... exaSound underwrote Yarlung’s very first DSD releases, and I am pleased to say how happy I am with the character of the sound the DSD transfer captured from the Ciaramella Dances analog tapes. These timbres, from beautiful to bawdy, come through clearly and cleanly in DSD. I hope you enjoy these musicians as much as I do. Jeremy Barlow, writing in London’s Early Music Today gave Ciaramella Dances Five Stars and Editor’s Choice. Robert H. Levi, President and CEO of the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society, wrote in PFO “A real stunner of Renaissance music and dance. This album is as good as it gets… a jewel. Alive with definition, the ‘you are there’ sound pops into the room right before your ears. Best imaging, pacing, and sense of verisimilitude I have ever heard…. Bravo Yarlung!” Toccata-Alte Musik aktuell gave Ciaramella Dances “Album of the Month,” and Robert Strobl wrote “when these extremely talented musicians begin to play, their liveliness and freshness is almost palpable. This is not just dance music; at its best, this is living music, current, non-academic, and certainly not old. Dance music was there from the beginning. And when it is played like this, the sounds of 300 years ago sound as if they were made only yesterday.” Reviewing the 45rpm LP for Analog Planet, Michael Fremer gave Ciaramella Dances an 11 out of 10 for sound, and elaborated “As much pleasure as the melodic compositions and spirited playing bring, an additional highlight is the superb, minimally miked recording…. The sonics are astonishing…. Quite simply, if you want to know how good your stereo can possibly sound, get this short, but delightful record….” It was our friend the music critic David W. Robinson who twisted my arm into the DSD realm. Our success with Yarlung’s Single, Double and Quad DSD releases is “all his fault.” For which we are grateful. Many audiophiles believe that Quad DSD is the finest medium to deliver great music on the planet. Recording music to Quad DSD is one thing, but playing it back is another much more difficult process. The circuitry and design aesthetic required to take the super high resolution DSD files and deliver them as living and breathing music takes enormous skill and care. For this most important and delicate step we are especially grateful to George Klissarov. It is his musical aesthetic and from-the-ground-up engineering that enabled him to create his series of exaSound digital to analog converters which must be some of the finest Quad DSD and high resolution PCM digital to analog converters on the planet… Not only are exaSound units easy to use, but they are intensely musical, such that one marvels at the quality of the music performance and has the luxury of forgetting that one is listening to a digital stream rather than living and breathing musicians performing for you in your listening room. This is magic, but the magic comes not from tricks but from superb engineering...