The Dutch record company TRPTK announced recently three new albums.

One is the debut album of the Delphine Trio, and features a diverse selection of 20th and 21st century composers, such as Kenneth Leighton (Fantasy on an American Hymn Tune), Robert Kahn (Trio Serenade), John Psathas (Island Songs), Astor Piazzolla (Oblivion arr. Roelof Temmingh), Robert Delanoff (Trio) and Mátyás Seiber (Introduction & Allegro). The trio consists of Australian clarinetist Magdalenna Krstevska, Dutch cellist Jobine Siekman and South African pianist Roelof Temmingh.

The second new release is an album titled “Nocturne, et lumineux” by Eline Hensels and Daniël Kramer. The record is Eline Hensels’ debut album and features works for cello and piano by Charles Koechlin, Nadia Boulanger, Leoš Janáček, Henriëtte Bosmans, and Francis Poulenc.

The third new album is the debut audiovisual album Viriditas by a medieval music ensemble Sibil•la based in the Hague. The mystical concept ‘Viriditas’ originates from the theological writings of the German Benedictine abbess, composer, and polymath Hildegard von Bingen, 1098-1179, and symbolizes the vibrant, life-giving energy that permeates the natural world. The album consists of 12th and 13th century chants and secular songs that celebrate the power of nature. Among the instruments used one finds voices, recorder, gothic harp, vielle, rebec, cittern, medieval lute, hurdy-gurdy and percussion.

All three new albums have, as musical albums, their own merits starting from the thoughtful selection of the material to be recorded and ending with a quality performance. The one by Sibil•la Ensemble is for those tradition-conscious people who long for diving into the roots of Western medieval music with a passionate mind and, perhaps, meditation. The albums by the Delphine Trio and Eline Hensels focus on the smaller scale (trios, cello sonatas) music from the 20th/21st century by a number of highly interesting composers worth getting to know. Despite their beauty and serenity, the approach of both these albums is more intellectual, and covers different styles from modernism to contemporary. In fact I enjoyed the two albums to the extent that I ended up listening to them twice from the start to finish. I wish I had more time to look into their contents more thoroughly, but this time I want to pay attention to the sound. Or in fact more, since the record company says it wants to capture more than just sound to provide recordings of the highest order.

SOUND

TRPTK presents itself as an audiophile Immersive label, ‘immersive’ meaning an immersive sound experience that has been achieved by creating an acoustic hologram and the illusion of “the world’s most beautiful concert halls and churches”. This is not just lip service, since the company has also invested serious money in the R&D and technology, including power supplies and cables. While listening to the three albums it becomes clear that that the record company has made an effort not just to offer great music but also to do by the means of top-class sound. So how do they do it?

First, everything – production, recording, mixing and mastering, album design, photography, publishing, etc. – takes place physically in the same space, and as they say, guarantees a high quality standard throughout the entire production chain.

Secondly, all recordings are based on the Optimized Omnidirectional Array (OOA for short) recording technology developed by Brendon Heinst, which aims to “create an accurate picture of the sound world while maintaining a colorless transparency of the tonal characteristics of the recording”. My quick feeling was that it’s the balance between these two goals (image/accurate tonality) that is behind the first-rate sound. It may matter that the OOA is not only scientifically developed through simulation and modeling, but also through several listening tests with the help of an independent listening panel.

TRPTK: “No costs or efforts are spared to seize that magical moment in which music is being created, and bring it home to you in the highest quality. Why? Simply because this is how music should be experienced: fresh and alive, not canned and with a stale aftertaste of conservation.”

Another factor is that the company strives for an active reciprocity with its artists. “Nothing is decided without their consent; everyone is involved in the entire process, from idea to publishing. We are radically open and transparent, and stand for collaboration and high quality, all throughout the chain.”

The studio has a console in the middle of the room, surrounded by KEF speakers and Hegel amplifiers. It is in this space, optimized for listening at a high level, that post-production takes place. Here the most expressive shots of the recording session are spotted, resulting in the final edit. On the signal level, the goal is to make the AD conversion of the microphone signal as colourless as possible in order to “preserve even the smallest details without the harshness usually ssociated with digital recordings”. The way we do this is by recording in Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD) at 352.8 kHz, 32 bits, a jaw-dropping 16 times higher than CD quality. In musical terms this means that “everything in the original performance is preserved. From the huge 32-foot pipe of a cathedral organ, to the highest notes on a piccolo flute. From the softest whispers all the way to the loudest orchestral hits”.

STUDIO EQUIPMENT

Microphone preamplifiers

2x Grace Design m801m2
2x Merging Technologies Hapi MkII
AD/DA conversion

2x Merging Technologies Hapi MkII
1x Merging Technologies Anubis
1x Grimm Audio CC2 master clock
Monitoring (mastering)

5x KEF Blade Two (main L-R-C-Ls-Rs)
4x KEF LS50 Meta (main Tl-Tr-Trl-Trr)
3x Hegel H30 amplifiers
1x Hegel C55 amplifier
1x Merging Technologies Anubis monitor controller
2x Audeze LCD-X headphones
1x Sennheiser HD800s headphones
Dolby Atmos production suite
DTS:X production suite
Auro-3D production suite
Monitoring (location)

2x KEF LS50 Custom Active Balanced
2x Audeze LCD-X headphones
1x Sennheiser HD800s headphones
1x Merging Technologies Anubis monitor controller
Cabling

5x Purecable Optimus custom microphone cables
4x Purecable Optimus Power cables
4x Purecable Optimus High Power cables
1x Purecable DIG75 master clock cables
2x Grimm Audio TPR-8 breakout cables
11x Furutech custom ⍺-OCC loudspeaker cables
Networking, tuning

2x Pura the Sauropoda power filter
1x Pura the Dodo custom-made linear power supply
1x Pura the Nautilus power distributor
1x JCAT M12 Switch Gold
2x JCAT NET Card XE
1x JCAT Optimo 3 Duo linear power supply
1x Computer Audio Design GC3
1x Computer Audio Design GC1
24x Furutech NCF Boosters