"Somethin' Else", Cannonball Adderley-Miles Davis 45RPM

[azrockitman]

Wow. 

Ok, I'll elaborate. 

I've been intrigued by the 45RPM vinyl LP segment but never bit until today.  Picked up a copy of this and it's amazing.  I'm not doing any A/B comparison, but whew, I can't imagine any LP or SACD sounding better than this.  And love the music. 

[denti alligator]

What's the label?

The few Music Matters Blue Note reissues (45rpm) I have are stunning!

[azrockitman]

It's a Blue Note reissue but I don't see "Music Matters" anywhere, but maybe it's the same.  I would be shocked to imagine something better to be honest!  I can hear the friggin hammers striking the piano strings near the end of Autumn Leaves.  I'm not being overly dramatic.  Not sure I've heard a better recording on my system.  I'm an instant fan

[Yoder]

I have been intrigued by the 45 RPM LPs that are available today, though I do not understand what the advantage of a 45 has over a 33 1/3 is. Maybe someone can enlighten me?

When I first saw the price of vinyl going at today's prices I was somewhat taken aback. But, I can remember LPs listing for $12.99 in the late 60's and early 70's. In today's dollars that would be almost $80, likewise the $12.99 LP "today" would have only cost around $2 back then--cut out prices back then. The quality today is far superior, especially if one uses vinyl from the mid 70's when the gas embargo was going on as the baseline. I have read that most of the LPs produced during that period used recycled vinyl. I know I had a lot of LPs go bad on me from that era. EMI is one notable exception, as are a few of the European presses (if you can find them). My wife actually hit a gold mine of beautiful LPs at the local Goodwill. A boatload of 60's jazz, European pressings (Cat Stevens, Beach Boys, Beatles (yes, I was shocked)). She paid $1 to $2 per and the quality is of each LP is pristine. In the end, our LP library increased by about 50.

Would love to read/hear about the 45 RPM vs 33 1/3 RPM.

[azrockitman]

Well, I"m certainly no expert but I like to look at it simple terms.  Look at the exact opposite, meaning imagine how difficult it would be to "cram" all that sound in a really small section of the groove, if the speed was 16, or 8, instead of 33rpm or 45.  Faster speed means you are asking much less of the vinyl space to record your sound.  Same with tape.  If you record super slow, you are depositing so much "info" in so little tape.  but recorded fast, the audio is distributed over much more area.

There may be a better explanation but that's how I look at it.

[Grainger49]

azrockitman is pretty much on it.  Doing the math a 45 has a 35% longer groove to cut the signal into.  That allows distance to etch details into the groove.

Surface noise jumps to a higher frequency, 35% higher. 

There are those who think the highest fidelity is found on a 78.  I wonder if recording technology was as good when 78s were the standard.  But that is a whole 'nother thread.

[azrockitman]

There's an additional effect that I just read about last night.

The speed of the needle in the groove changes (on any disc, at any constant speed) as it reaches the center of the disc.  That's simple physics.  So a 33RPM recorded disc will have the needle traveling at "x" as you lay it on the disc at the outer edge.  By the time it reaches the last groove on the last song, the speed is a fraction of "x".  So understanding that to any degree, faster is better than slower, you end up with the needle traveling at a much slower rate through the grooves on the last song on every disc.  That explains why on some records, that last song sounds the worst on the LP....especially if the studio recorded deep into that side.  I"ve got many albums that had a ton of music on each side and I never understood why that last sound always sounded the worst.  (well, it was that and probably my first crummy record player but that's a discussion for another day)

The same effect (slower in the center) applies to 45 RPM recorded discs but the effect is minimized over 33RPM recorded discs because you start out faster.  One more thing is that I believe I read that many studios that do new pressings at 45 RPM strive to not record deep into the side of a disc to help additionally minimize that effect. 

Interesting stuff that i never knew until recently but I would encourage anyone that hasn't listened to a 45 RPM LP to do so. 

[Yoder]

Many thanks for the information. Logical, concise, and informative.

[azrockitman]

It's a little more complicated than I explained...I had a conversation with Grainger and he tried to explain it to my non-enginneer brain,...he could probably do a better job of nailing it but in reality the RevolutionsPerMinute are actually the same from the outer edge to the inner edge, but the linear speed is slower on the inside edge. 

He described it as taking a slice out of the platter like a piece of pie.  Traveling the outer edge (by the crust) is going to cover a (relatively) large distance over X period of time, compared to the linear distance that will be covered at the point of the pie piece in the same X amount of time.  Hopefully that's the better way to state!  Thanks Grainger   

[STURMJ]

Or you can think of it this way:  Using a wheel analogy, a bigger wheel will travel farther with one revolution than a small wheel.  With the rpms constant, the big wheel travels faster, because each revolution results in a farther distance than the small wheel.

[Grainger49]

I got the CD yesterday, got only a short preview because of Halloween.  We have a lot of kids around here.  The cheapest LP was $70, then it jumped to $350.  I bought the CD being the cheap mother that I am.  It is a good remaster.

I like it!  I'm taking a more leisurely listen today.

[Matts]

Something Else is one of the greats- I'll have to look for it in the 45rpm version.  I'd heard that it was a Miles Davis album, but was released as a Cannonball Adderly record because of contractual issues.