JOHN ATKINSON
J.S. BACH: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 (Last Performing Version, ca 1742)
Nicholas Mulroy, Evangelist; Matthew Brook, Jesus; Susan Hamilton, Cecilia Osmond, sopranos; Clare Wilkinson, Annie Gill, altos; Malcolm Bennett, tenor; Brian Bannatyne-Scott, bass; Dunedin Consort & Players; John Butt, dir., harpsichord continuo
Linn CKD 313 (multichannel/2-channel SACD/HDCD CD). 2008. Also available as 88.2kHz/24-bit "Studio Master" (WMA, FLAC), 44.1/16 "CD Quality" (WMA, FLAC), and 320kbps MP3 files. Philip Hobbs, prod., eng.; Julia Thomas at Finesplice Ltd., post…
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TOM CONRAD
FRED HERSCH: At Maybeck
Fred Hersch, piano
Concord Jazz CCD-4596 (CD). 1994. Nick Phillips, prod.; Dave Luke, eng. DDD. TT: 67:32
FRED HERSCH: At Maybeck
Fred Hersch, piano
Concord Jazz CCD-4596 (CD). 1994. Nick Phillips, prod.; Dave Luke, eng. DDD. TT: 67:32
Whoever (Elvis Costello? Frank Zappa?) said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture was right. And the defiantly subjective, shamelessly sentimental, megalomaniacal act of designating a "Record To Die For" is even more so. At Maybeck, Concord's series of beautifully recorded solo-piano concerts in Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California, eventually reached 42 volumes. Almost all are now out of print, but as…
MICHAEL FREMER
ROY ORBISON: The All-Time Greatest Hits
Monument/Columbia/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFSL 2-304 (2 180gm LPs). 1972/2008. Fred Foster, prod.; Bill Porter, eng.; Rob LoVerde, Shawn R. Britten, remastering. AAA. TT: 52:21
ROY ORBISON: The All-Time Greatest Hits
Monument/Columbia/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFSL 2-304 (2 180gm LPs). 1972/2008. Fred Foster, prod.; Bill Porter, eng.; Rob LoVerde, Shawn R. Britten, remastering. AAA. TT: 52:21
Roy Orbison belongs in any record collection wanting to be called one. This ultimate two-LP set from his Monument era (the years that really count) contains all the big hits and some of the lesser ones, like "Working for the Man," that mash to a campy pulp "Chain Gang," "16 Tons," and maybe even "The Banana Boat Song." I don't care if you have…
FRED KAPLAN
J.S. BACH: Cantatas BWV 82 & 199
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano; Craig Smith, Orchestra of Emmanuel Music
Nonesuch 79692-2 (CD). 2003. Martin Sauer, prod.; Philipp Nedel, Marc Donahue, engs. DDD. TT: 50:42
J.S. BACH: Cantatas BWV 82 & 199
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano; Craig Smith, Orchestra of Emmanuel Music
Nonesuch 79692-2 (CD). 2003. Martin Sauer, prod.; Philipp Nedel, Marc Donahue, engs. DDD. TT: 50:42
"Records To Die For"? So let's talk about death. There may be no more sorrowful Bach cantata than BWV 82, "Ich habe genug" (I have enough), and no more grippingly sorrowful rendition than this. Lieberson recorded it knowing that she was dying of cancer, and though this deepens the poignancy, it's her performance that rivets. She sings with a…
The Leben's treble is not more extended that the ATC amplifier's—if anything, the reverse. With Media Vita, the English vocal group Stile Antico's excellent new disc of liturgical music by John Sheppard (SACD/CD, Harmonia Mundi HMU807509), the ATC allowed every bit of sibilance through, while the Leben was more diplomatic. Almost paradoxically, though, the Leben gave a subjective impression of conveying a greater amount of treble, though this is noticeably sweeter. The Leben resembled my longtime-favorite power amp, the darTZeel NHB-108, not only more than a bit in essential sound, but also…
Sidebar: Contacts
Leben Hi-Fi Stereo Company, 2-36-29, Nishi-Koya, Amagasaki City, Hyougo 661-0047, Japan. Web: www.lebenhifi.com. US distributor: Tone Imports. Tel: (646) 425-7800. Web: www.toneimports.com.
ProAc Loudspeakers, Highpoint House, Riding Road, Buckingham Road Industrial Estate, Brackley, Northamptonshire NN13 7BE, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1280-700147. Fax: (44) (0)1280-700148. Web: www.proac-loudspeakers.com. US distributor: Modern Audio, PO Box 334, Stevenson, MD 21153. Tel: (410) 486-5975. E-mail: modaudio@aol.com.
The best result of mathematics is to not need it.—Oliver Heaviside, 1850–1925
The world is full of bad dentists and singers and cops. Bad teachers abound, as do bad nurses, bad farmhands, bad sociologists, and very bad investment bankers. The news, often presented by bad reporters, is full of bad clergy, bad soldiers, bad babysitters, bad shift supervisors of air-traffic controllers, and more bad legislators and lobbyists than you can count. Long ago, in the space of one summer, I was a bad busboy and a bad forklift driver.
And it isn't enough to say the world is full of bad…
A head-to-head comparison between the Shindo/Lundahl and Bob Sattin's CineMag proved less than straightforward: The latter, in its preferred setting, had audibly more gain than the former. That said, even after careful matching of listening levels, the CineMag was noticeably more colorful and punchy, with better timbral distinctions between instruments: The back-line woodwinds that play such an important role in the Sir Adrian Boult/LSO recording of Vaughan Williams's Job (LP, EMI ASD2673) weren't only spatially more distant than the other instruments in that group; they were physically,…
Inspired by fig.2 on p.54 of "Arc Angles"—it portrays the record center, tonearm pivot center, and stylus location as three points of a triangle, and models that triangle in two different ways, using two different zero-error radii, and is reprinted here as fig.1—I set about plotting the Schick arm's known dimensions, intending to use the law of cosines (footnote 1) to see if Keith's nulls could possibly work with this arm. Of course, I knew the size of only one angle: 72.89 degrees (°), which I arrived at by subtracting the Schick's specified 17.11° offset from 90°. But because the law of…
For the past few years, PSB Speakers International has been replacing its older lines with new models designed in Canada, and assembled in China from Chinese-made components. Judging from the reception here of PSB's Synchrony One and Imagine T, it's clear that the new models combine advanced performance with true economy. Now, with the new Image line, we see the result of trickling all this down to less expensive products.
As is my wont, I asked for three Image T6 tower speakers to test in my weekend multichannel system, in Connecticut. The T6 is a true three-way design for a…