Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman [Stereo] (Analogue Productions 45 RPM Edition)

(AAA) — Lacquers cut from the original analog master tapes by George Marino at Sterling Sound.

Analogue Productions ups the ante! Now on 45 RPM!

Limited to 3,500 copies, gold foil numbered!

200-gram vinyl pressed by Quality Record Pressings

Mastered from the original analog tapes by George Marino.

Stoughton Printing glossy gatefold jacket

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Analogue Productions has upped the ante! Introducing Tea For The Tillerman on 45 RPM. If you thought the 33 1/3 version was something to behold, just wait until you hear this. But don't wait too long. Our license to reissue this classic smash is nearing expiration, meaning these 3,500 copies — each gold foil numbered — will become increasingly collectible. Why wait? Order your copy now.

Kudos for our 33 1/3 version of Tea For The Tillerman:

"Chad, I just spent the afternoon listening to several versions of Cat Stevens' Tea For The Tillerman. My Tea For The Tillerman collection includes: Mobile Fidelity UHQR, standard MFSL, original Island, Island re-issue, A&M audiophile half-speed, standard A&M issues and a French pressing. After listening there is no question the new Analogue Productions re-issue is by far the finest. Great job!" - Jack Lind, Acoustic Sounds customer

"These (two new LPs from Reference Recordings) and Analog Production's remastering of Tea for the Tillerman were both pressed at Quality Record Pressings, the superb Salina, Kansas, facility, and they are the best and the quietest LPs I've heard of recordings made during the LP era. In a sense, the silences of QRP's pressings, their lack of those hard-to-define anomalies of stylus-in-groove sonics, are comparable to the kind of quietness inherent in a magnetic-drive turntable...QRP has put its best feet forward. 'Spectacular' in this case means a freedom from defects (snaps, crackles, and pops) and an absence of groove noise and what I would call vinyl 'rumble,' hard to define except by contrast with normal pressings." - Harry Pearson, The Absolute Sound, January 2012 (or Issue 219)

"...All you really need to know is that in every way this first effort from 'QRP' is of the highest quality...gatefold packaging which looks just like the original, only better. As far as the sound goes it is equally brilliant...And wow listening to this impeccably pressed on 200g vinyl reissue. The attack of the pick on the guitar strings is astonishingly clean and detailed. Depth is pronounced and because of both the blackness of the backdrop and the precision of both the state-of-the-art plating and the technological breakthroughs achieved in the retro-fitted presses, the resolution of low-level detail reveals a host of details that are either buried or glossed over on the other versions I've heard and own." - Jack Roberts, Dagogo, October 2011

"...Like the glossy gatefold covers used in their deluxe Impulse 45 RPM series, the cover reproduction here is absolutely top-notch...The vinyl itself arrived perfectly clean and flat, and played with nary a pop or tic throughout...The pressing is of extremely high quality." - My Vinyl Review, August 29, 2011

In 1970, Lee Hulko at Sterling Sound cut Tea For The Tillerman for A&M Records in the U.S. and Island Records in the UK using a Telefunken M10 tape machine and a Neumann VMS 66 lathe with a Neumann SX68 cutterhead. Hulko started Sterling in 1968 and was its original mastering engineer. He's considered among the first engineers to advance mastering from just transferring music from tape to lacquer to an art where attention is paid to all the details that result in better sound. We actually found Hulko's original mastering notes from more than 40 years ago. It's incredible, but Sterling still has all of their notes filed away.

So, it was originally cut at Sterling - as were all of the early original Cat Stevens albums - and the tapes were last used at Sterling. How appropriate then that we should go back to Sterling for this monumental reissue. Using the original tapes, George Marino handled the mastering this time. He used an Ampex ATR-102 tape machine, another significant point of interest. While Ampex has long been revered for their sound, they had never made a preview version so that a mastering engineer could cut a lacquer from an Ampex machine. Mike Spitz at ATR Services made a unique preview modification for Sterling so that they could cut this record using an Ampex along with a Neumann VMS 80 lathe with a Neumann SX 74 cutterhead.

(Above description from AcousticSounds.com)