Our final issue of 2016 kicks off with Robert Schryer recommending that doctors tell us to "take two Grateful Deads and call me in the morning," followed by reviews of amplifiers from Cary Audio, Pass Labs, Lamm, and Audio…
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For the 26th time, Stereophile's editors and reviewers have voted for the products that impressed them most in the past year. The results are in: 60 finalists and 9 winners in 7 categories; plus for the third year in a row, a section in which everyone nominated their personal product of the year. Some of the winners could be predicted, but others come from left field!
Dear Reader: This is my first of a series of industry profiles. The hi-fi publication sector largely consists of equipment reviews and music features. My hope for this series is to focus instead on the great people who keep this industry alive from the ground up, behind the scenes—designers, engineers, listeners, salespeople, and all music lovers alike (footnote 1). It should be interesting.
As the winter months inevitably approach, it feels only appropriate to delay the forthcoming cold with one last bit of summer. Summer Yin and I have known each other for nearly a year and a half,…
John McEuen: Made in Brooklyn
Chesky JD388 (CD). 2016. John McEuen, David Chesky, prods.; Norman Chesky, exec. prod.; Nicholas Prout, Mor Mezrich, Max Steen, engs. DDD? TT: 65:03
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
Chesky JD388 (CD). 2016. John McEuen, David Chesky, prods.; Norman Chesky, exec. prod.; Nicholas Prout, Mor Mezrich, Max Steen, engs. DDD? TT: 65:03
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
The invite from David Chesky was simple enough: "Hey Robert, John McEuen, David Bromberg and a lot of other people are going to make a record in this abandoned church that a friend of mine owns in Brooklyn, you wanna come by?" Knowing the resourcefulness, not to mention good ears, of David and Norman Chesky, owners of Chesky Records, I soon arrived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn…
My friend was in dire straits. What had been rare occurrences of panic attacks—one every year or so—had turned into a full-blown panic disorder that made it impossible for him to enjoy peace of mind..
If you've never suffered a panic attack, the idea of one—of being, in the absence of any real threat, suddenly overwhelmed by fear—can seem inconceivably strange. Try to imagine fear flooding your mind with such fierce momentum that you struggle to catch your breath, so convincing is the sensation that everything is spinning horribly out of control. Once that happens and the fear has taken…
There's a lot happening, in Raleigh, Charlotte, Edmonton, Calgary, and Ontario.
Wednesday–Thursday, November 16–17, 5–9pm: North Carolina's Audio Advice will host their annual two-day Music Matters Event at their Raleigh and Charlotte locations. The event takes place in Raleigh (8621 Glenwood Avenue) on Wednesday, November 16th, and moves to Charlotte (11409 Carolina Place Parkway) the following day. Manufacturer representatives from Aerial Acoustics, Audio Research, AudioQuest, Bowers & Wilkins, GoldenEar, MartinLogan, Peachtree, PrimaLuna, and more will be on hand to play great…
I'm a progressive who enjoys the company of his conservative friends, a Catholic who's thankful for his atheist friends, and a carnivore who cherishes his vegetarian friends. I'm also a vintage-audio enthusiast who loves his audiophile friends who aren't so inclined—so I was doubly happy to see, in the September 2016 edition of Michael Fremer's "Analog Corner," a hearty endorsement of Ortofon's latest SPU: a 58-year-old phono-cartridge design that, like the coelacanth, continues to thrive despite expectations.
Mikey is a longtime friend who harbors no love for vintage phonography—yet…
At the end of the day, I preferred the SPU #1S, but by a smaller margin than I might have expected: The SPU #1E still satisfied, and did so for a crazy-low price. Indeed, both of these new SPUs offer exceptional value for the money, and either would make an excellent starting point for the shopper who's curious about vintage gear. To anyone whose record player includes an easily adjusted tonearm that can be fitted with an SME-standard pickup head, these new Ortofons are very highly recommended.
Motor trends
Before leaving the subject of quasi-vintage phonography: During the months…
Sidebar: Contacts
Ortofon A/S, Stavangervej 9, DK-4900 Nakskov, Denmark. Ortofon Inc. 500 Executive Boulevard, Suite 102, Ossining, NY 10562. Tel: (914) 762-8646. Web: www.ortofon.com
Perfect Sound, 11 Aspen Place, New Milton, Hampshire, England BH25 6NX, UK. Tel: (44) 0787-6207636. Web: www.perfectsound.co.uk
J.L. Smith & Co., 901 Blairhill Road, Suite 400, Charlotte, NC 28217. Tel: (800) 659-6073. Web: www.jlsmithco.com
AudioSilente, Via Felice Grossi Gondi, 00162 Rome, Italy. Tel: (39) 3289610968. Web: www.audiosilente.com
It has been 20 years since I first became aware of the British company Data Conversion Systems, which manufactures audio products under the dCS brand. Rather than use off-the-shelf conversion chips, the groundbreaking dCS Elgar D/A converter, which I reviewed in our July 1997 issue, featured a then-unique D/A design that they called a Ring DAC. This featured a five-bit, unitary-weighted, discrete DAC running at 64 times the incoming data's sample rate—2.822MHz for 44.1kHz-based data, 3.07MHz for 48kHz-sampled data and its multiples—with upsampling and digital filtering and processing…
Turning to the sound of DSD files: The only UPnP server I have on my Mac mini is Twonky Server, which doesn't play DSD files (footnote 2), but I could play DSD recordings via the Rossini Player's USB port, sourced from my Aurender N10 server. As I mentioned earlier this year, in constant rotation these past months has been the complete set of Brahms Piano Trios performed by violinist Christian Tetzlaff, cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, and pianist Lars Vogt (DSD128 files, Ondine/HDtracks), and engineered by René LaFlamme. (The Rossini app reported these files as having a sample rate of 5644.8kHz…