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Verve Acoustic Sounds Series Reissues

Certainly when you get vague information like this or as with Pure Pleasure “from the best available source” I tend to think a digital transfer is involved. It would be better if they were much clearer about and used the original codings that were devised AAA, ADA, Digital. I apologise for not picking up on the ‘tape transfer’ bit at first and possibly misleading anyone. When I first saw this it was on Jazz Wise as from the original master tapes:

No need to apologise to me, I bought it because the New Land thing looked very interesting!

Eric Boulanger at The Bakery told Fremer that it's not the source that's important but the amplifier for the cutting head!

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/thr...g-to-right-now-58.253967/page-39#post-4351772
 
Thanks for alerting us to the Gerry Mulligan @poco a poco: hadn’t heard it before and it’s really nice. My copy has quite a lot of non-fill (?) though. Anyone else?
 
Thanks for alerting us to the Gerry Mulligan @poco a poco: hadn’t heard it before and it’s really nice. My copy has quite a lot of non-fill (?) though. Anyone else?
Sorry to hear that. As I had said my pressing had one light scratch on arrival , but that was inaudible so I kept it as otherwise first rate. Did you get it from Amazon? If so an easy return for a replacement. I see they have now pushed the price up to £28. They should be giving me a commission. ;) Hopefully Tony gets some benefit from the links.
 
Night Lights has been in my collection since it's release late last year and it's excellent I don't care if they sent KG an MP3 file on his iPhone to cut from because the end result sounds great to me. I bought Joe Henderson's Tone Poet State of the Tenor Vol 1 a couple of weeks again that was taken from a digital source and sounds excellent too.

Buying only strict 100% Analogue pressings never made sense to me to the proof should always be in the listening I have flimsy, thin digitally sourced records at home that sound excellent I also own lots of Reggae for instance that doesn't sound excellent at all, is bass heavy and pressed on terrible vinyl but it's that or nothing and I'd rather have something.
 
Enjoying Night Lights very much. Very cool set. Oddly I’ve barely listened to any music since before Christmas. Not sure why, maybe it was the plague wot dun it? Think this has got me back in the zone!

Slightly off topic but try Barney Wilen - French Ballads on Elemental Music, it sounds tremendous and is a steal for the money. I got them both together - maybe it was the mood I've been in too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09GCVQDG8/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
A bit of an update on my previous comments on Mingus's Black Saint. Over the last few days I've done some tweaks to my turntable set-up and speaker position. This included slightly altering the VTA and VTF of my cart. It's a Shibata and painfully sensitive to VTA, and I thought this little tweak had finally got it just right (or at least as just right as you can get when records are all different thickness).

So I went back to Black Saint and ... I found it rather bright. I was getting a bit tired by the end of the second section. Hmmm. Is audiophile bliss so brief, I wondered?

I also have the Superior Viaduct version, which is remastered from the original tapes, so I put that on. This was more palatable. It's just slightly darker and a little richer. If it's not quite so crystal clear I think this is down to minor tonal differences.

Now I'm not going to draw any strong conclusions from this. Neither you nor I should trust my judgement when I've been tweaking, and it's not a record I know with great intimacy in the way I do, for example, A Love Supreme.

But it does make me wonder. How much hype is involved in these reisssue cycles? And are the Acoustic Sounds series possibly hyping the treble very slightly? This was my first impression of A Love Supreme, in comparison to Japanese reissues from the 80s.

I just think it's extremely system and ear dependent. In a couple of days the atmospheric pressure might have changed, I might have tweaked my speakers toe-in, and the Acoustic Sounds Black Saint will be the favourite again. What I'm beginning to doubt though, is that there is a serious qualitative difference between this and other decent reissues.

Provisional thoughts only, however. VTA is a dominant factor here, I should stress.
 
To my ears both Acoustic Sounds and Blue Note Tone Poets/Classic are boosting both the top and bottom a little compared to original pressings. This kind of has the effect of sucking the mid back a bit. They all sound lovely, they really are very good, but for me they don’t have the visceral impact and midband presence of an RVG cut. With Rudy’s vinyl the sax, snare, trumpet, toms etc have astonishing attack and slam, and I love that. Just so alive and exciting. Right in the room with you. I’ve not heard the Black Saint as I have a RVG-cut Impulse original, but I think I’ve heard enough to understand how Kevin Gray thinks now. I like his work and I’ll almost certainly buy a lot more, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d not swap an early US or Japanese cut for one (the Japanese stuff can be a bit bright, but they still have the midband presence and impact I seek). I’ve heard enough now not to duplicate.
 
Tony, I've not really found the Tone Poets in general to be too bright. One or two have been on the borderline. I remember the beginning of Jackie McClean's 'It's Time' making me jump out of my seat a bit at first - it certainly sounds hot, but I think that's probably true to the recording (and to Jackie Mclean). On the other hand, a direct comparison of the Classic 'Speak No Evil' with the Music Matters 33RPM, which is also Kevin Gray mastered, does suggest that he is taking a slightly different strategy recently - it is a tiny bit brighter. So I'd take this on a case by case basis (and maybe we should do that on a detailed comparison thread).

The Verve Black Saint is Ryan Smith rather than Kevin Gray. And I think he has a different signature again. For me it feels a bit more like a mild 10Khz emphasis, rather than presence region, but this is total guess-work and I have no engineering experience, so do take with a pinch of salt.

As for Japanese, I'd resist the brightness claim. I've done a lot of comparisons over recent years since my friend Paul (Mellstock) started importing them, and we've found the results are all over the place. E.g. we compared a Japanese reissue of Ornette Coleman's 'Something Else'- with an 80s Contemporary reissue, and the latter was significantly brighter. More recently, I've briefly compared the BN Classic reissue of Tyner's 'The Real McCoy' with an 80s Japanese pressing, and the Classic is clearer and brighter. I imagine the Japanese is probably closer to the RVG, but I've no reference for that claim. Yes, we've found brighter Japanese pressings - a Stones LP that to me was really hyped in the presence region (but some people love). But I think there is too much variation in Japanese pressings. I think the only generalisations we can really make are that the vinyl tends to be less flawed, and Japanese collectors take good care of them, making them an excellent investment.
 
I'd agree. I don't find Tone Poets bright sounding at all. It's worth bearing in mind that while RvG had his own 'sound', there is some variation from album to album and indeed label to label. Similarly, I don't think one can generalize about Japanese pressings: some sound great, others dull while some are bright. They are all over the place sound-wise but I'd agree that the vinyl and manufacturing quality is unsurpassed.

Like you say, it is often system dependent and personal preferences. Not just yours, but those of the (re)mastering professional as well. That's why I use a parametric linearizer to tweak the frequency response of the recording.
 
Just got a notification from Rough Trade that my Coltrane Village Vanguard is ready to collect. I won’t be able to collect until Sunday. Anyone tried it yet?
 
I’m sitting that one out as I have the Complete Village Vanguard CD box set which has the full sets. An essential thing that sadly seems to be out of print at present.
 


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