Tommy Keene 1958–2017
Indie Rock Guitar Hero Dead at 59.
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LATEST ADDITIONS
Maria Schneider's Jazz Orchestra: Thanksgiving Week at the Jazz Standard
For 13 years now, Maria Schneider and her Jazz Orchestra have played Thanksgiving week at the Jazz Standard in New York City, and, judging from the late set on Tuesday, they just keep getting better and better.
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Our Final Binaural Video Report from the NYAS
Here's our final report from the New York Audio Show. Thank you to everyone who watched our previous videos, all of which featured Herb Reichert (left above in JA's photo) and gave us feedbackpositive and otherwise. We started making these videos as a response to feedback, and will continue monitoring feedback to help improve our future videos.
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Pass Laboratories XA60.8 monoblock power amplifier
Years ago, when I was young and foolish (instead of old and foolish, as now), I was hanging out with a friend at a strip-mall strip club in a small southeastern city. A youngish lady approached our table in G-string and pasties and did a tableside dance. My friend's jaw scraped the floor; I, noting her lack of enthusiasm, was unmoved. The stripper noted my impassivity and stated, with irony that at the time I somehow missed, "You're a hard man."
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John Atkinson, too, is a hard man, at least when it comes to audio gear. When, in January 2014, he reviewed the Pass Laboratories XA60.5 monoblock amplifier, he concluded, "It is the best-sounding amplifier I have ever used." High praise.
Day 2 at the NYAS: a Binaural Video Report
Captured in the corridor: Music Hall's Roy Hall (left) tells Herb Reichert about a system tweak that always results in better sound.
Here’s our second (of three) video show reports from the New York Audio Show that took place earlier this month at Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel.
Heed Audio Quasar phono preamplifier
As a kid growing up in Milford, Michigan, my big brother always had the classiest clothes, latest records, and sharpest gear. He danced in Cuban-heeled leather boots, I climbed trees in lace-up Keds. He spun Rolling Stones vinyl on a fabric-wrapped Zenith portable with detachable speakers, I blasted the Beatles from a tinny transistor radio. Ten years my senior, big bro drove a Buick bomb (which, late one night, mysteriously caught fire in the garage) and had a girlfriend, Gail, whose plump cheeks and smart clothes embodied modern mid-century Midwestern appeal. I like to think that my brother and I have both aged gracefully. And lately, he's taken to high-end hi-fi with a passion.
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Audeze LCDi4 in-ear headphones
Headphone listening has always been an important part of my audiophile life. In recent years I've been using at home Audeze's large, open-back, circumaural LCD-X headphones, which I bought after reviewing them for the March 2014 issue; and a pair of small Ultimate Ears 18 Pro in-ear monitors, which provide much better isolation on my subway commute to Stereophile's offices in Manhattan. I was intrigued by Audeze's iSine in-ear models, which were introduced in November 2016 and are unique in using planar-magnetic drive-units mounted outside the ear. I thought about reviewing a pair of the affordable iSines, but before I could get around to it, I heard that Audeze was to launch a cost-no-object version, the LCDi4, priced at a substantial $2495/pair. Aspiration got the better of frugality, and I asked for a pair to review.
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Listening #180: Swissonor TA10 tonearm
Everything you know is wrong.The Firesign Theatre
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The Swissonor TA10, a contemporary tonearm designed for the Thorens TD 124 turntable (19591970), challenged me to set aside some of the things I thought I knew about phonography. On at least one of those counts, it succeeded.
Handmade in Switzerland and modeled on the Thorens TP 14 tonearm of the 1960s, the TA10 ($3990) improves on its predecessor with an effective length of 240mm, which Swissonor says is the longest that can be achieved with a stock TD 124 armboard (the TP 14's effective length was only 210mm), and replaces the non-universal plug and socket of the TP 14's removable headshell with the more common SME standard found on most contemporary headshells, pickup heads, and tonearms.
René Jacobs' take on Mozart's Requiem
Every conductor who undertakes Mozart's Requiem must ask one fundamental question: Whose Requiem shall I conduct? After René Jacobs asked the question, he can up with a novel solution for his new period-aware, decidedly contemporary Harmonia Mundi recording of the Requiem with the Freiburger Barockorchester and RIAS Kammerchor.
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MrSpeakers Aeon Flow Open Planar Magnetic Headphones
This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com
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I'll admit feeling the MrSpeakers Aeon Flow Closed look a bit alien to my eyes when first I saw it. Now that it's been on my desk for a few months I find it quite appealing. Not so much for it's looksdon't get me wrong, I quite like the lookbut more because I've come to appreciate the comfort of them. No surprises when the Aeon Flow Open showed up...they were right at home on my head. Good thing too, they'll be spending a lot of time there.