Kevin Bresnahan

Just finished - Stanley Turrentine's "Another Story". Eh. Good enough to not skip to another record but not enough to make me want to play it again too soon. Now playing, Sonny Criss "This Is Criss". I have always liked this date. A great rhythm section behind Sonny too.

Perhaps not! "Having Hank the kitty ready to greet you in the lobby"... clearly, a Jazz fan wrote that skit!

I have a Kindle (2nd gen), a Nook & a Kindle Fire. All three are going with me to Paris next week. I love the convenience, love the free books (sign up for the daily E-mail here: http://ereadernewstoday.com/) & I love that I can "buy" a book from the comfort of my hotel room when I'm traveling. About the only thing I don't like is that it is just about impossible to flip back in any book you're reading. I read a lot of fantasy novels and some of them introduce/kill off characters left & right. Sometimes, I like to flip back through a book to find where a character was mentioned before. Very hard to do with a Kindle.

Picked up at Stereo Jacks today. Believe it or not, I've never owned this before: Stanley Turrentine - Sugar (CTI) VAN GELDER in the deadwax. As usual with Van Gelder CTI LPs, there are a few small pops in a mirror-perfect record. I don't get it, So far, this is much better than I expected. I always figured this was Stanley gone commercial... or else I just never got the toe licking thing on the cover. The last thing someone woukd get from between my toes is sugar!

I guess they don't have movie theaters or that newfangled Internet thing down there in Tennessee. They honestly think that most of these kids haven't seen a sex toy before?

Hookers the world over are breathing a sigh of relief. They need more FBI agents that think this way.

I was just able to pick up a used copy of TOCJ-66015 Ike Quebec Quintets and Swingtet - "Blue Harlem", for $25. One of the best prices I've ever seen for it.

I saw them at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston last week (6/14) and they were great. I am very glad to have saw them. Just to see & hear Billy Harper's version of "Free For All" was worth the price of admission. I would recommend seeing them. My only complaint, and I mentioned it on the other thread on the board, is that Scullers is a small venue with solid wood paneling. In this environment, they were very loud and in Billy Hart's case, far too loud. Billy's playing shut down my right ear for a bit and I was not the only one. Next time they come to town, I'll be there with an earplug.

The Beatles - Rubber Soul (UK 2 box pressing). I'm practically melting as I type this. Tubes suck when it's 95 and you don't have A/C. Edit to add: Tubes suck when it's 95 out and you have a laptop on your actual lap and no A/C. :)

I saw them in Boston last week and while the music was incredible, my ears are still recovering. I'm sorry, but Billy Hart played his drum kit far too hard for that bright little room. I was not the only one to have this problem either. Me and my friend convinced 4 other people to come along for the ride. While we all agreed that the music was phenomenal, we also all agreed that Billy was "over the top" loud. Right near the end, I had to move back away from the stage because my right ear was killing me and I looked around and saw several people with their fingers in the ears during Billy's solo.

Lon - I never limited my statement to the output stage. All I'm saying is that the transport is the least of things that I would consider as being able affect sound. All of the things you cite are all important. I am not disagreeing. A good "CD transport" usually means more stable and reliable. High end manufacturers will go out of their way to design bullet proof transports. But if you take the digital output from a $75 DVD player and compare it to the digital output of a $5,000 CD player, you will find them to be the same.

As I understand it, unless you buy a high end CD player, the laser inside is for playing DVDs. For a mass market manufacturer, it makes no sense to make a CD-only laser transport when you can make a DVD laser that plays CDs fine. Personally, I don't think the laser transport has anything to do with the analog sound. All that transport is doing is pulling the 1's & 0's off the disc. It's what the player does with those 1's & 0's afterward that's important. Kevin

I wonder how they'll sound? The latest Blue Note CD reissues from Japan haven't sounded all that great, with more compression and a bright EQ. If they do a decent job with these, I might try a few of them. Kevin

Thanks everybody. The big 5-0 today. I don't feel 50 but does anyone? I do feel weird to say that I'm 50. Where has the time gone?

Cannonball Adderley - Jazz Workshop Revisited (Riverside). A decent sounding blue lable pressing for $4. Sounds OK. CD is probably better sounding but it cost a lot more than $4.

Warne Marsh & Lew Tabackin - tenor gladness (Inner City). Nice date. Quite the contrast between the two tenors. Night and day, as they say.

Gene Ammons - Blue Gene. A regular ol' Fantasy reissue from the 80s. Sounds fine too. These things are probably one of the best Jazz vinyl bargains out there. $3 for this one and worth every penny.

That's weird - I used to be credited on this page and now I've been excised. I guess someone had prior knowledge.

Dexter Gordon - The Jumpin' Blues. Nice green label Van Gelder pressing. Not the greatest recording quality but Wynton Kelly, in his usual rollicking manner, makes it a very worthwhile $6.

These days, I highly recommend Oppo Digital. Best bang for the buck. I have an older BDP-80 and it sounds great. It looks great for BluRay video, too. Depending on your budget, you could go for the BDP-93 ($499) or the BDP-95 ($999). Both come highly recommended by the majority of the hifi world. Outside of Oppo Digital, there are some fans of Cambridge Audio, but a lot of insiders are saying that it is just a re-badged Oppo Digital player. Denon has quite a line-up of players and they sound pretty good but I have had two out of three Denon DVD-2900 players die on me. I don't think I could recommend them any more. I still play the last one and it sounds great but I think their transport is weak. Marantz makes some players that seems to have a large following but they have the same parent company as Denon so they may use the same transports. If your budget allows, there are some high end models out there but I have not heard them.

Lon, say it isn't so! If you're looking at vinyl again, digital must be dying. :lol: He's just run out of things to buy. That is somewhat my reason for getting back into vinyl. I found that I hadn't bought any CDs for months and one day I was in Stereo Jacks and saw some Van Gelder Blue Note vinyl in the LP bin so I figured I'd give it a try. Yes, it is fun. However, all the reasons I left vinyl in the old days are still there. The mint LPs that play like shit. The crappy sound on some pressings (unrelated to the vinyl itself). The scratched "new" records. The having to get up every 20 minutes to flip the record. Having to figure out which pressing is the best (and then finding a clean copy). I am having fun, but this feeling may not last forever.

Lon, say it isn't so! If you're looking at vinyl again, digital must be dying. :lol:

Again? Didn't they change it just a few years ago? I actually liked the original website better than the last one. I'll have to see if this one is any better.

Tonight at Scullers in Boston - Eric Alexander & Vincent Herring with Harold Mabern on piano. Should be a good one!

You've obviously never compared a CD to mp3 files ripped using VBR, Q2. Do that and get back to us about how low quality our mp3s are.