Being the (relatively) new audiophile on the block with high hopes to entice the masses, the concept of forming a trade body to promote high-end audio was immediately appealing to me. Dying to know more, I…
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As I was scanning the comments under Jason Victor Serinus's insightful piece, "What If They Gave a CES and Nobody Came?", Bill Leebens's words caught my eye (footnote 1). "[ . . . ] several subsequent attempts to form industry associations have come and gone. I was involved in them all, and even I can't remember all their names!" wrote the industry veteran of 40 years (and counting).
For Jason Victor Serinus, one of the highlights of the 2013 T.H.E. Show in Newport Beach, California, was the public debut of the Sopranino—a horn-loaded, self-polarized, electrostatic supertweeter from EnigmAcoustics. In his report, Jason wrote about the sound of a pair of Sopraninos used atop Magico V3 speakers: "only folks with severe hearing loss would have missed how the sound opened up when the Sopranino was switched in." Well, as you can read later, I don't have hearing loss, and I did also hear an improvement with the Sopranino. So when I visited the Californian company's dem room…
There I was, making my way room-to-room toward the end of the show when suddenly Jeffrey Catalano of New York City's "2 channel with attitude" High Water Sound appears.
"Aren't you coming to my room on the 10th floor?" asks a man who clearly has been hounding the hallways, asking everyone he knows if they've seen Jason Victor Serinus.
"OMG," says I. "I've already covered all the rooms I had time to cover on the 10th floor. Yours must have been so full that I gave up and skipped it."
Well, you know what happened next. Jeffrey's reputation for luring man and beast to his…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured one of the the Margules U280-SC Blacks (S/N B-50003950517) using my top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). With two modes of output stage—Triode and Ultralinear—three choices of output-transformer tap, and the option of having its two channels strapped for mono operation, the Margules U280-SC is actually 14 different amplifiers in one enclosure. Although Jason Victor Serinus exclusively used the amplifiers as a pair of monoblocks, I performed a complete set of measurements for all 14 mono and stereo modes…
ROBERT J. REINA
Horacee Arnold: Tales of the Exonerated Flea
Horacee Arnold, drums; Art Webb, flute; Sonny Fortune, saxophone; John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner, guitar; Jan Hammer, keyboards; David Friedman, vibes; Clint Houston, Rick Laird, George Mraz, bass; Dom Um Romao, percussion
Columbia KC 32869 (LP; 2 CD reissues also available). 1974. Horacee Arnold, prod.; Buddy Graham, Frank Laico, Stan Tonkel, engs. AAA. TT: 44:43
I was a jazz-rock fanatic in the 1970s; for me, the genre was the gateway to study other forms of jazz. Today, much of what I listened to…
John Atkinson auditioned the Dynaudio Focus 10 with Dirac Live in November 2023 (Vol.46 No.11):
Jason Victor Serinus was impressed by this small, two-way, active all-in-one speaker from Denmark (footnote 1). He concluded his February 2023 review by writing, "Designed as a 'complete wireless sound system,' the Dynaudio Focus 10 active monitors are the most musically satisfying one-stop playback solution I've had the pleasure of hanging with. ... Within its limitations of image size and bass quantity, the Focus 10 is one of the most musically satisfying active loudspeakers I've had the…
Herb Reichert
Isabelle Faust: Stravinsky: Histoire Du Soldat (Version Français), élégie, Duo Concertant
Harmonia Mundi/Qobuz (24/96 FLAC). 2021. Martin Sauer, prod., Sauer, Julian Schwenkner, eng.
My relationship to contemporary classical musicians, like my current favorite violinist Isabelle Faust, is pure fanboy. More than simply admiring their playing or musical insight, I become enamored with their persona. And sometimes I become obsessed with their latest album. Such is the case with Faust's incredibly well-recorded version of Stravinsky's Faustian parable L'…
The Innuos ZENith Next-Gen ($20,700 as equipped) does what streamer-servers do: store music files, read them into memory, and send them on to a D/A converter to make music. In Innuos's complex (yet logical) lineup of streamers and streamer-servers, the ZENith Next-Gen sits just below the flagship Statement and above the ZENith Mk.3 (footnote 1). The ZENith Mk.3 remains in the Innuos lineup for now but will be replaced at AXPONA shortly after this issue hits mailboxes and newsstands.
Though similar in many respects, with a very similar appearance, these two products—the ZENith Next-Gen and…
Is it because no one takes pot shots at you unless you're on top? Or are the most recent criticisms of Klaus Heymann and his diversified Naxos Digital Services empire on to something more?
To refresh: Heymann, a German entrepreneur who began selling cameras and stereos to American GIs in Vietnam, and later become the Hong Kong distributor of Bose and Studer audio gear, launched Naxos, a classical-music label specializing in budget-priced CDs, in 1987 (footnote 1). The label's name is also easy to pronounce in any language. Heymann began to build the Naxos catalog—now one of the largest…
Herb Reichert
Mascara Quartet: Barco Negro
Polona Udovic, vocal, violin; Timi Krajnc, guitar; Matjaz BoZo Banovic, bandone¢n; Mitja Rezman, bass guitar; Vid Usenicnik, percussion; Bozo Banovic, Peter Urek, Sasa Bastallec, arr.
Sazas Biem VVE LP 001 (LP). 2017. AAA. TT: 43:03
Imagine Argentine tango, Portuguese fado, and Latin milonga, all wrapped in artful musical extrapolations—from Slovenia. Picture the tall, enchanting presence of Polona Udovic doing her best to channel the sorrowful spirit of renowned fadista Amália Rodrigues singing "Barco Negro."…