LATEST ADDITIONS

Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Counterpoint Natural Progression NPS-400 power amplifier
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 11, 2021  |  First Published: Mar 01, 1995  |  1 comments
Amplifier designers have frequently looked for ways to marry the advantages of tubes to those of solid-state devices. Hybrid designs of various stripes have appeared over the years, most of them using tube input stages with transistor output stages, eliminating the major weaknesses of tube amplifiers: eg, they run hot, are unreliable in that tubes have a finite life, are more expensive than a similarly powerful solid-state design, and have power-hungry output tubes and output transformers.
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Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
Acoustic Energy AE2 loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Feb 10, 2021  |  First Published: Feb 01, 1990  |  0 comments
In the September 1988 issue of Stereophile, I wrote a rave review about the first speaker, the AE1, from what was to me a totally unknown English company, Acoustic Energy. Though tiny, and possessing an intrinsically limited low-frequency response, the $1500/pair AE1 was one of the most musical loudspeakers I have ever used, throwing a deep, beautifully defined soundstage, and possessed of a clean treble and a sweet, if rather forward-balanced, midband.
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Analog Corner
Analog Corner #288: I've Been Everywhere
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 09, 2021  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2019  |  1 comments
I went everywhere!

Attending the two-day Making Vinyl Berlin B2B conference on May 2 and 3, 2019 was an obvious decision for me, even if Day 1's "Physical Media World Conference" panel discussion was more about optical digital media than it was about analog vinyl.

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News
The FTC Proposes Eliminating Its "Amplifier Rule"
John Atkinson  |  Feb 08, 2021  |  45 comments
When I joined Hi-Fi News in the mid-1970s, one of that magazine's stable mates reviewed cars. An automotive writer appeared in the pub one lunchtime—"I rolled another one," he said, as he joined us at the bar. It turned out that one of his tasks was to take a car he was testing to the skid pad to see how many lateral G's the car could handle. Of course, the chances of a consumer turning that car over were minimal, but the reviewer was investigating the edges of the performance envelope.

As I became familiar with audio measurements, it struck me that the equivalent of the skid pan test was the thermal preconditioning we perform when we get an amplifier on the test bench. Even if an end-user doesn't drive his amplifier into thermal meltdown, the edges of the envelope need to be explored.

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Music and Recording Reviews
February 2021 Classical Record Reviews
Jason Victor Serinus, Stephen Francis Vasta  |  Feb 05, 2021  |  0 comments
Béla Bartók: String Quartets Nos.1, 3 & 5, Nicholas Cords: Touch Harmonious and Joseph C. Phillips Jr.: The Grey Land: A Mono-Opera.
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Music and Recording Reviews
February 2021 Jazz Record Reviews
Thomas Conrad, Fred Kaplan  |  Feb 05, 2021  |  10 comments
Diana Krall: This Dream of You, Ella Fitzgerald: Ella: The Lost Berlin Tapes and Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975.
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Music and Recording Reviews
February 2021 Pop/Rock Record Reviews
Phil Brett, Anne E. Johnson  |  Feb 05, 2021  |  0 comments
Nick Cave: Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace, Brian Eno: Film Music 1976-2020 and Anna McClellan: I Saw First Light.
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Music and Recording Features
Book Review: Make More Noise!
Phil Brett  |  Feb 04, 2021  |  3 comments
Make More Noise! Women in Independent Music UK 1977–1987
Various artists. Various producers.
Cherry Red Records. CRCDBOX99. 4CD set and book.
Music *****
Sonics ***

The title of this set—4 CDs and a book—comes from British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst's call to arms for women to fight for their rights: "You have to make more noise than anybody else," said Pankhurst, who died in 1928.

The first words you hear on Disc One of Make More Noise! are sung by Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, who was born almost 100 years after Pankhurst and died a decade ago, in 2011: "Some people think that little girls should be seen and not heard." This opening lyric, from the song "Oh Bondage Up Yours!," is followed by a raw sax solo by Styrene's bandmate Lora Logic.

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My Back Pages
Landscape into music
Sasha Matson  |  Feb 03, 2021  |  7 comments
It says something about the power of music that some individuals fading into dementia can still recognize the music they knew earlier in their lives. Not to denigrate new music, or music one hasn't heard before, but our mental jukeboxes award top chart numbers to music that we have lived with over time. Those DJs making their playlists in our brain are the toughest of critics. They don't care what anyone else might think, "Close to You" is staying in the rotation. Music and memory are linked.
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Re-Tales
Re-Tales #5: Pro audio and hi-fi cross over
Julie Mullins  |  Feb 02, 2021  |  37 comments
Why is there so much separation between the professional audio and audiophile worlds? Is that separation by design, or even necessity? Is it naïve to believe that more crossover could benefit both sides?
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