Sound Battle Tenor Madness DCC Compact Classic US vs Victor Music Japan VIJ
I must admit that I didn't know this great reissue of Tenor Madness Sonny Rollins by DCC Compact Classics US.
As I checked and listened to this reissue, I was blown away bt the sound!
I don't know...the sound is deep and natural. Then I thoougt, what if I compare the sound between this DCCCompact Classics US and Victor Music Japan reissue VIJ That is what I did.
The result....
Just watch the video and share your thought!
Hi Takashi, excellent video you posted. Thank you. Yes, the DCC LP vinyl re-issues are amazing sound quality. And you are quite correct. In the US and in Europe inexpensive vinyl fillers were added to the PVC resin compounds used to pressed vinyl records. Not so in Japan. Japan continued to use high quality virgin vinyl.
When DCC announced this series there was quite a lot of commotion in the audio press in the US and in Europe.
Ironically, making Vinyl LPs were a follow up. The company DCC originally was formed to produce better sounding CDs than the common commercially available CDs at that time. The first commercial CDs that were issued were dreadful. So DCC thought there was an opportunity to improve upon the CD sound. DCC later expanded into vinyl production.
While the VIJ series from Victor Music is quite excellent sounding, comparing the DCC to the VIJ series is not really fair. While the VIJ series was also pressed on high quality virgin vinyl, the master tape transfer to lacquer that Victor Japan used for the VIJ series was from Fantasy studios in the US, where transfer and lacquer cutting was all done with solid state gear with likely high negative feedback in the circuitry in the design (transistor gear).
When DCC got ahold of the Van Gelder master tape from Fantasy, DCC did the remastering to lacquer with all re-worked vacuum tube gear (or as the British more correctly call it valve gear). Many people think tube gear has a much fuller or more natural sound. If any doubt look at the web site for Audio Note in Japan. Audio Note is a Japanese manufacturer who specializes in new Vacuum tube preamps, power amps, and phono stages, which are highly prized and highly thought of around the world. Very expensive, but sound quality is simply amazing….very life like.
https://www.audionote.co.jp/jp/
Steve Hoffman was the mastering engineer on all or most of the DCC classic re-issues. Steve runs an audio blog. Link below.
https://www.stevehoffman.tv/
I would think if you told Steve you were JBJ owner and asked a few questions or more detail on the DCC vinyl re-issues, he would likely respond. Pretty open type of guy.
Happy Holidays to all.
best regards.