The NAD's digital inputs preserved absolute polarity at the balanced and unbalanced outputs but inverted polarity at the headphone output. With the volume control set to its maximum, the M66's output level with a full-scale 1kHz tone was 5.28V balanced, 2.64V unbalanced, and 7.93V headphone. The M66's DAC offers a well-managed gain architecture.
Scheinman's latest solo album, All Species Parade, released in October 2024 on the Royal Potato Family label, is a classic example of her unique vision and chameleon-like ability to…
Small, compact and visually unique, Monitor Audio's Studio 89 is an uncompromising loudspeaker capable of filling large rooms with pristine sound. It benefits from a host of cutting-edge Monitor Audio innovations and is born of the same Transparent Design Philosophy as the statement Hyphn.
Studio 89’s topology ensures that even in large rooms, the soundstage, imaging and detail levels are completely enveloping and remain true to the ethos of bringing ‘studio monitoring…
All bands dissolve eventually, for reasons ranging from commercial failure, personnel dynamics, and death to just running out of steam. The band X, beloved by its niche fanbase and highly influential in punk, hard rock, and even alt-country, decided to control the time and place of its end. Earlier this year, they announced "the final album," Smoke & Fiction. "The End Is Near" tour listed shows through October 2024 (footnote 1).
Singer Exene Cervenka and drummer D. J. Bonebrake, now in their late 60s, told me that touring is a mixed bag these days. "The…
I can't honestly say I remember many details about my life between the ages of three and a half and seven, yet apparently some of that Swedish way of thinking ended up influencing my life view,…
Boris Blank has a cold, and three days after meeting him in his hometown of Zurich, I do too. This seems apt. Metaphorically, he's been infecting me for decades.
For almost 45 years, Yello, the pioneering Swiss band that Blank formed with singer Dieter Meier, has created witty electropop that provokes joy and awe in attentive listeners. You can dance to most of this music, of course—it's often hard not to—but its allure, its spell, goes deeper. For one thing, Yello's music is delightfully…
Of Atmos and forensics
We finish our cappuccinos and climb into Blank's electric Volkswagen e-Up. About 10 years ago, he received it in lieu of cash for VW using his song "Electrified" in a commercial. We're headed for the town of Küsnacht, 15 minutes away. (It was once home to psychiatrist Carl Jung and soul belter Tina Turner, who died there about a year before I visited.) In a state-of-the-art sound studio next to Lake Zurich, Blank and studio owner Leo Gerteis are working on Dolby Atmos mixes of some older…
“I’m up to around 125 rooms,” Gill explained, as Romeo y Julieta smoke rings circled into the autumn sunset. “I’m maxed out, totally maxed out. Our shipper, RG Logistics, has a ton more work than he did last year. I’m practically putting vendors into closets to fill the demand for space.”
To…
One of those soon-to-be-classics is Pure Fidelity’s Harmony Turntable mated with a new Savant Tonearm ($13,995).
Swanbon brought another soon-to-be-classic brand, Lab 12, including the Lab 12 Melto 2 Tube Phono Preamplifier ($4600), Lab 12 DAC 1 non-oversampling DAC ($3300), Lab 12 Pre1 remote controlled Class A Tube Preamplifier…