Digital sources: Oppo Digital UDP-105 universal disc player, Custom Intel/Win11 music server running JRiver Media Center v29, Roon 1.8, and DiracLive. exaSound s88 streaming DAC, Okto dac8 PRO, and Topping DM7 D/A processors. QNAP TVS-873 NAS.
Preamplifiers: Coleman Audio 7.1SW for balanced source switching. 3 × Topping Pre90 preamps for buffer/line-drivers.
Power Amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, NAD C 298, NAD M28.
Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima2 Studio with IsoAcoustics Gaia I isolation feet. Revel Performa3 f206 for surrounds. Two SVS SB-3000 &…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I tested the Primare A35.8 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system. As the A35.8 has class-D output stages, all measurements other than frequency response were taken with Audio Precision's auxiliary AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter, which mitigates noise above 80kHz and eliminates noise above 200kHz. (The relatively high levels of ultrasonic noise emitted by class-D amplifiers would otherwise drive the analyzer's input into slew-rate limiting.) Without the filter, 325mV of ultrasonic noise was present at each pair of loudspeaker terminals, with a center frequency…
Professor Longhair in his living room! Etta James—live—at Tipitina's!! Previously unknown James Booker recordings!!! All of it unreleased and unheard???
In the music world, spare time spurred by COVID closures led to many good ideas and side projects. Few have been better than Tipitina's Record Club (TRC).
"We were left with no touring and the club wasn't open, and so our manager was like, this is the time to move forward," says Robert Mercurio, bassist for the band Galactic, which owns Tipitina's, the storied New Orleans venue. Mercurio founded TRC with Galactic saxophonist Ben…
It was another glorious Lower Cape summer, the warm breeze almost viscous against your skin. Tim Dickey played bass, or ersatz bass, tuning his Gibson SG Special down an octave. I played drums. My brother John and cousin Dave Scherman traded leads. Tony Kahn was a good guitarist, but with the surfeit of guitarists, he played organ. We practiced at the Dickeys', across Great Pond, Truro, from the Big Cabin, my family's house. These were the days when the bourgeoisie owned summer homes on the Cape, or in the Hamptons, or Maine, and took three-month vacations—the wives and kids, that is, while…
Eivind Aarset at the Gărâna Jazz Festival. Photo by Tim Dickeson.
The first European jazz festival I ever attended was in 2006. It was the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, one of the biggest. Tens of thousands of people overran the cobblestone streets and piazzas of Perugia's old town. The music began before noon and ended long after midnight. At the end of 10 days, I was delirious from joy and sleep deprivation.
I was also hooked. I had to go back. I have now been to more than 50 European festivals in 13 countries. They are all different, but they have one thing in common…
Baas was effectively an artist-in-residence: He appeared at least seven times. Diodati and Baas played together once, in an ad hoc band with American bassist Joe Rehmer and Austrian drummer Lukas König. They performed in Batzen Sudwerk, a cramped, dark, beery cellar in Bolzano, the antithesis of a Dolomite meadow. They instantly created a group identity, two starkly different guitars commingling in glittering curtains of sound. One of Baas's best concerts was a duo performance with another guitarist, Ella Zirina, who was his student at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Their lyrical, ornate,…
Sidebar: Recommended Listening
Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons (Pyroclastic). Available in 24/96 (Qobuz), 16/44.1 (Tidal).
Ingrid Laubrock: Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt (Intakt). 16/44.1 (Tidal and Qobuz).
Elias Stemeseder: Piano Solo (Intakt). 16/44.1 (Tidal and Qobuz).
Francesco Diodati: Yellow Squeeds Never the Same (Jazz Engine). Stereophile's May 2019 Recording of the Month. 16/44.1 (Qobuz and Tidal).
Reinier Baas/Jonas Burgwinkel/Kit Downes: Deadeye (Dox Records). 24/96 (Qobuz), 16/44.1 (Tidal).
…
Presenting dozens of new exhibitors, 40 more rooms, and 30 more accessories booths than in 2021, Capital Audiofest 2022 is up and running like a fire-starter. Owner/organizer/promoter Gary Gill is sporting a new, literally letting-his-hair-down cut, and over an aromatic cigar he excitedly regaled me with news.
Having quit his day job as a construction manager, Gill has not only had more time to listen to his hi-fi, which includes components from Fern and Roby (turntable), Tru-Glider (tonearm), DS Audio (phono stage), MicroZOTL (preamp), David Berning and Bryston (amps), AER BD3…
Big Joanie: Back Home
Daydream Library KRS689 (CD). 2022. Margo Broom, prod.; Nathan Ridley, eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Daydream Library KRS689 (CD). 2022. Margo Broom, prod.; Nathan Ridley, eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Difficult times can be fertile ground for great music, and at present, the UK music scene appears to be in a healthier state than its economy. Big Joanie is one of the strongest signs of the fineness of its fettle.
Back Home is the second album from the three young Black women—Stephanie Phillips (lead vocals/guitar), Estelle Adeyeri (vocals/bass), and Chardine Taylor-Stone (vocals/drums)—who call themselves Big Jonie. They have been steadily…
Keith Jarrett: Bordeaux Concert
Jarrett, piano
ECM 2740 (CD, available as 2 LPs, download). 2022. Keith Jarrett, prod.; Martin Pearson, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
Jarrett, piano
ECM 2740 (CD, available as 2 LPs, download). 2022. Keith Jarrett, prod.; Martin Pearson, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
At first, to hear this record is to be overwhelmed with sadness. Keith Jarrett suffered two strokes in 2018. It is unlikely that he will ever perform again. Bordeaux Concert reminds us of what we have lost. It comes from a European tour in 2016. ECM has previously released two other concerts from that tour, Munich 2016 in 2019 and Budapest Concert in 2020.
The improvised solo piano concert is an…