Photos by Karim Sénoussi.

Located inside a non-descript building on the north end of St-Laurent Boulevard, 2xHD Fidelio Technologies’ recording studio is invisible from the outside. It’s only when you’re in the building’s vestibule and see the buzzer with “Fidelio” written over it that it becomes obvious you’re at the right place.

I came with my friend Karim Senoussi, who kindly offered to take photos for my interview with recording engineer René Laflamme, who co-owns the 2xHD Fidelio label with legendary recording engineer André Perry—he of fabled Morin-Heights Le Studio fame—and André’s wife and lifelong colleague Yaël Brandis. René greeted us in the hallway, then led us through a tight corridor-like space toward the main area. When I emerged, two things simultaneously caught my attention. The first was the presence of two Montreal jazz pros, double bassist Frédéric Alarie and guitarist Sylvain Provost, who were in front of us playing music while being taped. The second thing was the studio’s look and vibe—cozy, intimate, chaleureux, where the only thing separating René and the musicians were three microphones hanging from a solitary stand.

On this day, the mics—a Josephson digital one for the DSD or DXD version of the recording and two 1948-circa Neumann M49 microphones for the analogue side—were being used to do a test run, to see how everything sounded before going through with the real thing. After each song, René, who had been listening through headphones, and the musicians would banter about matters to do with the recording process, while Karim would surreptitiously slip into position around them and snap away with his Nikon D700.

All around us were memento-like clues to René’s personality: reel-to-reel tapes and LPs, a Nagra Reference turntable and Nagra T-Audio reel-to-reel tape machine, a bank of vintage tube equalizers, and something akin to a working area with a desk and a sink overrun with gutted audio chassis and parts. Behind the sink, stuffed into a corner, was an Ampex 300 ½” 4-track tape machine whose first production model dates to 1949. As René described it to me: “It was used by Living Stereo, Mercury Records, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley… It was the high-end standard in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, when the cost of the AMPEX 300 ½” was the price of a house. I’m restoring it to make recordings and for 4-track tapes I need to convert to vinyl and tapes.”

Adding to the studio’s earthy character were wooden acoustic treatments stretching from the walls to the ceiling, and, on the floor, carpet and rugs that, as The Big Lebowski might say, tied the room together.

René is an inveterate modifier and restorer of vintage audio equipment, with a knack for design that crosses eras in audio technology. Among his roles in the audio sphere, René is Nagra’s Sales and Marketing Manager for the US and Canada and helps the Swiss company design some of its most ambitious products. The six-figure Reference turntable I saw when I entered the studio is one of them.

René has surrounded himself with state-of-the-art audio equipment. A couple of times, he’d play, over his Nagra T-Audio, the song Frédéric and Sylvain had just played, and the audio sounded stunningly close to what I’d just heard played in real life. Helping with this illusion of audio-realism was the rest of the studio’s playback chain: prototypes of a Nagra Reference PREAMP and two towering 250W—first 30 in class-A—Nagra Reference AMP monoblocs, and a pair of 3.5-way Sonus Faber Stradivari speakers. “Their crossover is well made,” René said of the speakers. “Their midrange is very transparent.”

When I asked what it was about early audio equipment, such as his Neumann microphones, that he liked so much, he replied: “The equipment of that era was extraordinary. It focused on real development. Engineers at EMI and Abbey Road would work with Neumann’s engineers to get the right sound. The tube electronics from the ’50s and ’60s have an advantage over transistor electronics. The amplified signal is continuously amplified, unlike the ‘on/off’ switching between transistors, which generates a third harmonic that is hard on the ears and was not there during the recording.”

He added: “The tubes and output transformers of vintage microphones produce a natural second harmonic, which is normal in nature and creates a richer sound. But there’s much more: point-to-point circuitry, tube linear power supplies, grid angles to break resonances, Telefunken AC 701 tubes. Today, there are well-made copies and even Neumann versions, but it’s not the same. Some companies innovate, like Josephson, but microphones from the Golden Age have a richness and transparency that communicates emotion like nothing else.”

And what is the final, crucial ingredient that completes the recording’s natural sound? Ironically, it’s a dab of carefully-applied studio reverb, René revealed.

2xHD releases are a mix of remastered and new recordings. While LP sales outnumber those of digital formats, René says that sales of DSD and DXD titles through partnering download sites remain strong in Canada, despite the streaming trend, with new recordings coming soon. “For releases in DSD and DXD, we have a new agreement with a studio in Paris, Black Stamp, which works with incredible musicians—Absolute, Mr. Wins, Ah! Kwantou, to name a few. With the development of the new tube-based Nagra Reference DAC, I can make richer and more natural-sounding masters from digital recordings than was previously possible.”

Regarding vinyl, René cites his company’s Bill Evans and Ben Webster AAA album remasters as being among the company’s best-selling titles, along with those in its “Analog Collection” series. “We also have a new AAA reel-to-reel tape of Al Jarreau and great new releases coming up by Piltch & Davis, Emilie Claire Barlow, and Robert Len Crossroad.”

Hang with René a bit and it becomes obvious he’s an audio guy at his core, in terms of both consumer and recording equipment. It’s a trait that seems to have been forged by two distinct events he experienced when he was 20 years old. The first: the studio recording class he took in Columbus, Ohio. The second: when his electronics teacher, Richard LeBlond, exposed him to a quality playback system. Said René: “Richard had me play a Nagra IV-S reel-to-reel on Acoustat speakers and custom tube electronics, and I had a revelation that helped me develop the Fidelio RL1 microphones. Still today I work on projects with Richard.”

René’s and Frédéric’s relationship goes way back. Frédéric was René’s neighbour and the first artist René recorded 25 years ago. After seeing Frédéric perform at Montreal’s iconic Biddle’s jazz bar, René approached him: “I asked if he’d come try my RL1 microphones into a YBS Signature preamplifier into a Tascam reel-to-reel. He agreed and the result was impressive. A few weeks later, Frédéric asked if I wanted to record him and guitarist Art Johnson. I suggested we could rent Le Studio in Morin Heights which was known for its acoustics, and there we recorded the album Contact. It was my first and last visit to Le Studio. I didn’t know André (Perry) at the time, and André had already sold his studio to the Spectra group, but I’m very happy I got to record in it!”

René doesn’t only record in-studio. He often uses churches and halls as recording venues because of their reverberant acoustics. His recording approach is purist, using as few mics as possible, but he’s diligent and restless in his pursuit of the best sound. He told me, in whispered tones, that he spends about $10,000 every four months of his own money on gear. Why? “To keep up with evolution. I need to experiment a lot.”

I asked René what he was trying to accomplish with his recordings. “To elicit emotion in the listener. We talk a lot about recording technique, but the ultimate goal is not to hear it.”

For more information about 2xHD, click here.

René Laflamme will be showcasing Nagra and 2xHD Fidelio products at the Montreal Audiofest from March 28 to March 30 in the Montréal 2 Bliss Acoustics room.