Meat and Essence
Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran ponders self-awareness.
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Slangin'
<I>Allen's English Phrases</I> sounds like a fun read.
Have you ever heard an audio system that faithfully reproduced the sound of real, live musicians? What was it?
Faithfully reproducing the sound of real, live musicians in our listening rooms is the audiophile's Holy Grail. Have you ever heard a system do this? If so, what was it?
Miracle At Merkin
On Saturday, February 10, collaborative improvisation band Attention Screen gave its debut at Manhattan's Merkin Hall at Kaufmann Center to a packed house. The event was recorded by John Atkinson for release in May as a <I>Stereophile</I> CD, possibly followed by a limited-edition DVD-A.
Slim Devices Transporter network music player
Is a high-end music server the audio equivalent of polishing a turd?
Naim CD555 CD player
Naim's new "statement" CD player, the CD555 ($20,300 by itself, $28,150 with PS555 power supply), breaks no new technological ground. Rather, in typical Naim fashion, it attempts to optimize 16-bit/44.1kHz CD performance by paying fanatical attention to the devilish details. It doesn't play the DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, or SACD formats, nor does it have a digital output—and it doesn't create an illusion of higher resolution by upsampling the data.
No Answers, Only Questions
Finding myself in the Northwest on business, I reckoned I'd grab some Seattle dim sum with my nephew before heading my rental car south on I-5 to visit old friends in Oregon. "You live here," I said to Sean. "What are the good radio stations?"
Recording of February 2007: Wincing the Night Away
<B>THE SHINS: <I>Wincing the Night Away</I></B><BR>
Sub Pop SP 705 (CD). 2007. James Mercer, Joe Chiccarelli, prods.; Phil Ek, Sean Flora, Hiro Ninagawa, Brian Deck, Lars Fox, engs. AAD? TT: 41:52<BR>
Performance ****<BR>
Sonics ****
Is This the End of Copy Protection?
An essay with the unassuming title of <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/">"Thoughts on Music"</A> has certainly caused a furor over the last week. Of course, it didn't hurt that it was written by Apple's Steve Jobs or that he stated absolutely that digital rights management copy restriction systems "haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."
Hmmmmm
As Dave Barry is wont to say, <I>The Singing Neanderthals</I> would be a good name for a rock band, but it's a book by cognitive archeologist Steven Mithen, arging that language and music evolved from a common ancestor. He calls that ur-communication "Hmmmmm" (holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical, and memetic).