Re-Assessing RVG

Sorry. This is not another Beatles thread.

A while ago I put up two posts about Rudy Van Gelder’s CDs, ‘RVG: Genius or Just Lucky’ and ‘Beating the RVG Horse’, suggesting that his recordings are really over-rated. Listening to the newer CD reissues is frustrating, with such high quality performances and such mediocre engineering. His catalog of music is astounding, including most of the Blue Note, Prestige, and Impulse recordings of the 1950’s and 60’s.

First, let me start out by saying that you can’t turn Van Gelder recordings into miracle CDs. The piano still sounds like an upright recorded on its side in a closet, and the stereo recordings often have a very hard-panned left/right effect with the instruments. They rarely sound particularly natural. They are what they are. There are better jazz recordings from the era, notably IMHO the Contemporary Label.

However, I recently made some changes to my system that had a significant positive impact on the sound of these recording and I thought I’d share the results. First I swapped out my CD player and cables from a Jolida JD100 to a Cambridge 840C, and from Audioquest Copperheads to Nordost Blue Heavens. The clarity of the recordings improved immensely.

The final change though was the most significant. I adjusted my speaker position of my Spendor S8es so that instead of having them toed in directly at my seat, they are now on a crossing axis about four feet IN FRONT of my chair. The effects was not at all subtle. Scale, both width and height actually grew, maybe not in absolute width, but certainly in presenting a more natural soundstage. On recordings with hard-panned stereo imaging the effect was reduced. Stage Depth, not something Rotel components are good at, also improved.

Suddenly recordings like Bobby Hutcherson’s Stick Up, and Wayne Shorter’s Adams Apple sound really good. Not like the best audiophile recordings, but very nice indeed. A few of them still suffer from bad CD glare: The Ultimate Blue Train is really bright (and smoked by the 45RPM vinyl on every level) and A Love Supreme, while presenting a better image is also harsh sounding. Donald Byrd’s Byrd in the Hand is really good. Horns and cymbals sound great. That piano is hopeless on virtually every recording. Can you imagine recording Duke Ellington and NOT making the piano sound great?

I’ve really been enjoying these RVG recordings. There are a few clunkers, but for the most part they’ve become a staple in my listening rotation. Not nearly as bad as I thought they were.