“As we floated over the floor/
There were questions but my heart knew all the answers/
And perhaps a few things more/
Now in a cottage built of lilacs and laughter/
I know the meaning of the words "Ever after/"
And I'll always see polka dots and moonbeams/
When I kiss the pug-nosed dream.”
Pug-nosed dream? Did anyone ever imagine seeing Bob Dylan’s name next to a cover of “Polka Dots and Moonbeams”?
On first listen to the LP of Fallen Angels, a resistor in the power supply of my turntable fried out. While it’s quickly been repaired, it did make me wonder about ghosts in machines…
My beat at T.H.E. Show 2016 was the ground floor. En route to the audio exhibits, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this beautiful black Bugatti. No information on this particular car was available, but I assumed it was part of the display of tasty automobiles in the Hotel Irvine's lobby and outdoors pavilion, put on by Reus Car Audio Design, Whitledge Design, Wyred 4 Sound, Magnum Automotive Design, and The Source Audio Video Design Group. Pride of place in the car exhibit was Sony's Hi-Res Audio demo vehicle, which had been shown off two days earlier at the Capitol Studios event in…
Brooks Berdan Ltd. of Monrovia, CA eschewed the big stuff, and displayed, in two different rooms, "realistically priced Hi Fi Music Systems." This one shows the Jadis Orchestra 40Wpc integrated amp ($4795) and Spendor SP3/1R2 loudspeakers ($3195/pair), driven by a Roksan Radius 7 turntable with Nima arm and Radius cartridge ($4000) and wired with Cardas Clear Light cabling ($985). Supplementing it were the Chord Hugo DAC ($2195), Auralic Mini streamer ($549) with linear power supply ($349), a Thorens 302 phono preamp ($2195), and Roksan K3 CD player ($2500). Not the cheapest system in the…
Odyssey Audio hails from Indianapolis, Indiana. Designer/Owner Klaus Bunge was in the room when I entered—at least I think he was: the stars were out, and it was a dark night. With the room lights back on, and all through my visit, friends and colleagues were coming in and getting and giving big bear hugs: this company is doing something right! (Klaus told me he talks with every customer, and I believe him.)
I asked Klaus for some pricing information, and from his notes I learned that I was hearing, all from Odyssey Audio, their Candela Tube preamplifier ($1600), the Stratos monoblock…
T.H.E. Show was near its end, and some exhibitors were already packing up before the metaphorical closing bell had rung. But that didn't mean that Show Manager Marine Presson wasn't still hard at work. Standing by the hotel check-in counter, next to T.H.E. Show's registration table, Marine was in overdrive to ensure everything was going smoothly.
Five days later, as I write these words, Interim Show President Maurice Jung is still assembling final attendance figures. While he is certain that T.H.E. Show did not break 9000 aggregate visits—that's the total whereby a person who attends all…
Our July issue hits newsstands and mailboxes this weekend. Jason Victor Serinus kicks things off by asking whether CES will remain a major show for high-end audio, but occupying pride of place on the cover is Zu Audio's Soul Supreme speaker. A big paper-cone driver (with a whizzer cone) operated full-range—we all know that can't work, right. But Herb Reichert and John Atkinson found their preconceptions blown away by the sound.
Ken Micallef lives with the Italian Unison Research Unico Primo amplifier; Brian Damkroger rewires his system with Nordost Valhalla2 cables; John Atkinson ups his…
Ken Micallef wrote about the Elac Debut B6 in July 2016 (Vol.39 No.7):
After their big splash at the 2015 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and following Herb Reichert's munificent review in Stereophile, I was as pleased as a patch of pickled power tubes when John Atkinson delivered to my door the Elac Debut B6 loudspeakers. What began as an audition turned into this Follow-Up review.
In his April 2016 review of the Debut B6, Herb wrote: "The main thing I noticed was how water-clear and relaxed the sound was: open, not grainy or stiff." He also observed that "my critical faculties were…
How would the B6 fare with voices? Playing Johnny Hartman's I Just Dropped By to Say Hello (LP, Impulse! A-57), I felt I was looking at the baritone singer's tonsils—the leading edges of his purr of a voice were extremely well defined. Kenny Burrell's guitar was drier than I recalled on past recordings, as was Hank Jones's tinkling piano. Milt Hinton's deepest bass notes were well extended, but the upper mids of his double bass sounded a wee tight, even slightly compressed. This dryness and tightening of upper frequencies was a minor foible, particularly as it was joined seamlessly to the…
Photo: Kelsey Ohira
May 12, 2014. The day it all began. Three major events happened in my life on May the 12th:
1. My violent hatred towards the USPS was born.
2. I spent the most I ever have, till this very day, on a yellow cab (footnote 1).
3. A divine pair of Technics SL1200 Mk.II turntables entered my life.
Well, they didn't exactly enter my life, per se. They were left on my (then) doorstep in West Harlem, which may give you some insight on #1. More on that later. I need to calm myself. (Sips Earl Grey vehemently in straightjacket.)
By this point in…
Allen Toussaint: American Tunes
Nonesuch 554644 (CD). 2016. Joe Henry, prod.; Ryan Freeman,, eng.; Wesley Seidman, Monique Eveleyin, asst engs. ADD? TT: 49:31
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Phife Dawg, Merle Haggard, Dan Hicks, Ernestine Anderson, Lonnie Mack, Maurice White, Blowfly, Otis Clay, Steve Young, George Martin, Keith Emerson, Henry McCullough, Prince. Was there a genre or subgenre of music that did not grieve in the closing months of 2015 through spring 2016—a period that must rank among the most devastating ever for the loss of important…
