Amazing knowledge of the drum, thank you for sharing. And your musical experience is fascinating. Here I was loving music as a teen and then moved on to a business professional life which in the end allowed me to get back into my passion, music. But it seems as you have lived in music your entire life. And you survived it! For what it's worth, some of my favorite drummers are Christian Vander of Magma, Ginger Baker and more recently Gavin Harrison.
Why I don't hear bass drums on Jazz LPs?
I don't hear the bass drums during playback of a number of jazz LPs (Webster, Hawkins, Ellington, etc). I have Thiel 3.6 speakers powdered by Mark Levinson 23.5 amp. I can isolate the sound of bass drums on rock/pop LPs but not on jazz LPs unless drummer play solo in the middle parts.
I read somewhere this has to do with size of the bass drums used in 40s, 50s and another explanation was the way drummer play bass drums. I can clearly isolate the double bass, snare drums, and cymbals on jazz LPs, but hardly the bass drum. Let me know your experience with this issue.