Interviews

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Interviews
Audio Beginnings
Wes Phillips  |  Dec 16, 2013  |  First Published: May 01, 2005  |  0 comments
My e-mailbox fills up with press releases announcing new products and new companies, and that always makes me wonder: Where does all this stuff come from?

I mean, I have lots of ideas—I feel like Butch Cassidy: "I have vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals." But there's a huge gap between having a good idea and starting a company that successfully gets that idea out in front of the public. And, I suspect, there's an even greater gulf between getting a product out there and actually making a living at it.

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InterviewsStephen Mejias
Surpassing Expectations: Pioneer's Andrew Jones
Stephen Mejias  |  Sep 16, 2013  |  12 comments
In our September issue, I wrote about Pioneer’s excellent SP-BS22-LR loudspeaker. At just $129.99/pair (and often discounted), the SP-BS22-LR represents extraordinary value and may very well attract a wider and younger audience to true high-fidelity sound. The only thing I don’t really like about the speaker is its tongue-twister of a name. (But that’s easy to forgive. Most people can’t pronounce my name, either.)

While preparing the review, I took the opportunity to ask Andrew Jones, Pioneer’s chief engineer, a few questions about hi-fi, music, and loudspeaker design. As always, Jones was forthright and charming; his answers to my questions were often enlightening.

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Interviews
B&W's Dr. John Dibb
David Lander  |  Sep 05, 2013  |  1 comments
Before striding into the future, John Dibb enjoyed considerable exposure to his sceptered isle's fascinating past. He was born in England's North Country, in 1948, in a model West Yorkshire village established a century earlier by an enlightened industrialist determined to provide comfortable housing and communal amenities for his employees and their families; called Saltaire, it's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At age 11, young Dibb won a place at the nearby Bingley Grammar School, which dates back half a millennium, to the era of Henry VIII. He later studied at the University of Bradford, one of two English colleges then offering a course in materials science.
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Interviews
Ted Denney's Excellent Adventure
Jonathan Scull  |  Sep 05, 2013  |  First Published: Nov 01, 1995  |  51 comments
Ted Denney at the 2003 CES. (Photo: John Atkinson)

As I had been impressed with Ted Denney's Synergistic Research cable, I thought that asking him for 25,000 words on his thoughts on cable design and performance would be an appropriate accompaniment to my Symphonic Line Kraft 400 amplifier review.

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Interviews
Rolf Gemein: the Heart of the Matter
Jonathan Scull  |  Aug 16, 2013  |  First Published: Nov 01, 1995  |  1 comments
I'm not sure why, but people tell me things. Maybe it's because they realize I listen. They reveal themselves, sometimes in charming and unexpected ways. So I was almost prepared for my three-way conference call with the designer of the Symphonic Line Kraft 400 power amplifier, Rolf Gemein, in Germany and Indianapolis-based importer/distributor Klaus Bunge. I started by asking Rolf about his design philosophy . . .
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InterviewsThink Pieces
Music Matters 2013—John Atkinson at ListenUp, Denver
Stereophile Staff  |  Aug 09, 2013  |  6 comments

In April 2013, Stereophile editor John Atkinson took part in two Music Matters evenings held by Colorado retailer ListenUp. JA took time off from the formal presentations to talk to ListenUp's George McClure about how we perceive music and about what matters most when we record and playback music.

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Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Terence Blanchard: Animal Magnetism
Robert Baird  |  Aug 08, 2013  |  1 comments
Down deepest, beneath everything he does, underlying all the facets of his ever-expanding career in music, Terence Blanchard is still a New Orleans guy. Question that and you can hear his dander rise.
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Interviews
Yves-Bernard André: Kind of Blue
Jonathan Scull  |  Jul 07, 2013  |  First Published: Feb 01, 1997  |  2 comments
Jonathan Scull: You say your YBA CD-1 Blue Laser CD player makes use of Stochastic Resonance, Yves-Bernard?

Yves-Bernard André: Yes...in adding some noise to the signal, we can actually get more information back.

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Interviews
Jim Anderson: The Educated Ear
Robert Baird  |  Jun 25, 2013  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2013  |  1 comments
Tune those young ears, Mr. Anderson! After a 30-year career in audio engineering that's seen his name appear in the credits of over 1700 albums, Jim Anderson, who won the 2013 Grammy for Best Surround Sound Album, for his remastering of Patricia Barber's Modern Cool, thinks education is the key to stemming the tide of degraded sound that threatens to swallow the recorded-music industry. Anderson, who's taught for a decade in New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, starts his students early.
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Interviews
Roy Gandy: 40 Years of Reganomics
Steve Harris  |  May 30, 2013  |  First Published: Jun 01, 2013  |  1 comments
It's not easy to get Roy Gandy to look back. "I'm not a past person, I don't reminisce," he says. "But right at this moment I'm feeling very happy. We've not quite completed the launch of a whole new range of turntables and a new range of electronics, and I'm feeling elated."
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Interviews
VTL's Luke Manley
Jonathan Scull  |  May 24, 2013  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1996  |  0 comments
Luke Manley at Manhattan's Innovative Audio (Photo: John Atkinson)

Jonathan Scull: How long has VTL been in business, Luke?

Luke Manley: My dad, David Manley, and I co-founded VTL in June of 1986. We started small on the East Coast, and soon after we moved to California.

Scull: Is it because you're really a West Coast kind of guy?

Manley: [laughs] You bet! There's a lot of supporting industries out there; a big base of electronics manufacturers, for example.

Scull: What, in the San Francisco area?

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Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Willie Nile: the Bard on Bleecker
Robert Baird  |  May 09, 2013  |  First Published: May 01, 2013  |  0 comments
"You see that empty space?" says Willie Nile, motioning toward a lot between buildings on Bleecker Street, an impish Irish grin flickering across his face. "They haven't built anything there yet because Anna Wintour lives around the corner. And that red-brick house over there, the one with the white door? That's where Dylan lived. I used to see Bob around the neighborhood now and again."
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InterviewsAXPONA 2013
Stereophile Editor John Atkinson on Axpona, Affordable Audio, Analog, & Audiophiles
Stereophile Staff  |  Apr 30, 2013  |  14 comments

At the 2013 AXPONA in Chicago in March, Cool Cleveland asked JA for his thoughts on the state of high-end audio. His answers might surprise you.

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Interviews
Yves Beauvais
Robert Baird  |  Apr 09, 2013  |  4 comments
"While the selection and fine tuning of exhilarating-sounding vintage audio equipment is an exciting, often life-long search, let's not forget it's ultimately the music that matters—mankind's mysterious mastery of making air move in esthetically & emotionally thrilling ways. Most importantly, remember to ask yourself the age-old question: Can I dance to it?"
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InterviewsNews
"This is exciting," says Thiel's new CEO, Bill Thomas
John Atkinson  |  Jan 27, 2013  |  4 comments
Bill Thomas at CES with the ground-breaking coaxial HF/MF unit designed by Jim Thiel (Photo: John Atkinson)

We reported last November that Thiel Audio Products, the Kentucky-based speaker manufacturer founded by Kathy Gornik and the late Jim Thiel, had been had been acquired by a private equity firm based in Nashville, TN, and that Gornik was no longer with the company. At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, held January 8–11 in Las Vegas, the Thiel display at the Sands Convention Center was packed. I met up with Thiel's new CEO, 55-year old Bill Thomas, and asked him what had led him and his two partners to acquire the company.

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