• A stunning sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
• Exceptionally quiet vinyl on both sides with each playing Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus
• “This set features Grisman’s string group (which also includes violinist Darol Anger, Mike Marshall on mandolin, guitar and violin, Mark O’Connor on violin and guitar, and bassist Rob Wasserman)… The music is excellent…” – All Music

This vintage Warner Brothers pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What amazing sides such as these have to offer is not hard to hear:

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1980
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We Listen For on Quintet ’80

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Dawgma
Bow Wow
Barkley’s Bug
Sea Of Cortez
Naima

Side Two

Mugavero
Dawgmatism
Thailand

AMG  Review

Throughout his career, mandolinist David Grisman has performed music that crosses between many boundaries, from “new acoustic” folk to bluegrass and swing-oriented jazz. This set features Grisman’s string group (which also includes violinist Darol Anger, Mike Marshall on mandolin, guitar and violin, Mark O’Connor on violin and guitar, and bassist Rob Wasserman) playing six of Grisman’s diverse originals, an obscure tune, and a brief rendition of John Coltrane’s “Naima.” The music is excellent, but Grisman’s more jazz-oriented projects would be in the future.