Rollins famously dreads the deadness of studios, so it's no surprise that some of his best albums, I think, have been live dates (Our Man in Jazz, A Night at the Vanguard, and a standout from the otherwise spotty 1980s, G-Man). A decade ago, he started listening to old concert tapes—some made…
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Road Shows, Volume 3 (on Okeh Records) might be Sonny Rollins' greatest album ever. Certainly it's the album that most closely supplies the sensation of a live Sonny Rollins concert—or the best moments of several live Sonny Rollins concerts, which is what the whole Road Shows series is meant to be.
I had the opportunity to review, in our June 2012 issue, the sweet-sounding Allnic A-5000 DHT amplifier. Yet it wasn't until the Munich show that I had the chance to meet its very genial designer, Kang Su Park, seen here with David Beetles, the international distributor for Allnic Audio Arts. For High End 2014, Park and Beetles built a fine-sounding system around a pair of custom horn loudspeakers from Germany's Blumenhofer Acoustics (below), driven by Allnic's new A10000 mono amplifiers ($89,000/pair). The A10000 is a single-ended design that uses a parallel pair of Kron 1610 directly heated…
I began my Friday with a direct assault upon one of the MOC's three atria: expansive, beautifully lit spaces, each resembling a boulevard of swanky shops, with café seating at the center and rows of glass-fronted listening rooms on the farthest side. Again, the effect is not unlike an audio-centric Champs Elysée on an especially pleasant day. Times three.
First stop was Dali Acoustics, where the sound of a mandolin—it was Steve Strauss's "Jennie Mae"—led me toward Dali's floorstanding Rubicon 8 (2399/pair, seen on the far left in the photo above). Driven by Marantz electronics, the Dalis…
Pressed to guess which manufacturer had the greatest number of products on display at High End 2014, I'd name Pro-Ject Audio Systems, who apparently brought with them a different record player for every day of the month: different styles, different prices, different colors, different (apparent) points of view. More tightly focused was Britain's Funk Firm, whose chief designer, the genial Arthur Khoubesserian—a person I've wanted to meet for ages—showed me his new Vector 4 turntable (below), which features the Funk Firm's Strata platter design. The Vector 4 is projected to sell for £1400…
High End 2014 drew over 18,000 audio enthusiasts and record lovers to the historic city of Munich, a corner of whose Marienplatz district is seen in the photo above. It presented the wares of 452 exhibitors, representing over 900 distinct brands. I was in attendance every minute of its first three days; I went home on its fourth and final day, bringing with me the certainty that High End 2014 was, in almost every meaningful way, the finest audio show of my experience. This wasn't a show about old men dodging furtively in and out of over-dark, over-loud rooms in a down-on-its-luck hotel: High…
The man pictured above is Joe Roberts, who does consulting work for Silbatone—in whose deservedly, lavishly praised exhibition room I took this photo. Joe published the deservedly, lavishly lamented magazine Sound Practices, which was one of my influences when I started Listener Magazine 20 years ago. In his public speaking as in his writing, Joe is all about passion, honesty, style, and fun. (You can't see it in this photo, but Joe was holding in his left hand the largest spanner I've ever seen. I think it was yellow.) To paraphrase Stephen Stills: It made sense that he was there.
Funny…
The Bad Plus: The Rite of Spring
Sony Masterworks 88843 02405 2 (CD). 2014. The Bad Plus, Darryl Pitt, prods.; Pete Rende, eng.; Ian Cassel, asst. eng.. DDD? TT: 39:24
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
Sony Masterworks 88843 02405 2 (CD). 2014. The Bad Plus, Darryl Pitt, prods.; Pete Rende, eng.; Ian Cassel, asst. eng.. DDD? TT: 39:24
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
The link between jazz and the works of Igor Stravinsky is well known. In Conversations with Igor Stravinsky, his landmark 1959 collaboration with Robert Craft, the composer mentions jazz artists like Art Tatum and Charlie Christian. The fact that Stravinsky was captivated by the improvisational freedom of jazz and its insistent, inventive rhythms makes all his work, especially Le…
Why does music matter so much to so many of us? Some, like Stereophile's readers, go to great lengths to reproduce it in their homes with accuracy and impact, and build libraries of their favorite works. Others, like my daughters, don't care much about equipment, but find it hard to spend more than five minutes in a car without listening to music. We go to concerts, play instruments, hum tunes, sing. Why? Why does music seem to speak to so many more of us than do, say, painting, sculpture, poetry, architecture, or even literature?
Maybe we shouldn't even ask the question; maybe writing…
The long overdue rediscovery and re–enshrinement of Harry Nilsson that began with the 2010 release of the film, Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?) shows no signs of abating which is a good thing for fans of the man’s songwriting and most of all, his peerless voice.
Before we get to the most recent Nilsson releases there’s one from last year that deserves special mention. Last September, the German reissue label Speakers Corner Records, released a fabulous LP re–pressing of Nilsson’s quietest masterpiece, 1970’s Nilsson Sings Newman. Listened to against the…
Wilson Audio Specialties' Sasha Series 2 loudspeaker ($29,500/pair), which began shipping in March, celebrated its formal California debut on Saturday, May 24, at Music Lovers Audio in San Francisco. Handsomely accompanied by recording engineer Peter McGrath (above), Wilson's Director of Sales for North America, and Rich Maez of Boulder Amplifiers, whose electronics joined a dCS front end and cabling from Shunyata, Transparent, and Synergistic Research, the Sasha Series 2, aka Sasha 2, more than lived up to its promise in a less-than-ideal room whose set-up included Synergistic Research’s…