Music and Recording Reviews

Weinberg: Dawn, Op.60, Symphony No.12, Op.114; Nielsen: Violin Concerto, Flute Concerto, Clarinet Concerto; Walker: Sinfonias 1–5.

The Beatles: Now & Then (single); Teenage Fanclub: Nothing Lasts Forever; Devendra Banhart: Flying Wig; Ariel Posen: Reasons Why.

To misquote Morrissey, some knobs are better than others. The Manley Neo-Classic 300B amplifiers that I've been listening to, for example, have a knob marked "feedback" that goes from 0 to 10. I've learned so much from using it that I've come to believe that if your amp doesn't have such a knob, it should. You see, the higher you set this control, the better the amp will measure. Applying more global negative feedback to these amps lowers their nonlinear distortion and noisefloor, increases their bandwidth, renders them less sensitive to the speaker's impedance variations and otherwise makes them more stable and efficient. In fact, by applying lots of feedback to an amplifier, it's possible to reduce distortion to barely measurable levels.

So what's the problem? Well, a few turns of the knob suggest that negative feedback isn't as useful as it appears on paper.

ABC: The Lexicon of Love; Buddy & Julie Miller: In The Throes; Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO.

Diskonife: Audible Spirits; John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy: Evenings at the Village Gate; Joe Henderson: The Complete "An Evening with Joe Henderson"; Matt Otto: Kansas City Trio.

Pet Shop Boys: Smash: The Singles 1985–2020; R.E.M.: Around the Sun and Collapse Into Now; Hot Tuna: Live at Sweetwater 1, Live at Sweetwater 2, Live in Japan.