The LP is now available from Elusive Disc. If you haven't bought from them before, orders over $99 ship free, and you pay no sales tax.
Expensive LP reissues aren't for everyone, but neither is a high end audio system. Analogue Productions owner Chad Kassem has a massive record collection (his taste runs to Blues and Jazz), and goes to great lengths to make the best sounding version of every Analogue Productions release that has ever been offered to consumers. From the LP's of his I've bought, I can testify he has.
His Beach Boys albums are way, Way, WAY better than any others that have ever been available (I've heard and owned them all), and in making his Tea For The Tillerman reissue discovered that all previous LP pressings (including any White Hot Stamper) had been mastered from a tape those involved thought was Dolby-A encoded. It wasn't, and running it through the Dolby decoder reduced the level of high frequencies dramatically. And no one before Chad had noticed?!
I had for years been mystified by the praise the UK Island TFTT LP had received (especially from Michael Fremer and Harry Pearson), as I found the sound very odd: the cymbals sounded cheap (I know very well the sound of Zildjian and Paiste cymbals), and the kick drum thin and wimpy, lacking weight and punch. Now we know why! I sold my Island copy and got the Analogue Productions LP. Vastly better, in every way. My Island LP had been pressed when the tape was brand new, yet Chad's reissue absolutely kills it. So much for the argument that old tapes can't make LP's superior to original pressings. That is a myth.
An individually hand-made LP is a very different thing from a mass produced one. I appreciate holding in my hands an Artisan-quality product, and am (in specific cases) willing to pay for it. Pride of ownership, ya know? My main tastes in music are more rural than urban, and my interest in Jazz perhaps far less than most here. If you can believe it, I own no copy of Kind Of Blue. I always figured I'd get around to adding it to the library, and what better time than now, with this release?
Expensive LP reissues aren't for everyone, but neither is a high end audio system. Analogue Productions owner Chad Kassem has a massive record collection (his taste runs to Blues and Jazz), and goes to great lengths to make the best sounding version of every Analogue Productions release that has ever been offered to consumers. From the LP's of his I've bought, I can testify he has.
His Beach Boys albums are way, Way, WAY better than any others that have ever been available (I've heard and owned them all), and in making his Tea For The Tillerman reissue discovered that all previous LP pressings (including any White Hot Stamper) had been mastered from a tape those involved thought was Dolby-A encoded. It wasn't, and running it through the Dolby decoder reduced the level of high frequencies dramatically. And no one before Chad had noticed?!
I had for years been mystified by the praise the UK Island TFTT LP had received (especially from Michael Fremer and Harry Pearson), as I found the sound very odd: the cymbals sounded cheap (I know very well the sound of Zildjian and Paiste cymbals), and the kick drum thin and wimpy, lacking weight and punch. Now we know why! I sold my Island copy and got the Analogue Productions LP. Vastly better, in every way. My Island LP had been pressed when the tape was brand new, yet Chad's reissue absolutely kills it. So much for the argument that old tapes can't make LP's superior to original pressings. That is a myth.
An individually hand-made LP is a very different thing from a mass produced one. I appreciate holding in my hands an Artisan-quality product, and am (in specific cases) willing to pay for it. Pride of ownership, ya know? My main tastes in music are more rural than urban, and my interest in Jazz perhaps far less than most here. If you can believe it, I own no copy of Kind Of Blue. I always figured I'd get around to adding it to the library, and what better time than now, with this release?