Hi-Res Downloads

96kHz/24-bit FLAC, Decca Classics 478 8053 (supplied by www.highresaudio.com)

With Oliafur Eliasson’s 2003 installation from Tate Modern as cover (and texts white on orange – hard to read!) this vocal collection of arrangements covers a wide time-span, like their Signum album Choral Tapestry. Their second Decca programme, on the theme of a comforting warmth that music can bring, introduces one or two instrumental ‘guests’ – cello, saxophone, water-tuned glasses – and spans from Tallis and Allegri (Miserere Mei) to contemporary writers in the pop field: ‘Teardrop’ from Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and Ben Folds’ ‘The Luckiest’ from a Richard Curtis film soundtrack – an item I found intrusive. Voces8 (two sopranos, counter-tenors and tenors, baritone and bass) were recorded in helpful acoustics at Dore Abbey, in Herefordshire, and more intimately, a Highgate, London, church. Hard to fault, though arguably best for ‘dipping into’. CB

Sound Quality: 95%

Hi-Fi News Lab Report

Cleanly recorded (aside from a signal at 31kHz) and with excellent dynamic range (the rise in ultrasonic noise is from the original – not an artefact of upsampling), this 96kHz file perfectly illustrates the 30kHz extension of a soprano voice. PM