When that observation was offered during a recent phone conversation, I wrote it down word for word—not just because I agree with it, but because it was so remarkable: The audio-industry veteran who offered it owns a digital front end worth tens of thousands of dollars, and hasn't owned a turntable for at least a dozen years. Nevertheless, as became clear during the remainder of our conversation, he understands the dynamic that keeps vinyl at the top: a confluence of marketing…
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"The way that young people will get into high-end audio is not through streaming: It's through the LP."
The orchestra got bigger—crazy bigger—and the swooping of the woodwinds became more physical, as did the accents in the double basses. But the music making, the playing of notes and beats, the conveyance of intellect and emotion, was essentially the same. I heard, in the same, single moment, why someone would pay $5000 for the Hommage and why most anyone else would be happy just paying their $749 for the Leema.
But one little thing from that last listen got stuck in my mind, so I picked up the needle and started the record again. But this time, before I did, I hustled over to the backs of…
To paraphrase the playwright Alan Bennett: When I started Listener magazine, my idea was to create a small, anarchist journal. But people wouldn't obey the rules.
In 2003, when I began writing for Stereophile, I felt very much at home. John Atkinson had one set of rules (footnote 1) to ring us in, us being the codependent communities of audio reviewers and audio manufacturers. Martinet that I am, I layered atop those policies a few rules of my own, to govern interactions with members of the industry. More recently, I began to observe an additional practice—I wouldn't quite call it a…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-channel phono preamplifier. Inputs: 1 phono, switchable between moving-magnet and moving-coil. Phono gain: 36dB (MM), 62dB (MC). Input sensitivity: 4mV RMS for 250mV RMS output at 1kHz (MM), 180µV RMS for 250mV RMS output at 1kHz (MC). Input impedance: 47k ohms (MM), 90 ohms (MC). Headroom: >26dB at 1kHz. Distortion: <0.02% at 1kHz.
Dimensions: 4.3" (110mm) W by 2" (50mm) H by 3.9" (100mm) D. Weight: 2 lbs (0.9kg).
Serial Numbers of Units Reviewed: ES140708B, ES140704B.
Price: $749. Approximate number of dealers: 8. Warranty: 5…
Every square millimeter of the case's interior had the same seamless finish as the exterior. The hand-laced wiring was neatly bundled, and tied to the inside of the case with red-leather straps that looked as if they might have been sliced from the interior of a late-'40s Jaguar. The soldering was the neatest I've seen anywhere—I doubt that even Dick Cheney's pacemaker is built this well—with not one stray speck of flux or solder visible. My favorite touch of all was hidden beneath the Bespoke: four felt feet of generous size and luxuriant thickness. No metal, no polymers—just dense, soft…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301, Thorens TD 124 turntables; EMT 997, Abis SA-1.2 tonearms; EMT OFD 25 & OFD 15 & TSD 15 pickup heads; Denon DL-103, Miyajima Premium BE Mono II cartridges.
Digital Sources: Halide Designs DAC HD USB D/A converter; Apple iMac G5 computer running Audirvana Plus 1.5.12; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Hommage T2 step-up transformer, Shindo Aurieges phono preamplifier, Shindo Masseto preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Shindo Corton-Charlemagne (monoblocks) & Haut-Brion (stereo).
Loudspeakers…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Leema Acoustics Essentials phono preamplifier (serial number ES140704B) using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com, and the January 2008 "As We See It"). As always with phono stages, I experimented with the grounding between the Essentials and the Audio Precision system to get the lowest level of noise.
The voltage gain at 1kHz was 35.7dB with the Leema set to MM (moving-magnet), and 61.2dB when set to MC (moving-coil). Both values are very close to their specifications, and the preamp preserved absolute polarity (ie, was non-…
The term “music town” has its obvious examples. Nashville, Austin and the place the term was coined for, New Orleans, all come to mind. Truth be told though, New Your City is the world’s greatest music town, but there’s so much else going on here, that music tends to get lost, being just one facet of the cultural life of the five boroughs.
A lesser known but no less active music town is Northampton, Massachusetts. A textbook definition of a very large small town, NoHo has that most essential of music town ingredients: a fairly large group of people, between the ages of 25 and 65 who are…
Thursday night, I took the F train to Manhattan's Blue Note, the 8pm set, to see Trio 3—the longstanding improv band, consisting of Oliver Lake on alto sax, Reggie Workman on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums—joined by Jason Moran on piano.
Lake is best known for his work with the World Saxophone Quartet. Workman has played with most of the modern greats, starting with Coltrane in the early 1960s and continuing with Wayne Shorter, Art Blakey, Mal Waldron, Archie Shepp, and David Murray, among others. Cyrille made his mark with Cecil Taylor in the '60s, then played with a host of others…
Making the long trip from the Denver Airport to the 12th Annual Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest at the Marriott Tech Center, I got lost in the vast open plains (this ain't Brooklyn), the mountains, and Colorado's big dome sky. My mind wondered to the Ute, Sioux, Arapahoe, Crow, Cheyenne, and Apache tribes that inhabited these still primordial looking spaces.
I remember the photos of Native Americans by ethnologist Edward Curtis and the intense stories of a doomed Native American culture by Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine, Tracks, etc.). I think of wagon trains, railroads, highways,…