Maria Schneider, photographed by Jimmy & Dena Katz
It’s Thanksgiving time, and New York jazz fans know what that means. No, not the Macy’s parade down Broadway or the lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. The really big shows for our crowd—annual traditions for a while now—are the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra at the Jazz Standard and Jason Moran’s Bandwagon Trio at the Village Vanguard.
Both bands play Tuesday, November 25, through Sunday, November 30, though the Jazz Standard is dark on Thanksgiving itself.
Schneider is the preeminent big-band…
With increasing frequency, many audiophiles and industry professionals have accepted that the quest for highest-quality sound quality is a luxury and esoteric pursuit that, by its very nature, can appeal to only a small niche market. According to this view, the masses—the 99%, if you will—are either satisfied with Pioneer, Bose, Samsung, Dr. Dre, and iPhone/Android/tablet sound; can't tell the difference between quality and dreck; or will never have the money or imagination to move beyond lowest-common-denominator sound. To the extent that the vast majority knows anything about high-end…
James Brown: Love Power Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971
Polydor/Sundazed 5470 (3 LPs). 2014. James Brown, prod., mix; Ron Lenhoff, eng., mix; Bob Irwin, mastering. AAA.? TT: 92:50
Performance *****
Sonics ***½
In the one scene in the new James Brown biopic, Get On Up, that's actually about his music, JB, who began his career in music as a drummer, tells his horn section to "sound like a drum." It also shows him being dictatorial and harsh, traits that contributed to his losing several bands' worth of key musicians over the years. Perched on the edge of such a…
John Marks returned to the Bricasti M1 in December 2014 (Vol.37 No.12):
In my third report on the Bricasti M1—a Follow-Up in the July 2013 issue—I wrote: "If Stereophile has covered another product that has received as many upgrades in as brief a time as Bricasti's M1 DAC ([$9000]), I missed it." Since then, Bricasti has stayed on their path of "continuous innovation." I think it praiseworthy that all of Bricasti's M1 upgrades have been made available to owners of earlier models at reasonable cost or no cost at all. Not one Bricasti DAC has ever been rendered obsolete by a newer model.…
Sidebar: More Bits vs Greater Bandwidth
Contrary to what some industry pundits claim, the dividing line between "Red Book" and "hi-rez" audio is: 20-bit/44.1kHz—that is, 20 true bits, not mere nominal bits. I'm not saying that DSD, DXD, and 192kHz do not sound "better." I'm saying that most of the ills of "Red Book" sound can be traced back to its resolution of 16 bits. Resolution is more important than frequency response, I feel, in large measure because, for much program content, there isn't much musical information above 20kHz. For example, the workhouse rock'n'roll dynamic microphone…
The experience left me doubting my ears. After I'd performed all the measurements of Ayre Acoustics' KX-R preamplifier ($18,500) to accompany Wes Phillips's review in our November 2008 issue, I spent a weekend listening to it. To my astonishment, the sound of my system with a Transporter D/A processor feeding the preamplifier was better than when the DAC fed the power amplifier directly. Through the KX-R, images sounded more tangible, and the sound was better focused, despite the signal's having been passed through not just another set of interconnects but also through the preamp's input…
The KX-R Twenty loved women's voices. The aggressive edge to Chrissie Hynde's thin-sounding pipes in "Back on the Chain Gang," from the Pretenders' The Singles (ALAC file ripped from CD, Sire/WEA), was tamed; it was easy to put to one side the fact that "Love Letters," from Ketty Lester's Torch Songs, with Lincoln Mayorga on piano (320kbps AAC file), was lossy compressed mono. And with well-recorded female voices, such as Mary Chapin Carpenter's take on Jagger and Richards' own torch song "Party Doll," from her Party Doll and Other Favorites (ALAC file ripped from CD, Columbia CK 68751), the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Remote-controlled line preamplifier. Analog inputs: 4 balanced (pin 2 hot), 4 unbalanced. Analog outputs: 2 pairs balanced on XLRs (pin 2 hot), 2 pairs balanced tape (pin 2 hot). Other inputs/outputs: 2 AyreLink ports. Gain range: Variable Gain Transconductance topology in 60 steps of 1dB. Frequency range: DC–250kHz. Signal/noise and channel separation: not specified. Input impedance: 2 megohms, balanced; 1 megohm, unbalanced. Output impedance: 150 ohms, single-ended (when used with an adapter); 300 ohms, balanced. Power consumption: 35W (65W…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge.
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.9.4, iTunes 11, Pure Music 2.0, Audirvana Plus 1.5.10; Auralic Vega, PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processors; dCS Vivaldi upsampling D/A system; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter.
Preamplification: Channel D Seta L phono preamplifier; Pass Labs XP-30 line preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks, Audio…
Early in the review period, a friend of my wife's visited from out of town, accompanied by her music-writer husband, who is definitely not an audiophile. In fact, he was hesitant about visiting at all, fearing I'd subject him to "audiophile" records. Happily, I had all of the recordings he asked to hear, some of it obscure. He came away from the experience thinking that one could be an audiophile and a music lover. He seemed to enjoy the Fremer Hi-Fi Show, but after a while, though he'd said nothing, I could tell he was less than happy with a few things we played. Then he requested the title…
