VAC High Fidelity Recordings

VAC founder Kevin Hayes has been quietly engineering recordings for a decade.  1997 marks the issue of the first two CDs on the VAC label.  Both recordings were made live-to-stereo with vacuum tube condenser mics and special VAC vacuum tube electronics.  Suggested retail price $15 US. Ask your dealer, or order directly from VAC.

(Also see the DCC CD & LP reissues mastered by Steve Hoffman on VAC Renaissance amplifiers.)

VAC CD 9701 - The Ciompi Quartet
Performances of  Mozart String Quartet No.17, K.458 ("Hunt"); Debussy String Quartet; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel String Quartet in E-flat Major (a superb and seldom recorded piece which the Ciompi plays vividly).  A purist recording made direct to DASH by Kevin Hayes.

• "...delighted both with the quality of the performances and by the excellent sound. The latter is the work of Valve Amplification Company of Durham, North Carolina, which boasts of feeding its digital recorder by means of "vacuum-tube electronics and two vintage Neumann vacuum tube condenser microphones." ... Suave and elegant of tone, expertly balanced, and gifted with a sense of how each of their pieces should go ... today's Ciompi Quartet makes us eager to hear more from them. One hopes an international classical recording firm will hear this disc and sign them up!"

  - FANFARE, May/June 1998
  

• "The Ciompi Quartet is beautifully recorded. The tactile excitement of a lively, spontaneous ensemble is faithfully caught. The players obviously enjoy the nip and tuck, push and pull of these readings of two familiar works and one unfamiliar .... Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn's quartet takes well to the Ciompi's extroverted playing ... Her quartet has the poise, the remarkable staying power of that summer afternoon you discovered for the first time that you were loved in return - when every phrase, each look and touch seemed perfect ... Your heart, like mine, will fill, and it will break."

  - American Record Guide, May/June 1998
  

VAC CD 9703 - Holiday Jazz  - The North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra
The NCJRO, directed by trumpeter and UNC music professor Jim Ketch, is an 18 piece swing band that has received raves from reviewers for Downbeat and JazzTimes.  This is a holiday program with 18 selections, including original compositions and other numbers associated with Kenton, Ellington, Miller, and others.  Includes five movements of the Duke Ellington adaptation of the Nutcracker Suite.  Recorded and mixed live to vacuum tube analogue recorders by Kevin Hayes. First pressing sold out. New version remastered by VAC's Kevin Hayes released December 4, 1999.