Something old, something new, something borrowed, something Blue.

In the first five minutes, Fine told me that he preferred listening to his parents' records, which he's involved in reissuing, on high-rez digital, a format that to him sounds more like the master tape than vinyl does. He reminded me that during mastering, Rudy Van Gelder used compression and goosed the upper midrange to make the records sound lively - which may explain some but certainly not all of their uncanny vividness and realism. PEERING INTO HI-FI'S BACK ALLEYS AND DUSTY NOOKS BRILLIANT CORNERS It turns out that PVC, or polyvinyl chloride - the stuff used to make Starbucks gift cards, imitation leather wallets, inflatable pool unicorns, the pipes under your sink, and Billy Idol's pants - is also the main ingredient in phonograph records. Since my apartment contains a "vintage or single-ended-type system" of the kind Harley was talking about, he suggested I compare some early Blue Notes with the Tone Poet reissues on a more conventional hi-fi, like his own: Harley's home system uses Vandersteen speakers and solid state amplifiers. [Extracted from the article]