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Listening #87

Even katydids are supposed, by some, to drink.—Shirley Jackson, 1959 (misheard)

Review samples, once received, often wait days or even weeks before I can find the time to install them. But turntables and tonearms tend not to gather much dust. Tonearms, in particular, get the fast track.

So it was with the Schick tonearm, made in Germany by Thomas Schick and imported by Oswalds Mill Audio, in rural Lehigh County, Pennsylvania (footnote 1). In recent months I've exchanged some e-mails with OMA's Jonathan Weiss, a nice fellow who seems active in various different artistic pursuits.…

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On the other hand, the EMT's spring-actuated downforce makes life a good deal easier than the Schick's uncalibrated counterweights, and the fact that the 997 applies a positive tracking force may confer a performance advantage, especially with warped records. Finally, it must be noted that the Schick's vertical bearings aren't offset to match the angle of its headshell, in the manner of the EMT 997: With the latter, as the arm moves above and below its fulcrum, proper azimuth is maintained.

Schick's online setup instructions imply that the tonearm's spindle-to-pivot distance (304.8mm),…

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It's a good thing my Box Furniture rack is so solid and stable: It is now not only a rack but a turntable plinth.

A word for those to whom praise of the new seems rebuke of the old: I haven't yet fairly compared the Schick and the EMT, if only because I still haven't used the latter in the same manner as the former, with its mounting board removed from the noisy Thorens (which is noisy only in the manner of all motor units; in the wake of its re-renovation, my TD 124 is in better shape than ever). Until I do, I can't say for sure whether the things I'm hearing are due to the different…

Music in the Round #41

It was only a few months ago that I greeted Oppo Digital's BDP-83 universal Blu-ray player as a breakthrough consumer component, and it became a Runner-Up for Stereophile's Budget Product of 2009. It now appears that Oppo is using the design as a base on which to develop similar and more advanced products, both for themselves and for a good many other manufacturers. Some may take exception to my use of the word manufacturers—if it's an Oppo under the skin, what, precisely, are these other "manufacturers" contributing? Well, that's hardly a new question.

I've reviewed a number of…

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"But ah," you say, "just look at the players' front panels!" I was able to finesse that—I have duplicates of many discs, and always inserted identical copies into both players, regardless of which input I selected. Given that a single Oppo remote control operated both players in relative synchrony, both machines always displayed identical disc information, regardless of which input I selected on the Parasound. Even switching between the stereo and multichannel tracks of hybrid SACDs could be effected on both machines with a single button push. And, of course, I'd first matched the players'…

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The Lexicon's audible and operational performances were nearly indistinguishable from the Oppo BDP-83's in any and all modes and connections. Via analog, there seemed to be a bit more brightness and clarity in the treble, and at times a little more richness in the midrange. But the differences were so small that, absent an A/B comparison, I would probably not have noticed them. Via HDMI, my preferred connection for both, I heard no differences at all.

Wanting some distinguishing physical difference to support me in trusting myself during those fleeting moments when I thought I heard…

Music in the Round #41 Contacts

Sidebar 1: Contacts

Lexicon, 1718 W. Mishawaka Road, Elkhart, IN 46517. Tel: (516) 594-0300. Web: www.lexicon.com.
Oppo Digital, Inc., 2629 Terminal Boulevard, Mountain View, CA 94043. Tel: (650) 961-1118. Fax: (650) 961-1119. Web: www.oppodigital.com.
PSB Speakers International, 633 Granite Court, Pickering, Ontario L1W 3K1, Canada. Tel: (905) 831-6555. Fax: (905) 837-6357. Web: www.psbspeakers.com.

Music in the Round #41 Recordings In The Round

Sidebar 2: Recordings In The Round

HAYDN: The Virtual Haydn: Complete Works for Solo Keyboard
Tom Beghin, clavichord, harpsichord, tafelklavier, fortepiano, piano
Naxos NBD0001-04 (4 BDs). Martha de Francisco, prod., eng.; Wieslaw Woszczyk, virtual acoustics architect.

Tom Beghin performs all of Haydn's works for solo keyboard on a selection of instruments chosen to suit the various compositions. This, he says, is necessary because the dates of composition span so many years that the instruments Haydn and others are presumed to have played would have changed in that time…

Bruckner's Symphony No.9: Finally, a <I>Finale</I>?

I know of only one composer who measures up to Beethoven, and that is Bruckner.—Richard Wagner, 1882

Anyone who has read the notes accompanying a performance or recording of Anton Bruckner's final work, the unfinished Symphony No.9, knows the story: Before he died, on the afternoon of October 11, 1896, Bruckner had been able to complete only preliminary and fragmentary sketches for the Symphony's fourth movement, the Finale, which he'd worked on that very morning. Those sketches show little musical, structural, or harmonic coherence—if there was any overall plan, it was still only in the…

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For the Finale of the Ninth, Bruckner, a devout Roman Catholic, had conceived what has often been described (though apparently not by the composer) as a vast cathedral of sound, dedicated by Bruckner "to the dear Lord" and capped by a coda comprising the main themes not only of all of the symphony's preceding movements, but also of his symphonies 5, 7, and 8. Not all Bruckner scholars agree that Bruckner actually did intend to work in those themes from his earlier works, and the composer's alleged sketch of how all of those themes would overlap, which some claimed to have seen, has not…