When asked how to create a good recording, John Atkinson will tell you to use good musicians in a good room. The people behind <a href="http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/">Benchmark Media Systems</a>, makers of some of today’s most highly regarded digital audio converters, headphone amps, and mic preamps, agree.
My love for the Vivian Girls only grows and grows: I love them more today than I did yesterday, but not as much as I’ll love them tomorrow. Their 2009 album, <i>Everything Goes Wrong</i>, continues to sound fresh and exciting with each play on my turntable. And they’ve got a new 7-inch single available from their own <a href="http://www.freewebs.com/viviangirls/wildworld.htm">Wild World Records</a>. Perfect for a sunny Cinco de Mayo like this one, the A-side has Cassie confessing, “I can hardly wait until the summer comes,” while Katy and Ali echo the feeling with handclaps and angelic backing vocals. The B-side is a cover of the Chantels’ “He’s Gone,” which I had the great and unforgettable pleasure of hearing performed live, a cappella, <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2149/passwor… Bamboo Beach</a> <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/what_happened_in_puerto_rico/… Puerto Rico</a>.
Jon Iverson is going to love this.
Last night, on Later with Jools Holland, Joanna Newsom performed “81,” the lead single from her ambitious and inspired triple-LP, <i><a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/bewitching_rewarding/">Have One On Me</a></i>.
As another Consumer Electronics Show rolls around, we are seeing some interesting and not-entirely encouraging things taking place in the audio field. The people for whom high fidelity was originally intended—so-called serious music listeners —have abandoned audio almost completely, leaving the pursuit of perfect music reproduction to a group of hobbyists who have more interest in hardware than in music. This, plus the recession, has almost killed middle-fi, which is now flailing out in all directions looking for a new market. Here's how it all came to pass:
<B>DANIEL LANOIS: <I>Acadie</I></B><BR>
Opal/Warner Bros. 25969-1 (LP), -2 (CD). Daniel Lanois, prod.; Malcolm Burn, Mark Howard, engs. AAA/AAD. TT: 41:19
Here's a question for a Stereophile.com poll: What's the best hi-fi value of the last 15 years? I'd bet that, 16 years after its introduction, Grado Laboratories' SR60 headphones would get more than a few votes.
The major record labels were riding high, then hit a major speedbump due to the Internet, high pricing, and mediocre music. What's next? What do you think will happen to the major record labels?
A world-renowned musician had scheduled an appearance as guest soloist with the string quartet in residence at a certain university. When he arrived he noticed a pair of microphones arrayed over the small stage and, following the wires, located a college student backstage next to a tape recorder and a pair of headphones.
Whenever I’m at Tunes in Hoboken, getting my fingers all dirty on the vinyl LPs, I stop and stare at this one album, John Prine’s <i>Sweet Revenge</i>, and I wonder what it’s all about. Prine looks pretty bad-ass there in his convertible, decked out in so much blue denim, dark aviators over his eyes, a cigarette at his lips, the wind in his hair, legs crossed and flung out over the passenger side window like he’s seriously satisfied, like he really doesn’t care.