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1996 Records To Die For Page 15

Robert E. Benson
KORNGOLD: Sinfonietta, Sursum Corda
Matthias Bamert, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Chandos CHAN 9317 (CD only). Ralph Couzens, prod.; Don Hartridge, eng. DDD. TT: 62:42 Both works are products of Korngold's youth: Sinfonietta was completed in 1912 when he was 15, Sursum Corda seven years later. Sinfonietta is a full-scale, 43-minute symphony for large orchestra, majestic in themes and masterfully orchestrated, premiered in 1913 with Weingartner conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

Sursum Corda's premiere was a failure; it was considered "too modern." Filled with…

1996 Records To Die For Page 16

Larry Archibald
MISSA LUBA: An African Mass
Muungano National Choir, Kenya; Boniface Mganga, conductor
Philips 426 836-2 (CD only). Job Maarse, prod.; Pieter Boer, Martin Dubbeldam, engs. DDD. TT: 49:54 Missa Luba, An African Mass, does in an African context what Misa Criolla did with a South American accent. My first recording of this work, also on Philips, dates from the '60s---but I can't find my copy. It's a definite buy if you see it as a used LP, in spite of not-so-great sound.

Despite the Kenyan origin of this new version, it has an energy strongly reminiscent of the…

The Greatest Pop Album? The Flaming Lips: <I>The Soft Bulletin</I>

Two scientists are racing for the good of all mankind—both of them working side by side, so determined, locked in heated battle for the cure that is the prize. It's so dangerous, but they're driven—theirs is to win, if it kills them. They're just human, with wives and children.

No, I'm not breaking into fiction or poetry. This is the beginning of the greatest pop album since Radiohead's OK Computer, XTC's Skylarking, Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom—possibly even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Is that last one premature? Maybe. But the latest CD from the Flaming Lips, The Soft…

Fine Tunes #25

I heard the other day from Steve Creamer of Nirvana Audio Cable. Steve had just finished reading May's "Fine Tunes," in which I'd mused further about grounding your audio system.

"Jonathan, grounding to a cold-water pipe is fine as long as that's the way the ground path does, in fact, terminate. If your building does not use a cold-water pipe for ground—that is, without a jumper at the meter—then ground floats around the building, so to speak. And that can be dangerous if you find a way, however unlikely, to touch both ground lines, as there may be a difference in potential just waiting…

Listening #30

"Good career move."—Michael O'Donoghue on the death of Elvis Presley

No one was shocked when RCA Records swung into action after Elvis Presley died, repackaging and reselling every take of every song he'd ever recorded. After all, nearly two decades earlier, they'd actually had a dress rehearsal for the loss of their most valuable property.

In 1958, Elvis Presley was conscripted into the US Army. After basic training in Texas, the king of rock'n'roll was sent to work as a Jeep driver in Freiburg, West Germany, far from the nearest recording studio or movie lot. Presley's manager…

Listening #30 Page 2

That technique will also lessen the severity of tics and pops on mono records, because it increases the amplitude of the music signal relative to, and separate from, the noise. Also, keep in mind that, on a mono LP, dirt and damage exist as vertical groove "modulations" (of the unintentional sort): They're the only things, apart from warps, that will move the stylus and generator up and down. In a two-channel groove, the only other time you see a purely vertical modulation is with left- and right-channel signals that are equal in frequency and amplitude but out of phase with each other.…

Audio Research CD-1 CD player

Walking through the circus that was WCES '95 was like undergoing total neural-synaptic overload. I felt hard-pressed to just keep my head above water separating good sound from bad. Trying to piece together a coherent picture of the show, I jotted down the components in the best systems that I'd heard, and a few items popped up with astonishing regularity. One of these was Audio Research's single-chassis CD player, the CD-1.

Well, I thought, ARC probably sent a lot of them out to exhibitors—after all, it's cheaper than separates. But then I started getting feedback from totally…

Audio Research CD-1 CD player Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: CD player with remote control and digital outputs. Optical pickup: 3-beam LDGU with holographic diffraction light pen. Laser: GaAlAs semiconductor, 780nm wavelength, 0.5mW maximum output. Servo: Digitally controlled low-inertia linear positioning actuator. Jitter reduction: High-stability crystal-controlled reclocking for all outputs. Analog outputs: balanced on XLR jacks, unbalanced on RCA jacks. Digital outputs: one S/PDIF on RCA jack, one AES/EBU on XLR jack, one AT&T ST-Type optical, one TosLink optical. Output impedance: 350 ohms balanced,…

Audio Research CD-1 CD player Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements

The CD-1's maximum output level was 2.08V from the unbalanced jacks, 4.15V from the balanced. Output impedance measured a moderate 330 ohms (balanced) and 165 ohms (unbalanced). DC levels were unmeasurable, and the CD-1 doesn't invert absolute polarity.

Fig.1 is the CD-1's frequency response and de-emphasis error. The 0.8dB rolloff at 20kHz is greater than what we measure in most CD players and digital processors, and may be on the threshold of audibility as a slight reduction in top-octave air. The lower pair of traces in fig.1 shows a positive de-…

Audio Research CD-1 CD player Thomas J. Norton November 1996

Thomas J. Norton wrote about the CD-1 in November 1996 (Vol.19 No.11):

By a lucky coincidence, we had a new sample of the Audio Research CD-1 CD player on hand, awaiting a Follow-Up by Wes Phillips. Since the ARC is directly competitive with the Sony CDP-XA7ES in price, a comparison of the two machines was a no-brainer.

The most obvious difference between the two players was the Sony's richer, fuller sound. On Dead Can Dance's Into the Labyrinth (4AD 45384-2)—beautifully recorded in a natural church acoustic—the CD-1 was a little brighter and more obviously detailed on top, the…