Mapleshade records: Pick the best of

Thanks for the responses. I'm sure that others are interested in this too as nobody wants to buy discs that are all flash with little substance. As such, please keep the suggestions coming as diversity of opinion is what makes the internet such an interesting and useful tool : )

It would appear that many here have similar tastes and / or that some of these specific discs are just much more enjoyable than others that they've tried from this label. On top of that, i really appreciate Duane's and Rich's suggestion of other sources for music. Good recordings of good music at fair prices is all anyone can ask for : ) Sean
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First, Mappleshade people are techchies and they know how to tweak and make things sound very good (non-CD stuff I'm referring to...) I have owned a few of their CDs (not more than 4) and sound quality if phenomena (I won't comment on the material...) I got their little catalog in the mail booklet too for 4 for $40. It's a good deal but I found myself flipping the pages numerous of times but undecided to buy because I'm not sure I like their music repertoire.

Hi, Sean:

I own 24 Mapleshade CD's, and intend, in response to your post, to write an article that provides information about each recording. Unfortunately, I do not have time to do that today, and I am travelling to Sacramento for the weekend. Hence, I'll have to write the article early next week, and will post it as a new thread on Audiogon, under the title "Review of 24 Mapleshade CD's". In the meantime, feel free to contact me directly if you have questions about any specific Mapleshade releases.

Audiomax: I think that we are in the same boat. I read the descriptions of these discs and none of them comes across as exciting to me. That's why i posted the question that i did. I was hoping that someone else was brave enough to go out on that limb and report back for the rest of us : )

Scott: That is quite a daunting task and one that would be of benefit for all Agoner's everywhere. I wish you the best on your trip and look forward to reading your summaries when you get a chance. Sean
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An audiophile friend passed to me a recent Maple Shade quarterly mailer. The hyperbole of the sound engineer talk got to me (the little green symbol in the blurb for most of the disks indicate audiophile or near-SADC recording quality via their two channel anolog recordings--i.e., essentially "live" in the studio) so I ordered six CDs.

I'm a jazzhead, and I like reggae. If you've ever been to a live reggae gig, where there's quality amplification and muscianship, the low end is like nothing on earth. Maple Shade tries to capture it with Midnite's "Ras Mek Peace." It's terrific audio quality re voice and most of the music but the low end is muddy on the first few tracks. Nice try, and if there's some benefit of the doubt, my audiophile buddy tells me his Krell reference subwoofer, Musical Fidelity amp and preamp and $8K worth of speaker cable and interconnects will clear up that attempt to capture live reggae base.

May I suggest, however, recordings of merit if you are a jazz fan: The C-Nuts and Gerard D'Angelo Trio are excellent, both quality of the music and audio quality through the frequency range.