Hi Steve, the back cover of Art Pepper's "Intensity" tells us that the master tape was played back on a vintage Ampex 350, the same machine the album had been recorded with. Interestingly, I found this CD to be one of the least "tube-sounding" DCC Gold CDs I own. So probably it was not at all that warm what they were hearing in the sound engineer's booth back in 1960? I really love this album - almost no hiss and very dry. Now my question: Have all DCC CDs from the Contemporary vault been played back with this machine eve since? AFAIK, there is no mention of the playback equipment on any other DCC CD (at least not on the ones I own). Best, Arne
BTW, is this Ampex 350 highly modified (new power supply, new capacitors, matched tubes, wiring asf.) or is it an original machine in pristine condition? Arne
It's not the exact same machine, it's a 1959 351-2-Portable, unmodded. They used a 350-2-Portable (not as good IMO). You can see a bit of it in this picture (and please ignore the "center of interest"): http://www.symposiumusa.com/MonRoom5.html