I'm in New Orleans this weekend at the Annual National Cardigan Welsh Corgi Board Meeting. No, I don't show dogs but my wife does and she's on the board so like a good hubby I tagged along.
When Diamond Life burst onto the scene in 1984/1985 it provided a calm oasis. This was not post-punk or techno-pop. This was an album of lush and lovely music with smooth jazz moods and world beat underpinnings. Superficially cool, the Latin tempos trapped in the grooves simmered with a passion just waiting to explode.
After a delay of a few years, due to the meticulousness of all involved, The Beatles catalog will finally be reissued in the format in which it's meant to be heard and has always sounded best: vinyl.
Imagine a hard bop jam session featuring three tenor sax greats: Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley and John Coltrane. Add Lee Morgan on trumpet and propel them with the rhythm section of Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bas and Art Blakey on drums.
While effective isolation from both air and ground borne vibrational energy is important throughout the audio playback chain, it is essential for vinyl playback. It can be built into a turntable in the form of spring or "O" ring suspensions but current thinking downplays that in favor of separate isolation stands rather than incorporating it into the turntable itself.
Does it matter that the rattle and phlegm in Bob Dylan's voice makes it sound as if your midrange driver has blown? No. Hell no. In fact, despite the ragged vocals and 50 years since his debut, this is Dylan's best album in quite some time.
Back in 2005 I reviewed what was then the $1500 Jasmine LP-2 MM/MC phono preamplier. It was a two box unit with an umbilical between the power supply and the signal path circuitry. The 70dB gain MC input was commendably quiet and the unit sounded pretty good but I couldn’t justify the performance for the price.
Bob Dylan cracks himself up performing some of these songs. Producer Tom Wilson must have gotten it, but recording engineers Roy Halee and Fred Catero might have been ready to stop the tape. After all, this was staid, but still pre-corporate Columbia Records. It was “straight” and at that point Halee was more experienced recording Percy Faith than Bob.