Massimo Farao Trio – This Can’t Be Love (2020, SACD-ISO) – Venus

Released as a trio programme of standards recorded in Italy with a strong ballad emphasis, Massimo Farao Trio – This Can’t Be Love (2020, SACD-ISO) – Venus has a sound that rewards careful listening. Its most revealing qualities are found in piano image and bass/drum interplay, where small changes in a playback system can alter the sense of scale, texture and presence. The result is a record with genuine value in an audiophile collection.

TRACK LIST

• LabelVenus
• CountryJapan
• Release date2020
• GenreJazz
• FormatSACD-ISO 2ch& Flac 16bit/44.1kHz

Sound Quality

From an audio perspective, the important quality here is balance. Piano image and bass/drum interplay A transparent system should reveal attack, decay and small changes in level without making the recording sound clinical. Listen for stable centre images, believable depth and clean separation when several instruments occupy the same frequency range. These qualities make the disc more revealing than a simple first impression might suggest.

Audiophile Listening Experience

This is the kind of release that benefits from familiar reference levels. Use the title track to establish the basic tonal and spatial picture, then move to the quietest standard to hear how the system handles greater complexity. Listen first for the direct sound, then for what remains around it: reverberation, air, low-level ambience and the decay of notes. Those details help distinguish genuine resolution from a presentation that merely sounds brighter or louder.

Reference Tracks

Reference Tracks: Start with the title track; the quietest standard; the most swinging trio performance. Together they provide a practical check of piano image and bass/drum interplay. Pay attention to the transition between strong attacks and decaying notes, and to whether voices or instruments remain anchored in believable positions rather than drifting as the arrangement changes.

Audiophile Verdict

Massimo Farao Trio – This Can’t Be Love (2020, SACD-ISO) – Venus earns its place in a reference collection through its combination of piano image and bass/drum interplay. It may not be designed as a laboratory test disc, but its musical context makes the evaluation more meaningful: the listener can hear technical differences while still engaging with the performance itself.

It is also worth listening at moderate levels before turning the volume up. At a sensible level, tonal relationships and spatial cues become easier to judge, while louder playback can sometimes exaggerate bass or treble and hide the more subtle information that makes a recording genuinely useful.