Japanese produced CD's
Posted by: J.N. on 02 August 2003
I am slowly collecting a few of my 'faves' as Japanese produced discs.
Their sonic superiority is obvious.
Can anyone tell me why?
Their sonic superiority is obvious.
Can anyone tell me why?
Posted on: 06 August 2003 by Kevin-W
JN
I don't know much about CDs, I only have a few and I haven't compared them to "standard" pressings. The ones I've got do sound good though, you're right there.
However, I can tell you about vinyl albums. I've been collecting Japanese vinyl singles and LPs for over 20 years - I have over 700 now I think. The pressings were always better - on good quality virgin vinyl which was far quieter than US or Euro equivalents. You got a nice poly inner sleeve, good thick cardboard sleeves and extras like booklets, lyric sheets (often hilarious mistranslations) and other goodies and those lovely elegant obis. I have all the Floyd albums on vinyl, and "More" and "Relics" have gatefold sleeves with all manner of extra gubbins as well as sounding better. "Dark Side" comes with a facsimile of the booklet given out at the London Planeterium launch of that album. Lovely!
I don't know if they were mastered better or what (although I have an old Jap copy of the Floyd's "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" which has an extra track, "See Emily Play" tacked on the end, which was obviously mastered from a vinyl single!), but they do sound better than almost anything else I've heard.
New Order's "Power Corruption & Lies", is an especially fine-sounding Jap record, as is the Mastersound pressing of the Floyd's "A Collection Of Great Dance Songs" (and don't get me started going on about my copy of "Abbey Road"!); but all the Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Eno stuff I've got on Jap vinyl sounds immaculate too. My original Led Zep Jap pressings sound superb, with "Physical Grafitti" and "Led Zep 1" sounding even better than the magnificent Classic Records reissues of the LZ catalogue on 180g/200g vinyl.
Kevin
I don't know much about CDs, I only have a few and I haven't compared them to "standard" pressings. The ones I've got do sound good though, you're right there.
However, I can tell you about vinyl albums. I've been collecting Japanese vinyl singles and LPs for over 20 years - I have over 700 now I think. The pressings were always better - on good quality virgin vinyl which was far quieter than US or Euro equivalents. You got a nice poly inner sleeve, good thick cardboard sleeves and extras like booklets, lyric sheets (often hilarious mistranslations) and other goodies and those lovely elegant obis. I have all the Floyd albums on vinyl, and "More" and "Relics" have gatefold sleeves with all manner of extra gubbins as well as sounding better. "Dark Side" comes with a facsimile of the booklet given out at the London Planeterium launch of that album. Lovely!
I don't know if they were mastered better or what (although I have an old Jap copy of the Floyd's "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" which has an extra track, "See Emily Play" tacked on the end, which was obviously mastered from a vinyl single!), but they do sound better than almost anything else I've heard.
New Order's "Power Corruption & Lies", is an especially fine-sounding Jap record, as is the Mastersound pressing of the Floyd's "A Collection Of Great Dance Songs" (and don't get me started going on about my copy of "Abbey Road"!); but all the Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Eno stuff I've got on Jap vinyl sounds immaculate too. My original Led Zep Jap pressings sound superb, with "Physical Grafitti" and "Led Zep 1" sounding even better than the magnificent Classic Records reissues of the LZ catalogue on 180g/200g vinyl.
Kevin
Posted on: 07 August 2003 by Dobbin
Kevin,
I presume you get this stuff mail order now?? Can you share your source with us?
I presume you get this stuff mail order now?? Can you share your source with us?
Posted on: 07 August 2003 by Kevin-W
Dobbin
No one source really, it's just looking around - record fairs, that sort of thing.
There is a very good vendor in Kobe, Japan, who puts hundreds of items up a week on eBay. Do a seller search under the name "urabanchou" and you'll find the list - anything beteen 10 and 25 pages at a time!
I also get stuff in secondhand shops - last year I bagged about five Bowie Jap LPs at a bargain price from Reckless in Islington.
I have so many Jap LPs because years ago I used to work for Tower Records. I used to have a very rudimentary understanding (eg, I knew what "Beatles" looked like in Japanese, that sort of thing) of Japanese and, among other things, used to source Jap imports for the Picadilly store. In the period 1986-88 the Japanese almost completely abandoned vinyl, so Tower's stores in Japan were awash with unwanted records. So we used to ship it over to Picadilly at ridiculously low cost, make a small cutout on the sleeve (legal requirement) and flog 'em off cheap - they were very popular. With my 28% staff discount, I could get a brand new Japanese LP for less than I could buy a domestic pressing! Of course, the ones that I wanted, I always ensured that the receiving department didn't snip the corner off! Heaven! Those were the days...
Kevin
No one source really, it's just looking around - record fairs, that sort of thing.
There is a very good vendor in Kobe, Japan, who puts hundreds of items up a week on eBay. Do a seller search under the name "urabanchou" and you'll find the list - anything beteen 10 and 25 pages at a time!
I also get stuff in secondhand shops - last year I bagged about five Bowie Jap LPs at a bargain price from Reckless in Islington.
I have so many Jap LPs because years ago I used to work for Tower Records. I used to have a very rudimentary understanding (eg, I knew what "Beatles" looked like in Japanese, that sort of thing) of Japanese and, among other things, used to source Jap imports for the Picadilly store. In the period 1986-88 the Japanese almost completely abandoned vinyl, so Tower's stores in Japan were awash with unwanted records. So we used to ship it over to Picadilly at ridiculously low cost, make a small cutout on the sleeve (legal requirement) and flog 'em off cheap - they were very popular. With my 28% staff discount, I could get a brand new Japanese LP for less than I could buy a domestic pressing! Of course, the ones that I wanted, I always ensured that the receiving department didn't snip the corner off! Heaven! Those were the days...
Kevin
Posted on: 08 August 2003 by Madrid
I have found JVC´s XCRD2 (and to a lesser extent the XCRD) to be excellent remasters of half a century old recordings.
The remasters of jazz I have bought have been particulary rewarding. The Bill Evans recordings are very clean and the timbre of Sarah Vaughn´s voice is about as natural and grain-free as the CD format can get.
For the technically inclined, the liner notes explain how JVC treats the information carefully to elimate digital jitter. Personally, I like the cool japanese rice paper for the disk!
Cheers,
Steven
The remasters of jazz I have bought have been particulary rewarding. The Bill Evans recordings are very clean and the timbre of Sarah Vaughn´s voice is about as natural and grain-free as the CD format can get.
For the technically inclined, the liner notes explain how JVC treats the information carefully to elimate digital jitter. Personally, I like the cool japanese rice paper for the disk!
Cheers,
Steven
Posted on: 13 August 2003 by chiba
As a Japan resident, I'd first have to say that hockman is wrong - not everything is "carefully and meticulously put together". The buildings, for a start, are generally very poorly executed by Western standards, but the reasons are too complex to go into here, likewise the non-exported electronics can be pretty gnarly. Anyway, as to Japanese CDs being better, all I can say is that you pay for the quality. This must be the only country where import CDs are far cheaper than local ones, generally a floating price of around 1850 Yen compared to a price regulated 2400 Yen, so it could simply be that you get what you pay for...