n 2007, Ron Rambach and Joe Harley launched Music Matters, the perfectionist music label dedicated to reissuing classic Blue Note titles on 180-gram LPs. Over the next eleven years, Music Matters released a treasure trove of significant jazz, first 112 titles as 45rpm double-LP sets, and then 67 more 33rpm single LPs. Many running changes occurred during those eleven years, including a switch from Steve Hoffman to Kevin Gray for all mastering. Improvements included upgraded mastering equipment as well as a full set of AudioQuest cables for the mastering suite. All of this resulted in increasingly better-sounding records, with some of the last 33rpm discs sounding as good as or better than the earliest of 45rpms. Quality is its own commodity, and quality allowed Music Matters to eschew wholesale sales in favor of direct sales, which reduced order-fulfillment issues and increased the return on each up-front dollar spent.

But over the course of those 179 titles, two appearing each month, the excitement of releasing new LPs of historic music became toil and then a grind. Ron Rambach decided to pack it in and sell his remaining stock. Then everyone involved would get back to normal life.

But, to quote Al Pacino in Godfather 3, "They keep pulling me back in." "They" being the Blue Note recording sessions and "in" being the need, perhaps irrational, to produce the best LPs of them. So, to his own chagrin, Ron Rambach decided to release another dozen titles at 33rpm: a few that he did at 45rpm, fewer still that he hasn't reissued at all.

There is something driving this effort, the final frontier in reissuing LPs, the vinyl itself. SRX vinyl is new and special; it's also expensive, at nearly $8 in material per LP. Records pressed from this carbonless formula look opaque, but if you hold an SRX LP up to the light, you can see through it. Yes, SRX vinyl is quieter in the way that you might think: less surface noise, including fewer clicks and pops. However, if you buy new records, clean them before their first play, store them in new inner sleeves, and don't play them with a worn or misaligned cartridge, you already have records that are quieter. SRX vinyl goes beyond decreased surface noise, lowering the overall noise floor of the LP itself. Ron Rambach suggests 3dB as the improvement, which is significant for analog playback, but my ears tell me it may be even greater. What this does is noticeably increase dynamic range, providing improvement that's more in line with new electronics or speakers than simply a new version of an old record. Along with this there is an increase in musical detail, perhaps because there's less noise to obscure it, perhaps because SRX pressings preserve more detail in the groove.

I chose Introducing Johnny Griffin and Inner Urge to headline this review, but I could have selected any of the dozen upcoming Music Matters SRX releases. I've heard test pressings of them all, and the sound is consistent. Introducing Johnny Griffin is, as the title implies, the debut recording of a tenor saxophonist of rare dexterity and power -- the Oscar Peterson of the sax. Inner Urge, in contrast, is a later title from one of Blue Note's headliners, a probing set of mostly originals, including the twelve-minute title number. However, it was "El Barrio" that Ron Rambach urged me to hear as an example of SRX's capabilities. The deep, black, velvety background was reminiscent of the best Japanese pressings, and the fiery solos sounded more immediate and distinct. Less noise and more music are what hi-fi is all about and what SRX vinyl delivers.

All of the SRX reissues were cut with the original, and only, master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, and they were pressed at RTI through a process that required much trial and error to perfect. Rick Hashimoto, RTI's plant manager, conceived of and refined the SRX formulation, so it won't be used only for Music Matters LPs. That's the way it should be; a breakthrough like this should not be hoarded. Including the two titles discussed here, Music Matters has chosen six mono and six stereo LPs to release on SRX vinyl -- ten that were released at 45rpm (and are long sold out) and two that are new to the label. All will be available on January 1 and limited to 1500 copies.