Wow and flutter, etc. Tape Speed Issues - Tone Poet / Blue Note 80th anniversary vinyl LP problems.

I was kinda shocked when he ventured into jazz outside the mainstream hard bop stuff as well. He did an article on the album in my avatar. Unfortunately he jumped the gun before writing and could have determined beforehand that the Jazz Dispensary reissue was cut from tape. I have that reissue as well as an early U.S. promo and both LPs sound good. The cover looks better on the 70s pressing, however. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend the reissue though.

 

I just read the LJC article on Summer Solstice you mentioned and it is quite astonishing, in the fake news category, TBH - the information that the Craft reissue is AAA cut by KG and pressed at QRP is so easily available...

 

His description of the 45 is basically what I hear on all the MMJ/AP 45s when Ive compared.

Got a flutterer again perhaps?...hmmm indeed.

Anyone else listened to the BN 80 Moanin title cut?

 

I listened to it and there was nothing that bothered me.
The guy in the video said he heard it at the beginning of Moanin' - it could be a tiny pinch warp inducing a bit of flutter. They're quite common unfortunately and a PITA.

 

I know what he's talking about (meant to post earlier). I think it's different from Black Fire and those, to me it's not clear on Moanin' that the pitch is shifting, I think it's very minor. But it does sound like a weird effect on the piano, not just in that spot but throughout the whole album. For me it's a tiny bit disturbing, but overall doesn't affect the experience much.

On the earlier TPs/BN80s discussed in this thread, in my experience, it was all a bit uneven, some of them just had a few bad spots where it's very noticeable, some had it only on one side, so I had assumed this was more of a general issue with an old tape; I hear this wobbly piano effect on old jazz records with nothing to do with KG/Blue Note from time to time.

 

Another thing to consider is system setup perhaps. It does seem that LJC listens predominantly to early if not original jazz issues and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s set up his rig to get these best out of his favourite records.
If that’s the case then the mmj33/TPs & BNC are more likely to be balanced to him than the AP/MMJ45s. I bet to him they just sound ‘wrong’.
If however his system was itself balanced towards neutral then he might appreciate both. Just a hypothesis.

 

He describes his system here:

Steps toward a good hi-fi system

 

I’m aware of his system but I’ve know idea how he’s set it up. A list of gear doesn’t really tell me much; it can be adjusted in many many ways to elicit a certain set of biases to suit one’s tastes or recordings, same goes for the environment it’s in.

As a previous owner and retailer of Linn electronics I can say that their presentation to me often sounds overly laidback and smooth and some recordings that are quiet mid-biased will benefit from that and full-blooded recordings will sound overly heavy and flat. Naim is almost the polar opposite which is what I changed to but now run a hybrid valve system which gives me the best of both worlds as I see it.

Anyone with a bit of experience in the subject can balance a system to suit say, original RVG records (they are known to be heavily EQ’d as discussed here many times) to sound ‘better’ or closer to neutral only to find others way off whack.
As I said, it’s only a guess. Maybe he just like the mid-forward, noisy pressings more or whatever. Each to their own I suppose.

 

Hi everyone, long time reader first time poster,

Has anyone else had issues with Pete La Roca's Basra in this Blue Note 80th Anniversary vinyl series? I've had to return three new/sealed copies now of this reissue. On all three, there was at least the same awful pressing flaws near the end of Last Afternoon, a huge buzz that drowned out Joe Henderson. On the second copy there were visible marks galore and popping/clicking too. Have I just been (very) unlucky? Are there good copies out there for UK buyers? I've picked up a RVG cd in the mean time so hoping that sounds good but I'd much prefer a vinyl.

 

I'm not sure if Basra was repressed. I have no issues with my copy, but I bought it almost a year ago iirc so we may be talking about a different pressing run.

If it was repressed in the last few months, I wouldn't be surprised with issues. Covid affected Optimal's (pressing plant) quality greatly and the work they have been doing isn't up to what they did before Covid unfortunately.

 

If you would consider getting a vintage pressing, the Japanese Toshiba Basra is great.

 

Basra has documented issues, and someone mentioned pitch/tape problems on Lazy Afternoon. Pressing issues are a different problem, but even if you get a perfectly pressed BN80 copy, there will be issues with it.

 

Thanks everyone. Good to hear some folk found a good BN80. I'll see how how I cope with the european RVG cd for a while, but since I first heard this it's become a top 10 jazz record for me so thanks for the tip on the Toshiba pressing.

 

I had to buy a second copy of "Basra". My first copy had some underfill.

 

I’d go so far as to say a top 5 jazz record which inspired me to go the whole hog and invest in a MMJ45. Absolutely no regrets, it’s mesmerising in a way the BN 80 only suggests. I laid down £149 which at present seems below the average but only because I love it so much knowing full well it’ll never be matched let alone surpassed.

 

I havnt been here in so long, but last I checked there was still discussion on what is causing these warbles to happen, is it the aging tapes or the tape machines. In case it hasnt been mentioned yet, here is Kevins answer to the conundrum, which is the first time I hear an answer.
In short, it is splices in the tape that degrade faster, become sticky and slows down the spooling briefly:



48:40

 

This was a great conversation. Keven does comment on a trend where people people seem to want to be directed to small problems on a record that they hadn’t heard until pointed out. I think there’s some truth it that.

 

The thing is though that the problem affected whole sides of records. How many splices could there be on a Blue Note master tape?
Our host already stated here that it isn’t the tapes.

 

A company like Universal (or it's employees) are never going to admit if there was a mistake. Think about all the secrecy around the fire...

 

The comments on tape splices aren't exactly anything new. We've known about that before on various other things that have nothing to do with BN. I think it if you take KG's comments on tape splices and then combine them with his previous comments about certain types of tape stock no longer laying flat over heads on tape machines (it curls slightly or whatever) that's the closest thing we'll ever get to a reasonable explanation.

As for Mr. 45rpm's comments about "a fraction of a second", that's not all what we're talking about here when we discuss these issues that have to do with warble and flutter. If it was only a fraction of a second I wouldn't care. Just like I don't care about a brief moment of tape print-through which often occurs on old tapes.

 

The explanation just doesn’t explain it for me. Because so many successful reissues have been done before and since. There haven’t been problems since the series restarted last year. So the only way the explanation makes sense is if they happened to pick only titles with problematic tapes first and subsequently weeded those out. How likely is that?

 

It would not surprise me at all if certain titles are being cherry picked due to the condition of the tapes. Also wouldn't surprise me if they are replacing all the splices before cutting, or comparing original tapes to safety copies and so on before cutting.

Bottom line, there is too much we won't ever know. All we can do here is just avoid the really problematic titles if they start cropping up again.

 

Blue Note primarily issued complete takes. There wouldn’t be a lot of splices on the original master tapes. You would expect some perhaps from repairs of the tapes breaking while working on reissues and staff listening to them at times. In which case you would expect the problem to show up always on the warhorse titles. Yet we haven’t a problem title since the 80 series became the Classic series. And the Classic series has been heavy on popular titles that have been reissued many times.

 

I don’t buy the tape slice argument for a second. Didn’t the version of Takin’ Off from the Herbie box set not have warble issues? So you have an MMJ cut done in 2012 that has no issues, BN80 in 2019 with issues, and the VMP 2021 with no issues. Doesn’t add up.

 

Were the exact tapes used in every case? I don't think we have a way to verify that. One could have used an original and another a safety copy.