Complete Sound Comparison of King Record Blue Note reissues GXF, GXK and FRP!
Welcome to the JBJ Jazz lab!
I made another interesting experiment.
Sound Comparison of King Record Blue Note Reissues, GXF, GXK and FRP
As you may have already known, King Record reissued Blue Note titles with GXF, GXK mainly. There are some other like DY as bonus records and K18 and K23 series, and premium 15 title reissues (which I already talked about).
Their first Blue Note reissues are GXF series. Both GXF and GXK series have the same Blue Note titles. That is why I picked up the same Cannonball's Somethin' Else, GXF 3001 and GXK 8042 for sound comparison.
But...I have another one, FRP 5-1. You know, I never knew these FRP series until recently...I happened to obtain these FRP series like Somethin' Else and Miles Vol.1 and 2 just recently. I was curious how and when these FRP series were made! I looked for any kind of information but nothing was found...But visually, GXK series, in the case of Somethin' ELse, GXK 8042 and FRP 5-1 look really identical. The same price print 2,300 yen and the color of the labels.
I assume, these GXK and FRP series were made at the same period. But what about the sound? Do they sound same or different? What about with GXF?
Well, just judge with your own ears.
In case you have any kind of info about FRP series, let me know!
Hello Takashi,
Listening on my laptop, it seems that the GXF and FRP are more similar sounding. Surprisingly the GXK sounded a little less dynamic, and tonally different to the other two.
But on the larger scale, they are more similar than different.
Yeah, all of them are simular. As you commented, I assume that mastering of GXF era and GXK era – is different. But I don’t know FRP used the mastering of GXF or GXK? Hummm, mystery…