Recordings using the IsoMike system have been demonstrated by Ray Kimber at the last two Consumer Electronics Shows as well as at several audiophile conferences including the Home Entertainment Shows held last year and this year. The recordings feature the use of the IsoMike system connected to EMM Labs Meitner DAC8 and ADC8 Direct Stream Digital Converters and Tascam DS-D98HR and Genex DSD Recorders. The material has featured recordings made at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah with music students and faculty members from the school. During the demonstrations, Kimber has said that he planned to make the material available in SACD format and the new T Minus 5 album is the first of these releases.

The IsoMike System & the Recording Process
According to Kimber, the IsoMike is “an acoustic baffle that is placed between two spaced omnidirectional microphones. Unlike previous similar baffles the IsoMike is much larger and is greatly more absorptive, plus the IsoMike has a shape that improves the low frequency isolation by ‘scattered phase’.”

According to the album liner notes “Each song was captured with a new technology called IsoMike and all equipment was insanely fine tuned. You get music that is free from emotion-robbing processes, such as mixing, limiting, compression and artifical sonic additives. These direct recordings utilitize Direct Stream Digital (DSD). When you play the SA-CD layer of this disc you will have many times the resolution of standard CDs. The result is sound more detailed, spacious and pure. If this was photography, the improvement is akin to having a digital camera with 8 times the pixel count.”

Album Equipment and Credits
For the Purity album, the recording featured Neumann M-150 microphones, a Millennia Media HV-3D mic preamp, the EMM Labs Meitner DAC8 and ADC8 Direct Stream Digital Converters, Tascam DS-D98HR and Genex GX9000 DSD recorders, Kimber Kable Select cables, an EMM Labs Meitner DCC2 preamp/converter used as the Monitor Preamp, Bryston 7BSST amps and Lipinski Sound L707 monitor speakers. The album was engineered by Ray Kimber and mastered by Graemme Brown at Zen Mastering on the Merging Technologies Pyramix Digital Workstation. The SACD was made at the Sony DADC plant in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Listening to the Purity album’s Stereo SACD layer, it does deliver the goods. The vocals on the album are very natural and immediate. It definitely brings a “you are there” sense to the listening room and will make SACD fans anxious for more Super Audio CD releases of Kimber’s IsoMike recordings.

Album Selections
1. Because I Have Been Given Much
2. Precious Lord, Take My Hand
3. Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee
4. Once In Royal David’s City
5. I Need Thee Every Hour
6. A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief
7. Shenandoah
8. The Star Spangled Banner