I don't have it Mark, but I do have a number of the separate releases on SACD. The Living Stereo series was a great one in its day and they are great performances in great sound. I think you would enjoy this box.

Yes, great stuff.

Right now

Listen to them Mark. They'll sound thnner and edgier than they will in a few weeks, but listen to them. I think you'll be intrigued all the way through break in.

I set them up in another room because I have so little time with my system I didn't want to go through the break in plus I wanted to compare the fully broken in sound to the sound of my seasoned first pair.

Now, months later, the new pair sounds better than the first pair.

Mark, I thought long and hard about the Mystery Amp too, several times. One thing that makes it easy for me to decide is: I can't afford it, and I alredy have three Decware amps in use, one in the closet, and a few other amps as well. And I am just so happy with all three of my Toriis, the Mk II and the two Mk IIIs. And I'm never going to need mroe power with the two pair of HR-1s and the ERRs. And because I have PS Audio power regeneration I don't need my amp to have the huge cleansing power supply that the Mystery Amp does. And the clincher for me? I am very sensitive to treble, I need a treble cut circuit, and Steve doesn't seem to want to incorporate one into the Mystery Amp for me. When I inquired about it a few months ago if he had said "why certainly" I would have ordered one. In the meantime I have ordered the update for the PS Audio DAC and that's where my money went.

To be honest Mark: your Torii will drive your HR-1s like they were made for each other, will always sound great and is more flexible than the Mystery Amp. You don't need another amp. In your shoes I'd look for a stellar DAC or digital front end. You have the ZP3. . .now look for a digital front end that can give it a run for its money. I know you're getting good sound now, but the next level in digital will really impress you.

Lon,  I know you're right but for the next 19 days I'll think about it.  I will probably stick with my plan of buying another Torii used for half what the Mystery Amp would cost...sometime in the future, when a great deal presents itself.  But even a second Torii is unnecessary. I've done quite enough Audio damage in less than a year.  I'd be afraid to add it all up.  Mark.

The final two discs. Awesome.

Another Dusty Groove purchase from the "Rare Bird"  label...never heard of this label...Both albums in this two CD set were originally on Columbia...

Disc 2 of this great set...

This CD next...

I did mention the "secret" in the email I sent yesterday I believe.

Yeah, here's what I sent:

Mark, they're very well-packed and a boogger to unpack. I recommend getting them out from the bottom---I turned the boxes upside down, cut the bottom open, cut through the tape on the bottom foam piece, righted it up again and did a lot of shaking etc. I think one of them I had to slit the box to get the whole foampiece exposed.

Glad that at least one is up. It's a bear to get them out, I had a helluva time myself and it aggravated my sciatic nerve as well!

They are going to sound awesome, I would be very surprised if you are not bowled over immediately.

Lon,  you are right...you had told me the secret, if I' had only paid attention.  Anyway,  the second speaker was a piece of cake.  I just wheeled it into my listening cave and tipped it flat on the dolly, cut the bottom open and managed to cut the tape without tearing the bottom of the box too much righted it and it slid right out.  

They are obviously not near as efficient as the Zu Audio "Souls", I previously had the Torii MK IV turned up to the half way mark which gave me plenty of play with the CSP3...just had to turn it up all the way then back a bit to get the same effect.   Right out of the box with no break in these sound much much better than the "Souls" did after three four weeks of break in...when I first got the "Souls" they sounded horrid. The HR-1s won't be moving for at least a few months.  I know from my conversations with the seller of my Omegas, that they haven't been broken in much.  So I plan on keeping them in my bedroom with a Solid State Amp pounding them with Led Zeppelin for a few weeks until I move them to the Den.

This is the first LP played with the HR-1's...a Historic Event...Love at First Listen.  Mark.

Yep,  Pounded is the right term.  For weeks and weeks during the day I played Led Zep with the "Souls" at levels I would never listen.  I had two doors closed between the room and me and I could still hear it.  When I'd go out for the mail I could hear it quite well from the street.  I beat those suckers into submission...now they're pretty nice speakers.  No beating will be needed with the HR-1s just normal listening levels right off the bat.  Unfortunately I have to leave now...after a Sonny Rollins tune or two from the "Bridge".  Mark.

New band released this album on Tuesday: Sylvan Esso.

It's a Folk singer from Mountain Man, and an Electronic Music artist.

The album is very interesting, very electronic, well produced, and at times reminds me of Aphex Twin and Moby's album Play.

http://youtu.be/Qr5AIKRPIHo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh2RctlGxc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4183ZU73-B8

I have found a treasure of older Elton John records. I have to think a kind of redkneck trying to please his babe, but she did want to be satiated with music, whatever!!

The fact is I found a garage sale bounty of "chick music"  loaded with Soft rock in excellent condition.

Now, when this music was current, I was not so much a fan, but these days, I am exploring more than I did in my youth. Some of this music has affected me in som many ways and to have them all on LP is amazing,

It took me four trip to the car to load it all up.

Right now I am listening to a well cleaned new find of "Taking It To The Streets,"  from the Doobies.

Seriously, I bought over three hundred albums for twenty bucks.

So, I will pop in here a bit more more and more over the coming months with what I have found in this abandoned collection.

I might have considered six hundred but twenty sounded good.

This is the TIME OF YEAR to hit garage sales, if you have the time.
Being retired is AOK!

I listened to this LP last night as well as the rest of  Sonny Rollin's "The Bridge" LP.  I have this Art Pepper Music on a 4 CD set, the original one CD release and now the Vinyl from Dusty Groove.  Mark.

PS...my 30 LP and 4 CD latest  Dusty Groove order arrived a couple days ago and was opened today.  I am way behind on listening to my new buys...I need to slow down.

A sealed reissue of this.  It's not exactly flat but not bad enough to affect play.  Another from Dusty Groove.

This LP next...

I have to get more Kirk Atlantic LPs. I have the cds, but the vinyl I have sounds SO good.

Mark, tell me how that remastered Sinatra stuff sounds. I have some in my collection, but the detail of the ZMA and my now super quiet background...the tape hiss in the original recordings is a bit distracting.

I'm wondering if they dealt with that a little bit on your remasters.

OK LR,  I did a google search and read reviews of this CD on Amazon.  Let me repeat that this CD sounds fine to me.  The reviewer below, who seems very knowledgeable, doesn't like it.  I have copied it below with the accompanying comments. Hope this helps you. Mark.

1.0 out of 5 stars Wretched mastering, November 9, 2009
By Charles F. Held Jr. "cheld"
This review is from: Classic Sinatra (Audio CD)
First off, everyone should own the music contained on this disc. 1950's Sinatra represents truly the best of the best of American music - fantastic songwriters, arrangers, players and recording engineers, all providing the perfect complements our greatest interpreter of swing, show, and saloon tunes. Unfortunately, since about 1960, very few of Sinatra's peak performances have been commercially available in optimal sound quality in any format. At that time, Capitol reprocessed the original tapes, creating new "masters" with added echo, silly equalization, fake stereo, and other sonic abominations.

When Frank's Capitol output first got released on CD around 1987, mastering engineer Larry Walsh did a passable job considering the available technology and the the combination of "wrong" tapes he was often working with and "wrong" instructions he was given regarding when and how to add reverb to tapes that in their original, classic LP releases were "dry". A pair of compilations (the single-disc "Capitol Collectors Series" and 3CD "The Capitol Years", both also mastered by Walsh) improved things by going back to the genuine 1950's masters and NOT adding reverb.

Then in the mid-to-late-90's, Capitol handed its Sinatra CD projects over to Bob Norberg, who among Sinatraphiles is about as popular as Voldemort. Norberg readily admits that he is more interested in putting his own personal "stamp" on a project rather than presenting the listener with the most accurate representation of the original recording. After getting through the "Complete Capitol Singles Collection" without inflicting too much damage, Norberg unleashed his full arsenal of weapons of music destruction on the 1998-2002 "Entertainer Of The Century" and "Concepts" projects, from which almost all the tracks on "Classic Sinatra" are taken. All these discs sound truly bad - Frank's voice is buried in a cloud of reverb, the mono songs are presented in fake stereo, and EQ and noise reduction have been used without mercy, rolling off the treble sparkle in a silly attempt to reduce tape hiss (Here's an idea for reducing tape hiss: USE THE REAL MASTER TAPES INSTEAD OF THOSE BOTCHED 1960's REMIXES!). Sinatra and the orchestra sound like you're listening to them through a cardboard paper towel tube.

There IS some good news: Bob Voldemort - er - Norberg is no longer working at Capitol, and the sequel to this CD, "Classic Sinatra II", sounds fantastic (Larry Walsh has returned as the mastering engineer). Mono songs are in mono, no added reverb, all the sparkle intact. Frank is in the room with you, or at least he's in front of the orchestra instead of behind it!

Whether Capitol will ever fix its Sinatra CD catalog - arguably the greatest American musical asset that exists between one label and one artist - remains to be seen. At the moment the only "good" discs in print are "Classic II", the aforementioned "Capitol Years" 3CD set, and the Mobile Fidelity "Only The Lonely" and "Nice 'N Easy" discs (note: the out-of-print MoFi "Songs For Swingin' Lovers" uses a bad '60's fake-stereo tape).

My recommendation? Spend a couple bucks on a used copy of this, then get "Classic Sinatra II" and listen to both on your CD changer in shuffle mode so you can hear for yourself how much of a difference there is in mastering between the two.
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Showing 1-4 of 4 posts in this discussion
Initial post: Jun 24, 2013 11:29:20 PM PDT
Mark Twain says:
I salute you.
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Posted on Dec 25, 2013 5:07:52 PM PST
Frederick Baptist says:
You are right in that the sound quality isn't perfect as the masters come from the 50s and so probably are not in the best of shape. I also detect some compression which is unfortunate as the bass notes are now muddy. The good news is that MOFI has had a crack at a few of Sinatra's classics. Once I've received them I will write a review; Songs for Swingin' Lovers and A Swingin' Affair I await for in sweet anticipation!
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Posted on Jan 9, 2014 6:29:30 AM PST
Sammy M. says:
very enlightening. we need more of these reviews, so we can get the best music out there for our listening pleasure...
Thank YOu
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Posted on Mar 8, 2014 10:32:34 PM PST
songjustice says:
On a good high resolution sound system this CD can be painful to the listener. More painful yet is the disrespect and disservice that has been done to the source material. I really believe the listener would be better served playing this back on the lowest quality equipment at a reduced volume level. Perhaps maybe as background music at a party where the guests would be talking over the music, fondly remembering the genius that was Sinatra. If someone says "Oh turn this up I really like this", firmly stiffen their drink beforehand.

One of Hill's very best. ..  right near the end. Sigh.

Right now, on an Ellington kick.

I've got some volume pumping through my HR-1s too! The Japanese SACD. Not perfect, but a pretty darned good mastering for the most part.

Lon,  I almost picked up a Japanese vinyl pressing of that but someone bought  it before I'd made up my mind.  I've got it on vinyl from it's original release...somewhere.  Great album!

This LP now...Love the tune "Solsbury Hill".  I saw Peter Gabriel in the early nineties here at Dallas' Reunion Arena.  Here's a DVD of a show from the same tour for anyone interested...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHlkWcnj2m0