Album Reviews

Krauss and company’s tuneful, crossover bluegrass-pop may not be pure enough for the dogmatic, but for the rest of us, the smooth-to-the-touch instrumentals and lilting, lockstep harmonies bring mountain-sense and countrified order to a chaotic world however far into the pop arena the group occasionally strays.

If this 3 LP “greatest hits” live set, mostly recorded at the acoustically superb Louisville Palace during the group’s 2002 "New Favorite” tour is deserving of criticism in any way it would be for the many almost note-for-note live recreations of the studio tracks, when the stage presents such a wonderful opportunity for these virtuosos to cut loose and improvise.

On the other hand, if you don’t own any AKUS albums (there were a few excellent vinyl issues from Diverse Records that are sadly out of print, and Mo-Fi has also issued So Long So Wrong on double LP), this live set covers most of the key tracks and the sound is absolutely spectacular. Fans owning all of the previous vinyl will still want this for the live sound excitement.



Nothing ruins a live recording more than a poorly miked and recorded audience. That’s definitely not the case here! If modern recorded sound gets any better than this live DSD production let me know about it.

I’ve heard the SACD many, many times and enjoyed the tasteful surround sound mix there and on the concert DVD but for the “you are there” experience, this smoothly detailed, airy, three dimensional-sounding 3 LP set can’t be beat. Your imagination will do a better job of conjuring up the picture than any two dimensional video presentation.

The analog half-speed mastering by Shawn Britton and Stan Ricker, from a brilliant DSD recording is transparent, airy, three dimensional, full-textured, harmonically complete and just plain “melt in your ears” good. If this set doesn’t fulfill every sonic wet dream you hope for from a modern heavy vinyl set, it’s your system’s fault, that’s how good this sounds.

Beautiful box packaging and full-sized, color, glossy “concert program” add value to the kind of new vinyl event few of us dared imagine for the 21st Century when vinyl appeared to be finished in the early ‘90s. Highly recommended.

See the previous review of the hybrid SACD elsewhere on this site. The triple LP sound takes this to another level.