LATEST ADDITIONS

It's shocking to go from the sound of soprano Anna Netrebko's voice on her first DG recital of Opera Arias to that on her latest disc, Verismo. The earlier disc, recorded in March, 2003 when Netrebko was 32, showcases a true, shining lyric soprano whose vocal production is absolutely smooth. Over 12 years later, when Netrebko recorded Verismo between July 2015 and June 2016, her weightier low range lacks shine, and her stronger and sometimes wider vibrato occasionally shows signs of a beat.

In January, I reviewed JL Audio's Fathom f113v2 subwoofer (footnote 1), which features, among other improvements over the original Fathom f113, a better multiband equalizer. The significance of this relates to the great influence exerted by room dimensions and acoustics on a loudspeaker's performance.

The matter of room acoustics itself relates to the Schroeder frequency: a transition point, usually between 200 and 300Hz above which a room will exhibit a high density of reflections that are analyzed statistically, and below which that room will display a limited number of discrete modal reflections. (Thus, it should not to be confused with the number of times that Beethoven's music appears in Charles Schulz's comic strip "Peanuts.")

There were no surprises, innovations, or breakthrough designs in loudspeakers at the 1985 Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. By and large, those on display were nothing more than refinements of, or variations on, previous speaker designs. Of course, there's nothing the matter with that; any improvement in a product is a step in the right direction. It merely perpetuates the pattern of the past ten years: evolution but no revolution.

To those who were into audio in the late 1980s and early '90s, the name Audio Alchemy is a familiar one. I've owned DACs and jitter-reducing devices made by Audio Alchemy and Perpetual Technologies (the first successor to the original AA) and found them to provide excellent performance at modest prices. Indeed, at the time, many in the industry felt that the Audio Alchemy products were underpriced, leaving too little room for profit, and that this led to the company's demise. The new Audio Alchemy—led by its original designer, Peter Madnick, and having on staff other employees from the old AA—is what Madnick describes as a "grown-up" version of the original company, maintaining "the brand's original ethos of superior technology and value." And the prices, while quite reasonable for the performance they seem to offer, appear high enough to allow the new AA to survive.

Art Blakey’s A Night At Birdland, Vol. 1 remains a landmark of both bebop and the earliest live recordings of jazz in a club setting.

Wednesday August 31, 6:30–8:30pm, Encore Home Entertainment Systems (2115 Siesta Drive, Sarasota, FL 34239) is hosting a special NAD/PSB/Bluesound event. Travis Huff, the Central Regional Sales Manager for Lenbrook America, parent company of NAD, PSB, and Bluesound products, will be discussing and demonstrating the introduction of the Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) audio codec into NAD and Bluesound components for 2016. Featured models include the NAD MDC module and all six Bluesound network-streaming player, speakers, and electronics products.

Sad news: Wes Phillips, who was Stereophile's deputy editor 1995–1999 and a valued contributor 2000 to 2011, passed away yesterday morning after several years of chronic ill health. Wes (right) is shown here at his leaving lunch, 1/1/99 with (L–R) music editor Robert Baird, then-publisher Larry Archibald, and editor John Atkinson. Wes is survived by his wife Joan. We will post more information as it becomes available.