On the Road
The Edge's female voice directed us to I-95 South, toward Washington, DC, and the Ring Road West, then west again on I-66 to Strasburg, Virginia, where we picked up I-81, heading south into the Shenandoah Valley. We played no music till we'd reached Manassas, instead relaxing into the rhythm of the drive, munching miles with maximum momentum. I ignored the adaptive cruise control for now, testing the Edge's dynamic capabilities. The front-wheel-drive Edge is no sports car, but its big chassis comports itself well with no unseemly lurching about, and it's equipped with every…
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Once we turned off I-40W on I-75S to Chattanooga, JA countered with Snowflake's Live Volume 1, tracks 4 and 5; "Scorpio" and "The Message" from Grandmaster Flash ("Don't push me 'cuz I'm close to the (Ford) Edge!" we sang); Trentemoller's "Nightwalker" (very cool); Van Van Van Morrison Morrison Morrison's Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl; and John McLaughlin's ground-breaking 1969 album, Extrapolation. The Ford's Sony system spread the music out before us in an enveloping, appealing, coherent way—not to mention the rather astounding two-guys-on-a-road-trip big-bass fundamentals we…
What other treasures? Oh, just the complete catalog of Deutsche Grammophon's Archiv Produktion label—every single recording—and every Telefunken Das Alte Werk recording, from first to last. Then there's the original "Archive" collection going back to the 1940s, filled with richly musical mono recordings. And did I mention the complete L'Oiseau Lyre Florilegium series—or the collection of operas on LP, which of course requires enormous space? It was dizzying.
Thoroughly impressed, I asked Tam, as we padded back to the listening room, what drove him to spend seven years raising the $1…
Sidebar: The Ford Edge Ltd
When Ford's PR company offered to loan me a fully tricked-out Ford Edge Ltd for our trip to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, it didn't take me a New York minute to say "Yes please." My regular ride is a 1984 Mercedes-Benz 500SEC coupe, and as much as I love that car and its five-liter V8, automotive technology has made major strides since it left the Stuttgart production line.
The standard Ford Edge starts at $34,220. The Ltd that arrived ($39,995, per Ford's website) was fitted with all the trimmings: a 12-speaker, 390W Sony…
I began writing these words on December 1, 2010, 13 years to the day that the magazine's website, www.stereophile.com, emerged from the digital darkness. That first, 1997 edition of our website was to a large extent the brainchild of one man, webmonkey Jon Iverson, who ever since has overseen its design and growth.
That growth resembled the gradual expansion of a stately home, with rooms, apartments, and outbuildings tacked on as required. The result was that, up till last November, our site was using four different Content Management Systems (CMSes) running on four different servers, as…
The Grammy Awards were once about music. As last night’s extravaganza showed, they are now much more about Las Vegas, about entertaining than playing music; than songwriting, singing and learning to play an instrument. But then again it’s TV folks! Glitter and massive multi–media now reign supreme. Oh yeah, and there was music too. Give the Academy credit though, they saw to it that many famous names from the past were dropped or trotted out on stage (more on that soon).
Much as country radio is on a mission to kill it by playing it every 15 minutes, the now ubiquitous Lady A tune, “Need…
Markus Schwartz & Lakou Brooklyn: Equinox
Markus Schwartz, Haitian Rada & Petwo drums, miscellaneous percussion, loop sampler, conch, vocals; Jean Caze, trumpet, flugelhorn, conch, vocals; Monvelyno Alexis, electric guitar, percussion, vocals; Paul Beaudry, double bass, percussion
Soundkeeper SR1002 (CD). 2010. Barry Diament, prod., eng. DDD. TT: 43:16
Performance ****
Sonics *****
Markus Schwartz, Haitian Rada & Petwo drums, miscellaneous percussion, loop sampler, conch, vocals; Jean Caze, trumpet, flugelhorn, conch, vocals; Monvelyno Alexis, electric guitar, percussion, vocals; Paul Beaudry, double bass, percussion
Soundkeeper SR1002 (CD). 2010. Barry Diament, prod., eng. DDD. TT: 43:16
Performance ****
Sonics *****
Think of flat, one-dimensional downloads of soulless, AutoTuned music that sounds more manufactured than played. Then feast on this.
"A live performance, whether in front of an…
Two years ago, I was drawn to the Wilson Audio Sophia Series 2—then as now, the company's entry-level floorstander—by its good reputation among lovers of low-power tube amplifiers. "Forget the specs," they said. "Sophia is the one to hear." In fact, with its 89dB sensitivity (slightly lower than most of Wilson's other domestic loudspeakers) and mildly challenging impedance curve (less daunting than those of its stablemates, but not by a lot), the Sophia seemed, on paper, no better than average for use with flea-watt amps. But when I tried a pair at home with my 25W Shindo Corton-Charlemagne…
Installation and setup
Also like every other Wilson Audio speaker I've had in my home, the Sophia Series 3 was delivered in a well-made wooden crate and installed by a Trained Professional—in this case Wilson's sales manager, the well-known recordist Peter McGrath. In fine-tuning the Sophias' exact locations in my 12' by 19' room, McGrath followed to a T Dave Wilson's systematic, listening-based setup approach, with the added benefit of knowing—and I do mean knowing—the recordings he used. (I don't think it's a coincidence that since McGrath joined Wilson Audio at the turn of the new…
Also like every other Wilson Audio speaker I've had in my home, the Sophia Series 3 was delivered in a well-made wooden crate and installed by a Trained Professional—in this case Wilson's sales manager, the well-known recordist Peter McGrath. In fine-tuning the Sophias' exact locations in my 12' by 19' room, McGrath followed to a T Dave Wilson's systematic, listening-based setup approach, with the added benefit of knowing—and I do mean knowing—the recordings he used. (I don't think it's a coincidence that since McGrath joined Wilson Audio at the turn of the new…
All well and good. But, to paraphrase Mickey Dolenz, I can teach a Sophia 2 to do that. I wouldn't expect a Sophia 3 to sound exactly the same, given the technical changes on tap—and indeed it didn't. In particular, the new speaker had a more open sound, especially noticeable through its lowest octaves (though over time I heard improvements of that sort virtually throughout its frequency range), with bass notes also taking on more realistic detail and natural texture, while sounding appreciably cleaner.
The Sophia 3's greater openness and greater resolution of detail proved blessings…