Blackie's been a tube audio mechanic and high-performance audio builder for over 25 years, but before that, he worked as a roadie, live sound engineer, recording engineer, and studio technician. His client list includes…
search
In this video I profile New York-based tube electronics technician Blackie Pagano, who fixes and upgrades "anything that makes or passes music and utilizes vacuum tubes." I first learned of Blackie when looking for a repairman to take my Fisher 800-C to. JA, Herb, and everyone I asked said—without hesitation—"You have to take it to Blackie. He's the best for the job."
The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World, by Damon Krukowski. The New Press, 2017. Hardcover, 240 pp., $24.95. Also available as an e-book.
Defining noise is tricky business.
In high-end audio, noise is often defined as the enemy—of music, beauty, truth. Engineers and enthusiasts alike spend significant amounts of time, energy, and money attempting to minimize or control noise so that it has the least possible impact on the source signal: music. In this way—if we are intelligent, careful, and fortunate—we can extract from our stereos cleaner, clearer, more…
If Stereophile gave an award for Loudspeaker We've Most Frequently Reviewed, the hands-down winner would have to be the Quad ESL. The list of past and present Stereophile contributors who've written about the ESL's various incarnations includes John Atkinson, Martin Colloms, Anthony H. Cordesman, Art Dudley, Larry Greenhill, J. Gordon Holt, Ken Kessler, Dick Olsher, Herb Reichert, William Sommerwerck, Steven Stone, and Sam Tellig. The ESL-63 was John Atkinson's personal "Editor's Choice" in 1992, and the ESL-989, a successor to the ESL-63, was Stereophile's 2003 Loudspeaker of the Year and…
I'd been told that the review samples had been used at a show, and had also been played at MoFi's headquarters; nonetheless, their sound benefited from break-in. Over a period of several weeks, playing music as well as various speaker-break-in CDs, I found that the ESL-2912s sounded more open and more dynamic. I also felt that there was some warm-up effect: Before a listening session, the Quads benefited from my playing through them the five-minute "Rejuvenation (rapid refresher)" track from Full System Enhancer & Rejuvenation Disc (CD, IsoTek IBD-CD1).
Which amp?
I had…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Full-range, floorstanding electrostatic loudspeaker. Drive-units: 6 electrostatic panels with total height 54". Frequency response: 32Hz–21kHz, –6dB. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Impedance variation: 4–20 ohms. Maximum output: 2N/m2 at 2m on axis. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Maximum input, continuous input: 10V RMS. Program peak for undistorted output: 40V. Permitted peak input: 55V. Distortion: <0.15% above 1kHz, <0.5% above 100Hz, <1% above 50Hz. AC input: 110–120V, 220–240V. Power consumption: 6W.
Dimensions: 57.9" (1470mm) H by 27.2" (…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: Acoustic Signature WOW XXL TA-1000 turntable & tonearm, Soundsmith moving-iron cartridge.
Digital Source: PS Audio PerfectWave Memory Player & DirectStream DAC.
Preamplifier: Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Renaissance Black Path Edition.
Power Amplifiers: McIntosh Laboratory MC275 LE, Theta Digital Prometheus (monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: Monitor Audio Platinum PL300 II.
Cables: Interconnect, speaker, AC: Nordost Valhalla 2.
Accessories: PS Audio PerfectWave Power Plant 5 power conditioner, Nordost QB8 power…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Quad ESL-2912's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. My estimate of the Quad's voltage sensitivity was approximately 84dB/2.83V/m, somewhat lower than the specified 86dB. Fig.1 shows how the ESL-2912's impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle vary with frequency. It's basically identical to that of the ESL-2912's predecessor, the ESL-989 (reviewed by Larry Greenhill in November 2002), with a high value in the bass dropping…
Rachmaninoff: Piano Sonata 2, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Six Moments Musicaux
Evelina Vorontsova, piano
STH Quality Classics CD1416092 (CD). 2017. Paul Steverink, Boudwijn Zwart, prods.; Jaco van Houselt, eng. DDD. TT: 74:42
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Evelina Vorontsova, piano
STH Quality Classics CD1416092 (CD). 2017. Paul Steverink, Boudwijn Zwart, prods.; Jaco van Houselt, eng. DDD. TT: 74:42
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
This is Russian-Dutch pianist Evelina Vorontsova's second recording; the first was in 2002. Born in 1972, she took fourth prize in the Rachmaninoff Competition at 18, and second prize at the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition two years later; in 2006, she won second prize in the International Piano and…
For the longest time, I've found the label "hobby" inadequate to describe the audiophile goal of better sound reproduction. Yes, for some, the mechanics of the High End have become an end in themselves—a way to tinker and tweak, build and rebuild in classic hobby fashion. But for many others, specifically earbud listeners, folks with whole-house systems, and those who'd rather push a button on a remote and sit back or dance rather than roll tubes or tinker, the descriptor hobby falls woefully short.
Recent conversations with high-resolution advocate Marc Finer, of the Digital…
Steve Coleman, 61, is one of the most creative alto saxophonists, conceptualists, composers, and bandleaders—and certainly the most influential of all those identities—in jazz today. His latest album, Morphogenesis (on the Pi Recordings label), doesn't quite equal his last two—his breakthrough, Functional Arrhythmia (2013), or his masterpiece, Synovial Joints (2015)—but it's a rouser by any measure: on close listening, a heady sweat-drencher.
Coleman has long been fascinated with patterns of motion in nature, and his brilliance is rooted in having solved how to translate this into music.…