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Analog Sources: Garrard 301 turntable; Audio-Creative GrooveMaster II, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT TSD 15, Ortofon SPU A Wood, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads; Koetsu Onyx Platinum cartridge.
Digital Source: Mytek Liberty D/A processor, Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 & T2 step-up transformers, Shindo Laboratory Monbrison (2017) preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93.
Cables: Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Luna Red, Shindo…

I measured one of the Cary CAD-805RS amplifiers (serial no. 180218) using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). Before doing so, I installed all the tubes, following the guide in the manual, and checked that the bias current for the 300B driver tube was the recommended 60mA, using the front-panel meter. I checked the bias current several times while performing the measurements, but it hadn't changed. I took complete sets of measurements from the 4, 8, and 16 ohm output-transformer taps with the 845 output tube that AD preferred,…

The recording…

This is surely one of the most exciting works written in the twentieth century. and if there is going to be an upsurge of interest in the works of this great Danish composer as a result of this recording, then Mr. Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic will have rendered music lovers an invaluable service.

I don't recall another recording by these artists which I can greet with greater enthusiasm than this one. We are fortunate,…

From the standpoint of content and musicianship this is a superb collection of delightful music performed with the consummate authority and artistry for which Mr. Janigro and I Solisti de Zagreb are justly famous. The recording, too, while by no means perfect, is at least pre-…

On first hearing, Aqua Acoustic Quality's Formula xHD D/A processor was highly engaging. It was immediately obvious that the Formula xHD was a relaxed, unmechanical-sounding ladder DAC—a converter that dispenses with off-the-shelf processor chips in favor of a string of voltage dividers, made from discrete resistors arranged in an R-2R or ladder configuration. In less than a minute, I was admiring the deluxe, all-natural quality of its sound. Wow! I thought. So this is what it's like to have a $17,000 DAC in my…

I first saw the Rogers High Fidelity 65V-1 a few years ago, silently displayed at a hi-fi show somewhere—impossible now to say where or precisely when. But I do remember one thing: This ostensibly rugged, single-ended, tubed integrated amplifier looked like a hell of a lot of fun. For just $3999, the US-made 65V-1 gives the user the ability to choose between two types of output tube—at time of purchase, the buyer selects EL34 or KT88 power pentodes, and the tubes not taken can be later bought and swapped in—and between…

Born in 1966, Charlap grew up immersed in the New York music world. His father, Mark "Moose" Charlap (1928–1974), was a composer with significant Broadway credits (in the 1950s–70s…

Charlap: I don't know—more than that, maybe. It's not that for a jazz musician we just remember E-flat-minor-seven. In my case, I take the whole piece—it is the lyrics, the melody, the harmony, the composer's aesthetic, the jazzman's aesthetic, and all the things in between that shape the vision of the song.

[We listen to "Too Late Now," by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner, from the Bill Charlap Trio's Notes from New York (2016, Impulse! B0024830-02).]

Matson: I love the way you…

We adjourned to a restaurant for lunch—I'd forewarned Bill Charlap that I would be conducting a Jazz Rorschach Test I'd created for him. Between bites, he gave me quick responses to a list of great songwriters, composers, pianists, and singers I ran by him in no particular order:

Johnny Mercer—Swing. The American Poet. Genius of language. Every word drips off the notes that he writes.

Irving Berlin—America. The center of what it is to be an American songwriter.

Cole Porter—Sexy. The risk-taker, and the great developmental composer.…