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Linett says he can't remember if he used true mono versions to build the stereo mixes on Today! or, instead, a process known as digital extraction from his 1990 remastering. "Those techniques are getting pretty scary, in terms of, if you massage them, what you can get out of it. If we did the digital extraction, it was because either we didn't have the tapes, like on 'Good Vibrations,' or overdubs were done on the dubdown, like 'Help Me, Ronda.' By the time you get to Summer Days it gets even more problematic, because now he was still cutting his tracks in three-track and then bouncing it…
I don't listen to music when I write, even when I write about listening to music: When there's music playing, it almost always gets my full attention—and I'm no good at multitasking. (And if I'm around music that's awful and I'm powerless to stop it, I have to leave the premises.) A rare exception is when I listen to CDs while proofreading, because proofreading is fairly brainless stuff—and as playback formats go, the Compact Disc isn't the most musically compelling.
In recent years, that last observation has been challenged a very few times, most notably by CD-playing source components…
But boy oh boy, did that ever change. After those first 45 minutes, I heard distinct increases in both texture and scale. Color saturation, too, went up a notch. Then, maybe 90 minutes after installing the CD8 S, I heard a change so drastic, and virtually in front of my ears, that I laughed out loud: The sound got huge—huge, I say!—and both texture and color went up a few more notches. With regard to the latter characteristics, I wasn't yet in Audio Note territory—and I was still far from good vinyl territory—but I was reasonably well satisfied.
Encouraged by such good performance with…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-box CD player with digital inputs. Analog outputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair balanced (XLR). Digital inputs: 1 USB (Type B), 1 S/PDIF (RCA). Input resolution, USB: up to 32-bit/384kHz. Input resolution, S/PDIF: up to 24-bit/192kHz. Digital input impedance, S/PDIF: 75 ohms. Output voltage, single-ended and balanced: 2.5V RMS. Output impedance, single-ended: 75 ohms. Output impedance, balanced: 600 ohms. Frequency response: 10Hz–50kHz, ±0.1dB. . Signal/noise: >95dB.
Dimensions: 17.6" (450mm) W by 4.5" (115mm) H by 17" (435mm) D…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301, Thorens TD 124 turntables; Abis SA-1.2, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT OFD 25 & OFD 15 & TSD 15 pickup heads; Denon DL-103, Miyajima Premium BE Mono II cartridges.
Digital Sources: Halide Designs DAC HD USB D/A converter; Apple iMac G5 computer running Audirvana Plus 1.5.12; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Hommage T2 step-up transformer, Shindo Laboratory Aurieges Equalizer Amplifier phono preamplifier & Masseto preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Shindo Laboratory Corton-Charlemagne monoblocks.
…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Metronome CD8 S with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"). As well as using test signals on CDs, I tested the Metronome by feeding its coaxial input S/PDIF data from the SYS2722, and its USB input data sourced from a battery-powered MacBook Pro running Pure Music 2.0. The S/PDIF input would accept data sampled at all rates from 44.1 to 192kHz. Apple's US Prober utility identified the Metronome as "Combo384 Amanero" from "Amanero Technologies," and confirmed that it operated in the asynchronous mode.…
Ever since I encountered Wilson Audio Specialties' Peter McGrath (above) playing his own digital recordings at audio shows, hanging out in the Wilson Audio room has proven the consistent highlight of my show coverage experience. Where else could I have heard, on systems featuring, as well as Wilson speakers, superb components that frequently included gear from dCS, Spiral Groove, Lyra, VTL, Audio Research, Transparent, and Nordost, live, unreleased hi-rez recordings from the likes of pianists Benjamin Grosvenor, violinist James Ehnes, Anonymous 4, Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI, the New World…
This Thursday evening, March 3, Definitive Audio (6206 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle) celebrates its 40th anniversary with a four-hour Music Matters extravaganza filled with top-level product debuts and celebrity designers. The 5pm–9pm event, complete with rotating 20-minute presentations and lots of food and refreshments, promises the world debuts of the Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 loudspeaker, the Wilson Audio Alexx loudspeaker, and the Dan D'Agostino Progression Series electronics.
Also on hand will be the Audio Research Reference 6 preamplifier and Reference phono 3, Classé Audio Sigma…
Blackstar has been called David Bowie's "death album" (several of its songs allude to death, he died of cancer two days after its release), but that makes it seem like a grisly novelty number when, in fact, it's a masterpiece—and, for purposes of this blog, a work of jazz-rock fusion that, unlike many stabs at the genre, truly fuses the two idioms, staying true to both, creating something new in the process, rather than watering them down in a muddy swamp.
The album is a dense kaleidoscope of sonic effects, eerily layered, unflaggingly propulsive—on the ballads, it's breathtakingly lovely…
Hey, why have a blog if you can't plug your own wares now and then? Today, March 1, is pub date for my new book, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War (Simon & Schuster). John le Carré calls it "a book that grips, informs, and alarms, finely researched and lucidly related." The New York Times hails it as "an eye-opening history . . . a page-turner . . . consistently surprising." Kirkus Reviews describes it as "important, gripping, disturbing."
You can find a synopsis here. So what are you waiting for? Buy your copy today.
End of self-aggrandizing announcement. Back…