Hank Mobley – Soul Station

Great mastering, pressing quality as mine is flat, quiet and dynamic. One of my favorite Jazz albums of all time and this one is a keeper.

One of my favorite jazz albums. Great music, accessible even for a relative jazz newbie like me. Highly recommended.

I must have gotten incredibly lucky as this is an incredible pressing. I can’t imagine this sounding much better other than an OG Mono or asking KPG to recut it at 45? Stellar work for such a great price and the best sounding of the Blue Note Classics reissues in my collection so far.

Wonderful music. Sounds great. Top 10 jazz records for me all time

0 no fills to report, lightly dishing vinyl but not enough to at all affect playback. Mastering is fantastic

Mastering: Pretty good, even great at times. Would be a delight to listen to except for poor pressing quality.

Pressing: Terrible. I have now owned four copies of this record. All four were new and sealed when I bought them. All four have been defective.
#1: Audible non-fill on side 2
#2: Audible non-fill on side 2
#3: Severely dished record. Random repeating pops on both sides.
#4: Audible pops caused by scratches on side 1.

Conclusion: Don’t buy this unless you are willing to accept a high probability of your music being repeatedly interrupted by surface noise. I can’t speak to the sax distortion others mention because I was so distracted by the non-fill.

First copy I purchased had a lot of non-fills. Returned it. Second one is perfect! One of the best sounding LP I own.

Can’t rate 5 stars unfortunately, due to the sax distortion in left channel. A shame really. Otherwise, exceptional.

My daughter gifted me with this amazing piece of musical excellence, and I was reading through your many varied opinions regarding the quality of the record, as I was listening. It was so fine. I was thinking about how lucky I was to have such a fine sounding copy. It was exquisite, and very soothing.
Then, about two thirds of the way into the last cut on side two, my stylus fell into the Grand Canyon. Or at least it seemed that way. Three or four very significant pops, but the stylus managed to stay on the record. So miracles do happen. But what a sheer disappointment. I guess if I look at the bright side, it's only the one cut that's screwed up. But one out of six is a lot. This is the kind of crap that will invariably stock my music room's shelves with records that just get ignored. What a shame!

Just an update. I wasn't going to say anything to my daughter regarding the flaw in my copy, but knowing that she had purchased it on Amazon, and knowing that they had a very cool return policy, I asked her to arrange for an exchange. I'm glad I did. The replacement copy is just excellent. It's too bad that there can't be more consistency in the manufacturing process. I guess that's all on Optimal. Maybe Optimal should get with it, and demonstrate a lot more respect for their customers performance expectations, and their customer's time, and hard earned money. Just sayin'!!

My copy just received scrubbed cleaned and rinsed used a vpi vac. Flat and very centered ultra clean play through no pops at all. Only noise was run out grooves on side b.

It is a forward mix as Mobley was recorded hot. I’d assume this is RVG not the mastering. I didn’t get distortion as others did. I’d ask for those of you who had distortion what cartridge and phono pre you are using and what are your gain settings? The mastering is forward because of how hot Mobley is and if you have high gain settings on your pre you might be squashing the front end. If you experience distortion in records others don’t It could be an issue. I’m using a Lyra kleos sl cart with a Sutherland tz-Vibe. The current amplification of the ultra low impedance cart I have to have the lowest gain settings to ensure I don’t blow out the front und of my preamp. That’s an FYI. Has cleaned up many records I thought were distorted.

This is a great recording drums and bass sound amazing. Keys are soft as expected. Mobley is louder in the mix. This is the mix. Classic record and great mastering and press over here. It’s a value at this price. One could only hope that that they do a tone poet or another music matters in mono. That would prob be the best. At the prices of the mono reissues here I’m hoping for a new spinoff It soon.

Buy this you will be disappointed