Kevin Bresnahan

I have it and it has some incredible music on it. I don't listen to it as often as I used to. This is the one I have.

Thanks for that correction Hans. Even with my decimal slip, 3200 Yen was a lot of US dollars back in 1991. With the international shipping costs, they were even more. I think the local Tower Records sold them for around $33.

Your "Golden hands" have come through, I am so glad to hear that she got through this, Having had my wife under those "golden hands" back in 2010 and again in 2011, I know what it's like..

That particular tactic has been around for as long as auctions have been going on. That is NOT shill bidding. That is active bidders actively screwing another (asshole) bidder. Those bidders often do run the risk of winning that auction, so they aren't as cavalier as you make it out to be. I know, because my Dad was big into Indian Motocycle auctions, and I had seen him "give the bidder middle finger" to those "deep pocket" bidders on many occasions. He enjoyed watching them "win" their item at an overly-inflated price. I was once at a Skinner auction where Jay Leno did this to an anonymous phone bidder on a Henderson 4 cylinder bike once the bidding got into the stratosphere. The whole crowd was laughing as Jay bid him up, knowing full well that if he accidentally won, he could afford it. Don't confuse shill bidders with real bidders who are willing to bump up a bid to screw another bidder. Shill bidders are usually inked directly to the seller.... usually it IS the seller. Their sole goal is to drive up the price by placing fake bids. In your scenario, real bidders bid it up with every intention of paying if they win. Not so with shill bidders,

Good luck Brad.

I assume that that had less to do with it than they love an auction where a shill bidder bids up the selling price. That inflates their cut. They have no financial incentive to stop shill bidding, In fact, back when they still showed bidders names, they really never investigated any complaints, no matter how obvious they were.

I still think eBay shot themselves in the foot when they made the bidders anonymous. Back when you could see the bidders, you could tell right away if you had shills. Now, anyone can shill their own rare item and no one can know.

So sorry to hear this Jeff. I had a tough enough time when my Dad died. I can't imagine what you must be going through with both of them dying in such a short span.

I was once told that all Japanese CD stores sell their wares at list price price. Is that true?

I went to the Piccadilly store many times and I don't recall that floor either. Maybe I managed to avoid it? I'm not a huge fan of heights so the vertigo would have hit me pretty good. Sadly, I never got to Tokyo during my travel days. I went through Japanese airports and they often had a little Tower store in them, but that was as close as I got. I didn't buy many of those 32XD CDs back in the day. If my memory isn't failing me, the "32" was shortened from 32,000 as in 32,000 Yen - the list price. That was a lot of US dollars back then. And yes, 55XD meant 55,000 Yen.

I have shopped at Tower Records all around the world. I travelled a lot from 1995 to 1998 and in every place I went, I made it a point to find the local CD shops, the local Jazz clubs and the local brewpubs. The best places had all 3 in close proximity. I usually planned to visit every Tower in the bigger cities I visited. The best.... hmmm... the one in Picadilly Circus was pretty damn good but so was the biggest one in Taipei (there were 3 there). The Boston Jazz room was incredible during the CD's heyday but the one in Cambridge, MA had a great Jazz buyer, Bill Nancarrow, who used to special order me Japanese imports, which was frowned upon by his manager. The SF area had several great CD shops, which made the local Tower stores an "if I can get there" stop, although one time I found a bunch of cut-out Japanese CDs in their bins. I went nuts that time. I vaguely remember the New York City's stores being pretty good but I seem to remember that the one on Broadway was better than the other location. I don't think I can pick one. Truth be told, I think I found something cool in many of them. I've been to Tower stores in LA, Dallas (and Fort Worth?), Albuquerque, Seoul, Atlanta, Washington DC, Hong Kong, Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, and many cities I'm forgetting now. For some reason, I'm not remembering Tower Records being in Germany, France or Sweden, which were places I visited several times back then. If they did have shops, I visited them. Even in these early days of the Internet, Tower's website would lead you to their stores. I would research them and print out a list before hitting the road. I miss that company.

There are not many direct drive turntables out there, especially when you get under $2K and I was never a fan of the Technics DD turntables, even back in their heyday. I have an older Denon DD. Denon exited the US market for DD turntables about 10 years ago when they stopped selling the DM-500M here. It's still available in Japan. If you're rich, VPI makes a DD turntable. Not for me (even if I were rich). I'm not a huge VPI fan. I had a Scout and hated it.

I finally broke down and did a search on the Hoffman forums, where I read a lot about the motor problems with the Pro-Ject Debut, a turntable I had for many years (and no, I never had any hum/rumble problems). Here is one: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/my-experience-with-a-pro-ject-debut-carbon-tt.460286/ Now, avoiding the "Just get rid of this piece of garbage" posts, you can see that people have had luck by simply messing with the motor's screws but most have had to add some sort of isolating material to get rid of it completely. If you take a couple of stabs at this and it won't go away, I'd order that upgrade kit ( https://www.henleyaudio.co.uk/products/SE-Upgrade-Kit ). $30 is $30, but if it works, it's $30 well spent. BTW - one interesting thing I read there is that some of the owners have had luck by simply removing the cover during playback. You could try this too.

I used to like Art Pepper's "Winter Moon" but only if I was feeling mellow and wanted to fall asleep. I haven't spun it in ages.

Not necessarily. Spinning the platter seems like an easy thing, but the mechanical requirements introduce some challenges. In this case, it probably has something to do with the location of the motor (outer edge of the platter in line with the tonearm mount) and where the belt touches the platter in relation to the where the cartridge touches the record. As the record plays, the tonearm moves the cartridge closer to the motor and those contact points. See the picture below to get a clearer idea of what i mean. BTW Jim - that kit shown above includes a new pulley & belt, so clearly those things can be part of this rumble problem too.

My experiences with rumble is that it has always been related to proper isolation from the bass coming from my speakers. It's why I suggest to try that first as it's relatively easy to diagnose & fix. However, in the case of these entry-level Pro-Ject turntables, the DC motor mounting has often been the culprit, to the point where Pro-Ject redesigned the whole set-up several years ago. I would have thought that a recent Debut Carbon would have all their fixes, but maybe not. I wouldn't start poking around the other things before eliminating the easiest and most likely sources of the rumble first.

I'm also a fan of direct drive turntables. If I were to buy another turntable now, I'd look at the Cambridge Audio Alva: https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/usa/en/products/alva/alva-tt

It took me several attempts, but I finally got that page to come up. It references this upgrade kit: https://www.henleyaudio.co.uk/products/SE-Upgrade-Kit It seems like a pretty inexpensive fix. BTW - if you can't get that page to come up (Error 404), follow the link I posted and click on the "Download" tab below the "Buy Now" button. Like I said in my post above, some Debut users have gotten similar results by simply loosening and/or tightening the 4 mounting screws for the motor.

Sound samples here: https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/ux63s2/eric-alexander-eric-alexander-with-strings Not a big fan of strings on Jazz recordings... well, I do like Getz's "Focus", but that's about it. As much as I dig Alexander's work, I won't be picking this up. Why is this so short though? 36 minutes is barely even LP length.

That is true. But at the same time, how hard could it be to get a better cover scan and make sure it looks good? It still says "Blue Note" on it so that should stand for something. It's not like it says "Applause Records".

Cuscuna did say that he gave Horace Silver the recordings made at Pep's in 1964. I think you're right Lon... I seem to remember that he said that he gave one to Shorter. Wasn't it that 1970 date? The one that Shorter blamed Duke Pearson for messing it up?

This'll sound weird, but put on a crappy LP that exhibits this rumble and while it's playing, gently lift up the turntable until it's no longer contacting the shelf to see if the rumble goes away. That'll eliminate the environment. If that doesn't eliminate the rumble, we're on to checking to see if the motor is properly isolated. I've read that there are mounting screws for the motor and if you loosen/tighten them in different combinations, you may find one that works. If none of this works, you'll have to make sure your ground is good.

And look at the covers of these two pressings. Blue Note has embarrassed themselves with these things. Damn - I forgot to take the vinyl sleeve off of the older pressing... and yet, it still looks better than that new one.

I pulled out a recent 80th Anniversary LP purchase, "Una Mas", and I saw the dead wax on Side 2 and did a double take: Then I realized that I had a mid-70s RVG cut in the racks. Here's Rudy's cut on Side 2: Huge difference. Soundwise, the new record is obviously quieter as my old RVG LP is well worn. But surprisingly, I think the new cut rolls off the highs on Kenny's trumpet where Rudy allowed it to nearly overload the playback. I don't which one is better. There seems to be more bass in the new cut. My wife listened with me (a rare occurrence) and she said, "They sound the same to me".

Cassette? Ok. I have one of these: It's the best sounding boombox I've ever owned. However, these days, I use a Bose Soundlink II Color and my cell phone for listening to tunes on the back deck: This little sucker sounds great to my old ears. I play either MP3 files from my SD card or the XM radio app.