SwingDJs

I have heard about these, but never heard one.

http://www.naxos.com/labels/default.asp

http://www.naxos.com/labels/jazz_legends-cd.htm

http://www.naxos.com/labels/nostalgia-cd.htm

A friend seems to like them and says you can't buy them if you live in the USA, but this place in Switzerland sells them and the price in dollars is about $6.50 each.

http://www.grooves-inc.com/

Short answer: No.

Particularly the Nostalgia collection - they sound like they've been remastered with the specific intent purpose of making them sound worse.

The jazz legends ones that I've heard are little better - though there may be some out there with better remastering.

I have bought a dozen Naxos swing CDs, and they all had poor sound. Not recommended.

My experience is: good music, poor sound quality

Hi all! I've just joined this group, and I'm the producer of most of the Naxos Nostalgia and Jazz Legends CDs. Which discs have any of you found to be poor sounding? We take these comments seriously, and I'll be glad to confirm, deny, rebut or pass the blame.

David Lennick

Hi David

Nice to have the producer on board! I'll go back and listen to the discs I own and try to give more detailed feedback. Describing sound is always difficult, but what I recall from the Naxos CDs are:

- Quite a lot of surface noise (all tracks are dubbed from 78s - right?). Varies from track to track of course.
- A metallic, flat sound, probably a byproduct of the digital noise reduction

Of course it is not fair to compare official reissues from original masters to "public domain" reissues of old 78s, but I would say that there are labels that do an overall better job than Naxos with the latter, like JSP.

Bouquets and brickbats will be accepted. There are also a number of Naxos CDs that I didn't produce, and there are some where the noise reduction was performed by people other than my usual colleagues Graham Newton and Alan Bunting. Fire away!

Okay - let's start with one that does not require comparative listening: Ella Fitzgerald, Vol. 5 - "Lullaby of Birdland". The treble is clearly distorted and you can hear nasty high-frequency artifacts on most tracks - Ella's voice has a sharp, artificial, metallic noise added to it. It becomes very tiresome to listen to after a while.

Another one: The Mills Brothers, Vol.2 - "Swing Is The Thing". This is a much better disc. Overall pleasant surface noise level and no artifacts from the digital restoration. It does not sound that much worse than the super-expensive Mosaic Louis Armstrong boxed set (which has some of the same Mills Brothers tracks on it). I notice that this one has digital restoration by "K&A Productions".

Soon as I find my file copy of the Ella, I'll give it a closer listen. I'm surprised that you're hearing digital artifacts, but a valid comment is a valid comment.

I should perhaps add a disclaimer: I am not a sound engineer and I know very little about 78 rpm transfers and digital audio restoration. I am just a guy who listens a lot to classic swing music. It would be interesting to hear other DJs' opinions as well.