Get 20% Off all 6 Albums in The Art of HiFi series with the DSD Bundle!

Ideally, your speakers should ‘disappear’ and the musicians should seem like they’re right there in the room with you, with a distinct presence and in a space that can sound larger than your listening room.
– Paul McGowan

The Art of HiFi: Soundstage is a true state-of-the-art reference disc created to test and show off your system’s amazing soundstage. From deep and wide to beyond the walls of the room, Soundstage presents 11 stunning tracks of great music, each hand-crafted to reproduce a breathtaking three-dimensional image. This is a must-have Octave recording by Paul, Terri McGowan, and Jessica Carson. Recorded live and in the studio in pure DSD256.

The Art of HiFi: Soundstage was recorded at multiple live venues as well as at Octave Studios with the goal of capturing sound in a variety of spaces. Whiskey by Boulder’s own bluegrass quartet, Jake Leg, appears twice on the album, once at Octave Studios and once at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO.

As you compare and contrast the two recordings, you not only hear the difference in the room sound, but you’ll be able to detect a difference in tempo as the band responds to the energy of a live audience.

Octave’s Director and leader of Clandestine Amigo, Jessica Carson, creates an a cappella experience at the Octave studio by singing seven vocal parts to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. By singing each part at a different distance from the microphone and engineer, Paul McGowan’s, addition of reverb, a deep and wide soundstage is created using studio magic.

First Congregational Church UCC in Boulder has a natural reverb that is perfect for the Duo Azure performance of Italian piece, Diporti di Euterpe, Op. 7, No. 4: Lamento. Dr. Jessica Nilles Kressin and Russian soprano Ekaterina Kotcherguina, give a soft and beautiful performance on piano and vocals, you can almost feel the snowy Sunday afternoon.

Soundstage begins and ends with a bang as the footfalls of dancer Salli Gutierrez transport us to an old platform stage at an intimate venue. With live performances from Octave’s own, Gabriel Mervine, and up-and-comers Enmanuel Alexander and Sturtz, this album showcases a variety of artists, genres and soundstages.