Amazon Music Goes High-Rez
The era of streaming in CD-quality and hi-rez music has arrived at one of the world’s major subscription streaming services, complete with a free 90-day trial.
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LATEST ADDITIONS
Spirited Away by Music
Yup, you're in a strange position, all right. You're in love with a girl who is no more.Haruki Murakami
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The quote above, from Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore, is addressed to Kafka, a 15-year-old boy who has fallen in love with the teenage ghost of an older woman. The woman is still alive, but ever since the death of her lover many years before, she has existed separate from her spirit. Falling in love with ghosts is something I've done often, starting at about Kafka's age.
Vertigo
In Alfred Hitchcock's great film Vertigo, filmed in San Francisco in 1957, the protagonist, Scottie, played by James Stewart, becomes obsessed with Madeleine, played by Kim Novak. Scottie, a retired detective, suffers from a disabling case of acrophobia, which becomes a critical if tenuous plot point.
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Four 3rd-Generation CD players: Adcom, Magnavox, Onkyo, Yamaha
I once told Stereophile publisher Larry Archibald it might be worth, say, a 10% loss in sound quality with CD not to have to jump up and turn over the damned record. Sometimes a CD saves you from popping up twiceMahler's Fifth or Bruckner's Seventh on a single disc instead of three LP sidesor three timesMozart's Magic Flute on three CDs instead of 6 LP sides. That might be worth a 15% sacrifice.
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Sumo Theorem D/A processor
The $799 Theorem was originally shown at the 1992 WCES in a very small chassis that prohibited adding features or upgrades. Sumo has since become more ambitious, putting the Theorem in a full-sized chassis and offering several upgrade options that would have been impossible in the truncated version.
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Theta Digital Cobalt 307 digital processor
One measure of a high-end product designer's talent is the musical success of his top-of-the-line product. This is his statement to the world of what he can accomplisha kind of "personal best" that defines the upper limits of his talent. Because he knows of no way to make the product better, the component stands as the ultimate testimonial to his skill.
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The Mod Squad Prism CD player
While it can't exactly be said that the folks from The Mod Squad invented the game of audiophile modifications of existing, current-production hardware, they certainly have grown to be one of the major leaguers. Their mods have a reputation for being well-thought-out, nearly always offering improvements over the originals. And while they weren't the originators of the concept, any company which brought the world Tiptoes (probably their most famous product) will probably have a niche in the 21st-Century Museum of High-End Audio.
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RMAF’s Bold Move Pays Off
After talking with a number of exhibitors and attendees, I’d have to call the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest’s daring move to a new and very different venue—a controversial if also inevitable move—a success. Everyone I spoke to was happy with attendance, and the sound in the hotel rooms was generally excellent.
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WBT’s New Plating Process
Ray Kimber of Kimber Kable was in “You gotta” mode. After he told me that WBT, the 34-year-old German company that supplies connectors and cable terminations to hundreds of manufacturers worldwide, had a new, environmentally friendly facing process that made for better sound, I arranged to meet with WBT founder and CEO Wolfgang Thoerner on Sunday morning to discuss their new "WBT-PlasmaProtect" PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) plasma process.
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MartinLogan Motion 35XTi speakers and 800X subwoofers; Benchmark D/A DAC3 B DAC, LA4 line amplifier, AHB2 power amplifier, and Star-Quad speaker and interconnect cabling
If you, like me, tend to associate MartinLogan with electrostatic transducers, you may be surprised to learn that their more traditional Motion line accounts for most of their sales.
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