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Music and Recording Features
Rediscoveries #2: Joe Henderson, Blue Note and Beyond
Ken Micallef  |  Feb 03, 2022  |  3 comments
Called "the phantom" by fellow musicians and dubbed the "bearded, goateed astronaut of the tenor sax" by a close friend, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, the enigmatic Joe Henderson recorded five albums for the Blue Note label that are uniformly regarded as jazz classics. Mosaic Records has gathered those records—Page One, Our Thing, In 'n Out, Inner Urge, Mode for Joe—plus Henderson's sideman dates and alternate takes for Blue Note for a limited-edition, five-CD box set, The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions (Mosaic Records MD5-271).
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Revinylization
Revinylization #26: Two Charles Mingus LPs
Fred Kaplan  |  Feb 03, 2022  |  2 comments
In the annals of jazz, Charles Mingus—bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, unique, headstrong, and deeply influential in every category—occupies the transit point between Duke Ellington and the post-'60s avant-garde, a station he carved out deliberately.
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Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
Fyne Audio F500SP loudspeaker
Ken Micallef  |  Feb 02, 2022  |  9 comments
In my April 2020 review of Fyne Audio's inexpensive F301 standmount loudspeakers, I wrote, "The Fyne F301s impressed with their exceptional rendering of soundstage width and depth, reasonably wide dynamic range, extended low end (for their size), and exuberant, I-can't-stop-spinning-records presentation. The Fynes presented a finely layered, spatially convincing soundstage with images that were solid, if small."
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Gramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #57: Ferrum OOR headphone amplifier and HYPSOS power supply
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 01, 2022  |  8 comments
I'm deep into audio power amplifiers because they remind me of race car engines. Both power sources are wildly inefficient, converting only a small percentage of their stored energy into work while dissipating the rest as heat and vibration. Mainly though, I love how race car engines sound. How they shake the air. Just like amps and speakers.
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Budget Component ReviewsSolid State Preamp Reviews
Topping Pre90 line preamplifier
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jan 28, 2022  |  49 comments
There has not been a conventional preamplifier in my main audio system for quite a while, because no multichannel preamp is available that's of high enough quality. Instead, I use the high-precision digital volume controls in my players and DACs and choose sources with a relay-based multichannel analog switch. Plus, I tell myself that no preamp can be more accurate and transparent than no preamp.
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Integrated Amp Reviews
Riviera Levante integrated amplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Jan 27, 2022  |  22 comments
I remember, around the time I started at Stereophile, telling Art Dudley that I wanted to review "a lot of power amplifiers" because amplifiers are the "blood-pumping heart machines" that "reanimate the artistry" of musicians: Horowitz, Björk, Bill Monroe. Whereupon he looked over his glasses and spied me with bare eyes like a stern parent and said, "Just be sure to not review any amplifiers that weigh more than 65 pounds."
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Recording of the Month
Recording of February 2022: The Doors: L.A. Woman (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Tom Fine  |  Jan 26, 2022  |  10 comments
The Doors: L.A. Woman (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Elektra/Rhino R2 659055 (3CD/1LP). 2021. Bruce Botnick/Doors, prods.; Botnick, eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½

The Doors flew like a comet across the rock/pop universe, running only four and a half years and six studio albums with lead singer/poet/shaman Jim Morrison. L.A. Woman, their last album, marked a hard turn back to the rock and blues basics from whence they sprang in 1966 as a hot bar band on Sunset Strip. It is a masterpiece, a hit out of the gate that has grown in stature over time. Morrison took a sabbatical shortly before its release, decamped to Paris, and died there as this record climbed the charts.

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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #318: Turntable setup is a diagnostic exercise
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 25, 2022  |  15 comments
As I watched WAM Engineering's J.R. Boisclair give an advanced turntable setup seminar at last November's Capitol Audiofest, a light went off. I'm being figurative, but the lights did—literally—go off, and then on again, as I flipped the switch for Boisclair's presentation (see the above photo), which featured both screen time and an in-person lecture.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G loudspeaker
Robert Schryer  |  Jan 20, 2022  |  51 comments
When I learned that I was to review the new seventh generation of Monitor Audio's Silver 500 loudspeaker ($3200/pair), descendants of the original Silver-series products launched in 1999, I thought back on what I knew about the company and then refreshed my memory. Monitor Audio was founded, in 1972, in Teversham, England, a town bordered by farmland located some three miles from the epicenter of its more famous neighbor, Cambridge.
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As We See It
Won't get fooled again
Jim Austin  |  Jan 19, 2022  |  9 comments
I'm excited about the return of live music to New York City. I've attended several classical concerts in the last few weeks, and in a week or so, I'll take in a show at the City Winery: Suzanne Vega. I haven't yet made it back to New York's amazing jazz clubs—the Vanguard, the Blue Note, Smalls—but I look forward to doing so soon, especially to dropping in on my jazz local, Smoke, when it reopens in a few weeks in new, larger digs.
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