Music Matters Definitive Blue Note 45 RPM and 33 & 1/3 RPM vinyl series (pt7)

The guy who sponsors the following website has opinions about all Blue Note issues, from the Plastylites mono/stereo to various Liberty/UA to DMM to MM/AP.

http://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/labelography-2/the-blue-note-labels/

The mid-1970s were really hard on vinyl. Oil prices spiked on the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and then a few years later, in 1979, oil prices rose again when US oil production began to decline more rapidly. Companies began to make records thinner, recycle vinyl and may have messed with the formulation of vinyl to effectively degrade the sound of lps. We have all seen lps with white bits in them, paper essentially, from lps that did not sell or were warped that got melted and reused, while that last bit is speculation.

 

Okay, so I'm a bit confused. There are people here who are way more knowledgeable and experienced than I am. I am now surmising that the slightly more mellow presentation of the 45s compared to the 33s was a choice, rather than likely the result of Kevin Gray's upgraded cables. My question for anyone who has compared originals to the MM 45s and 33s is which of the latter comes closest to the originals?

 

Andy is a good guy and I've supplied him with a few photos for his site He also turns a lot of people onto some incredible music. However he and I have vastly different preferences when it comes to sound. For one, for almost all cases where there is a good stereo mix I strongly prefer it to mono (for jazz). I like mono on my small system, but when it comes to a huge system in a dedicated room nothing compares (IMHO for my taste) to the stereo spread.

He has a comparison up with a Sonny Rollins album in original pressing vs a Music Matters 45 rpm, same mix so it is a fair comparison. To me the original pressing sounds thin, with little lower harmonic richness and density. (Going from memory) he sees the original as sounding more alive with Sonny sounding more distinct. Sonny needs that lower harmonic richness to sound like a tenor from the Coleman Hawkins school of jazz.

In my opinion this is like fooling the brain into thinking something has a better treble, or a better bass if you roll off one of the other. Like a speaker might sound bright and thin when it's lacking in bass when there is in fact nothing wrong with its treble. Bring back the bass and it suddenly doesn't sound bright. Or roll off both the treble and bass and suddenly you have a nice midrange. I've done the experiment with my own needle drops trying to replicate the RVG sound, since SH posted RVG's mastering moves for one album in another thread.

I know about the 70s oil crisis and vinyl. Maybe I've just been unlucky with my blue label pressings. I have 70s pressings from Elektra, WB, etc that play great.

 

Thank you, well said.

 

that's cool. no reason to duck for cover. we all have our own personal tastes and we don't need to justify them to anyone

 

Love it, bows down, arms raising and lowering, chanting, "We are not worthy, we are not worthy."

SH, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I simply love the AP/MM re-releases. I do not try to purchase originals, or Liberty reissues, unless that is the only way I can secure a vinyl copy. Hell, I am not opposed to the CD format, if that is what it takes to enjoy the music.

This guy on LondonJazzCollectors is knowledgeable, provides wonderful information, and I like this website, but I so disagree with his assessment of new releases of BN jazz on vinyl by AP or MM. He reminds me of my British grandfather, who could not figure out why anyone would want technology to improve anything, when the old stuff worked perfectly well in his view. He was stuck in the 'old way.'

Finally, I have no intention of getting a reverse mortgage to secure near mint copies of all of the BN titles I want to listen to. The AP and MM releases are like gold to me.

 

I agree, Andy is a nice, very funny guy. He only recently got into Jazz however and I think he has built his system around his growing collection of original Blue Note LPs, and balanced it to try and compensate for some of those weaknesses in the RVG pressings Steve referred to above.

 

That's the wrong question from my point of view. Right question is which one conveys the music best to you emotionally, truthfully, honestly, powerfully. I can say it's not the originals for me. I only have 1. 33 idle moments. After hearing it I got rid of the 45. Seems like they've decided to master these 33's much more lively which I think to music needs.

 

AP/MM 45s sound better than the originals. I agree.

MM 33s are a bit superior in timbre to the 45s IMHO

MM 33s are not aggressive, not to my ears.

I trust my ears over any other input, even if it comes from SH, who I respect the most.

See my avatar… we dogs have good ears!!!

 

That's interesting! And to be honest, if it was my company I'd maybe also check each mastering, when sure that my ability to corrrectly judge masterings is sufficient and on a professional level, like his probably is.

I understood, that you say, major difference between 45 and 33RPM Versions is tonal tweaking and if there was an equipment upgrade at KG's gear, it had minor influence.

As a non-professional I'm always careful judging sound quality and mastering, as I know, a lot can be done with EQ modification, that leads less experienced listeners to absolute quality ratings like "more dynamic" or "more direct, focussed, transparent" etc., as I used them in the following post http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/posts/11295364/.
To my ears this post is till valid and I'm still quite convinced, there's some more improvement except the audible tonal tweaking. On the other hand, if the 45 RPM's already sounded like the master quality wise as you say, I also have no idea, why a later version should be "better" instead of only "different" if assumed the monitoring equipment at this time already was above KG's improvement level.

 

THANK YOU for saying this.

Some of the ridiculous stuff you hear from rabid original pressing collectors about sonics is just...well, ridiculous. I tried a few of the least expensive titles myself for grins, and while they have their charm, they are very much "of the time" in the way they sound. HUGE upper midrange boost and lack of low bass are the most notable things on my system; glad to hear those being confirmed by an actual engineer who knows what was done - that's certainly the way they sound to me.

The MM and AP pressings are, objectively, WAY better than any originals I've compared, at least if one is gauging how well the full frequency and dynamic ranges of the original recordings are conveyed.

BTW relevant to the current discussion to my ears the 45 rpm MM versions sound better - I favor a somewhat more neutral (some might say softer) sound and these have that in spades. The 33 1/3 rpms aren't "bright" by any means but they are a bit more forward and it's not really necessary, IMHO. But I do like the fact you don't have to get up and flip the record every few minutes.

Anyway I came here to say I'm thrilled that the Clarke/Boland GOLDEN EIGHT recording will be included in this new run of titles. I have this only as a CD-R copy currently. One of the last couple of holes in my collecting of the BN catalog will now be filled!

 

I generally prefer the MM and AP re-issues but not always. Some of those RVG original pressings sound superb even if they have certain parts of the frequency band boosted.

 

Well I can see how some might like that sound - in the right mood I like going down that particular auditory "memory lane" myself - certainly pushing the upper mids up that far makes some of the horns "pop" and can be kinda neat on brief exposure - "Wow, check that out!" - but I find on extended listening it's quite wearying and you start to crave a more natural presentation (at least I do).

I also find it kind of funny that some of same people on the Forums who have rabidly criticized modern CD remasterings for having wicked upper midrange boosts will then go on about how great original Blue Note vinyl sounds - I mean hey at least those criticized upper mid-boosted CDs don't have all the highs and low bass lopped off!!!

But anyway the key point is people make claims that the originals are closer to what went down on tape and I think that's clearly not the case.

 

Apart from his embarrassing fight against anything in connection with SH that in its exaggeration disqualifies quite all of his sound quality statements when SH was involved, his blog has some interesting news from time to time.

Between the lines his throughout neg. statements about SH mastering quality were revised multiple times within comments given by involved pro's he could not afford to ignore and cited them himself. Otherwise the comments seem to be more censored at his blog than he accuses SH to do here.

Even if the main purpose of his blog seems to be SH bashing and makes it hard to find valuable information not to ignore, there is some.

I really like MM, but this guy must have a kind of MM turnover share additionally to his personal problem with SH ;-)

 

The thing about the original Van Gelder's is that they were produced for vastly different playback equipment to that which we now use.

 

I went to that London Jazz Collector site and there was a lot of good info. But the first sound sample I listened to, which was presented as "listen to perfect sound quality," exhibited pretty severe groove damage and therefore distortion. I would find that unlistenable on my system. We have different ideas about what good sound is.

 

I got into the '70s reissues recently, some of them being from original RVG masterings, some not, and I've had relatively good luck with them. A few are super dead quiet (No Room for Squares blue label RVG, Empyrean Isles blue label RVG, Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims United Artists classic label to name a few), while some indeed were bad...pretty typical for post-1960s non-audiophile vinyl IMO.

 

I know I've said this many times before but I cannot begin to understand the extreme distaste in your opinion. It's all subjective of course, but the furthest down I could imagine anyone going in legitimately and fairly critiquing the originals is 'very good'. They are so clearly above 'average' to me that I cannot fathom someone going as far as saying they 'stink'. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you deal with subtle differences in sonic details day in and day out as a mastering engineer, but I certainly can't understand how so many common music fans can jump on board with your extreme opinion. I don't dwell on all those numbers that you got off that mastering note a few years back and coincidentally the originals sound great to me (in near mint condition). But maybe I have a completely underdeveloped, inferior sonic palette in comparison to those who can hear how extreme the difference is. I own several Music Matters issues now and I can honestly say that describing the differences between the two issues so dramatically is just odd. I hear a difference, sure, but I don't understand where the harshness in your sentiment comes from.

Oh and PS: If we really wanna get down to the nitty gritty of the details, to me, comparing mono originals to stereo reissues is pretty much an apples-to-oranges thing. So when we talk about these comparisons, we should probably be clear if we're talking about stereo or mono originals, and keep in mind that many classic titles prior to 1962 were never mastered by Van Gelder in stereo.

 

This. Very nicely said.

 

Agreed, @norman_frappe, but I would say because I understand that neither is intended to imitate the originals. If you want a sound 'similar' to the originals but don't wanna pay those prices, your best bet IMO is the RVG Edition CDs...

<<< (for every time I mention the RVG CDs)

 

Well Steve at the expense of giving you a heart attack the Music Matters 45 rpm of Soul Station does sound tonally more similar to my original mono pressing. There is no upper mid boost on that pressing. Both the MM 45 and original mono have a really wonderful flow to them and Hank doesn't sound aggressive on either. The 33 rpm Music Matters sounds more like Alan Yoshida's digital versions. Similar sentiment on True Blue as well.

However I wouldn't call the MM 33 rpm of Midnight Blue or Page One aggressive. Those two sound very good, probably the best I have ever heard both sound.

 

I really don't see how that inference can be made here. Those albums with poor tapes have probably been reissued before (it doesn't seem like there was much that wasn't made into an RVG Edition CD, for example). I believe I read that the goal of the BN 75th Anniversary series was to reissue the entire catalog eventually. MM, on the other hand, is specifically an audiphile reissue company, and the premium they charge is for the audiophile presentation of this music. So if they require tapes to be in decent condition for them to reissue an album in an audiophile format and charge a premium for that, it only makes sense. It isn't as if they have neglected the BN catalog for not being truly audiophile to begin with, and are only releasing stuff like Jazz at the Pawnshop.

 

I sat down and listened to Blue Train again this evening which I have several editions of but tonight decided to spin an original W6rd RVG copy I have and compare it to the latest MM 33 edition, bearing in mind Steve's comments. It may be expectation bias but I came to the conclusion that the MM 33 was better sonically. You get the whole frequency range from highest to lows and a much greater sense of presence. The original RVG sounding thin and compressed in comparison.

 

We all have our own sonic preferences, and I remember from previous conversations that you prefer what you were willing to admit was a more processed, less natural sound that you find more exciting. But I am confused about one thing here--up above, you seemed to suggest that the differences between MM reissues and RVG originals are not night and day, yet here you suggest that the RVG CDs are closest in sound to the originals. I've never heard an original RVG vinyl pressing, but in my estimation, there is definitely a huge, night and day difference between the RVG CDs and any other version of the same material I've ever heard (whether MM reissues, AP ones, XRCDs, or even McMaster CDs). So, if original pressings sound anywhere remotely similar to RVG Edition CDs, to me, that automatically suggests a major, night and day difference from the MM issues indeed.