BERNIE GRUNDMAN MASTERS ALBUM OF THE YEAR WITH LAVRY ENGINEERING DA-924 AND AD122-96MKIII

SEATTLE: Herbie Hancock, winner of the coveted "Album of the Year" and "Best Contemporary Jazz Album" statues at the 50th Annual GRAMMY™ Awards, knew what he was doing when he brought his record to Bernie Grundman Mastering (BGM). One of the foremost authorities on mastering, Grundman used his expert ears and the extreme transparency of Lavry Engineering D/A and A/D converters ( HYPERLINK "http://www.lavryengineering.com/" www.lavryengineering.com) to help secure the GRAMMY for Hancock's outstanding record, River: The Joni Letters.

BGM’s facilities in Hollywood and Tokyo employ multiple Lavry Engineering DA-924 and AD122-96MKIII units for the most pristine D/A and A/D conversion possible. "Lavry Engineering gear is the first step that the music takes to go into our system, and the last one out," Bernie Grundman says. "Based on transparency, Lavry Engineering converters are the best that we’ve heard."

Known industry-wide for being extremely selective about the gear that makes it into their mastering suites, and for building their own custom equipment as well, BGM compared and tested a wide range of converters before specifying Lavry Engineering A/D’s and D/A’s. "We go by our ears," says Grundman. "When you have the right converters, you get an additional level of separation between the instruments, with an ambience or depth that you can really hear -- things that can easily get lost in the digital realm.

"We found that the Lavry Engineering DA-924 and AD122-96MKIII preserve those qualities better than anything else," he continues. "(Lavry Engineering founder) Dan Lavry is doing a different, more involved type of processing. He’s designed special circuitry that’s supposed to yield better quality, and according to my ears it does. In theory, as well as in practice, it’s proven to be the absolute best way to convert audio."

The LavryGold DA-924 digital-to-analog converter showcases the most innovative design of Dan Lavry. Dan considers DA924 his masterpiece. It features extremely small quantization steps, low noise performance, and introduced CrystalLock™, Lavry's jitter eliminator circuitry, to the industry. Truly a reference standard, it features 96kHz, 88.2kHz, 48kHz, 44.1kHz and 40-50kHz wide mode conversion frequencies, multi-bit architecture with 24 bits, increased low-level accuracy, fast transient response, support for high-density I/O format, and much more.

The LavryGold AD122-96MKIII analog-to-digital converter features -127dB dynamic range (unweighted), with 0.00005% Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise, Conversion to 24 bits, built-in Acoustic Bit Correction re-dithering to 16-20 bit formats, and much more. Consistently used for many of today’s top recordings, the AD122-96MKIII provides optimum musical results.

A loving instrumental representation of the lyrics of many of Joni Mitchell’s most famous songs, River: The Joni Letters reaffirms Herbie Hancock’s status as one of the most artistically expressive icons of our time. "It’s gratifying that the Academy is recognizing the albums that we’re mastering, including the amazing work displayed on Herbie Hancock’s latest recording," Bernie Grundman says. "We’re only a part of it, but hopefully we had a hand in the success of these landmark projects."

Credits for River: The Joni Letters, by Herbie Hancock:
Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza & Tina Turner, featured artists; Herbie Hancock & Larry Klein, producers; Helik Hadar, engineer/mixer; Bernie Grundman, mastering engineer, [Verve]