More British Blues Rock
- Here is a vintage UK Chrysalis pressing (the first copy to hit the site in over three years) with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout
- This side two is tonally correct, big and bold, with the kind of rich, full-bodied sound that is the hallmark of rock recordings in the early to mid-70s, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
- One of the most important records in my growth as an audiophile from 1971 to the present – my stereo was forced to evolve in order to play this kind of big production rock at the loud levels that the album needs to work its Psychedelic Blues Rock magic
- No matter how many times you play it, you will hear — or at least gain more of an appreciation for — something new in the exceptionally dense, deep, sophisticated soundfield the engineers no doubt sweated to create for the album
- And each time you make an improvement to the quality of your playback, this is the album that will show you just exactly what you have accomplished
- 4 stars: “The leadoff track, ‘One of These Days,’ is a particularly scorching workout, featuring extended harmonica and guitar solos. The production on A Space in Time is crisp and clean, a sound quite different from the denseness of its predecessors [that] has its share of sparkling moments.”
- This is clearly the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here.
We always knew this great album could sound good, but it’s not often we heard it sound like this!
A Space in Time is just one of the recordings that made me pursue big stereo systems driving big speakers, right from my earliest days in audio. You need large dynamic drivers with plenty of piston area — the kind that can move a lot of air — in order to bring the power of the music to life.
If you have big speakers and a penchant for giving the old volume knob an extra click or two, it just doesn’t get any better than A Space In Time.
I’ve been playing ASIT for decades and I heard lots of things this time around I never knew were there. This is why we keep improving our systems, right? There is never going to be a time when these 50+ year old recordings have nothing new to offer.
This vintage Chrysalis 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 The Best Sides Of A Space In Time 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 1971
- 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.
The Seventies – What a Decade!
Acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this record. The harmonic coherency, the richness, the body and the phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum.
This is some of the best high-production-value rock music of the 60s and 70s. The amount of effort that went into the recording of this album is comparable to that expended by the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, The Who, Jethro Tull, Ambrosia, Pink Floyd and far too many others to list. It seems that no effort or cost was spared in making the home listening experience as compelling as the recording technology of the day permitted.
Big Production Tubey Magical British Psych Rock just doesn’t get much better than A Space In Time.
What We’re Listening For On A Space In Time
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- 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.
A Must Own Rock Record
We consider this album the band’s one and only Masterpiece. It’s a Demo Disc quality recording that should be part of any serious rock collection.
Others that belong in that category can be found here.
Side One
One Of These Days
Here They Come
I’d Love to Change The World
Over the Hill
Baby Won’t You Let Me Rock ‘N’ Roll You
Side Two
Once There Was A Time
Let The Sky Fall
Hard Monkeys
I’ve Been There Too
Uncle Jam
AMG Review
A Space in Time was Ten Years After’s best-selling album. This was due primarily to the strength of “I’d Love to Change the World,” the band’s only hit single, and one of the most ubiquitous AM and FM radio cuts of the summer of 1971… A Space in Time has more of a pop-oriented feel than any of their previous releases had. The individual cuts are shorter, and Alvin Lee displays a broader instrumental palette than before. In fact, six of the disc’s ten songs are built around acoustic guitar riffs. However, there are still a couple of barn-burning jams.