Claude

Thanks for the info. The OJC titles are too exotic for me, except maybe the Tyner. Good selection for the K2s. Though it's odd to release "Standard Coltrane" on an audiophile CD while it is still available on a hybrid SACD

Forgive Aric, he cannot know this, he's just a law student I don't see any reason to boycott/sanction Fantasy, since we don't know what the new owner plans to do with the catalogue.

Wouldn't it be easier to record onto a hard drive? Almost unlimited space, no CD/DVD-writing problems. The only advantage of recording onto a removable disc is that it is possible to circulate the recording immediately, without needing to transfer the data to a PC. My MP3 player iRiver H120 (20GB) can also record to MP3 or wav, via Line, microphone and digital inputs. The H140 has a 40GB drive. I don't know if the sound quality is of professional level (I doubt it), but it wouldn't be to difficult to make a portable machine that is capable of high quality hard disc recording. The only technical limitation I've noticed so far is the 2GB file limit, due to the FAT32 data format used for the drive. It means that continous recording in uncompressed sound is limited to approximatly 3.5 hours. After that time, recording has to be stopped and started to continue recording in a new file.

I don't remember many videos I saw back then, but I always liked the early Michael Jackson videos with those crowd dance scenes, like Thriller or Beat It.

No, yourmusic.com is limited to the US territories. Unfortunately, as far as CDs are concerned, such offers have never been available in Europe. Compare the CD prices with the Bertelsmann Club in Germany

It's the traditional book club system that Bertelsmann (the owner of yourmusic) and others have been using for decades. The selection is mainstream, but if you find something interesting every month (which shouldn't be too difficult unless you have a very specialized taste or you own everything already) you can save a lot. One needs to be disciplined and not buy new releases immediately elsewhere but wait until the club is offering them, which may not happen with every disc. As the subscription can be cancelled at any time, the risk is very limited.

The photos can be seen here: BLUE NOTE CALENDAR FOR 2005???, Will there be one?

That is easier when more posts are being displayed on one page. You can change this in your Control Panel --> Board Settings --> Number of posts to show for each topic page

Backorders at yourmusic.com (Steve Hoffman forum)

Another cheap option would be to get the midpriced CDs released last summer, which have the new remastering too.

Any transaction with a zero-feedback seller from another country must be considered risky. However, I think that someone who was really planning to rip the buyer off would try to make the potential bidders feel safer, by getting some positive feedback first. Anyway, those who are willing to pay almost $500 for an LP should have no problems bearing the risk of being ripped off.

You are right Chuck. But after having heard so many RVGs, I think I know how they sound compared to other remasterings, when they are well done. There's always that RVG remastering sound signature, that one likes or not. The TOCJ of "True Blue" is so good, I don't think it can be improved. I wasn't aware of the alternate tracks. One good thing about reselling RVGs - that I always order in the US - is that I can advertise them here in Europe as "US imports - no copyprotection, playable on all CD-compatible devices"

You should keep the spanish "True Blue", which is a TOCJ remastering and sounds perfect. I've got that one, the JRVG of "Basra" and the MFSL CD of "Night in Tunesia", so I will pass on this batch.

As it takes a lot of time to record and edit an LP, it would be better not to compress the resulting files but to keep them in the best quality and create audio CDs. If cost (and space) is an issue, you can also write the wav files onto data DVD-Rs, which hold up to ten 40 minute LPs for the price of less than one $. From the audio CDs or the wav files on the DVDs, you can easily make mp3s whenever you need them, for your portable player, transferring to friends etc.

The strangest SACD case I have is the one from the very early (1999) japanese SACD release of Tony Williams "Young at heart". It's a digipack, but the plastic part is twice as thick as a normal CD digipack, so from the side it looks like a 2CD set.

I heard the Jazz Door CD today and it sounds exactly like your description. My guess is that the Jazz Door is a direct copy of the Fresh Sounds CD. Fresh Sounds usually digs out tapes (often not the original masters) or dubs from vinyl copies, but Jazz Door is not known for doing tape research and sophisticated remastering. Some tracks on the second CD come from LPs, because some vinyl noise can be heard (barely noticable though). I also think that the quality of the recording itself may not be that great. It is a very early stereo recording (stereo was introduced in jazz in late 1957, these sessions are from november 1957), and it could be that the distant sound is due to the microphone setup. The best sounding tracks are the few mono recordings on the second half of CD1.

Among the well known concertos, the Ravel (both), Prokofiev (2+3), Shostakovich (both), Rachmaninov (3rd) and Bartok (all) are my favourites. The lesser known I like are Britten, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Barber. My recommendation for concertos to be discovered are the three by Rodion Shchedrin, which are Shostakovich-like, with some jazz elements.

Their "John Cage for lovers" collection is quite good.

You can also (pre-)order the Liebman/Beirach Select for only 77 Euro ($104) at Amazon Germany. Free shipping to Germany/Austria/Luxembourg B-) http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00069I83Q/

This disc combines tracks from "Original visions" (1995) with some from "Double gemini" (1997), so if you look up tracklists for both albums it is easy to find out.

I just read an article in the german Stereoplay magazine, where an engineer from the TDK laboratory in Luxembourg is quoted saying CD-Rs have a life expectancy of 60-100 years, when stored adequately. Hmm ... How come that dozens of Fuji CD-Rs that I burned in 2002 have become yellowish and are partly unreadable, despite being stored out of daylight? All the other CD-R brands I used in the same year (when I had subscribed to emusic and downloaded more than 2000 albums) are ok. So it should be added that the life expectancy is several decades only when the disc has been manufactured correctly. But how does one know which brands are durable and which are not?

Have they released some?

To take advantage of the potential of DADs (superior resolution compared to CDs), you will need a high quality DVD player. There is no point in playing audiophile discs on a PC or a $100 CD or DVD player. My preferred version of Somethin' else is the MFSL CD, which you also have I assume

Because of the uncertain future of SACD, it would indeed be better to place priority in good CD playback. That will not exclude SACD functionalities of course.

Last time when I used this service - when it was free - one had to click the tracks individually. But all the tracks ran from start to end.