Where Measurements and Performance Meet featuring Andrew Jones

High End Munich: Audio Reference "Most Exclusive System Ever" with Wilson and D'Agostino

LATEST ADDITIONS

Counterpoint SA-7 preamplifier

Steven W. Watkinson Apr 10, 2018

In appearance the Counterpoint SA-7 tube preamplifier is quite attractive, possessing the thin, low-profile look currently in vogue. There is a mute switch which (if you remember to use it) protects your amplifier from the preamp's turn-on and turn-off thumps. Unfortunately, the volume control on my unit didn't track accurately, and it was necessary to adjust balance with each change in volume. One unusual feature: the balance control allows very fine gradations in balance adjustment (a large movement of the control results in a small change in balance).

J. Gordon Holt Recording of the Month

Recordings of July 1971: Gordon's Top of the Pile

J. Gordon Holt Apr 10, 2018

Early pre-recorded cassettes were so shockingly variable that reviews of their sound would have served no purpose. Some later ones are remarkably good, though. Following are some recordings that we have found to combine excellent performance and superb recordings, some on cassette as well as LP:

Music and Recording Features

DJ Club Sound Systems of Brooklyn

Sasha Matson Apr 09, 2018

There I was, at my son Peter's thirtieth birthday party at Black Flamingo in Brooklyn, staring at a large. floorstanding speaker cabinet. Then it hit meyoung people are gathering in groups to listen and dance to high-quality music playback. Just like we used to do!

Jason Victor Serinus

Régine Crespin Sings Berlioz and Ravel Live

Jason Victor Serinus Apr 08, 2018

My excitement upon discovering the heretofore unavailable two-CD set, Régine Crespin: Rare Broadcast Recordings, in the catalog of historical performance specialist Norbeck Peters & Ford can only be partially conveyed through words. Crespin's London/Decca studio recordings of Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été and Ravel's Shéhérazade, accompanied by Ernest Ansermet et L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which were captured in Victoria Hall, Geneva in September 1963, have long been coveted by audiophiles for both their sound quality and Crespin's incomparable artistry. The opportunity to hear the same two French song cycles, delivered with the extra frisson and interpretive touches that great singers share in live performance, in a collection that also includes other live and rarely encountered studio performances by Crespin, is not to be missed.

Fred Kaplan

Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas: Scandal

Fred Kaplan Apr 07, 2018

Sound Prints, the quintet co-led by trumpeter Dave Douglas and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, is one of the most exciting small jazz bands around. You wouldn't know it, necessarily, from their first, eponymously titled album, recorded live at the 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival and released on Blue Note, which has long been Lovano's label. Mediocre sound doesn't always suck the life out of a recording if the music is good, but that's what happened here. However, the group's second album, Scandal (just out on Greenleaf Music, Douglas' self-owned label), tells a different tale entirely.

Gramophone Dreams

Gramophone Dreams #21: EMT, Koetsu, Miyajima

Herb Reichert Apr 05, 2018

I spent a snowy New York City evening at Rhapsody Music & Cinema, talking with the proprietor, Bob Visintainer, and watching my friend Michael Trei install a Lyra Etna SL moving-coil cartridge in a Graham Engineering Phantom III tonearm mounted on a TechDAS Air Force 3 turntable tethered to a Zesto Tessera phono stage. Every wall was lined with big, floorstanding speakers, all of them expensive. On the main stage that day were Alta Audio's Hestia Titaniums ($32,000/pair).

CD Player/Transport Reviews

SOTA Vanguard II CD player

Steven Stone Apr 05, 2018

The Greek myth of Odysseus has always been a favorite of mine. For an audiophile looking for a CD transcription system under $2500, it seems to be an especially appropriate metaphor. Almost all the units I've heard since CD's inception fall into one of two camps: the Sirens or the Rocks.

For those of you not up on your Greek mythology, the Sirens were the archetypal seductresses whose sweet songs lured sailors to drive their ships upon the rocks. Siren CD players are those that soften and sweeten the sound. Their primary purpose is to seduce, to give a false sense of comfort to their victims; their fidelity to the truth is secondary to their desire to elicit a positive emotional reaction.

Headphone Reviews InnerFidelity Katz's Corner

Katz's Corner Episode 24: Pass Labs HPA-1 Headphone Amplifier

Bob Katz Apr 05, 2018

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Nelson Pass's Lab has produced an impeccable headphone amplifier with more than enough power, that's quiet, solid, and very clean. Several other reviewers have reflected on this excellent amplifier, but I want to weigh in with my unique sonic perspective and also measurements of its performance.

J. Gordon Holt Recording of the Month

Recording of October 1972: Lincoln Mayorga & Distinguished Colleagues Vol.II

J. Gordon Holt Apr 03, 2018

Lincoln Mayorga: Lincoln Mayorga & Distinguished Colleagues Vol.II
Lincoln Mayorga, arranger, harpsichord, piano.
Lincoln Mayorga, Doug Sax, prods.; Bill Schnee, eng.; Sherwood Sax, design engineer.
Sheffield Lab S-10 (LP).

Ever wonder just how much sound quality is lost by recording stuff on tape before making a disc? Here's your answer. This program of soft rock and cool jazz arrangements was recorded straight from studio to disc, and the sound is incredible! Suddenly, a veil that we never realized was there has been lifted, and we had the feeling we were listening to a direct-wire transmission rather than to a recording. We're not at all sure we will ever feel quite the same again about any. other recording, such is the dramatic difference in transparency and cleanness.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Museatex Hybrid 6 loudspeaker

Dick Olsher Apr 03, 2018

I find quite appealing the image invoked by Museatex to describe its Real Time Ripple Effect (RTRE) loudspeaker line: a stone rippling the surface of a "still pond on a warm summer afternoon." Replace the stone with a voice-coil attached to the center of a stretched Mylar diaphragm and you begin to get a glimpse of the RTRE technology's conceptual beauty and promise. The idea of cohesively covering at least the midrange and treble with a single driver, without crossover filters, quickens my audio pulse.