search

Sight + Sound Gallery Opens in Atlanta, GA

Photo by Terrell Clark

Friday, May 11, at 5pm: Sight + Sound (Studioplex, G8, 659 Auburn Avenue, Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta, GA) hosts its grand opening as both a contemporary art gallery and high-end audio equipment retailer. The gallery will showcase artwork from local artists while exhibiting gear from T+A, Nordost, and Elipson.

On exhibit for the opening will be regional photographer Terrell Clark’s 3 Feet Above Sea Level: A Pinhole Exploration of the French Quarter, where Clark captures “an unconventional perspective of the Quarter and challenges the notion of a ‘perfect’…

Philips CitiScape Downtown

I’ve been curious about Philips’ new CitiScape Downtown headphones ($99) ever since reading Tyll Hertsens’ review, so I ran into Best Buy this afternoon and checked them out.

I only listened for a short while, but I immediately liked what I heard. Scrolling between hip-hop, R&B, and pop selections, I was hoping for Prince, but settled for Adele. I found that “Rolling in the Deep,” the lead track from the excellent 21 sounded particularly fine, with a really impressive sense of space around the British singer’s powerful voice and good detail and clarity to the acoustic guitar. The…

MartinLogan CLX Art at Audio Advice

Thursday, May 10, 2–8pm: As part of MartinLogan's Truth in Sound Tour, Audio Advice (11409 Carolina Place Parkway, Pineville, NC) will host an evening of music featuring the MartinLogan Reserve ESL Series CLX Art loudspeaker ($25,495/pair). With the CLX Art, MartinLogan aimed to create “the world’s finest full-range electrostatic line source loudspeaker.” MartinLogan reps will be on hand for the demonstration and to answer any questions.

The Unofficial Dynamic Range Database

At the 2012 NYC hi-fi show, I was chastised by a random showgoer for using a “dynamic-less” recording as a reference in the Legacy room. Now with the help of the Unofficial Dynamic Range Database, I can find the dynamic range measurements of many of my favorite recordings, including the record ridiculed by one spiteful audiophile. Was he right about its dynamics?

The “Unofficial” Dynamic Range Database uses a sliding scale from 1 to 20 (1 being the worst, 20 being the best) to rank the dynamic quality of each of the recordings they list. This number represents the difference between the…

The Brooklyn Flea Record Fair

Saturday, May 19, 11am–6pm: The Brooklyn Flea Record Fair will be held at Smorgasburg (the Williamsburg, Brooklyn waterfront, between North 6th and North 7th Streets, at the East River) and will host some of New York City’s most exciting independent record labels and shops: Representatives from Ba Da Bing, Cakeshop, DFA, Domino, FatCat, Halcyon, Knitting Factory, Minimal Wave, Other Music, RVNG, Sacred Bones, Secretly Canadian, Temporary Residence, True Panther, and more will be on hand for the event.

Hanging out near the river with friends, flipping through record bins, fingers sticky…

The Audio Society of Minnesota Conducts Cable Comparison Tests

Between listening sessions, cabled were switched.

Each monthly issue of Stereophile includes an updated calendar of all the different hi-fi events taking place across the United States. We also maintain this calendar on our Facebook Events page. One of the events that really caught our eye was the Blind Cable Comparison Tests performed by the Audio Society of Minnesota, which took place on Tuesday, April 17th. Here is the report as submitted by members of the Audio Society of Minnesota. The Society reported record crowds for this event. Hopefully, this spirit of questioning, discovery,…

Sidi Touré: <i>Koïma</i>

While 2011’s Sahel Folk was a quiet, intimate collection of duets&#151Touré and a friend meeting over a cup of tea&#151Koïma, Sidi Touré’s second full-length album for Thrill Jockey, is a much more jubilant affair.

Here, Touré is joined by Oumar Konaté on lead guitar, Charles-Eric Charrier on bass, Alex Baba on calabash, Zumana Téreta on a violin-like instrument called sokou, and Leïla Ahimidi Gobbi on backing vocals; and, while much of Sahel Folk sounded subdued and almost tentative, as though we were hearing the beginnings of the songwriting process, misty colors that gradually…

Listening #113

In last month's column we met May Belt, whose contributions to domestic audio—made alongside her husband, designer Peter W. Belt—all have to do with reflexive perception: conditions under which a listener's comprehension of music can be altered, given the presence or absence of certain nonsonic stimuli.

Because those stimuli seldom have much to do with the science of audio playback, products intended to control them don't have much to do with normal audio gear; so it goes in the world of Beltism, where fanciful and often bizarre techniques—ointments, stickers, pens, paper clips, metal…

Listening #113 Page 2

Stranger still, Peter and May suggest that the temporal-energy disruptions imposed by photography can be reversed for a given subject by following these simple steps: Locate a photograph of the subject taken when he or she was relatively young, seal it in a plastic bag, and place that bag in the freezer. Do the same with a more contemporary photograph of that person. Problem solved.

Empiricism aside, and with all due respect to the Belts, I'm deeply skeptical of those theories. Even if we assume that the act of photography has some sort of quantum-level effect on energy patterns that…

Listening #113 List of the Month

Sidebar 1: List of the Month

Picking up from last issue, and in no particular order, here are . . .
Ten Tweaks that Appear to Still Be in Use by At Least Some of the Reviewers Who Once Hailed Them as "Indispensable"

1. Shun Mook Mpingo Discs
2. LAST record treatment
3. Zerostat static-electricity neutralizer
4. Vibraplane
5. VPI Brick
6. Walker Valid Points
7. P.W.B. Electret Cream
8. Keith Monks and VPI record-cleaning machines
9. Hunt EDA carbon-fiber record brush
10. Blu-Tack plasticene