Search - Lionel Hampton :: Three Classic Lps

Great Bargain

G. Ratcheson | Washington | 02/27/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Some thoughts: Great collection for the price. While it's not Mosaic quality, the cost delivered to the US from Amazon.UK was $10 USD for 3 classic out of print albums on 2 cd's + bonus tracks, rather then $45. The sound quality is actually quite good for a budget public domain release,though not perfect.



Listening on my high end system my best guess is that the LH & His Giants material was taken either from the master tape or from another cd, & the other 2 were cleaned up needle drops with some (but not a lot) of vinyl artifacts from somewhat worn vinyl remaining. It also was mastered at a pretty low level. While I'll take quiet mastering over loud compressed mastering any day, this is quiet enough that they likely didn't use all 16 bits. The best sounding of the 3 albums was the Giants, the worst sounding (by far) was the Apollo concert. On the other hand, on my adequate car stereo, the set sounded really good.





If this set is representative of the series,they're a superb value at the price!



Edit/addition:



From further listening, I now believe the Giants album is also either a needle drop (though a very good one), or from a commercial reel to reel tape, It's missing too much transparency to be from the true master. Still not at all bad sounding for the price, though.



I can only hear this on my high end system, The average stereo will not be transparent enough for most folks to have any sonic concerns with the 2 studio albums.

"