Sidebar 2: Measurements
The Canalis Anima is very similar to the earlier Sonics by Joachim Gerhard Anima (favorably reviewed by Wes Phillips in July 2007), replacing that speaker's marine-grade plywood cabinet with one made of bamboo plywood. With the speakers placed on their matching stands, which place the listener's ears level with the top of the woofers rather than slightly above the tweeters, John Marks wrote that "the Animas struck a wonderful tonal balance that had only a slight emphasis of the treble."
I examined the performance of the Anima with DRA Labs' MLSSA system,…
No, this will not be another monologue where I profess my undying love for Larry, our house cat, the furry little monster with a taste for human flesh and a weird fascination with the refrigerator. Larry is a music lover too. Ever since he was a kitten, we surrounded him with the sounds of Yes, Flying Lotus, and Dvorak, and now his long legs fumble into any room where music is playing. Larry will then sprawl himself out, close his eyes, and listen along.
Alright. I've broken my promise already by talking too much about Larry.
Here are a couple pictures from Reddit user whitekeys…
Rhino Records
The bigger the record, the more fascinating what was left behind. One question I’ve always loved asking musicians about their iconic records is what didn’t make the cut; what, if anything, is left in the can. More often than not there are demos, rejected takes or songs left lingering in a tape vault somewhere that are a fascinating window into the process behind a record like Fleetwood Mac’s immortal Rumours. Rhino’s new Rumours Deluxe Edition (4xCD, DVD, LP) has added much to the story of this 70’s colossus.
Through a variety of sources—one being a wink from…
Have you heard enough about Matmos from the Stereophile boys yet? Probably. Truth be told, upon first listen I didn't really like their new record The Marriage of True Minds. I found it aimless (I prefer music with intent), but first listens can be deceptive. I'll let Stephen tell you how he grew to love it in our upcoming April issue. Meanwhile, this remix has me thinking I should give the record another go.
Here Soft Pink Truth remixes the track "Aetheric Vehicle" from The Marriage of True Minds replete with clicks, clacks, jangles, and bells. Soft Pink Truth is made up of one…
Ben Goldberg's Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues (on his self-owned BAG Production label), is an album as seriously playful as its title. There's a deceptive looseness in the music's rhythm, veering toward New Orleans bar stomp, but braced by modern harmonies (Steve Lacy, Monk, and Andrew Hill are heavy influences), and swung from an early Ornette-ish sense of blues (one of Goldberg's 9 originals on the album, "Study of the Blues," is a Cubist riff on the opening bars of "Lonely Woman"), though rooted more in Coleman's deep melody than his Free velocity.
The band is topnotch: Goldberg on…
Image courtesy the Berklee College of Music
Since its founding, Boston's famed Berklee College of Music has marched to the beat of its own drum section, preferring experienced working musicians over credentialed academics as instructors, and emphasizing practical knowledge over disembodied theory.
As examples, Berklee offered the first college-level instrumental program in guitar, as well as the first college-level course in jingle writing. Alumni include Toshiko Akiyoshi, Donald Fagen, Arif Mardin, and Brad Mehldau, while Stereophile’s Bob Reina studied composition with Jack…
Since its founding just over ten years ago, Mission Electronics has grown to become one of the largest "real" hi-fi companies in the UK. Although their product line originally consisted of three relatively conventional loudspeakers, it rapidly grew to encompass high-end pre- and power amplifiers, cartridges, tonearms, and turntables, and, in the mid 1980s, a system concept based on CD replay and relatively inexpensive electronics: the Cyrus amplifiers and tuner. Although founder Farad Azima, an erstwhile UK pro-audio importer and distributor, has run the company since its inception and has a…
Mission PCM 7000 CD player: $999
This latest Mission CD player has already been reviewed in Stereophile, by George Graves in Vol.10 No.2 and Martin Colloms in Vol.10 No.4, so I will only give it a brief description. Although based on Philips' second-generation digital filter and 4x oversampled, 16-bit DAC circuitry, it is not a modified Philips player. Rather, the slim chassis contains the Philips transport and digital board, with Mission's proprietary analog circuitry on a separate board. Based on high-quality op-amps, this has two unusual features: CMOS switching ICs are used to give…
Mission Cyrus Two amplifier: $599
Now some three years old as a product, the Cyrus Two is a very compact integrated amplifier, considering its 50Wpc output, as wide but a little longer than an "A4" sheet of paper. (For those unfamiliar with international standard paper sizes, A4 is the same size as the popular RadioShack/Tandy 100/102 laptop computers, if not quite as thick, of course.) The shorter sides of the paper comprise the front and rear panels of the amplifier; the front carries a volume control, a source selector marked "Listen," another selector marked "Record," and apart from…
Mission 780 Argonaut loudspeaker: $1799/pair
As I said earlier, the classic Mission 770 was very much a BBC-influenced design, conforming to the British idea of a low-sensitivity, reflex-loaded, "monitor" speaker, though it had excellent upper-bass clarity compared with its similar-sized contemporaries, the Rogers Studio Monitor and Spendor BC1. The top of Mission's 1987 line, the 780 Argonaut has very little in common with the original 770. A tall, attractively styled, floor-standing sealed-box design, it uses two 8.5" polypropylene-coned woofers, with inverted dust caps bearing the…
