Albert Lee: Tearing It Up
AIX Records AIX 85054 (BD). Mark Waldrep, prod.; Mona Waldrep, exec. prod.; Dominic Robelotto, assoc. prod., eng., BD authoring. DDD. TT: 100:00
Performance *****
Sonics *****
"From a layman's perspective, I'd listen to the 'Audience' mix on my first bourbon and the 'Stage' mix on my second."
Ahh, yes, out of the mouths of . . . audiophiles . . . who like good booze!
Lacking a 5.1-channel surround-sound rig at home, I enlisted the able assistance of "Music in the Round" columnist Kalman Rubinson, who then convinced his son-in-law,…
Fifty years ago this month, Vol.1 No.1, Issue No.1 of The Stereophile, published, edited, and mostly written by J. Gordon Holt out of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, hit the newsstands. Gordon had worked for two major audio magazines, High Fidelity and HiFi/Stereo Review (later renamed Stereo Review), and had been disgusted by those magazines' pandering to advertisers. Not only was The Stereophile going to tell it like it was, it was going to judge audio components by listening to them—a heretical idea in those days of meters and measurements. "Dammit," said Gordon, who died in 2009, "if nobody…
In this list, I give you my top five guitar solos of all time. Various characteristics were considered for placement on this list: technical skill, melodic composition and framework, pop sensibility, harmonization, but no value was considered more important than ‘does it move me?’.
There are no numbers indicating whether one is first or fifth. If the solo is listed here, it is simply one of the best.
Guitarist: Robert Fripp
Song: “St. Elmo’s Fire”
Time: 1:20
Album: Another Green World
Artist: Brian Eno
Amongst a landscape of lush piano chords,…
Since its founding in 1993, Colorado-based Ayre Acoustics has made its name with amplifiers and preamplifiers based on truly balanced, solid-state circuitry that didn't use the ubiquitous panacea of loop negative feedback to produce linear behavior. Their first digital product was the D-1x DVD player, reviewed for Stereophile by Paul Bolin in February 2003, which offered unusually good video performance. The D-1x was followed by the C-5xe and DX-5 universal players, respectively reviewed by Wes Phillips (July 2005) and Michael Fremer (December 2010). But the most intriguing digital product to…
"So now we are starting to get somewhere—perfect transient response, combined with zero-feedback, fully discrete, fully analog circuitry."
Hansen had mentioned that the QA-9's response was flat to around 1Hz.
"Another thing that we wanted to avoid that is ubiquitous with ADC chips is the brick-wall high-pass filter that is intended to keep DC out of your system. Now, it is good to eliminate DC for a variety of valid reasons, but adding a brick-wall filter will create ringing no matter whether it is a low-pass or a high-pass filter. The Arda ADC chip carries its own similar DC…
My first rips were of these LPs: Astaire (English Mercury 9109 702), a 1979 album from the English singer and pianist Peter Skellern in which he imaginatively arranges songs made famous by the elegant dancer for his multitracked voice, piano, rhythm section, and English brass band; "Die Tänzerin," from German singer Ulla Meinecke's Wenn Schon Nicht für Immer, dann Wenigstens für Ewig (German RCA 426124); Sly and the Family Stone's Fresh, from 1973, which features Doris Day reprising "Que Sera, Sera" (Epic ECD 69039); the first album from British blues band Steamhammer (1969, English CBS…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid-state A/D converter with USB 2.0 and AES/EBU data outputs, one pair of balanced analog inputs on XLR jacks (pin 2 hot). Sample rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192kHz (USB Class 2); 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96kHz (USB Class 1). Bit depth: 24. Input impedance: 2M ohms (1M ohm per signal phase). Input sensitivity: 10.0V RMS with level control at minimum, 750mV with control at maximum. Pro version adds Word Clock and DSD outputs, both on 75 ohm, transformer-isolated BNC jacks.
Dimensions: 8.5" (215mm) W by 3" (76mm) H by 11.5" (290mm) D. Weight: 5…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B phono cartridge.
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP & DX-5 universal players; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.7, iTunes 10, Pure Music 1.86, Vinyl Studio, Pure Vinyl, BIAS Peak Pro 7; dCS Debussy, Metric Halo ULN-2 (headphone output), Benchmark DAC 1 (headphone output) D/A converters; Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 4 USB–AES/ABU converter; Metric Halo ULN-2, dCS904 A/D converters.
Preamplification: Liberty B2B-1 phono preamplifier, Classé CP…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It") to examine the Ayre QA-9's measured performance, analyzing the AES/EBU output data in the digital domain. I repeated some measurements using the USB connection and examined the resultant AIFF files with Adobe Audition's FFT analyzer. I assessed only the QA-9's behavior as an LPCM converter; take it as read that all the measurements I discuss refer to both AES/EBU and USB output formats, there being no difference between them…
On May 21, 2008, five months after purchasing my very first turntable (a Rega Research P3-24), I decided that my obsession with LPs had grown to the extent that I could no longer function without a good record-cleaning machine. I'd done some research and found that the device best suited to my life and wallet was VPI's time-honored HW-16.5. I was certain, anxious, determined. But that morning, when I gave VPI a call, the line was busy. When I called again in the afternoon, the line was busy. When I called again in the evening, the line was busy.
When someone finally answered my call, I…
