"Why Blue Note 1568 commands the price that it does? What's the story? I don't know," says Cohen. "All the [Blue Note] Mobleys come up on the marketplace…
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One of the holy grails of Blue Note collecting is Hank Mobley, a 1957 set by the tenor saxophonist known among collectors by its catalog number: 1568. More than any other single title, it illustrates just how crazy the collectors' market for early Blue Notes has become. "I've seen one go recently for over $6000," Perlman says. "I've been collecting jazz records for 44 years, and I've never found one that was within my price range."
I've lost track of how many Transfiguration cartridges I've reviewed over the years. In all that time I've never met their designer, Immutable Music's Seiji Yoshioka, but every year he sends me an exceptionally tasteful holiday greeting card. I've never reciprocated. The truth isn't always pretty.
The Transfiguration cartridges I've reviewed, too, have always conveyed a midrange musical truth that hasn't been flashy or pretty. But it's always been honest and convincing, particularly of the reality of voices. If you said that the Transfigurations lacked character, you wouldn't be wrong—…
The cantilever is of 0.3mm-diameter solid boron, to which is affixed a PA (3x30µm) stylus of solid diamond. The claimed channel separation is better than 30dB (200Hz–1kHz), with a channel balance within 0.5dB at 1kHz. Compliance is moderate at 13 x 10–6cm/dyne, and the recommended vertical tracking force (VTF) is 2.0gm. The recommended resistive load is greater than 10 ohms (or 10 times the internal impedance, which is a useful rule of thumb for the resistive loading of moving-coil cartridges). The body is of resonance-controlled aluminum. The cartridge weighs a moderate 7.8gm, meaning that…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Low-output moving-coil phono cartridge. Internal impedance: 1 ohm. Output voltage: 0.2mV (3.54cm/s, 1kHz). Channel separation: >30dB (200Hz–1kHz). Channel balance: 0.5dB at 1kHz. Compliance: 13 x 10–6cm/dyne. Recommended vertical tracking force: 2.0gm. Recommended resistive load: >10 ohms.
Weight: 7.8gm.
Price: $6000.
Manufacturer: Immutable Music/Transfiguration. US distributor: Profundo, 2051 Gattis School Road, Suite 540/123, Round Rock, TX 78664. Tel: (510) 375-8651. Web: www.profundo.us.
Streaming has taken over the world. Not so fast, at least to Sony’s way of thinking. With the release of their new Walkman A17, they are clearly betting there’s still demand for a portable stand alone, non-Wi-Fi capable high resolution audio player and so have revived their venerable Walkman brand and jumped into the market with the release of the A17. This latest addition to the Walkman legacy supports files up to 192kHz/24-bit and plays all popular formats, from MP3 WMA, AAC, WAV, ALAC, FLAC, AIFF and yet strangely enough not those in Sony’s own high resolution DSD format, which are…
"The Guitars of Rachel Rosenkrantz" is perhaps not quite as evocative a title as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Nevertheless, there are parallels. I met the young, French luthier through mutual friends, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she is very serious about her art, and rather obsessive about her craft. Rosenkrantz studied art, architecture, and industrial design, and worked for some years designing commercial lighting fixtures and furniture. However, she let go of that career to start over from scratch as an apprentice to Daniel Collins, a builder of classical guitars. She…
Hovhaness's Guitar Concerto is a major work lasting nearly 32 minutes, and it's hard to do it justice in a few short paragraphs. The largely self-taught composer not so much solves the central problem of the genre—balancing one of the quietest instruments with an orchestra larger than a handful of players—as ignores it. The concerto begins with a thrillingly grandiose orchestral declamation reminiscent of the climax of Bloch's Schelomo, except with more chimes, glockenspiel, and so on—and, for that, is perhaps also indebted to Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Great! What comes next?
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Among the biggest buzzes at the January 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, and at Munich's High End Show the following May, was the sound in the room of Siltech BV, a Dutch company best known for its high-end cables. Siltech was demonstrating an innovative new power amplifier, and using it to drive the company's glass-cabineted Arabesque loudspeakers ($90,000/pair). The sound was unmistakably lush yet also remarkably linear, notably dynamic, and seemingly free of electronic artifacts. It sounded like the sound of "nothing"—which was really something!—and so much of a something that it caught…
The balance of transient speed, precision of attack, and instrumental sustain produced some startling moments from very familiar recordings—for instance, from John Renbourn's Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & ye Grene Knyghte (LP, Transatlantic TRA 167), an album I've been playing for 45 years. The image of Renbourn's guitar was farther forward than I'm used to hearing it, and less of the space behind the instrument was apparent—but the guitar itself, and the percussion and recorder, sounded more transparent, coherent, and believable than I'd ever heard them, particularly…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Hybrid stereo power amplifier with battery-powered voltage-gain and mains-powered current-gain sections in separate housings.
V1 Voltage-Gain Amplifier: Tube complement: two E80CC, two 18042. Inputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair single ended (XLR, pins 1 and 3 tied to ground). Outputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair single-ended (XLR, pins 1 and 3 tied to ground). Frequency response: 1Hz–110kHz, –1dB. Voltage gain: triode circuit, 28dB; pentode circuit, 34dB. Signal/noise, IHF-A: 128dB (triode). Dynamic range: 130dB (triode). THD: 0.08%…