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EISA Awards
EISA Awards 2016 2017
Mark Craven  |  Aug 14, 2016
The European Imaging and Sound Association celebrates the year's most desirable hi-fi hardware Welcome to the EISA Awards for 2016-2017. The European Imaging and Sound Association is the world’s largest independent awards panel and one that reflects the collective opinion of the 45 most respected specialist magazines centred on, but not exclusively based within, the European community. And while the repercussions of the recent in/out referendum dominate headlines in the UK, the collaboration between EISA’s member magazines continues without pause. Just as hi-fi and music-loving enthusiasts will persevere in scouring the world for the best that audio-centric brands can offer.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Thalia Ensemble : Antoine Reicha: Wind Quartets
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2016
44. 1kHz-192kHz/24-bit FLAC/ALAC, CKD471 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) A fellow-pupil with Beethoven in Bonn, Antoine Reicha (from Prague) wrote no fewer than 24 wind quintets, represented here by an Adagio for cor anglais and wind quartet and Quintets in G and B-flat.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Enya : Dark Sky Island (deluxe)
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2016
Eithne Ní Bhraonáin is back with her eighth set, apparently five years in the making, inspired by the night sky over the small Channel Island of Sark, and nearly 30 years on from her 1988 album Watermark. The good news – for her legions of fans, at least – is that Dark Sky Island sounds every bit an Enya album. The potentially bad news is that it sounds exactly like an Enya album. .
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Hi-Res Downloads
Carrie Newcomer : The Slender Thread
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2016
Despite the name, Carrie Newcomer is far from, well, a newcomer. With more than 15 albums behind her, and a career stretching back 25 years, she’s both a performer and writer – of both songs and books – and even a US cultural ambassador, and has toured with the likes of Alison Krauss and Mary Chapin Carpenter. So as you might expect, this set (her debut for Germany’s Stockfisch label) is a mature, soulful album, beautifully recorded along with a large supporting group of musicians that cleverly showcase Newcomer’s rich, warm voice amidst what the label calls ‘a warm, autumnal glow’. It’s just the sort of ‘audiophile’ singer-songwriter album you might imagine, and I can see it cropping up in more than a few demonstrations.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Becca Stevens Band : Perfect Animal
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2016
Well, this turned out to be an unexpected treat: Becca Stevens plays multiple instruments to an annoyingly high standard, but does so with such style and in so easy-going a manner that the result is anything but annoying. She also sings superbly, too: her voice is warm and lush, but packed with expression, and capable of wonderful harmonies with accordion/keyboard player Liam Robinson and bassist Chris Tordini. Oh, and she writes great songs into the bargain, such as the attractively clever title track of this, her third album, which was recorded in multiple studios (and indeed three separate states) by producer Scott Solter. It’s a fine multilayered crossover between jazz, folk and rock, combining Stevens’ originals with great covers – her version of Steve Winwood’s ‘Higher Love’ has both style and solid bass, and like the whole set an open, informative balance.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Beatrice Rana : Prokofev: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Aug 01, 2016
This young Italian pianist was silver prizewinner at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition and makes her Warner concerto debut with Pappano. They had not worked together before but in May are touring with the Tchaikovsky – which Rana had been playing for almost ten years. And 3-4m in she certainly hits her stride: arguably her first-movement cadenza is over-complicated but mostly this is as good as its gets – robust technique, a wide dynamic range and real bravura at the ends of (ii) and (iii). Pappano provides a big, even brash, accompaniment and the piano is well balanced in the big hall acoustic.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Peter Whelan & Kristian Bezuidenhout : Mozart Sonata For Bassoon And Fortepiano, K. 292
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2016
44. 1kHz to 192kHz/24-bit FLAC/ALAC, CKD456 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) Only two Mozart pieces for bassoon remain: the concerto and this three-movement sonata from 1775, published later in Leipzig as for bassoon/cello – here, the cello is replaced by an unspecified fortepiano.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Quatuor Debussy : Shostakovich: Elegie, String Quartets No 11, 8 & 5
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2016
With a Bartók cycle to come, the Lyon-based string quartet has already recorded all of Shostakovich’s string quartets for Arion. The music here – the ‘Élégie’ Adagio a transcription from Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk – is their programme ‘Opus’ (ordered as listed above) an ‘acrobatic waltz’ [sic] which they have been giving with Australian performance group C!RCA; the Internet has video clips. They play with compelling concentration, certainly bringing out all of the rawness of the epic No 8, with its ‘DSCH’ quotations. And you might need to turn the level down, as they are recorded rather as the Juilliards were by CBS, each player seemingly with his own mic.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Simon Phillips : Protocol Iii
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2016
There’s no shortage of albums by drummers being released at the moment and this set is the third outing for Protocol, the outfit led by Simon Phillips and named after his first solo album of 1988. With as twenty years as part of Toto, Philips has also toured and recorded with the likes of The Who, Peter Gabriel, Joe Satriani, Tears For Fears and Roxy Music, to name just a few examples from an extensive CV. Recorded with the same core line-up as the previous Protocol album, with Steve Weingart on keyboards, guitarist Andy Timmons and bass player Earnest Tibbs, this album is more or less the definition of jazz/rock fusion, from Timmons’ wailing guitar to Phillips’ precise drumming. It opens with a little Indian percussion, but don’t let that fool you – this is a straight down the line powerhouse rocker, start to finish, and is treated to a clean, open sound quality throughout.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Led Zeppelin : Presence (remastered)
A. Everard (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Jul 01, 2016
Part of the third and final tranche of Led Zep remasters, along with In Through The Out Door and the somewhat ragbag Coda, 1976’s Presence arrives in the second decade of the 21st century complete with a second ‘disc’ containing ‘reference mixes’ of four of its tracks plus a previously unreleased instrumental entitled ‘10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod)’. That ‘new’ track really stands out against what is perhaps the band’s roughest album: it’s gentle and reflective, driven by delicate piano, but I’m not too sure that one novelty is sufficient to justify a purchase of this set, even if it is in spiffed-up 96/24. For all the remastering work, overseen by Jimmy Page and thus given the stamp of approval, this version doesn’t really bring too much to the party in terms of new insights or revelations. I guess if you’re a Led Zep completist, this is a must-have, however… AE Sound Quality: 75% Hi-Fi News Lab Report These are genuine 96kHz renderings from what are clearly analogue masters – hence the noise is some 30dB higher than a modern all-digital recording [see Graph, above].
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