?'s about quality of audiophile recordings

I have Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers' "A Night in Tunisia" as a Mofi and also the same recordings on a 6 CD set from Mosaic: "The complete Blue Note recordings of Art Blakey's 1960 Jazz Messengers". The Mofi is far superior to the Mosaic release. You'd swear it was a different recording, it's so different and better sounding. I highly recommend it.

Specific recordings I have experienced this with are Steely Dan "Aja" (Mo-Fi LP and CD), Creedence Clearwater Revival "Cosmos Factory" (AcousTech LP), Steely Dan "Guacho" (Mo-Fi CD). I tried these first before spending more money, and based on the results thus far, I am thinking about just saving the money.

I can tell you that my stock LP of CCR "Willie and the Poor Boys" smokes the AcousTech LP remaster of CCR "Cosmos Factory". Yes, NOT THE SAME ALBUM, but I would assume that the constructed sound by the remastering process would be similar to the other Fantasy Reissues by AcousTech. I may be all wrong on this. Maybe "Cosmos Factory was a bum recording to begin with? (By the way, AcousTech did a great job on Jimmy D. Lane's lastest album on LP, but this is not a remaster, and instead an original recording.) I intend to buy a used stock copy of "Cosmos Factory" this weekend for $5 in Kansas City to find out if my assumption is true.

The Steely Dan reissues are all thin and bright as another AGon member above pointed out.

My concern about all of this is whether other AGoners are truly finding the extra money spent worth the investment? Or is it hype with an occasional success story?

You go to the used record store or look on EBay etc, and see these Nautilus remasters, Japenese pressings, etc. The question is "Are they worth it?" Sounds like it largely depends on the quality of the original recording and the guy who remastered it and whatever his tastes are in how he thinks it should sound thru his remastering process.

I would like to buy Eva Cassidy "Songbird" on LP, but it has been remastered by the same guy who did the "Cosmos Factory" remaster, and I wasn't thrilled with it. I thought it sounded recessed and veiled.

By the way, the cartidge on the table is a Denon 103R. May not be a Shelter 501, but many say it is a "poor man's Shelter 501", and I will say that of the $500 cartridges I have had from Benz, Clearaudio, and Dynavector, the Denon 103R is the best sounding and half the price. I really do not feel this is a cartridge issue. No matter the cartidge, as long as compared equally on audiophile and non-audiophile cartridges, the change in sound should be evident if the recording is clearly superior.

Thanks for your input and add to the thread if you have further thoughts or see things I have not considered.

One last thought, are Japenese pressings the same original recording but just higher quality pressings than the stock stuff that was sold in the average record store?

R.

Red2 I haven't heard the Mofi version of Gaucho however what I can say is the last set of Steely Dan remasters were an improvement over the previous set(Citizen Box set era-93?).
These were done around '99 and onwards if my memory seves me well...................

The easy way to tell is that the new Dan remasters have extensive sleeve notes by Becker and Fagan.

What one has to realise with the original Mofi remasters is that they are old now and in many cases have been bypassed by newer more up todate remasters.
Which is probably the case with Gaucho.

Of course there will be the odd case where that is not true for various reasons not least of all the odd example of messing about with the mix itself.

I have not bought "audiophile" LPs, but in the case of digital discs, the ones that I have from certain European "audiophile" labels, and costing almost $30, are clearly superior to run-of-the-mill discs.

Majority of reissues by Classic Records, Analog Productions, CISCO, Speakers Corners, etc.. are absolutely better than the originals! There are a few exceptions, but that's exactly what they are: "exceptions"! We should all be glad and thankful these people are taking the risk, the time and money to revive these analog treasures for our listening pleasure. Let's give them our full support instead of whining and nitpicking trivial stuff! BTW, S&P's Songbird reissue is exceptional in everyway! A definite "Must-have"!