If you asked me to pick just one jazz album to reissue on vinyl,…
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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.
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…
And once you start somewhere, Roon can keep the show going until you pull the plug. The Radio feature uses metadata to create, in the words of Roon Labs, a "personalized station," in a manner similar to Pandora Radio's automated music-recommendation engine. To get started, you simply pick one or more tracks, then press the Radio button: Roon moves you around related music with a curated stream.
Sound quality
These days, I find that most music-playing apps sound so alike, the differences aren't worth sweating. It didn't used to be this way, but it is now: When I've properly set up…
When I began writing for Stereophile, I heard people whispering:
"Herb is one of those triode-horn guys."
Wrong. Most of my life, I've favored solid-state integrated amplifiers driving small, British-made speakers.
"I'm sure he hates digital."
Wrong again. I sold all my LPs some 12 years ago, and since then I've been filling my days with CDs and high-resolution downloads. (However, I am starting to collect vinyl again, because my vintage DNA still remembers how to worship at the Altar of Black Discs.)
"Reichert? He's a mono guy. He's not into imaging."…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Cloud-based music-playback software.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.9 (10.10 recommended), Windows 7 (8.1 recommended), compatible players/streamers from partnering hardware manufacturers. File formats supported WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, OGG, DSF (built-in); MP3, AAC (OS-dependent).
Price: $119/year, $499/lifetime.
Manufacturer: Roon Labs LLC, 96 Round Hill Drive, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510. Web: roonlabs.com.
But until I began the more serious critical listening required for this review, I never realized how classically well balanced the LM-518IA's sound actually is. I knew it sounded elegant, colorful, and exciting, but I hadn't known how capable it was of opening doors on hitherto hidden inner spaces of my music.
With the Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a
The Line Magnetic LM-518IA mated especially well with the Falcon LS3/5a that I reviewed in August. The amp's 16-ohm taps loved the 15-ohm Falcons, and the Falcons really let those 845 tubes strut their stuff: The bright emitters wrung every last…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Apple MacBook Pro computer (2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) running OS 10.10.3, Amarra Computer Music Player, Audirvana Plus, iTunes, JRiver Media Center (v.19.0), Reaper, Songbird, VLC, XLD. Also used, to check compatibility: Android tablet, Apple Mac mini, Intel NUC (detailed in review), Sony laptop running Windows 7; Apple iPad Air, iPod Touch 1G, iPhone 6; Meridian Sooloos Digital Media System (Control 15, QNAP TS-669 Pro NAS); Oppo BDP-103 universal BD player; Western Digital 2TB NAS drive.
Digital Processors:…
Sidebar 1: Tube Rolling
The most important thing you can do with a thermionic valve is to hold it in your hand and study it with your eyes. More than you might think, what you see is what you get. High-energy electrons are boiled off the heater or cathode, pass through the wire control grid, and collide forcefully with that big black, gray, or silver thing—the anode, or "plate"—that occupies most of the space inside the bottle. What that anode structure looks like is probably what your midrange will sound like—ie, if the anode looks smooth and big and richly textured, those same…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Tubed integrated amplifier. Tube complement: two 845, two 63P3, one 5AR4, two 12AX7. Line inputs: 3 (RCA). Input impedance: 100k ohms. Input sensitivity (integrated): 200mV. Output taps: 0, 4, 8, 16 ohms. Power output: 22Wpc into 8 ohms (13.4dBW). Frequency response: 10Hz–50kHz, –1.5dB. Harmonic distortion: 1% at 1kHz (A-weighted). Signal/noise ratio: 87dB (A-weighted). Power consumption: 320W.
Dimensions: 16.75" (430mm) W by 9.75" (250mm) H by 14.25" (365mm) D. Weight: 77 lbs (35kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: 13040078.
Price: $…