Good Cowboy Junkies "Trinity Sessions"?

albert: as always, you've seen the forest, while the rest of us have been lookin' at the trees. how right you are about the centrality of music to all our lives and, more importantly, the way that interest is seen and appreciated by our kids. my sons are adults, aged 31 and 28. my older son and i attend many concerts together, as we did when jerry was still alive and we were, with his brother, all deadheads, many chronological years apart. in the past year or so, we've enjoyed many of my heros in live performances, now heros to a second generation: csn&y, dylan (for whom my 31 year old was named), bruce, pink floyd (sans roger), paul simon, elton john, billy joel, neil & crazy horse, bonnie raitt, bobby wier (ratdog), phil lesh (and friends), john prine and more. i am so very proud that our children are superbly educated, formally and informally. i'm prouder still that both our offspring have, like their dad, found music to be a central part of their lives. may it continue through the next generation, and the next. -kelly

Kelly, this music definitely spans the generations, I'm the same age as your older son! No wonder your audio advice seems so fatherly;-) I guess I'll keep my classic CD for now. Let me know if you find another hidden gem that sounds better. Do you find a huge difference between the Gold CD and the RCA LP? I just want to make sure my turntable isn't the problem.

meta: fatherly, eh? well, i'll take that as a compliment. to be honest, i've not played the original (american) rca/bmg lp for some time. i'm in the midst of an analogue frontend revamping, so most of my lp listening over the past few months has been done at my good friend/audio dealer's sound room. as might be suspected, he has some really great equipment to play with. i frequently use my classic cd and lp as test software. the last time we played the lp, it was on a basis debut v vacuum with a graham 2.2/koetsu onyx signature played thru a boulder 2010 pre into a pair of bridged accuphase a 50v's driving avalon eidolon's. believe me, this rig makes for great sounds, as it did for trinity sessions. to my ears, at least, the gold cd sounded slightly better played on an accuphase 100/101 combo run direct into the same amps already noted. my guess is that once i get my own analogue setup going again (which will pretty much replicate the one i described) i'll learn again to love that source and probably prefer the lp to the cd. i'm gonna keep searchin' for that japanese pressing i vaguely recall; if i find it, i'll post my mini-comparison review. -kelly

ADDENDUM: to be complete, i should have added that the system i described in my friend's sound room used tara the zero and the one for cabling and ic's, respectively. -kelly

My 'Trinity Session' LP is a BMG/RCA. I got it for $4 thirty minutes after buying my first record player (a rega 25). It had just hit the 'new today' bin. A great shopping moment to remember....
I greatly prefer it to the standard 'rca' CD I have. Cleaning it with a record cleaning machine then putting Last Preservative on it made a big difference in sound quality. Seems like her voice was more delicate and airier back then.