Miles Davis Kind of Blue best sounding !?

You very nicely summed up Kind of Blue, in my experience as well. Are there warts, sure, are they a distraction not for me.

The DSOTM allure I get as most were exposed to it at an early stage in our audio journey in an altered state. I’ll never forget my first listen to DSOTM at a friend’s house on his father’s tube stereo, not sure what it was, McIntosh possibly. At times we return to the music of our youth for various reasons. My one guilty pleasure to this day is Supertramp’s Crime of The Century. I have a love hate relationship with it, and can no longer listen to it straight through, both sides.

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DSOTM and Crime of the Century are two stellar albums…and albums I listen far more often than “Kind of Blue”. Of course, I am a bigger fan of late 60’s and early 70’s classic and prog rock than I am of jazz…

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I’ve had a copy of MoFi’s Crime of the Century LP ever since it was issued in the '70s, and I still enjoy it for both the music and the sound (after all these years it remains one of the best-sounding non-classical recordings I have). But as much as I like it, I can’t seem to muster similar musical enthusiasm for the group’s other albums, even the ones most people talk about as being “just as good” as CotC, namely Breakfast in America and Even in the Quietest Moments.

Sometimes I think we’re inclined to be open to certain works of art because of the times and our personal circumstances, and as we move on with our lives we still cherish those works, but have no interest in other contemporary works that for whatever reason we just hadn’t explored at that time. Though I’ll add that in my own case, Breakfast suffered from vastly too much radio play for me to want to listen to it on record. Kind of like Dave Matthews. :wink:

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I could not have said it better, yes a fine sounding LP for its day, but more than likely overplaying it when I first purchased it has warn my enthusiasm for it.

Breakfast in America is another album I love to listen to do.

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https://forum.psaudio.com/t/miles-davis-top-10-favorite-albums/28842))

Thanks for sharing. A don’t think I’ve even seen a few of these until now.

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High Definition Tape Transfers just released this.
Unfortunately there are no details about the provenance of it.

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I’m getting it. I enjoy my other HDTT 256 files so this is a must for me! Btw the price is $26 for the downloads not $8.99

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The $8.99 version is for the “budget compact disc” version that does not even contain a jewel box. The “corrected pitch”, according to a review, is NOT corrected in this version. I currently have (and only have) the corrected pitch version, so will want to hear the difference in pitch. The resolution is, according to a review, the best digital version they have heard.

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As inferior as the others…as they say it’s a DSD copy of a tape copy of the 2 track master. 4 generations off the Grundman mastered LP (live from 3 track)

I don’t understand people buying those HDTT releases.

You would if you actually listened to one.

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I did as mentioned further above.

Edit: sorry, I mentioned the one I heard in the HDTT thread, not here.

I’ll trust your view of Kind of Blue, but you NEED to get a download of Ben Webster Live in Copenhagen. Your speakers and walls will completely disappear, and you might have the illusion of Ben Webster actually being in your room, depending on your speakers/system/setup.

Nice! I don’t doubt he might have several great tapes. I just think no one of a well known artist will be better than a 3rd gen copy of a master, more often worse. Means the chance that it’s better than a good LP remaster of the same is low imo. But some recordings are so good, that such copies still sound fascinating.

It’s somehow interesting that in times of strongly demanded transparency and doubt if original masters were used, albums are popular, where it’s documented that the DSD files were produced from several generations down of what’s otherwise favored.

For what its worth/FYI:

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Thanks, I begin to understand why people buy this, although there are SACD’s from much earlier generation tapes. It must be because, as the producer and the reviewer notes, those transfers are done tape direct to DSD, without the DXD step inbetween, Paul calls acoustically invisible. It seems the folks buying the HDTT releases don’t believe it’s a transparent step or heard so.

The producer seems to have a better and a worse ADC he’s using and I strongly doubt it’s anywhere close the equipment those famous engineers use when making some other releases of those recordings from an earlier generation.

Maybe I’ll buy this release to be able to not only talk about it theoretically. I’m still not convinced at all why those transfers in average should be on the level of others to be honest.

Interesting also, that the reviewer solely listens over headphones. Means, he’s focused on quite different things than speaker listeners and misses all the aspects perceived over speakers only.

Without having heard it yet, my impression is, people are attracted by the term “tape”, “DSD256” and the direct, non DXD processed transfer…the source seems secondary…really strange. Without having heard it, I don’t say it might not sound similar or different in a matter of taste way than DXD processed media from better sources, but if this would be true, DSD mastering over DXD has a real problem.

As I hate to talk theoretically if it’s possible to do the comparison, I saw I could download a KOB test track from them.

I hope you appreciate a honest feedback, which only on the one hand is as expected by me and better elsewise.

I compared the HDTT to all my other digital releases. It has a more softened and lacking top end information than all of them, but on the other hand it has a clearly nicer, more in the room Sax tone of Coltrane, also than the Mofi SACD. Not sure when to prefer the Mofi or the HDTT, but to my surprise it at least for a part of characteristics is a leading digital version. The Mulligan HDTT was clearly awful in comparison.

When compared to the LP’s it’s worse all over than all the AAA Grundman, Kevin Gray releases and certainly also the Absolute Analogue release (all stereo). The mono Ryan K Smith is also better but…mono.

By chance today I got the UHQR 45 RPM. The difference towards the single sided 45RPM Classic Records is very small. A tiny bit better defined bass and a hint of more treble definition, on the other hand the sax tone of the Classic maybe a bit more enveloping….too small to talk about, both gorgeous and extremely similar.

Side note:
Side 1 and 4 of UHQR and Classic have different lengths of the playable groove sections…how this is possible from the same metal work has to be explained…possibly Classic handed over two different metals for those sides, or a different one than they used for their cut to Chad.

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No need to try and convince me, one way or another. I only have one (gasp!) copy of KOB and its a run of the mill CD and I don’t have any idea who its parents were (provenance?). :slight_smile:

I just posted the link to the review for those that it might be of interest to

I gather the HDTT does have some merit based on your sampling/review.

Cheers.

A little earlier I got a link from HDTT to re-download the files. They claim to have corrected the speed issue with the first three tracks, doing the processing in DXD format. The new links include both the corrected and uncorrected files. I haven’t had a chance to listen yet.

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