search

Revinylization #40: Beck & Croz Page 2

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…

Magico S5 2024 loudspeaker

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…

Audiovector R 3 Arreté loudspeaker Measurements

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…

Man of the World

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…

PS Audio BHK Signature 300 monoblock power amplifier Manufacturer's Comment

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…

Bryston BDP-1 digital audio player BDP-2 IAD Upgrade

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…

Dynaudio Excite X14 loudspeaker February 2016

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…

Paul Bley, Memorialized in NY Concert Thursday

Paul Bley is featured on The Montreal Tapes, with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

I missed the chance to send off an R.I.P. to the jazz pianist Paul Bley, who died on January 3, at the age of 83, so I'm catching up with this advance notice of a free memorial concert to be held this Thursday night, February 11, featuring piano solos by seven of his acolytes—most notably Ethan Iverson and Frank Kimbrough, whom I've lauded on this page many times. The memorial concert—which also features Rob Schwimmer, Aaron Parks, Lucian Ban, Jacob Sacks, and Matt Mitchell—will be held at 8:00 pm, in the…

Analog #246: AudioQuest Niagara 7000 Low-Z Power Noise-Dissipation System

Are you old enough to remember when the wires connecting speakers to even the most expensive and sophisticated electronics were 16-gauge, multistrand lamp cord, and the terminals on speakers and amplifiers were just little screws? Sometimes those screws wouldn't even secure all of the wires' strands, but as long as loose strands from one screw didn't touch loose strands from the other, it was good enough . . . and back against the wall went your bookshelf speakers.

And do you remember plugging the plugs of lamp-cord-like AC leads into any old wall sockets, themselves connected to any old…

AudioQuest Niagara 7000 Low-Z Power Noise-Dissipation System Page 2

Because of Garth Powell's background in pro audio, you can be sure there's a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) for the two groups of four outlets that use isolation transformers, because their outputs are symmetrical (balanced), which produces a voltage potential on Neutral relative to Ground. This is not a problem unless a connected component's power supply suffers a catastrophic failure, in which case there's a slight chance of the presence of AC voltage on the chassis. In that case, the GFCI would, within a fraction of a second, shut off the main power switch.

The Niagara 7000…