I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the KEF Blade Two's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. The Blade Two's voltage sensitivity is specified as 90dB/2.83V/m; my estimate was somewhat lower than this, at 87.1dB(B)/2.83V/m. The Blade Two's nominal impedance is 4 ohms, with a minimum value of 3.2 ohms. My measurement (fig.1) revealed a minimum magnitude (including cable) of 3.4 ohms at 177Hz (solid trace). Though the impedance remained below 6…
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Soul singing is essentially a young man’s game. You gotta have limber vocal chords to endure the screams, cries and soaring that is required. Although they have the pathos that young men don’t, veteran soul singers can be a challenge to record. Much as they want it, and think they can still hit the high notes, can still push their voice in passionate directions, the results are often more sad than thrilling.
Having said all that, This Time For Real, a new project by Otis Clay and Billy Price, two soul veterans,(shown above with producer Duke Robillard, far left), one from Pittsburgh and…
Sometimes a good album passes me by, unnoticed (so much music, so little time), but few turn out, upon discovery, to be as very, very good as the Jaki Byard Project's Inch By Inch, Yard Byard (on the GM Recordings label).
The album's 12 tracks were all composed by the late, great pianist Jaki Byard, played here (and, in some cases, arranged as well) by three of his former students at the New England Conservatory—flutist Jamie Baum, guitarist Jerome Harris, and drummer George Schuller—joined by Adam Kolker on reeds and Ugonna Okegwo on bass.
Tribute bands are tricky things: how to…
High-end audio is mostly about songs blaring from boxes. Occasionally, you can be sitting near some of these wailing boxes and think: Wow, these songs are sounding pretty darn good! If you’re an audiophile that means you’ve found a home. Today, on my first day in Newport Beach, California I am sitting in the lobby of the Irvine Hotel (home of The Home Entertainment Show Newport) getting myself psyched for room after room of blaring boxes and stacks of brochures, sproutin’ like cotton from every horizontal surface. I am feeling jus’ like that ol’ boo weevil a-sitten’ on the square: Just a-…
Six weeks before the start of THE Show Newport Beach, word got out that the show organizers were poised to add a last-minute "Trade and Press Day" for Thursday May 28. As it turned out, the actual announcement came later, less than a month before the show. The idea, if instituted correctly, could have been a good one. But done so last minute, it seemed, at best, half-cocked.
Which is exactly as it turned out. At least one exhibitor has already voiced his displeasure on Facebook, lamenting that he had people coming into his room while he was trying to set up. (Duh, why didn't you lock the…
From the Hotel Irvine, where the THE Show 2015 is occurring this year, you have to cross the 405 freeway to the west and keep going a ways to actually get to Newport Beach. Audio critical mass has been attained here this year, with a daunting 400+ exhibitors, spread out over nine floors, with three public days plus a press day. I flew into John Wayne Airport—which is smaller and less nasty than LAX—and the Hotel Irvine is close by. My beat for Stereophile—to attempt to share with you my brief take on equipment and systems that might be described as "Medium Budget"; not too cheap, not too…
When longtime TAD/Pioneer speaker designer Andrew Jones moved on to design new speakers for German manufacturer ELAC, we expected big things, though not quite immediately. Speaker design takes time. But Jones and ELAC made a big splash at the Newport show with the new line of Debut speakers. The first model ready for demo was the baby of the Debut family, the B5. It's shown here with proud papa Andrew, with its 5.25" aramid-fiber woofer and 1" cloth-dome tweeter, and is expected to retail for $230/pair in early fall when the entire lineup should be available.
The amp used to drive the…
First morning of the first day, jet-lagged, don't recognize anybody, forgot every name and, worse still: I broke every rule I made for myself on the way to Newport Beach. Mostly, I have attended these shows as a distributor-exhibitor so I never forget how much it costs in money and psychic energy to do any show—let alone the whole US-World circuit. Many of these exhibitors just finished a big, wallet-crushing, jet-lagging show in Munich, and now they are here in California (how many miles and time zones is that?), still staggering and punch drunk from dancing on that big stage—trying to smile…
The ribbon had been cut and the trumpets sounded. THE Show Newport Beach, whose 2015 installment had moved a mile or two up the road into Irvine, was underway. Doing the honors at the ribbon-cutting ceremony were, from left to right, a gold chain-bedecked Steve Rochlin of Enjoy the Music, accompanied by his wife, Heather to his left, and an unidentified woman to his right; Michael Fremer of Stereophile and AnalogPlanet.com; David Robinson of Positive Feedback, Robert Harley of The Absolute Sound. Several folks were present on the stage later in the ceremony, including Carol and Dave Clark of…
In the lobby of the Hotel Irvine, Meryl Jane was not only showing her paintings of famous audiophile-approved artists, but also extremely eager to have her picture snapped in their midst. By all laws known to God, human, and those strange outlaw beings known as Texans, opening day at an audio show is when systems, usually not fully dialed in, often sound sub par. Yet in Hotel Irvine, the most consistently fine sound I encountered was on Day One, in the extremely hard-to-tame cubic conference rooms on the lobby level.
Right next to the superb-sounding rooms from GTT Audio (YG…