Sound issues with Concord's Prestige Remasters

Is anyone else getting fed up with the sound problems on some of the Concord Prestige remasters? There are a few I've bought that have sound dropouts or distortion. Some are minor, and others are quite bad (Django by MJQ, for example). I don't think I can blame RVG for this. His Blue Note remasters have been outstanding (to my ears anyway). So, what's the deal? Are the master tapes damaged, or is it just a lack of Quality Control on Concord's part? And, more importantly, if they're aware of this issue, are they doing anything about it?

 

I did an A/B comparision with volume compensation between the Yusef Lateef - Eastern Sounds RVG and the OJC (1991 remastering by Kirk Felton). The RVG is very loud. On bass solos, it sounds maximized ("BOOM BOOM"), losing all the subtlety of the notes. Apart from that the tonality (well balanced) and stereo spread (slightly narrower) are OK, but this ruins it for me.

No tape problems on that one.

 

I wasn't very impressed with the Concord Prestige compilations (the ones with included bonus CD samplers) that I got a year or two ago... Not awful, but not as good as the OJCs, in my opinion. Played once, then shelved. Unlike the OJCs which I return to often.

I just hope Concord is keeping the OJC masters around. Hehe, maybe some day they can figure out how to repress all the old OJC masters and marketing them effectively, such as with this tout: "Now Available Again For a Limited Time! Original Compact Disc Masters!"



Craig(VC).