Claude

I received the "Blue Train" and "Black Dahlia" SACDs today. I am only able to listen with headphones right now, so I won't comment on the frequency balance of "Blue Train", but I noticed that on the "Black Dahlia" SACD, the channels are reversed between the CD and SACD stereo layer. The multichannel layer is correct. Looks like another Blue Note quality control issue.

In fact, CDs that are sold in violation of a licensing contract can be considered pirate CDs. They could even be seized and destroyed. But this only concerns commercial sellers and not private persons.

Well Ok, it was not well stated. I meant: - Home users can damage their hearing with headphones, including very good headphones, as these can play very loud. - Home users can hardly damage their hearing with speakers as normal hifi sets cannot play that loud - But Musicians can damage their hearing with speakers on stage or in the rehearsal room, as PA speakers go far above 100 dB. There are enough rock musicians who suffered hearing loss without using headphones. I was at a sports event last weekend, where an amateur rock band gave a concert. I had to walk past the speakers to go to the toilet, and it was so loud it was unbearable for me even for only 5 seconds. But others were listening to the concert at the same distance. My headphones cannot play as loud as this.

Most new SACD releases are hybrid, they can be played on a normal CD player too, without the benefit of the high resolution audio and multi-channel playback of course. Speaking of multi-channel, how about the Charlie Parker Complete Benedetti Recordings remixed to surround?

I hope that Blue Note spends more time in preparing reissues than in going after CD's that left their destined distribution channels

I guess Norah Jones is excluded too?

Joe Zawinul

Crap in, crap out Seriously, is there any good online translation service? They are all useless when it comes to translate complete sentences, but those I have tried also had a very limited vocabulary on single words. I would like something like a real dictionary, which gives several translations of a word if it has more than one meaning. Here is the result of an English-->French-->German-->English translation for this service: http://translation2.paralink.com/ "Four scores and seven years ago have brought our fathers forward, on this continent, a new nation which is designed in the freedom and have dedicated in the suggestion, " all men(husbands) (people(persons), people) is immediately created"

Because I seem to heve been criticizing the sound of the Moncur Mosaic Select the most on the BNBB, I want to repeat what I don't like with the remastering. First of all, the various sessions sound differently, and this seems to be due to the remastering. Strangely, "Some other stuff", "Destination out" and "Bout soul", which were already remastered by Ron McMaster for the Connoisseur series, sound worse than those previous reissues. The problems are: extremely muffled high treble (no "air"), artificial silence in quiet passages, higher distortion on loud passages. The "s"-sounds on the "bout soul" vocals are much too prominent. These flaws were not present on the Conns, which sound more natural. I am well aware of the problems of artificial brilliance (cymbals) on some Connoisseurs, but in this case they are much closer to balanced sound. I suspect that McMaster used SonicSolutions noise reduction processes, which most engineers now avoid because they eliminate too much musical information when reducing tape hiss. The other sessions, that were not available in the Connoisseur series, "One step byond", "Evolution" and "Hipnosis", sound much better, the flaws described above are less noticeable. My only point of reference are the 3 Conns. I have not heard the late 80's CD releases (which probably suffer from other sonic problems) or the TOCJs. My conclusions: - this set is essential for the music, despite the sound problems - the sound is probably better than on the first CD releases - the sound is noticably worse than on the Connoisseur releases. I you have those, keep them Maybe most people will not bother about these problems, but calling the sound "excellent" is certainly not justified. I am aware that most mid-to-late 60's Blue Note sessions have not been as well recorded as the late 50's early 60's sessions, but the Connoisseur CDs show that the Mosaic Select remastering is responsible for a large part of the problems.

Where did I say this? Please read my post again. My english is not great, but what I tried to express is that noise is dangerous at a certain decibel level, whatever the source (headphones or speakers), and that with headphones the temptation of turning up the volume too much is higher than with home speakers. But thanks for the honoris causa title, Mnytime

But then how can you assume that his hearing damage comes from the use of headphones? As a touring artist, he was much more often exposed to the noise of stage monitors and PA systems. What counts is the loudness of the noise, and not the source of the noise (speakers or headphones). Of course, for music listeners it is much more likely to damage one's ears with headphones simply because these can be turned up much louder than average speakers. But this limitation does not exist with professional PA speakers which are designed and capable to be extremely loud. My recommendation is to be very careful when using headphones. Don't listen too loud, don't listen too long, don't use very cheap equipment. But with moderate use, there is no risk involved.

As no major company hasn't dared yet to put out complete box sets on (hybrid) SACD (even the SACD inventor Sony issues the new Miles sets on CD only), why would a small company, much more fragile financially, take that risk? Reissuing some of the most sought for Mosaic sets would be great for the avaialbilty of the music. New remastering could also improve the sound of some sets (but increases production cost). But would the SACD format really be an incentive for people who already own sets to buy them again? I don't think so.

I´ve bought some in Munich, Germany too.

Greg likes it: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hirez/me...ges/140971.html You must all have the polarity wrong

Hans, does that include the Mobile Fidelity CD? I have it and I find the sound to be very good. The same with Art Blakey "Night in Tunesia" reissued by MoFi (these are CDs from the early 90's). Both sessions seem to have been recorded very loud, so there is slight bass distortion and tape saturation on loud passages, and a certain lack of dynamics. However the treble response is far less agressive than on RVG's remasterings.

That's correct. One the other hand, the clarity of high end headphones and the complete absence of distortion and room effects (booming) makes it often tempting to turn up the volume higher than with speakers. You need to resist that.

I think CDs will still be the dominant music medium for the next 10 years at least. That includes SACD, which is just a ... Super-CD The other important form of music distribution will be online downloads. Currently downloadable music is of lower audio quality, but that may change in the future, as internet connections get faster. It has many advantages for the industry (no physical stocks to be managed, no duplication costs) and for the consumer (lower price if cost reductions are submitted to the buyer, instant availability, more music available as albums won't "need" to go OOP). Downloadable music may change the music industry dramatically not only on the distribution side but also on the production side. Musicians could frequently release (and record) individual songs instead of a 10-song album once a year. So I don't think there is a place for another form of physical medium (solid state, data-chips). People will either stick to CDs (which most users still find technologically up-to-date) or buy music without a medium.

Thanks for your input, DrJ (Tony ) You should have stated what CDs you compared those SACDs with and if you played the CDs on the same player as the SACDs. I have the impression that you describe the improvement of the remastering that was done for the SACD, not the sound advantage of the new format. The Sonny Clark CD for example sounds like crap because of the poor remastering, not because of the limitations of the CD format. As far as Miles Smiles is concerned, I don't share your impression. Compared to the Miles Davis Quintet 1965-68 CD box which has the same remastering as the latest single CD release , if found the improvement of the SACD to be marginal. The same for Kind of Blue.

The first chapter of the book "The Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzik", by Jack Chambers, can be read online: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~chambers/workstward.html Another discography: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~chambers/twardzik2.html

One of my Curtis Fuller favourites is the Blue Note album Volume 3. I passed on the Mosaic set, but recently got this album in the "spanish TOCJ" series. Bluesette is another classic.

Many stereo components have a phone jack that mainly fulfills an alibi function (it's parts are worth $5). If you have a good headphone and want optimal sound you should get a dedicated headphone amp. It's no use buying a $200 headphone (such as the Sennheiser) and then using it with a crappy phone output of a CD player. The same was true with phono stages. Ten years ago most amplifiers still had a phono input, but the makers did not invest much into that part as they knew that 90% of the buyers would only use it occasionally or not at all. Now most amps don't have a phono stage, which is a better solution as those who care about LP sound will invest into a good separate phono amp ($100-$3000) Anyway, a phono stage or a headphone amp is something that you buy once and keep for a long time, even if you upgrade other components such as the main amplifier.

For Europeans especially it might be interesting to know that Idem, the european licensee of the Jazz Casual videos has put out new DVDs (PAL & NTSC) which couple 3 Jazz Casual shows each (90 minutes total). Price is 16-20€ per disc. http://www.disconforme.ad/pages2/idem/jazz...zmasterscat.asp Particularly interesting in my view are the DVD with Gerry Mulligan/Art Pepper/Art Farmer and the one with John Coltrane/Sonny Rollins/B.B. King . The former DVDs with 2 shows always seemed to couple one "star" show with a less interesting one and were the same price, for only 60 minutes.

I just received a new "Jazzmessengers" flyer. They have opened a shop in Barcelona: Rambla de Catalunya 99 08008 Barcelona Tel. 93 215 88 46

I have the Sennheiser HD580 and I am very satisfied with them (sound and comfort), except for a problem with the connection cable, which seems to have been fixed for the current production (mine is 5 years old). I also have a seperate headphone amplifier (Musical Fidelity X-Cans) and recommend getting a dedicated amp for the headphones. I assume that you live in the US. The Sennheisers are very expensive outside of Europe (+50%) , so you should also take into account alternative brands such as Grado. But with Grados, you must absolutely try them for a longer period of time, because some people don't like their comfort (sorry, I can't find the suitable word), and this cannot be tested by having them on for just 10 minutes. While a headphone amp is recommended, you should keep the right proportions. Don't spend more than $300 on an amp. If you have a higher budget, consider the Sennheiser HD600. A new high end model, based on the HD600, will also come out later this year. As for a SACD/CD player, there are not that many models to choose from. If you want true high end, go for a Sony SCD-XA777ES, which is being discontinued now and can be bought for less than $2000. If your budget is much tighter (the Sony is not entry-level indeed), consider the Philips DVD-963SA ($400), which also has excellent DVD (and MP3) playback and CD upsampling. Unfortunately, there is not much to choose from apart from those two (but I may have missed some players available in the US)

Well, I have made this too, when I learned I couldn't be online at the time when the auction ended. Increased the proxy bid by a safer amount. But I always stayed within reasonable limits