Blue Note 45rpm reissue

Jloveys: Thanks for your opinion. I have the Mobley "Soul Station" on order and am interested in how it sounds as well as the quality of the vinyl.

For the most part, I am simply not up to paying the prices for Blue Note originals (especially on the titles that typically go for huge money) and taking a chance on whether the record has been abused or has groove damage. That being said, some of the New York, USA Blue Notes, or even Liberty Blue Notes I have, for that matter, sound very, very good providing they have not been ridden hard and put away wet.

I've also read very good things about the King Blue Notes and am toying with the idea of acquiring a few of them.

I'm very curious, and may post a question at the Steve Hoffman forums as to whether the new re-issues are analog all the way through or whether they are subject to the common quickie digital delay to save cutting heads right at the end, as this may explain the sound quality you are describing.

High quality originals, or even 2nd or 3rd issues are very often hard to beat.

Thanks for your input.

I, for one, don't think Jloveys had any agenda with respect to his original posting and appreciated his comparison with original or close to original pressings of the same performance. I felt he was evenhanded in his criticism and detailed what he heard without being nasty. There are lots of raves about the new BN reissues but almost all of them do not compare the reissues to originals.

Obviously, this is a subjective hobby and one person's better may be another person's worse. I'll be purchasing selective titles from both the MM and the AP reissues (unless I run into quality control issues) as I think, in the worst case scenario, they'll represent good value relative to originals costing $200-$500.

One must also bear in mind that recording quality was not absolutely consistent even with the Blue Note label; it depended on how things were set up that day at each individual recording session. So it is likely that, regardless of the quality of these performances, there will be qualitative differences in recording quality (regardless of what a fabulous job Mr. Hoffman and Gray do) with the master tapes.

MM and AP are to be commended for taking on the project and making this music available at semi-reasonable prices even if some people feel the originals sound better. I don't have a problem with that.

I'm sure Jloveys can defend himself, but, with respect to the King re-issues, they're commonly available on E-Bay between $25 and $50 or so-there's a bucket full of them on Buy it Now between $35 and $50 including a Mobley "Soul Station" at $38. Although I don't own any (I've got a couple of Toshiba Blue Notes but the Kings are reportedly better), I think they'd probably be a pretty good bet and less of a crapshoot than buying an actual original with respect to condition.

That being said, I have the Music Matters Mobley on order with a dealer I trade with because I've got a bag of credit there. If it sounds good and doesn't have quality control issues, I'll spring for others. I'd agree with you Plinko that some of the older OJC's sound fabulous. I've got a pre 80's analog NM OJC of Gene Ammon's Blue Gene which sounds incredibly good. On the other hand I have an '87 OJC of Boss Tenor which I can tell is digitally remastered. It actually sounds pretty good, but I've compared it to an early Prestige analog re-issue of the same record which I bought on E-bay and the earlier Prestige definitely sounded better in a way that Jloveys described almost to a T in his original post here with respect to the Blue Notes.

Unfortunately, the earlier version is beat up to the point that I can't stomach listening to it, so for now it is the digital OJC that get's played. If I had an older analog OJC or earlier analog re-issue in near mint or mint condition though they would be the ones getting played and that Boss Tenor somehow gets played less because I know that.