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For the Live Music Junkie: Concert Vault

Bill Graham: holocaust survivor, legendary concert promoter, and all-around badass.
Photo by Mark Sarfati

Please. One more hit. Just one. That’s all I need. Another song, another act. It won’t hurt. It can’t hurt. I promise this will be the last place we go. Four hours later, we wake up on a subway train in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Live music can be a dangerous thing. The thrills of a live show, the blending lightshow, the stomach-shaking bass, the spit and the sweat, are irreplaceable, but the life of the live music junkie can drain one’s energy and bank account. Fortunately,…

A Much Belated CMJ Report

CMJ in New York City is a clusterfuck. Too many bands billed at each venue for them to handle with ease in one night. Too many shows to choose from all within a 2-block radius with about fifty bands you have never heard of and only nine you have. And too many people who are there for the “CMJ” experience rather than to witness the bands. Nevertheless, this CMJ was a good one.

My first year of CMJ, I avoided it completely. The second year, I managed to catch one show: Prince Rama live the Cake Shop. At the show, I met Sara, a pixie-nosed blonde. Afterwards, we shared a drink at Arlene's…

The Solti <I>Ring</I> Remastered...Again

WAGNER: Der Ring des Nibelungen (digitally re-remastered)
Birgit Nilsson, Hans Hotter, Wolfgang Windgassen, George London, Gustav Neidlinger, Gerhard Stolze, Gottlob Frick, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Kirsten Flagstadt, Set Svanholm, James King, Régine Crespin, Christa Ludwig, Clair Watson, many others; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti
London 455 555-2 (14 CDs). 1966, 1997. John Culshaw, prod.; Gordon Parry, eng.; James Lock, re-remastering eng. ADD. TT: 14:36:56
Performance *****
Sonics ****½

Also available separately:
Das Rheingold, London…

Center Stage: Guitarist Albert Lee in surround sound

Humble, unprepossessing, modest are not words normally associated with lead guitarists, or lead singers, or lead anything. But Albert Lee, the Fender Telecaster devotee, has, by all accounts, always been refreshingly down to earth. The other unusual quality about Lee is that he's an English guitarist who, in country music, can hold his own against any American player.

Lee was the only major English guitarist of the 1970s who decided to follow his first love, country music, and not even attempt to match the blues-rock players who then dominated the UK and US rock charts. "In the '70s,…

Listening #119

Apart from a 2004 column in which I made cruel fun of the angriest (footnote 1) complaints I'd received to that point—an entertaining if lazy template I hope to re-use before long—I've done little to acknowledge the mail I receive every week, most of it thoughtful and positive. I'm especially grateful for the nice letters I get every time I write about vintage audio, as I did in Stereophile's August issue ("Five vintage loudspeakers you should hear before you die"): The art of music is best served by an open-minded approach to playback gear, and I'm encouraged to think that some Stereophile…

Listening #119 Page 2

The product we tried next was the DeVore Fidelity O/96 Orangutan: a vintage-vibe two-way loudspeaker that impressed us all that day. (A full review is scheduled for the December 2012 issue.) The O/96 is a wide-baffle speaker, designed to be used atop similarly wide wooden stands (included in the $12,000/pair price). On one of the more clearheaded days that followed, I noticed that the DeVore stands, if rotated 90°, could fit nicely between the integral feet of the Line Magnetic enclosures. Once I'd determined how to maneuver the very heavy 755 I's onto the stands (hint: it involved child…

Listening #119 List of the month

Sidebar 1: List of the month

Most rock-band reunions are the proverbial eggs that shouldn't be cooked. The five original members of the Byrds shouldn't have made the awful Byrds in 1972. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young shouldn't have made the awful Looking Forward in 1999, with its awful hippie-baby cover photo. The surviving members of the Who shouldn't have played that awful Super Bowl half-time show in 2010. And every time someone mentions the possibility of a reunion of the Smiths, God kills a kitten.

But there have been exceptions—seven, in fact. Here are the greatest rock…

Listening #119 Contacts

Sidebar 2: Contacts

Klipsch, 3502 Woodview Trace, Suite 200, Indianapolis, IN 46268. Tel: (800) 544-1482, (317) 860-8100. Fax: (317) 860-9170. Web: www.klipsch.com.

Line Magnetic Audio Co. Ltd., 4th Floor, Building No.2, Ping Xi Road No.6, Nanping Industry Park, Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. Tel: (86) 0756-3911927. Fax: (86) 0756-3911933. US distributor: Tone Imports. Web: www.toneimports.com

Music in the Round #57

I'm writing this in the dog days of a hot August. Over the past few months, a couple of interesting devices have accumulated, but were bumped from the column in favor of bigger things, as it should be. So this column is an end-of-season close-out.

Atlantic Technology WA-5030 Wireless Transmitter/Amplifier-Receiver System
Its name is a mouthful, but this useful device is based on a simple concept. Atlantic Technology has added a power amplifier to a wireless audio transmitter and receiver and called it the WA-5030 Wireless Transmitter/Amplifier-Receiver System ($399; additional WA-5030…

Music in the Round #57 Page 2

Using the Anti-Mode 2.0 mostly as a room equalizer with a pair of full-range loudspeakers, the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamonds, I tried a number of ways of inserting it into the system. Most obvious and useful was to put it between preamp and power amp, using the XLR ins/outs and full A/D/A conversions. I also tried it between the Oppo BDP-95 universal Blu-ray player's TosLink S/PDIF output and the Meridian 861's TosLink input. This meant no A/D conversions, but confined the EQ's effect to the Oppo. I also tried, briefly, the Anti-Mode 2.0's digital input and analog XLR outputs, thereby…