You invite your good ole non-audiophile pal Stan (footnote 1) over. You use a ruse you know Stan will fall for, like "Let's flip some burgers and listen to the cool commercials on Spotify's free tier," or "I just mastered the piña colada and torrented David Bowie's entire discography" (as if the piña colada alone wouldn't be enough to lure that sucker Stan), or "You left your phone at…
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It's a Sunday in suburbia. Sunny, 95°—"sweltering," some would say. The kind of heat where, you grab that cold can of Guinness, and the moment it leaves the cold comforts of the fridge, it's dead on impact.
A recording engineer's choices of microphones to record singers, guitars, horns, bass, drums—or an entire orchestra—are absolutely crucial. Those very subjective choices are, in large part, what separate the best recordings from the also-rans. When I contacted some of the best engineers in the business to talk about mikes, I got an earful. I was told that mikes have a more profound impact on reproduced sound than does any other link in the recording chain. Yes, the acoustic of the recording venue also plays a huge role, and post-session mixing and mastering can of course improve or ruin the…
Most people who have heard music recordings encoded with Master Quality Authenticated agree that it sounds really goood (footnote 1)—but even they recognize that at least one major challenge remains: ensuring that listeners can actually get, in MQA format, the music they most love. I spoke with Spencer Chrislu, MQA's director of content services, about the company's efforts to meet this challenge.
Jim Austin: Please tell us about your background.
Spencer Chrislu: Wow, where do I start? I've been a music fan all my life, and fell in love with high-end audio as a teenager. I've…
Van Morrison: . . It's Too Late to Stop Now . . . Volumes II, III, IV & DVD
Exile/Columbia/Legacy 88875134742 (2 LPs, 3 CDs, 1 DVD). 2016. Van Morrison, Ted Templeton, orig. prods.; Donn Landee, orig. eng.; Myles Wiener, Biff Dawes, Jack Crymes, Gabby Garcia, asst. engs.; Guy Massey, new remix; Andrew Sandoval, compilation prod.; Vic Anesini, remastering. ADA/ADD? TT: 3:33:58
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Exile/Columbia/Legacy 88875134742 (2 LPs, 3 CDs, 1 DVD). 2016. Van Morrison, Ted Templeton, orig. prods.; Donn Landee, orig. eng.; Myles Wiener, Biff Dawes, Jack Crymes, Gabby Garcia, asst. engs.; Guy Massey, new remix; Andrew Sandoval, compilation prod.; Vic Anesini, remastering. ADA/ADD? TT: 3:33:58
Performance *****
Sonics ****
In the otherwise silly 2002 film The Banger Sisters, one line has always stood out. When the children of a groupie turned suburban Phoenix housewife (Susan Sarandon)…
Last June, Jim Austin briefly discussed the operation of MQA in his review of the Meridian Explorer2 USB DAC, but you can find a more detailed explanation on Stereophile's website here and here. MQA involves two fundamental concepts, discussed in a paper presented to the Audio Engineering Society in October 2014 (footnote 1). The first is responsible for a large reduction in the bandwidth required to store and stream high-resolution files, the second for a potential improvement in sound quality:
With files sampled at 2x, 4x, or 8x the baseband rate of 44.1 or 48kHz, the information in…
Sidebar: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Mac mini (i7, 8GB RAM) running OSX El Capitan, Pure Music 3.06, Audirvana 1.5.
Headphone Amplifiers: Ayre Acoustics Codex, Simaudio Moon Neo 230HAD.
Preamplifier: None.
Power Amplifiers: Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-X, AudioQuest NightHawk.
Loudspeakers: PSB Imagine T3, Crystal Cable Arabesque Minissimo Diamond Edition.
Cables: USB: AudioQuest Coffee. Interconnect: AudioQuest Fire (unbalanced) & Wild Blue (balanced). Headphone: Cardas Clear (balanced), manufacturers' own (unbalanced).…
Marc Ribot meets Gamble and Huff! I’m in!
And yet, at the same time, mindful of what often happens with tribute records, which is what in some ways this is, a competing thought also arose: everybody’s looking for a concept, might this one be too clever for its own good?
One time through The Young Philadelphians however and any doubts were extinguished. Here was a combination of accessible, ultra-familiar material twisted in new ways by Ribot’s ever vital, always surprising gifts for phrasing and tones, combined with a rhythm section made up of two Philly natives, bassist…
John Atkinson returned to the Prime in September 2016 (Vol.39 No.9):
I reviewed this elegantly English D/A headphone amplifier in October 2014, with a Follow-Up in November 2015 (footnote 1). I was impressed with what I heard. Yes, at $2000, the Prime is relatively expensive—but, as I wrote, "I liked the palpable way it had with imaging and its clean, clear, but smooth highs."
Another aspect of the Prime that I liked was the fact that, with a firmware upgrade, it could decode and play MQA-encoded files. When this upgrade became available in spring 2016, I downloaded the firmware…
Guitarist Eric Ambel, better known as Roscoe, has built quite a varied career for himself. Although he first came to wider attention as a member of Joan Jett’s Blackhearts, Ambel later went on to achieve what’s probably his best known gig, as part of The Del-Lords, the roots band with former Dictator Scott Kempner. Since the breakup of the DL’s Amble has had several bands including the Yayhoos and Roscoe’s Gang and has landed a high profile sidemans gig as part of Steve Earle’s backing band, The Dukes. He’s also become a record producer (Bottle Rockets, Nils Lofgren, Blood Oranges) via his…
Manufacturers' Comment
Editor: I read with interest, and not a little relief, Jason Victor Serinus's "As We See It" in the July issue of Stereophile.
Relief because, after we were forced to defer Salon Son et Image 2016 this year, various adverse and, in some cases, vile accusations were made. Why would we do such a thing? The truth is, no organizer of any worth has anything to gain by deferring or even canceling a show; the only genuine reason will be lack of trade support. That lack of support had to be influenced by the ongoing financial viability of this show, in the eyes of…