RMAF 2014: Reichert Sound Check
Friday, October 10, 11:30am: the line to enter the 11th Rocky Mountain Audio Fest stretched into the Marriott Denver Tech Center's parking lot.
Continue Reading »
LATEST ADDITIONS
Ethan Iverson & Ron Carter at Mezzrow's
Friday night, I saw one of the finest, most intimate jazz sets I'd seen in a while: Ethan Iverson and Ron Carter playing duets at Mezzrow, a small new jazz club in Manhattan's West Village...
Continue Reading »
Siltech SAGA power amplifier
Among the biggest buzzes at the January 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, and at Munich's High End Show the following May, was the sound in the room of Siltech BV, a Dutch company best known for its high-end cables. Siltech was demonstrating an innovative new power amplifier, and using it to drive the company's glass-cabineted Arabesque loudspeakers ($90,000/pair). The sound was unmistakably lush yet also remarkably linear, notably dynamic, and seemingly free of electronic artifacts. It sounded like the sound of "nothing"which was really something!and so much of a something that it caught the attention of many reviewers. But while there's often controversy and disagreement about a given product's sound quality, this time the enthusiasm seemed unanimous.
Continue Reading »
The Fifth Element #87
"The Guitars of Rachel Rosenkrantz" is perhaps not quite as evocative a title as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Nevertheless, there are parallels. I met the young, French luthier through mutual friends, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she is very serious about her art, and rather obsessive about her craft. Rosenkrantz studied art, architecture, and industrial design, and worked for some years designing commercial lighting fixtures and furniture. However, she let go of that career to start over from scratch as an apprentice to Daniel Collins, a builder of classical guitars. She recently opened her own custom shop, Atelier Rosenkrantz, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, sharing space with jazz-guitar builder Matt d'Ambrosio.
Continue Reading »
Tony and Gaga
Streaming has taken over the world. Not so fast, at least to Sony’s way of thinking.
Continue Reading »
Analog Corner #230: Transfiguration Proteus MC phono cartridge
I've lost track of how many Transfiguration cartridges I've reviewed over the years. In all that time I've never met their designer, Immutable Music's Seiji Yoshioka, but every year he sends me an exceptionally tasteful holiday greeting card. I've never reciprocated. The truth isn't always pretty.
Continue Reading »
The Transfiguration cartridges I've reviewed, too, have always conveyed a midrange musical truth that hasn't been flashy or pretty. But it's always been honest and convincing, particularly of the reality of voices. If you said that the Transfigurations lacked character, you wouldn't be wrongunless you intended it as a criticism.
Rarities and Reissues: Blue Note Records Turns 75
Fifty-four years after it was recorded, Hank Mobley's immortal Soul Station has become a tale of two LPs.
Continue Reading »
One, the original pressing (mono or stereo), is an artifact, an insanely valuable antique, the object of fevered jazz collectors the world over.
The other is a fresh vinyl reissue, cut from a high-resolution digital remastering of the original master tapes, that's meant to bring in younger listeners, or those interested enough in the music that they'll pay $19.95 for a new LP.
The Great Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Starts Friday
Could it only be the 11th time the annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has welcomed thousands of audiophiles to Denver? The three-day gathering, which takes place Friday, October 10Sunday, October 12 at its comfortable location, the Marriott Denver Tech Center, has become such an essential part of the international audio scene that it feels like it's been here forever.
Continue Reading »
The New Standard (and Joe Ferla's last thing)
Joe Ferla is the preeminent jazz recording engineer of our timeor, I should say, was, as he recently decided to retire from the profession, after more than 42 years and nearly 400 albums, to run his attention to playing guitar. (I haven't heard him do that, but I hope he's good.) His last-released album, The New Standard, is out on CD and double-LP on the Rare Noise Records label, and it stands not only as another specimen of superlative sonics but also Ferla's return to analog.
Continue Reading »
Meridian Audio Prime D/A headphone amplifier
A reader recently asked if I preferred listening to loudspeakers or to headphones. There is no easy answer: Although I do most of my music listening through speakers, about 10% of that listening, for various reasons, takes place in the privacy of my headphones. I have also found that, since I purchased the Audeze LCD-X headphones following my review of them last March, I now tend to watch movies on my MacBook Pro, with the soundtrack reproduced by these headphones plugged into an AudioQuest DragonFly or whatever D/A headphone amplifier has been passing through my test lab. So when Meridian's PR person, Sue Toscano, asked me last Christmas if I'd be interested in reviewing the English company's new Prime D/A headphone amplifier ($2000) with its optional Prime Power Supply ($1295), it took me less than a New York minute to say "Yes."
Continue Reading »