Pop Music.
Here at the Stereophile office, we listen to lots of different tunes ranging from Bach to Fucked Up to Sylvester, but in the Bitran/Mejias cubicle, there has been a recent resurgence in our passion for POPULAR music.
LATEST ADDITIONS
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All Tape Guide
Photo: Teen River, a cassette-only label.
I’ve discussed my (apparently controversial) attraction to cassettes. Besides being affordable, fun, pretty, and filled with interesting sounds and art, cassettes provide a direct and meaningful connection between artist and audience: The person releasing cassettes in 2012 is likely doing so out of passion, with a spirit for adventure, perhaps even a with a distaste for modern technologies and conveniences; the person purchasing cassettes in 2012 probably has similar motivations and interests.
I like cassettes.
World's Largest Collection of Vintage Audio?
Wow, look at all the pretty boxes.
Maybe I'll finally find that Nakamichi CD-1 cassette deck I've been waiting for.
2011 Records To Die For
Each year when I sit down to write this introduction, I get stuck on the whole dying-for-music thing. I get visions of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, swinging from ropes with sacks over their heads. Like '80s hair bands do ya? Pull the trap door! Or Mary Queen of Scots kneeling before the block: A fan of smooth jazz? Let the blade fall! Yes, it's silly on some level, but what exactly is the feeling that would make one martyr oneself for music?
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Van den Hul The Valley Interconnect Cable Sweepstakes
Register to win a pair of Van den Hul The Valley Interconnect Cables (MSRP $395) we are giving away.
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These cables are distributed in North America by Bluebird Music and according to Van den Hul, The Valley interconnect cables are a twisted pair balanced cable with two 21 strand conductors and a double braided shield.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. Click on the picture above for details on how to enter.
[This sweepstakes is now closed.]
KEF's The Blade in Action
As one of the Top Five KEF dealers in the United States, AudioVision San Francisco was chosen as the site for the country's first in-store demo of KEF's Blade ($30,000/pair) on January 19. Given that the Blade's previous three quasi-public demos were either at showsCEDIA 2011, where the environment was reportedly too noisy for anyone to get a good listen, and RMAF 2011, where the room was too smallor KEF's 50th Anniversary Party in the British Embassy in New York City, this was actually the first time that anyone on the West Coast, or any bloke who happened to wander in off the street, had a chance to hear KEF's long-awaited speaker in more supportive surroundings.
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Doing the honors for KEF was April Sanders, the company's Western Regional Manager (top photo). Sanders' 30 years experience in the speaker industry makes her one of the longest-surviving women in the high-enda feat that, IMHO, deserves at the least a medal of honor and epaulettes covered with brass stars and other emblems of bravery on the front lines.
Corea-Gomez-Motian, Further Explorations
Chick Corea's Further Explorations (Concord), with Eddie Gomez on bass and Paul Motian on drums, is my favorite jazz album of the year so far. I've played it maybe 20 times since I got an advance copy a few months ago.
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It's a two-disc set, taken from two weeks of sessions at the Blue Note in Greenwich Village (one of which I raved over in this space at the time, back in May 2010). The gig was hawked as a Bill Evans tribute (the title is a spin on Evans' 1959 album Explorations), but that told only the half of it. . .
Threshold FET Nine/e preamplifier
The Threshold FET nine/e ($2595) is the junior sibling of the FET ten/e, a solid-state preamp that has earned a rave review in March 1991 from noted tubeophile Dick Olsher (Vol.14 No.3), itself a development of the FET ten that J. Gordon Holt reviewed in September 1987 (Vol.10 No.6). Would my ears, accustomed as they are to the pitter-patter of electrons traveling through a vacuum, have a similarly positive response to the FET nine/e?
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Recordings of April 1988: The First Colossus Recordings
Beethoven: Sonata No.32, Op.111; Sonata No.21, Op.53 ("Waldstein")Tibor Szasz, piano
Bainbridge BCD-6275 (CD). Leo de Gar Kulka, eng. & prod. DDD. TT: 58:03
Mozart: Piano Concerto No.13, K.415; Overture to Lucio Silla, K.135
Jeremy Menuhin, piano; George Cleve, 1987 Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra
Bainbridge BCD-6273 (CD). Leo de Gar Kulka, eng. & prod. DDD. TT: 36:58
Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Lieutenant Kije
Andre Previn, Los Angeles Philharmonic
Telarc CD-80143 (CD). Jack Renner, eng.; Robert Woods, prod. DDD. TT: 63:37
Rachmaninov: Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op.19
Steven Kates, Montagnana cello; Carolyn Pope Kobler, Bösendorfer piano
Bainbridge BCD-6272 (CD). Leo de Gar Kulka, eng. & prod. DDD. TT: 40:42
The Sounds of Trains, Vols.1 & 2*
Bainbridge BCD-6270, -6271* (CDs). Brad Miller, eng. & prod. DDD. TTs: 60:45, 50:14*
If you read my article in these pages about recording the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway steam trains (January 1987, Vol.10 No.1), you may recall the mention of Colossus. Colossus is the name of a new digital recording system which designer Lou Dorren claims to be different from every other digital system in several ways, none of which has ever been disclosed to us. I had a chance to listen to some tapes made on it shortly after writing the C&TSRR article, but since they were made with a completely unfamiliar microphone (Mobile Fidelity Productions of Nevada's own design) and featured mainly the sounds of trains, airplanes, and other sources of potential ear damage, I couldn't really tell anything about the recording system, except that it had the kind of low end I expect from any respectable digital audio. A sonic evaluation had to wait until I heard Colossus on more familiar termsthat is, with music recordings. Now, that time has come.
Challenges and Rewards
Sheriff Truman: Jelly donuts?
Dale Cooper: Harry, that goes without saying.
Dale Cooper: Harry, that goes without saying.
The beast is now in the careful, capable hands of our copy editor, Richard Lehnert. I sent it to him last night, only six days after I began creating this latest collection of “Recommended Components” blurbs—the last six months of equipment reports, follow-ups, and column coverage distilled into 150-word gems. Six months squished into six days: less time than it took to create the universe.