Warren Wolf: Christmas Vibes
Warren Wolf, vibraphone, piano, Fender Rhodes, wind chimes, tambourine, Logic Pro X digital audio workstation; Jeff Reed, acoustic and electric bass; Carroll "CV" Dashiell III, drums; Christie Dashiell, Allison Bordlemay, Micah Smith, vocals.
Mack Avenue MAC1183 (CD, also available as download). 2020. Warren Wolf, prod.; Jeff Gruber, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

Only 12 albums a year get to be Recordings of the Month in Stereophile, and only a few are jazz.

Typically, they are "big" records by major jazz artists.

Christmas Vibes has the major-artist part covered. Warren Wolf is one of the two most important vibraphonists to enter jazz in the new millennium. (The other is Joel Ross.) Wolf's album is not a masterwork, but it is a lovely, heartfelt offering that deserves its place in this magazine's December issue. In this year of years, in this holiday season observed in a pandemic, it arrives like a life-affirming antidote to darkness.

In my early years of writing about audio (footnote 1), I was known—to the extent that I was known at all—as something of an objectivist. I was, after all, working as an editor at a leading science journal at the time, just a few years out from a brief career as an actual scientist, still in recovery from the physics PhD I'd earned a decade or so before.

Let's begin by discussing what SAT's XD1 Record Player System is not: It is not a Technics SP-10R in a sci-fi–inspired plinth—although the XD1's engine does begin life as the SP-10R's basic drive system, which is stripped down to a handful of essential components, reimagined, reengineered, and rebuilt to much higher mechanical standards.

Three products are the subjects of lengthy followup reviews in the December issue of Stereophile: MBL's Noble Line N31 CD player-D/A processor, the GoldenEar BRX loudspeaker, and Alta Audio's Alyssa loudspeaker.

"Pints With Ayre," the series of videos produced by Colorado manufacturer Ayre Acoustics, has been regular viewing chez Atkinson during these pandemic times. Covering subjects like volume control design, amplifier gain stages, audio transformers, and listening tests, the series presents sometimes esoteric technical subjects in an easy-to-grasp manner.

In the latest episode of “Pints With Ayre,” I was invited to talk about a subject close to my heart, the how and why a review magazine’s reviews should be accompanied by measurements. You can find my current thoughts at the link in this article. I don’t think I gave too many secrets away!

The last time we checked in, The MBL X-Treme Roadshow was in Sarasota, Florida. It has now moved on to 3mA Audio in Houston, Texas.