erwbol

That can't be right. Shipping 4 of these CDs to The Netherlands cost me ¥900 (about €7) by SAL. Also, check the gift option on checkout to have the custom's declaration marked as a gift. That allows me to import €45 instead of €22 free of pesky duties. Besides being cheap, CDJapan's packaging is the best.

I'm going to take your word for it and order a bunch of these discs, starting with the 2012 releases. My only other experience with Warner Japan releases is a stereo CD of Giant Steps issued a few years back. I thought it was too loud and had too much bass like the latest US/EU releases. I noticed on cdjapan that Coltrane's Giant Steps is also mono (you mentioned My Favorite Things). Do the Coltrane Atlantics have particular merit in mono? Are any other discs (by any artist) expected to have mono over stereo sound?

(Robonaut)

I intend to get the Braxton and Jamal sets. Right now, though, I need to take it easy for a while.

A bit off topic. The 1988 Mode For Joe CD I ordered arrived and incidentally it's one of those that does not state who mastered it. The distortion that bothered me on track 1 (trumpet, left) on the RVG is also present here in about equal measure .

I only listened to samples of the last two and put all three in my amazon cart for what it's worth.

Amazon.co.uk

I also prefer FLAC (open source) to the other formats which were introduced by big companies such as Apple and Microsoft.

All are lossless and can be converted into one another as far as I know.

Thanks for that, etherbored. erwbol, can you let us know what the CD-R you burn from the "Total Eclipse" HD tracks sounds like please. If it's better than the Michael Addey CD then I might treat myself. When I connect my Sennheiser HD650 headphones to my iMac the 16-bit files sound practically the same as the original 24-bit/192kHz files, so previous remarks still apply. I will burn both the Addey rip and the Grundman 16-bit reduced files to CD-RW and compare on my modest system, but I'm no audiophile.

But you can only buy them if you're a US resident. A new sort of DVD region coding tailored to exclude all foreign elements from interesting releases.

If you are refering to the CD I bought that was lost in the mail, I got a refund from the seller. It wasn't Head Man, though, but someone else from the UK. On the HD Tracks Grundman remaster, volume levels are a tad higher than the original Blue Note CD, but I do not think it suffers from compression. It is more like the other audiophile releases of sixties Blue Note (XRCD24, SACD, etc.) in character. The mix is also different from the Malcolm Addey CD, so perhaps more like the LPs? I think I'll just buy a spindle of CD-Rs (it's been a while) and burn a copy of the Grundman reduced to 16 bit with Audacity.

I opened a bottle of Penfolds Thomas Hyland Shiraz 2011. Dinner is yet to be served, but I couldn't resist having a glass while cooking. I got it at a 35% discount due to the labels being all red from spilled wine. Usually I just go for the French or Italian wines.

Listening to the HD Tracks release and it is better than I remembered (certainly better than the FLAC rip of the McMaster on my computer). It must be my aversion to official downloads and collector's need for a physical object. Last month I ordered the McMaster after finding a not too ridiculously priced copy on eBay. Unfortunately that CD was lost in the mail. Listening to the Grundman remaster now, I realize I should never have ordered the McMaster in the first place. There's only a little tape hiss at the end of some tracks. Never comment on the sound quality of a release before listening again prior to posting. I am still curious about how TOCJ-8676 compares to the other releases, though.

¥5800 new.

I'm not qualified to judge if the highs have been boosted on the HD Tracks release. Perhaps I'm just too used to a truncated high end and it just needs some getting used to. The problem with TOCJ 8676 is that it's out of print and expensive (and can't be sampled illegally as a bit-torrent download).

There is a new 24-bit/192kHz FLAC remaster by Bernie Grundman available on HD Tracks which has too much (imo) high end and exposes tape hiss. I find it hard to listen to on headphones. The McMaster isn't perfect either.

Interesting. Do you have an opinion on how Bobby Hutcherson's Total Eclipse (TOCJ-8676) sounds? (Yet another reissue series, I believe.)

A pretty good album, my first from the BNLA series. I hope there are a few more gems to be discovered, but given the series' repuation I should probably thread carefully.

Just bought this for €8.95 on eBay. I was not aware of this record's existence and the list of tunes is pretty similar to the setlist from the concert I mentioned in post #3.

There's a Dave Holland bootleg (both DVD and Flac) out there from a 2003 European concert that's very good and has great replay value imo. Edit: it's Jazz Baltica, 2003-07-04.

CD 4

Willem-Alexander Dutch investiture: King's Song outcry Good for a laugh or a cringe, depending on where you stand and live. Quote from article: While the lyrics were based on words submitted by Dutch citizens, they were put together by four writers. Some critics complained about lines such as: "I build a dyke with my bare hands and keep the water away" and "through wind and rain I'll stand beside you... I'll keep you safe as long as I live"

So I signed up to a board of dilettantes in the hope of being fed a steady stream of expert information?