Here is a sampling of what the critics have had to say:
"Well...I've just finished listening to the 45 RPM of Chet Baker/Chet (it's now back on the table for the second time) and I can tell you that you've no idea HOW FANTASTIC this album is until you hear what Kassem has produced. Of course so much of the credit goes to Steve H. and Kevin G., I think you guys do wonderful work...FOLKS...buy these albums 'cause the are just totally insane. I mean, in "Alone Together," aside from how great Baker sounds, Pepper Adams on baritone sax is IN THE F**KING ROOM. "How High the Moon" puts Bill Evans right there also. Wonderful."
- Richard Foster, posted on Phonogram
"This double 45 RPM set positively kills the Riverside original in every way: I know because I've owned a copy since the mid '60s...I played this miraculously mastered 2 LP set for a friend who's owned the original since it was first issued and he sat there slack jawed. What Gray and Hoffman have done here is astounding. If you know the record, you will be stunned by the clarity, transparency and dynamic slam of this edition, and you'll marvel at the harmonic complexity and percussive purity of the piano, which sounds boxy on every other edition I've ever heard. If you don't think a mono record can deliver enormous soundstage depth, wait until you hear where Roach's drum kit sits in the soundfield."
- Review by Michael Fremer for musicangle.com on the remastered Thelonious Monk/Brilliant Corners double-45 set. Read the full review at www.musicangle.com.
"The two latest 45s from Acoustic Sounds, 88 Basie Street and Duke's Big 4, have just raised the impossibly high bar set by Waltz For Debby. The dynamics, speed and power of these two pressings stretch the imagined limits set by the originals...It is truly seldom that you get it all...We have not only exceptional fidelity, but it is coupled with some of the finest musicianship and jazz interpretations on the planet! This just don't happen!...These AP pressings are totally get-off-yer-ass-and-buy-'em superior in every regard!
- Rich Brown, aka Speaker Boy, Klipsch Audio Technologies
"Basically, I think the sound quality is unmatched for any of these cuts that have previously been released by anyone else. They're just wonderful. When I heard them, I just fell out of my chair."
- Acoustic Sounds customer Art Trujillo on the Miles Davis/Cookin' and Bill Evans/Waltz For Debby 45s.
"I will admit that those who had heard this 45 rpm at CES were right. So far, I think this is the best of the series. No critical listening last night... it was just so wow! that I was enjoying the tunes. Each set keeps on getting better, I hope that trend continues, not sure how they can get better but."
- Customer Bruce Platt
"Comparisons with Chad's previous re-issue of Waltz for Debby (and it was then a watermark for timbral accuracy!) reveal an even greater sense of depth within the club and a much finer grading of dynamics. As the title cut gallops along, propelled by brush and bass, overtones and string fingering are precise, tactile and textured. My God I have died and gone to...The Village Vanguard!...Chad, Kevin and Steve have resurrected the giants of Jazz, and they now stalk me in my living room. Vinyl fans, get behind this mutha! The series is hot!"
- Rich Brown, aka Speaker Boy, Klipsch Audio Technologies and Acoustic Sounds customer
"There have probably been more reissues of this 1961 Riverside recording than any other jazz record in history...This 45 rpm edition presents the most flattering, revealing, and clear rendering of Evans' piano that I've heard yet...Easily the best-sounding version of this classic live album ever released with the SACD a close second...The music is extremely well served by this edition. It has an openness and physical scale that the 33 1/3 LPs lack and a crystalline clarity, airiness and sense of depth not even the excellent sounding SACD can touch."
- Michael Fremer, musicangle.com
"Kevin Gray, who I feel is the best damn record cutter in the world today...Kevin and I will not cut too far into the record center at 45 RPM so that even an average stylus can track the groove with ease...I think you will find that this new series is going to be the most pure and dynamic recreations of the original master tapes we have ever heard."
- Mastering Engineer Steve Hoffman
"Relaxin' was a good-sounding album in its original mono pressing. JVC put out a splendid XRCD reissue, and a few years back, Analogue pressed a gorgeous 33 rpm slab of vinyl as part of its (now out-of-print) Miles Davis Quintet: Great Prestige Recordings box set. Yet all these things are but gaslight before the illuminated clarity of the 45 rpms. When I first heard Coltrane start his solo on "Oleo," I nearly yelped: he seemed right there in the room. I don't think I've ever heard a more vivid tenor sax on a record. You hear much more of Miles' mouthpiece, how he adjusts the air to color his tone or stagger his rhythm. Even the piano, always the murkiest element of a '50s Van Gelder recording, sounds as if the lid has been lifted. The bass is properly woody, the trapset crisp. I'd call this album essential."
- Fred Kaplan, The Absolute Sound February/March 2003
"When I visited AcousTech’s mastering facility at RTI back in July of 1996, Stan Ricker was cutting Cookin’ along with four other Quintet recordings for The Great Prestige Recordings Miles Davis box set that Analogue Productions issued soon thereafter…Stan cut a souvenir lacquer of side one for me, which I compared to this new 45-rpm cut by Hoffman and Gray. Now, this is not to say anything bad about Stan Ricker, who is one of the great lacquer cutters of all time…what Gray and Hoffman have built to replace (the original AcousTech Mastering) is entirely in another league and clearly one of the best-sounding cutting facilities in the world. So it isn’t a complete surprise that the new 45-rpm vinyl actually sounds better than the lacquer Stan cut for me that day. True, lacquers deteriorate over time, but the fact is, the 45-rpm cut sounds far better than the final LP from the box set, and I have no doubt that this 45-rpm set is about as close to the sound of the master tape as any of us will ever hear at home. It’s liquid and crisp and detailed and spacious and clear as a winter’s evening. If you need convincing that mono can offer imaging and depth, try this. This is a "snapshot in time" record of one of the greatest jazz groups ever, at its peak, and this is its greatest presentation — I don't care what new format comes down the 'pike. If you've got a turntable, now's the time, because it won't be around forever. Expensive? Yes. But worth every penny. You'll treasure it every time you listen. As for Relaxin', for some reason it might even sound better than Cookin'."
Review by Michael Fremer for musicangle.com on Miles Davis – Cookin' and Relaxin'
"Fantasy, Inc. owns many of the most important labels in jazz history, including Prestige, Riverside, Contemporary, Fantasy and Pablo. What makes these imprints the best is the collective legendary roster of musicians. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk and on and on. These are the kings of jazz, and Fantasy owns the throne. Acoustic Sounds' own label, Analogue Productions, licensed what they considered to be the 25 most-classic titles from this vast catalog. There's no disputing the validity of their selections. This limited-edition series does in fact contain several of the best jazz albums ever. Combining their selection of titles with their means of production - that being the use of top-flight facilities like AcousTech Mastering and the Record Technology, Inc. pressing plant - Analogue Productions has created the series of the century.
Prestige is represented with two seminal Miles Davis Quintet albums (Cookin', Relaxin') plus the trumpeter's all-star conclave Bags' Groove; definitive performances by tenor sax giants Sonny Rollins (Saxophone Colossus) and John Coltrane (Soultrane), as well as the pair's only meeting on record (Tenor Madness); more immortal saxophony by Gene Ammons (Boss Tenor) and Coleman Hawkins with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (Night Hawk); and a pair of collaborative gems from the label's Bluesville subsidiary by Lightnin' Hopkins/Sonny Terry (Last Night Blues) and Willie Dixon/Memphis Slim (Willie's Blues).
Another New York powerhouse, Riverside Records, contributes three eloquent collections by the Bill Evans trio (Waltz for Debby, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Moon Beams), plus Evans' encounter with Cannonball Adderley (Know What I Mean?); masterpieces by Thelonious Monk with Rollins (Brilliant Corners) and Coltrane (Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane); and some of the most inspired works of legendary trumpeter Chet Baker (Chet) and guitarist Wes Montgomery (Full House).
From Los Angeles comes three saxophone gems on Contemporary by Rollins (Way Out West), Art Pepper (Meets the Rhythm Section) and Ben Webster (At the Renaissance), and three of Pablo's best piano sessions featuring Count Basie twice (with his legendary big band on 88 Basie Street, and communing with Oscar Peterson on The Time Keepers) and Duke Ellington in his final recording (Duke's Big 4).
Fantasy's own classics are represented by the Vince Guaraldi hit that helped popularize bossa nova in the U.S. (Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus).
A true array of classic and modern jazz masters, sounding better than ever."
- Bob Blumenthal
Blumenthal has been a jazz critic since 1969, contributing to publications such as Rolling Stone, Down Beat, JazzTimes and The Boston Globe. In 1999 and 2000, Blumenthal won Grammy awards for best album notes.
