Recommendations for a jazz record which demonstrates vinyl superiority over digital

"Kind of Blue" is a very well recorded album. It is especially open and airy, which makes it easier to sort out tonality and timbre of individual instruments. An easy comparison of what you hear on the record to the sounds of those instruments you've heard before make this album a great, uncomplicated reference.

"Kind of Blue" is surely not the last word on recording mastery, but it was recorded and mixed better than most. It is disingenuous to claim it is not well recorded.

I would agree that "Kind of Blue" is not well recorded.  The Kevin Gray remaster is an improvement, but it still falls short.  However, I would still be happy listening to Jonl  on a 1960's am radio.

@herman How do I know if I have "vinyl hardware properly set up and optimized" without something worthwhile to play on it?

Yes, there are a lot of variables but I want to eliminate poor recordings (your variable 1,000,001) as a source.

Maybe my question should have been "What half-a-dozen beautifully produced jazz recordings currently available on new vinyl records should I buy"?  I don't think replay hardware has any bearing on the answer to this question?

Ultimately, I want to be able to judge whether it is worth spending any more on my vinyl hardware, or stick with digital.

As luck would have it, Hyperion has just released vinyl versions of Marc-Andre Hamelin playing Shostakovich's First and Second Piano Concertos.  The first includes trumpet solo, one of my wishes!  For years, the second movement of the second concerto, recorded in 2002 on SACD, has been the second track I always use for evaluating speakers.

I have ordered the two-record set but have no idea what the weight of the vinyl is, nor its colour, nor even its speed.  At 10 minutes average per side, it might be 45-rpm.  Ironically, the third work on the SACD is Shchedrin's Second Piano Concerto which features a jazz trio (piano, drum kit and vibrophone) but it is not on the vinyl.

Shostakovich had a difficult musical life and loved jazz, not a strong point in the Soviet Union, A few days after Stalin walked out of a performance of his opera, Pravda described the work as a 'cacophonous and pornographic insult to the Soviet people'.  Stalin had a deserved reputation for eliminating people, and was Pravda's main arbiter of taste as its music critic.  Most of Shostakovich is tortured, but the tranquil test piece I use was written after he realised he had survived the murderous Stalin.

Maybe my question should have been "What half-a-dozen beautifully produced jazz recordings currently available on new vinyl records should I buy"? I don’t think replay hardware has any bearing on the answer to this question?

???? It is at the very heart of what you want to determine. To paraphrase, You stated you wanted to determine if vinyl was better than digital.

Listen to a recording on a DCS Vivaldi stack and then compare it to a vinyl version on a Kenner Close N’ Play and pretty sure you will say digital is better than vinyl. I know, an extreme example to make a point, but if you are trying to determine which is better, you need somewhat of a level playing field.

Play a vinyl record that is superbly recorded on a cheap turntable with a worn out cartridge that wasn’t set up right in the first place and you will say vinyl sucks. So contrary to what you just said, hardware has everything to do with it.

I suggest trying a Groove Note record. If it doesn't sound excellent something is wrong with your set up.

@wanders Thanks! I am glad to report that I can hear the difference between DSD64 and CD. I bought a Reavon universal player and could immediately tell, using the SACD I mention above, that its analogue output fell way short of my previous Marantz universal player.

I emailed Reavon and it transpired that they down convert DSD to CD quality, both for multi-channel DSD and two-channel DSD, when the output is set to analogue. Interestingly, no review I have read has picked this up!