What's Next Vivaldi?
Antonio Vivaldi and others
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin; Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini, cond. and flute.
Alpha 624 (Auditioned as 24/192 WAV). 2020. Jean-Daniel Noir, prod., edit., master.
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Forget almost everything you know about Vivaldi performance practice, authentic and otherwise, and shush all "shoulds." Banish from your mind any thoughts that all Vivaldi sounds the same. Prepare your ears to hear Vivaldi as you've never heard him before.
Once upon a time, reviews of Musical Fidelity components frequently filled pages in Stereophile. But in all my years covering audio shows, I can't recall blogging about any of the company's products, not even once. So, when my editor offered a review of the new M8xi ($6490), a hefty 101lb dual-mono integrated amplifier that includes a DAC, I seized the opportunity to fill a black hole in my consciousness. (Kindly cast aside thoughts that it would take more than a hunk of audio equipment to fill the black hole in my brain.) As long as I didn't break my back lifting the M8xi, solo, to the top shelf of my rackfor this I humbly beg assistance from spouses, neighbors, and friendsnew vistas were in store.
"The data lords are gathering data and giving it to organizations that then manipulate us with the things they know about us, things that we don't even know about ourselves," says five-time Grammy Awardwinning composer, conductor, producer, and band leader Maria Schneider. "They give our data to any company that'll pay for it to manipulate you, specifically targeting your vulnerabilities. It takes away freedom of thought, a true discourse where people are thinking for themselves. Count me out."
At $1295, the Tercet Mk.III represents a step up from CAL's $750 Icon, which I enthusiastically recommended back in April 1990 (Vol.13 No 4, footnote 1). Externally, with the exception of a wider and slightly thicker front panel, it appears to be a carbon copy of that unit. Like the other products in California Audio Lab's stable, the Tercet Mk.III is designed from the ground up in-house.
In 2013, when I first wrote about it (footnote 1), the TechDAS Air Force One ($105,000) was that company's best and most expensive turntable; it joined the handful of products that have earned an A+ in our semiannual Recommended Components featurea rating that remained in place for six years. But too much time has passed since the Air Force One was auditioned by a Stereophile writer, so it has now fallen from that list.
COVID-19 notwithstanding, summerwarmth, flowers, leaves on treeshas descended on Greenwich Village, my New York City home for the past 30 years. What hasn't descended are tourists, belching motorcycles, behemoth sports cars, beer drinkers, and the usual summer hell-raisers, the sort that would've sent legendary Village bohemians Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs running back to their cold-water flats.
The fog hung ominously thick as I climbed the 194 steps leading up to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. I'd been in Denver for the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and the weather had suddenly turned damp and coldunusually so for early October. Due to dense fog and possible ice, my drive in from another Colorado city had been slowed. Though I'm in good shape, I was unaccustomed to the altitude, which also slowed my pace. So, I was arriving shortly after the opening act had started.
I was shocked and greatly saddened by news of the passing, at age 68, of Brian W. Russell, President and co-founder (along with his brother Chris Russell) of Bryston, Inc.
"Future generations will be able to condense into the brief space of twenty minutes the tone pictures of a lifetimefive minutes of childish prattle, five moments embalming the last feeble utterances from the death-bed. Will this not seem like holding veritable communion with immortality?"Berliner Gramophone Company ca 1877