- With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this original UA pressing
- This one is doing almost everything right – it’s bigger, bolder, richer and more clean, clear and open than a lot of what we played
- As one might expect, the sound absolutely jumps out of the speakers on this recording
- I recall this record being on the TAS List back in the day – it appears to have since dropped off the newer iterations, but we still think of it as a Super Disc
- “While eschewing the grandiose string arrangements and heroic sweep of the composer’s best-known efforts, it’s nevertheless one of Williams’ most delightful and ambitious scores, applying traditional Western instrumentation like guitar, banjo, and harmonica to melodies rooted in contemporary pop and jazz.”
What typically separates the killer copies from the merely good ones are two qualities that we often look for in the records we play: transparency and lack of smear.
Transparency allows you to hear into the recording, reproducing the ambience and subtle musical cues and details that high-resolution analog is known for.
Note that most Heavy Vinyl pressings being produced these days seem to be rather Transparency Challenged. Lots of important musical information — the kind we hear on even second-rate regular pressings — is simply nowhere to be found.
Lack of smear is also important, especially on a recording with so many plucked instruments. The speed and clarity of the transients, the sense that fingers are pulling on strings, strings that are ringing with tonally correct harmonics, is what makes these records so much fun to play.
The best copies really get that sound right, in the same way that the best copies of Cat Stevens’ records get the sound of stringed instruments right.
(more…)
