Japanese vs Domestic CD s

I have a few Japanese CDs and quite a lot of German CDs. I find the imports to be generally better quality, but as Cornfedboy points out--that's not always the case--some actually go the other way--which is very disappointing when you pay such a premium. On other occasions I have had imports clearly best Mobile Fidelity and DCC gold discs. The one company that consistently puts out quality discs is JVC XRCD. I have never bought one of these discs and found a competitive manufacturer to sound better.

My only experience is with the Prestige and Riverside re-issues done with K2 processing. These are excellent and contain tons of warmth and atmosphere. The Tower(downtown) here in NYC stocks quite of few of these and whenever I'm feeling flush, I pick up a few. As a jazz freak, they are a godsend. Recently i picked up "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" and while my vinyl is now in a different locale, I don't think this gives up too much musically. (see my post under Solo piano recordings)

If its not clear from the above post, I'm refering to the Japanese Imports. Some of the K2 mastered stuff is appearing on US releases, but so far, different titles so I haven't been able to compare apples etc....

in my first post, i did not count xrcd's or xrcd2's as "japanese" cd's. while they are, in fact, pressed by victor of japan, they appear to be "american" products (most are produced by the likes of winston ma and chad kassem & they don't even have those cool japanese lyric sheets). i've yet to meet an xrcd i didn't like, at least in terms of sound quality.

cornfed, if your into jazz check out Fantasy's Prestige and Riverside 20-bit cds remasters of classics. they licence the xrcd technology but don't charge the big bucks.