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Features Music and Recording Features

The Silverman Concert

John Atkinson Nov 19, 1994

"What's that noise?" Bob Harley and I looked at each other in puzzlement. We thought we'd debugged the heck out of the recording setup, but there, audible in the headphones above the sound of Robert Silverman softly stroking the piano keys in the second Scherzo of Schumann's "Concerto Without Orchestra" sonata, was an intermittent crackling sound. It was almost as if the God of Vinyl was making sure there would be sufficient surface noise on our live recording to endow it with the Official Seal of Audiophile Approval. Bob tiptoed out of the vestry where we'd set up our temporary control room and peeked through a window into the church, where a rapt audience was sitting as appropriately quiet as church mice.

Reference Features

Balance: Benefit or Bluff?

Martin Colloms Nov 15, 1994

If you read much promotional literature for recently introduced high-quality equipment, you'll notice a common theme emerging: balanced connection. Balanced inputs and outputs are becoming a must for any audio equipment that has any claim to quality. The word itself has promotional value, suggesting moral superiority over the long-established "unbalanced" connection (for the purpose of this discussion, I will call this "normal"). What's my problem with this? Simply this: The High End could be paying dangerous, costly lip service to the received wisdom that balanced operation is the goal for an audio system.

Recording of the Month

Recording of October 1994: Officium

Les Berkley Oct 29, 1994

HILLIARD ENSEMBLE/JAN GARBAREK: Officium Medieval & Renaissance Chant & Polyphony by Morales, Perotin, Dufay, de La Rue, Anon. The Hilliard Ensemble, vocals; Jan Garbarek, soprano & tenor saxes ECM New Series 78118-21525-2 (CD only). Manfred Eicher, prod.; Peter Laenger, eng. DDD. TT: 77:41

Interviews

A Wee Dram of Scotch: Linn Products' Ivor Tiefenbrun

John Atkinson Oct 25, 1994

More than 20 years ago, when the turntable was considered a perfectly neutral component in the playback chain, Ivor Tiefenbrun single-handedly demonstrated to the world that the turntable was not only an important part of a hi-fi system, but perhaps the most important part. That radical idea was the basis for the legendary Linn Sondek LP12 turntable, the product that launched Linn, and which is still in production 22 years later.

As We See It

Future Shock, High-End Style

Thomas J. Norton Oct 18, 1994

The future is rarely what anyone expects it to be. I still remember reading, as a child, predictions in Popular Science that everyone would have a personal helicopter by 1980. It never happened, though it sure seemed like a reasonable projection of events. Events, however, have their own agenda.

As We See It

The Importance of the Small Difference

John Atkinson Sep 24, 1994

During a recent visit to Canada's National Research Council, I noticed stuck to the wall of the prototype IEC listening room a page of results from one of Floyd Toole's seminal papers on the blind testing of loudspeakers. The scoring system was the one that Floyd developed, and that we adopted for Stereophile's continuing series of blind tests. "0" represents the worst sound that could possibly exist, "10" the perfection of live sound—a telephone, for example, rates a "2." The speakers in Floyd's test pretty much covered the range of possible performance, yet their normalized scoring spread, from the worst to the best, was just 1.9 points.

Recording of the Month

Recording of September 1994: Mahler: Symphony 1

Kevin Conklin Sep 06, 1994

MAHLER: Symphony 1, "Blumine"
James Judd, Florida Philharmonic Orchestra
Harmonia Mundi USA 907118 (CD only). Peter McGrath, eng.; Paul F. Witt, prod.; Robina Young, exec. prod. DDD. TT: 64:15

Recording of the Month

Recording of August 1994: Blues for Thought

Richard Lehnert Aug 20, 1994

TERRY EVANS: Blues for Thought PointBlank/Charisma/Virgin 39064 2 (CD only). Ry Cooder, prod.; Mark Ettel, eng. AAD? TT: 49:18

Recording of the Month

Recordings of July 1994: The Eyes Have It, Lady Be Good...for EllaMichael Ullman

Michael Ullman Jul 27, 1994

LYNN ARRIALE: The Eyes Have It Lynn Arriale, piano; Jay Anderson, bass; Steve Davis, drums DMP CD-502 (CD only). Lynn Arriale, Tom Jung, prods.; Tom Jung, eng. DDD. TT: 62:22

As We See It

Squeezing the Music 'til the Bits Squeak

John Atkinson Jul 07, 1994

In this space last January, I enthused about the sound of linear 20-bit digital recordings which, I felt, preserve the quality of a live microphone feed. "I have heard the future of audio—and it's digital!" I proclaimed, which led at least a couple of readers to assume I had gone deaf. Putting to one side the question of my hearing acuity, 20-bit technology has been rapidly adopted in the professional world as the standard for mastering. The remaining debate concerns how to best preserve what those 20 bits offer once they've been squeezed down to the 16 that CD can store. Sony's Super Bit Mapping algorithm and Harmonia Mundi Acustica's redithering device have been joined by new black boxes from Apogee Electronics, Lexicon, and Meridian; it appears likely that, in next to no time at all, all CD releases will be offering close to 20-bit resolution—at least in the upper midrange, where the ear is most sensitive.