The Great Michael Fremer gives “Ciaramella Dances” an 11 out of 10 for sound!

…the recording sounds… closely miked, yet still wonderfully spacious and natural. Instruments are convincingly spread across the stage….

The music covers “grounds” from Spain, Italy and England…. These mostly mirth-filled tunes sound something like what you’d expect to hear at an outdoor June wedding held in a garden and you might expect the group to break into Pachelbel’s Canon in D, but thankfully they don’t…. (there’s also a new composition “The Fisher and Fox” by group co-director Adam Knight Gilbert). Side two begins with Alessandro Piccinini’s “Chiaccona in partite variate”, which has a chord progression familiar to any rocker or folkie.

As much pleasure as the melodic compositions and spirited playing bring, an additional highlight is the superb, minimally miked recording (a single AKG C24 tubed “stereo” unit), produced to analog recording tape at USC’s Alfred Newman Hall.

The short signal path wired with five foot long custom, stranded silver interconnects, features custom Elliot Midwood-designed vacuum tube preamplifiers and no mixer. The cut from the original tape at 45rpm by Bernie Grundman uses no compression or limiting. Grundman went the “extra mile”, bypassing his board and cutting the lacquer directly from the tape playback deck’s output.

So guess what? The sonics are astonishing and the Pallas pressing dead quiet. Quite simply, if you want to know how good your stereo can possibly sound, get this short, but delightful record….

Read Mr.Fremer’s full article.