Vinyl Me Please Classics

Doctor_of_Jazz said:
Yep. That's the short answer. I'm prepared to go down the rabbit hole for the "long" answer. LOL! Let me know if you want my justification. ;)
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Why? Just because of SRX and a really nice jacket that may have some glue problems? Or Optimal vs RTI? I've had good and bad pressings from both. I'd rather take my chances with one I can return than a second hand copy. Or just because of collectibility?
 
dhodo said:
Why?
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Well... the answer is personal for me, and maybe some will agree, and others (if my wife reads this) will say OMG!!!! But...

I've always had a "collector" mentality. Early on it was books in a series, and later (and still) band/artist discographies. But there's a satisfaction in "completeness" when you get the ENTIRE set of something. And I'm just a few away from the MM monopoly, thanks to some fortunate happenstance situations which gave me a significant boost to the series. Now it feels like a short trip to the whole enchilada. I'm fully aware of the absurdness of this goal, but as a hobby, I could do much worse. The resell value has been favorable, and so far the outlook is good.

If I REALLY break down the scenario in listening with quality headphones to FLAC or High Res 24-bit/192kHz, vs 320 CBR MP3 it gets further befuddling. I had a friend take this challenge and it took severely concentrated listening to completely pick the "best" audio experience. For me, it's what I believe Jack White (or someone) said. Hearing a diamond stylus, playing on a piece of wax spinning in front of your eyes, to hear the most amazing music is unparalleled. I've often said that if you could create an app that adds the "vinyl noise floor" to the best digital pressings, who would be able to tell the difference? I think very few. But it's the game that I love. The search for completeness, the hunt for the deep cuts and masterpieces that make this fun for me. Illogical? Yes. But if I'm going to bring it down to the "real" level, none of it matters. To me anyway. And if I didn't obsess over this, it would be comic books, or watches, or art. And I now that I think of it... art appeals to me... OMG!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Doctor_of_Jazz said:
Well... the answer is personal for me, and maybe some will agree, and others (if my wife reads this) will say OMG!!!! But...

I've always had a "collector" mentality. Early on it was books in a series, and later (and still) band/artist discographies. But there's a satisfaction in "completeness" when you get the ENTIRE set of something. And I'm just a few away from the MM monopoly, thanks to some fortunate happenstance situations which gave me a significant boost to the series. Now it feels like a short trip to the whole enchilada. I'm fully aware of the absurdness of this goal, but as a hobby, I could do much worse. The resell value has been favorable, and so far the outlook is good.

If I REALLY break down the scenario in listening with quality headphones to FLAC or High Res 24-bit/192kHz, vs 320 CBR MP3 it gets further befuddling. I had a friend take this challenge and it took severely concentrated listening to completely pick the "best" audio experience. For me, it's what I believe Jack White (or someone) said. Hearing a diamond stylus, playing on a piece of wax spinning in front of your eyes, to hear the most amazing music is unparalleled. I've often said that if you could create an app that adds the "vinyl noise floor" to the best digital pressings, who would be able to tell the difference? I think very few. But it's the game that I love. The search for completeness, the hunt for the deep cuts and masterpieces that make this fun for me. Illogical? Yes. But if I'm going to bring it down to the "real" level, none of it matters. To me anyway. And if I didn't obsess over this, it would be comic books, or watches, or art. And I now that I think of it... art appeals to me... OMG!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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That's cool. Just curious. For me, I never would have paid the steep $40-50 😮 I paid for MM pressings if there were great pressings available for the awesome prices of the BN80 or Tone Poet Series. But, since I want to focus my vinyl budget on expanding my collections, I tend for focus on best bang for your buck best pressings (when available). I do respect people who want multiples of albums or non-thrifty pressings or complete sets, so I hope you complete your collection and enjoy it!

Why stop there though? Clearly you need all of the original Blue Notes, right? ;)
 
Well said amigo! I was about to add as an afterthought that this is NOT the place to start for someone building their collection. I've been collecting (and selling) for several years, which has landed me with multiple copies and options to fuel absurdness in this endeavor. So much so that the the ULTIMATE situation is to have an OG of the original MONO/STEREO and audiophile MONO/STEREO. This is the case for favorites of mine like Blue Train and Midnight Blue, but... I'm working out of this stage to trim down to what is reasonable. In the end, it keeps me busy and out of trouble.
 
Music Matters is interesting but i kinda wish these high quality pressings of good albums (i may not understand everyones love for out to lunch but i do really enjoy blue train and maiden voyage and maybe speak no evil from the one song i heard) were more available to the public, i had this dumb thought of if blue note bought music matters and did the MM series for exclusive high end SRX pressings, tone poets for mid level audiophile and niche stuff like they are doing, and BN80s for mainstream available reissues of good quality for these albums that are hard to get
 
duke86fan said:
Music Matters is interesting but i kinda wish these high quality pressings of good albums (i may not understand everyones love for out to lunch but i do really enjoy blue train and maiden voyage and maybe speak no evil from the one song i heard) were more available to the public, i had this dumb thought of if blue note bought music matters and did the MM series for exclusive high end SRX pressings, tone poets for mid level audiophile and niche stuff like they are doing, and BN80s for mainstream available reissues of good quality for these albums that are hard to get
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Tone Poets are basically the same quality as the MMs that they built their rep on. They just started using SRX to give people a reason to buy it again, but it's the only difference and it only costs them a couple extra bucks per album.

Can't wait til Blue note gets the licenses back.
 
duke86fan said:
Music Matters is interesting but i kinda wish these high quality pressings of good albums (i may not understand everyones love for out to lunch but i do really enjoy blue train and maiden voyage and maybe speak no evil from the one song i heard) were more available to the public, i had this dumb thought of if blue note bought music matters and did the MM series for exclusive high end SRX pressings, tone poets for mid level audiophile and niche stuff like they are doing, and BN80s for mainstream available reissues of good quality for these albums that are hard to get
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Yea the main problem I think is that their catalogue is parceled out to a bunch of different labels and they don’t want to step on each other’s toes it seems. Your idea isn’t that far off from what they have done already outside of MM. I really wish they had done the BN75 series titles in the BN80 quality. But since some of the huge titles like Somethin Else are licensed to MM, they won’t press that title in the BN80 format/price point. I am glad that they are reissuing some much needed reissues of a bunch of BN albums though and the BN80 and TP quality has been awesome.
 
MikeH said:
Yea the main problem I think is that their catalogue is parceled out to a bunch of different labels and they don’t want to step on each other’s toes it seems. Your idea isn’t that far off from what they have done already outside of MM. I really wish they had done the BN75 series titles in the BN80 quality. But since some of the huge titles like Somethin Else are licensed to MM, they won’t press that title in the BN80 format/price point. I am glad that they are reissuing some much needed reissues of a bunch of BN albums though and the BN80 and TP quality has been awesome.
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its basically now the mid level vinyl enthusiast is basically ignored (not quite ready for 35-70 dollar audiophile pressings but not wanting CDs repressed onto vinyl).

it seems the only way to get classic records is

newbie level - Waxtime doing barely legal pressings of CDs
Mid Level - BN80 (which though has some classic titles doesn't have the mode for joe's or the blue trains or the out to lunches people praise the most, more the B tier like una mas)
Audiophile - Tone Poets (high quality but more on the C and B tier stuff and stuff not as many people would want to get into with)
Money Drain - Music Matters (all the critically acclaimed stuff but you have to spend an arm and a leg for a single LP)
 
duke86fan said:
its basically now the mid level vinyl enthusiast is basically ignored (not quite ready for 35-70 dollar audiophile pressings but not wanting CDs repressed onto vinyl).

it seems the only way to get classic records is

newbie level - Waxtime doing barely legal pressings of CDs
Mid Level - BN80 (which though has some classic titles doesn't have the mode for joe's or the blue trains or the out to lunches people praise the most, more the B tier like una mas)
Audiophile - Tone Poets (high quality but more on the C and B tier stuff and stuff not as many people would want to get into with)
Money Drain - Music Matters (all the critically acclaimed stuff but you have to spend an arm and a leg for a single LP)
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Yea MM used to be $35 when it launched. You can still get some titles for $40. Classic records and AP also had the bigger titles for awhile and were around $30 when they first came out too IIRC. It really is a shame that the BN75 titles weren’t at the BN80 quality because that would have been awesome. They released so many great titles and a lot of the ones I think you are talking about but the QC was awful on them. I know some people got good ones but I went through multiple copies of 4 of 5 titles and they were all shit. The Tone Poet titles are great too although lesser known and I think the vinyl is really close in quality to the MMs. I personally think that MM will go out of business soon enough and BN won’t need to go bring them on board anymore for the audiophile titles. Hopefully the licenses expire soonish and BN can press them themselves. Or MM can still get some titles in SRX...
 
It's really just one lull of many of relatively affordable audiophile "big hitters of jazz classics" reissues at the moment. There should be another wave of good affordable reissues soon enough.
 
dhodo said:
It's really just one lull of many of relatively affordable audiophile "big hitters of jazz classics" reissues at the moment. There should be another wave of good affordable reissues soon enough.
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I’m interested to see if the Verve/UMe reissues put on pressure for BN to start pumping out TP quality reissues of THE classics. Verve kicked everything off with Getz/Gilberto and A Love Supreme so it seems they are dedicated to reissuing the best of the best in AAA quality (where possible). Hopefully we’ll see AAA presses of Ella & Louis as well. Would love some AAA Ella titles, was there ever a better voice that needs to be heard in crispy clarity?!
 
Ghost said:
I’m interested to see if the Verve/UMe reissues put on pressure for BN to start pumping out TP quality reissues of THE classics. Verve kicked everything off with Getz/Gilberto and A Love Supreme so it seems they are dedicated to reissuing the best of the best in AAA quality (where possible). Hopefully we’ll see AAA presses of Ella & Louis as well. Would love some AAA Ella titles, was there ever a better voice that needs to be heard in crispy clarity?!
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Yeah, I'm excited to finally get those two from Verve as well, pre-ordered them from Target. Also very excited about the Nina Simone titles.

I don't have much Ella. I do have an original of Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife which is good enough for me, but nothing else. I am definitely excited to see what else Verve picks.

Edit: forgot I have the Ella Christmas one!
 
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Ghost said:
I’m interested to see if the Verve/UMe reissues put on pressure for BN to start pumping out TP quality reissues of THE classics. Verve kicked everything off with Getz/Gilberto and A Love Supreme so it seems they are dedicated to reissuing the best of the best in AAA quality (where possible). Hopefully we’ll see AAA presses of Ella & Louis as well. Would love some AAA Ella titles, was there ever a better voice that needs to be heard in crispy clarity?!
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Does anyone have a pre-order link for this Love Supreme that isn't Target?
 
duke86fan said:
its basically now the mid level vinyl enthusiast is basically ignored (not quite ready for 35-70 dollar audiophile pressings but not wanting CDs repressed onto vinyl).

it seems the only way to get classic records is

newbie level - Waxtime doing barely legal pressings of CDs
Mid Level - BN80 (which though has some classic titles doesn't have the mode for joe's or the blue trains or the out to lunches people praise the most, more the B tier like una mas)
Audiophile - Tone Poets (high quality but more on the C and B tier stuff and stuff not as many people would want to get into with)
Money Drain - Music Matters (all the critically acclaimed stuff but you have to spend an arm and a leg for a single LP)
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I have a couple of points on this. I agree with what you are saying in principle BUT there are several ways around this.

I have all the tone poets to date (apart from the last 3) and have spent way way less than the rrp for each. I bought the 2lp Cassandra Wilson (which RRP was around the £40) for £18. @Mr Moore posted a link for it the other day for £15 (from a shop that had multiple copies).

The ones that really hit the wallet are the series that by design are limited (your MM example is a key example here). With those you cant bank on them dropping in value as they will likely sell out. AP's are, from what I have heard, fantastic and I have seen some of them on sale for an affordable amount.

My personal preference is to seek out second hand early/first pressings when I can. A lot of these are hard to beat in terms of audio quality (no matter what the reissue companies try to tell you). I'm pleased with the number of 'classics' in my jazz collection and I rarely pay the average or above (based on discogs) because I'm happy to play the waiting game. As much as it annoys me at times, Ebay plays a big part in my vinyl spending and I have made some unbelievably great purchases over the years on records which should have gone for a lot of lot lot more than what I got it for just by sheer luck (lack of bids, timing of the sale, etc)
 
Selaws said:
I have a couple of points on this. I agree with what you are saying in principle BUT there are several ways around this.

I have all the tone poets to date (apart from the last 3) and have spent way way less than the rrp for each. I bought the 2lp Cassandra Wilson (which RRP was around the £40) for £18. @Mr Moore posted a link for it the other day for £15 (from a shop that had multiple copies).

The ones that really hit the wallet are the series that by design are limited (your MM example is a key example here). With those you cant bank on them dropping in value as they will likely sell out. AP's are, from what I have heard, fantastic and I have seen some of them on sale for an affordable amount.

My personal preference is to seek out second hand early/first pressings when I can. A lot of these are hard to beat in terms of audio quality (no matter what the reissue companies try to tell you). I'm pleased with the number of 'classics' in my jazz collection and I rarely pay the average or above (based on discogs) because I'm happy to play the waiting game. As much as it annoys me at times, Ebay plays a big part in my vinyl spending and I have made some unbelievably great purchases over the years on records which should have gone for a lot of lot lot more than what I got it for just by sheer luck (lack of bids, timing of the sale, etc)
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This is all good advice. There are definite ways to get great copies of jazz albums for cheap, especially if you go used. But if I recall, @duke86fan isn’t the biggest fan of buying used. I’ve never spent over $25 on a Tone Poet. There are almost always sales somewhere on the BNs, whether it’s amazon or target buy two get one free sales or UDiscover having the stackable codes right now.
 
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