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I had a chance to listen to both last night. I'm real familiar with the DMM copy, had it for about 12 years. It was the first Blue Note title I bought.
I think the DMM and the BN 75th Anniversary reissue are about even. They don't sound the same, far from it, but the DMM is better in some ways and vice versa.
The DMM pressing is perfect--ruler flat and dead silent. The new reissue has a slight (inaudible) warp and is a bit noisy. I'm going to clean it, see if that improves things.
The new copy of Blue Train is very dynamic and punchy. There's a lot of bass energy and it's probably truer to the vintage Rudy Van Gelder sound than the DMM. Horns, especially Lee Morgan's trumpet, are more up in your face.
The DMM is a bit too polite, but has better detail in the upper mid-range than the reissue. Bass is also detailed but nowhere near as much grunt as the newer record. You hear it more than feel it.
Some other reviewers say the high end of the 75th Anniversary edition is rolled-off but I don't think that's the case. Seems to me the EQ boosts the bass and the result is a bit less edge on the highs. Might be a difference without a distinction.
At any rate, the 75th Anniverary reissues are pretty good for the money, far superior to the Scorpios and better than the LP+CD series (which were mastered by Capitol but also pressed by Scorpio if I read the matrix number correctly). I also got Larry Young's Unity which to my ears is very good. The vinyl is quieter than Blue Train for one thing. And like Mike Fremer said, compared to mp3 these records are HDTV.
I'm looking forward to getting more of the 75th Anniversary series. They aren't as good as the 45RPM Music Matters and Analogue Productions versions but they're more than half as good at less than half the price.
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The little old ladies wait in wild anticipation for the meetings of the Double-A-C-ASSN...
Follow Ups:
thanks for the comparison, how would you compare this to a Scorpio reissue? Do you have any of the Liberty reissues from the '70s that you could compare these new ones to? I am somewhat on the fence with these primarily because of the pressing issues that have cropped up with these new BN issues, I mean, if they are so careless with the pressing issue, how careless are they with the rest of the record?
But not as good as any Blue Note with "Van Gelder" or "RVG" in the deadwax. In fact, none of the reissues are, really, not even the big buck versions. New York, Liberty, and UA Blue Notes made from Van Gelder stampers are still the best. Problem is, they're getting more expensive and harder to find. Good luck finding a Liberty BN copy of Unity .
I don't think the pressing issues amount to much. They aren't ruler flat, but there's no audible effects and they're concentric which is probably more important.
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The little old ladies wait in wild anticipation for the meetings of the Double-A-C-ASSN...
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