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This is more to my liking than the other records I review this month! Side 1 is devoted entirely to a real humdinger of a thunderstorm, replete with rain, thimble-sized hailstones, and five minutes of someone diddling with a set of wind chimes. Side 2 is four sequences in the saga of Steam Locomotive 4449, which was refurbished from rusty decrepitude to haul the bicentennial Freedom Train 28,000 miles around the continent. My first reaction, before listening to this, was that half-speed cutting seemed the most inappropriate manner possible in which to disc a thunder storm and a steam…
It's get-ting bet-ter all the time (it can't get no worse)—John Lennon & Paul McCartney
Remasterings of recordings make me angry—they mess with my memories of the songs I love, especially songs from the 1960s that I played in my bedroom on a cheap Garrard turntable through Lafayette speakers. Like my first girlfriend, these songs permanently entered my psyche and modified my DNA.
When songs I've heard a thousand times are remastered or remixed, they sound wrong and weird to me. They make my inner hard drive skip as I try to figure out what was changed, and why. This is…
To me, 9" tonearms have always seemed more lively and responsive than their longer, lazier-sounding counterparts. I imagine that short tonearms handle like short-wheelbase sports cars. I could tell just by looking at it that the 9W2 would handle like a very fast and expensive Bayerische Rennvagen. According to my eyes and ears and Shure's An Audio Obstacle Course: Era IV test record (LP, Shure Brothers TTR115), the 9W2 tonearm in combination with the higher-compliance (18 x 10cm/dyne) AMG Teatro moving-coil cartridge tracked difficult grooves at the highest levels.
The AMG…
Sidebar: Another June night
Because the AMG turntable sits rigidly on three adjustable spiked feet, it seemed wise to repeat my auditioning with the Giro G9 sitting on my PS Audio PerfectWave PowerBase isolation platform and power conditioner ($995, discontinued). Normally, I use the PowerBase passively—not as a conditioner, but only as a platform for my Linn LP12, to prevent footfalls on my bunker's ancient wooden floor from becoming part of my music.
The PowerBase worked some unanticipated magic with the AMG Giro G9. Besides making the turntable noticeably quieter, it sharpened…
Seeing your album in a record store's cutout bin meant one thing. Despite the label execs' wide smiles, warm handshakes, and earnest promises to the contrary, once the record jacket had a hole punched in it, or its corner clipped, it meant your record label had lost faith and moved on.
Record collectors felt differently. The prices of cutouts were right—usually, from 99õ to a penny under two bucks. And cutouts were better than digging through crates because the records were still sealed . . . even if the jackets were a bit mangled. The beauty of cutouts was that they were so cheap, you…
Primarily tracked in June 1972 in Studio Two of Olympic Studios, in southwest London, on a 16-track machine, Nigel Lived is famous among audiophiles for its many live recordings made outside the studio. For the track "Religion," a male choir was recorded in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, using Pye Studios' 16-track mobile unit and four Neumann U87 microphones. While they were there, the church's pipe organ was recorded for use in "Pity the Poor Consumer."
Between 3 and 5am the next morning, again using the Pye truck and the Neumann mikes, saxophonist Chris Mercer was recorded in the…
A place in the country: everyone's ideal.—Bryan Ferry, "Mother of Pearl"
Even at full strength, my family didn't need 3000-plus square feet of living space, let alone four acres of outdoor frolicking space, much of it wooded. But in 2003 that's precisely what we bought, partly because our deal fell through on another, very different house, partly because living next to a dairy farm was an appealing novelty, and partly because the hill on which the house is poised seemed defensible. On our very first morning in our new home—a Saturday in early June—we awoke to gunfire and puffs of smoke…
The bass guitar on Editor's Choice had nice weight, but without the blurring of attacks that can happen with high-Q reflex speakers. However, over time I felt that the Magicos' bass was a little too fat with the Pass Labs amps. Substituting MBL Corona C15 monoblocks gave better control of the low frequencies. With "Another Brick in the Wall Parts 1 & 2," from Pink Floyd's The Wall (24-bit/96kHz FLAC files, Columbia), the MBL amps kept superb control of the Magicos' woofers without sacrificing low-frequency power. The speakers' clarity in this region made it possible for me to maximally…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, floorstanding loudspeaker with sealed enclosure. Drive-units: 1.1" (26mm) diamond-coated beryllium-dome tweeter, 6" (152.4mm) graphene-coated Nano-Tec–cone midrange unit, two 10" (254mm) aluminum-cone woofers. Frequency range: 20Hz–50kHz. Sensitivity: 88dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended amplification: 50–1000W.
Dimensions: 48" (1220mm) H by 15" (380mm) W by 14" (360mm) D. Weight: 220 lbs (100kg).
Finishes: Metallic gloss or high-gloss paint.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: 00739, 00740.
Price: $38,000/…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge.
Digital Sources: Aurender N10 music server; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; dCS Rossini CD player & Rossini Clock; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A converter; AudioQuest JitterBug, UpTone Audio ReGen USB cleaner-uppers; Mac mini running Vinyl Studio, Pure Music 3; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB and Benchmark ADC1 A/D converters.
Phono Preamplifiers: Linn Linto, Liberty Audio B2B-1, Channel D Seta L.
Power Amplifiers: MBL…