Bach: Art of the Fugue - RARE Mark Levinson Acousitc Recoding Series - MAL5

$

81

RARE AUDIOPHILE COLLECTION FROM THE MARK LEVINSON ACOUSTIC RECORDING SERIES
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: THE ART OF THE FUGUE
Charles Krigbaum: Organ
MAL5
4 LP Box Set
45RPM
French Pressing on virgin vinyl mastered by Bob Ludwig using specially designed Mark Levinson Audio Systems equipment.

HISTORY:
After working at various recording studios and, as legend has it, creating the sound mixer for the Woodstock Music Festival, Mark Levinson started hand-crafting high-end stereo components. In 1972 his brand was born. Levinson founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS, Ltd.) in New Haven, Connecticut, USA in 1972. The new company was one of the first in the US devoted to realistic audio reproduction, a niche later referred to as "high-end audio.”His amplifiers were used as reference equipment for the top stereo magazines and loudspeaker manufacturers.  During his time at the company Mark Levinson set the benchmark for high-end equipment and audiophiles.

Levinson is also a formidable recording and mastering engineer. During his almost four decades of designing and marketing high-performance audio products, Levinson also made legendary recordings of jazz, blues and classical music. He personally remastered Miles Davis’s seminal recording Birth of the Cool for the Capital label. Among the cognoscenti, Levinson recordings are as revered as Levinson electronics.

From 1974 to 1978, Mark Levinson Acoustic Recordings produced a series of LP’s that set new industry standards for sonic quality in recordings. The series included LP’s of artists such as organist Myrtle Regier, pianist Lois Shapiro, percussionist Bill Elgart, classical guitarist Eliot Fisk, and organist Charles Krigbaum. This box set is from this series. It is RARE and unparalleled in sound recording and engineering. I've included a picture showing the recording process that is in the inside booklet. It says the following:

“Mark Levinson Audio Systems built special equipment for use with calibration microphones and high speed wide track tape format to create virtually noiseless, ultra low distortion master tapes, without noise reduction systems. Robert Ludwig mastered the records by feeding the original tape through a custom mixer directly to the cutting amplifier rack with no filtering, limiting, or other added effects. CIDS in France, developed special pressing techniques to produce the most quiet record surfaces possible with today's material and technology, and the skill of their chiefs of staff. For the Acoustic Recording Series, musicians were asked to prepare programs which could be released without splicing passages. In this way, the coherency and immediacy of the musical event, rather than the note by note perfection of the spliced tape, are preserved.”

Recorded at the Dwight Chapel, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in 1976 on the Von Beckerath Organ.  Charles Krigbaum was the head of the Organ Studies Program at Yale University. Here is part of the Stereophile review:
"Bach’s Art of the Fugue, performed on organ by Charles Krigbaum and pressed on a rare 45 rpm Mark Levinson LP from 1976, plumbed the depths; one could feel the pipes moving the air in a large, reverberant hall."

CONDITION:
I'm not sure if these have been played but if they have it has been minimal. And probably not since they were first purchased. I don't see spindle marks. But I didn't want to take all the LPs out of the sleeve because they look so mint and I didn't want to take the chance of any scuffing. They are in immaculate condition. The box has some minor shelf wear. It has been stored properly in a temperature-controlled smoke-free environment. These are like new. Theare in a sleeve protected by another thicker outer sleeve and then in a very thick box. The box has been sitting safely on a shelf for YEARS.

This seems to be a pretty special recording. I wish I could hear it!
Liquidating a collection of someone who passed away. Check out my other auctions - more mark levinson to come.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: After some research I have learned that unless these albums are sealed in their original plastic I cannot be 100% sure that they have "never been played." I am not trying to mislead anyone. All I know is that there is not one piece of dust, smudge or mark on any of the albums I am selling on ebay. They are in pristine and perfect condition without a doubt. And that my brother-in-law didn't play most of his collection -- and if he did it was minimal. However this is a "cover my ass" addition to the item description so noone can accuse me of trying to sell something with a false description. I am not a collector nor an audiophile. I just want these records to get to people who will appreciate them. Thanks.

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