Die Rohre – The Tube, is not just another classical ensemble piece but is indeed a benchmark of high fidelity recording which is an extraordinarily obsessive desire to go all tube all the way.

They beautifully & ingeniously punch the line describing this compilation as “No Conductor, No Semiconductor” – the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra doesn’t have any conductor and the recording did not use any semiconductor in the path. Right from using the legendary Neumann M49 tube mic with AC701 valve, their mixing mastering gear, tape recorder amd even ultimately the dac’s pre and post-emphasis filters were bypassed which are transistor based and post bypass performance are reported in terms of noise and frequency response. The German label Tacet which specializes in 100% all-tube analog recordings starting with tube microphones captured by an open-reel tube recorder and tube mixer finished off with manual splice-and-tape analog editing.

I’ve clicked some CD inlet graphics and writeup highlighting the efforts taken and obsession for tubes as obvious from the cover art itself.

Beside being exceptionally silent in the background, the stereo separation and depth is brilliantly real. The most striking and never experienced before aspect of the sound is the TIMBRE of the instruments, they sounded unbelievably real. As 6moons.com reviewed, Even the subtlest of subtleties are faithfully represented. Listen to the Samartini Sinfonia and you’ll notice the second violins on the right sounding somewhat mellower than the brighter first violins on the left. That’s because the second violinists were seated with their backs facing the audience for that subtle contrast in tone color.

Needless to say this compilation, which is a result of phenomenal attention to details and ultimate purist approach, deserves to become and indeed has become a permanent reference and an eternal inspiration!