SRX Vinyl 2019 Blue Note Reissues, total Audiophile P.O.SHIT!!

[jeff1225]

I was thinking of giving the SRX recording a try but now I'm skeptical.

DDK do you have thoughts on the Music Matters re-issues or the Japanese Liberty pressings from the 1980's?

 

[dminches]

I never said they are dead. They are very clean, perhaps to clean for some listeners. I would think these are very much like the tape. I don't know if there are many ambient cue's missing per ddk, but there is a very low noise floor and great definition of the instruments. If you love the originals these may not be your cup of tea. I personally like them and will pick up a few more. I have the four titles listed below.

Blues Walk
Adam's Apple
Song for My Father
Inner Urge

Gotcha. I didn’t mean to misquote you.

Joe Harley has made it pretty clear that their intention was not to reproduce the originals for various reasons.

I just got Blues Walk which I will listen to today.

 

[dminches]

Try any of the 6 stereo ones they all have the same synthetic veiled background with any spacial cues from the venue, background instruments are too polite with homogenized volume and scale and instruments share near identical tonality across all of them.

david

Edit- What I also hear on the JG lp is a moderately goosed top and goosed bottom with recessed mids, lower mids and upper bass range. There's nothing there of a tenor sax and the double bass has no range and no body just the bottom end boom boom with no tone or timbre. From the drums all you get is disconnected ting ting and always in the distance. When the pressing is proper my system is very capable of recovering spacial cues and allowing the instruments play over each other and have their corresponding dimensionality and volume which is clearly lacking in even this record that find acceptable or even very good.

david

I meant a non-Music Matters Blue Note release which has the EQing and lack of homogenized instruments which you think is missing. i would like to hear what you think these releases lack.

 

[bonzo75]

Where is the General when you need him? I am sure he’ll have a very solid perspective being that he must own the whole Blue Note catalogue several times over.

He had a root canal today He must not be thinking straight due to the pain if he put up all those Lola bobesco and Ludwig Hoelscher LPs on auction. I would have traded in my turntable for those pity I don't have one

 

[jeff1225]

He had a root canal today He must not be thinking straight due to the pain if he put up all those Lola bobesco and Ludwig Hoelscher LPs on auction. I would have traded in my turntable for those pity I don't have one

Bonzo,
What is the General's eBay handle?

 

[ddk]

I meant a non-Music Matters Blue Note release which has the EQing and lack of homogenized instruments which you think is missing. i would like to hear what you think these releases lack.

I'll keep it simple here are two reissues that I just grabbed, neither is significant and one is just a hodgepodge sampler never known for their sound quality.

david

 

[bonzo75]

Bonzo,
What is the General's eBay handle?

Vinyl_house_uk.

 

[miniguy]

Just got the full 2019 Blue Note SRX series and they're HORRIBLE! They're dead quiet as advertised but the operating word is DEAD here! Yes there's boom and there's fizz but Kevin Gray must be a succubus he's sucked the life out of these recordings. There's not a hint of ambience, atmosphere, air or any environmental cues left on them it's as if they were all recorded in an anechoic chamber. Of course with this kind of heavy handed EQ every horn, double bass or drum sounds exactly the same across the twelve LPs too! Another POS audiophile pressing!

david

Most of the 1950s Blue Notes, including the Johnny Griffin mentioned here, were recorded in Van Gelder’s parents home in Hackensack, NJ before moving to the studio at Englewood Cliffs in 1959. So I doubt there was much in the way of ambient cues or atmosphere even on the original tapes.

 

[ddk]

Most of the 1950s Blue Notes, including the Johnny Griffin mentioned here, were recorded in Van Gelder’s parents home in Hackensack, NJ before moving to the studio at Englewood Cliffs in 1959. So I doubt there was much in the way of ambient cues or atmosphere even on the original tapes.

Every venue, small or big, room, club or hall has an ambience, unique reverb time, atmosphere, noise etc., it's never a veil of flat grey or black and controlled travel of sound, just close your eyes and hear how much there is just in your living space. The musicians were interacting with one another and playing together during there would be a lot of crossovers in any kind of space unless that's present in the recording you wouldn't have nothing like the SRX issues unless they were all in their individual anechoic booths putting tracks down here and there which AFAIK wasn't the case here. These were mono recordings to boot there should be plenty of ambience there.

david

 

[dminches]

Every venue, small or big, room, club or hall has an ambience, unique reverb time, atmosphere, noise etc., it's never a veil of flat grey or black and controlled travel of sound, just close your eyes and hear how much there is just in your living space. The musicians were interacting with one another and playing together during there would be a lot of crossovers in any kind of space unless that's present in the recording you wouldn't have nothing like the SRX issues unless they were all in their individual anechoic booths putting tracks down here and there which AFAIK wasn't the case here. These were mono recordings to boot there should be plenty of ambience there.

david

As I asked before, do you have an alternative pressing of a title that is part of the SRX series that can be used to make your point? I see that you listed two other Blue Note titles but neither are part of the SRX series and I don't think either were recorded by RVG under similar conditions. Yes, every room has some ambiance and while I disagree that the SRX releases have none, comparing them to another pressing would easily illustrate your point.

 

[ddk]

As I asked before, do you have an alternative pressing of a title that is part of the SRX series that can be used to make your point? I see that you listed two other Blue Note titles but neither are part of the SRX series and I don't think either were recorded by RVG under similar conditions. Yes, every room has some ambiance and while I disagree that the SRX releases have none, comparing them to another pressing would easily illustrate your point.

You asked for non-MT, BN reissues! Please do your own research David I explained exactly what I find wrong with the SRX series, not my problem if you can't hear it. They're unnatural, colored and flattened for me irrespective of anything else.

david

 

[dminches]

You asked for non-MT, BN reissues! Please do your own research David I explained exactly what I find wrong with the SRX series, not my problem if you can't hear it. They're unnatural, colored and flattened for me irrespective of anything else.

david

No, I asked for an alternative pressing of an SRX release.

I assume you would agree that everything is relative to the original recording which is why I asked for that. If you hear something on one pressing and not other then clearly the mastering is messed up.

I have done my research by listening to hundreds of these BNs recorded by RVG and pressed on 4-5 different labels. Frankly, the originals are the ones that are lacking in some cases. That's my perspective.

We can end this here.

 

[ddk]

No, I asked for an alternative pressing of an SRX release.

I assume you would agree that everything is relative to the original recording which is why I asked for that. If you hear something on one pressing and not other then clearly the mastering is messed up.

What I'm complaining about is a heavy handed signature of a kind that was never done at that time and has nothing to do with and different whatever shortcomings those recordings might or might have had. The point you miss is that It's about how crappy these hyped pressings are on their own in absolute terms irrespective of anything else past or present.

david

 

[miniguy]

What I'm complaining about is a heavy handed signature of a kind that was never done at that time and has nothing to do with and different whatever shortcomings those recordings might or might have had. The point you miss is that It's about how crappy these hyped pressings are on their own in absolute terms irrespective of anything else past or present.

david

So please tell us which of the SRX pressings you have compared to the originals of the same title.

 

[rockitman]

He had a root canal today He must not be thinking straight due to the pain if he put up all those Lola bobesco and Ludwig Hoelscher LPs on auction. I would have traded in my turntable for those pity I don't have one

root canals are painless. It's the process of the root dying before you see the dentist and get the canal procedure done that is painful. Just had my first one done last month. Only pain are the brief moments of Novocain injections.

 

[ddk]

So please tell us which of the SRX pressings you have compared to the originals of the same title.

I rarely do comparative side by sides for anything miniguy, I'm not new to this I know what I'm doing and what I'm hearing don't need to waste time with it specially in obvious cases like this. I suggest you do your own comparisons since you see value in it.

david

 

[miniguy]

I rarely do comparative side by sides for anything miniguy, I'm not new to this I know what I'm doing and what I'm hearing don't need to waste time with it specially in obvious cases like this. I suggest you do your own comparisons since you see value in it.

david

What about your other Blue Note reissues on MM and Classic, are they also shit?

 

[Folsom]

Great, now I want to listen to one. But do I want to buy one to see what it's like?

 

[ddk]

What about your other Blue Note reissues on MM and Classic, are they also shit?

This is the only MM reissue of anything that I have and didn't even know that Classic had done some too, don't even think I bought more than a few of their titles in the past, why?

david

 

[dminches]

In case anyone is interested, this is a description of how RVG recorded which many people found to be subpar. He put the mics very close to the instruments which often made the room very small. In addition, the actual room had high ceilings contributed to this as well.

https://www.wbur.org/artery/2016/09/01/rudy-van-gelder

RVG had his own sound signature which wasn't enjoyed by all.