my first LPCD experience

i am never an early adopter of new technology. so when chinese audiophile label hugo's boss (pun intended) eik-yew goh announced his breakthru LPCD technology in 2005, i adopted a wait-n-see atttude. feedback on his LPCDs has been mixed - some like it, some don't. now goh has gone a step further to remaster all those classic cantopop albums of yesteryear and make them into greatest hits compilations. some are selling extremely well, like titles from faye wong and alan tam. still, it didn't entice me to buy it until i see this cd - kit chan's greatest hits - on the shelf.

business strategy wise, goh is spot-on. a lot of audiophiles don't want to listen to typical boring audiophile albums. they want to listen to their fave pop albums which, more often than not, are not well recorded. so by making these albums more audiophile sounding, more people will buy more CDs of their fave singers. just like us here in this blog, we encourage more people to buy more pop albums - the "real-world" music - rather than forcing themselves to listen to artificial (and often musically bankrupt) audiophile albums.

in short, LPCD is a proprietary remastering technology invented by goh that is supposed to make CDs to sound closer to LPs. so my sole evaluation criteria for this review is how, for want of a better word, analogue, does it sound.

you may not know who kit chan (chen jie yi) is. kit, who is now retired, has a voice that can scale great heights. her high notes are a joy to listen to. suffice to say that she is one of the best singers that has emerged from tiny dot (s'pore) in the past 2 decades, other than mavis hsu (hsu mei qing), tanya chua (cai qian ya) and of course, the reigning diva stefanie sun (sun yanzi). it is amazing such a small country can produce so many superstar singers. his compilation is quite definitive for it spans the entire career of kit, including her glorious success in hong kong, where she co-starred alongside jacky cheung in the musical snow.wolf.lake.

now, the recording. to call this cd sounding like LP is over-stating the case. it does not sound like LP. but goh is clever is in giving more body to the highs, more meat to the mids to make it sound thicker (hence more analogue), more air/ambience and remove all the harshness of typical pop recordings. the end result is a smooth and pleasant sound that is totally enjoyable. i would give it a B+ in my sonic checklist.

i salute eik-yew goh in pushing the music and hifi industry forward with his LPCD tehcnology.