More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook
The Riverside pressings we’ve auditioned of both The Thelonious Monk Orchestra – At Town Hall and Thelonious Monk Quartet Plus Two – At The Blackhawk were just awful sounding.
The OJC reissues of both albums from the 80s, although better, were not overflowing with the rich, natural, relaxed analog sound we were looking for either.
Ah, but a few years back (2015, maybe?) we happened to drop the needle on one of these Monk Milestone Two-Fers. Here was the sound we were looking for and had had so little luck finding until then.
Which prompts the question that should be on the mind of every audiophile:
What are the rules for collecting records with the best sound quality?
The answer, of course, is that there are no such rules and there never will be.
There is only trial and error. Our full-time staff has been running trials — we call them shootouts and needle drops — for more than twenty years now, with far more errors than successes. Such is the nature of records.