Recommendations for a jazz record which demonstrates vinyl superiority over digital

Time for an update. I have just received the first vinyl music I have bought in 40 years, but is it not jazz! It is something I don’t much like, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto which really is a piano trio with orchestral backing. The four sides average 15 minutes each, but I cannot tell without playing it whether it is 33 or 45 rpm. I already had the von Karajan, Richter, Oistrakh, Rostropovich recording! This new one is the latest from Decca (London).

"Beethoven Triple Concerto: arguably the least successful of any of Beethoven’s mature concertos in the concert hall. It’s one of those pieces that never seems to get a performance that does it justice. Usually, you get po-faced seriousness when a big orchestra and three star names try to out-do each other, as the cello, violin, and piano soloists fight for the limelight. On disc, it hasn’t fared much better, and there’s an infamous Herbert von Karajan recording from 1969 with David Oistrakh on violin, Sviatoslav Richter on piano, and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich: it’s a nadir of gigantic egos trying to trump each other, a bonfire of the vanities from which Karajan and the Berlin Phil still somehow manage to emerge victorious.

(Richter himself said of it: "It’s a dreadful recording and I disown it utterly… Battle lines were drawn up with Karajan and Rostropovich on the one side and Oistrakh and me on the other… Suddenly Karajan decided that everything was fine and that the recording was finished. I demanded an extra take. ’No, no,’ he replied, ’we haven’t got time, we’ve still got to do the photographs.’ To him, this was more important than the recording. And what a nauseating photograph it is, with him posing artfully and the rest of us grinning like idiots.")"

Now, there are 188 versions listed on Presto Classical, and for about half the price of the 1 hour vinyl, I can buy this plus the complete symphonies lasting over 6 hours on 6 SACDs.

Ah well ... still ready to splash some cash on a special jazz album

I think you’ve received a mountain of advice re jazz LPs.

The whole "What's better, vinyl or digital?" question is not binary, as your original question implies. There are many variables - the source material, the mastering, the quality of the vinyl pressing, the playback devices, etc.

Having said that, all of the Blue Note Tone Poet vinyl recordings I have are excellent.  Pick your poison, I doubt you'd be disappointed by any of them.  The Blue Note Classic series are not as good, and frankly, I avoid them.

@richardbrand The condition of the master tapes is an issue that anyone interested in digital has to face. In many cases, they’ve degraded a lot since the original LP was pressed. So the digital release won't be as good.

For this reason, if you are interested in really hearing how the music actually sounded, quite often you have to get the LP even if you are a digital maven.

LPs have considerably less distortion than most digital advocates realize. This is because any stereo mastering system has an enormous amount of feedback, more than most ’hifi’ amplifiers! My Westerex mastering system used 30dB, wrapped around the mastering amp which has feedback of its own.

99% of the ’distortion of the LP’ comes in during playback, due to poor tonearms, poor tonearm match with the cartridge complicance, poor setup and a poor platter pad (whose job it is to control resonance in the vinyl as its being played).

The real weakness of the LP is setup, not its actual fidelity.

I use a copy of ’Soular Energy’ by the Ray Brown Trio as demos at shows. Its an excellent recording in every way.

BTW, the phono preamp is a hidden offender in many cases when it comes to the major objection digital advocates raise: ticks and pops. If the phono section has poor high frequency overload margins and is susceptible to RFI, it can generate ticks and pops that sound like they are on the LP surface. This is a common problem! With LOMC cartridges, this problem has lead to the myth that the cartridge has to be ’loaded’ to sound right. So yes, this is a common problem.

If your phono section has properly dealt with this problem then you can often play LPs with no ticks or pops on the entire side. I’ve been doing that for years without any particular care of the LPs other than proper storage and a carbon fiber dust brush.

@atmasphere

Thanks for your detailed advice!  I have a lot of classical CDs and SACDs where the original was mastered on Westrex systems, mainly Mercury Living Presence. I also have vinyl records where the master is stated to be digital on the sleeve, for example Telarc recordings.

I don't mind random pops and ticks, but a few of my records have scratches which might be mitigated on a better deck.  I have a couple of HOMM cartridges so nowhere near state-of-the-art.  I have invested in an Achromat platter mat to control vinyl resonances, plus a puck and carbon fibre brush.

I have an entry-level Krell KSB-7B pre-amplifier with external power supply so I doubt that RFI is a problem there, but who knows?