Interviews

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Interviews
Norman Chesky of HDtracks and Chesky Records
David Lander  |  Oct 21, 2014  | 
Both Chesky Records and HDtracks have a pair of co-founding partners, but the music-minded press has perpetually focused on one of them, pianist and composer David Chesky, while ignoring his younger brother, Norman. Mainstream reporters and photographers did converge on Norman Chesky once, when they spotted him rolling a bulky, rough-hewn, wooden artifact from the 2009 auction at which Bernard Madoff's personal effects were sold for the benefit of bilked investors. Leading newspapers ran photos of Norman with the tree-trunk table he'd bought after happening on the sale, and the New York Times identified him as "a music executive from Manhattan." As the exchange that follows shows, that description was a glaring oversimplification.
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InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Regina Carter: A Family Affair
Robert Baird  |  May 06, 2014  |  First Published: May 01, 2014  | 
Making a recording is always a personal journey—everyone has a story to tell. Jazz violinist Regina Carter's latest, Southern Comfort, is an eloquent musical expression of Carter tracing the roots of her paternal lineage back five generations. For the project's sound engineer, Joe Ferla, it's the final project of a engineering career, and the beginning point of his new life as a practicing musician. The entwining of these journeys gives the album's music and sound a rare honesty.
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Music and Recording FeaturesInterviews
Guy Clark: For the Sake of the Song
Robert Baird  |  Mar 05, 2014  | 
As songwriters go, Guy Clark has been touched by the muse more than most. Unfortunately, in recent years he's also been visited by illness and heartache. In June 2012, his wife of 40 years, Susanna Clark, who was both a songwriter ("Easy from Now On") and an artist (the cover of Willie Nelson's Stardust), died in Nashville. In the past several years Clark, 72, has battled lymphoma, had his knees replaced, and undergone an arterial replacement in one leg. He was being treated for skin cancer when I visited his home, south of Nashville, in October 2013.
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Interviews
Jared Sacks: DSD Present and Future
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Feb 21, 2014  |  First Published: Feb 24, 2014  | 
Some months back, SACD and DSD champion Jared Sacks, founder of Channel Classics, stopped by Casa Bellecci-Serinus in Oakland for an extended chat about the history of his label, recording in DSD, and his new NativeDSD.com download site. I started our conversation by asking Jared to share his history with music and the industry with Stereophile:
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InterviewsAriel Bitran
Meet Mat Weisfeld, President of VPI Industries
Ariel Bitran  |  Dec 19, 2013  | 
Earlier this month, our all-analog coverage counterpart AnalogPlanet announced the release of the Nomad, a brand new entry-level turntable from American hi-fi manufacturer VPI Industries. For $995, The VPI Industries Nomad turntable includes a built-in phono preamplifier, unbalanced output, a set of Grado Labs iGrado around-the-neck headphones, headphone output, and an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge. This instant listening package was the brainchild of Mat Weisfeld, son of company founder Harry Weisfeld. Mat Weisfeld is now the President of VPI Industries. I had the opportunity to visit the factory and ask Weisfeld a few questions just before the official announcement of the Nomad.
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Interviews
Audio Beginnings
Wes Phillips  |  Dec 16, 2013  |  First Published: May 01, 2005  | 
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  | 
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  | 
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  | 
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  | 
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  | 

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  | 
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  | 
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  | 
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  | 
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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