Using Rossini v2.0 and the Rossini transport and upsampling to 24/352.8 DXD, I heard major differences between MAPs 1 and 3 while playing divine…
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The differences in sound between mappers is based on their different balances of second and third-order distortion. As Quick explained during a break at Definitive Audio's Music Matters 14 event in Seattle, "Of the new mappers, MAP 1 has a slightly higher proportion of third-order to second, which is considered more 'solid-state' sounding; MAP 3 is the inverse, with more second-order to third, and is considered more 'tube-like' and benign."
The 880P is a moving-magnet stereo cartridge for use in transcription arms and the few high-quality record changers now available, such as the Garrard Model A and the Lesa units. It has standard ½" mounting centers, and the pickup requires the 47k ohm termination provided by most preamplifiers. The 8mV output, too, is about ideal for nearly all preamps.
We tried the 880P in Empire's own Model 98 arm, adjusting the stylus force initially for the manufacturer's lowest recommended force: 0.5 grams. The pickup did trace some lightly cut discs at this force without significant breakup, but…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Moving-magnet stereophonic phono cartridge. Frequency range: 6Hz–30kHz. Separation: >30dB. Output: 8mV per channel. Compliance: 30x10–6 cm/dyne. Dynamic mass: 0.5mg. Tracking force: 0.5–3 grams. Total weight: 10 grams. Recommended load: 47k ohms per channel. Stylus: 0.6-mil-radius diamond.
Price: $47.50 (1963); no longer available (2019).
Manufacturer: Empire Scientific Corp., Garden City, NY (1963); company no longer in existence (2019).
Louisiana-born, 58-year-old saxophonist Branford Marsalis has achieved singular status in the worlds of both jazz and classical music. He cut his teeth playing hard-hitting hard bop with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, led The Tonight Show band, and kicked it with the Grateful Dead. He's toured and recorded with Sting, costarred in the Spike Lee film School Daze (1988), and made his classical debut with the New York Philharmonic performing Glazunov's Concerto for Alto Saxophone on Central Park's Great Lawn. He's appeared on more than 100 albums, has recorded more than 30 as a leader, and has…
If you look like you're disinterested, people become disinterested. What we do is not an act; we're not jumping around onstage because we want people to think that we're having a good time. We are reacting to one another. And we are having a good time. We're playing and talking shit while we're playing, and it's all happening at lightning speed. It's what I always wanted in a band, where egos are completely secondary.
Micallef: You led The Tonight Show band in L.A. for three years, then you moved to North Carolina. Why not back to New York?
Marsalis: The New York scene had…
Toronto-based dealer Audio by Mark Jones will host a Luxman Open House on June 6 with special guest Jeff Sigmund, president of Luxman America. On display for the first time in North American will be Luxman’s new CL-1000 flagship vacuum-tube pre-amplifier. The CL-1000 will feature Luxman’s newly developed LECUTA transformer-coupled attenuator circuitry. In Luxman’s tradition of exquisite styling, the CL-1000 features a stunning rosewood cabinet to complement its aluminum faceplate.
Active demonstrations will showcase many Luxman products: the award-winning L-509X integrated amplifier, the M-…
With Trachea, the latest superb recording from Norwegian label 2L, label founder and recording engineer Morten Lindberg continues his commitment to contemporary music. Here, working with Schola Cantorum, Norway’s well-tuned 55-year old chamber choir, under the leadership of Tone Bianca Sparre Dahl, Lindberg scores big with six fascinating and musically accessible choral compositions, all but one of which were written in the last five years.
The opening track, “Snilla Patea” (2016) by Bjørn Kåre Odde (b.1990), begins with what sounds like a medieval Norwegian folk song instrumental. Soon…
"They cost WHAT? A hahahahahaaa!"
Nothing is more guaranteed to amuse non-audiophiles than the subject of high-end cable pricing. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh at you, but...bwah ha ha haaa!" Who can blame them? Even in the hi-fi camp, there are those who are convinced that wires are no more than hideously expensive tone controls. "Hmmpf, cackle. Snort!"
Others hold that, differences in resistance, capacitance, and inductance aside (footnote 1), the whole high-end cable market is just an exercise in mass self-delusion. "Really, how much are they?"
Regular folk, like…
This becomes obvious in works that emphasize precision timing—such as the art of flamenco, and in the music of its preeminent practitioner, Paco de Lucia. Flamenco has a remarkably complex rhythmic structure—the legacy of Moorish music's collision with the even more Eastern traditions of the gypsies. In Andalucia last summer, I became fascinated by the strolling players and their partners who accompanied them with precise and intricate hand-clap patterns. After a week or so, I concluded that these patterns were metrically too complicated to be committed to a score—reinforcing Percy…
Sidebar: Specifications
Music Link Reference interconnect: multi-stranded 99.999% OFHC copper cable with Teflon jacket and precision miniature components comprising Modular Interface Network; OFHC tellurium/copper locking-RCAs attached to cable with 2% silver solder.
Price: $1900/1m single-ended pair (1995).
Music Wave Reference speaker cable: multi-stranded 99.999% OFHC copper cable with polypropylene jacket and precision-tuned Modular Interface Network; high-quality spade lugs machined from solid bar tellurium copper and welded to the cable.
Price: $4100/8' pair, $4300/…