The label’s first two offerings were released just a couple of days ago. Ancient Storm is the debut LP from Spectre Folk, led by Pete Nolan of Magik Markers and featuring Aaron Mullan on bass, Peter Meehan on guitar, and Shelley on drums. Bury the Kings is, I believe, Chris Lee’s fourth LP, and his first in nine years. This one…
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Steve Shelley, rock-solid drummer of Sonic Youth and various other bands, has started a new record label called Vampire Blues. Releases will be available as LPs (with MP3 download cards) and as digital downloads. Will hi-res files be made available? We can hope.
Back in July 2011, we discussed the New Face of Vinyl. Young vinyl enthusiasts, Ben Meadors and Owen McCafferty, turned to Kickstarter to fund their dream of traveling across the country and meeting teens who were similarly interested in collecting and playing LPs. They met their goal of $6500 and made their way across the US, documenting every step along the way.
Now, Dust & Grooves’ Eilon Paz wants to document every face of vinyl. Paz, a Brooklyn-based photographer and vinyl enthusiast, plans to travel across the country, telling the great American story through its vinyl…
The first loudspeaker I heard from the Canadian company PSB was the Stratus, an affordably priced ($1400/pair), two-way tower with a soft-dome tweeter and an 8" woofer. The Stratus had benefited from designer Paul Barton's being able to use the anechoic chamber at the Canadian government's National Research Center, in Ottawa. The Stratus was reviewed for Stereophile by J. Gordon Holt in our May 1988 issue; he described the speaker as "eminently listenable," though Gordon also felt that it was "a little lacking in guts and liveliness." I had sat in on some of his listening sessions and had…
I investigated this by playing the half-step–spaced toneburst track on Editor's Choice (CD, STPH016-2) and listening to the cabinet sidewalls' behavior with a stethoscope. The cabinet was quite lively in the octave above middle C. Getting rid of the cones so that the Minis' hard rubber bases sat directly atop the stands reduced the effect of these resonances. Ultimately, I used small strips of Sorbothane between the speakers and the stands' top plates, which both tamed the cabinet's misbehavior and usefully fattened the upper bass a bit.
I then used the Mini's dedicated PFS-27 stands,…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded bookshelf loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) ferrofluid-cooled, titanium-dome tweeter; 4" (102mm), clay/ceramic-filled, polypropylene-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 2.2kHz. Crossover slopes: fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley. Frequency response: 55Hz–23kHz, ±3dB; –10dB at 50Hz. Sensitivity: 85dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Minimum impedance: 4 ohms. Power handling: 10–80W recommended, 60W program.
Dimensions: 9.25" (234mm) H by 5.75" (143mm) W by 8.375" (212mm) D. Internal volume: 0.1 cubic foot (2.8 liters). Weight…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B phono cartridge.
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP & DX-5 universal players; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini laptop running OS10.7, iTunes 10, Pure Music 1.86; Shuttle PC with Lynx AES16 soundcard & dual-core AMD Athlon processor running Windows 7, Foobar 2000, Adobe Audition 3.0; Musical Fidelity V-DAC II, Benchmark DAC1, Logitech Transporter, Mark Levinson No.30.6 D/A converters; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter. Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 4…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the PSB Imagine Mini's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. With its ¼" capsule, the Earthworks mike is small enough to not significantly affect the tuning of the port when used for a nearfield measurement.
As expected from its small size, the Imagine Mini is not very sensitive, my estimate coming in at 85.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. This is a couple of dB lower than average, but within experimental error of the…
We've all read about how bookstores, appliance stores, and other bricks-and-mortar retailers are suffering with the increasing domination of Internet sales. That got me thinking about audio dealers. I've always believed that one can't really make an informed purchase of audiophile equipment without hearing it in a system properly set up by and at at a serious audio retailer. Here in New York City, we're blessed with six first-rate audio dealers in Manhattan alone, with more in the suburbs. I estimate that 90% of the products reviewed in Stereophile can be auditioned at a dealer or two within…
I liked the sound of jazz double bass through the Emotiva. Throughout Anat Fort's A Long Story (CD, ECM 1994), Ed Schuller's instrument sounded big and boomy but natural, and Paul Chambers' bowed solo on the aforementioned Coltrane track was appropriately warm, the instrument's natural wood sound shining through. The Emotiva's bass continued to impress me with classical music. In the most frenetic passages of Antal Dor†ti's reading of Stravinsky's The Firebird with the London Symphony (LP, Mercury Living Presence SR90226), instruments were perfectly placed on a wide, deep soundstage, and…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Floorstanding bass-reflex loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" silk-dome tweeter, two 5.25" blended-cone woofers with butyl surrounds, copper-clad pole-pieces, aluminum shorting rings, cast frames. Crossover frequency: 2.7kHz. Frequency response: 49Hz–22kHz, ±2.5dB. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms.
Dimensions: (with base) 38.5" (990mm) H by 8.5" (220mm) W by 9.5" (245mm) D. Weight: 31 lbs (14.1kg).
Finish: Black Satin Lacquer.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: 0841142 010204, '231.
Price: $559/pair. Approximate number of…