search
Nola's Carl Marchisotto was demonstrating the Studio Grand Reference Gold floorstanders ($19,800/pair) when I entered his second-floor room. This new speakers is similar in concept to the Metro Grand Reference Gold ($33,000/pair) that I review in our November issue but has just one of the reflex-loaded SEAS magnesium-cone/alnico-motor woofers rather than two. But Carl wanted me to hear the new Nola Brio desktop ($995/pair), which he is holding in the photo and describes as a one-and-a-half-way design. The Brio has two 3.5" cone drivers, one of which is reflex-loaded, the other open-baffle. On…
Room 470: I have been reading and reading—all about the new Sony loudspeakers. John Atkinson rave-reviewed the Sony SS-AR2 (October 2012) and the SS-NA2ESs (September 2013)! Have I ever heard them? No. Well, finally on the last RMAF day I got to sit up close in a dem hosted by Sony's Motoyuki "Yuki" Sugiura (above) and see if I, too, thought the Sony SS-AR2s ($20,000/pair) were as neutral, lively, well-balanced, detailed, and transparent as JA said. Hmmmmm?
But first, I had to get my mind past those hotel plants with the white schmattas wrapped around their pots.) To do that, I…
When I entered the On A Higher Note room on the Marriott's mezzanine, Synergistic Research's Ted Denney was talking about the sonic benefits of his new Atmosphere ($1995, the vertical black tower between the equipment racks in the photograph). "RF pollution affects how we perceive sound," Ted said," explaining that that is why our systems unpredictably sound good or bad. The Atmosphere, he said, creates a binaural RF field that swamps external RF pollution, allowing our perception to operate correctly. It affects the listener, not the system. Synergistic offers modules for $495 each that,…
Stereophile editor John Atkinson claims the best seat in the house to listen to the system put together by Luke Manley and Bea Lam (top right). Photo: Peter McGrath.
Despite having covered more audio shows than there are angels dancing on the head of a pin, I always look forward to the moment when all preconceptions vanish, the rug is pulled out from under, and I can do is marvel at the mystery of music reproduction at its finest. The time doesn't always come, but when it does, it feels as if childlike wonder has been born anew.
Such was my experience in the VTL and Wilson Audio…
The story is familiar. The British Invasion caused a deadly tsunami in the American music scene. Established stars, from Elvis to John Lee Hooker to Tony Bennett, saw their careers swept away in a matter of months in 1964. Few groups were impacted quite like the Beach Boys, whose resident genius, Brian Wilson, went into an emotional tailspin trying to compete with the Beatles.
The part that's always fascinated me most is what happened after the implosion, after the dust cleared, when Brian had become a shut-in songwriter and the rest of the band, still young and vital, was desperately…
"Is it wrong to love it for its physical beauty?" asks Michael Lavorgna of Astell&Kern's extraordinary (and expensive) AK240 portable file player, which gets the star treatment on the November 2014 issue's cover. But as he also found it a joy to listen to, the question becomes moot.
The AK240 gets the most from hi-rez digital music and the Chesky Brothers' HDtracks website pioneered access to these files. Inside the issue, we interview the other Chesky brother, Norman, who is the business brain behind HDtracks.
In reviews, John Atkinson auditions an expensive Nola loudspeaker…
I know folks, dedicated jazz fans no less, who cannot be dragged into piano and bass duo gigs. Something about not having a drummer spells boredom for them. Not enough going on I guess. Or more likely, there isn't a horn at work. While jazz virtuosity is most often thought of in terms of the more ostentatious sounds of saxophones and trumpets, and the most common perception of jazz groups is quartets or quintets, it's the duo format, at its most pure piano and bass, that has always inspired a special vocabulary and sonic signature. Just a pair of instrumental voices and musical visions…
Billy Joel: The Stranger
CBS CD 35DP2 (CD) and JC34987 (digitally mastered, CX-encoded LP).
CBS CD 35DP2 (CD) and JC34987 (digitally mastered, CX-encoded LP).
This is one of four recordings we now have on hand in both the CD and digital-mastered LP formats, and all reviews of these will be parallel reviews. In the case of the CBS discs, there is no "conventional" version, as all of their recent LP releases are CX-encoded. Thus, I will be comparing decoded CXed CBS LPs (footnote 1) with their CD equivalents.
The Stranger was among the first CDs we got from Sony/CBS for review, and was part of the reason we noted early on that some pop releases…
Both Chesky Records and HDtracks have a pair of co-founding partners, but the music-minded press has perpetually focused on one of them, pianist and composer David Chesky, while ignoring his younger brother, Norman. Mainstream reporters and photographers did converge on Norman Chesky once, when they spotted him rolling a bulky, rough-hewn, wooden artifact from the 2009 auction at which Bernard Madoff's personal effects were sold for the benefit of bilked investors. Leading newspapers ran photos of Norman with the tree-trunk table he'd bought after happening on the sale, and the New York…
Lander: Tell us about the genesis of HDtracks.
Chesky: Napster was like an atomic bomb falling on the record business. Suddenly, millions of kids learned how to share music on the Internet without paying for it, and the scary part was that it was all happening so fast they didn't even understand they were stealing. And the situation just kept getting worse.
Lander: I expect the iTunes Store, which opened in April 2003, exacerbated the situation considerably.
Chesky: Before iTunes started, David and I got invited to a presentation about it, with all the independent…