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No surprises, pass on the RVG, the old Blue Note CD is the way to go.

Old Blue Note CD is WIDE stereo, sax clearly in the right channel, trumpet in the left channel, piano in the center, a REAL stereo mix.

No compression, typical RVG engineering: cold, bright, hard sound, that's how it originally sounded.

I read a post somewhere that says a portion (maybe even all) of the RVG may have been mastered from an Lp because the tape was in poor condition. Doesn't sound like an Lp was used for the old CD, nor does it sound like a bad copy, but the RVG's tough to tell because it's so compressed.

Bonus tracks and track sequence on both RVG remaster and old CD the same.

Cuscuna's notes have odd date misprints on the old CD. Ignore the dates he gives in personal notes, go by the original liner notes and track listing notes.

I only have the RVG of this one (I rarely upgrade, and usually buy the RVGs only if I don't have the earlier disc) and tend to agree. I hate how Rudy narrows the soundstage; so, apparently, do a lot of people, and I understand Rudy doesn't do this any more. I've read that Rudy swears he's not compressing these, but damn if they don't sound that way - they are loud. Some are quite nice, but others very toppy-sounding.

You know, as much as people complain about how toppy the RVG's are (including myself), I don't think he adds more top then, say, Ken Perry does. It's the top-end that's in the original recording that gets me, and the added top in the mastering puts it over.

It's not on everything, usually just the mics he puts by the horns. It's weird how he handles the instruments: horns are cold, hard, and blistering bright, piano is completely DEAD (man, listen to "Song For My Father" in ANY format), and the cymbals and ONLY the cymbals have some weird 'air,' supposedly because of a compressor or limited attached that does some weird thing around 20k.

As for the compression, I find that hard to believe. I know the original recordings are already compressed quite a bit, but the RVG's aren't just loud, they have that overly-warm squashed sound to them. Listen to the RVG remasteres of the Village Vanguard CD's for Sonny Rollins, compare it to the old CD's. The RVG's is worse than a cheap radio signal!