In 1968, I ran into Steve Lacy on the street in Rome. I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in 15 seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered: "In 15 seconds,…
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"Attention Screen is an attempt to do collectively in real time what a single composer does over a much longer period," explains Bob Reina. "To do that, we have to listen very carefully to what the other three guys are doing, and we have to react immediately to everything we hear to move the piece in a different direction. It's satisfying, but it's also a nerve-racking process."
John Atkinson: Making It Different
If there is one aspect of modern rock recording techniques that tires me, it is the overuse of compressors and limiters. Not only are songs dynamically squashed to the point where they sound uniformly and fatiguingly loud throughout, even when played quietly, but the natural dynamics of the drum and bass guitar tracks, in particular, are reduced so that they are reproduced at an unrealistically uniform level.
If there is one aspect of modern rock recording techniques that tires me, it is the overuse of compressors and limiters. Not only are songs dynamically squashed to the point where they sound uniformly and fatiguingly loud throughout, even when played quietly, but the natural dynamics of the drum and bass guitar tracks, in particular, are reduced so that they are reproduced at an unrealistically uniform level.
The situation is similar in the frequency domain: modern rock recording techniques appear to demand that every instrument be…
Sidebar 1: The Music
Attention Screen Live at Merkin Hall Stereophile STPH018-2
Don Fiorino (guitar, lap steel, lotar, taro patch ukulele), Bob Reina (piano), Chris Jones (fretless electric bass guitar), Mark Flynn (drums)
Track Listing
[1] Mansour's Gift 9:52
[2] Fruit Forward 11:05
[3] Nell's Bells 10:35
[4] Bounced Again 10:56
[5] Blizzard Limbs 13:26
[6] Lap Dawg 10:52
Total Time: 66:50
All compositions by Attention Screen © 2007
CD Cover Image: Chris Jones
CD Booklet Design: Pip Tannenbaum
CD Booklet Photography…
Sidebar 2: Attention Screen: The Players
Attention Screen draws on four lifetimes' worth of jazz, classical, and rock vocabulary to create unique, spontaneous compositions that blend disparate acoustic and electronic textures.
Don Fiorino (guitar, lap steel, lotar, taro patch ukulele) Don's improvised guitar phrasings range from rock'n'roll and acoustic bottleneck blues and electric slide to Middle Eastern and Indian fusions and jazz. He plays a variety of instruments, including guitar, banjo, lap steel, ukulele, and Moroccan lotar. Don is also an accomplished painter;…
"A high-quality amplifier must be capable of passing rigid laboratory measurements, meet all listening requirements, and be simple and straightforward in design in the interest of minimizing performance degradation..."—Cdr. Charles W. Harrison Jr., Audio, January 1956 (footnote 1)
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."—Duke Ellington
My mother was visiting. "What exactly is a preamplifier?" she asked. I explained, in some detail with helpful use of analogy (though the fact that we were in one of Santa Fe's many excellent restaurants meant that I had to…
In both its construction and its design, the No.23.5 is a thoroughly modern amplifier, engineered for excellent sonics and long-term reliability (though it is a little more complicated than Commander Harrison's definition).
Sound
The No.23.5 served as one of the workhorse amplifiers during my last six months' worth of equipment reviews. As seems to be the fate of review samples, however, the No.23.5 suffered a fault in one channel a few weeks after delivery. An increase in distortion at low levels turned out to be due to a loose washer lodging itself where it could do most damage,…
Don't get me wrong—the Levinson doesn't offer a flattened mid-fi stage. The horns on J. Gordon Holt's Praeludium recording on the original Stereophile Test CD are still set well back in the image, as indeed they should be. But it is possible that the No.23.5's somewhat more vivid balance overemphasizes recorded detail to the detriment of its depth presentation. Whether it is more or less accurate in this behavior is hard to determine with an electronic recording. However, those who desire the deepest of all possible soundstages should mate the 23.5 with loudspeakers that already excel in…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid-state stereo power amplifier. Rated power output: 200Wpc continuous into 8 ohms (23dBW) with less than 0.1% THD, 400Wpc continuous into 4 ohms (23dBW) with less than 0.2% THD, both from 20Hz–20kHz, both channels driven. Damping factor: greater than 600 at 50Hz, 8 ohms (equivalent to an output impedance of 0.013 ohms). Frequency response: 4Hz–140kHz, —dB. Input impedance: 50k ohms shunted by 1.5nF. Voltage gain: 26dB (load not defined). Input sensitivity: 141mV for 1W output.
Dimensions: 19" (483mm) W by 8.25" (210mm) H by 15.7" (399mm) D.…
Sidebar 2: Review System Context
Loudspeakers used during the evaluation of these amplifiers were mainly the Wilson WATTs and Puppies and KEF R107s, though Avalon Eclipses, Acoustat Spectra 1100s, MB Quart 490s, and Epos ES11s also made appearances. Front-end components consisted of a Linn Sondek/Lingo/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on an ArchiDee table to play LPs, a Revox PR99 to play 15ips master tapes, and, at various times, a Meridian 208 CD player, the Stax DAC-X1t and VTL Reference D/A processors driven by Meridian 602 and Wadia WT-3200 transports, or the Krell MD-1/SBP-64X combination…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
One of the things that distinguishes expensive power amplifiers from the rest is that they rarely break or shut down on the test bench, even when driving 2 ohm loads at high levels at high frequencies. Such was the case with the No.23.5, which proved a powerhouse. With one channel driven, it comfortably exceeded its 23dBW power specification, the 1% distortion point being reached at 305W into 8 ohms (24.8dBW), 505W into 4 ohms (24dBW), and 750W into 2 ohms (22.7dBW), this behavior shown graphically in fig.1. With both channels driven, these figures dropped…