Miscellaneous Accessories
AI Technology ELGR-8501: $86.47/0.5oz.
AI Technology's ELG-8501 is thermal grease made of more than 80% silver. JM uses a light smear on the mating surfaces of wall-wiring connections to prevent oxidation. He warns: "Never use any kind of silver paste on audio connections such as RCA plugs or amplifier speaker terminals." (Vol.36 No.10 WWW)
Audio Research Tube Damping Rings: $4 each ★
Damping rings for all AR products are now available to the public at large. They're made of a proprietary polymer material that converts kinetic energy to heat,…
Interconnects
Audience Au24 SE: $1190/1m pair
Audience's latest interconnect uses an RCA plug of tellurium-copper alloy with a single, small contact point, meant to reduce the formation of eddy currents. Compared to Audience's Au24 e, the SE version offered superior detail, clarity, timing precision, and image focus, said BD. Au24 e owners can upgrade to SE status for $220. (Vol.36 No.12, Vol.37 No.2 WWW)
Audience Au24: $795/1m pair, unbalanced, $455/additional meter; $1350/1m pair, balanced, $845/additional meter ★
The Au24s had a neutral, relaxed sound, said BD, "with…
Move over John, George, Ringo, and Paul. There's another remastering that's come on the scene, and it's every bit as important as the Beatles Mono Edition. It's Warner Classics' high-resolution, 24/96 digital remastering of soprano Maria Callas' entire studio-sourced discography. Consisting of arias, recitals and complete operas recorded 1949–1969, the remasterings reach the international public on September 22, and US music lovers on September 23. Their sound, whether in the 69-CD box set of her entire studio recordings, or HDtracks' 24/96 downloads of its individual components, is…
The Importance of Maria Callas
For non-operaphiles who cannot imagine that the twitterings of a soprano could ever be as important as the revolutionary rock of The Beatles, some history is in order. Maria Callas (1923–1977) was, arguably, the most important and controversial operatic soprano of the 20th century. Her voice was/is like no other on record: deep and soul-shaking on bottom, somewhat occluded but increasingly fiery as it ascends the scale, and emotionally and viscerally searing on top.
Anything but conventionally beautiful, Callas' instrument was commanded by a supreme…
The Complete Callas Remastered Release Schedule
September 23:
Complete Box Set + Pure 1-CD Compilation
Bellini: I Puritani (1953)
Bellini: La Sonnambula (1957)
Bellini: Norma (1954)
Bizet: Carmen (1964)
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1953)
Ponchielli: La Gioconda (1952)
Puccini: La bohème (1956)
Puccini: Tosca (1953)
Puccini: Madama Butterfly (1955)
Puccini: Manon Lescaut (1957)
Verdi: Aida (1955)
Verdi: Rigoletto (1955)
Verdi: Il Trovatore (1956)
Puccini Arias (1954)
Verdi Arias I (1958)
Mad Scenes (1958)…
It may be just a subway ride away from the biggest Apple, but to some inveterate Manhattanites, an audio show in Brooklyn sounds like it's from another planet. In reality, the third New York Audio Show, which opens to the public on Friday, September 26 at 2pm and continues through Sunday, September 28 at 5pm, takes place at the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, just a short distance across the East River from Manhattan.
No matter how you parse it, the show's line-up is looking quite good. At press time, the show's sponsor, the UK's Chester Group, predicted 45 exhibit rooms, including a "…
Bruckner: Symphony 9
Claudio Abbado, Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Deutsche Grammophon 479 3441 (CD, 48/24 download from HDTracks). 2014. Georg Obermayer, prod., ed.; Urs Dürr, Toine Mertens, engs. DDD. TT: 63:09
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
This performance of Bruckner's last, all-but-finished composition was recorded at the last concert conducted by Claudio Abbado. It is a fitting final statement by an interpreter of unparalleled sensitivity, intelligence, and taste.
The Ninth is no serene work, and Abbado's earlier recording, with the Vienna Philharmonic, is a…
Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "If you work in either journalism or politics . . . you will be flogged for being right and flogged for being wrong." I was reminded of Thompson's words when I read a forum post on our website. "Why is Stereophile way behind the other magazines?" asked "rs350z," explaining that, among things, he objected to Stereophile's supporting its reviews with measurements. "why waste the ink on doing measurements on each product reviewed," he wrote, with a disregard for capital letters. "There is no need to. I don't care if the distortion is 0.00005 or 0.00007, nor do i…
Some among us remember a time when audio was divided into rival interests. On the left side of the pond was the New World, where left-brainers believed that vanishing harmonic distortion meant that "all amplifiers sound the same," and that good loudspeakers are a high-fidelity audio system's most important components. Across the waves, so-called flat-earthers claimed that the most important part of the playback chain was the turntable. (Of secondary importance were the tonearm and cartridge, followed by the preamp and amplifier. Loudspeakers were deemed relatively unimportant.) In the 1980s,…
The NAIT 5si sells for under a thousand quid in the Mother Country, $1895 on the left side of the pond, so I figured I should switch to the similarly priced (and British-designed) KEF LS50 speakers ($1499.99/pair) for most of my listening. When it comes to speakers, I am totally new-world/left-brain. I believe that we audiophiles should start building our systems with precisely the right loudspeaker—the one that locks in to our room, makes us happy, and plays the most recordings well. I have a small listening room (13' long by 12' wide by 9' high) that lets all of my speakers play without…
