I thought about starting another thread for this but decided not to because I doubt I will be motivated to do this regularly enough to make it worthwhile. So I hope you will all be tolerant of a little diversion.
Tonight I decided to compare the 45 RPM 180g ORG reissue of this Johnny Hartman recording to a minty original Impulse! stereo pressing that I recently acquired.
I own a large number of vintage vinyl pressings from the 1950s and 1960s. To my ears, this is the high water mark for vinyl microgroove records. I don't buy reissues because I think a remaster will improve the sound. The folks who were doing recording and mastering work in the 50s and 60s really knew their craft and it seems extremely doubtful to me that someone such as Steve Hoffman, Bernie Grundman, or Doug Sax is going to come along decades after the fact and improve their work. I buy reissues mainly because originals in good shape are too scarce and just too costly to acquire. The price of a genuine Blue Note deep groove pressing with a W63rd Street address on the label that is in NM condition is typically well over $100, and depending on the artist it can run several times that. So to me $50 for a high quality 45RPM Blue Note reissue can be a true value.
I use a SOTA Star Sapphire turntable. It's a Series III that is about 20 years old. The tonearm is a SME 309. I use a Ortofon Jubilee MC cartridge and a Ray Samuels Audio Nighthawk phono preamp. The RSA nighthawk is the only solid state component in my system. My preamp and mono block power amps are tube driven.
On the left is the original 1963 Impulse! pressing and on the right is the ORG 45 reissue. The jackets are practically identical with the exception that the original is a little faded and the laminate has picked up a little bit of haze. But heck the thing is almost 50 years old.
My main motive for doing this particular comparison is that I found the ORG 45 reissue to be a little bass heavy and a tad smoky on first listen. I thought then that if I had a chance to buy a nice original pressing for not a lot of money then I would do so and compare them. Most of the time when I listen to these 45's I am in audio heaven, and would never feel the need to compare one to an original pressing. But with this one I felt something was amiss. I landed the minty original 1963 pressing for $16, purchased on eBay. I was really surprised it wasn't bid up any higher than that.
The reissue sounds excessively warm and smoky when compared to the original. The bass heaviness of the reissue was also confirmed on comparison. The original has nice bass response, but not excessively exaggerated like the reissue. I also felt the original was a little more resolving than the 45, especially on the piano and guitar. Cymbals sounded bit more natural on the original, whereas on the reissue they sounded a little more hazy. This really has me wondering about the source tapes that were used by ORG for the reissue.
My preference is clearly for the original in this instance. The ORG reissue is disappointing when directly compared to the Impulse! original.
--Jerome
