Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

Having convinced myself that remastered pop albums almost always sound more 
natural on CD vs. vinyl, I finally decided to pump out $10 and do an A/B of 
one of my favourite jazz albums.

The album in question is Keith Jarrett: Standards Vol. II, featuring Jarrett 
on acoustic piano, Gary Peacock on acoustic bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums.
My vinyl copy is a domestic release on ECM/Warner (note that ECM has recently 
switched distribution in the U.S. back to Polydor).  My CD copy is a German ECM 
import.

Well, sad to say, the CD doesn't hold a candle to the vinyl in this case.  I 
can close my eyes and imagine I'm right there at the performance when I put the 
album on.  With the CD, there is no illusion that this is a recording.  The 
cymbals and hi-hat (so important to most jazz) sound too discrete, and the 
decay is too short.  The piano sounds tinny and unnatural.  The string bass 
has no "oomph" to its bottom, and the gut comes through more than the wood.  
The lack of surface noise is welcome, but does not compensate for the general 
lack of naturalness in the CD.

I should note that this release is AAD.  I recently bought Michael Brecker's 
new release on MCA/Impulse, which I think was DDD.  It sounded very natural to 
me, but then, I had no album to A/B it with.  Gerry Niewood's "Night Sprite" 
has some problems in the high-end for the percussion instruments, but has no 
vinyl edition to compare with.

I am hoping other people will post A/B comparison reviews here.  I would sure 
appreciate it if people would keep this note to specific A/B comparisons and 
not use it for religious wars.


				Mark

    
    I'd be interested in hearing about any comparisons made of records
    vs. CD for the early Miles Davis albums or any Clifford Brown, Sonny
    Rollins, or John Coltrane recordings.
    
    (I've been holding off on the Miles and Trane CDs because I've heard
    the transfers of the former are **terrible**.)
    
       John
    

    I'm a Jazz fanatic who has completely abandoned albums for CDs.
    I'm not able to compare albums to CDs but can compare CDs to live
    performances having just heard Miles in concert and Tony Williams
    in concert.  CD resemble live sound pretty well to me.
    
    Wynton Marsalis' "J-Mood" is fully digital. The horn sounds live
    to me.  Or is it Memorex?
    
    At Boston Compact Disc in Cambridge, I've found wonderful USED CDs
    in their Jazz Collection including an Oscar Petersen CD with 65
    minutes of music.  This one they will have to pry from my cold,
    dead fingers.
    
    On a happier notes, I recommend Boston Compact Disc for Jazz, both
    in Cambridge and in San Francisco.
    
                                          Bob Walsh
                                          Santa Clara, Calif.
    
    

    
         I too have given up on albums.  The classics I prefer on CD
       so far include:
    
         Artist                            Title   
      
         Oliver Nelson                     Blues and the Abstract Truth
         John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
         John Coltrane                     A Love Supreme
    
         I actually did a CD/Vinyl comparison with "A Love Supreme",
      playing them simultaneously, the disk had considerably more "depth"
      for lack of a better term. It allowed me to hear subtleties I
      was not aware of previously.
    
         I was disappointed to hear the bad review on "Standards" mentioned
      earlier. The ECM disks I have purchased have been quite good,
      although I have not done a lot of album by album on offerings
      by that label comparisons.
    
      Tb
    

RE: .4

I believe those are all MCA/Impulse! releases.  That is good to hear.  I had 
gathered from the Music-Sound Output article and my Michael Brecker CD that 
MCA/Impulse! would fairly generally be a label where the CD sounds more "live" 
than the vinyl.

RE: .3

Mostly new releases, recorded digitally, I take it.  I have heard the Wynton 
Marsalis CD but do not yet own it.  I had no problems with its high end.

RE: .2

By "early Miles", I guess you mean the material on Prestige vs. the CBS 
material that is currently being remastered?  I do not yet own any Prestige 
CD's of any artist, so cannot say much there.  I do own several Verve CD's, 
though, and have felt they were somewhat inconsistent over the span of a 
single album, though of above-average quality.

If you mean early CBS material, I still haven't gotten around to an A/B of the 
remastered CD's with the remastered vinyl.  Some people like the remastered 
vinyl, and many like the remastered CD's.

I am almost certain now that the remastering process optimises for CD medium 
and improves the CD while making the vinyl worse, and that NOT remastering 
results in a CD that is at best the same quality as the vinyl.

***************

After doing my A/B on the Jarrett "Standards", I began to wonder if perhaps I 
may be upgrading my CD player in the next year.  That is, I don't know if the 
differences between the album on vinyl, played on my Rega Planar 3 with Linn 
cartridge, and the album on CD, played on my Magnavox CDB465 CD player, are 
showing up differences in quality between the vinyl and CD, or differences in 
quality between my CD player and turntable/cartridge.

Although I must point out that the Magnavox was the first CD player I heard 
that I thought sounded "natural" on and of my test recordings I used to 
audition players with.

Perhaps I should send it for the MCI upgrade.  But I'd rather not discuss this 
further in this note, as I don't want equipment to play too big a part in the 
discussions here.


				Mark

    Has anyone found the Return To Forever disk Romantic Warrior?
    I'm very curious to see how it compares to the vinyl.  All of
    the shops around here don't seem to have it yet and it is high
    on my list of possible vinyl replacements.
    
    Oh yeah, one other thing, does anyone know when Art Tatum will 
    start showing up on disk?  Does anyone know why nothing has been
    released yet?  I missed an opportunity several years ago to pick
    up two boxed sets of Tatum (the trio stuff was one complete box
    and the solo stuff was another; about 75 dollars each).  Columbia
    had apparantly released the collectors sets before turning the
    catalogue over to Pablo.  At least, that's what I guessed they
    had done.  Anyway, I have never seen the two sets since. 
    
    One of the first things I have been checking in any CD shop I visit
    is the 'Ts' to see if there are any Tatum disks.  So far I've seen
    none.  Also, I don't recall having seen a listing in either Green's
    or Schwanns.
    
    To me, I think I would take a Tatum disk no matter what the quality
    just to have it preserved.

    =ken

    I did an ABC comparison of Dave Brubeck's quartet playing
    "Blue Rondo Ala Turk".
    
    "Time Out" CD - sounds awful
    "Time Out" Vinyl - sounds awful
    Live at the DeCordova - sounds awful
    
    Music is great, though.
    
    Seriously, I'm interested in knowing who's butchering recordings
    on CD.  If someone thinks that somebody butchered "Round About
    Midnight", I'd like to know.  (Personally, I don't think
    that "Round About Midnight" was butchered, and I enjoy the
    "Standards VII" CD.)
    
    But when you get into crits of high hats....
    
    								-mr. bill

Jazz fans take note:  CBS has bought the rights to the old CTI catalogue 
(previously distributed first by A&M, then by Motown before the latter ceased 
independent operation and went under MCA's umbrella), and is rereleasing them 
one at a time on CD only!

Considering how many of my CTI's are warped, this is welcome news!

I feel they should be budget priced, though, like most of the Chrysalis 
catalogue that they took over.

"Romantic Warrior" was on CBS; all other RTF was on Polydor except for live 
material and the revised RTF with Gayle Moran.  The other stuff is out on 
Polydor, but I suspect CBS is waiting to remaster "Romantic Warrior" since they 
seem to be doing that to almost all of the jazz they're releasing on CD.

I thought I'd seen some Art Tatum on CD, but maybe I just saw it rereleased on 
vinyl.  If he's on Pablo, that isn't the easiest label to get ahold of.

Two of my Verve CD's are Wes Montgomery's "Tequila" and Bill Evans Live at 
Montreux.  Although I can't A/B these, I do have others on Verve vinyl, and 
found the particular CD's superior to the particular vinyl.  More importantly, 
though, the CD's have extra "outtakes" from the same sessions.  This might 
usually seem a fringe benefit, but in this case the extras are the real gems 
on the album!  Simple reason for this is mid-60's big-label philosophy of 
smothering jazz with strings/etc.  The outtakes didn't meet this "standard" 
and so were tossed.  Ironically, the outtakes have weathered the years better 
than the main tracks!


				Mark

    
    "Early Miles" to me is pre-Bitch's Brew. I was thinking of the
    Miles-Gil Evans collaborations that produced Sketchs of Spain
    and Kind of Blue.
    
    Re. .6 I agree with you that Tatum on compact disk would be priceless.
    I haven't seen any myself as yet.
    
      jc
    

    re .6,.8
    
    I've been looking for "Romantic Warrior" too, with no success. For what
    it's worth, it's been listed in the Schwann catalog since June, but not
    before then. Am I wrong in thinking that the catalog lists discs that
    have actually been manufactured? If not, then what's the story with
    this one?

    Re: Early Miles
    
    I have the "Sketches of Spain" CD and the LP as well; unfortunately
    the LP is so worn that no A/B would be reasonable.
    
    However, I was very pleased with the CD sound.
    
    There is almost no hiss throughout and the presence of the instruments
    is spectacular considering the age of this recording (1959?).  It
    sounds like a good classical recording, that type of detail. 
    
    If you are wondering how the *remastered* LP sounds, who knows,
    but I can't believe an older LP version could top this....
    
    I hope to get "Kind of Blue" soon and will be able to do a compare
    there because my LP is pretty new (although for nits, who knows
    how good the nth-generation mastering job was).
    
    As far as all-digital stuff goes, the two Marslais CDs I have ,
    "Hot House Flowers" and "Black Codes" are phenomenal.  I have yet
    to hear *better* sound through my system.  I recommend them both
    without reservations.
    
    

This month's AUDIO has a discussion of CD remastering.  It points out how
records are pushed up at the high frequency.  Records also have the problem
of having different playback speeds depending on the location on the disk.
Cuts towards the edge have better high frequency response than cuts towards
the middle.  Engineers have to add different amounts of high frequency
boost depending on the location of the cut on the album.  CDs have
virtually no rolloff, so I gathered from the article that recordings should
be remastered for CD release.

RE: .12

This puts what I alluded to earlier into clear technical terms.  Thanks.

The problem is, how to determine if a disc has been remastered or merely 
transferred?

I have been disappointed in few discs, and am hesitant to list them all as I 
plan to sell some of them in CDSWAP (though I seriously doubt that would keep 
them from selling).  Offhand, the Jarrett CD was one that definitely sounded 
to me like it had been directly transferred with no remastering to account for 
the different technologies.

Another CD that horrified me was Kate Bush's "The Dreaming", which I picked up 
last night, U.K. import.  The sound is unbelievably dull compared to the 
vinyl, and the voice sounds compressed very heavily (usually, I have been 
finding that vocals are the one area where CD's almost ALWAYS surpass vinyl).  
I suspect this one was a direct transfer.

I should point out, though, that the majority of jazz CD's I look at seem to 
be remastered.  It seems to depend on the label.  ECM's are hard to find now 
except as imports.  Maybe when U.S. Polydor begins redistributing them, they 
will be remastered.


				Mark

I have  seen  some  of  the  Tatum  releases on Pablo CD's.  I only have the
vinyl, but I imagine that the CD's, if they are up to Pablo's standards, are
fairly amazing.

Is any of the old EmArcy catalog going to be released on CD?

Chuck

    Re: .-1
    
    Oh Yeah, I have the CD Art Tatum/Ben Webster, the Tatum Group
    Masterpiece, which I use to have as a vinyl edited under another
    label (can't remember it, I mentionned it one year ago in this
    notesfile). 
    What a piece of collection !
    The back side is in english, but the booklet is about 95% of Japanese !!!

    The recording is fairly good, a bit of hiss, but what can you expect
    for a recording dated 1956 !??! ;-)
    
    I bought it for a couple of DM (30) in Germany. A real Bargain !!!
    
    
    Pierre.

    
    
    Re .14 > Is any of the old EmArcy catalog going to be released on
    CD?
    
    I was under the impression that Polygram Ltd had released almost
    the whole catalog, as they have with Mercury, Verve & other affiliated
    labels. I've seen quite a bit of EmArcy here in Northern California.
    
    				The Cruiser
    
    p.s. Check the Green CD catalogs too.
    
    
    

I did some more careful comparisons last night, all ECM.  No direct A/B's to 
do, but I doubt that made a difference.  The CD's of "Belonging" and "Magico" 
were about the quality I got from vinyl on my old Dual 505-II turntable with a 
Grado cartridge.  There was no comparison to the sound I got from "Folksongs", 
"My Song" and "Nude Ants" on my Rega Planar3 with Linn cartridge.  So much 
more presence to the sound, so much more dynamics, dimension, naturalness, 
good tone, etc.  There is no way I could have been fooled as to which was 
which.  Of course, the record has hiss, though, or "groovetalk".  Or maybe 
my system has groovetalk, I forget whether that's a variable that the ultimate 
turntable system takes care of.

Anyway, my point is that they've got to do better.  I'm not sure if ECM is 
just doing direct transfers, or what.  I have been EXTREMELY happy with the 
MCA releases I've heard, but last night didn't get around to comparing one of 
them to an ECM vinyl release.  These comparisons aren't entirely 
context-dependent (ignorence is bliss, you're happy until you hear something 
better), because with the ECM vinyl I can close my eyes and actually imagine 
that I'm at a live performance.

Does anyone know if MCA/Impulse! has the Jarrett material on their agenda for 
rerelease?  My vinyl stinks, as it is from the vintage of ABC controlling the 
label (MCA, on the other hand, is great for vinyl as well as for CD's).

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, the ECM CD's are a good deal for people who 
either don't have the material already, don't have a great turntable system or 
have the originals from the vintage of Polydor controlling the label.  Polydor 
is now back in control, a few of the Warner/ECM's can be found in cut-outs, 
but good luck trying to find very many of them there or in the used record 
stores!  With Polydor back in control, CD's will be the only choice for ECM.


				Mark