This is our greatest passion

www.sts-digital.nl

Contents and philosophy from the audiophile test demo CDs/SACDs.

The test/demo CDs/SACDs aren’t ones where popular tunes have been plucked off the shelf. All recordings on this CD/SACD were made exclusively for this test/demo CD/SACD and have been recorded digitally.

The High End Test Demo CD/SACD series are used in many ways. First in Hi-Fi shops to demonstrate high end equipment. Second by music lovers who buy new equipment and use our Test CD/SACD for home listening. Third on High End exhibitions you can hear very often our Test CD/SACDs.

As a sound-technician I always look for 5 keypoints and disciplines in master recordings:

The warm sound, that acoustic instruments posess on their own, but is often not captured by sound-technicians. We attach a great deal of value to the warm sound and try to get this through carbon-fibre and quality microphones, plus an AD-convertor.
Acoustic placing and recognition of the musicians in the recording space, feasible with the STS-3 and the STS-6 recording system. For us, the horizontal and vertical resolution in a recording are very important.
Phase purity of a recording, both the electric phase (good cable/fibre connections etc), and the acoustic phase must be acquired through proper placing of the microphones. This can be checked by a set of headphones, and of course a phase meter.
Symmetry in the recording. This means always placing the microphones in such a way that on both the left and the right side there’s an equal division of signal, and not placing mono support microphones on the extreme left and right. These will disturb the symmetrical sound and will give sound-peaks that do not coincide with the total acoustics of the space.
Transparency and clarity in a recording. This does not mean an overly sharp recording, but one of softness in tone and clarity, in which especially the 3-dimensional recording-space is being displayed.