[Amps] Western Electric

[Jim Brown]

On 3/25/2022 9:39 AM, BILL KENNAMER wrote:
> This is true. Tube amps and vinyl do sound better. Also, Tube guitar amplifiers sound better, and a Hammond B3 sounds better than an XK-3 (but it's hundreds of pounds heavier).

There's vinyl, and there's vinyl. For at least the last 10 years of the 
LP era, vinyl pressings were often junk quality, and reissues of classic 
jazz were copies of copies of copies, with lousy sound quality.

I had a collection of more than 4,000 LPs, but stopped bothering with 
them when CDs became dominant (late 80s). CD reissues of vintage 
material went back to original masters, with vastly improved sound 
quality. Over the years, I've acquired CDs to replace all of those LPs, 
and several years ago, sold the LP collection.

To put this in perspective, I'm a Fellow of the Audio Engineering 
Society, and have made many recordings of live performances of major 
jazz stars using first class mics (average cost $1,000) and recording 
gear with no signal processing. These are not "audience" recordings -- 
these recordings were for broadcast, or with those mics placed on the 
instruments. My ears are tuned to those recordings, and to what my ears 
heard "in the room" where the musician were playing. Commercial 
recordings vary widely in quality when placed against that standard.

73, Jim K9YC