Played against the best Golden Age organ recordings, these Crystal Clear titles are noticeably lacking in ambience. The best pressings, assuming one would do a shootout for them, might be expected to earn a sonic grade of B- or so.
Volume 1 is a TAS List record. But seeing as they were all recorded at the same time, you can be sure this one sounds just as good. By the way, did you know Stan Ricker cut this record live direct to disc? He did a great job too. (more…)
Sonic Grade: F
An awful Direct to Disc recording. The bad sound and pointless music — this is the kind of crap we audiophiles used to put up with back in the ’70s before we had much of a clue — means that it clearly belongs in only one place on our site: the Hall of Shame.
[This review was written in 2010. Since then I have played copies of these Crystal Clear organ recordings and been much less impressed. The ambience is a fraction of what it should be, and the reason I know that is that the vintage organ recordings I play have dramatically more size and space than these audiophile pressings do. Live and Learn.]
Are we changing our tune about Audiophile records? Not in the least; we love the ones that sound right. The fact that so few of them do is not our fault. (more…)
A distinguished member of the Better Records Jazz Hall of Fame.
Virtuoso Guitar is yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you Turn Up Your Volume.
This White Hot Crystal Clear 45 RPM Direct-to-Disc fulfills the promise of both the direct to disc recording medium AND the 45 RPM cutting speed so much in vogue these days. We had a big pile of these pressings to play through. When we came upon this one halfway through our shootout, it was so big, so clear, so dynamic, so energetic, so extended on the top and bottom, we almost could not believe what we were hearing especially compared to the others copies we played. (more…)
