More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar
This Crystal Clear 45 RPM Direct-to-Disc LP is pressed on white vinyl. Of the couple of copies we played, this one had the best sound.
It had more clarity than the other copy, which sounded even more veiled and smeary than this one.
I sure never liked the sound of this record though.
It’s dark and unnatural to my ears. It would be best to avoid it if you are looking for audiophile sound.
There are so many other, better Charlie Byrd recordings, why waste your time and money on this one? It’s yet another example of an “audiophile” record with practically nothing in the way of audiophile merit.
Which should not be too surprising. The bulk of the Crystal Clear records we’ve played had third-rate sound and pointless music.
Most of their direct to disc recordings were nothing but audiophile bullshit.
This Charlie Byrd title is the kind of crap we newbie audiophiles used to buy back in the ’70s — typically at stereo stores, or “audio salons” as they are often called now, the ones that are still in business anyway — before we had anything resembling a clue.
Yes, I was foolish enough to buy records like these and expect them to have good music, or at least good sound. Of course they had neither. Practically none of these kinds of records ever did. Sheffield and a few others made some good ones, but most Crystal Clears were crap.
As clueless as I was, even back in the day I could tell that I had just thrown my money away on this lipsticked-pig in a poke.
But I was an audiophile, and I wanted desperately to believe.
These special super-hi-fidelity records were being made for me, for special people like me, because I had expensive equipment and regular records are just not good enough to play on my special equipment, right?
We didn’t want the mass-produced regular version of Silk Degrees. We had to have this limited edition remastered one. The premium price is obviously proof that we were going to get premium quality sound, right?
To say I was wrong to think about audio that way is obviously an understatement. Over the course of the last forty years, I (and to be fair, my friends and my staff) have been wrong about a great deal when it comes to records and audio, but the last thing we would want to do is try to hide that fact.
Making mistakes, like buying direct to disc recordings thinking they would have higher fidelity than the “regular” records sitting in the bins, is how we made progress. Experience is a great teacher, perhaps the only one.
Which is why there are about one hundred entries in our section detailing the many things we’ve gotten wrong, and believe me, those hundred entries barely scratch the surface of the stupid things I’ve done as I pursued this hobby.
Thank goodness Audio Progress is real and anyone who figures out how to do audio the right way is bound to achieve it.
Most audiophiles today seem to be making the same mistakes I made in my formative years in the hobby.
There is a better way, and this blog is dedicated to helping audiophiles find it.
Further Reading
I’m listening to it right now and looked up the album cover, using Google. All these record covers came up and I clicked here.
Here’s my response to your comments:
What is this? I want to like it. I really do. Listen g to it right now. Track 2 side A.
I j rust, want to like it. 😎
You want to like it or you do like it?
Obviously, you DON’T have an ear for good sound.. or your system is crap!!
Today’s quote from The Daily Stoic may have some bearing on what might be a better response to this comment than the one I had planned:
When we were kids, life was often overwhelming and bewildering.
We would fall asleep in a car seat or stroller and wake up hours later in a dark room, with no idea how we got there. Everything was new. We had to walk into a classroom for the first time, sit at something called a “desk,” and stay there all day, away from our parents, learning from strangers. We were subjected to new and confusing rules that no one explained, expected to behave in ways that didn’t seem to make any sense.
We understand that it’s difficult to be a kid and that’s why we’re patient with them, why we take our time to explain things to them, why we don’t hold their mistakes or their tantrums against them.
But is it really all that different to be an “adult?” Many of us are still walking into new rooms for the first time. New jobs. New relationships. Old relationships with new problems. Children of our own to care for. Aging parents who now need us in ways they never did before. Responsibilities we didn’t have yesterday. Rules and practices and cultural norms that are constantly changing.
In Marcus Aurelius’ famous passage about the obnoxious and rude and frustrating people he knows he will meet in the course of a day, he makes a really important point. He reminds himself (and us) why people are like this. They’re like this, he says, because they don’t know better. Because no one taught them. “All these things result from their not knowing what is good and what is evil,” he writes…”And how can I be angry with my kin or hateful towards them?”
Everyone is new to this. We’re all figuring it out as we go. Still reacting. Still afraid. Still working through lessons we haven’t mastered yet. Like a kid, we’ve never been this age before! Nobody has!
So let’s be patient. Let’s assume the best. Let’s help them do better.