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Features News

Hi-Rez Audio Distinguished in Blind Testing

Jim Austin Dec 16, 2019

Spectral analysis of a live blues band recording made by John Atkinson, showing content up to 40kHz, from "What's Going On Up There?"

At the October 2019 Audio Engineering Society convention in New York, Yuki Fukuda and Shunsuke Ishimitsu, both of Hiroshima City University, presented results that show quite clearly that listeners can distinguish sounds encoded and reproduced at different sampling frequencies. Their trials differed from the previous ones in one important way: Instead of exposing test subjects to music at different resolutions, they used test tones.

CD Player/Transport Reviews Digital Processor Reviews

Sumo Axiom CD transport & Theorem II D/A processor

Robert Harley Dec 13, 2019

Making digital audio sound good appears to be a much more difficult job than its developers first realized. When digital audio was in its infancy, there was a tendency to think that digital either worked perfectly, or didn't work at all. This belief led the engineering community to devise ill-considered and flawed standards that affect the musical quality of digitally reproduced music today.

J. Gordon Holt Miscellaneous

Rocktron CS 5.2.5 Circle Surround decoder

J. Gordon Holt Dec 12, 2019

Editor's Note: Published in 1998, this was the final review written by Stereophile's founder, the late J. Gordon Holt in the 37 years he was associated with the magazine. In it he expounds on his passion for experiencing recorded music in surround sound. Our continuing focus on two-channel products and recordings was one of the reasons Gordon eventually resigned, in August 1999.John Atkinson

J. Gordon Holt Solid State Preamp Reviews

Great American Sound Thaedra preamplifier

J. Gordon Holt Dec 11, 2019

Our first sample of this preamplifier was returned to the manufacturer before we had completed our tests on it, and was replaced with the latest version (ours is serial number 500108). Enough time elapsed between the time we shipped back the first sample and the time we got around to auditioning the second that we are unable to report on any sonic differences between the two.

J. Gordon Holt Phono Cartridge Reviews

Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk.3F phono cartridge

J. Gordon Holt Dec 10, 2019

A couple of issues back, we mentioned in passing that the Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk.3F was the only moving-coil cartridge we had heard (as of then) that we would give house room to. (The others had frequency-response problems which so colored the sound that their other strong points were not worth the tradeoff.) That first observation about the FR-1 was based on a couple of hours' listening. Now that we have had an opportunity to live with one of them for a while, we can essentially confirm that first reaction, but with a few added qualifications.

Music and Recording Features

The Clash: Still Calling

Phil Brett Dec 06, 2019

It's not just the gray hairs or the expanding waistline that suggest one is getting old: it's also when the albums you love so much, and so vividly remember hearing for the first time, have become a part of the rock heritage industry. So it is with London Calling by the Clash, which celebrates its 40th birthday in December 2019.

Historical J. Gordon Holt Tube Power Amp Reviews

Audio Research Dual 150 power amplifier

J. Gordon Holt Dec 05, 2019

We mentioned in the last issue that we were becoming increasingly disturbed by "a certain manic quality that is creeping into this pursuit of sonic perfection." We were referring then to a manufacturer's announcement of the imminent availability of a speaker system weighing over 1000 lb per channel, but we could just as well have been speaking of this behemoth from Audio Research.

Gramophone Dreams Headphone Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #31: Feliks Audio, Focal, Grado, JPS

Herb Reichert Dec 04, 2019

My current romance with audiophile-quality headphones began in earnest with the appearance, about 10 years ago, of Audeze's LCD-2 planar-magnetic headphonesthese predated the company's patented Fazor elements, said to guide the sound around the transducers' magnet structuresand Schiit Audio's original Asgard headphone amplifier. Together, these groundbreaking products rekindled my interest by making headphone listening into something new and excitingsomething less distorted, more dynamic, denser, and more intensely lifelike than what I was getting from my speakers on the floor. Best of all, I could listen while lying in bed with my eyes closed.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews Historical J. Gordon Holt

Hegeman Model 1 omnidirectional loudspeaker

J. Gordon Holt Dec 03, 2019

Ye Editor had his first exposure to a true omnidirectional speaker system 15 years ago, while he was employed as chief equipment tester for High Fidelity magazine. The speaker was a most unusual-looking device for its time, being roughly a foot square and standing 3 feet high, with a "cube" of grille cloth at the top like a cupola. Inside the cupola was an 8" woofer facing upwards. Directly above it was the weirdest-looking tweeter you ever saw.

Jason Victor Serinus

Bryce Dessner Moves Music Forward

Jason Victor Serinus Dec 02, 2019

“Musical scavenger” Bryce Dessner, the composer/musician who gained fame as principal songwriter of American rock band The National, describes his process as collecting sounds that appeal to him and trying them out. Classically trained, he’s one of a growing number of artists whose cross-genre music, when performed by string quartets, orchestras, and ensembles, has been central to broadening the definition of classical music in the 21st century. Dessner is also one of eight “extraordinary artists, thinkers and doers” appointed to a collective that will help steer conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen when he succeeds Michael Tilson Thomas as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in September.