By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

As Octave Records grows it’s becoming more evident to me the difference between recording and reproducing.

On the former, we’re often using heavy hands to capture as best we can what happens in acoustic space: different microphones, preamps, EQ, reverb—everything we would never consider in the act of reproduction.

I think of recording as building a movie set. Hours, sometimes days are spent assembling all the pieces together so that the final image perfectly represents the vision in one’s head. We’re not as interested in being faithful to the moment as we are true to the vision. The best recordings use whatever is available to them to capture the perfect sound.

The opposite is true when it comes to playback. The best lenses and cameras, like the best audio reproduction chains, are built with only one goal in mind: to be faithful to the original.

It took chisels, hammers, and heavy hands to fashion from a block of marble Michelangelo’s David, but once crafted, very different apparatus to enjoy it.

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