Listening to Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue

That's a good question, Bill. I don't have the Blue Note original pressing, but kind of wondered the same thing. OTOH, all of the Deep Groove originals that I own are certainly more noisy than the Music Matters re-issues. Why, because they are now all getting to be 50+ years old and have been played by their original owners on God knows what table and cartridge in the day. Not saying they don't sound fantastic, BUT if one is concerned about groove silence, the Music Matters have them beat hands down. I think that generally applies to ALL re-issue Jazz Lp's vs. original Jazz pressings. BTW, not so much with classical LP's, as they simply weren't played that much in the first place...certainly compared to the jazz stuff.

There's a lot of pre echo on my Music Matters 331/3 copy. I agree, the sound quality is excellent. I wonder if the pre echo has always been there and this transfer just lays it bare. Whatever the case, it doesn't spoil the experience. Fantastic packaging too.

Just received my Music Matters 33 1/3 copy. Received it, cleaned it, played it ASAP and enjoyed it. Enjoyed it very much. Didn't notice the pre echo but one of the songs had a surprising amount of surface noise.

Musicpod, I had the same problem with an early release of this LP. Lots of surface noise! I replaced it with a later copy and no problems. Some of these reissues are not as pristine as they could be in regards to quality control, luckily they seem to be willing to easily address the problem.My advice would be to return it and get another copy.

I have the music matters 33 1/3 release. The sound is fantastic and is very quiet. My only gripe is some songs are panned left and right with no middle imaging. Otherwise excellent sonics and music.