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Bryce Dessner: Crossing Boundaries

Photo: Graham MacIndoe

Crossing borders and genre boundaries is never easy, but for Bryce Dessner, it's become a familiar experience.

Dessner, 45, a classically trained guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, has racked up multi-hyphenates over the last couple of decades of his musical career. Arguably best known for his work with indie rock band The National—where he shares lead guitar, piano, songwriting, and other duties with his identical-twin brother Aaron—he's also an accomplished arranger and producer and cofounder of two record labels.

He's also one of those…

Bryce Dessner: Crossing Boundaries Page 2

Classical music gets treated more holistically. "[For] classical music recording especially, it's important to capture the performance, the energy, the chemistry of the room, and the musicians that are phrasing and tuning and reacting to each other," he said.

"Why record [a work] again if it's not about the actual moment, you know? So that's part of that culture."

He even likes mistakes in his concert music, he told me: "Sometimes especially string players will do something that you didn't write, in terms of the sound. You might have written a G, but they're playing it with a…

Bryce Dessner: Crossing Boundaries Bryce Dessner Picks

Sidebar: Julie Mullins's Bryce Dessner Picks

St. Carolyn by the Sea/Suite from There Will Be Blood, with Jonny Greenwood and Copenhagen Philharmonic, Andre de Ridder, cond., 2014.
Swirls of electric guitar amid flutes with full orchestral sweep and a sense of stately drama. High-note pizzicatos give way to urgent strings on Lachrimae.

El Chan, with Katia and Marielle Labèque, pianos, 2019.
Intense attacks, rapid-fire runs, and delicate pianissimos. Includes the Concerto for Two Pianos Dessner composed for the two sisters.

Music for Wood…

Conrad-Johnson PV-5 preamplifier

The $1485 PV-5 is a "budget" version of C-J's $2850 Premier Three preamplifier, but according to the manufacturer it embodies much the same kind of circuitry.

Tubed preamplifiers have a well-earned reputation as system busters. Many of them during warmup produce horrendous bangs or plops so severe that every speaker fuse in the system blows. If fuses are absent, or rated too high to protect things, the amplifier, speakers, or both are likely to blow up (not literally; they just twitch once and lie down dead). The PV-5 contains one of the most effective pop suppressors I've encountered,…

Conrad-Johnson PV-5 preamplifier Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Description: Tube stereo preamplifier. Inputs: MM or MC phono, tuner, 2 tape loops. Controls: Left, right, stereo, reverse, mono. 2 main outputs, 2 tape outputs, 4 AC outputs (2 switched, 2 unswitched). Frequency response: +0/–2dB, 2Hz–100kHz. Maximum output: 25V volts. Phono overload: 500mV.
Dimensions: 16" W × ll¾ × D by 4" H.
Price: $1485 (1984); no longer available (2021).
Manufacturer: Conrad-Johnson Design, MacLean, VA 22101 (1984); 2800K Dorr Avenue, Fairfax, VA USA 22031 (2021). Tel: (703) 698-8581. Web: conradjohnson.com.

SigTech TF 1120 Time Field Acoustic Correction System

Imagine an electronic magic wand you could wave at your listening room's acoustical problems to make them disappear. The Cambridge Signal Technologies SigTech TF 1120 may be just such an alchemical device. Its efficacy depends on the nature of the acoustical warts in your listening environment. Operating solely within the digital domain, the SigTech device can perform both drastic and subtle frequency-response and time-domain corrections that are beyond the scope of analog-based units. While the TF 1120 is expensive, in some situations it may still be the most cost-effective way of coping…

SigTech TF 1120 Time Field Acoustic Correction System Page 2

While the SigTech is an extraordinarily complex and sophisticated piece of gear, once it's been properly set up it's quite simple to use: Pick the right input source, select the proper filter from four choices, and turn it on and off via the bypass switch. During six months of using it, I never had a glitch or problem that was not due to user error (usually I'd be on the wrong input on the TF 1120 or the EAD 9000 III D/A processor). Once properly installed, the SigTech unit operates invisibly, calling little attention to itself. Even after power-outages, brownouts, and other power-line…

SigTech TF 1120 Time Field Acoustic Correction System Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Digital acoustic equalization system: Inputs: AES/EBU XLR, S/PDIF RCA, AT&T (ST) optical. Sampling rates: 44.1kHz, 48kHz. Optional analog inputs with 20-bit sigma-delta ADCs: balanced XLR with adjustable sensitivity from –4dBu to +24dBu and 15k ohms input impedance; single-ended RCA with adjustable sensitivity from –8dBu to +20dBu and 10k ohms input impedance. Frequency response: 10Hz–21kHz, +0, &#150 .5dB. Dynamic range: 103dB unweighted. Outputs: AES/EBU XLR, S/PDIF RCA, AT&T (ST) optical. Optional Analog outputs use 20-bit, 8x-oversampling DAC with…

Rauna Balder loudspeaker

The Swedish Rauna company, which has been in existence for about five years—their little Mk.II Tyr two-way impressed J. Gordon Holt a couple of years back in Vol.9 No.2—appears to be dedicated to the use of concrete as an enclosure material. One of the problems with conventional wooden cabinets is that the walls flex and vibrate, adding a spurious and often time-delayed output at some frequencies. It has even been reported that in extreme cases, the contribution of the cabinet to the overall sound at some frequencies approaches that from the drive-units. In theory, concrete should give a…

Rauna Balder loudspeaker Associated Equipment

Sidebar 1: Associated Equipment

The test procedure followed, with minor changes, that established for my previous loudspeaker reviews: each pair was used with a Mark Levinson No.26/No.20 combination—amplification unlikely to be used with any of these speakers but which would undoubtedly get the best from them—a Marantz CD94 CD player used via its optical digital output to feed a Marantz CDA94 outboard DAC unit, and a 1987 Linn Sondek/Ittok/Troika combination sitting on a Sound Organization table.

Interconnect was Madrigal HPC, speaker cable was also from Madrigal. The…