Lover’s Romance, Volume One – Romance Of The North Sea (Intermusic CD/Compact Disc/Top Music International)

 

Sound: B-     Music: B-

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This Compact Disc is only available from our friends at Top Music International and can be ordered at the link below.

 

 

I was curious to see and hear how a simple compact disc (versus superior format Super Audio CD) would sound from the Top Music catalog.  The choice of demo landed up being Lover’s Romance Volume One which contains 12 covers of famous songs as instrumentals, whether they ever had vocals before or not.

 

 

For technophiles, here are the specs for how the disc was made:

 

The Project re-mastered by Povee Chan

High Precision Mastering

Mastering Monitor: Almarro M1A

Power System: Isoclean Power Conditioning System

Mastered with fap Cable

Premium Alloy Gold Compact Disc

Made in the Austria by Sony

 

The songs include:

 

1)     Romance Of The North Sea

2)     The Lovers

3)     The Homecoming

4)     The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

5)     Carrillon

6)     Romance D’Amour

7)     Je T’aime (Love At First Sight)

8)     Heather

9)     Loss of Love

10)  The Poet and I

11)  Love is Blue

12)  Nadia’s Theme

 

 

I had a mixed reaction to the results, with some songs sounding good (track 11 is decent) but others going on and on or sounding a bit off (track 12, for instance), though it is still; better than just muzak/elevator music.  However, I expected better sound performance and was a little disappointed in this case with the edges being a bit thin and the overall performance only slightly above what you would expect for such a release.  The PCM 2.0 Stereo tracks are not bad, but they are also far from the best I have heard in the limited redbook 16/44.1 format that has been with us for over a quarter-century (yes, it’s that long already) by now.

 

Though this is dubbed an “alloy gold” CD, it is not an outright gold CD like many we have covered in the past on and off this site.  Antonio M. Xavier & The Denver Music Orchestra performed al the music.

 

A paper foldout with brief notes is also included.

 

 

To find out more about ordering, start with this link, then go to the ORDER icon at the top of the page on the right-hand side under the logo:

 

http://www.topmusic.com/agcd3804.htm

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo