Wagner: Die Walküre

28/08/2006
Daniel
Audio Asylum - Hi-Rez Highway (US)

Lovely packaging (hard-bound book format) with 4 SACDs, a synopsis and libretto …

The recording is excellent. Smooth strings, and plenty of room ambience. You can easily track the voices as they move forward, backwards, left and right. Voices "shimmer" out of the black background, light a light coming out of the vortex. You can hear the reverberences with great clarity, on some sections you can hear the voice begin on one speaker and a split moment later a echo coming from the second.

However, most importantly to me, it all sounds very natural. It has that trademark SACD sound of being very detailed but still smooth. It is also not a Deutsche Grammophon dead type recording.