What are you listening to right now?

[bpape]

[tmazz]

Cowboy Junkies: The Caution Horses

[tmazz]

Diana Krall: The Look of Love

[bpape]

[tmazz]

Robert Cray: Strong Persuader

[richidoo]

I met Woody Shaw backstage at a gig he did in Somerville, MA when I was 17yo. It was a great moment. I later saw him a few times at other gigs. Each time was a miracle to this then young trumpeter. He was so gracious and real, while being a vicious and ballsy soloist. He was one of the greatest jazz trumpet soloists ever. Along with Satch, Diz and KD he was also one of the most innovative. He "owned pentatonic harmony," as he put it, and still to this day, no one dares to tread there except a few theory geek players. This is HARD CORE modern bop, boys. As lumpy as jazz gets while still harmonically and rhythmically significant. His untimely and sad death is one of the most tragic in jazz.

[tmazz]

Arthur Feidler & The Boston Pops: Fiddle-Faddle



The Boston Pops does Leroy Anderson. Not the best sounding of the Living Stereo LPs but a fun collection of music that is kind of what "the Pops" is all about.

[tmazz]

Beethoven: Symphony N0.3, Erocia - Otmar Suitner/Staatskapelle Berlin



An LP old an early (1980) digital recording. This one does not have that "early CD Digititis" and since it's recording predates CDs by several years I would think it was not recoded using the 44.1/16 digital standard. Sounds like it was done at a higher bitrate, but unfortunately other than stating that it is a PCM digital recording there are not technical details anywhere on the cover or in the liner notes. Decent sound (I can't give a definitive evaluation since right now my mancave has been turned into a temporary Boy Scout warehouse, holding all of the troop gear for next weeks trek to summer camp. So much for room acoustics!), but it doesn't sound bad in an early CD kind of way.

[tmazz]

Stanley Turrentine: Inflation



Commercial pop/jazz (in almost a muzak kind of way). Sound quality is only fair (kind of thin sounding) although side 2 seems to sound a bit better than side one.

Hey for 69 cents an LP they can't all be gems. 

[tmazz]

Grofe:Grand Canyon Suite - Boston Pops/Arthur Fiedler



Now this is more like it. Although the pressing exhibit a bit of surface noise, that classic RCA Living Stereo sound shines right through. This one is a keeper.

[richidoo]

An LP old an early (1980) digital recording. This one does not have that "early CD Digititis" and since it's recording predates CDs by several years I would think it was not recoded using the 44.1/16 digital standard. Sounds like it was done at a higher bitrate, but unfortunately other than stating that it is a PCM digital recording there are not technical details anywhere on the cover or in the liner notes. Decent sound (I can't give a definitive evaluation since right now my mancave has been turned into a temporary Boy Scout warehouse, holding all of the troop gear for next weeks trek to summer camp. So much for room acoustics!), but it doesn't sound bad in an early CD kind of way.

Most early digital recordings were less than CD's 16 bit resolution. One of the most popular early formats was Sony PCM-F1, which allowed saving the data to a betamax video cassette tape. The early units were 14 bit. Glenn Gould's 1981 Goldberg was recorded on this, in 14 bit audio.  But it actually sounded really good, and the old machines are are still prized and used on classical recordings today. I used F1 on 3 projects that went to vinyl. We used a prototype 16 bit Sony machine recorded to broadcast TV videotape in 1985. They needed the superior TV tape machine to eliminate wasting the last 2 bits on error correction needed with the smaller betamax tapes. Digital storage was not on the horizon. The original betamax tapes don't last though...      So in 1980, your record was probably 14/44.1.  But good vinyl mastering with tubes could fix the digititis if there was any.

Sample rate is much more important than bit depth. 44.1 was the standard for a long time before higher sample rates appeared in the 90s with the DVD standard.

I hope you get your tunes back soon.
Rich

[evan1]

Samples

http://www.amazon.com/24-Tales-Alex-Machacek/dp/B00377V6GA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1280436753&sr=8-1

[tmazz]

An LP old an early (1980) digital recording. This one does not have that "early CD Digititis" and since it's recording predates CDs by several years I would think it was not recoded using the 44.1/16 digital standard. Sounds like it was done at a higher bitrate, but unfortunately other than stating that it is a PCM digital recording there are not technical details anywhere on the cover or in the liner notes. Decent sound (I can't give a definitive evaluation since right now my mancave has been turned into a temporary Boy Scout warehouse, holding all of the troop gear for next weeks trek to summer camp. So much for room acoustics!), but it doesn't sound bad in an early CD kind of way.

Most early digital recordings were less than CD's 16 bit resolution. One of the most popular early formats was Sony PCM-F1, which allowed saving the data to a betamax video cassette tape. The early units were 14 bit. Glenn Gould's 1981 Goldberg was recorded on this, in 14 bit audio.  But it actually sounded really good, and the old machines are are still prized and used on classical recordings today. I used F1 on 3 projects that went to vinyl. We used a prototype 16 bit Sony machine recorded to broadcast TV videotape in 1985. They needed the superior TV tape machine to eliminate wasting the last 2 bits on error correction needed with the smaller betamax tapes. Digital storage was not on the horizon. The original betamax tapes don't last though...      So in 1980, your record was probably 14/44.1.  But good vinyl mastering with tubes could fix the digititis if there was any.

Sample rate is much more important than bit depth. 44.1 was the standard for a long time before higher sample rates appeared in the 90s with the DVD standard.

I hope you get your tunes back soon.
Rich

Weren't some of the early Telarc recordings done using a Soundstream system that used a higher bitrate that CDs? I am going to have to pull out some old LPs and check the liner notes.

[tmazz]

An LP old an early (1980) digital recording. This one does not have that "early CD Digititis" and since it's recording predates CDs by several years I would think it was not recoded using the 44.1/16 digital standard. Sounds like it was done at a higher bitrate, but unfortunately other than stating that it is a PCM digital recording there are not technical details anywhere on the cover or in the liner notes. Decent sound (I can't give a definitive evaluation since right now my mancave has been turned into a temporary Boy Scout warehouse, holding all of the troop gear for next weeks trek to summer camp. So much for room acoustics!), but it doesn't sound bad in an early CD kind of way.

Most early digital recordings were less than CD's 16 bit resolution. One of the most popular early formats was Sony PCM-F1, which allowed saving the data to a betamax video cassette tape. The early units were 14 bit. Glenn Gould's 1981 Goldberg was recorded on this, in 14 bit audio.  But it actually sounded really good, and the old machines are are still prized and used on classical recordings today. I used F1 on 3 projects that went to vinyl. We used a prototype 16 bit Sony machine recorded to broadcast TV videotape in 1985. They needed the superior TV tape machine to eliminate wasting the last 2 bits on error correction needed with the smaller betamax tapes. Digital storage was not on the horizon. The original betamax tapes don't last though...      So in 1980, your record was probably 14/44.1.  But good vinyl mastering with tubes could fix the digititis if there was any.

Sample rate is much more important than bit depth. 44.1 was the standard for a long time before higher sample rates appeared in the 90s with the DVD standard.

I hope you get your tunes back soon.
Rich

Weren't some of the early Telarc recordings done using a Soundstream system that used a higher bitrate that CDs? I am going to have to pull out some old LPs and check the liner notes.

Didn't have to leave the desk. Looked up Soundstream on Wikipedia. Their system used a 50k sample/sec bitrate with 16 bit word. Not tremendously higher than 44.1/16, but higher none the less. (My brain hasn't completely changes to porridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundstream

[tmazz]

Blood, Sweat & Tears: Greatest Hits