Daryl Berk (Cary Audio), Dennis Chern (MartinLogan), Travis Huff (NAD), and Jim Scatena (AudioQuest) will be on hand to…
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Thursday, February 19, from 5–8pm: Sound World (3015 West Wisconsin Avenue, Appleton) will host a Music Matters event. Featured gear will include Cary Audio's new TL-300d tubed preamp, CAD-211FE monoblock power amplifiers, SA-500.1 monoblock power amplifiers, and DCM-600SE digital media center; MartinLogan's Neolith loudspeakers; NAD's Masters Series M12 preamp, M22 power amplifier, M17 processor, and M27 multichannel amplifier; and AudioQuest's NightHawk headphones.
Keith Johnson is the man responsible for the records issued by Reference Recordings, from Professor Johnson's Astounding Sound Show through Tafelmusik—not to mention upcoming releases of Your Friendly Neighborhood Big Band and Respighi's Church Windows. As is frequently the case, Johnson's astounding recordings result from his intimate (molecular-level) knowledge of the process with which he deals and his ingenious adaptations to squeeze the most out of available (and not so available) technology. He is also one of the few critics of digital recording who has actually used a digital recorder…
Johnson: Oh, they're brand names. People can buy them, and they'll actually work quite well on many machines. But it does take a special machine to get the best out of them. When you get rid of head saturation, for example, some of these tapes are absolutely superlative. We get very little smearing problem, the recordings are highly articulated, and they seem to stay that way.
Holt: Obviously, one of the attributes of your own recorder is that its record head will take a lot of current through it.
Johnson: That's one thing, yes.
Another problem that analog has is the…
The Mavericks, perhaps the greatest non-country act to ever come out of Nashville (via Miami) and a band that writes terrific tunes, gives a powerhouse live show and has one of the most compelling voices in all of pop music today as a front man, decided, according to their latest official biography, to mix their second record since a 2011 comeback in mono. A call to their publicist confirmed that they recorded and mixed in mono. Very charming and brave on some level. In case there was any confusion, they also named it Mono.
With the band in Europe and not doing stateside interviews, I had…
This coming Thursday, February 26, 5–9pm, Definitive Audio (6206 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle) will host Music Matters 10, an annual event devoted exclusively to the reproduction of music—and the grand commencement of the dealership's 40th Anniversary Celebration.
Guests will have the opportunity to listen to music through world-class stereo systems in six expertly tuned sound rooms. Manufacturer representatives will be on hand for demonstrations and discussion.
Featured products will include the new Audio Research G Series amplification (above), presented by Dave Gordon;…
Hi-Fi Centre, of Vancouver, BC, is pleased to announce the opening of a brand-new, 5000-sq.-ft. audio/video showroom, in the Gastown district. The grand opening event will take place on Friday, February 27, 2015, in the new store located in the newly renovated BC Electric Building, at 433 Carrall Street. The 30-year-old, family-owned Hi-Fi Centre, founded by Alex Kivritsky, represents some of the finest manufacturers of high-performance audio, home theater, whole-house audio, compact systems, and headphones.
The new location has been completely renovated to give customers a luxurious…
Recently, we've been asking a representative sample of Stereophile subscribers for suggestions as to how the magazine could be improved. We got 'em, in droves. And the one thing that led every list of suggestions we received was: "Publish more often!" Second in importance was: "Do more reports on affordable components, and let's have more suggestions for cheap ways of improving existing systems."
So, we did a considerable amount of soul-searching. Putting together an 80-page magazine every 3 months without a resident staff isn't easy, but we had finally reached a state of organization…
The Sheffield Track Record
Robbie Buchanan and James Newton Howard, keyboards; Lennie Castro, percussion; Nathan East, bass guitar; Mike Landau, guitar; Carlos Vega, drums. Ron Tutt, and Jim Keltner, drum solos. TT: 22:13.
Sheffield LAB-20.
Robbie Buchanan and James Newton Howard, keyboards; Lennie Castro, percussion; Nathan East, bass guitar; Mike Landau, guitar; Carlos Vega, drums. Ron Tutt, and Jim Keltner, drum solos. TT: 22:13.
Sheffield LAB-20.
What, a recording of rock backup tracks? Who could care less? Me, is who. Quibble over the program if you will (actually, it isn't all that dull, and two of the numbers are fun to listen to), but this wasn't released for the program material. You might call it a tantalizing sample of where a lot of rock sound begins, before it is fuzzed,…
To put it mildly, Jack Vad (second row in photo, orange shirt) was dismayed. The Grammy Award–winning media producer and chief engineer for the San Francisco Symphony had just returned from the 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, and was trying to make sense of his experiences there. When he'd carried his latest recordings, which I think are superbly recorded, into rooms at the show and asked if he could play them, exhibitors were anything but enthusiastic.
Vad, who at RMAF 2014 also appeared in an "Experts Ask the Experts" panel discussion, and presented formal demos of the same recordings…
Estrella Morente: Amar en Paz
Estrella Morente, voice; Niño Josele, guitar
Calle 54/Sony Music 88875011922 (CD). 2014. Fernando Trueba, prod., exec. prod.; Nat Chediak, exec. prod.; Jose Luis Crespo, eng.; Jim Anderson, mix; Alan Silverman, mastering. DDD? TT: 66:29
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
Estrella Morente, voice; Niño Josele, guitar
Calle 54/Sony Music 88875011922 (CD). 2014. Fernando Trueba, prod., exec. prod.; Nat Chediak, exec. prod.; Jose Luis Crespo, eng.; Jim Anderson, mix; Alan Silverman, mastering. DDD? TT: 66:29
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
What makes a great singer great is a magical combination of virtuosic physical skills with mental and emotional powers of interpretation that allow you to hear and feel a lyric's subtext: the emotions the songwriter hoped to evoke by a turn in the melody.
"Because love is…