Best sounding Santana debut and 3rd album

12-11-11: Rja writes:

There is also an Audio Fidelity gold version (relatively recent) of the 1st CD but I have not heard it (may be out of print, not sure).

I don't think so. I am a Platinum subscriber and have all the Audio Fidelity Golds.

Regards,

Yeah for the money the 24bit Sony/Legacy remasters are damn good. I have the first three and I'm happy with the sound quality.
The song your talking about is The Game of Love with Michelle Branch.

Metralla,
You are correct sir! It was a Mofi issued in 2008, UDCD773 gold CD of 1st Santana I was thinking of.
There was also a Columbia Mastersound gold CD issued in 1994. I've owned so many Santana CDs that I got confused. 8^)

I owned the Columbia Mastersound gold CD and it was mixed way to hot. I traded it in. I have Santana/Santana on a MFSL vinyl but haven't opened it yet.I have Abraxas on MFSL vinyl and it sounds real good but there are probably better sounding vinyl copies out there these days.

The first album is unique in that it has no compression introduced as part of the mixing process. Very interesting to test volume control with this one, as it seemlessly builds. I have heard it through ATC 150s at 103 to 112 decibels and it is quite stunning at full volume. As such, I love the original issue, from 1969, in vinyl.