New lp's and reissues have one advantage, they are generally quieter. Most of the times i feel they lack some air and atmosphere, have heavier bass and less extended treble. Original tapes is a very misleading term for tape can degrade over time. Original good pressings on good quality vinyl, sound more coherent to me and the artwork is better too. Of course there are exceptions. G |
Contrary to what the youngster Chakster says, before 1979 Japanese pressings were hardly looked upon as top quality, if indeed Japanese pressings were even imported (to the US) in those days. In those days, the best pressings were often European in origin, e.g., ECM, EMI, Decca, and others I cannot conjure up, including some excellent French labels, and in the US, we had Verve, Pablo, Columbia, etc. @lewm I'm buying Japanese LPs from Japan nowadays. I already have American original pressing of my favorite 70's stuff. Japanese pressing is superior to nearly all American pressings. There was a very nice article about it in Wax Poetics magazine. In the 70's Japanese releases of American music were made from the master tapes on virgin vinyl by companies like Victor, CBS, Toshiba, Polydor K.K. etc. Those are giants of the industry as you know. They are absolutely top quality and better than European releases. I'm interested mainly in Jazz, Funk, Soul, Latin and Soudtracks from the 70's, so I know what i'm talking about when it comes to this music. There is nothing interesting for me on EMI, ECM, Pablo ... from your list, probably it's different genre of music. But if you what to try Japanese pressing of these labels then look at SAL'74 here ( Mainly for Japanese Polydor K.K. manufactured reissues of Verve Records, Pablo and Polydor labels ). I'm aware that German pressing was great, can't say it about French pressings, but Japanese pressing from the 70's is the best in my opinion. Some American pressings also great! But sometimes American originals cost 10 times more than Japanese pressing of the same release from the same era. |
Dear @melm : First than all sorry that my post made that your anger goes out at that high level, was not my intention but I’m sure that after you posted you feel better because than anger gone. May be I’m all what you said but I’m not to sure about because in the same way I know you are not stupid you know neither I’m, so that stupid was anot only an expression but a true insult due to your anger levels.Even that I did not take as an " insult " , so don’t bad feelings from my part. Ignorant yes, I have a lot of " holes " inside my not so high knowledge levels with MUSIC and audio but each day I'm trying to learn and trying to improve that knowledge level and skills too. Here what you posted: "" sometimes made to sound snappier! More treble, more bass. "" my direct answer was: "" and what’s wrong with that because that’s the way live MUSIC seated at near field position as it’s where the recording microphones are " seated ". Good that you are a music lover as me, then I can’t understand your first post and from there came the answer posted. In the other side that you are a player is fine but does not gives you a true advantage when we are talking of an audio room/system music reproduction enviroment. Example with you: you use the worst tonearm type bearing design that’s the unipivot that can’t fulfill cartridge needs the dual ones neither, second mistake you use tube electronics, third even that your Rogue preamp has a SS output buffer device and that use balanced cables those 8m. distance from the preamp to amp degrades the cartridge signal, etc, etc. What you are listening is not at the same high quality resolution I or other gentlemans listen to. I post this not to open a new window in this thread but only to put things in perspective for you and me. You posted: """ there are no better disks than some of them cut in the golden age of vinyl ...""" that statement is false. Contemporary recordings and contemporary engineers have better and wider resources to make recordings and here there are some labels with that kind of quality that almost all outperforms all those good vintage recordings. Btw, any one of us need to buy some of the LPs from these labels and listen to its sound not if the players does a good or bad job or if you like the score or not just evaluation of the LP sound quality : ACT Music, ATR, FIM, Opus3, Stockfish, Clarity, Stereophile, Audioquest, RR, Sheffield Labs ( and I’m not refering to the D2D ones. ), Wilson Audio, Water Lily, Athena, Levinson, Rega, Propirous, VTL, OMR, WindMusic, ECM ,etc, etc. Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS, R. |
Chakster, Please re-read my post. I explicitly wrote that Japanese pressings these days and for a few decades past are excellent. Usually, they are re-issues, typically of American jazz classics that the Japanese adore as much as we do. I was only challenging your contention that Japanese pressings were even thought about in 1979 and prior to that. As you may recall, our son has lived in Tokyo for the past 12 years. Because of that, I have been in Tokyo many times, and I never fail to pick up a pile of LPs while I am there. This is in part because the Japanese audiophiles take meticulous care of their LPs, so "used" LPs purchased there are virtually like new in terms of playback quality. I do examine them at the point of purchase, but it is really not even necessary. New LPs, whether Japanese or foreign in origin, are just as expensive in Tokyo as they are in the US. (I don't know about St Petersburg, of course.) For that reason only, I usually concentrate on the second-hand bins at places like Disk Union in Ochanomizu, one train stop away from the Akihabara station. What I noticed last visit (before the pandemic caused us to cancel our spring trip) was that second-hand LPs bearing brand names that indicate a US origin tend to be more expensive in Tokyo than in the US, albeit the quality is far higher. (And of course, sometimes Japanese re-issues are made to be perfect copies of US jazz classics, right down to the labeling on the album cover.) I was holding a Chris Connor mono recording on the Bethlehem label (a genuine Bethlehem, not a Japanese copy), and when I mentally converted the price in yen to dollars, I realized they were asking about $25 for it. The Japanese buy up our culture. |
Actually I’m not talking about re-issues. I’m talking about ORIGINAL JAPANESE issues made same year when record released in USA in the 70’s. If Polydor made records in the USA then Japanese Polydor K.K. pressed same release in Japan (from the same mastertape). Japanese reissues made 20 years later are nearly all digital, this is another story (I don’t buy reissues). |
