. I'm tempted to recommend Intersteller Space by Coltrane on the grounds that it just might be my favorite record that I've ever heard, but I can also see an argument for it not being a "starter" jazz album. Watch out for the guys that post around here. When I first started hanging with them online, I had about 100 jazz cds (and a big chunk of that was the Coltrane's Impulse catalog)... now I probably have close to 2,000...

This one has been making the rounds lately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCBwa-uzU5U (Not music related, just a guy making an ass out of himself trying to land an IB job...)

Thanks - based on this I think I'm going to just get whatever they have on the presumption that it has to be better than whatever I already have, and then invest in a cable upgrade once I've had time to do a little research. Thanks a lot for all the help. I should have the speakers in my house by noon!

My speakers are at the store and ready to be picked up in the morning! Any last-minute advice on speaker cable? Thanks.

Yeah, Live at the East is my favorite too. I don't dislike any of them.

I'm kind of surprised that none of the Selects have hit "Running Low" status yet. I realize not all that many people buy jazz box sets, but I see these things in stores all the time. Seems they'd be running low just on the basis of what they've supplied to retailers.

Thanks - looks like its going to be the 704s. They will be hooked up to a Rotel 1062 integrated amp, which brings me to another question: I'm probably due for new speaker cable (the cables I have now are whatever Circuit City sold me 12 years ago). Here is what the store by my house sells, is any of it worth buying? I'm a little put off because I've been told Monster isn't a very good brand: http://www.stereoexchange.com/catalogue/su...ubcategoryId=41

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