Analog Corner

If It's Friday, It Must Be Constellation Time
When I'd planned Peter Madnick's visit, I'd thought I'd be flying home from Munich the previous Sunday. My listening room was still the previous month's deadline-inspired mess, and after more than a week on the road I was beat, but after arriving home late Thursday afternoon I stayed up after dinner, got to bed late, and awoke early Friday morning to go to my weekly Pilates class.

Madnick arrived later that morning. We set up the amps, did an afternoon's worth of listening, then drove into New York City. I'd been invited to attend the launch party, at New York's The Cutting Room, for the vinyl edition of Thank You Les: A Tribute to Les Paul (Showplace Music Productions), by guitarist Lou Pallo, longtime member of the Les Paul Trio, the CD of which I'd enthusiastically reviewed on Analogplanet.com. My wife had to leave early Saturday morning for a dog show, so gave up her plus-one to Madnick.

The many guests who appear on Thank You Les include Bucky Pizzarelli, Steve Miller, Billy F. Gibbons, Slash, Eddie Brigati of the Rascals, and Keith Richards, among others. All compositions are standards, beautifully played in the Les Paul style, with great vocals (even Keith's!), recorded and mixed entirely in analog on vintage tubed gear. The CD sound was very good, but the test pressing of the AAA LP I got was spectacular. If you insist that CDs are transparent to the source, compare these two.

We entered the Cutting Room, as guests of producer Ben Elliott, about a half hour after the start of a pre-concert screening of a documentary video about the album's production that had previously aired on PBS and was included in the album's deluxe CD edition. All of the tables were filled except for one close to the stage and marked "RESERVED." I told Madnick we'd have to stand at the back.

As we headed for the rear of the club, Elliott approached. "That table up there is reserved for you," he said. Madnick quipped, "Life is good for Michael Fremer." At that moment, I couldn't disagree.

Paul Shaffer Band drummer Anton Fig anchored a group led by Pallo and a bevy of incredible guitarists. Surprise guests included Eddie Brigati and Rascals guitarist Gene Cornish, who sang and played, among other tunes, "How Can I Be Sure?"

Former Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin ended the show by reprising his album version of Charles Chaplin's (no relation) "Smile," having prefaced it by saying that a dear friend had passed away the day before. His rendition was incredibly moving—all of the emotions seemed raw and genuine, not stage-generated.

When the performances were over and we stood up to leave, a guy ran up to me. "Hey, I'm the guitar tech for this show. I saw you in the audience and I just wanted to thank you for your turntable-setup DVD. I bought a copy and it was great! So helpful—and it was funny!"

At that point, I figured Madnick was thinking that I'd set all of this up in advance to snow him. It sure snowed me.

As I talked with the guitar tech, Eddie Brigati passed by. I collared him, to say hello and to tell him how much I enjoyed the Rascals' reunion show, instigated and produced by Little Steven Van Zandt. It had premiered at the restored Capitol Theater, in Port Chester, New York, and had since moved to Broadway for a limited run. I'd met Brigati before, through an old friend, and had interviewed him and his brother David (who sang backing vocals on the Rascals albums and had been a member of Joey Dee and the Starlighters) during the most bitter days of their dispute with Felix Cavaliere.

A few days after the interview, David Brigati had called to ask me to please not run it. I didn't. I'm glad, too—had that incendiary interview been published, I doubt the reunion would have ever happened, though I'm sure some lawsuits would have. And that was Friday night.

Sunday Church Date
Sunday, May 19, Stereophile reviewer Bob Reina's group, Attention Screen (footnote 3), featuring its new member, trumpeter Liam Sillery, was scheduled to perform at a church in Douglaston, New York. I didn't much go for the purely improvisational music I'd heard them perform a few years ago, but this was to be a program of written compositions by all four members of the band, and with Bob playing a restored pipe organ. I figured it could be good. Besides, the annual garden party thrown by Music Hall's Roy Hall was to take place the same afternoon, about 10 minutes away.

John Atkinson was at the church, recording what turned out to be a truly memorable performance of compositions that will surely hold up in their recorded versions, particularly the transcendent pieces by bassist Chris Jones. I can't wait to hear it (footnote 4).

Tuesday at Lyric Hi-Fi
I'd promised my old friend Anthony Chiarella that I'd attend the launch on Tuesday, May 21, at Lyric Hi-Fi, of the new Nordost Valhalla 2 cables. Even though it was deluging (raining doesn't do it justice) and I was tired, I went. I met Ariel Bitran there, who was covering it for Stereophile. Better him than me!

Beginning with a single swap—of the power cord between the power-distribution system and the wall—it was easy to hear the differences between the old and new Valhallas. When all of the cables had been replaced, the system's sound had been transformed. Better or worse wasn't the issue. Different? Absolutely. Poor Ariel reported on Stereophile.com what was easily heard. The vicious comments in response from idiotic know-nothings who purport to be "science driven" both saddened and infuriated me.

Off to Newport Beach, aka Irvine
Thursday, May 30, I left for T.H.E. Show Newport Beach. After more than a week in Europe, flying to California was nothing. The next morning I participated, with John Atkinson and others, in the show's opening ribbon-cutting ceremony, and . . . another opening, another show!

I had plenty to do at T.H.E. Show. Saturday afternoon I participated in a panel, "Vinyl Is Groovy Again," hosted by Record Collector magazine's Jim Kaplan, with Impex Records' Abey Fonn, Brooks Berdan Ltd.'s senior analog sales advisor Scott Hicks, and last-minute addition Mat Weisfeld, who arrived with the VPI turntable I needed for my well-attended turntable-setup seminar, which immediately followed.

That evening, AudioQuest invited to their nearby headquarters a group of journalists and manufacturers, including speaker maker Richard Vandersteen, amplifier manufacturer Jime White of Aesthetix, cable competitor George Cardas, and David Hyman, for wine and sushi and a demonstration of sonic differences among (are you ready?) Ethernet cables, as well as between wireless and wired connections.

Of course, any cable company mounting a comparison of wired and wireless transmissions of audio and video signals has a huge conflict of interest. Still, the demonstration seemed to make clear that, for now, wireless is not ready for audiophile prime time. Even the clowns who responded to Ariel Bitran's report on the Nordost demonstration would be able to hear the enormous differences throughout the audioband, and particularly in the bass, between music transmitted wirelessly and through wires (with Costco Ethernet cable).

The differences between Costco's and AudioQuest's entry-level Ethernet cables were less pronounced but still easily heard. Switching from those to AQ's top-model Ethernet cable, I wasn't sure I heard a difference.

Sunday afternoon's turntable-setup seminar was surprisingly well attended, given that, on a show's final day, attendees are usually more interested in hearing the rooms they've missed than in sitting down for a demonstration.

I flew the red-eye Sunday night, arriving home on Monday morning, June 3. When I opened my e-mail account, there was a message forwarded from American Recordings' Rick Rubin, asking if an ad agency producing a Samsung TV commercial could "borrow" my stereo and use it in a $50 million Manhattan loft that Friday for a Saturday shoot with Jay-Z.

I spent most of the day working on that, calling in favors from everyone I knew. Wilson Audio Specialties would have to fly someone in to pack up my Alexandria XLF speakers, then unpack them after they had been returned from the shoot. "Of course!" said Peter Madnick. As did John Quick, distributor of dCS electronics. They didn't want my Continuum Audio Labs turntable (thank God!), but they did want a nice rack for the dCS stack, so I called Harmonic Resolution Systems' Mike Latvis, who offered to get one of his MXR racks to me in time.

Later that afternoon, two days shy of a month since the Classic Album Sunday event with the David Bowie albums, I was Scott Wilkinson's guest on his Home Theater Geeks podcast, which you can access via YouTube or at Analogplanet.com. . Rather than appearing exhausted, I was rather manic, which made for a good show. The Jay-Z thing fell through the next day because of scheduling problems. It still might happen.

That was my May. I'm exhausted just writing about it. Living it, though, was exhilarating. I'm staying home for a while.

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Footnote 3: Sadly, Bob Reina passed away from esophageal cancer in March 2015.—John Atkinson

Footnote 4: For various reasons, the concert recording was never released as a commercial album. You can download one of the tracks, mixed down as a 24/88.2 FLAC file and featuring some great playing by bassist Chris Jones here.—John Atkinson