News

Music Matters is also very happy to announce important improvements that our close partners at RTI have recently implemented, which will further improve the product we will be providing for your listening pleasure. RTI has recently sourced a vastly improved vinyl formulation, with more lubricants for more silent playing surfaces. The new vinyl will also have improved anti-static properties, further contributing to an even lower playback noise floor.

To take greatest advantage of the improved raw vinyl material, RTI has invested in a new state of the art boiler and temperature control system, which will insure that the vinyl is heated to the most exacting standards required for even flow of the formula while on the press. All in all, better vinyl, better vinyl processing equipment, better quality control. It all adds up to a superb "canvas" upon which we can "paint" with our wonderful Blue Note master tapes! You will hear the difference!

Ron Rambach
For Music Matters Jazz  

It goes without saying that there are many controversies and debates in the perfectionist audio/LP collector market.

But one area of near universal agreement is the quality of mastering that emerges from Kevin Gray's custom-built mastering studio in North Hills, CA. Kevin has provided many of the best sounding new and reissued albums on LP during the last 5 or 6 years working out of his studio.

When Ron and I agreed that Kevin was the Engineer we wanted to do the transfers for our Music Matters Blue Note reissue program I began to think about the connectivity issue at Kevin's studio. As VP of product development at AudioQuest since 1983, the knowledge that cables make a difference is hardly new to me!

An inspection of the facility revealed adequate wiring (mostly from Canare I believe) but hardly the stuff of audiophile dreams. As great as the output of Grays Equipment has been, I knew we could push the performance of this system significantly higher by improving the wiring of both the line level connections as well as the many AC cables in the chain. Kevin quickly agreed to give it a try.

The improvement we heard (by comparing before and after acetates) was substantial. It was clear that we had made a significant improvement to the facility. Through my many years at AQ (Bill Low and I shipped out of his garage back when I started at AQ in 1983) I have become quite familiar with the kind of musically important improvements that can be made when the cabling is made to be more of what it should be.....a sonically "invisible" conduit to the source.

After hearing the difference the AudioQuest cable made in his mastering set up, Kevin Gray had this to say: "I found the change with the AudioQuest cable to be subtle at first. It didn't really change tonality like many other cables I have auditioned. What it DID do is allow you to hear further INTO the music. Subtle directional and spatial cues became clearer and more defined without brightening or hardening the sound. I really appreciate this. So many cables I have heard tend to harden or soften one area of the frequency spectrum and everyone goes ‘Ooh, ahh!'. I don't want that. I just want definition. AudioQuest offers the finest sense of that I have ever heard."

The sonic results of this improvement are being heard not only on the Music Matters series of Blue Note reissues, but everything coming out of Cohearent Studio. Ron and I naturally decided not to make the improved wire a "Music Matters only" feature. After all, we are music lovers first and foremost.

We think you will be quite pleased with the improvement we have managed to squeeze out of an already state of the art mastering facility.

With the music in mind...
Joe and Ron
Music Matters Ltd.