A Welcome Holiday Respite Courtesy of 2L Recordings

Last week was a rough, troubling week. Monday started off with a health scare that put me into a foul yet unstable frame of mind. The ongoing debate over the political correctness of the term "Wife Acceptance factor" became quite heated and I found myself being criticized on both sides of the argument. All of this happened in the middle of our seasonal rush, with international shipping avenues completely clogged up for the holidays, resulting in delayed shipments and angry customers. And people ask me why I don't celebrate Christmas. Maybe two decades of retail management has something to do with that.

I did receive another welcome package from Norway. Morten Lindberg sent me several 2L recordings to review, and those should appear shortly. In that care package, however, I found two discs that I've already reviewed--TrondheimSolistene's Souvenir and Flint Juventino Beppe's Remote Galaxy. I did notice that the packaging was slightly different--traditional jewel cases had replaced the older clamshell case. When I opened them I discovered that these were merely Blu-Ray audio discs--not the usual two disc set with both Blu-ray and a CD/SACD hybrid. I wasn't quite sure why Morten wanted to send these to me--I already have both of these titles in LP, CD and Blu-ray. Perhaps he wanted to emphasize a more affordable way to own these groundbreaking recordings. I put them aside for a couple of weeks and almost forgot about them.

When I noticed them once again, sitting in my stack or review materials, I suddenly remembered the strengths of each recording and how that would translate to listening on my new high-quality headphone rig. First up was Souvenir, the Grammy-nominated recording that really put 2L on the map in the US. If you remember my original reviews of this recording, you'll know that these are small orchestra performances of pieces from Nielson and Tchaikovsky that are arranged in a way so that no musician sits next to another musician with the same instrument. The result is a blended sound that will challenge what you think you know about classical recording.

With my headphone rig, which consists of a prototype of the upcoming Unison Research SH headphone amplifier, Furutech H128 headphones, a cheap Samsung Blu-ray player and Cardas Audio Clear Light cabling, it was far easier to discern these unique orchestral arrangements and pinpoint the differences in sound. With Remote Galaxy, a wildly dynamic and exciting recording, that different perspective, residing entirely within my noggin, was startling and made my heart race with anticipation more than once. (You can read my original review of Remote Galaxy here.)

Yesterday, I had an idea. I've just received the new high-efficiency (94 dB, 8 ohms) Unison Research Max loudspeakers, which were designed for low-powered tube amps such as Unison's own Simply Italy (12wpc) and Triode 25 (22 wpc triode/45wpc pentode). Needless to say, the Max goes very loud with very little power. These 2L recordings were downright ideal for such a set-up, with plenty of delicacy during the quieter moments and plenty of gusto during crescendos.

Before you know it, my troubles vanished and I starting thinking about how much I've come to love the music coming out of Norway these days. I just submitted my ten top albums for 2014 to Perfect Sound Forever, and three out of the ten are Norwegian recordings. Something tells me that if I visited Norway, even for a week, I'd come back refreshed and ready to write about controversial issues in audio once again.

Flint Juventino Beppe's Remote Galaxy on LP and Blu-ray Audio

It seems silly for me to declare that Remote Galaxy, the new symphonic recording from 2L Recordings, is this Norwegian label's most ambitious project yet. Nearly every time I receive a new 2L release in the mail, I'm astonished that Morten Lindberg continues to outdo himself each time--whether it's a gorgeous recording, a novel performance, a unique programme theme or just gut-wrenchingly beautiful music. But Remote Galaxy is truly ambitious in so many ways.

Flint Juventino Beppe, a young Norwegian composer who was previously known as Fred Jonny Berg, has followed up his Grammy-nominated 2L recording Flute Mystery with this amazing 2-LP set that contains the expansive title piece as well as "Distant Words" and "Tightrope Walking Beneath Heaven" on the first album, and his Flute Concerto No.2 and the gentle, wistful "Lost in September" on the second. There's a lot of music here--in both size and scope.

Instead of the usual intimate recordings of Norwegian ensembles captured in old Norwegian churches, Remote Galaxy was performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia Orchestra in the Watford Colosseum in England. That means you get a slightly different sonic presentation from other 2L recordings. Instead of that rare combination of warmth and Nordic precision, you get a big and powerful and almost limitless sound that seems to stretch in all directions at once. That's because Morten Lindberg has introduced a new surround sound technology, known as Auro-3D, which adds "height channels" to the recording process. People with stunning hi-fi systems know that it's relatively easy to reproduce soundstage width and just a little more difficult to reproduce realistic soundstage depth. Soundstage height, however, is a rarity that is usually only heard in exceptional orchestral recordings--I'd been an audiophile for decades before I noticed it for the first time, and it was on a very expensive system. (Big panel speakers tend to do this well.) With this recording, however, it's obvious that Auro-3D accurately captures the room reflections that come off the ceiling, especially when it comes to the solo performances from the viola da gamba, clarinet and flute. That adds a new, utterly lifelike dimension to the performance.

In fact, that's where Remote Galaxy shines the brightest--those solos are so textured and well-defined in space that you're compelled to point to an empty spot between your speakers and declare, "That's what a live instrument would sound like if the musician was here in my room with me right now." There's such an amazing wholeness and clarity to the sound of these stunning solo performances, and a total lack of any type of veil that would get between you and the musicians. Even when the orchestra is playing at full steam and the dynamics are limited by the hardware--and unless you've spent a fortune, there will be at least some limitations--it's still a heart-pounding experience to hear those individual instruments sing within that pulsing tidal wave of music.

Since I received both the Blu-ray Audio disc and the LP, it was fun to compare the differences on two entirely different systems. (Both, by the way, are sold separately--and the CD/SACD hybrid disc is not part of the package this time.) The vinyl was played on my reference system, which is located in a large room that's approximately 24' by 18' by 8'. The Blu-ray was played on my desktop/headphone system which has recently been enhanced with an exceptional little DAC that allows more music to flow from my cheap Blu-ray transport. That made the vinyl sound like a living and breathing thing, something that could burst free from the speakers and stampede around the room at will. The Blu-ray experience with the headphone system was a little more like jumping into the ocean during a huge storm--you're completely immersed in an infinite, churning thing. I think I prefer the LP experience, but both were exciting beyond belief in very different ways.

Remote Galaxy, according to the composer, was written to answer the question: Can the dualism of life, nature and art be expressed in pure music? He describes these pieces as journeys in time and space, and it's an ambition that's been attempted before. But 2L's use of the Auro-3D technology makes these philosophical issues far more concrete to the listener--you are traveling through space when you listen to this music. Whether you have a portable player with earbuds or a million dollar system, you will be immersed in a truly spatial experience.