A footage from the ‘50s of a legendary violinist playing one of the most popular romantic concertos, a vocal jazz club soirée recording, a collection of tracks for documentaries from an obscure Italian avant-garde composer: how the AB-1266 makes experiencing such diverse music so glorious?
Of course, it does it in many ways, but one key point here is – for me – the spectacular handling of the
space where the music is played in. And I mean both the physical venue space / environment, and the perceptive space around our ears where the music is rendered.
Heifetz at his best, a miracle 1957 recording from RCA Victor’s super-talented Lewis Layton.
The main violin and the whole string section tone and texture are on the dark / smooth side, while retaining good clarity and detail. Not as clean-ical and transparent as the most technically accurate modern recordings, but it draws you in with its organic consistency.
The soundstage here is extremely wide, yet very cohesive and atmospheric. Through the AB-1266, the positioning, layering, scale of instruments is outstanding, and the dynamics is exceptional.
It triggers some of the physical and emotional reactions I recall from real concert hall listening in a rather magical way.
In Companion, the feeling of the live recording in a club venue is very obvious (even before hearing people clapping their hands LOL) in terms of size, decay characteristics and weight / buoyancy of the notes, although Patricia vocals are relatively forward as from a typical close-mike capture.
Double bass in the first two tracks is deep, well-articulated and harmonically very rich, yet not overwhelming, and Barber’s voice is clear and sensuous, if just a touch on the hot side on some ‘s’ or ‘t’.
Also in this recording, the out-of-your-head experience assured by the AB-1266 makes the trick of transporting me at the event, where all the players are projected in a spacious 3D scene as I would expect them in a typical band arrangement in front of me.
This is an album from 1976, of a much respected, little known, Italian composer, a collection of music for naturalistic documentaries.
Through the Abyss, this minimalistic, serial music breathes in a vast and deep soundscape, and the immersive effect is captivating since the first notes. The microdetails are easily resolved and presented in all their added value as a natural and essential ingredient of the whole musical message.
Again, the scale of the musical environment is enormous and – this time – enveloping, with plenty of air all around you.
I am not sure if it is just a fixation I have, but I feel that space rendering, together with scale and dynamics, in hifi is at least as important as tone and timbre accuracy, or frequency extension, and the AB-1266 delivers in spades!
