Returning to Music Matters 33 rpm series: GRANT GREEN Idle Moments, TINA BROOKS True Blue:

I think my position on the new Music Matters Blue Note series at 33 rpm has been pretty clear. These are the gold standard of Blue Note, and a significant step ahead from the (magnificent) 45 rpm series.

Quite bluntly, it seems to me that, despite the angst of a minority online who have chastised Music Matters for issuing titles that have previously been available on the Analogue Productions 45 rpm series (and the odd duck that Music Matters themselves issued at 45 rpm), Music Matters have done a real service to lovers of this incredible music by this select 33 rpm series. The sound is simply mind boggling.

Idle Moments was done at the AP 45 rpm series and screwed up by Hoffman. It sounds dull, muted, the timing is all off. Tempo Di Hoochie Koo, for whatever weird reason, Hoffman cut the top end, sucked out the upper mids, and completely messed up the inner timing. Music Matters get it right - more than right.

Just like the new MM Blue Train, this record just roars out of the speakers. It is immediately propulsive and powerful. The bass is strong and deep, but more importantly, has a sense of organic inner timing, of inner rhythm. Bobby Hutcherson is completely different than on the Hoffman incarnation - metallic, percussive, rich with overtones. Swinging, completely in the pocket. Joe Henderson's tone is deep, full of wood and spit. Green himself is just amazing - subtle, swinging, in a groove. This is hypnotic, dark, beautiful music that for once - maybe the first time since the original RVG (which it exceeds by a wide margin, by the way) this great music is presented as exactly what it was in the studio - a masterpiece of dark, understated, yet subversive 3 am soul.

Forget 45rpm, the Music Matters 33 rpm gets it right. My copy is a perfect pressing and worth every penny, it knocks the socks right off the Analogue Productions 45 rpm and costs $15 bucks less.

On to Tina Brooks - True Blue. If there ever was a national anthem of Blue Note, True Blue is it. The story of how Music Matters recreated the incredibly complex variations of the color blue on the front cover would be a book on it's own - the attention to detail in recreating this brilliant record, and the abandonment of any notion of cost efficiency in getting there, shows just how deep a love and commitment to Blue Note these fanatics have. This would be worth the $35 just for the cover, but on to the music.

Here, we have Music Matters own 45 rpm version to compare to. The first thing that hits me is the bass - the 45 sounds hollowed out, but on the new 33, it sound full, tuneful, and driving. Where on the 45, which in its own way sounds quite good, Tina's tone sounds like a weak Hank Mobley, here is sounds like it should - coming out of Bird, rich, urgent, insistent, swinging - and Freddie Hubbard no less so. While on the earlier MM Freddie, in comparison, was much less brash and brassy, here he is opened up and sounds huge, bright, right out front. As with the other Music Matters 33's, the soundstaging and complete disappearance of the room is astonishing - this just leaps right out in front, a massive three dimensional sound, so very alive that you can just reach out to the sound in front of you. You can literally see the ceiling on this record, and hear Freddie's wide open, big sound bouncing off.

Alfred Lion messed Tina Brooks around and never really gave him his due. He recorded Tina, and held stuff back to effectively starve him out and keep him out of the limelight. He was a problematic guy for sure, but so were half the artists on Blue Note, and Tina should have and could have been bigger than Hank Mobley.

Music Matters finally give Tina Brooks the tribute he is long overdue. This music has the street in it, and a joy that the previous Music Matters only hinted at. This is 'the' True Blue.

Rounding up some DSD - MOFI SACD, Japanese SHM-SACD, some recent SACD titles:

I never bought into SACD as a format, believing (correctly) that as a physical format it was going to be short lived, even as a niche, as it was inevitable that physical formats were on the way out. Besides, I have had an awesome redbook setup, and SACD, maybe due to the players themselves, just sounded to me like a CD with better bass and smoother, muffled highs.

However, having entered the hi-res arena full blast, I started to become interested in seeing what the DSD capablilities of my Chord DAC might be - and, with the assistance of a 'ripping partner', I started out by having every dual-layer SACD on hand ripped, extracting the DSD ISO file and converting them to .dsf files.

To some extent, now bypassing the physical limitations of a disc player, my opinion of SACD changed quite a bit.I generally prefer hi-res PCM - the higher the sampling rate, the better, and starting at 24/96 and moving up, PCM hi-res to me sounds more open and more transparent, and comparably DSD sounds ever so slightly veiled, or softer, or less three dimensional. But regardless, I am quite happy to have both, and enjoy direct DSD tremendously.

For sure, there is a fair bit of DSD I just consider to be a complete botch. I have the Analogue Productions John Coltrane - Standard Coltrane, for example, remastered by Steve Hoffman - and it is a complete botch job. Hoffman insisted on reducing gain by a whopping 6 dB on this one, digitally, and that is a whopping amount of resolution chopped off, completely defeating the purpose of higher resolution audio. He did it so his acolytes will all swoon, chanting about how 'dynamic' it is and how 'smooth' it is - because he has taught them that anything louder than a whisper 'fatigues' the ear and is a result of that nasty 'compression'. Stupid.

Similarly, Hoffman's Blue Note titles for Analogue Productions were digitally volume reduced also, by 2 to 4dB in most cases. Again here, that is shaving off resolution in favor of some artificial notion of 'smooth' - and in extreme cases, like Jimmy Smith's Back At The Chicken Shack, the cut is so severe that it renders the music at the level of a bad CD (truth is, on the AP Blue Notes, the CD layer sounds better than the SACD layer). For Blue Note, avoid these like the plague and get the 24/192 PCM if available - they sound hugely better, even though I am not completely convinced that Bernie Grundman's studio has the best 24/192 mastering chain.

When AP got rid of Hoffman, sound quality went up dramatically. There were mis-steps - the original mastering of Cat Stevens' Tea For The Tillerman, by Kevin Grey, was rejected by AP as too 'bright' (another convenient tag for Hoffmanites) and it was then done by the late George Marino, and although very good, it does have that 'audiophile' tinkering to mute the top end and punch up the bottom-mids.

Marino's DSD of titles from the Verve catalog apparently derive from 20 bit PCM, which is very strange, but they sound very, very good. Even better are Grey's remasterings from the Prestige catalog. The choices of titles are for the most part either bland (Verve) or downright weird (Prestige), indicating that Chad really doesn't know this music very well. But there are gems - Tommy Flanagan's Overseas is a major classic, if not generally well known.

The king of DSD right now must be Mobile Fidelity.  A few titles are lame - Chicago VI?? Doobie Brothers? But the Sinatra series has been sublime, and the sound is exceptional. I was never big on Sinatra - I was more a King Crimson type myself. Great sound can be a door opener to new discoveries, though, and my appreciation of Sinatra increases by leaps and bounds through the MOFI series.

Better yet, and more in line with my taste - Carole King's Tapestry on MOFI is downright amazing in the DSD incarnation. Superbly organic, natural sound with not the slightest hint of digital. A model of how good hi-res can be.

Even more where I come from - the Miles Davis MOFI remasterings. Awesome! Tonally, these are just so golden, burnished - the tone of Miles and Coltrane so filled with copper and brass, alive. Absolutely the best these have ever sounded - particularly Round About Midnight, which sounds like the curtain has been pulled back, with a wide plank wood floor, and the band playing trough the roof. Milestones is just as good. In A Silent Way is somewhat less of a revelation, but still superior, and the ugly edit on the first track is proof of the analog provenance! The Japanese SACD remasterings are excellent all around, but these have a tonal edge that surpasses them. Bring on more!

On MOFI as well - The Pixies, the last title released being Trompe Le Monde, and this is simply a fantastic remastering - it loses none of the power of the original, but has a greater tonal range and presence. And it is a fantastic record. If you have not discovered The Pixies yet, you have been missing one of the greatest bands of the 20th century.

The Billy Joel MOFI are somewhat less spectacular. They are solidly good, but have a slightly 'soft' sound overall, lacking some element of 'punch' or 'rock' to them. Very good, but not mind blowing - although far better than the 24/96 transfers starting to appear, which are needlessly compressed.

If there is another series strongly worth acquiring, it is the Japanese SHM-SACD series that was revived late last fall. The SHM part is meaningless to me as I rip the discs and play the DSD directly. The Cram - Disraeli Gears easily supersedes the earlier Mobile Fidelity gold CD. It is remarkably clear, dynamic, and powerful. There is not the sense of bloat present on the MOFI, and it sounds far better than original pressings - particularly the rather dull sounding original U.S. Atco pressings. Ditto, by the way, on the Japanese Wheels Of Fire of a few years ago, which easily surpasses the early DCC which had excessive tape hiss. The Supertramp Breakfast In America is very close, but somewhat better than the 24/96 available on a recent Blu-Ray Audio disc. I prefer the Caravan In The Land Of Grey And Pink (a favorite band and album of mine) to the Steven Wilson remix of a acouple of years ago. The recent Sex Pistols titles, particularly Rock & Roll Swindle, are a revelation.

There has been no temptation to make the Japanese SHM-SACDs sound 'audiophile' or to cater to the American audiophile demographic. They are generally exquisite flat transfers from original tapes. There are misses. Rainbow Rising is ear bleedingly atrocious. But The Police - Regatta De Blanc easily sounds much better and alive than earlier SACD incarnations, and there are great titles to come. 

Led Zeppelin and the Future of Hi-Res Audio Downloads:

You heard it here first.

Have you noticed lately that the stream of titles appearing on HD Tracks has been declining?

It isn't just because they screwed up their business by creating the most backward, customer unfriendly website, which they did. It is almost impossible to find new releases, other than the 'featured' titles on their home page. The search function is absolutely inept.

No, despite HD Tracks committing hare-kiri by  web design incompetence, it is much more than that. Warners catalog isn't being added to, those great Atlantic Soul and Jazz titles. Blue Note, despite their anniversary year, has slowed to a trickle. And so on. I just don't find much to buy at HD Tracks anymore - and I was a big customer.

Here's why.

In two months or so - beginning of June - the first three Led Zeppelin remasters will be available. They are essentially available on iTunes in low-res form already.

For several years, Apple have been insisting that labels provide files for iTunes in 24 bit format - preferably 96k or 192k sampling rate. So they have undeniably the biggest catalog of hi-res audio in the world.

And the Led Zeppelin remasters in high resolution will be the kick off event - to coincide with Led Zep in hi-res, Apple will flip the switch and launch their hi-res store via iTunes - and apparently, it will be priced a buck above the typical current file prices.

That's right - Apple will launch hi-res iTunes in two months.

And at that point, you can say goodbye to HD Tracks, Acoustic Sounds Hi-Res store, and ProStudioMasters, and probably all the other hi-res audio online stores. Apple will kill them, straight out of the box.

I'm not sure I feel good about Apple entering hi-res - I hate monopolies, and I sure am not an Apple fan overall. The reason labels will instantly migrate to Apple, despite business practices that are...well...not exactly consumer friendly, is that it is virtually certain there will be watermarking involved. That SHOULD be a deal breaker - for music fans at least - but the reality is, labels will hungrily embrace it.

But it is what it is. Apple is going hi-res, and will dominate the market, squeezing out everyone else. In some ways, HD Tracks did themselves in by their inept new website - but really, they never stood a chance. Chad and Acoustic Sounds entered in with a big splash, claiming they were going to be different - but the fact is, they were not, offering a lot of the same stuff everyone else does at the same prices, and also offering the DSD files of their own label productions - many of which, in particular the Blue Note titles remastered by Hoffman, are unexceptional sounding. (Side note - in remastering those Blue Note titles for SACD, Hoffman demanded that the volume level be reduced by at least 2dB - in some cases up to 4dB. Digitally reducing gain is done at the expense of resolution - digital gain reduction shaves off resolution, and in the case of the Blue Notes, they sound pretty dull as a result - in fact, the CD layer sounds better.)

More Hi-Res downloads - HD Tracks, Qobuz, Highresaudio, E-onkyo:

Been playing around with more digital than vinyl lately, mostly hi-res downloads since I bought that great Chord QuteDAC. Many conclusions forming, or at least hypotheses and feelings. I have, through a variety of means, built up a library of over 2,200 hi-res recordings - about half 24bit PCM files, and half DSD rips from SACD.

My first is that hi-res digital 'direct' easily supplants redbook CD. And SACD for that matter. Easily, no matter the sample rate - 88.1 at 24 bit being pretty much the start of true high resolution. I am not yet certain that 192kHz sampling really offers tangible benefits, but my feeling at this stage is - I have no idea what the future will bring, so I might as well get the highest available. An early hypothesis is that equipment will need to play major catchup to get everything out of very high resolution downloaded files. Another is that tubes may ultimately prove unsuitable for true high resolution and that this may be where tube equipment for many hits a brick wall. It just might be that the majority of output tubes are going to find that their bandwidth limit defeats much of what hi-res is all about, although I am sure that many - maybe even yours truly - will continue to use tube equipment for the tonal advantages (and those who use tube equipment as filters will probably continue to be fooled into carrying on with that).

Unlike SACD, which was DOA as anything other than a rather tiny niche, every piece of digital equipment sold today has hi-res USB capability at some level, and  it is inevitable that every audiophile and pretty much everyone else will at some point in the near future hook up a USB cable to their laptop and see what it's all about.

My last feeling is that next year, we will see hi-res downloads really come into their own and just as I am now, in the last 6 months, seeing that virtually every classical release of even minor merit is available at hi-res, and pretty much every other release of significance, as well as a healthy and increasingly frequent reissue program. What I figure we will see is hi-res killing the classical CD market first, just as the advent of CD hit classical in a big way first. Virtually all the interesting labels doing classical releases in 192k, I am now totally out of the physical classical market. Then we will see majors and more significant indies making a hi-res release standard, and it will take some time before the rock and alternative indies get there - as they pretty much record at 16 bit still, and will for some time.

Some think that the relatively high price of a typical hi-res download is prohibitive. Each has their own notion of relative value, but what the negative types don't understand that for every downloaded  recording purchased, likely three or 4 on average are distributed from that without payment. Until that can be solved without sonic degradation, prices will stay somewhat high - but really, getting a 192kHz file for $22 to $25 with zero sonic degradation due to some copy protection regime is in my opinion very good value.

The Chord has broken in now and is superb in every way. I started using  a Cardas USB cable and I really am uncertain if it is sonically any better than the $10 one I had laying around, but it does offer some psychological benefit, and I didn't pay too much for it as I don't order from list price big box sellers like Music Direct. I switched during the summer to a high end Oyaide USB and I think it offers a good level of sonic improvement. Even Acoustic Sounds is now selling the Chord, it is a real stunning piece and the technology is not the off-the-shelf type stuff in most of the DAC's touted as high-end these days.

The next leap will without a doubt be true high end audio computers or servers with e-Sata or even Thunderbolt  connection for a high quality, solid state hard drive.  For the most part, computer audio will kill much of the tweak market and will have a major hit on the cable market.

On to some downloads I have been listening to lately.


Just last week, Hiresaudio started rolling out some classic titles from the Decca and Deram catalogs. I picked up the 24/96 Caravan - If I Could Do It All Over Again and my first impression was good, but a bit 'muffled', and that may be so, but repeated listening brings me to the conclusion that this is a very old tape, not the best, but there are places where the 24/96 really shines and brings out fantastic tonal aspects, if not a much greater level of detail. That the master tape is not the best is confirmed by listening to The End - Introspection, a Bill Wyman produced underground psych classic, which sounds amazing, as does another piece of psychedelia - The World Of Oz - which actually had a hit single back in the day - and although ever so slightly dated in places, it is a wonderful artifact full of vibrancy, and sounds fantastic. Savoy Brown had a good string of records on Decca and Blue Matter may be the best, good choice, outstanding 24/96 mastering, sounds like not a hint of compression, very clear and detailed, the grunginess really comes through. I hope there are lots more from Deram/Decca in the pipeline.

E-Onkyo has rolled out a big CTI reissue program, and I just LOVE CTI. I grew up on this stuff, and these are all fresh King Records remasterings from analog tape, and interestingly, they have been given both 24/192 AND DSD remasterings - not conversions, separate remasterings (or more likely separate feeds from the tape deck). They may be considered expensive by some at 3000 yen apiece, but you just can't put a price on this phenomenal material, undeniably so well done, if you want t commoditize music, buy MP3's on Amazon. These transfers shows the true potential of 24/192 taken from analog with top quality remastering. They are tonally just amazingly lifelike, the sound explodes just so three dimensionally and lives completely outside the speakers - the rhythm and pulse is alive down to the floorboards - and the dynamics are thrilling. These were, regardless of what one may think of mid-70's jazz, outstanding RVG recordings - absolutely state of the art analog.

Part of the CTI formula - a big part - was Ron Carter's bass. So get a massive bass sound on vinyl Creed Taylor would keep side lengths relatively short so RVG could cut deep, wide bass grooves. On these transfers, you can now hear just how well RVG caught Carter and the bass is huge, pulsing, tight. On Freddie Hubbard's Red Clay, the dual horn front line is vibrantly clear, delineated, and powerful. Hubbard is rich and detailed, and Joe Henderson's tone is beautiful and rich. Hancock has a natural Fender Rhodes sound, and the high end is crisply clean. The dimensionality is astonishing.

A nice thing about this series - and I am hoping this is just round one - is bringing back some gems that are not necessarily the most popular CTI titles but are the most interesting artistically. Joe Farrell is one - Outback is one of my all time favorite CTI titles, hell, one of my favorite records period. Elvin Jones! The amazing Buster Williams! Chick Corea! and Farrell himself - tenor, soprano, flute. What an amazing band, and what a phenomenal straight ahead jazz record. And it sounds freakin' amazing. Farrell's Penny Arcade of a few years later is further along the CTI evolution towards a more poppish, even disco-ish sound, but at this point although funkier,it has more rock elements - Joe Beck on guitar, the beat is more rock, so this is much more a fusion record and much more of its time, but a great record on its own merits as Farrell is on fire, the long solos are terrific, the band is red-hot and the sound is again phenomenal. Heading in a more popular drction, George Benson's God King Bad is right before Breezin, and it seems to me that Benson was uncomfortable in where Taylor was taking him. These are very poppish, almost dance floor tunes, and although the musicianship is very high, the tunes themselves are sometimes slight, and Benson plays much harder than usual, comping with a very jagged tone. The sound is not up to the rest of the series, probably what the master sunds like, but certainly still a significant upgrade, and although I like the record being a different side of Benson - it ain't no Breezin, and sure isn't a White Rabbit or Body Talk. A welcome return for Ron Carter's Spanish Blue, featuring Hubert Laws - whose flute on this transfer has so much richness, so much micro-tonality, it just is a showcase for what real hi-res audio can bring to the table. Carter again is massive, and Roland Hanna is a real treat to hear like this. An under-rated gem, this one. Stanley Turrentne's Cherry is interesting - along with Sugar it is usually considered the best of Turrentine's CTI period, which is where he really blossomed into a great jazz tenor - and even though Salt Song and Don't Mess With Mr. T are my favorites, Cherry has much going for it - not the least the presence of Milt Jackson. Sony in the U.S. issued a 24/96 transfer of Sugar this year, and it is very good - but nowhere near as good as the King 24/192 transfer of Cherry. That in itself is interesting.

I picked up a few of the E-Onkyo CTI in DSD. Hubert Laws Rite Of Spring, Jackie & Roy's amazing Time and Love, Don Sebesky's Giant Box, Randy Weston's Blue Moses. Of these, the Laws and Jackie & Roy are essential. The sound is again exceptional, particularly the Jackie & Roy, but the comparison to 24/192 is fascinating, one of the rare opportunities to compare DSD and 24/192 directly in a series of high quality transfers, and I have to conclude that (as has been generally my finding over the past year) that I prefer 24/192 by a significant margin. There is nothing wrong with the DSD sound on its own. Just compared to 24/192, it seems to be a bit more relaxed, a bit more smoother, and bit indistinct on top, and overall, I can see why some people might prefer it. But it hasn't got the dimensionality and impact, the three-dimensional, breathing outside the box feeling of 24/192, and although it easily gets tone right, it just misses on the dimensionality and realism of good 24/192.

The CTI series from E-Onkyo is one of the most compelling reasons yet to get into hi-res audio. I hope much more is to come. Its a harbinger of what hi-res can and will be.

HD Tracks have recently proven just how badly a screwed up website redesign can hurt business, The new site is a confused mess, leading me to believe it could not possibly have been tested with customers prior to launch. Always do consumer testing on a website redesign. It will cost you money to test it. It will cost you a lot more not to.

I suppose the biggest release on HD Tracks recently as been a new 24/192 transfer of Miles Davis Kind Of Blue. I have Kind Of Blue coming out my ears, and really, I need another KOB like I need a hole in the head, but I have to admit, this hi-res transfer - a remix from the original multitracks - is worth every penny, particularly the stereo version. The bass is huge, maybe a bit too much so, yet it walks all over the floor - bone crushing tonality. Miles is pure, his bright, pinched tone, almost speech like, so totally real and suspended ethereally in space. Coltrane has the warm, rich metallic tone so filled with harmonics that so rarely gets reproduced right - and Bill Evans has a fantastic,light percussive touch. The transfer rocks, its a beauty, and makes my Japanese SACD rip sound weak and two dimensional. Phenomenal work, and essential. Actually is a case where even my cherished Classic Records vinyl is eclipsed. The mono - I know, mono is one of those cool fashion cult affectations for audiophiles these days - is tonally just as good as the stereo, but being mono, has nowhere near the dimensionality, the spaciousness, the panoramic soundscape of the stereo. Seems to me that this notion bandied about on some online forums that mono is 'punchier' is just another slogan, or attempt to create some new collectability category for folks (like me) prone to being collectors - of course a single channel is going to be 'punchier', whatever that means. Its all crammed up into one. I often like mono, but the fact is, stereo took over for a very good reason - the realism and dimensionality, the separation, the sense of the room - just cannot be beat, and the sacrifice in these areas in favor of some dubious notion of 'punchiness' is to me simply not a valid tradeoff. There are always exceptions, but this KOB shows that stereo rules. This is an amazing release in hi-res, and essential - superbly well done. I know, some wankers are complaining that it is a remix - bullshit, this is a new mix from the original three tracks tapes rather than an aged, over-used master tape (that is in fact no longer playable), and that is a good thing - the proof is in the listening, and that is superb. Throw out the dogmatic preconceptions.

There are other worthwhile releases to quickly note on HD Tracks - the Van Morrison stuff is good, but I felt that it could have used a good mastering as opposed to a straight flat transfer, the Joni Mitchell material has been getting better and better as the series rolls out - Miles And Aisles is flat out astonishing and sounds like a whole new record it is so warmly rich and lifelike analog in sound. Court and Spark is similarly warm and alive, Hissing of Summer Lawns has never sounded so good - and so on. The Yes series has a lot of high spots - The Yes Album is amazing, so is Relayer. The early ones are big improvements, particularly Time and a Word, which is a great album. Anything on ECM will sound fabulous. The Everest classical transfers are not as good as the Classic Records DVD-A series, but are still worthwhile - the Copland, for example. Approach with caution, though, as many of the performances are not of 'classic' standard. The Pearl Jam titles are a missed opportunity and too compressed to be definitive, a shame as they are analog recordings. One day Pearl Jam will be done right in hi-res, wait for that. The Clash also have compression applied, but not nearly as heavily as the Pearl Jam, and are excellent sounding - detailed and alive, rocking like crazy.

The Grateful Dead studio albums collection at 24/192 is essential, and yes, I do find a worthwhile sonic difference from the 24/96, which I had first. The Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks series is rolling out at 24/192 and is drop dead amazing, a voice with the range of Ella simply cries out for 192k extension.

SubPop have a number of titles on HD Tracks, and while I welcome more and more new/indie hi-res, these are pretty much all compressed at the mastering stage - mastering done obviously in hi-res - and it seems labels have not yet realized that this is not acceptable in the high resolution format. Avoid. I am not dogmatically allergic to compression, but these are too extreme. A fabulous album like the new MGMT is demolished in hi-res. So is the latest Tame Impala. Stick to vinyl as the preferred format for new releases.

An exception is Dream Theater, which have pretty much their entire Roadrunner catalog at 24/96 - and this stuff is awesome, the kind of sound you really need to wear diapers for - you'll wet yourself, massive dynamic sound, another example of where hi-res can really shine. If Opeth used hi-res in recording, it would make my 2014 to see THAT band in hi-res! 

There hasn't been much of anything worthwhile from Bee Jazz in 2013, I hope that changes in 2014. Yet Qobuz remains a source rich with the jazz that is still quite regularly recorded in France, by fabulous talents that came through the fusion era with a nod back to the 60's, and there is a lot of fantastic modern jazz around France. Aside from the rich mine of BeeJazz titles on Qobuz - nearly all incredible, diverse, unique and even visionary. Best label in jazz today. Superb recordings. Some interesting artists operating in France - tenor Eli Digibri, drummer Stephane Huchard leading a Rhodes driven quintet, tenor Vincent Mondy's quartet, baritone Jean Philippe Scali, bass clarinet Thomas Savy, soprano Vincent Jourde - so many others. Adventurous, yet coming from the history - particularly the mid 60's to mid 70's.

For more straight ahead, modern jazz - on HD Tracks get anything by Smalls Records you can - excellent recordings and the cream of today's crop, Joel Frahm, Alex Sipiagin, Ralph LaLama, Dezron Douglas, David Schittner - all of these are wonderful hard bop albums 'in the tradition' of advanced bebop playing.

I should also point out that there is a fantastic series of 24/96 downloads available on Peter Gabriel's website - every show from his current tour is coming up to download shortly after the show, in terrific sound, and these shows are direct hi-res recordings mixed on the spot, the shows as they were heard that night - flaws, hits, misses - everything. I have three so far and all are excellent.

Next time, I may kick around the hi-res classical scene more deeply.

Some of my favorite new records of 2013:

 Despite my dislike of annual "best of the year" lists, here is a roundup of a few of the records - new releases only - that really grabbed me in 2013.

Starting with Frightened Rabbit's Pedestrian Verse, this record is light years ahead of their previous work. Tight, pop, somewhat psych, very contemporary, yet could easily have been released in 1967. Fabulously crafted songs, utterly catchy and thoroughly enchanting. A piece of sheeer magic, not to be missed. The vinyl sounds very good and is a decent pressing, and I just love the cover art.

Mudhoney never disppoint, yet this is their best record in a decade. A very hard rock record, vaguely garage-ish, rough, jagged, distorted at times, aggressive, yet somehow very soulful, this is a band that has acquired over time a certain vintage patina to their music, and seem with Vanishing Point to have hit a mid-period where, having nothing to prove, they are able to hit a level of both maturity and reinvigoration. A dirty rock record, an abrasive one, a dangerous one. A great record, and sounds excellent on vinyl.

Eleanor Friedberger's second record (sort of) is another step forward. Yes, the songwriting is more personal, but the songs are just so well crafted and performed, and nothing like the (to me) rather boring Fiery Furnaces. Hooks are all over here, the vibe is very 70's-ish, quite upbeat, reminding me of mid 70's artists like Libby Titus and Frannie Golde, not to mention Laura Nyro - or even late 60's Deram factory psych pop groups. Not a singer songwriter record at all, thankfully - a fully formed pop-rock record, and a great one at that.

The new MGMT LP is s stone masterpiece. Right away this is cosmic in scope and psychedelic straight through, and reminds me a lot of T.Rex in a way. This record is just outright a blast, and a huge amount of fun. Nothing here is a throwaway, the lyrics are superb, the music is amazing. The vinyl sounds best in any format, even the 24/96 download is very loud and compressed, whereas the vinyl is done with a much lighter hand. Probably the best record I have heard in 2013. Totally recommended and a big five doobies to this one.

Monster Magnet's Last Patrol took me awhile to get into - it is not as immediately catchy as their last record. It revels itself with repeated listening as a great record. Somewhat more low-key and much darker that their last, and more expansive in scope. This one may take awhile to get into, but well worth the effort - in the end, it is probably their best record yet.Very nice package and pressing, nicely spread onto 2 LPs. Recommended. A trip.

Roy Harper returns, immediately followed by charges for child sex allegations dating back 40 years. Putting aside my feelings both about abuse of minors and about bringing charges 40 years after the fact - it is a welcome return for one of the greatest songwriters in history. I put Harper up with any great songwriter, and had he not been so cantankerous and had been given better record company support, he could easily have been on a par with Dylan. On Man & Myth, despite a horrendous cover, Harper shows no signs of age dimming his creative powers, and these are songs that stand up to his best work, in fact are his best work since the late 70's, long songs, lyrically potent, and superb backup. Good vinyl pressing. A great record, which could very well be his last.

Reflector by Arcade Fire may not be as appealing to long time fans, but I think it is a great album. Wider ranging and harder hitting, the songs are tightly expansive. The band has matured and seems less conciously 'arty' and more 'rock'.

Pelican return with Forever Becoming. It may not be much of a departure from previous work, but continues the kaliedoscopic space-metal, guitars to the front, and is a stoner essential. Without anything coming from Hydra Head in 2013 sadly, and Southern Lords and Relapse having not too much of interest this year, Pelican returning - on Southern Lords - with a decent pressing and the usual high standards Southern Lords maintains in the cover department, this is very welcome.

Finally, another candidate for record of the year on my turntable - Wooden Shjips - Back To Land - with an amazing die-cut cover reminiscent of Led Zep III - another giant step for what was a delightful indie band that just took a leap into being a major band. Wooden Shjips have evolved over the past few years from a pretty one-dimensional stoner pop band, to a quirky band missing the final ingredient, to what we have here - a classic. Now, Wooden Shjips have not abandoned their stoner roots - they still basically play the same song. But the songs are far better crafted, much better played, have subtelty where before everything was pretty much on the surface, and have a much wider range - it sounds, for lack of a more appropriate term, to have been more 'produced' and for the better. Mystical boogie psch vibe, wonderful sound (analog recording all the way), good pressing - what more do you want? Totally recommended, and totally five doobies for this!

Miles Davis on Mobile Fidelity - Three To Review - Round About Midnight, Milestones, In A Slient Way:

Seems like a good time, with the recent announcement by MOFI of a bunch more prime Miles Davis titles, to take a look at a few that have come on the market this year.

Let me say from the outset that I have these also on SACD, and have ripped the DSD ISO's to my hard drive, and digitally - at least in DSD - these are outstanding remasters. For the most part, the DSD of these titles exceeds the earlier Japanese SACD sonically. I am less certain that the Japanese SACD's of later titles like Jack Johnson and Filles De Kilimanjaro will do so also, but that remains to be seen.

The vinyl MOFI incarnations are sonically a different animal. MOFI have struggled at times with vinyl - and overall, I would not say their vinyl mastering is on the same level as their digital, although it has improved dramatically over the past 2 years. Perhaps the limiting factor is half-speed mastering, which I generally have found to produce a bass deficit.

Listening to Milestones (here in stereo) I have to say the sound is remarkable. There is an openness, a three dimensional quality - and tonality MOFI just gets SO right. Miles is creamy, but then bites and spits, the edges on his notes, particularly when he pinches a note of hits a curt staccato note, are presented with all the nuance the master tape possesses. Miles never had a big tone, and he was never the storming player that Hubbard was, or Dizzy, or even Morgan. Miles was subtle, and used space and an economic note choice to great effect, and like many great players of that era, was brought up on tone as the attribute to strive for, and to finish every note - attributes that have largely been lost today. This is what made Miles a great player, and a great reissue like this reminds me of that and drives it home - it has subtlety, nuance, and a kaleidoscope of tone. MOFI gets Coltrane's 'sound', his unique tone, so completely, and no other issue of this music has ever had that 'sound' so exactly as it was in the studio. Coltrane's tone will never be heard more true than it is on these reissues.

In a way, Round About Midnight has that Coltrane tone even more realistic. I never cared for the title cut, but I 'get' it now, which I suppose is what a good reissue should do - give cause for re-evaluation. Again here, the range of tonal colour is astonishing, and sonically what has been a 'dark' record now becomes a much clearer, more light - infused affair, to the better. Garland sounds nothing like he does on his many Prestige appearances - where on Prestige he sounds like a barrel house lounge player, here he shimmers with a light touch, beautiful. Way better than the (very good) Speakers Corner. Pressing is a late 2012/early 2013 one - RTI went through a rough patch there with a bad batch of vinyl they had to work through, and the pressing visually isn't a pretty sight, but cleaned with my usual new LP method - Nitty Gritty FirstRV - it comes up great.

Now on to In A Silent Way, a very different recording, being both later and heavily spliced together. It is another absolute classic. This is the birth of fusion, and even could be considered the birth of ambient. Obviously the analog master - an ugly splice remains intact, which surely would have been cleaned up if the mastering went digital at any point. The record was intended to be listened to at a quiet level, so that is how I approached it - and even at a relatively modest level, the remastering is rich and subtle, with a deep low end. The pressing is superb. This is a model reissue, exceeding my original and my Japanese pressings by a significant margin. It's all about getting closer to the music, and this one is another case of bringing a fresh perspective - it is interesting how rich Zawinul's organ is, contrasted with Hancock's almost funky comping, Miles floats above ethereal and piercing, Holland brings it back to ground. Masterpiece - highly recommended!

A note on MOFI remastering. As opposed to Analogue Productions and just about anyone else in the reissue game, MOFI does a distinct, unique mastering for both vinyl and digital - in other words, as opposed to, say, AP - who run a feed from the mastering console to both the vinyl cutting head and the digital recorder simultaneously, MOFI remastering for vinyl is done separately, by (typically) a different person. So this is one of the rare cases where the vinyl will, and does, sound different from the digital. It is interesting to have both.

A couple of new releases - Miles Davis E.S.P. on Impex, John Coltrane With The Red Garland Trio on Analogue Productions:

A couple of new vinyl reissues - 33 rpm - appeared in my mailbox this week courtesy of Fedex.

I have been looking forward to the Impex reissue of Miles Davis "E.S.P.", his first recording with his classic 60's quintet (Shorter, Hancock, Carter, Williams) - the finest group he ever led. ESP is maybe the 'purest' record that quintet ever made (although arguably Nefertitti might be) and is s tone masterpiece. I have always had reservations about Columbia's mid 60's recordings, I sometimes found them to be slightly thin, and dry, there always seemed to be just that last bit of harmonic richness, or truth, missing. I was interested to see what Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Studios could make of these master tapes.

And as it turns out, it is somewhat of a minor revelation. Miles spits and shouts, his pinched, speech like tone bursting forward. Shorter is richly metallic, and both horns are realistically out front, with lots of space around them. Hancock is superb, crisp chromatic runs, tight percussive comping. Tony Williams is somewhat of a revelation, not only his wonderful cymbal work, but listen to the drum solo opening Side 2 - a bottom end to his bass drum bombs that has never been present before, and a huge, wide drum kit sound almost orchestral. Ron Carter's bass is very solid and deep, maybe a bit too much of a good thing, but then again, previous issues of ESP have never had Carter's bass so solid and deep.

Highly, completely recommended. This is THE prime Miles period, and more can only be hoped for - although MOFI is apparently doing the rest of the 60's Miles titles in 2014 (or whenever, as usual, they seems to be announced eons before they get released).

On to the John Coltrane With The Red Garland Trio on Analogue Productions. A good, solid 200g pressing at 33 rpm - all good so far. They use the original Prestige cover - very good move, the one more commonly associated with this title is nowhere near as interesting or evocative of the period.

The record is a classic, the first really good record Coltrane did, and in my opinion a better record than the more popular Prestige Soultrane.

For the most part, the Analogue Productions Prestige series, beset by multiple delays (Analogue Productions seem to like to announce release dates, take preorders, and at the last minute move the release date - often multiple times, a game I find unprofessional) and the titles have been, with a few exceptions, very uninteresting.

This one, though, is a classic deserving of a new look.

The sound is very full and solid, tonality is excellent. As seems to be the norm for AP, the high end is a bit muted, or softened by EQ, and so this misses the highest level of realism - it seems to be playing to that segment of audiophiles who recoil from realistic cymbal work in particular. But fortunately, not nearly as much as Hoffman did with the AP Blue Notes, so there is still plenty of high end shimmer. The Prestige recordings were, as a whole, blowing sessions, recorded very up front with not a whole lot of subtlety (as opposed to Blue Note RVG recordings) and this is what you will find here - a big sound, very up front, hard blowing - solid. A very good reissue, probably better than an original, certainly better than any reissue. Very welcome - a great title in the Analogue Productions series.