Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners

Quiet and well pressed despite the colored vinyl yada yada yada

Crystal clear, flat, wonderful pressing. Japanese quality strikes again! Maybe my favorite Monk album

Sharp, loud but not distorted, remasters by ZYX in 20 bit, what ever that means, and no reference to equipment used, but there is reference to Riverside-Reeves SPECTROSONIC High Fidelity.

Flat, quiet vinyl. A few light ticks along the way, nothing that interferes with enjoyment.

Wow! This is my first time hearing this album. It is by far my favorite of the 5 or 6 Monk albums I have in my small collection. So vividly recorded that it really gives the illusion of separation of instruments in space. Brilliant music, brilliant performances, and brilliant recording!

Very glad I bought this.

Has anyone else experienced a loud click on Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are (track A2) at around 3:25? I usually overlook 1-3 sporadic clicks in a new audiophile record, but this record is exceptionally quiet, so that click is quite distracting. I'm debating whether to return it or not but wanted to check if this pressing error is common, so I don't waste my time.

This is slightly better in sound quality than the recent Craft small batch reissue.

Excellence is achieved yet again with this series of releases. Everything done right and just so. Most of the time these releases surpass all but front of the run first pressings. I am confused as to why anyone would pay the stupid prices many sellers here are asking, when one can wander over to acousticsounds.com and but a copy for the $90 full asking price (at the time of this post 3/19/24). Kind of goofy ya think?

There's a low frequency pulsing during "I Surrender, Dear" that's not present in my digital copy. Perhaps a problem with the tape? This is my first and last ultra expensive new pressing. Yes, it sounds fantastic, but it's not really any better than the VMP cut of Monk's Music. The value isn't there for the extra $60-$70.

The audiophile obsession is like an engineer's wet dream. Chasing after processes which, in theory, produce a superior experience, but are barely perceptible in the final product. All you need is a skilled mastering engineer cutting from tapes of a very well recorded album. Do away with your one step process, and your fancy see through vinyl. It's a waste of money because our ears and brains can't tell the difference.

I ended up setting the box to the side, and putting the record on my shelf so it blends in with all my other normal records. The fancy box is wasteful. Give us a jacket on par with the VMP Monk's Music. They could have foil stamped the numbers on the back of a nice laminated jacket and sold it for $60. Some of these late 50's jazz albums are among the all time best recorded pieces of music ever. Better to re-issue them in a manner that extends beyond the niche market of crazy, OCD audiophiles. ;)

These DOL pressings get a bad rap but at £10 for a blue translucent vinyl with no pops, clicks and decent sound quality it's a very low cost of entry to the genre.

Nowhere on this sleeve or disk it it called out it's the same album as Brilliant Corners. Very strange, considering it is still/also a Riverside release (even if distributed by ABC Records).