More of the Music of Dave Brubeck
Sonic Grade: F
An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records Jazz LP.
Not long ago we found a single disc from the 45 RPM four disc set that Classic Records released in 2002 and decided to give it a listen as part of our shootout for the album.
My notes can be seen below, but for those who have trouble reading my handwriting, here they are:
- Big but hard
- Zero (0) warmth
- A bit thin and definitely boring
- Unnatural
- No fun
- No F***ing Good (NFG)
Does that sound like a record you would enjoy playing? I sure didn’t.
But this is the kind of sound that Bernie Grundman managed to find on Classic Record after Classic Record starting in the mid-90s when he began cutting for them.
We’ve been complaining about the sound of these records for more than twenty years but a great many audiophiles and the reviewers who write for them told us we wrong. If you have a copy of this album on Classic, at 33 or 45, play it and see if you don’t hear the problems we ascribe to it.
To see what we had to say about the 33 RPM version on Classic many years ago, click here.
Maybe we got a bad 45 and the others are better. That has not been our experience.
In these four words we can describe the sound of the average Classic Records pressing.
Not all of their records are as bad sounding as Time Out. We favorably review some of the better ones here.