Direct 2 Disc

I agree about the Sheffield catalog. For example Lincoln Mayorga may have been a part owner/producer (?) for the label and a good musician, but his tastes were far too schmaltzy for me. And while the Harry James Sheffields are great recordings, you need to have an appreciation for the big band music that transitioned the ’40s into the ’50s to fully enjoy those.

So one might ask, "why not more D2Ds available to choose from?" Well, once the cutter head is lowered onto the master disk there is no stopping the performance until the end of that record side. Not every musician is prepared to record under that pressure. Today’s artists are mainly accustomed to having any mistakes corrected on tape or file by the mastering process. And studio time can be expensive. If obvious fluffs happen in a D2D recording the side must be started over. How many times will the producer be willing to do that?

So each of us can hopefully find a few D2Ds with personal appeal and treasure those.

@pgaulke60- If you at all care for New Orleans style Jazz, Crystal Clear did a 45 RPM, D2D, titled ’San Francisco Ltd’. An excellent, dynamic, "crisp" and quiet recording/pressing, done in white vinyl. Regarding your last query: Whether, "better" than 33 1/3, I can’t say, not having the SAME music(in both speeds) for a VALID comparison. They’d have had to do the session over, at the slower speed, to release both. Never heard of anyone cutting/releasing the same music, as D2Ds, in that way. However- I’m not saying no one has. There are way too many variables, between any two D2Ds(of differing artists/sessions/producers/etc), to categorically determine one speed better than another, though my bias would be toward 45 RPM. https://www.discogs.com/San-Francisco-Ltd-San-Francisco-Ltd/release/2685500

@rodman99999 Thanks much for the post and your thinking.  I too would bias toward 45 rpm.  Thinking there must be a reason that they are doing it, otherwise they would put more music on a side of a LP.  Those Discog prices for SF LTD are great.  Should be a easy investment to hear the music.  I'm a big Alberta Hunter fan!

Those prices would be great, if the vinyls aren’t trashed. Better than four decades(ie: since SF Ltd’s release) offers a lot opportunity for abuse. Here’s hoping you find a good one! There are a number on eBay. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=san+francisco+ltd+crystal+clear&_sacat=0

A friend of mine has a quite large collection that includes a lot of very small label blues recordings.  Often, it is something recorded in someone's house, not a studio, using only a few microphones.  Some of these recordings are stunningly realistic.  I know simply-made music is easier to record, yet, I don't hear anything like this in most other fancy studio recordings of any sort.  Also, a lot of difficult to make orchestral recordings from the past are easily the match of what is recorded these days.  Many Decca, Columbia, and RCA recordings from the 1960's are amazingly good when it comes to sound quality.

I do like current digital recordings of classical music and jazz.  At least with these genre, producers haven't flattened dynamics and absolutely ruined the sound.  Most of this music has not been issued on vinyl, so it is hard to make any sort of vinyl vs. analogue comparisons.