In conjunction with that 50th anniversary mini-tour, Rhino has issued deluxe remasters of both albums on 3 LPs or 2 CDs, with plenty of bonus…
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Little Feat's beginning was a slow burn, bolstered by the faith of record company execs as the band found its groove. Once it found its, um, feat, the band thrived through deaths and other turmoil. In fact, they're still at it. This fall, according to Rhino Records, the band will be performing "on back-to-back nights ... at selected venues" the two albums that document the time they found their way: 1972's Sailin' Shoes and 1973's Dixie Chicken.
At High End Munich, Michael Trei chats with Thorens CEO Gunter Kürten (right) about the Thorens Reference turntable's active suspension. (Photo: Jeff Joseph.)
It's hard to convey the scope of the annual High End Munich audio show to someone who has never attended. Spread out over three floors of a large facility called the Munich Order Center (MOC), the show is notable for how different it is from audio shows in the US. The ground floor is an area about the size of three American football fields, where brands set up professional trade show booths to display their wares. This is a long way…
10. Acoustic Signature's listening room with its massive PBN loudspeaker system.
May has long been one of my favorite months of the year, mostly because it means it's time for the Munich show, the annual gathering of the high-end audio tribe in the Bavarian capital. High End Munich 2023 marked my return to the biggest audio show in the Western world following three years of lockdowns and travel restrictions, so I was eager to get back to the land of Wiener schnitzel and bratwurst.
This year, as an added bonus, I was invited to visit the production facilities of turntable and…
Apparently accurate reproduction of a Bösendorfer piano is no small achievement, but the piano is just one instrument, albeit one with wide dynamic and frequency range. A large orchestra playing Mahler is a different kind of challenge. Jason Victor Serinus favorably reviewed Rafael Payare and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal's recording of Mahler's Symphony No.5 (Pentatone PTC5187067) in the September 2023 issue of Stereophile. His only caveat was that it "may lack ultimate transparency." Perhaps so but, listening to the 5.1 channel 24/96 download from pentatonemusic.com, I cannot fault…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Network-connected audio converter with two expansion slots for input/output boards. Base unit digital I/O: 8 AES3 I/O (DB-25), 8 ADAT/2 S/PDIF (TosLink), RAVENNA/ AES67 (RJ45), Word Clock (BNC), Sync I/O (DB-15: LTC, MIDI, Video Reference). Base unit analog output: Two headphone (6.35mm, 3.5mm TRS). Voltage (AC): 90V–260V, 47–63Hz. Voltage (DC via optional supply): 10–14V. Max power consumption: <30W. Specifications via headphone-monitoring jacks: THD+N: <–106 dB (0.0005%) at 1kHz, 0dBFS. Dynamic range (A-weighted): 118dB. Frequency response:…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Custom Intel/Win11 music server running JRiver Media Center v31 and Roon, exaSound s88 Mark II, and Okto DAC8 Pro D/A processors. QNAP TVS-873 NAS.
Preamplifiers: Coleman Audio 7.1SW for balanced DAC-to-amp switching.
Power amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, NAD C 298.
Loudspeakers: KEF Blade 2 Meta (L/C/R) with IsoAcoustics GAIA II feet, Revel Performa3 f206 (SL/SR). Two JLAudio e110 and one SVS SB-3000 subwoofers.
Cables: Digital cables: AudioQuest Coffee (USB). Analog interconnects: Mogami Gold AES TD DB-25–XLR snake, Benchmark…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
KR was still working on his review at the time I was scheduled to measure the Merging Hapi MkII, so Independent Audio loaned me a different sample for the testing. This sample had the serial number H95861 and was running firmware version 1.5.1b55774. I followed the instructions in the quick-start guide to download and install both the Merging MTDiscovery app and the RAVENNA/AES67 Virtual Audio Device (VAD) driver on my MacBook Pro. After I connected the Hapi to my router, the app found and identified it and opened its local control webpage on my browser. This page…
"The phonograph record is an art form itself," Lester Koenig wrote in March 1959, "and one of its advantages is the performance that exists uniquely of, by and for the record." Remarkably, when Koenig included this pronouncement in his liner notes to Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders, the 12" long-play record had been the dominant carrier of recorded music for less than a decade, and stereo discs had been mass-produced for just over a year.
For Koenig, this issue wasn't merely academic. Before making his name as head of Contemporary Records in Los Angeles, he had attended Yale…
In comparison with the Manley Steelhead RC phono stage I've been using, the Tron produced richer, more colorful images and simply sounded more beautiful. But it omitted some of the ambient information and long decays that the considerably more expensive Manley extracted from my records. After Ken and I listened to the title track from an early stereo pressing of Miles Davis's Someday My Prince Will Come (Columbia CS 8456) on the Manley, we switched to the Tron. "The halo around Davis's trumpet is gone," Ken remarked, and sure enough, the distinctive reverberant presence of Columbia's 30th…
Sometimes I think expensive components—I'll let you decide what constitutes expensive—should come with a big red sticker on the box that reads "WARNING! This product will probably not meet your expectations!" That's because when you spend a lot of money on something, you expect that something to have no flaws and to sound nigh perfect. Why else would you have paid so much? As you gaze at it, touch it, and listen to it, it constantly reassures you that you made the right decision by picking it over all the other, less pricey candidates. It has to be unambiguously better than any component of…