Post by Rich on Aug 22, 2016 5:37:56 GMT
Aug 21, 2016 13:40:31 GMT Spencer said:
I'm also confused by your embargo comment. If no Japanese retailers are carrying MM reissues, are you suggesting that it's because they're afraid the MM reissues will outsell the Disk Union reissues? Regardless of how proud Japanese retailers may or may not be, the Japanese reissues I'm talking about (King and Toshiba) are all out of print; I'm not talking about the current Disk Union reissues, mainly because those are made in the US just like the MM reissues. On the other hand, I'm not aware of any US retailers who have ever sold the Disk Union LPs. But if everything you're saying about the retail sale of MM and DU LPs in the US and Japan is true, does this suggest that American retailers are in some way less proud than Japanese retailers and thus that American retailers are more fair or something? Your point comes across to me as sarcastic and I'd appreciate it if you were more forward if only for the sake of my understanding it.
I hope I haven't offended you with my analysis, Spencer. I'd like to believe that we can voice each other's experiences and opinions with each other even if they're different. After all, you did tell me that you didn't want this thread to be renamed "The Music Matters Appreciation Thread", so I think we should be able to compare various Blue Note pressings here without worrying if our preferences will offend anyone.
2. I was in a roundabout way trying to comment on your mention of the sourcing of Japanese BN reissues. It's always better to follow a straight line>
3. It would appear that BN and the reissue entities in Japan have embargoed the distribution of MM in the Japanese market. I don't hold an MBA degree from Harvard but I have enough sense to know that when restriction is placed on the importation of a specific goods like this it because there is a "competition clause" in effect. Now from where I stand if you are excluding your competition from a market place it is usually because you are weary of your competitor. In the case of Japanese reissuers of BN, excluding MM makes sense, they are starting out with copies of copies of tapes and they don't have access to the treasure troves of bonus materials like MM can. So yeah I'm saying MM is kept out of the Japanese market because the Japanese reissuers do not want to competition. Ironically BN is now owned by a Japanese conglomerate
4. On top of making quiet vinyl the Japanese are second to no one when it comes to cartridges. The best cartridges in the world are made in Japan
5. One of the things anyone outside the U.S. paying attention to this year's Presidential race may fail to appreciate is how Donald Trump's comments on global trade is largely agreeable to Americans on the left and right of the political spectrum. I will never vote for Trump but I do agree with him on trade. Yes I'm saying the American market place is more fair to foreign competition.
I apologize for not being able to resist belaboring the point, but from the looks of this, Disk Union has 127 Music Matters titles in stock on their website:
diskunion.net/jazz/ct/list/0/0/27272
On the contrary, it doesn't look like Acoustic Sounds carries any Disk Union reissues, nor have I ever seen any US retailer carry them, including Fred Cohen at Jazz Record Center and Academy Records here in NYC.
As for the 'copies of copies of tapes' comment, for all we know the Japanese made sure to get nothing less than second-generation tapes made directly from the original master or whatever incarnation of the original master existed in the early '70s. The pertinent point I think is that if Music Matters used the tape, the master Japan would have acquired in the '70s was probably a second-generation tape made directly from the same master that MM used--and this was over 40 years ago, mind you. But sorry, I could care less about this speculation. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. I know that the Japanese LPs aren't made direct from the original tape, and my brain tells me that I shouldn't like them as much, but my ears do, they just do. I simply do not hear any significant increase in noise or high frequency loss or anything else typically ascribed to the artifacts of tape duplication.
