The finest technically recorded album. LP or CD

Viridian is "dead on" with his comment about the Charlie Byrd D-to-D recording on Crystal Clear. When I was a high school student in suburban Maryland in the late 1950's, I took some guitar lessons from Charlie Byrd, and heard him perform live many times at his regular gig at the Showboat Lounge in Washington, DC. I know the sound of Charlie's guitar very well, and the Crystal Clear LP is so realistic that it is startling.

There are some other D-to-D recordings that also have amazing fidelity: some of the big band recordings on Century Records; the recordings of the L.A. 4 on the EastWind label (owned by Yasohachi Itoh, who is now producing jazz LP's on the "EightyEights" label); many of the Sheffield Records titles (although not all have great music); and the limited edition D-to-D LP's on Concord Jazz of the "Great Guitars" trio (Charlie Byrd; Herb Ellis; and Barney Kessel).

I am going to assume that Zaikesman's comment about my post implied his general agreement with what I wrote. In my experience as an audiophile over the past 40 years, I have heard only a handful of recordings that were "technically excellent" (i.e., actually sounded like live music). Since it is virtually impossible to reproduce the live sound of a rock band (electric instruments, high SPL's) or a symphony orchestra (hall acoustics, wide dynamic range, etc.), about the best that one can hope for is accurate recordings of small acoustic ensembles or a singer with minimal accompaniment.

Like Zaikesman, I mean no personal criticism toward the posts that nominate recordings by popular groups. Quite simply, however, there is almost no way for those recordings to be "technically excellent" since the original master tapes were usually heavily processed, were 2nd or 3rd generation multi-track mixdowns before being pressed or digitized, etc. The ONLY storage medium that can get close to true accuracy, and therefore meet the "technically excellent" criteria, is direct-to-disk analog recording, and not even all of the D-to-D disks are equal in quality. I have a large number of D-to-D disks that I acquired in the late 1970's (multiple copies of each), and I believe they are the "gold standard" for technical excellence. Their "technical" sound quality, although usually not the quality of the musical performance itself, substantially exceeds even the best of the other recording media, such as SACD, CD, etc.

The only recording medium that is close to D-to-D in sound quality is analog tape at 30 ips, but its utility is severely limited because can only be one master tape (even 2nd generation copies have a noticeable reduction in fidelity). Most of the LP's on the Reference Recordings label, for example, began as 30 ips analog tapes. (One of the best "technically excellent" LP's on this label is Professor Keith Johnson's "Amazing Sound Show". It's sure as hell not an LP that you will want to play over and over, but it's got startling fidelity.)

While there are many recordings that people enjoy for their musical content (some are listed above), the standard of "techical excellence" is an entirely different matter. For those who have not had the chance to listen to the best D-to-D LP's, try to find some in good condition to hear what a high-end audio system can really sound like.

Lugnut: I certainly agree with your point that a lot of the "technically excellent" recordings in D-to-D format are, more often than not, musically boring after a few playings. Wouldn't it be great if there were more really excellent recordings of musically exciting material?

BTW, you have my condolences on approaching geezerhood. My first serious exposure to "hi fi" actually occurred in 1958, when the father of my high school buddy across the street bought a Marantz preamp and power amp, a Garrard turntable, and a pair of KLH speakers. Man, was I impressed. It's interesting in retrospect to realize that so many of the LP's of that era (RCA, Mercury, Decca) offered such high quality when high-end playback gear was still in its infancy. Seems like the situation has reversed itself today: lots of great gear, but fewer and fewer recordings that do justice to the audio system.