AXPONA 2013

Giving Voice to Music

Jason Victor Serinus  |  Mar 15, 2013

You can always count on Doug White, owner of The Voice That Is in Newtown, PA, to provide excellent sound and an attractive display. At AXPONA, he came through in spades, rendering John Atkinson's recording of male ensemble Cantus singing Eric Whitacre's Lux Aurumque with extreme beauty. The system did equally well on Rimsky-Korsakov's well-worn Dance of the Tumblers, producing superb sound and nice depth. Lacking only were the ultimate transparency and room-filling soundstage that I encountered in far too few rooms at AXPONA.

Doing the honors behind Tidal Audio Piano Diacera Speakers ($37,690/pair in midnight gloss black finish) were the Vitus RS-100 300W stereo amplifier ($13,500), new Vitus RD-100 DAC ($14,000), Aurender S10 Music Server ($6990), Purist Audio Design Corvus Cables—power cords ($1990), XLR interconnect ($2100), and speaker cable ($3850)—Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary digital cable ($4500), and an impossible-for-me-not-to-covet StillPoints equipment rack.

COMMENTS
dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on March 15, 2013 - 6:01pm

I hadn't thought about Eric Whitacre until I saw this, then link, link, link and I'm looking at a production of a 2,000-person virtual choir. Whoa!

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson on March 16, 2013 - 5:15am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7o7BrlbaDs.

You can find an excerpt from my own recording of Lux Aurumque at http://www.stereophile.com/content/2011-richard-c-heyser-memorial-lecture-where-did-negative-frequencies-go-case-study-1-record (Scroll to the foot of the page.)

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on March 22, 2013 - 1:54pm

got Cantus - Let Your Voice Be Heard from Amazon - did a quickie review. If a person bought this and didn't care that much for the material, it would make a great gift with the excellent booklet that's included.

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