I just saw a rainbow fall into the floor
Shattered into pieces, your eyes ask “What for?”
These days I’m all alone out in the middle of the world
These days I’m trying to tell myself you’re just some other girl
–"Off the Wall," Lee Ranaldo
It was around noon on Sunday, October 16th, 2011, and I was in the lobby of the Denver Marriott Tech Center. Jennifer Atocha broke the news. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore had separated after 27 years of marriage and 16 awesome full-length albums with their band, Sonic Youth:
the
band
that
had
changed…
Wagner: Lohengrin
Placido Domingo, Lohengrin; Jessye Norman, Elsa; Eva Randova, Ortrud; Siegmund Nimsgern, Telramund; Hans Sotin, Heinrich; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heerrufer; Vienna State Opera Chorus; Georg Solti, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
London 421 053-1 (4 LPs), 421 053-2 (4 CDs). James Lock, John Pellowe, engs.; Christopher Raeburn, prod. DDD. TT: 222:54
It's always surprised me that Lohengrin, Wagner's most awkward, transitional, and static opera, was, for its first 100 years, his most popular. It didn't help, I suppose, that I began my study of things darkly Teutonic…
Erick Lichte
One aspect of the Totem Forest loudpeakers that LG commented on in his original review was their ability to throw a large soundstage. But while the Forests' imaging greatly improved with the addition of ballast, I never got them to create the truly holographic soundstages LG wrote of. Sound tended to lump up around each speaker instead of being spread evenly between them. When I touched the cabinet of a Forest while playing them at even moderate volumes, I felt a whole lotta shakin' goin' on; those cabinets "sang along" with the music more than I'm used to. I can't help but…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Passive device, machined from aluminum, to control "parasitic resonances" in loudspeakers.
Dimensions: 2" high by 1.5" diameter.
Price: $125/pair.
Manufacturer: Totem Acoustic, 9165 rue Champ d'Eau, Montreal, Quebec H1P 3M3, Canada. Tel: (514) 259-1062. Fax: (514) 259-4968. Web: www.totemacoustic.com.
I was sort of surprised when I saw that Urban Outfitters, the hipster home and apparel shop, had started selling LPs. I was more surprised to learn that they had a headphone listening station—you can actually walk into the store with your iPod and audition a bunch of headphones. But now Urban Outfitters is carrying Music Hall turntables and Audioengine powered loudspeakers. I really like this.
The Music Hall USB-1 turntable and Audioengine’s powered loudspeakers make a quick, versatile, musically engaging, and great-looking system, compatible with both analog and digital media…
On the topic of real hi-fi in the real world, Pro-Ject Debut III turntables and Grado SR80i headphones are available at CB2, the Crate & Barrel offshoot for modern, affordable home goods. No joke: Hi-fi is hip again.
Bob Reina reviewed the Pro-Ject Debut III ($399) in our February 2010 issue, and Jim Austin reviewed the more affordable Grado SR60i ($79) in our April 2010 issue.
Bill at the cutting lathe.
In our “Becoming an Audiophile” series, readers share stories of how they got into the hi-fi hobby. This is the story of how Bill Pauluh became an audiophile.
I’ve been involved with music, phonographs, and hi-fi going back to when I was four or five years old. I came up at the end of the 78rpm era in the late 1950s. I would guess that I’m in the ballpark age of Michael Fremer. The really big “six oh” is arriving at the end of July—scary.
I got my love of music from my mother and my mechanical/troubleshooting ability from my father. Put…
Welcome back, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the continuing saga of the Englishman's Search for True Bass. In the previous episode (footnote 1), you witnessed Our Hero tussling with the problems of ported vs sealed-box woofer loading for full-range speaker systems. His conclusion? That ported designs may offer low-frequency quantity but it always seems to be at the expense of quality. If it's bass quality you want, you are better off with well-tuned sealed boxes, which explains why he is an unashamed fan of relatively small speakers with fast, tight upper bass. In this month's thrilling installment…
The fact that both low-pass signals of either polarity are available makes it a cinch to use bridged amplifiers to drive the subwoofers—one output is taken to one half of a stereo amplifier, its inverse to the other half, and the subwoofer connected across the two "hot" speaker terminals. (The amplifier in question must not have "floating" outputs.)
Getting the top cover off is an easy matter, involving undoing four Philips-head screws on the sides; getting it on again proved more difficult, for some reason known only to Murphy. Construction is to a high standard. (Sumo actually…
I noticed another soundstage enhancement due to the stereo subwoofers: due to Cathedral regulations, I was forced to place the Calrec Soundfield mike some 15 feet above the conductor's head, meaning that some instruments—bass drum and timps—and the soloists were to the side. Conventionally, these are reproduced as coming from the extreme sides of the soundfield, ie, at the speaker positions. With the Sumos in circuit, these images came from beyond the SL600 positions and were stable. And the thwack from the bass drum at Letter 10 in the introduction now knocked off not only my socks but my…
