This same Combo platter received my hands up and down "Best of Show" at AXPONA 2012 in Jacksonville. Here it sounded almost as good. The music on a recording of Shelley Manne was lusciously warm and well-extended…
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Oh, Santa. Santa Baby. Dear Santa Baby. Please make that a Reference Line Combination D ($259,700 total). I won't even ask you to sit on my lap, if only you and Rudolph bring me a pair of MBL 101E Mk.II Radialstrahler speakers, along with an MBL 1621 A CD transport, 1611 F D/A converter, 6010 D preamplifier, and 9011 power amplifier. In snow white, please, just as in the photo.
"That sound real," I thought as I approached the room shared by Oracle, Burmester, and Genesis. "It sounds just like Canadian singer Anne Bisson," whom I had heard live at an SSI concert in Montreal a couple of years ago.
Stepping into the room, I was confronted by, yes, the real Anne Bisson, who was duetting with herself on one of the tracks from her Blue Mind LP on Fidelio.
It is a tribute to the system, which featured the new Genesis G5.3 speakers ($26,500/pair)—a development of the 5.2 that I reviewed in February 2006— driven by a Burmester 909 Mk.5 power amplifier ($69,995),…
It may seem strange to introduce a huge show report—actually my final blog, since, in time-honored biblical fashion, the last shall always be first in the blogisphere —with a photo of a Bentley Mulsanne (over $400,000). But inside this gorgeously outfitted automobile, a machine that even closes its doors for you should you be too occupied trading stocks via iPhone to pull the handle, is a custom-enhanced sound system by Reus Systems of Orange. (It was part of the exotic car exhibition that was part of T.H.E. Show.)
As showed off by General Manager Cliff Johnson, the system is one of many…
On Sunday afternoon, the last day of the Newport Beach Show, Peter Roth of the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society (seated second from right) moderated a panel of loudspeaker designers, including (from left): John DeVore (DeVore Fidelity), Kevin Malmgren (Evolution Acoustics), Yoav Geva (YG Acoustics), and Albert Von Schweikert (Von Schweikert Audio). Thanks to Peter’s excellent questions and the panel’s forthright answers, it was a fun and fascinating session—and one of my favorite events of the show.
The session started with a discussion from Albert Von Schweikert, who, after…
How can one possibly do justice to the full expanse of T.H.E. Show Newport Beach’s second annual installment? There was no way for a single individual to take it all in.
Final attendance figures were not available by press time, but T.H.E. Show President Richard Beers and Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society President Bob Levi feel safe in saying, by examining pre-registration, name badges printed, and on-site sales, that over 7500 unique visitors—perhaps as high as 8000—attended over the three-day period (June 1–3). Those visitors were spread over two hotels, which between them…
Three great new offerings from Music Matters Jazz, the house that reissues Blue Note classics on gatefold-covered, double-disc vinyl 45rpm LPs: Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil, Herbie Hancock's Empyrean Isles, and Grant Green's Street of Dreams. All were recorded in 1964: the first two are among the best titles in Blue Note's catalogs; the third is one of the more purely pleasurable.
Speak No Evil (recorded on Christmas Eve), though Shorter's third album for the label as a leader, was the first that set him apart as a major-league composer, a standing confirmed the following year, when, as…
Courtesy Neneh Cherry and The Thing
The Cherry Thing, the surprising album from vocalist Neneh Cherry and free-jazz trio The Thing (Mats Gustafsson on saxophones, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass, Paal Nilssen-Love on drums) will be released by Smalltown Supersound on June 19th.
We listened to “Dream Baby Dream” and watched the video for “Accordion,” and now, thanks to NPR’s First Listen series, we can stream The Cherry Thing in its entirety.
If you like what you hear, you might also enjoy Four Tet’s “Dream Baby Dream” remix.
My full review of The…
Here’s the video for “Cascades” from Ryan Teague’s Field Drawings.
Directed and produced by Craig Ward, the video is enchanting, magical, strange. What are those delicate white lines? Icicles? Spider webs? Crystals? The press release offers only a cryptic explanation: “The movements of a music-box ballerina are reinterpreted in a groundbreaking video for British composer Ryan Teague using electromagnetic fields, subzero temperatures, and 2000 volts of electricity.”
A behind-the-scenes look offers more clues:
Craig Ward explains:
When I…
When I started writing “The Entry Level,” my column on truly affordable hi-fi gear, I knew that the first turntable I’d feature would be the Rega RP1 ($445). In our February 2011 issue, I decided that the RP1 “looks good, is easy to set up, and plays records like it means it.”
I still feel that way, but, if you’d like a second opinion, Art Dudley provided a complete equipment report in our May 2011 issue. Art concluded, “[The RP1 is] well-made, attractive, apparently durable, and demonstrably superior to any other self-standing audio source at its price. Perhaps best of all, the RP-1…
Dinosaur Jr., one of the world’s greatest rock bands, returns on September 18 with I Bet on Sky.
This is the band’s third album since the original trio (the possessed J. Mascis on guitar, sexy librarian Lou Barlow on bass, and merciless Murph on drums) reunited in 2005, and it’s their 10th full-length since their 1985 Homestead Records debut. Amazing to think that we’ve enjoyed nearly 30 years of this blistering, pummeling music, this distinct and soaring sound. Even more amazing to know that nearly 30 years is hardly enough.
I Bet on Sky will be available from Jagjaguwar…