By my estimation, this year's High End hi-fi show—the last in Munich before the world's largest audio show moves to Vienna—was a major success, perhaps the first I've attended since the pandemic that managed to completely escape that shadow. Every day but Sunday it was very busy—sometimes too busy; on the busiest days, the hallways at the MOC convention center reminded me of NYC's Fifth Avenue on Black Friday, an experience I've had once and hope to never have…
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Ø Audio's Jonathan Magnus Cook, with his ax (right), with Stereophile managing editor Mark Henninger at Munich High End 2025.
Just Biber
Rachel Podger, baroque violin; Brecon Baroque
Channel Classics CCS48525 (Reviewed in DSD128 and 24/96 PCM). 2025. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Prod.; Jared Sacks, Eng./Edit/Master
Performance *****
Sonics *****
Rachel Podger, baroque violin; Brecon Baroque
Channel Classics CCS48525 (Reviewed in DSD128 and 24/96 PCM). 2025. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Prod.; Jared Sacks, Eng./Edit/Master
Performance *****
Sonics *****
Each time I approach a new recording, the music always comes first. In that spirit, with thoughts of savoring the abundant beauties in six of the eight Sonatas for Violin Solo that Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber dedicated to Maximilian Gandolf Graf von Kuenburg, the Archbishop of Salzburg, in 1681, I cued up Channel Classics' latest offering, Just Biber.…
Irving M. "Bud" Fried, an early contributor to Stereophile, hails from the city of brotherly love, and I must confess to finding it difficult avoiding a few brotherly jabs at Mr. Fried's name: something like "this Bud's for you" would surely not escape deletion by our conscientious Editor. And what if I should happen to complain of a dried-up or "Fried" quality in the upper mids—JA is bound to object to this breach of good taste. Well, having gotten that off my chest, you'd be interested to know that I consider it quite appropriate that someone from Phil-a-del-phia should be in love with…
Jeff Beck Memories
I only saw Jeff Beck live three times, but each concert has stuck in my memory. The first was in 1965, soon after he replaced Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds. Both his virtuoso soloing and his overall musicianship astonished the teenage me.
The second time was at a blues festival in 1967, where the Jeff Beck Group made its debut. Playing drums was the great Aynsley Dunbar, with Ron Wood on bass—Beck's bands always featured excellent sidemen and 'women—and a young Rod Stewart was on vocals. Again Beck's guitar playing wowed me, though the shy Stewart kept hiding…
I have lost track of how many loudspeakers I have measured with DRA Labs' MLSSA system since Stereophile started accompanying its reviews with measurements in the late 1980s, but it must be close to 1000. Most of those speakers have long since faded from my memory, but there are some whose excellent measurements stick in my mind. One such is the Magico S5 Mk.II I reviewed in February 2017.
That large, heavy, expensive three-way tower featured an enclosure built on an aluminum space frame with extruded aluminum walls. I was impressed not only by how it measured but also by its lack of…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the quasi-anechoic frequency- and time-domain behavior of one of the Audiovector R 3 Arretés—serial number 202084—in the farfield. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone, which has a ¼" capsule, for the nearfield responses, examined the loudspeaker's impedance with Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system, and investigated the enclosure's resonant modes with a plastic-tape accelerometer.
Audiovector specifies the sensitivity of the R 3 Arreté as 90.5dB…
Time, the internet, the explosion of so-called “world” music after the release of Paul Simon’s Graceland and the subsequent appearance of endless cross-cultural projects has drained the venom out of the old “rock musicians who are culture vultures” argument. Now, if you don’t have several exotic influences, if you’re not multi-cultural, you’re looked upon as being provincial and regressive. And the influences flow in every direction—the American-invented pedal steel guitar is now ubiquitous. Much of the most interesting new music being made today, in nearly every genre, is a blend of…
Editor: I appreciate the tremendous amount of work Michael Fremer put into his review of our BHK Signature 300s, and I'm pleased that he was able to use them with both the Wilson Audio Alexandria XLFs and the Marten Coltrane IIIs—which differ from one another about as much as two box speakers can. The fact that he found the BHKs to pair well with both speakers validates the effort that we and Bascom H. King put into making the BHK 300s a universal solution.
Obviously, some matches are more simpatico than others. In this case, Michael favored the 300s paired with the XLFs—but we have yet…
Larry Greenhill updated the BDP-2's audio board in February 2016 (Vol.39 No.2):
In the June 2011 Stereophile, I reviewed Bryston's BDP-1 digital player ($2195) and purchased the review sample. Twenty-one months later, Bryston released a new version, the BDP-2 ($2995, footnote 1). The new Bryston player looked great, and bumped-up the BDP-1's processing power, system memory, number of input options—now including six USB sockets in place of the BDP-1's four, a rear-mounted slot for a self-powered eSATA drive, and provisions for an optional internal SATA drive—and USB-port current…
Herb Reichert wrote about the Excite X14 in February 2016 (Vol.39 No.2):
I never met the late Robert J. Reina, but, sadly, I can see his face as I type these words. I can see his byline on the pages of the countless BJR reviews I've read. Right now, in my tiny Brooklyn crib, I'm listening to the giant, slow, fugal opening of Philip Glass's score for the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi (UK LP, Island ISTA 4). I'm hearing and feeling the same "dramatic passages in the lower bass" and guttural voices I imagine Bob experienced while writing his review of Dynaudio's Excite X14 loudspeaker (price…