LATEST ADDITIONS

Music and Recording Features
Being There: Reflections on Ways of Experiencing Jazz
Thomas Conrad  |  Apr 07, 2020  |  2 comments
I remember the only time i ever saw Chet Baker. It was at Parnell's, a jazz club in Pioneer Square in Seattle, long since defunct. It was a few years before Baker died under mysterious circumstances, in Amsterdam in 1988, after a life of creativity, notorious dissipation, and addiction.

Emaciated, with a caved-in face, he already looked near death. He played like an angel. I remember something that happened to me toward the end of the night. Sometimes last sets in jazz clubs, when the crowd has thinned, seem to exist outside of time.

Continue Reading »
News
Gray Forecast or Silver Lining?
Julie Mullins  |  Apr 03, 2020  |  53 comments
Social distancing. Flattening the curve. These expressions are embedded in our collective psyche as we to try to keep COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus that causes it at bay. Few of us who live through this will ever forget them.

But life and work must somehow go on, if at a slower pace than before.

Continue Reading »
News
Streaming Salvation for the Sequestered--UPDATED OFTEN
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 03, 2020  |  First Published: Mar 25, 2020  |  45 comments
• Jazz at Lincoln Center Live Stream--a great lineup.

• At Home with Gustavo [Dudamel], a unique series created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Chick Corea's Daily Workshops.

Continue Reading »
Media Server Reviews
Innuos Statement music server
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 03, 2020  |  22 comments
We carry within us the wonders we seek outside us.—Rumi

There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don't allow yourself to become one of them.—Ralph Marston, The Daily Motivator

Put these two quotes together, shake vigorously, and you've got the essence of a music server. Unless your container isn't tightly sealed, in which case you've got a mess.

Continue Reading »
Gramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #35: ZMF & Hagerman headphones & headphone amplifiers
Herb Reichert  |  Apr 02, 2020  |  11 comments
Almost a year ago, a headphone pal loaned me the Zach Mehrbach–designed ZMF Auteur LTD headphones. He said, "Herb, see if you like these." I took them home and right away thought, Wow, these headphones really disappear!

Nothing about their sound attracted my attention. The only thing I noticed, casually, was how relaxed and unbelievably transparent they were.

Continue Reading »
Art Dudley ListeningStand Loudspeaker Reviews
Listening #208: Rogers LS3/5a
Art Dudley  |  Apr 01, 2020  |  56 comments
In my January 2020 Listening column, I wrote about a place where three things overlap: the joys (and benefits) of being a record collector, the natural tendency to grow and challenge ourselves as listeners, and the need to forgive ourselves for the shortcomings of our youth. The hook was the story of how I started out disliking the music of guitarist John Fahey (1939–2001) and ended up loving it. But it could just as easily have been about cooking or hiking or Jethro Tull or any of a number of other things.
Continue Reading »
Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
ProAc Response D2R loudspeaker
Ken Micallef  |  Mar 31, 2020  |  45 comments
Between the mid-1980s and late 2000s, Stereophile published 14 reviews of loudspeakers from England's ProAc Limited. First came Dick Olsher's review of the ProAc Tablette in 1984. The latest—until now—was in 2010, when John Marks wrote about the ProAc Response D Two.
Continue Reading »
News
How to Help Musicians--Updated
Stereophile Staff  |  Mar 27, 2020  |  43 comments
You probably heard the news: record claims for unemployment benefits, indeed, five times the previous record from 1982. Our economy has never been shut down quite so completely and suddenly. Those most affected are service workers: cooks, waiters, retail clerks—and the people who make the music we love.
Continue Reading »
My Back Pages
From 78 to 24/384
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Mar 27, 2020  |  3 comments
When I was 11, my father brought home the voice of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) in a three-LP box set whose faux leather cover and sepia-tinted photos I admired over and over. When he put on the Sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor, I exclaimed, "Daddy, I've heard that before!"

"Yeah, you broke it when you were 2," he replied.

Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Vimberg Mino loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Mar 26, 2020  |  63 comments
The priciest loudspeaker ever to have taken up residence in my listening room was the Akira from German company Tidal Audio (footnote 1), which I reviewed in the November 2018 issue of Stereophile. Designed by Tidal founder and CEO Jörn Janczak, the Akiras cost $215,000/pair! "The sheer resolution of the Akiras continued to astonish me throughout my auditioning," I wrote in my review, concluding that "The Akiras are the best-looking, best-built, best-sounding speakers I have had in my listening room—as they should be at the price."
Continue Reading »

Pages

X