I used to be a DIY guy, but now that I work for Stereophile, I'm living like Jay Z —and there's no time for sawing wood or screwing raw drivers into boxes. But: I think I know a high-quality, well-engineered cone speaker or compression driver when I see one—and the BMS drivers I saw at RMAF 2016 looked a lot like pro-style, industrial-strength objets d'art. The BMS…
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German loudspeaker manufacturer BMS “Sells fewer raw drivers to more DIY guys and more raw drivers to fewer pro-sound guys
”—or so says Jack Arnott of Assistance Audio, BMS’s North American importer. (Got that?)
The first day of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest ended with two important events. The first was an intimate memorial gathering for Wes Phillips, Stereophile’s sorely missed deputy editor (1995–1999) and contributor (2000–2011), who died on August 27, 2016. Out of respect for those in attendance, Roy Gregory of The Audio Beat.com and Marjorie Baumert, the guiding light behind RMAF, held off the start of the Second Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest International HiFi Press Awards [RIHPA] until Marjorie and I beat it across the street to the packed ballroom at the Hilton, where we let Roy and…
That my Saturday at RMAF began one flight up, on floor 6, would be of no significance save for one fact: the ascent revealed a handsome Zesto Audio/Marten/WyWires system that included the premiere showing of Zesto Audio's Andros Téssera tube phono stage ($12,000). This was one of those happy, expectation-fulfilling rooms where recordings actually sounded like music. I loved the timbres on a movement from Holst’s perpetually rotating The Planets, albeit highs were a little zingy at high volume. A Nat King Cole record featured gorgeous mids. There was a bit of booming in one narrow range on top…
On the day before RMAF 2016 began, German audio manufacturer Elac announced that they have entered an agreement to acquire Peter Madnick's American company, Audio Alchemy. When I heard this news, it felt good and right. Between them, Elac and Audio Alchemy are turning out a large portion of the best-sounding, highest-value audio equipment I have experienced in the 21st Century— and now they are officially a power couple!
Throughout the 1990s, Peter Madnick's reputation as a designer of modestly priced, reliable, and sonically superb audio products was etched in stone. (And Audio…
As you can read elsewhere in our RMAF coverage, the incomplete remodeling of the Denver Tech Center Marriott mean that the CanJam exhibits had to be moved to a tent in the hotel parking lot and the seminars and Classic Album Sunday events were held in temporary housing "pods." I wandered into one of the latter to find Channel D's Rob Robinson (above) playing 24/192 rips of LPs on a system featuring a Lynx HiLo digital converter, a Jeff Rowland amplifier, Cardas cables, and Joseph Audio Pearl 3 speakers. When I sat down to listen, Rob was playing a 1953 Maria Callas recording of an aria from…
As I entered the Schiit/Salk room, someone from Schiit asked me, jokingly: "Isn't Schiit too cheap for Stereophile?"
I wish I could've channeled Stephen Mejias, who'd probably have said something more wise/cool/all-around-smooth-space-cowboy sounding. I think I probably just chuckled and said something like "no, of course not." Nothing is too cheap for Stereophile. Nothing is too cheap for audiophiles. Our reviewers share their thoughts on components through all price ranges for our readers who shop through all budget ranges.
That being said—I'm cheap. I'm a recent college…
Rad, man! Rad
as in Raidho. (Well, okay—maybe it's pronounced Rye-dough, but I trust you get my bleary-eyed, blogged-out drift.) Using the exact same equipment that delivered extremely enticing albeit ultimately unbalanced sound in a much larger, unquestionably problematic room in Munich, Raidho blew me away with the great depth, excellent highs, ideal depiction of guitar, and lovely midrange it shared via a recording of Suzanne Vega's "Luka."
The sound was exceptional. On my own Chesky CD of bassist Ron Carter and bossa nova great Rosa Passos—yes, you could actually play your own…
There’s nothing quite like an insanely memorable, outta-left- field debut record to give people the permanent impression that you’re a genius. And that everything you subsequently do is worth seeking out and discussing. Trouble is once you’re a genius where do you and your art go? Justin Vernon seems to be on everyone’s lips right now since the release of 22, A Million. Buy a slice a pizza, admittedly in the hipster environs of Brooklyn, and it’s playing in the background of a place that’s usually slavishly committed to a classic rock Pandora channel. Wives hear it at the gym (thumbs down).…
Has any band ever put out less music and yet been discussed and dissected more than Big Star? The endless discussion over the years about Alex Chilton, Big Star and the supposed magic that lies in those 50 or so hallowed tracks has sent more than one Stereophile Contributing Music Editor into sputtering denunciations of how ridiculous it is that rock critics of a certain generation—those who came of age in the infancy of indie rock—fawn and coo over Big Star with seemingly bottomless adoration. And how, of course, their supposed influence on everything that came after is all pretentious…
The last room I visited before the Wes Phillips Memorial, which was hosted in the PS Audio room Friday night of the show, was conveniently, PS Audio's. In my photo, the company's cofounder, fitness freak Paul McGowan, whom his daily email newsletter has revealed to be a talented writer, poses beside the humongous collection of PS Audio gear that was used to drive the Scaena La Maitresse Ultime speakers ($125,000/pair). These combine line arrays of ribbon tweeters and cone midrange units with two subwoofer towers.
The Scaena speakers were bi-amped with four of PS Audio's BHK Signature 300…