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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'…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
Sidebar: Recordings of the Completed Finale
The missing passages composed by the various "completers" surveyed below—particularly the coda, for which the least evidence in Bruckner's hand has survived—cannot be considered to be what Bruckner himself would have finally composed or approved or wanted performed. They are thus, ultimately, speculative interpolations, and can never be more than that. However, each completion gives us a good idea—some so good as to be utterly convincing—of at least the scale of the work Bruckner originally envisioned. And in the best of them, every note is in…
MEL TORMÉ/MARTY PAICH DEK-TETTE: In Concert Tokyo
Concord Jazz CJ-382 (LP), CCD-4382 (CD). Hatsuro Takanami, eng.; Carl Jefferson, prod. TTs: 44:15 (LP), 47:17 (CD)
Concord Jazz CJ-382 (LP), CCD-4382 (CD). Hatsuro Takanami, eng.; Carl Jefferson, prod. TTs: 44:15 (LP), 47:17 (CD)
Although such fruitful collaborations as Sinatra/Riddle and Cleo Laine/Dankworth have received wider and more consistent exposure, neither has produced more meaningful results than the synergistic working relationship intermittently enjoyed by Mel Tormé and Marty Paich over the past 34 years. Their first recording together—Lulu's Back in Town—dates from 1956, and it remained for Concord Records President Carl Jefferson to…
A persistent complaint from some of our readers concerns our seeming preoccupation with exotic components. (Presumably what they mean are scarce, unusual, or hard-to-find components, because "exotic" really means "from a foreign country," and there is sure as hell nothing hard-to-find about a Panasonic receiver.) "Why," you ask, "do you devote so much space to reports on components we can't buy from our local audio discounter? Why can't we have more reports about products from the old, established, reliable companies like KLH, Harman/Kardon, Electro-Voice and Sansui, whose stuff we can listen…
As Chester Rice, co-inventor of the moving-coil loudspeaker, once ruefully observed: "The ancients have stolen our inventions." So often, what is painted as new and innovative turns out to be something someone thought of long before. We have a habit of forgetting, and that applies not only to inventions, but to knowledge of other kinds as well.
If you've been reading audio magazines for the past 30 years or more, you may recall that in the late 1970s there was a short-lived furor, first in the US and then in the UK, about forgotten lessons of tonearm/cartridge alignment. It…