Vikingur Olafsson Johann Sebastian Bach Goldberg Variations UHQCD

Numbered, Limited Edition UHQCD!
Playable on any CD player, the Ultimate High Quality CD greatly surpasses all previous CDs before it!
Born in 1984, Vikingur Olafsson has developed into one of the most sought-after pianists of our time in just a few years. For 25 years, the Icelander, who has received several awards for his Bach recordings, dreamed of recording the Goldberg Variations; this dream came true in 2023, when Deutsche Grammophon published his interpretations of the monumental work. An accompanying world tour takes him across six continents with this theme - and so you don't have to go that far, this audiophile release by Universal Japan brings the wonderful sounds into your listening room.
UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. Unlike conventional CDs, UHQCDs are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. To protect the softer photopolymer from scratches, another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied. The combination results in a significantly reduced reflection of the laser light inside the CD and an unrivalled precise edge transition between the pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with normal CD players. Musically, the sound is strongly reminiscent of analogue master tapes.
The discs offered by Universal Japan are additionally encoded MQA (Master Quality Authenticated). If you output the digital signal from the digital output of your CD player or the previously ripped data stream of your music server to a corresponding MQA-DA converter, you can generate a 24-bit signal with up to 352 kHz sampling frequency from the CD data.
While Universal Music Japan's first UHQCD series used the DSD data from previous SHM-SACD releases, as their popularity grew, albums that had not previously been released as SHM-SACDs were released. Typically, the master tapes of the Universal Archive are converted to DSD and then post-processed with the appropriate MQA encoder. Thus, the UHQCDs are ideal for music lovers who want to get as close as possible to the sound of the recording, but do not have a SACD player.

Features:

• Numbered, Limited Edition
• Made in Japan
• Superior Crystal Sound
• Ultimate High Quality CD
• XRCD-Like Luxury Digipak
• Playable on conventional CD players

Musicians:

• Víkingur Ólafsson, piano

Selections:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Aria With 30 Variations Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
1. Aria
2. Variato 1-30
3. Aria da Capo