Engineer’s Choice
 
Top recording engineer, John Eargle picks his favorite demo tracks.

“An extraordinary classical collection from Delos…the Mercury of the 90s.” – Stereophile

One of the great classical recording engineers of our day, audio guru John Eargle, picks his favorite demo tracks. Celebrating over a decade of acclaim for his spectacular, leading-edge recorded sound on Delos, the master recordist guides the listener through his favorite recordings. Through his years with Delos, and in his role as a sound recording guru, Mr. Eargle has been asked many times by audiophiles to come up with true audiophile material. This gave him the idea to put together a disc containing the items that keep cropping up as he replies to these requests. In this album you will find a wide variety of sonic textures and recording styles: piano music, organ music, chamber music, vocal, choral, and orchestral music. Recording is both a science and an art, says Mr. Eargle, and he proceeds to define for the listener the elements that belong to each. A short, illuminating commentary accompanies each track on the disc. Eargle describes the musical and sonic challenges involved in recording a particular track. He tells how he went about meeting each challenge, and what made the result successful. Much comment has been made about the soundstage associated with Mr. Eargle’s recordings. There is a dimensional, almost visual sense of the orchestra – clarity of the parts and impact of the whole. Large works such as ‘Daphnis and Chloe’ have a glowing ambience which the famed recording engineer has created while preserving that astonishing clarity.