Interviews

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Interviews
Norman Chesky of HDtracks and Chesky Records
David Lander  |  Oct 21, 2014  |  3 comments
Both Chesky Records and HDtracks have a pair of co-founding partners, but the music-minded press has perpetually focused on one of them, pianist and composer David Chesky, while ignoring his younger brother, Norman. Mainstream reporters and photographers did converge on Norman Chesky once, when they spotted him rolling a bulky, rough-hewn, wooden artifact from the 2009 auction at which Bernard Madoff's personal effects were sold for the benefit of bilked investors. Leading newspapers ran photos of Norman with the tree-trunk table he'd bought after happening on the sale, and the New York Times identified him as "a music executive from Manhattan." As the exchange that follows shows, that description was a glaring oversimplification.
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InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Regina Carter: A Family Affair
Robert Baird  |  May 06, 2014  |  First Published: May 01, 2014  |  0 comments
Making a recording is always a personal journey—everyone has a story to tell. Jazz violinist Regina Carter's latest, Southern Comfort, is an eloquent musical expression of Carter tracing the roots of her paternal lineage back five generations. For the project's sound engineer, Joe Ferla, it's the final project of a engineering career, and the beginning point of his new life as a practicing musician. The entwining of these journeys gives the album's music and sound a rare honesty.
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Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Guy Clark: For the Sake of the Song
Robert Baird  |  Mar 05, 2014  |  2 comments
As songwriters go, Guy Clark has been touched by the muse more than most. Unfortunately, in recent years he's also been visited by illness and heartache. In June 2012, his wife of 40 years, Susanna Clark, who was both a songwriter ("Easy from Now On") and an artist (the cover of Willie Nelson's Stardust), died in Nashville. In the past several years Clark, 72, has battled lymphoma, had his knees replaced, and undergone an arterial replacement in one leg. He was being treated for skin cancer when I visited his home, south of Nashville, in October 2013.
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Interviews
Jared Sacks: DSD Present and Future
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Feb 21, 2014  |  First Published: Feb 24, 2014  |  3 comments
Some months back, SACD and DSD champion Jared Sacks, founder of Channel Classics, stopped by Casa Bellecci-Serinus in Oakland for an extended chat about the history of his label, recording in DSD, and his new NativeDSD.com download site. I started our conversation by asking Jared to share his history with music and the industry with Stereophile:
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InterviewsAriel Bitran
Meet Mat Weisfeld, President of VPI Industries
Ariel Bitran  |  Dec 19, 2013  |  5 comments
Earlier this month, our all-analog coverage counterpart AnalogPlanet announced the release of the Nomad, a brand new entry-level turntable from American hi-fi manufacturer VPI Industries. For $995, The VPI Industries Nomad turntable includes a built-in phono preamplifier, unbalanced output, a set of Grado Labs iGrado around-the-neck headphones, headphone output, and an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge. This instant listening package was the brainchild of Mat Weisfeld, son of company founder Harry Weisfeld. Mat Weisfeld is now the President of VPI Industries. I had the opportunity to visit the factory and ask Weisfeld a few questions just before the official announcement of the Nomad.
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InterviewsStephen Mejias
Surpassing Expectations: Pioneer's Andrew Jones
Stephen Mejias  |  Sep 16, 2013  |  12 comments
In our September issue, I wrote about Pioneer’s excellent SP-BS22-LR loudspeaker. At just $129.99/pair (and often discounted), the SP-BS22-LR represents extraordinary value and may very well attract a wider and younger audience to true high-fidelity sound. The only thing I don’t really like about the speaker is its tongue-twister of a name. (But that’s easy to forgive. Most people can’t pronounce my name, either.)

While preparing the review, I took the opportunity to ask Andrew Jones, Pioneer’s chief engineer, a few questions about hi-fi, music, and loudspeaker design. As always, Jones was forthright and charming; his answers to my questions were often enlightening.

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Interviews
B&W's Dr. John Dibb
David Lander  |  Sep 05, 2013  |  1 comments
Before striding into the future, John Dibb enjoyed considerable exposure to his sceptered isle's fascinating past. He was born in England's North Country, in 1948, in a model West Yorkshire village established a century earlier by an enlightened industrialist determined to provide comfortable housing and communal amenities for his employees and their families; called Saltaire, it's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At age 11, young Dibb won a place at the nearby Bingley Grammar School, which dates back half a millennium, to the era of Henry VIII. He later studied at the University of Bradford, one of two English colleges then offering a course in materials science.
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InterviewsThink Pieces
Music Matters 2013—John Atkinson at ListenUp, Denver
Stereophile Staff  |  Aug 09, 2013  |  6 comments

In April 2013, Stereophile editor John Atkinson took part in two Music Matters evenings held by Colorado retailer ListenUp. JA took time off from the formal presentations to talk to ListenUp's George McClure about how we perceive music and about what matters most when we record and playback music.

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Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Terence Blanchard: Animal Magnetism
Robert Baird  |  Aug 08, 2013  |  1 comments
Down deepest, beneath everything he does, underlying all the facets of his ever-expanding career in music, Terence Blanchard is still a New Orleans guy. Question that and you can hear his dander rise.
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Interviews
Jim Anderson: The Educated Ear
Robert Baird  |  Jun 25, 2013  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2013  |  1 comments
Tune those young ears, Mr. Anderson! After a 30-year career in audio engineering that's seen his name appear in the credits of over 1700 albums, Jim Anderson, who won the 2013 Grammy for Best Surround Sound Album, for his remastering of Patricia Barber's Modern Cool, thinks education is the key to stemming the tide of degraded sound that threatens to swallow the recorded-music industry. Anderson, who's taught for a decade in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, starts his students early.
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Interviews
Roy Gandy: 40 Years of Reganomics
Steve Harris  |  May 30, 2013  |  First Published: Jun 01, 2013  |  1 comments
It's not easy to get Roy Gandy to look back. "I'm not a past person, I don't reminisce," he says. "But right at this moment I'm feeling very happy. We've not quite completed the launch of a whole new range of turntables and a new range of electronics, and I'm feeling elated."
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Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Willie Nile: the Bard on Bleecker
Robert Baird  |  May 09, 2013  |  First Published: May 01, 2013  |  0 comments
"You see that empty space?" says Willie Nile, motioning toward a lot between buildings on Bleecker Street, an impish Irish grin flickering across his face. "They haven't built anything there yet because Anna Wintour lives around the corner. And that red-brick house over there, the one with the white door? That's where Dylan lived. I used to see Bob around the neighborhood now and again."
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InterviewsAXPONA 2013
Stereophile Editor John Atkinson on Axpona, Affordable Audio, Analog, & Audiophiles
Stereophile Staff  |  Apr 30, 2013  |  14 comments

At the 2013 AXPONA in Chicago in March, Cool Cleveland asked JA for his thoughts on the state of high-end audio. His answers might surprise you.

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Interviews
Yves Beauvais
Robert Baird  |  Apr 09, 2013  |  4 comments
"While the selection and fine tuning of exhilarating-sounding vintage audio equipment is an exciting, often life-long search, let's not forget it's ultimately the music that matters—mankind's mysterious mastery of making air move in esthetically & emotionally thrilling ways. Most importantly, remember to ask yourself the age-old question: Can I dance to it?"
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InterviewsNews
"This is exciting," says Thiel's new CEO, Bill Thomas
John Atkinson  |  Jan 27, 2013  |  4 comments
Bill Thomas at CES with the ground-breaking coaxial HF/MF unit designed by Jim Thiel (Photo: John Atkinson)

We reported last November that Thiel Audio Products, the Kentucky-based speaker manufacturer founded by Kathy Gornik and the late Jim Thiel, had been had been acquired by a private equity firm based in Nashville, TN, and that Gornik was no longer with the company. At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, held January 8–11 in Las Vegas, the Thiel display at the Sands Convention Center was packed. I met up with Thiel's new CEO, 55-year old Bill Thomas, and asked him what had led him and his two partners to acquire the company.

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