Stephen Mejias
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Keith Freund: Constant Comments
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 29, 2011 • 2 comments
While listening to Keith Freund’s lovely Constant Comments, it’s often difficult to discern whether the sounds are coming from inside or outside the listening room. Voices, birdsong, honking horns, barking dogs, the opening and closing of doors, ocean waves and rainfall mingle, freely and happily, with crystalline and gently strummed electric guitars, synthesizer sounds, electronic burps and gurgles, tape hiss, and more.

The result is a comforting and thought-provoking ramble. Listening to Constant Comments is like walking down 3rd Street, between Coles and Monmouth, late at night, glancing into the glowing windows of strangers’ homes: I can’t help but make up stories for these scattered shards of song. The 12 tracks of Constant Comments, then, are glimpses into other worlds, at once foreign and familiar, and altogether compelling.

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Breakthrough at Iceland Airwaves
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 24, 2011 • 2 comments
If I could attend just one music festival each year, it would be Iceland Airwaves, held October 12–16, in downtown Reykjavik, Iceland. Launched in 1999 (in an airplane hangar!), Iceland Airwaves holds parties and performances in a handful of the city’s best venues and sets exciting local talent alongside outstanding international acts—all within a landscape of stunning beauty.
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A Very Special Hi-Fi
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 24, 2011 • 5 comments

I won’t be in the office tomorrow. I’ll be down in Hunterdon County, NJ, helping a very good friend set up a very special hi-fi system. This is big—BIG—news, but I can’t say anything else about it yet.

Speculate amongst yourselves.

SOL Republic Launched Today
News, Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 23, 2011 • 5 comments
Already flooded with contenders offering innumerable models in various shapes, sizes, and colors, the headphone market grows even larger today with the launch of SOL Republic, a “music lifestyle company” dedicated to “delivering innovation in sound, style, and durability.” Four SOL Republic models will initially be offered: Amps ($59.99) and Amps HD ($99.99) in-ear models, and Tracks ($99.99) and Tracks HD ($149.99) on-ear models.

The company, whose initials stand for “Soundtrack of Life,” is led by three music lovers with impressive backgrounds in business development and marketing:

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Looking Forward to Replica
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 23, 2011 • 0 comments
Oneohtrix Point Never is young electronic composer Daniel Lopatin. His critically acclaimed Returnal shook my listening room walls, clattered around in my mind, and stirred my soul. While more lighthearted recent collaborations with Joel Ford (first under the guise of “Games” and later simply as “Ford and Lopatin”) haven’t reached the same emotional depths, news of Lopatin’s upcoming album, Replica, is intriguing.
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In the Forum: The Problem with Hi-Fi
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 23, 2011 • 8 comments
Forum member “jgrossman” wants to know what’s stopping more people from getting into hi-fi. Is it the high cost of audio components, the hobby’s steep learning curve, the lack of hi-fi dealers, or something else?

Anton argues that audiophiles are the problem. “I have seen the enemy of high end audio,” he writes, “and it is us.”

What do you think? Talk about it in the Forum.

Twin Sister: In Heaven
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 19, 2011 • 5 comments
During the final episode of Radio Happy Hour, held at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge on Friday, August 12, we were treated to performances by New York five-piece, Twin Sister. The band played a selection of songs from In Heaven, an unabashed pop album full of hooks and charms, to be released by Domino on September 27.

I was drawn to this music from its earliest moments—those celestial and far-reaching chimes, old-school synth beats, and Andrea Estella’s arresting vocal delivery, a strange and glittering coo, reaching out to “Daniel”:

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The Magico Q1 and the Grand Opening of EarsNova
News, Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 16, 2011 • 4 comments
The Magico Q1 two-way monitor, first seen at the California Audio Show earlier this year, will make its New York debut during the Grand Opening of the new EarsNova showroom at 3 East 28th Street, in Manhattan.
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A moment that is frozen as we hang in time
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 11, 2011 • 7 comments
It’s a beautiful day in NYC: sunny, 80 degrees, with a slight breeze and low humidity—a perfect day for an outdoor concert. Later this afternoon, I’ll head out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, meet up with Natalie and Nicole—Kristin will be there, too—and enjoy a “Celebrate Brooklyn” event featuring Foster the People, Midnight Magic, and Cut Copy.
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Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.34 No.9
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 10, 2011 • 15 comments
The September 2011 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. On the cover, we feature Oppo’s latest universal disc player, the BDP-95: It slices, it dices, it plays everything and sounds great. In his review, Kal Rubinson installs the BDP-95 in his Manhattan apartment where he compares its two-channel output against that of the Sony SCD-XA5400ES, then he takes the Oppo to his Connecticut home and compares its analog multichannel output against that of Oppo’s earlier BDP-83SE. He comes up with some interesting conclusions.

Also in this issue:

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Sons & Daughters: Mirror Mirror
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 09, 2011 • 8 comments
Mirror Mirror, the third album from Glasgow band Sons & Daughters, opens with a single note from a vintage synth. Barely audible at first, it grows and grows and rises vertically in the soundstage—for 15 seconds it grows: a sharp white light in an otherwise dark room—building tension, warning of some sort of danger, as it goes. This high-pitched note is met first by stomping feet, then by clapping hands—single file and far, far off, but growing in size and intensity—before finally being joined by the voices of Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson, singing, strangely singing, barely singing at all, more chanting, intoning, repeating, casting:
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A Quick Visit to a Mastering Studio
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 08, 2011 • 0 comments
Dan Schmalle and Luke Manley smile in the background, while Brian Damkroger and I sit in the engineers' seats. Photo by Philip O'Hanlon.

On the first day of the California Audio Show, I heard some of the most beautiful music in a room hosted by Acoustic Analysis, The Tape Project, and Bottlehead, featuring a system made of Focal Diablo Utopia loudspeakers, Focal SW1000 Be subwoofers, a VTL TL-6.5 Signature line preamp and MB-450 Signature III monoblock power amplifiers, Siltech cables, and a Bottlehead-modified Otari tape machine. The music had such a smooth, effortless quality to it, unlike anything else I heard at the show: The sound of tape. It was an awesome listening experience.

On the following evening, I got to visit the mastering studio where the team from The Tape Project does its work.

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Buried Alive, Better Now
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 05, 2011 • 4 comments
For awhile, we were at our wit’s end, feeling buried alive, but everything is okay now: We just finished shipping our massive October issue to pre-press. At 212 pages, it’s our largest issue since October 2008.

We’ll see the proofs on Monday. Until then, we can relax.

To help us do that, we have Cass McCombs’ “Buried Alive,” from the achingly beautiful Wit’s End.

This is one of Jaime's favorites, and Jaime is one of mine.

Cass McCombs' Wit's End is out now on Domino Records. The album is available on CD, LP, and cassette. (Yes, cassette!)

Julian Treasure: 5 Ways to Listen Better
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 04, 2011 • 4 comments
This is absolutely outstanding. Please watch and listen as sound expert Julian Treasure offers strategies for re-tuning our ears.

Via TED. (Thanks for the link, SP.)

The Perfect Headphone Design?
Stephen Mejias
Stephen Mejias • Aug 02, 2011 • 11 comments
The subject of the e-mail was “boobsheadphones.” Inside, a simple question (“Can you tell me if these are real?”) was followed by a link to an interesting YouTube video.
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