London Concertante: Piazzolla and Beyond
Works by Astor Piazzolla, David Gordon, Adam Summerhayes
London Concertante; Adam Summerhayes, dir.
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907491 (CD). 2009. Chris Grist, prod.; Matt Butler, eng. DDD. TT: 52:01
Performance ****
Sonics ****
"How are we even to have a shallow grasp on the complexities of tango, here in northern Europe, decades after its golden age, that we might attempt even a revision of the work of that great and visionary revisionist, Piazzolla?"
Good question. It's one, posed in the liner notes of the aptly titled…
As a musician who has studied of all forms of acoustic and electric keyboard instruments, I have played the gamut of keyboards, from gems to disasters. I think the most significant keyboard developments of the 20th century were the Hammond organ, the Fender Rhodes electric piano, and the Moog synthesizer. These instruments were notable not for their ability to replicate the sound of acoustic instruments, but for the new timbres and textures possible with them, which have since become permanent parts of our musical vocabulary. I have now played an instrument that may prove one of the most…
Although LPs remain, for me, the high-end medium of choice, I'm not terribly interested in today's high-end record players. Most of them, from the 1980s through the present, have been soulless, uninspired, me-too products that utterly fail to communicate the presence, momentum, and punch of recorded music. And in certain ways—expense, complexity, size, cosmetics—some have been, quite simply, ridiculous.
But a relative few have seemed the products of original thinking. And most of those have stood the test of time: The ">Well Tempered Turntable. The Rega Planar 9. The Roksan…
That turned out to be a good thing. Ultimately, Ayre developed a pure analog oscillator—a digital supply would have been a snap, but it would have dumped RFI into the system—with three outputs, spaced 120° from one another and amplified by a zero-feedback amp (an Ayre hallmark, after all). And because no motor is perfect, the individual levels for all three sets of windings can be adjusted to match the motor. Neat.
Installation and setup
My review sample of the dps turntable was installed by Willi Bauer, during a time when he and Ayre Acoustics' Steve Silberman were traveling…
The dps was also, as far as I could tell, the most completely uncolored turntable I've heard. Similarly, it was among the most spatially amazing source components I've had in my home: Playing stereo records, its ability to suggest depth and the precise layering and positioning of voices and instruments was almost revelatory. (On that count I'll go back on my word, briefly, and say that the combination of dps turntable and dps tonearm was superior, although the German 'table wrung a lot more spatial performance from the musically solid Naim Aro than I'd imagined was there.) On Leonard Cohen'…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-speed belt-drive turntable. Motor: three-phase AC synchronous. Speeds: 33.33, 45rpm. Motor frequency accuracy: ±0.1%.
Dimensions: 17.7" (450mm) W by 7.2" (183mm) H by 13.8" (350mm) D. Weight: 50 lbs (22.7kg).
Serial Number Of Unit Reviewed: USA08004.
Price: $9250. Approximate number of dealers: 50.
Manufacturer: Bauer Audio, Pollinger Strasse 4, 81377 Munich, Germany. Tel: (49) (0)89-719-39-80. Web: www.bauer-audio.de. US distributor: Ayre Acoustics, Inc., 2300-B Central Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301. Tel: (303) 442-7300. Fax: (303) 442-…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Thorens TD-124 Mk.II, Linn Sondek LP12 turntables; EMT 997, Thomas Schick, Naim Aro, dps tonearms; Shindo SPU, Ortofon SPU 90th Anniversary, EMT OFD 25, Edison Spirit 78, Miyabi 47, Grace F9E cartridges.
Digital Sources: Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player; Ayre QB-9 USB DAC (with Apple iTunes).
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 step-up transformer; Ayre Acoustics P-5x phono preamplifier; Shindo Masseto, Tempo Electric Arthur Loesch 1.1 preamplifiers.
Power Amplifiers: Shindo Haut-Brion & Corton-Charlemagne, Quad II.
…
A few years ago, I had a phone call from a marketing organization. I was asked, as a member of the audiophile press, to participate in a survey dealing with the "images" of various brands of loudspeakers.
I declined to participate in the survey—Stereophile editorial policy does not allow writers to act as consultants, and this was tantamount to being a consultant, albeit an unpaid one. However, if one of the brands in the survey had been Monitor Audio, my answers would not have been terribly helpful: I had no very clear "image" of Monitor Audio speakers. British, well-made, uses…
The solution presented itself when I remembered that Monitor Audio has exhibited very successfully with Simaudio electronics. A loan of the Moon Evolution W-7 amplifier (150Wpc) was arranged, and the folks at Simaudio also suggested that I use the matching Moon Evolution P-7 preamplifier as well—which, in combination with my Ayre CX-7eMP CD player, would result in a fully balanced system. Well, why not? Besides, the P-7 and CX-7eMP are both listed in Class A of Stereophile's "Recommended Components," and the W-7 is a lower-powered version of the Moon W-8, another Class A denizen. In terms of…
Another way to assess a speaker's resolution is to listen to how it reproduces any changes in sound produced by changes in other components or tweaks. This opportunity presented itself when I was replacing my interconnects and AC cords with Nordost Valhalla products. Because I wasn't doing a cable review as such, I didn't spend a lot of time switching cables back and forth, but I did listen carefully before and after each swap (having first unplugged and replugged the original cable, to make sure that any sonic difference was not merely a function of cleaning the contacts, a natural…
