VPI Vanquish Turntable, DS Audio Cartridge, Meitner Phono EQ, EMM Labs Streamer, DAC, Preamplifier and Amplifiers, Credo Audio Ltd. Loudspeakers, Kimber Cable
It’s easy to get lost at this hi-fi party.
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LATEST ADDITIONS
Rooms Vs. Vinyl
I had woken up not long before, fallen out of bed, and descended the hotel stairs to the Atrium—to the sight of what appeared to be many tens of thousands of vinyl records. I had dragged myself away and met Herb Reichert for breakfast, where we made plans for Stereophile’s coverage of Capital AudioFest 2019. But the vinyl kept drawing me back.
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At the Linear Tube Audio Headphone Lounge
I have been beating the headphone drum at Stereophile since I started in 2014. By 2016, when I reviewed Linear Tube Audio’s inaugural product, the microZOTL2.0 line-stage/headphone amplifier, I was falling asleep with AKG K812s on my head. (Now I’m falling asleep with HiFiMan Susvara and RAAL-requisite SR1a ribbon headphones.) To me, headphone listening is the gateway to audio’s newest wonderland.
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Grand Prix Audio Monza equipment supports
Why?
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That's the question that many will ask about the new Grand Prix Monza equipment rack, prices for which start at $19,000 for a four-tier, 42"-tall rack and can even stretch to $29,500 for my review sample, which comprises a double-width, fourtier, 42"-tall rack (two side-by-side stacks of four shelves each) with two matching Monza amp stands. Why spend all that money when a solid oak table, built-in shelving, or Great Aunt Tillie's antique cabinet might do the trick?
The 2019 Capital Audiofest Is Underway!
It was 77 degrees on October 31 and the weather on the drive down reminded me of an amplifier I once owned: dark, gray, and dry. The weather app on my phone said there were tornado warnings for the Washington, DC, area, but that could not diminish my excitement about going to Capital Audiofest at the Hilton Hotel in Rockville Maryland.
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Manfred Eicher: "You Can't Record Everybody"
There has never been a record producer like Manfred Eicher, founder and sole proprietor of ECM records, the German-based jazz (and sometimes classical) label that celebrates its 50th anniversary this month.
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Eicher doesn't quite win the all-time prize for longevity. Edward Lewis started Decca (UK) in 1929 and owned it until 1980. David Sarnoff controlled RCA from 19191970. William Paley did the same at Columbia from 1938-1988. But unlike those other, financially heftier titans, who deferred to department heads and studio producers, Eicher has supervised every single one of ECM's albumsmore than 1600 of them.
Beethoven for Four, in All Its Glory
As the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven approaches, artists worldwide have begun issuing complete recordings of his oeuvre. At the top of a fast-growing list, three stand out: Andris Nelsons' recording of Beethoven's nine symphonies with the Wiener Philarmoniker (Decca), Igor Levit's issue of Beethoven's Complete Piano Sonatas (Sony), and the subject of this review, the Miró Quartet's 8-CD set of Beethoven's Complete String Quartets (Pentatone PTC5186827).
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Trenner & Friedl Osiris loudspeaker
Austrian loudspeaker manufacturer Trenner & Friedl has a thing for coaxial drivers. They're used in at least three of the company's eight loudspeaker models, including the diminutive Sun bookshelf speaker and the large floorstanding Taliesin. In these models, T&F eschew more conventional stacked drivers for a putatively time-aligned, wide-frequency range coaxial design.
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The Ghost in the Machine
"The crying rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause."Bob Dylan, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"
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And asked for no applause."Bob Dylan, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"
I remember as a toddler sitting in the kitchen on a highchair, watching my mother smoke a cigarette, apply red lipstick, and tune a turquoise table radio from one news station to another. Between the strange, nattering voices, the radio emitted a sharp hissing sound. That's my first memory of human voices coming from a little box.
Vandersteen Quatro Wood CT loudspeaker & M5-HPA monoblock power amplifier
"Stirring the stew" is what I've heard it called when a company introduces a new version of a product every three or four years. When a new product is launched, sales generally rise rapidly to a maximum and then slowly decline. If the stew is stirred every few years, plotting the product's sales volume against time results in a sawtooth wave, without sales ever dropping close to zero.
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