I have never really enjoyed…
search
For several months, my wife and I had been living in a cozy studio apartment in New York's Financial District while our apartment underwent substantial renovations (footnote 1). All the old furniture was sold or donated, and decades of accumulated stuff was subjected to triage (sell, donate, or store). All my audio equipment, parts, and tools suffered the same fate. Downtown, my listening was via pretty decent headphones (B&W Px8, Audeze LCD-XC) connected to a Mytek Brooklyn+ DAC and my PC. Meanwhile, we were very busy shopping to equip the "new" apartment.
At this point, Roon had digested all 35TB of my main music cache, so there was room to roam. I had just heard Mahler's Symphony No.6 at Carnegie Hall performed by Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, so I scanned my library and Qobuz for it. I found a 2024 recording (24/96 FLAC, Qobuz) by the same conductor and orchestra I heard live. No one would expect any system or recording to recreate what was experienced from a fifth row center seat at Carnegie Hall; I was hoping that if the playback is even marginally credible, my memory and imagination (and a good bourbon)…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Music streamer with system control for digital and analog sources, D/A conversion, and switched-relay–based analog volume control. Operates as a Roon Server and Roon End Point and offers playback from local files, network files, and online streams from Tidal, Qobuz, and KKBOX. Intel i3 processor and 8GB RAM running Tiny Core Linux and Roon Core, 3.5", 480×320 pixel color TFT display, and optional internal SSD for music data storage. Digital audio inputs: one each AES3, coaxial S/PDIF, TosLink S/PDIF. Digital audio outputs: None. Analog audio inputs:…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Oppo Digital UDP-103 universal disc player, Custom Intel/Win11 music server running JRiver Media Center v32 and Roon, Merging Devices Hapi II multichannel DAC. QNAP TVS-873 NAS.
Power amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, NAD C 298.
Loudspeakers: KEF Blade 2 Meta (L/C/R) with IsoAcoustics GAIA II feet, KEF LS60 Wireless (SL/SR). 2 JLAudio e110 and 1 SVS SB-3000 subwoofers.
Cables: Digital interconnects: Mogami Gold AES TD DB25-XLR0 snake. Analog interconnects: Mogami Gold AES TD DB25-XLR snake, Benchmark Studio&Stage XLR-XLR. Speaker…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The Grimm MU2 adds analog outputs and inputs to the Roon Ready MU1 streamer that I very favorably reviewed in March 2021. I measured the MU2 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, repeating some of the tests with the higher-resolution Audio Precision APx555 system. The review sample was fitted with the v0.9.6 firmware, and while the wheel on the top panel allows access to the settings menu as well as volume and input selection, I preferred to use the MU2's webpage. Once the Grimm is connected to the user's network, this page can be found by scanning the QR code…
The death of KMET in Los Angeles was a turning point in my young father's life. I was 6 years old when it signed off permanently, ending commercial viability of the progressive, freeform rock format on L.A.'s FM dial.
It's also one of my earliest memories: Windows down and heater up on a cloudy February morning, sitting backseat in an Arby's parking lot before kindergarten, the sound of heresy on the airwaves. Its replacement was Smooth Jazz. We—my father and my 6-year-old self—hated it.
My late father never had words to explain the emotion behind his angry expletives. I just knew…
As one of the first live albums to be recorded in the hallowed space that is New York City's Village Vanguard, Sonny Rollins's A Night at the Village Vanguard (recorded November 3, 1957, released in 1958) set the template, proving that recording in the odd, triangular club could not only work but could also produce distinctive, satisfying sound. Soon after the recording of the Rollins album, Bill Evans and John Coltrane added live Vanguard albums to their recording catalogs.
Now reissued by Blue Note Records as part of its Tone Poet Series, this three-LP edition, which comes from a…
The best Christmas gift in history was George Bailey being shown what the world would be like without his being born, courtesy of Angel Second Class Clarence, in the classic 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. More recently, and in the real world, the best gift ever was the release of pianist Les McCann's Never a Dull Moment! (Live from Coast to Coast 1966–1967) a few weeks before Christmas 2023 and less than a month before his death at 88, on three vinyl LPs.
After he passed, McCann received numerous glowing obituaries, in both the jazz press and the larger international media landscape,…
Stereo is the most successful audio gimmick of all time. While dashboard record players, quadraphonic LPs, and MQA have gone the way of Ron Popeil's hair-in-a-spray-can infomercials, stereo remains king. And I am guilty of loving it.
That old expression "men love with their eyes" applies to listening, too. Enabled by the advent of a second channel, the fanning out of musicians across a soundstage fills the room and gives the eyes—and not only the ears—something to do. And I happen to enjoy the soundstage. It may be an utterly artificial delight, but who doesn't love hearing a tambourine…
This undoubtedly neat effect was something I partly expected. What I didn't expect is the hair-raising dynamic expression the Miyajima coaxed from familiar recordings, which betters that of every other cartridge I've heard. On "I'm a Fool to Care" from a 1955 pressing of Les Paul and Mary Ford's The Hit Makers! (Capitol T-416), Ford's reverb-drenched voice and the chords from Paul's electric solid-body guitar leapt from the full-range Klipsch horns with a life force and snap that I hadn't previously experienced.
Even more memorable was the track's world-beating presence: The…