Archive for The Absolute Sound
The Absolute Sound Feature on the Reference Mastercuts Series
The April 2023 issue of The Absolute Sound features a new article from Stephen Estep entitled “New Classical Recordings on Vinyl” and highlights our Reference Mastercuts series! Look for the article in the April 2023 issue of The Absolute Sound!
The Absolute Sound Reviews All-Night Vigil LP
The February 2022 issue of The Absolute Sound gives high marks to our release of Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 on LP: “This 2017 recording may seem like unlikely material to get the half-speed mastered, 45rpm, 180-gram virgin vinyl treatment, but LP partisans should be glad it did. Reference provides further evidence that Keith O. Johnson’s range as a recording professional knows no limits. … The choral sound has the low center-of-gravity that serves this…
The Absolute Sound Reviews Fiona Boyes’ Blues In My Heart
Greg Cahill gives Fiona Boyes’ Blues In My Heart: 20th Anniversary Edition a four-star review in The Absolute Sound: “Boyes lends a loose, sassy flair to these songs—check out the defiant attitude she bestows upon Kid Bailey’s “Rowdy Blues.” Boyes’ vocals and picking are the driving force here, and her big Matan dreadnaught is close-miked to accentuate the foot stomps, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and string bends. And she is supported by occasional bandmates Kaz Dalla Rosa…
John Williams At The Movies Gets Five Stars from The Absolute Sound
The Absolute Sound‘s Arthur Lintgen gives a 5-star Sonic Rating to the GRAMMY® Award-nominated Dallas Winds and Jerry Junkin recording John Williams At The Movies: “give this spectacular recording a serious audition. The principal reason for the recording’s success is that Williams composed so effectively for brass and percussion. …all of the arrangements are spectacular, including the lengthy excerpts from Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and E.T. Much of the album’s success is also due to the…
The Absolute Sound Gives High Marks To John Williams At The Movies
The Dallas Winds and Jerry Junkin‘s new John Williams At The Movies recording receives high marks (4 Stars for Music, 5 Stars for Sonics) in the December 2018 issue of The Absolute Sound: “The principal reason for the recording’s success is that Williams composed so effectively for brass and percussion. The sonority here is frequently different from the original orchestrations, but in most cases it works very well. … all of the arrangements are spectacular,…
Break The Chain in The Absolute Sound
Order Now Doug MacLeod’s new Break The Chain recording receives ratings of 4/5 in Music and 5/5 in Sonics from The Absolute Sound: “Singer, songwriter, and skilled guitarist Doug MacLeod has won four Blues Music Awards, including 2017’s Acoustic Artist of the Year. Break the Chain offers 12 blues originals that ponder Saturday night rituals, lost dreams, politics, and aging. But MacLeod is first and foremost a keeper of the torch who celebrates Tampa Red…
The Absolute Sound Reviews Nojima Plays Liszt Mastercuts LP
Order Now Wayne Garcia has a new review for our Nojima Plays Liszt recording in the latest issue of The Absolute Sound: “One of Reference Recordings’ most beloved LPs, Nojima Plays Liszt was recorded in December, 1986. It’s been a perennial of this magazine’s Super LP List, and now RR has reissued the title as a half-speed mastered 45rpm two-LP set with original liner notes by TAS Senior Writer Robert E. Greene. … Minoru Nojima…
The Absolute Sound Features Woman At The New Piano
Nadia Schpachenko’s Woman at the New Piano recording gets a 4.5 star review from Andrew Quint of The Absolute Sound: “Reference Recordings garnered seven nominations for the 2016 Grammy Awards, including two for Woman at the New Piano. The disc premieres six works written in 2013 by four composers, three of whom, like Shpachenko, live and work in the Los Angeles environs. … Shpachenko and Lee perform the music with complete authority, and they’re superbly…
Absolute Sound Reviews Bruckner
Andrew Quint with a new review for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 recording on The Absolute Sound: “Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s last project for Reference Recordings garnered a 2015 Grammy nomination for Best Orchestral Recording, so expectations were high for this one, too. Perhaps that’s unfair, as Bruckner makes very different demands on a conductor and orchestra than do Dvorák and Janácek. But this performance of Bruckner’s “Romantic” symphony…
Bruckner in The Absolute Sound
The Absolute Sound‘s Andrew Quint hails Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck’s Bruckner recording as “an unqualified success.” “…this performance of Bruckner’s ‘Romantic’ symphony is an unqualified success. … The sound is gloriously full and dimensional, both in stereo and surround. Not only is there layered depth and good imaging, the full orchestral sound has mass of its own, expanding to fill Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall at the symphony’s grandest moments.” —Andrew Quint, The Absolute Sound Find…
TAS Tabs RR Releases as “Hidden Treasures”
The Absolute Sound 2014 High-End Audio Buyer’s Guide was just published and includes a feature in which writers list their recommended ‘obscure’ music and encourage readers to go find it. Two RR Minnesota Orchestra recordings were selected in this “Ten Little-Known But Great-Sounding Recordings” list! Mephisto & Co., Minnesota Orchestra “…it gets my vote as the single best sounding RR CD. The centerpiece of the collection is Malcolm Arnold’s Tam O’ Shanter Overture, here in…
The Absolute Sound calls Delibes album an Instant Audiophile Classic
The Absolutes Sound hails our recent release Delibes: Sylvia & Coppélia an “instant audiophile classic.” From The Absolute Sound: “For 30 years, “Professor” Keith Johnson and reference Recordings have provided audiophiles with orchestral spectaculars to challenge high-end systems. This new CD of two perennially popular ballet favorites could be their best yet. The sense of individual instruments, or groups of instruments —say, four French horns— occupying their own space, is uncanny.The scaling of those instruments…
RR LP News
In January we will be releasing another new Reference Recordings Mastercuts LP — Rachmaninioff! RACHMANINOFF Symphonic DancesÉtudes-Tableaux (orch. Respighi)Vocalise Eiji Oue, ConductorMinnesota Orchestra Grammy® Nominated 2003Category 90– Best Engineered Album – ClassicalKeith O. Johnson, engineer Selected by SoundStage!.com as one of the “Best Recordings of 2001” Chosen by THREE reviewers of The Absolute Sound magazine as one of the best releases of 2001.Sergei Rachmaninoff was one of the most beloved composers of the twentieth century.…
The Absolute Sound 2011 High End Audio Buyer’s Guide
The Absolute Sound’s new issue (207) is highlighted by the 2011 High End Audio Buyer’s Guide. In it they chose several of our albums for demo use, and we can’t help but share their reactions with you! From The Absolute Sound: RR-120 — Britten’s Orchestra“For me, the ideal demonstration disc combines both great music and great sound, be it something obscure from a major label or relatively mainstream music from an ‘audiophile’ label such as…