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Japanese Vinyl?

I've picked a couple of Japanese imports over the last few weeks. A couple of the reissues are really spectacular pressings of old recordings. One is a Contemporary reissued on Nippon Columbia and the other is a Savoy reissued on King.

On the other hand I picked up an original Toshiba which, while very spacious, has some distortion on the louder passages that kills it.

Which of the Japanese labels are more consistent with their quality? I've seen King/Blue Notes going pretty high on e-bay. Any advise on what I should be looking for? Also, and good sources stateside? Shipping from Tokyo is a bit pricey.
grimace

Showing 2 responses by opalchip

opalchip
355 posts
 
The Japanese vinyl that is really great are the lp's that are recorded, mastered and manufactured in Japan. Labels like Three Blind Mice, Yupiteru, AudioLab, Toshiba Pro-Use, RCA Direct Cutting Series, etc. These tend to be jazz labels.

Everything else (IMO) is equal to original U.S. pressings at best, and often very sub-par.

The Yes issues are a good example. The Japanese pressings are awful - especially Close To The Edge. (For the record, my favorite Yes pressing is the UK original of Time And A Word.)
opalchip
355 posts
 
I have some unbelievably dynamic Pro-Use Series' that reproduce piano amazingly (for example "Jun Fukamachi At Steinway" is the most dynamic piano recording I've ever heard). I don't think any compression or peak-limiting was used at all, which WILL reveal any TT/cartridge setup issues. Of course, it's also possible that if you bought the LP used and it had previously been played with a bad setup by someone else, that the more difficult passages were damaged by mistracking before.
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