This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com
I've seen numerous comments about tip selection affecting the frequency response of in-ear monitors. I've seen lavish words of praise for Comply tips ... and rants about how they muffled the sound.
I figured we should get to the bottom of this, eh?
Saturday–Sunday, April 14–15, 10am–5pm:Lyric HiFi (1221 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY) invites audiophiles to listen to an assortment of systems, interact with representatives from brands such as McIntosh, Focal, and Audio Research, and qualify to purchase demo units at 20% off, all part of The Show at Lyric HiFi.
People have been understandably curious about The Cherry Thing, the surprising collaboration between Neneh Cherry and free-jazz monster, The Thing, scheduled to be released on June 19 by Smalltown Supersound.
For now, we can hear the band’s version of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream.”
As I’ve mentioned, I enjoy making connections between all kinds of seemingly disparate things and ideas, but I take special interest in finding connections between different musical genres or artists. I obsess over this game, as though finding common ground between Drake and Ryuichi Sakamoto—an easy example, but a valid one—will somehow make me a stronger person, make me more intelligent and attractive, allow me to better understand others, make the world a more beautiful place.
It’s in these connections that stories are made. And I love stories. Caught by the idea that everything happens for a reason, that every event is leading to someplace meaningful and magical, I’m hungry for connections, like a DJ attempting to create the perfect mixtape, one that can represent a sum of life’s experiences, wonderful and mundane.
Seems I’m not alone. (Whew.)
Through Kickstarter, director Trevor Undi and producer Sean Barney hope to fund their Kymera Project, a sort of “visual mixtape,” setting songs to images to tell a story that takes place in New York City.
The sound of the Stenheim Alumine loudspeakerits openness, transparency, and freedom from temporal distortions, not to mention its good bass extension for such a small enclosurereminded me at once of my favorite small loudspeaker from the late 1980s, the Acoustic Energy AE1. On reflection, the comparison is extraordinary: The two products are as different as night and day, the AE1 being a wooden loudspeaker with a metal-cone woofer, the Alumine a metal loudspeaker with a pulp-cone woofer. I suppose one can skin a catfish by moving the knife or by moving the fish.
On Valot Kaukaa, Finnish producer Olli Aarni, working as Nuojuva, creates a strange, romantic world of sound. We hear wind and birdsong; crackle and hiss; hints of familiar classical pieces; cello, flute, and violin; whispers and sighs from Rachel Evans of Motion Sickness of Time Travel; and the lovely piano work of Sophie Hutchings, whose 2010 album, Becalmed, was one of my 2011 “Records to Die For.”