Elusive Disc Featuring Jacintha Tapes from Groove Note

[astrotoy]

http://www.elusivedisc.com/Jacintha/...medium=special

I just saw this today. Tapes are not cheap - $599.99 per album (two tapes). More than the $450 than Tape Project charges, but less than the Lyn Stanley tape albums ($650 from Acoustic Sounds or $675 from Lyn Stanley directly).

Interesting. Seems everyone gets a different price on the Stanley tape.

Part of the increased cost is the Groove Note tapes is that they are pretty much one off copies and Ying is paying Bernie's hourly fees to dupe the tapes. So that in part is responsible for the increased cost. Plus the Groove Notes are one of the few true "safety" second generation tapes on the market. Hence, the releases being limited to 15 copies.

I have two of the Jacintha Tape albums - Here's to Ben and Autumn Leaves, bought for quite a bit less, absolutely wonderful stuff. "Here's to Ben" is no longer available. But "Autumn Leaves" is one of the three albums, along with two titles - "Jacintha is Her Name" and "Lush Life" which I haven't seen on tape before. The ad copy says there will be a limit of 15 copies of each album world wide. Looks like these are made to order dubs of the master tapes. I can see that they wouldn't want to run the master too many times. Opus3 had a similar limitation of 50 copies for their R2R issues.

Larry

So comes the interesting part. I had been after Ying to review one of his Groove Note tape releases for quite some time and finally after one audio show, he sent me a B-side of Here's to Ben. (the A-side tape was defective.) The tape box came without any indications of EQ so I assumed like most (all?) modern tapes Here's to Ben was transferred using IEC. (nor at the time was there anything about the EQ on the Elusive Disc website either.) The sound was so-so and nothing to right home about.

As l as it turns out, wrongly assumed in this case. Thanks to some detective work by Andre, it turned out the copies were actually NAB EQ. Now played back with the correct EQ, the tape is totally different sounding. Worlds better than the LP. In a single word: excellent. This lady can sing unlike some other audiophile favorites. So word of warning to anyone who buys the Groove Note tapes: make sure to use the NAB EQ playback position on your deck or electronics.

[Dre_J]

Great timing Larry. I have Autumn Leaves and it sounds fabulous.

Dre

[allenh]

Larry, are you getting any of them? I saw them listed as well. Really would like to buy the set as I love her voice.

[astrotoy]

Dre, I just did a search on "Reel to Reel" on the Elusive Disc website and found several more tapes. Most come from Groove Note, although others are from Fone and Opus 3. I ordered my Opus3 Reel to Reel tapes a couple of years ago from Kevin Berg, who works for Elusive Disc.

http://audiophile.elusivedisc.com/search?w=Reel+to+Reel&x=0&y=0

Larry

[astrotoy]

Hi Allen, I probably will get at least one of the two albums I don't have. They will be available starting June 1. Larry

[allenh]

Dre, I just did a search on "Reel to Reel" on the Elusive Disc website and found several more tapes. Most come from Groove Note, although others are from Fone and Opus 3. I ordered my Opus3 Reel to Reel tapes a couple of years ago from Kevin Berg, who works for Elusive Disc.

http://audiophile.elusivedisc.com/search?w=Reel+to+Reel&x=0&y=0

Larry

It's too bad their 15% coupon doesn't work on tapes.

[Tunes]

Wondering if these will sell out. There must be a pricepoint where the tapes no longer become feasible to offer the public and also a pricepoint where the public is not willing to pay.

[Dre_J]

Dre, I just did a search on "Reel to Reel" on the Elusive Disc website and found several more tapes. Most come from Groove Note, although others are from Fone and Opus 3. I ordered my Opus3 Reel to Reel tapes a couple of years ago from Kevin Berg, who works for Elusive Disc.

http://audiophile.elusivedisc.com/search?w=Reel+to+Reel&x=0&y=0

Larry

I spoke with the GM (my contact for several years at Elusive Disc) last Monday and had my tape a week ago. I saw all the others (Opus3 & fonè) listed as well. A guy can get into trouble ordering tape much quicker than LPs.



Dre

[MylesBAstor]

La verdad!

[allenh]

Wondering if these will sell out. There must be a pricepoint where the tapes no longer become feasible to offer the public and also a pricepoint where the public is not willing to pay.

The Here's to Ben sold out I think. But I have seen the Autumn Leaves listed for a while.

I spoke with the GM (my contact for several years at Elusive Disc) last Monday and had my tape a week ago. I saw all the others (Opus3 & fonè) listed as well. A guy can get into trouble ordering tape much quicker than LPs.



Dre

[MylesBAstor]

Great timing Larry. I have Autumn Leaves and it sounds fabulous.

Dre

Isn't it about time you spill the beans?

[Dre_J]

Isn't it about time you spill the beans?

Shhh... not yet.

[Rob]

you haven't told the **boss** yet?

[Dre_J]

Thant's not it.

[MylesBAstor]

Wondering if these will sell out. There must be a pricepoint where the tapes no longer become feasible to offer the public and also a pricepoint where the public is not willing to pay.

I can tell you the first eight Groove Note Tapes went to Asia. In fact, many of the tapes were sold in Asia.

There are people who will pay for 1/2-inch or 30 ips tape too that are at least double that.

[astrotoy]

Myles, thanks for the EQ info. Just played my Jacintha "Autumn Leaves" tape last night. Clearly it is NAB EQ, although nowhere on either box does it say what EQ was used. My copy, from Groove Note, is about a year or so old and has no cover art or inserts. The tracks are hand written on the front of the box. When I first played the album with IEC EQ, I noticed Jacintha's voice quality was different from my only Jacintha album (the FIM salute to Karen Carpenter on CD), but I didn't think to change the EQ. Normally, the default EQ for 15ips 2 track is IEC. In my other tapes, NAB is always specified if that is the EQ. I'll be playing my "Here's to Ben" today. They look identical in markings to the "Autumn Leaves" and are probably NAB, too. But I'll check.

Readers may want to note that Myles added the extra valuable info in blue to my original post #1 in the thread.

Larry

[MylesBAstor]

Adding that in blue was purely accidental. Don't know what I hit to make that happen! 😎

[Galileo]

I purchased a recent two-track 15ips copy of "Autumn Leaves" from Elusive Disc, one of the batch made my Bernie Grundman, and it came clearly marked as NAB. NAB isn't just an IQ, it's a standard for recording tapes with the highest possible quality and it's often the case that NAB dubs of master tapes use a wider magnetic gap than their IEC equivalents. Of course, these have to be played with special heads that may or may not make it into mainstream 1/4" consumer decks. The NAB masters themselves though may need to be played with special heads for optimal bandwidth and dynamic range.

[mep]

Here's to Ben is also NAB. Since it's sold out, I will sell my copy for $5K to the first person with the cash.

[Tunes]

Lol!

[astrotoy]

Mark, you can use the money to buy one of the new Horch House R2R machines! Larry

[MylesBAstor]