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.
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- 22 posts total
- 22 posts total