2. analog
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Direct 2 Disc

Holy Smokes!  I recently purchased and played a couple of Direct 2 Disc LPs on my turntable and I was simply blown away on the clarity and beauty of these recordings.  Wow, this was a wonderful experience.  I bought a Doug MacLeod and a Henry Gray 200gr LPs.  They were recorded at a place in Kansas.  Just starting to investigate these. On the merits of these two, I bought $150 more.  Do ya'll have any favorites that sound especially crisp?  I do have a couple of Third Man Record D2D recordings, but they didn't sound this good.
pgaulke60
larryi
3,759 posts
 
I agree, "For Duke" is on my short list for demo discs, along with "Fatha" another fantastic M&K D2D recording.  If I put together my short-list of demo records, it would contain:

TBM-Yamamoto Trio-Midnight Sugar (1st pressing)

???-Clark Terry-Alternate Blues (Analogue Productions or some        other company reissue)

East Wind-Great Jazz Trio-Direct from L.A.

Concord Jazz-LA4-Just Friends

Analogue Productions?-Doug MacLeod-Bring it on Home

King Records-Mozart Clarinet and Horn Concerto-Gervase de Peyer, Barry Tuckwell, Peter Maag (Japanese reissue of a Decca original)

Columbia-Duke Ellington-Blues in Orbit (1959 stereo recording-proof
that the state of the art in recording has not advanced much in 60      years). 

Clarity Recordings-Claudia Gomes-Salamandra

Audioquest-Tuxedo Cowboys-Woman of the Heart
pryso
1,912 posts
 
For those not familiar with the history of D2D LP records, this is what I read some time ago.

Doug Sax, and possibly Mayorga, was listening to some favored 78 records.  He was impressed by the presence and sense of "aliveness" heard in many of those, but not typically experienced with LPs.  Upon consideration Sax realized they were recorded directly, without the intervention of a R2R master tape copy as had become standard practice with LPs.  So he experimented with a directly recorded LP, and the rest is history.

That history now includes the several wonderful recommended D2D LPs in this post.
pgaulke60 OP
292 posts
 
Great Discussion Everyone - Thanks for the thoughts.  I’ve done some more digging.  Sheffield Labs simply doesn’t have a catalog that I am interested.  I can appreciate a few of their recordings, but mostly it is not my preferred artist set.  And I must be perfectly honest, I do indulge in a few things - good bourbon and my audio system - but I am hard pressed to spent upwards of $200 or more for a bloody LP.  Better records has a great selection, but man-o-manicotti, that is simply beyond my price range.  East Wind has a real good selection.  The recordings from Blue Heaven Studios in Salinas, Kansas are affordable and wonderful.  
pgaulke60 OP
292 posts
 
Another question, that I am not familiar with the answer to, do 45rpm 12” LPs sound better that 33.3 LPs?  My Henry Gray D2D recording is 45rpm.  I’ve seen a few other box releases where all the LPs are 45rpm.  Thanks in advance.  
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,510 posts
 

@pgaulke60, the musical content of a lot of direct-to-disk LP’s has not been their primary attraction (particularly true of the Sheffield’s), but their sound quality. As J. Gordon Holt once said, all too often the better the recording the worse the music, and visa versa.

D-2-D LP’s have for a couple of reasons long been used as reference material for evaluating hi-fi components. They will not be the limiting factor in the sound a system produces. To reproduce their transparency, dynamics, and true-to-life instrumental and vocal timbres is a real challenge. They all possess a startling "aliveness", a transient "snap" not found in most recordings made on tape (or in digits). It’s easy to hear when a component loses some of that characteristic.

Some D-2-D LP’s are common and not expensive, others rare and not-so-cheap. The For Duke album is, unfortunately, amongst the latter. It took me years to find a copy, and is not for sale!

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