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Although my house is now home to a borrowed pair of DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 loudspeakers—a loan I gratefully accepted early this year, when my 1966 Altec Flamencos proved a bit too large for my new listening room—it's a matter of pride that I own almost everything else in my playback system, cables included. So it's with no small discomfort that I acknowledge having nearly $30,000 worth of borrowed phono cartridges scattered around my living and dining rooms. (The former is where I listen to them, and the latter—the sunniest room in the house—is where I install them.)
The SPU Wood A transcends that unfortunate event by having its body custom-machined, in Japan, from solid hardwood, then given its own thick finish of urushi lacquer; the result is the most physically beautiful SPU since the line's earliest days. (The Wood A also has the best, snuggest-fitting stylus guard of any SPU—perhaps another windfall of such precise machining.) It was while admiring the SPU Wood A's build quality that I noticed that it's very slightly larger than earlier A-style Ortofons, while preserving the 30mm stylus-to-socket dimension. Other specs include a spherical stylus…
Sidebar: Contacts
Koetsu, Web: www.koetsuaudio.com. US distributor: MoFi Distribution. Web: www.mofidistribution.com
Ortofon A/S, Stavangervej 9, DK-4900 Nakskov, Denmark. Web: www.ortofon.com. US: Ortofon Inc., 500 Executive Boulevard, Suite 102, Ossining, NY 10562. Tel: (914) 762-8646. Fax: (914) 762-8649. Web: www.ortofon.com.
EMT Tontechnik, HiFiction AG, Stäffelistrasse 6, 8409 Winterthur, Switzerland. Tel: (41) 44-533-88-15. Web: www.emt-tontechnik.ch. US distributor: Tone Imports, 70192 Linda Vista Road, Mountain Center, CA 92561. Tel: (646) 425-7800. Web: www.…
First came the press release, from San Francisco Symphony, announcing:
Esa-Pekka Salonen is the Music Director Designate of SFS, to replace Michael Tilson Thomas when he voluntarily steps down after the summer of 2020.
EPS will lead SFS in a program on January 18–20 that includes the SFS premiere of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Metacosmos, Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, and Sibelius's Four Legends from the Kalevala.
These led me to explore Thorvaldsdottir's music in two recent hi-rez releases from Sono Luminus: Aequa: International…
Yes, the January 2019 issue of Stereophile is hitting newsstands, mailboxes, and tablets this week. And to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our going from a digest-sized publication to a full-sized one, we have recreated the cover of the January 1994 issue, the "musicality vs accuracy" debate as strong today as it was a quarter-century ago. The 25th anniversary edition of the same Cary tube amplifier is featured on the cover and in this issue's review section, but instead of the solid-state Krell we had on the 1994 cover, we have the solid-state Cambridge Edge A integrated amplifier which is…
Keith Jarrett: La Fenice
Keith Jarrett, piano
ECM 2601/02 (2 CDs). 2018. Keith Jarrett, prod.; Martin Pearson, eng.; Christoph Stickel, Manfred Eicher, mastering, exec. prod. DDD. TT: 97:47
Performance *****
Sonics *****
Keith Jarrett, piano
ECM 2601/02 (2 CDs). 2018. Keith Jarrett, prod.; Martin Pearson, eng.; Christoph Stickel, Manfred Eicher, mastering, exec. prod. DDD. TT: 97:47
Performance *****
Sonics *****
This July 2006 concert, performed in Venice's Gran Teatro La Fenice, is Keith Jarrett's seventh recording of the shorter solo-piano improvisations he's explored since the early 2000s, after chronic fatigue syndrome robbed him of the stamina needed to improvise for unbroken stretches of nearly an hour. Despite their many high points, none of its six…
Wayne Shorter is 85. His mind moves at warp speed, a million miles from Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, who rescued him from Newark, New Jersey—or the Miles Davis's second great quintet, for which the saxophonist wrote the compositions that would establish his genius. Shorter's constellation of classic Blue Note recordings from 1964–67—Night Dreamer, JuJu, The All Seeing Eye, ETC, The Soothsayer, Adam's Apple, Speak No Evil, Schizophrenia—is now but a dim cluster of stars in his ever-expanding musical galaxy.
Wayne Shorter is arguably the world's greatest living jazz composer, one of the…
Friday December 14, at 3pm and 6pm, Fidelis (460 Amherst Street, Nashua, NH 03063) are presenting "An Afternoon with Michael Fremer" (above). Saturday, December 15, 11am–3pm, House of Stereo (8780 Perimeter Park Ct #100, Jacksonville, FL 32216) are hosting their 2019 KEF Product Launch event.
The Fidelis "Afternoon with Michael Fremer," Stereophile senior editor and editor of AnalogPlanet.com, has two sessions, at 3pm and 6pm. "Music Lovers Rejoice!: says Fidelis. There will be door prizes, a raffle, refreshments, and hors d'oeuvres, plus a ticket for a free microbrew next door. There is…
I needed one black tiddledywink (not provided) to use Dr. Feickert Analogue's three-speed, two-motor, two-armboard Blackbird turntable. The tiddledywink was for covering the Blackbird's painfully bright power-on LED so that it didn't blind me when I cued up a record. The first night, in my dark listening room, this tiny indicator sprayed the wall behind and the ceiling above with more light than a bright-emitting 845 vacuum tube.
When I push one of the Blackbird's three speed buttons, to select 78, 45, or 331/3rpm, the annoying light goes out—but I then have to move the tiddledywink to…
To me, the Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum felt extraordinarily natural, sophisticated, and correct. Most important, Koetsu's best rosewood-bodied cartridge made me feel good about the records I own. Once you go Koetsu . . .
My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent Ex cartridge
One quiet midsummer morning, sunlight was penetrating the slots of my bamboo shades, casting thin ribbons of light across my room—a magic Koetsu black-disc morning. I'd just finished dreaming through both sides of the Reynaldo Hahn LP with the Koetsu in the Feickert Blackbird when suddenly I got the urge to switch from…