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Japanese Vinyl Pressing

I just returned from Japan and I must say I have fun at the Disk Union stores in Tokyo. They have a Disk Union store for all Genre. I spent hours at Jazz and R&B stores. I also like the fact that they clean the records and add new sleeves, at least the ones I went through. I ended up buying 30 LP's after going to the stores three days straight. But here is the interesting thing. It seems to me that the Japanese pressed records sounds better than most of the ones I bought here in the USA. The Japanese pressing sounds clearer and crisper, no darkness in the sound, and the bass not bloated at all. I am wondering if anyone have any comments on this, or have the same experience with Japanese pressing.......
almandog
jazzcourier
205 posts
 
Better quality vinyl. Smaller production runs off the master stamper. These two factors together mean that the records retain better reproduction. No big news here,but it does make a difference. My personal thanks to the Japanese for caring more about American Jazz when the original labels could give a rip because the profits were not big enough.
Sadly,it seems,the big Jazz boom in Japan is well past us now. Get those nice Japanese pressings while you can.
Let's hear some details on that store!
fromunda
148 posts
 
I have a japanese pressing of Blood On The Tracks that sounds shrill and sibilant in comparison to the domestic release. Just my 2 cents.
inna
7,333 posts
 
Agreed on Japanese records; almost always better. German vinyl can sound very good too by the way.
t_bone
1,182 posts
 
Justlisten,
If you have the obi (or sometimes on the back side bottom right of the cover), you'll note that they ranged from roughly 1500 yen +/- a bit in the late 60s to 1800-2500 yen in the 80s. All media (books, magazines, records) had artificially high prices at the time because of a byzantine set of regulations and distribution practices which meant that costs were high so prices were high. Enforced capitalism with socialistic aspects.
gundam91
506 posts
 
How much were those LPs? I was in Tokyo about 3 years ago, and visited pretty much all of the disk union and audio union stores. I saw a lot of US pressing Jazz LPs but not too much of Japanese pressings. And the US presings were all over US$100. Most of my Japanese LPs sounded detailed, but somewhat leaner than their respective US presings. Less noise, but also not as full bodied. I am kicking myself for not picking up the Shelter 9000 cartridge at that time. The exchange rate was $1 to 105 yen. Now it's $1 to 80 yen. Guess we won't be going back to Japan any time soon.

FrankC
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