Whats on your turntable tonight?

Richard Thompson-"Ship To Shore"

New West, 2LP, Limited Edition, Signed, Orange/Yellow/White Vinyl

A bit in arrears… a wonderful evening of spinning LP, soft red light above the TT and warm tubes… lots of tubes..

Talking Heads - Buildings and Food - OP

Welch / Rawlings - Woodland 

Buckingham Nicks - the reissue # 1348 / 5000 bravo an immaculate pressings- evidence it CAN be done…

Jefferson Airplane "Surrealistic Pillow"

MFSL/45RPM/mono

...sounds like a recent recording, very present, nice ambience and clear... recommended.

@slaw   Surrealistic Pillow is one of several great classic rock recordings that is missing in my collection. Do you recommend this mono version over any stereo version?  Without getting overly personal do you use a mono cartridge?

"VIVA KENTON" 1959 LP and "Charles Mingus "The Clown" stereo re-issue of the 1957 recording. These early stereo LPs sound much better to me than many of today's recordings. Perhaps that's because the record labels engaged their best engineers to record the music and they often used a minimalist microphone setup and didn't "mike" every section or individual solo instruments. The result is more spatial and accurate reproduction of what it must have sounded like sitting in the studio or live arena rather than "re-engineering" it for what a musician or producer thinks an audience should hear. Just my two cents. Anyone agree?