Sennheiser's Duo Cinema

Sennheiser's Duo Cinema

Mar 23, 2012
I know that Sennheiser has an ever-expanding line of wireless headphones, and I've seen these at CES. Something I haven't seen before, was a package labeled Duo Cinema. This is a kit that includes two sets of HDR 170 wireless headphones and a base unit, for $599.95. These are intended to be used for home theater; the base unit can accommodate two more sets of headphones. The Duo Cinema package is available only in Canada—so no wonder I didn't see it at CES. It's shown here by Nadine Girard- Business Director, Retail Strategy of Sennheiser Canada.

Kronos from Sonor-Filtronique

Kronos from Sonor-Filtronique

Mar 23, 2012
Sonor-Filtronique is a Montreal dealer whose product lines are some of the most prestigious available, including Audio Research, Ayre, Boulder, Sonus Faber, and VPI. They had samples from all these at SSI 2012, but the once that caught my eye was a turntable: the Kronos, a $30,000 high-tech wonder, designed in Quebec by Louis Desjardin, in collaboration with Fidelio Audio. Its major design claim to fame is the secondary platter (below the one that the record is placed on), which rotates in the opposite direction, an approach that is said to cancel unwanted vibrations. The unit on demo had an SME tonearm mounted.

Dr. Feickert's Turntable

Dr. Feickert's Turntable

Mar 23, 2012
Another high-end turntable that impressed me was the Dr. Feickert Analogue Firebird. This is a new model, with new bearing, new platter, new motors (three of them), and all kinds of other refinements. The price is a relatively-affordable—by ultra high end turntable standards—$12,995. The tonearm mounted was a Dr. Feickert Analogue DFA 12.0, the number in the model name referring to the length in inches. The turntable can accommodate two tonearms, of various lengths.

Michel Plante

Michel Plante

Mar 23, 2012
Michel Plante, President of SSI, can usually been seen rushing around, dealing with one crisis or another. He somehow injured himself the day before the show's opening (he doesn't know how) to the point that he was on crutches, but this hardly seems to have slowed him down. He took in stride—well, so to speak—jibes about "break a leg" not meant to be taken literally.

Claudia L'Ecuyer hands me my badge

Claudia L'Ecuyer hands me my badge

Mar 23, 2012
The female staff members of Salon Son & Image are easily recognizable by the blue wigs they wear. I don't know whose idea this represents—Michel Plante or Sarah Tremblay would be my guess—but it's a great way of signalling that the show is going to be FUN. The charming Claudia L'Ecuyer (pictured) prepared my badge. In the background, getting his badge is Jim Griffin of Griffin Audio, Canadian distributor of ProAc loudspeakers.

Neneh Cherry and The Thing: The Cherry Thing

Neneh Cherry and The Thing: The Cherry Thing

Mar 23, 2012
I’m in a daze. My mind is officially, seriously blown.

Nothing, seriously nothing, could have prepared me for the news that Neneh Cherry&#151Neneh “Raw Like Sushi” Cherry&#151is heading a new project with the powerhouse free jazz trio of Mats Gustafsson (saxophone), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums).

Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.35 No.4

Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.35 No.4

Mar 22, 2012

It has been a strange winter. Now approaching what is formally known as spring, I’m not sure if we ever even made it out of autumn! Forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of February in New York City? What in the hell is going on?

Similar to how the seasons from 2011 to 2012 have melded together into the longest autumn, the shipping out of each issue of Stereophile becomes a blur as well. As I discussed in my last on newsstands March article, we are never really sure what month we are living in here at the Stereophile office, much less the month of the issue we are working on, except for when we are compiling April Issue. We always know when we’re working on the April.

Why’s that?

What's His Naim? Julian Vereker

What's His Naim? Julian Vereker

Mar 22, 2012 First Published:Mar 01, 1988
Editor's Introduction: One of the big industry stories of 1985 was the split, both personal and commercial, between the British Linn and Naim companies. Led by Ivor Tiefenbrun and Julian Vereker (footnote 1) respectively, both companies had started up in the early 1970s. Both men held similar views, both about the fat-cat complacency of British designers (which had led to a grievous sound-quality slump in the mid '70s), and about the system rethinking necessary for what some writers, unaware of the rigors of thought required by followers of that spiritual descendant of Fowler, William Safire, would term a "quantum leap" forward in sound reproduction.

Recording of February 1988: The Moscow Sessions

Recording of February 1988: The Moscow Sessions

Mar 22, 2012 First Published:Feb 01, 1988
The Moscow Sessions
Barber: First Essay for Orchestra; Copland: Appalachian Spring; Gershwin: Lullaby (for string quartet); Glazunov: Valse de Concert in D; Glinka: Russlan and Ludmilla Overture; Griffes: The White Peacock; Ives: The Unanswered Question; Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina Prelude; Piston: The Incredible Flutist (ballet suite); Shostakovich: Symphony 1, Festive Overture; Tchaikovsky: Symphony 5
Lawrence Leighton Smith, Dmitri Kitayenko, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Sheffield Lab CD-1000 (3 CDs); TLP-1000 (3 LPs). CDs DDD. LPs AAA. TT: 180:40

The ecumenical collaboration between Sheffield Lab, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, conductors Lawrence Leighton Smith and Dmitri Kitayenko, an imposing gaggle of businessmen and bureaucrats, and partial sponsorship by The Absolute Sound's Fund for Recorded Music, if somewhat short of epoch-making, is, nonetheless, a positive example of free enterprise and socialism bedding down together, liberally (pardon the expression) lubricated with glasnost. Art, we are told, is universal. It transcends philosophical, racial, political, and religious differences of opinion. Yet, despite the implied altruism of this international cooperative effort, the actual genesis of the project was essentially pragmatic, fundamentally bottom line.

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