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…
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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?
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…
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,…
While 2011’s Sahel Folk was a quiet, intimate collection of duets—Touré and a friend meeting over a cup of tea—Koïma, 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…
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…
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…
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
Sidebar 2: Contacts
P.W.B. Electronics, 2 Northbrook Croft, Hill View Mount, Leeds LS7 4QZ, England, UK. Web: www.pwbelectronics.co.uk
Speakers Corner HiFi GmbH, Starkenbrook 4, 24214 Gettorf, Germany. Tel: (49) (0)4346-601999. Fax: (49) (0)4346-601998. Web: www.speakerscornerrecords.com
It's common knowledge that manufacturers tune the sound of each DAC model. There are the facts of product design and marketing: inputs, outputs, case materials, price points. After that, what's left are the trade-offs of different circuit designs and filter options, which are chosen with care—each has a subtle yet telling effect on a DAC's sound. Most designers try to go from bits to analog with minimal deviation from perfect. But when you look at the measurements and listen closely, you realize that perfect is elusive. One has to make choices.
The last Peachtree Audio product I reviewed…
Next I sorted through some recent discs from Jah Wobble, who's been drifting from one Asian culture to another, adding his trademark dubby bass guitar and clever editing. His most recent disc focuses on Japan, but for my R2D4 I ended up choosing Molam Dub (CD, 30 Hertz HZCD12), an album from a decade back based on field recordings from Laos. The mix gets very dense in spots, and it was in untangling this record's details that the DACiT suffered a bit in direct comparison with my reference Benchmark USB DAC. The DACiT's saving grace, though, was its sheer musicality, which made listening…