My home recording is by the Tokyo String Quartet.  I give myself a certain
pat on the back for preferring a friend's recording by the Berg Quartet
before I read the following by Jim Svejda in his "The Insider's Guide to
Classical Recordings".  But then again, my friend has a better audio system
than I do.

"Since the days of those pioneering, and still magically effective,
recordings made by the Lener Quartet during the 78 era, virtually every
important ensemble has come to terms with the cycle, and none more
successfully in recent years than Vienna's Alban Berg Quartet.  ...  They
play with a finesse and finish that only the Guarneri Quartet, at the
height of its fame, could begin to match.  The Berg Quartet's technical
prowess is reminiscent of the young Juilliard, and the engaging warmth
and mellowness of its physical sound has probably not been heard since
the disbandment of the great- and greatly lamented- Quartetto Italiano.

For the audiophile or the novice listener, the Berg Quartet's complete
recording of the Beethoven quartets is a nearly perfect introduction to
the cycle, and even the most jaded collector will find much here that
seems startlingly fresh, original, and new.  The Opus 18 collection sparkles
with a suitably Haydnesque wit and charm; the middle period quartets are
appropriately tempestuous and heroic.  If in those final mysterious
master-works the Quartet is unable to probe quite as deeply as the Busch
Quartet did a half century ago, its performance is still more than adequate
to leave most of the current competition far behind."

Larry