Valve-based recordings

I had the distinct pleasure of listening to one of these (Art Pepper + Eleven) at the recent Home Entertainment show in Manchester. As I dyed-in-the-wool jazz hater, I was more than a bit astonished to be bowled both by the musicianship and the quality of the recording.

Was I being wowed by the £25k speakers, or does valve-based recording equipment really sound this good? I threw anti-jazz bigotry out of the window and bought the LP. Well, it doesn't sound as good on my rig but what do you expect - I can't afford £25k speakers. However....it did sound FANTASTIC; so alive and 'present' and.....oh, words fail me. On the downside, sound from my CD player - which I'm normaly very happy with - sounded drab and lifeless and muted by comparison. Bugger

So the next question is: was it simply an exceptional recording, or was it the valve recording equipment that was creating this magic? I don't know, so I've ordered another valve-based recording (Die Rohre - baroque quartets) to check.

I'd be interested to hear of other peoples experiences listening to this kind of recording. And even more interested to hear of examples of it - I can feel a bout of LP-spending coming on .

 

They just knew what they were doing

 

Try to get any decent original US pressings of late 60's stuff from Stax label - soul, r&b, funk. Staple Singers, Booker T & MGs, Albert Kings etc. They apparently had lots of tube devices in their Memphis studios and the most of recordings sounds terrific by any standards, with fantastic depth, body and fluid - and they are not audiophile recordings by any account. I bought most of them really cheap but I have no idea how's it now.

 

What you're hearing doesn't have an awful lot to do with valve technology, but it does with how the record was recorded and the playing.
As a general rule, there are exceptions, the simplest recording techniques when well executed are the most natural and alive sounding ones.
Modern, very high quality digital recordings made with a single pair of mics can be astonishingly good.