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The bass response of the BP-173–No.534 pairing was unusually strong and extended. The full weight of pedal chords captured on good recordings of pipe organ pressurized my listening room. John Rutter's A Gaelic Blessing, with Timothy Seelig…

Some manufacturers recommend breaking in their speakers for ungodly amounts of time. Others disdain the break-in concept, apart perhaps for a few minutes to allow the drivers' suspensions to loosen up. In my opinion, listening to music while speakers settle in is a questionable practice; it's just as likely that your ears are breaking in to the sound of the speakers than anything dramatic…

If the theme of Camp Cope's third album, Running with the Hurricane, is personal growth, its core is Georgia Maq's voice—specifically, a new way of using that voice, approaching it as an instrument, applying detailed skill to vocal production. Both her time of self-reflection during COVID lockdowns and the vocal cord surgeries she has needed led her to this new revelation. We all get to reap the benefits…

That was a time when drag-racing cars began using thick, "fuel- and flame-resistant," silicone-sheathed wires between magnetos and spark plugs. Every street rodder who…

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Ayre Acoustics AX-5 Twenty: $12,950
In 2013, AD described the original Ayre AX-5—a $9950 integrated amplifier built around a recently rediscovered configuration of bipolar transistors known as the "diamond" circuit—as "one of the three best, most musical, most human-sounding solid-state amps I've ever heard." Then, in 2015, Ayre debuted a new version, the AX-5 Twenty—a nod to the company's 20th anniversary—promising even better sound. The AX-5 Twenty is built into the same foursquare aluminum case as the AX-5, and is controlled by the…

Threshold. Portal. Get it?

The Portal Audio Panache is an integrated amplifier rated to deliver the magic 100Wpc into 8 ohms and 200Wpc into 4 ohms. Portal sells directly to consumers, mainly by the Internet, and there are no North American dealers. The Panache costs $1795 and the company offers an unusually generous…

You gotta give Billy Bragg and Wilco credit. Not only did they interrupt their respective careers for this admittedly intriguing side project, they also dissected and shoved their hands deep into the guts of one of this country's more contradictory musical personalities: Woody Guthrie. The idea was to hit a horribly difficult trifecta: pay homage to Guthrie's spirit, create their…

I'm reminded of turntables 20 years ago, when quartz-lock mechanisms were all the rage—to regulate but not really stabilize the speed. The quartz-lock mechanism would continually adjust the speed of the motor so that the speed was always changing, microsecond by microsecond. This was likely one reason why an AR, a Linn, or a Rega, all without…