The recording, available on both CD and as a hi-rez download from HDTracks, presents first string quartets penned at the very start of the careers of Adès (born 1971), Nørgård (b. 1932), and Abrahamsen (b. 1952). Each composer is…
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One of the great joys of reviewing is discovering music with ideas so fresh, and harmonic progressions so inventive, that the simple act of listening without distraction inspires unique emotional and intellectual journeys. Such is the case every time I listen to the recent ECM New Series release, Danish String Quartet: Thomas Adès Per Nørgård Hans Abrahamsen.
A fleeting memory:
Hazy.
Early morning.
I'm sitting outside Penn Station.
Next to me sits Jim Hall.
A boy with an upright bass walks past us.
"Is that a walking bass?" Jim chuckles.
The boy, in passing, raises an eyebrow, glances over.
Keeps walking, doesn't think twice.
Oh, the irony.
If you are a lover or a maker of jazz (or any music at all) you must be a fan of the legendary guitarist Jim Hall, who passed away on December 10, 2013. At least, that is the hope I have seared into my mind, as to not completely lose all faith in humanity.
…
Which record player has achieved international acclaim as a musical instrument in its own right?
Which turntable is revered for its near-indestructible build quality?
Which disc spinner has played more records—and made more people drink, drug, dance, and make out—than any other?
Which turntable has sold over three million units?
Hint: It is not made in the US, the UK, China, or Switzerland.
Few Stereophile-reading audiophiles wept when, in 2010, the Technics SL-1200 Mk.5 direct-drive turntable was discontinued. Those who did shed tears blamed it on the…
Listening: The world's best record-players all exhibit an eerie silence coupled to a precise, palpable, and captivating spatiality—which is what we pay so much extra for. By comparison, my stoop-sale Technics SL-1200 Mk.2 is conspicuously noisy and spatially vague. The reconceived 1200, the new Grand Class SL-1200GAE, with its new motor-drive system, went a surprisingly long way toward correcting these problems.
I used four cartridges with the Technics: an Ortofon 2M Black MM, a Hana by Excel EL low-output MC, my Zu Denon DL-103 MC, and a mono-wired Shure M44 MM with 78rpm stylus. My…
I should have seen this coming: Less than a year after the last time I railed against the darkness of cable reviewing—the indignity of crawling around behind my equipment rack, the tedium of comparing one wire to another, the frustration of trying to wring from the experience some fresh and hopefully entertaining observations, the horror of dealing with manufacturers whose hunger for good publicity borders on the vampiric—I have once again invited into my home a cable manufacturer and his wares.
I did so for the best possible reason: The manufacturer is someone I've known for five or so…
Sidebar: Contacts
Technics, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Corporation, Two Riverfront Plaza, Newark, NJ 07102. Web: www.technics.com/us.
Hana by Excel, Excel Sound Corporation, Toyo Building 5f-a, No.8-5 1-Chome, Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Tel: (81) (03)444-8634. Web: www.excelsound.co.jp. US distributor: Musical Surroundings, 5662 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609. Tel: (510) 547-5006. Fax: (510) 547-5009. Web: www.musicalsurroundings.com.
That my next step should be to replace the AC cord of the Shindo Haut-Brion power amplifier—the amp in use at the time—was obvious, but utterly lacking in the excitement of anticipation: Since upgrading the preamp's power cord produced so modest a change, I assumed that performing the same swap on the next component downstream would produce an even subtler change, if any. Yet when we made the swap and began listening, I heard a difference so startlingly apparent that I laughed aloud—as did Danny Labrecque, whom I then chided for committing the unpardonable sin of messing with my head (though…
When I first met Luke Manley, proprietor of VTL, he and his father, David, with whom he ran the company at the time, had recently emigrated from the UK to California. I asked Luke how he liked the West Coast. "Great," he replied. "Much better parts availability." This was about 30 years ago, when I was just immersing myself in high-end audio at a high-toned level. Our exchange gave me a taste of the obsessions ahead, though Luke Manley's single-mindedness through the decades since has been more dogged than many—and, at the same time, less dogmatic.
Once a tube purist (the initials VTL…
On "Amelia," from Joni Mitchell's Hejira (LP, Asylum/Rhino R1 01087), the ringing from Victor Feldman's vibes billowed forth in waves as I'd never heard before (if I had synesthesia, I'm sure I'd have seen bright balls of color), while never obscuring the surrounding guitar strums or Mitchell's voice, which all seemed distinct but enveloped in the same, cohesive space. In "Walking by Flashlight," the first track of Maria Schneider's The Thompson Fields (CD, ArtistShare AS-0137), the accordion, even when submerged in the background, never lost its squeeze-box airiness; ditto the flute's…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Hybrid tube (gain stage) and FET (output stage, power supply), dual-mono, fully balanced differential design, zero-feedback line-level preamplifier. Inputs: 3 pairs balanced (XLR or RCA), 5 additional pairs single-ended (RCA only). Outputs: 1 pair balanced (XLR), 2 pairs single-ended (RCA), 2 pairs single-ended buffered Tape outputs. Gain: 19.2dB balanced, 13.2dB single-ended. Volume knob: 95 increments of 0.7dB. Frequency response: 1Hz–200kHz (20Hz–200kHz, +0/–1dB, into 600 ohms with 900pF 20' interconnect). Signal/noise: 88dB. Channel separation…