Recommendations for a jazz record which demonstrates vinyl superiority over digital
I have not bought a vinyl record since CDs came out, but have been exposed to numerous claims that vinyl is better. I suspect jazz may be best placed to deliver on these claims, so I am looking for your recommendations.
I must confess that I do not like trad jazz much. Also I was about to fork out A$145 for Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" but bought the CD for A$12 to see what the music was like. I have kept the change!
I love the jazz in the movie Babylon, which features local Oz girl Margo Robbie (the film, not the jazz).
I started a thread called "Truly Stunning Vinyl" (of any genre) a month or two ago and one of the early recommendations by two forum members was the Chet Baker album, Chet. They were right, it sounds truly stunning on my system. I would probably also love it streaming from a high res digital file but I've never done so. If you don't have a streamer in your system Google it, you can find some clips to see whether you like his jazz trumpet before buying it, but here's a link to the Craft Recordings vinyl version:
Also great Chet Baker recordings on Sam’s Records, in mono, pressed in France. I’ve got at least two, maybe three albums. All make you forget that the signal is mono. Quality of the vinyl is the highest.
I called McCartney a jazz musician to make a point. I wouldn't argue that he is. All I meant was that jazz is not a genre, it's an attitude. Genres have lines/boundaries, jazz doesn't.
(and I should admit, I know very little about music theory AND jazz, so I may be completely wrong.)
No, I think you have a point, and that's why I get aggravated by some who say they don't like jazz but who then cite music or musicians that I don't think of as jazz-y in any sense, as examples. I must admit my own idea of jazz is fairly parochial. I listen to live performances locally by musicians that adhere to the rules of bebop or "modern jazz", meaning post WW2 jazz and therefore including KOB, for example, which is not really bebop. I own probably ~3000 Jazz LPs encoding performances by musicians that are mostly deceased, therefore. Spiro Gyra is not jazz to me, although I would not deny the possible musical merit.
By the way, it took me a long time to see the irony in this thread: If you don't care for jazz, then why ask about a jazz LP that proves any point about digital vs analog?
By the way, it took me a long time to see the irony in this thread: If you don't care for jazz, then why ask about a jazz LP that proves any point about digital vs analog?
Indeed!
I obviously know very little about jazz, but I like some tracks and some musicians. There are a lot pieces and depth of jazz that are only appreciated by musicians or hard core listeners - which I think confuses some of simpletons and make us say: we don't like jazz. It's a process....
agree with @lewmabout what is considered jazz, and what is ’something else’ but maybe completely enjoyable.
regarding jazz recordings that clearly demonstrate the superiority of vinyl, here is an easy one. low hanging fruit.
---my darTZeel 468 mono blocks have a ’peak watt’ output (the value holds for 8 seconds after) read out on the front face. it’s very easy to see with your eyes how all analog vinyl has higher peaks than digital with the same recording played back at the same SPL level. because digital smears peaks. so it’s easy to find jazz recordings with significant drum whacks or heavy horn crescendo’s and just ’look’. no place to hide. one particular recording i play for visitors is the AP 45rpm pressing of ’Georgia On My Mind’ from "Ben Webster Live at the Renaissance". about 2 minutes in there is a drum whack that hits 150+ peak watts (my speakers are 97db, 7 ohms so a 150 watt peak is significant). the digital file peak is around 70-80 watts peak. if you never heard the vinyl the digital is impressive. but it’s not close to where the vinyl can go.
now multiply that to every micro-dynamic millisecond of the recording and the reason why an analog recording has more energy is easy to understand. and it translates into textural and musical flow differences too.....although we cannot always ’show’ the unbelievers every difference. they need to be heard.
this ’visual’ convinces the most jaded analog skeptics. and i can go all night with more A/B examples. my current digital does not suck either, and i have done this compare over many years with different tt's and digital sources and the result is always the same.
Cartridges / phono-stages should honour the RIAA equalisation curve. Most cartridges have a distinct lift in the treble, which also means the leading edges of transients are accentuated. Of course, when mastering a record from a digital file, the recording engineer can modify whatever parameters he chooses. In general we like louder!
OK - I did highlight one style of jazz that I know I like, the jazz in the film Babylon. It is available on a 2-LP set, and represents a modern take on 1920s jazz with dazzling trumpet solos. Does that help?
Arne Domnerus-Jazz at the Pawnshop Disc 1-3. These original live recordings were released in various forms and media. The ones I recommend are the remastered SACD versions. It is one of the finest jazz experiences you can bring into your listening room. The OP assumes analogue superior to digital as a recording media. I am not saying one way or the other. Listen to these 3 digital recordings and decide for yourself.
Artist(s) Arne Domnerus
Album Jazz At The Pawnshop
Label Proprius
Label Info HDtracks PRSACD 7879
Media Info 30th Anniversary Edition
Mastered 2007
Kind Studio Master 24Bit/
88.2kHz
Source Studio Master
Sound Stereo
Bit / kHz 24/88.2
Genre Jazz
Year 1976
jerroldis, The OP has since modified his question to say he just wants to identify high quality jazz LPs, even though jazz is not his cup of music. We all agree that the question about "proving" that analog is superior to digital is a can of worms best left unopened. So by the same token there is no sense citing digital to prove the opposite.
are there Jazz singers vs singers singing Jazz tunes?
I am thinking Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Roberta Flack, Norah Jones. Is their ability to sing in a certain what makes them jazz singers or a good singer is a singer, period, and they will sing whatever they are inclined to?
How about Cleo Lane? She could sing ballads, swing and do scat with very pure, very rapid notes backed by ’her’ British Jazz band led by Johnny Dankworth (later Sir John Dankworth). I remember a drum solo where the drummer ended up playing one tiny end of a vertically held drumstick with another drumstick. Had the audience spellbound.
Cleo Laine, or Lady Dankworth as she is now known, was also an actress, singer in musicals (eg Show Boat in London which ran for 910 performances) and an opera singer (Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins).
For those who think British jazz ain't jazz, she was recognised in the USA:
Grammy Award nomination, Best Female Jazz Vocalist, Smilin' Through with Dudley Moore, 1983
@richardbrand I will below note the systems I have available to compare on the bottom for info only.
If you want to compare a Jazz LP to streaming I would suggest as others have Dave Brubeck Time Out, but specifically the 45rpm version. Having tried this on an available ’basic’ system it is superior to any of the available 33rpm versions, I have an early "Time Further Out" and "Time out" where Take Five is from the same sessions and a later 33 Time Out.. On my system there is very significant difference between the LPs. So if you are going to test against "best of digital" High Res, etc., Then you would benefit most from having vinyl with the greatest ’groove length’ per second when from comparable masters.
Noting you opened with Vinyl vs Other but said you "didn’t like trad jazz much", but thought it gave "best chance". Then if you did want a non-jazz alternative to the above then the American Mastered 45 rpm version of Fleetwood Mac Rumours has similar superiority to the 33 rpm version, but please note the european 45rpm has the same code, is better than the 33 version, but not as good as the American 45 rpm. Another would be Eva Cassidy Songbird on 45rpm. A non 45 version would be Sade, Soldier of Love.
If you like such "non-jazz" alternatives that could be good to test against digital I can suggest some more.
Until about 2017 I had also not bought Vinyl since shortly after CD. I typically ’try’ unknown potentials via streaming / high res as you did with KoB.
I will make no judgement of the relative merits of my system front end options save from the CD / Streaming would be the more expensive if everything were bought new and I would not consider that I am utilising systems where any are clearly "in a different league" for their relative positions within vinyl/CD/streaming types. They are:
Vinyl - Origin Live Voyager/S with Renown Arm, Ortofon MC Diamond into Whest Titan Pro II / Whest MC Reference Phono stages.
CD - dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD Transport, Dac, Upsampler, Clock with additional rubidium master clock.
Steaming - Taiko SGM Extreme [to above Vivaldi], I also have an Aurender W20 (not SE) to which the Taiko is superior.
Power Amp for all the above can vary between Dan D'Agostini and Vitus. Pre-Amp can vary. (Vitus / Trinnov / Music First)
Speakers can vary between Focal and Wilson Benesch.
All cables with phase stable dielectric to avoid PTFE knee related issues.
Jazz doesn’t, and shouldn’t appeal to everyone. It’s like a very rare and fine wine, which only a few appreciate.
Music theory isn’t necessary to appreciate jazz, nor is it complicated. Jazz uses the same 12 notes used in Classical music. So how is it musicians created a music, that on the surface appears, complex? But is it complex, or simply your ears aren’t tuned how to listen? That’s why I said, many don’t understand jazz, which has no bearing on whether they like it. Compared to jazz greats, I’m a very mediocre jazz musician. But still, it’s been a journey I’d not trade for anything.
Jazz is like caviar or lox. You need to develop a taste for it if it doesn’t immediately grab you. But also jazz as an idiom suffers in popularity owing to the myriad of mediocre musicians and styles that claim to be “jazz”.
Sheffield labs D2D recording of Tower of Power simply called "Tower of Power Direct". It has only six songs, and this is T.O.P. doing their known favorites in a live environment. I still get goosebumps listening to this nearly 40 years later. Go for it.
Based on the responses so far, the consensus would seem to be that vinyl has no over-whelming, intrinsic advantage these days, despite what many dealers / magazines say.
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
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.
@richardbrandThe 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.
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?
@lewmand everybody else! Yes, I have a mountain of advice on what jazz records to buy, and I am sifting through it all.
Meanwhile if I spot new classical record releases with excellent reviews for a fifth or a tenth of the cost of the best audiophile jazz, I'll grab them!
Your Krell preamplifier likely has a very wide bandwidth, which makes it susceptible to RFI in the environment, though perhaps not a source of RFI. RFI can get in by radiation from an outside source like a radio antenna or on the AC line via wires or on an IC connector, also via traveling on the wire.
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?
@richardbrandThe RFI is injected directly into the phono input by the tonearm cable. If the preamp has provision for 'cartridge loading' then yes, its susceptible.
OK, RFI via the tonearm cable makes sense! The Krell has adjustable impedance from 5 to 47,000 Ohms, set with internal switches, for MC cartridges. It has switchable gain for MM cartridges. Its frequency range is 5 to 100,000 Hz within 1 dB and it is a fully balanced design with no capacitors in the signal path.
The manual talks about positioning of both the power supply and other components like CD players to minimise hum, which I have had to work on, starting with the deck.
The original cables in my SME 3009 tonearm (series 2 improved with fixed head shell) must be 40 years old, and the connectors at the cartridge end have become heavily oxidised. One of the connectors came adrift when I changed cartridges and had to be soldered back. Despite this, I am thrilled with the replay quality.
One day when I get more confident, I should seriously look at replacing the litz wiring but it looks like a very fiddly job.
usatran, There you have me (when it comes to Blue Note). True, the occasional pressing is terrific, but on average I find them to be a bit "muddy". What makes BN collectible in my opinion (of course) is the major important jazz artists whose performances are captured on that label. Some of the Japanese reissues are superior, purely with respect to sound quality, to the originals. Of course, this is a broad generalization and based on subjective opinion.
"I have several audiophile copies of Kind of Blue. The streaming version sounds the same and only costs $14.99 a month and includes half a million other high resolution albums and ten million red book CD quality albums. Much more cost effective than CDs. So, you have another step to lower your music cost and increase your library size."
So I have a high end DAC and a high end LP system. Also numerous tape machines. My original 6 Eye Kind of Blue or the UHQR 33 & 45 best a high res stream or even my 24/96 download. If you think they sound the same then there is an issue somewhere. They most assuredly do not.
"Cartridges / phono-stages should honour the RIAA equalisation curve."
The RIAA curve has nothing to do with cartridges, it is compensation for some of the shortcomings of the vinyl mastering/playback system. The mastering side of the curve is applied when the record is cut and the phone stage is supposed to supply the inverse.
Isao Suzuki Trio Quartet – Blow Up album released by Three Blind Mice. Album recorded in 1976. Song: Aqua Marine.
Three Blind Mice record made natural sounding records, rich of color, with good soundstage and imaging, air for the instruments to breathe, and with excellent dynamics and brilliance.
There are several audiophile pressings of the Blow Up album. What gets me is the ever increasing intensity and realism of the cymbals as they crash during crescendos is the song Aqua Marine. The cello is also amazing as well. The ambience in the recording venue can be heard during this recording and the light touch of the snare drum as it’s gently brushed is easily heard. This song to me is a great example of how exceptional some recordings on vinyl can be.
Another, already mentioned, is the Dave Brubeck Time Out album, song, Take Five. I have the Classic Audio 45 RPM version and this stands out to me as a great example of how music on vinyl can sound. On my system, I can discern the instance when either the tape or mixing controls were adjusted during one segment of the song. I hear a distinct change in sonic attributes, as if one track on the song was slightly faded a little too much or that the tape was spliced during this segment. One other thing I notice is the distinct sound of the drumstick hitting the side of the drum, it’s noticeable as a wood sounding crack and not the thwack in the drum material itself.
These two albums are without a doubt in my top 5 audiophile pressing play list.
Once again, thanks to everyone who has come up with specific recommendations! If I seem slow to take them up, it is partly because I am away from home a lot.
I've also had to service my Mercedes Sprinter, which carries a motorhome body. Normally a service is about A$1,000 and this time I was quoted $1,250. It has only travelled 80,000-kms, and needed its first change of disk pads. The original quote did not include $1,000 for parts and oils! They spotted a slight oil leak from the steering, and told me I needed a new steering rack. By now the quote was north of $A11,000. I cut the non-essentials but still got hit for A$3,500.
This has postponed my record buying for a couple of months!
The RIAA curve is based on the 'constant velocity' characteristic of magnetic cartridges and also magnetic cutter heads. Magnetic cartridges are constant-velocity devices: the signal is proportional to the velocity of the stylus. High frequencies cause the stylus to move faster, so there's more signal level as frequency rises. The cutting head used to make the master is also a constant-velocity device, so a magnetic cartridge "matches" the characteristics of the cutting head. The RIAA pre-emphasis is applied when mastering to restrict excessive groove excursion (bass cut) and to reduce surface noise (treble boosted in record, rolled off during playback).
The EQ is not to overcome a shortcoming IOW. FWIW, the mastering process can produce undistorted grooves that no pickup has a prayer of playing; its designed to be impossible to overload. The limit and distortion sources are mostly due to playback, not record. I learned this the hard way by owning an LP mastering setup for about 30 years.
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