Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality: A Jolly Christmas (1957)

Mortimer K. Jolly-Happy, at your service!

 

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Lesson learned on that front!

"Measure twice, cut once," as dad used to say. That's my new mantra. Yesterday was painful.

 

My copy, which I just picked up this morning, is excellent. I will add this: @AxeD got in touch today, and let me know that, while his first copy was very problematic, his replacement copy is problem free. (AxeD sent clips of his first copy last week, and of his new copy earlier today, and it's like night and day, in terms of audible manufacturing issues.)

No problems that I've noticed in terms of pitch/speed.

 

One thing I do have to wonder: If HDtracks was showing this disclaimer:

....what's the source for the vinyl? (Not that I really care much, because the vinyl sounds great. I'm just curious.)

 

Should be fine on the left-side version, and probably even the 12:00 version. IIRC, this one never got the "wet tapes" treatment (I'll stand corrected if anybody knows for sure), so any true mono copy should be essentially unfutzed. Avoid Duophonic, '70s copies, etc.

 

Tonight, I did back-to-back transfers to digital of the MFSL LP and new Capitol/UMe LP. Here are their dynamic readings, MFSL at left; new LP at right:


I'm still sticking with the MFSL as my favorite copy, but the new version (on LP, specifically) is very nice. My preference is for a hair brighter tone than the new version has, but I know that many may feel just the opposite. It's a high quality product; just a matter of personal preference.

By the way, my LP was pressed in The Netherlands (sticker on back), and there is nothing in the deadwax aside from some machine-stamped numbers. The only noise that I noticed on my copy was a couple of less-than-silent rills between tunes. During the musical passages, nothing caught my ear in terms of surface noises, etc.



Now....regarding the new digital versions:

Yes, and they are poor compared to the LP (and I'm not one of the "LP better than CD" guys).

 

Well.....that German iTunes version may be the worst that album has ever sounded. Worse than the Norberg CD, maybe!

 

From spring of 2007, in another thread:

JB -- if you can transport your brain/ears back to 2007, can you elaborate a bit on what you are hearing? I just re-played my MFSL LP, checking that track specifically, and didn't notice anything odd like that.

Or maybe somebody else has noticed this and can chime in?

 

Yesterday, I picked up an blue-label SMX (not SM) copy of this album. I think the SMX series emerged around 1985 or so.

I had a 1970s yellow-label SM pressing that re-used the old DW-series Duophonic stampers. (DW was just scratched out in the deadwax, with SM scribbled in next to those letters.) This SMX pressing had no such DW markings, so for $5, I figured it was worth a shot. It was MASTERED BY CAPITOL, and the deadwax reads:

Side One: H25, with the SM notation now having an X squeezed in next to it, indicating a re-used stamper from the SM days. There's also a circle with an X in the middle way off to the right. Cut by Jay Maynard.

Side Two: Also a re-used SM stamper with an X squeezed in, this one a G25 #1 cut, with what looks like a cursive ER or maybe ES -- not the usual ERT that would indicate a Gene Thompson cut.

Both sides are Duophonic, although no such processing is noted anywhere on the jacket or label, so it would appear that once this title got hit with the Duophonic stick, it never reverted to true mono (unlike some other titles from Sinatra, Cole, etc.) during the Capitol LP era. (The new Capitol/Universal LP is mono.)

 

Oh, one more thing that I meant to mention a couple of weeks back....

@AxeD sent along some audio from this release that I was curious about some time back (June):

That's a 1983 UK reissue LP #CAPS 180987 1.

I was so impressed that I ordered a copy for myself and am really looking forward to its arrival.

Thanks, @AxeD for helping me to spend more money!

Do you think that LP sounds as good as I do? (Just curious.) I'll take it over the new (and excellent) 2014 LP, based on what I've heard of the 1983 LP. It's another one of those situations: The 1983 clips sound about 5% too bright; the 2014 sounds about 10% too dark for my preferences. Which sounds best depends on which way you lean, I guess. Based on what I've heard (and I can confirm once my copy arrives), the 1983 UK LP is much closer in tone to the much-praised MFSL LP than the 2014 LP is.