While he’s not quite in the same league as le roi du drum excess, Barrence Whitfield has for the past four decades been a rock ‘n’roll true believer.…
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While rock and roll may never forget, at least that’s what that now silver fox Bob Seger once told us, the fact is that being past 25 and still playing rock and roll can be damned hard on old flesh. I remember Neil Peart (RUSH nation bow thine heads!) complaining about how draining it is to be a rock drummer at an advanced age. Course when you have 3,000 drums and have to bash a gong or a tubular bell every other beat, it does take a toll.
Much as shopping for records in Paris or Berlin or London sounds magical, a recurrent dream of stores stuffed with rare records at bargain prices and new stuff that’s never jumped across the pond, New York City is and may always be the record shopping capital of the world. How did Mr. Berry put it: “Anything you want we got it right here in the USA.”
New York’s preeminence as the place to search for old and new vinyl, (or CDs from any era if that’s your thing), was brought home to me last weekend when after a tasty brunch at the venerable Hope & Anchor bistro/joint, and before…
One look at Gig Harbor Audio's events for September makes you stop and wonder. This month, the store, located near the water in the picturesque town of Gig Harbor, WA less than an hour from Seattle, began the month with a live concert by homegrown band, Rokkerbox, which benefitted for the local food bank. Next on the schedule are a three-hour "Social Media Basics" workshop with Tiffany Burke (September 20), a weekly hour-long "Disc After Dark" all-ages listening party (September 22), and a PTSD Healing Summit (September 25). With not a single presentation by an industry heavyweight, and lots…
John Atkinson wrote about the Black in October 2015 (Vol.38 No.10):
"You don't know what you've got till it's gone," sang the young Joni Mitchell, but she was wrong. When I packed up the Ayre Acoustics KX-R Twenty preamplifier and pair of MX-R Twenty monoblocks, after having reviewed the latter for our August issue, I was well aware that this was the best amplification system I had experienced. The question was, how was I to replace them? I had some new amplifiers on deck for review, but as I still had in-house Bel Canto Design's three-piece, $50,000 Black system, which Michael Fremer…
Saturday, September 26, 10am–5pm: Advance Electronics (1300 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Canada) will hold its 2nd Annual Record Sale, featuring hundreds of new and used records, a special turntable trade-in offer, and educational seminars.
From 10:30am to 1pm, Simaudio's Costa Koulisakis will present his company's new personal listening products, including the Moon 430HA DAC/headphone amplifier. Meanwhile, at 11:30am and 2pm, AudioQuest's Frédéric Pinsonneault will host Shared Listening Evaluations on AQ's NightHawk headphones, JitterBug USB filter, and a selection of analog and digital…
Mahan Esfahani: Time Present and Time Past
C.P.E. Bach: 12 Variations on "Les Folies d'Espagne." J.S. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in d, BWV 1052. Geminiani: Concerto Grosso in d (after Corelli). Górecki: Harpsichord Concerto. Reich: Piano Phase for Two Pianos (harpsichord version: Esfahani). A. Scarlatti: Variations on "La Folia."
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord; Concerto Köln
Archiv Produktion 4794481 (CD). 2015. Christoph Classen, prod.; Michael Morawietz, eng. DDD. TT: 73:45
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord; Concerto Köln
Archiv Produktion 4794481 (CD). 2015. Christoph Classen, prod.; Michael Morawietz, eng. DDD. TT: 73:45
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
This razzle-dazzle release is remarkable on several levels, and I…
I began working as a salesman of high-end audio gear in 1978. I was 29, and, as I recall, a healthy percentage of my customers were about my age. Most of the top high-end designers and entrepreneurs, too, were young: John Curl, Dan D'Agostino, Jon Dahlquist, Ray Kimber, Mark Levinson, Bill Low, Mike Moffat, Nelson Pass, Peter Snell, Bob Stuart, Jim Thiel, Ivor Tiefenbrun, A.J. van den Hul, Richard Vandersteen, Harry Weisfeld, David Wilson. The fact is, high-end audio's Golden Age—the late 1970s to the mid-1980s—was largely fueled by the under-40 set, and most high-end journalists were fellow…
Here comes another audiophile vinyl-reissue house, this one a bit of a head-scratcher. Analog Spark, the creation of Marc Piro (and a successor to his Razor & Tie label), debuted a few months back with The Sound of Music (missed it) and will soon come out with Glenn Gould's renditions of Bach's Goldberg Variations (the 1955 and 1981 versions), then a slew of Broadway cast albums (West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and A Chorus Line, among others). And, for now, it has a jazz album: Dave Brubeck's 1954 Jazz Goes to College.
If you asked me to pick just one jazz album to reissue on vinyl,…
After hearing the dramatic sonic differences between the original pressing of Errol Garner’s Concert by the Sea, (one of my father’s favorite records, I still have his LP copy) and the new reissue reviewed by David Sokol in the October issue of Stereophile, I thought a further demonstration of what was done to improve the sound would be instructive. Thanks to Jim Merlis of Big Hassle Media and Sony/Legacy, here’s an A/B link that is fairly dramatic. Steve Rosenthal who worked on the project at Magic Shop New York explains:
“The Concert By The Sea tapes were transferred and remastered at The…
There are dozens of music-playback programs for computers, touchpads, and smartphones, ranging from Amarra, Audirvana, JRiver, Pure Music, and VLC, which manage libraries or work with library software, to programs that are integrated with a specific distribution service: Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, and, of course, iTunes. Still others, such as Sonos, are integrated with a dedicated hardware product.
All such library management combinations and standalone solutions are designed to do the same job: help you sort through thousands of possible music choices and pick a tune to play right now, or…