40th Anniversary Celebration Album / Various

40th Anniversary Celebration Album 40th Anniversary Celebration Album / Various

Opus 3 Records, the world's longest-serving audiophile label, can now look back on 40 years of continuous company history and is celebrating its 40th anniversary with this special sampler!

"Opus 3 is one of the longest-serving audiophile labels, like many others based in Scandinavia. The Swedes around Jan-Eric Persson are celebrating their 40th birthday with a beautiful cross-section of their own recording history. The double LP (one track less than on the SACD) ranges from blues to folk and jazz (the late vibraphonist Lars Erstrand from “Pawnshop” ... meets us again) to the baroque master J. S. Bach. Mostly new productions by Yamina, Bottleneck John, and B.B. Leon are grouped around a 1977 recording by label star Eric Bibb. Anyone still looking for audiophile fodder ... will find plenty of appetizers here." (AUDIO, 1/2018)

"In terms of sound, the album is on par with Opus 3's aesthetic: all tracks are recorded with extreme technical precision and mixed in a straightforward manner – there are no gimmicks here; you can tell that the people behind this know their music and their technology very well. No matter how you look at it, you can actually hear a kind of signature sound that runs through all the tracks, regardless of who is standing in front of the microphone. For those interested in the technical aspects, there is also a wealth of information about the components used – the microphone list in particular is very impressive, even without the name “Neumann.” The pressing quality of the album is, of course, flawless, and the dynamics of the 45 rpm cuts are particularly impressive. Conclusion: An all-around well-made sampler from one of the most active small audiophile labels in the world." (Thomas Schmidt, LP 1/2018)

The double HQ-LP (180-gram vinyl, 45 RPM), which boasts outstanding sound quality, was pressed by Optimal Media. Andreas “Lupo” Lubich (Calyx Mastering, Berlin) is responsible for the lacquer disc cutting.

Opus 3 is an independent Swedish music label dedicated to recording timeless acoustic music such as jazz, blues, folk and classical. Founded in late 1976 by sound engineer Jan-Eric Persson, the label has made it its mission to reproduce voices and instruments as naturally as possible. To achieve this, Opus 3 selects recording environments with good natural. The label's recording techniques were developed specifically for acoustic music and were originally based on the use of tube gear and “Blumlein” miking. In 2001, Opus 3 switched to digital eight-track technology and later to 16 channels – in the brand-new mixing and mastering studio designed and set up by Sweden's leading acoustic engineer Lennart Nilsson to mark the label's 30th anniversary. Apart from a few digital intermediate steps all processing is still done exclusively analog.

We recommend the use of "L'Art du Son" LP cleaner to wet wash your vinyl. Even new records of high quality production will benefit from this.