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One is bound to hear at any hi-fi show—even a superior one such as this—the live, acoustic version of the Eagles' "Hotel California," just as one is bound to hear, at any Catholic mass, a Hail Mary: no surprise at all, and under the best possible conditions the aural equivalent of comfort food. At the 2017 Montreal Audio Fest, I first heard it at the exhibit sponsored by France's Atoll Electronique—and it reminded me of Ian Anderson's gracious comment, when asked if he was dismayed at the undeniable similarities between that Eagles song and Jethro Tull's own "We Used to Know," from the album…
Whatever our preference in sound, there are audio components or systems that are not only better than others at plucking our heartstrings, but of doing so on such a level of intimacy it's as if the hardware were delivering the musical performance specially for us. I experienced such moments while listening to Coherent Audio's audio setup, which featured a Baetis Prodigy music server ($US3000), a Triode Labs Au Pre preamp ($CDN2000), a Triode Labs 2A3 SET ($CDN3900), and a pair of dual-concentric Coherent Audio Model 12GR speakers with a sensitivity rating of 96dB and an impedance of 8 ohms.…
I entered the Oracle-Gershman room to the sounds of the Albinoni (or Giazotto, if you prefer) Adagio in g—from an LP that turned out to be by bassist Gary Karr—and the sound was gorgeous, with lots of texture (the good kind), color (ditto), and bass weight (very ditto).
The gear responsible for the fine playback included Oracle's recent Origin turntable ($US2000, including Oracle tonearm and Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge) and PH100 phono preamp ($US900), along with Gershman Acoustics' Grand Avant Garde G2 three-way loudspeaker ($US13,000/pair), which is a revision of the company's original…
All LP collectors live to some degree for that mystical moment when they walk into a garage sale and there, waiting just for them, is some fantastical record, let's say a mint, unpeeled Beatles "Butcher" cover, priced at two bucks. Or even better, that random afternoon when a neighbor will ask you to take grandfather's old records and there, amongst the shellac flotsam and jetsam, will be a mint 78rpm disc of Blind Lemon Jefferson singing, "Black Snake Moan" still in the original Paramount sleeve.
Sad to say, but the return of the LP, coupled with the immediate and encyclopedic nature of…
Wednesday March 29, 6:00–9:00pm, Manhattan retailer Innovative Audio (150 East 58th Street, NYC) is holding "The Master Quality Authenticated Experience," the next in a series of "Meet the Innovators Events." Ryan Donaher and Zaheer Alli from Meridian Audio, Peter McGrath from Wilson Audio, and Mike Jbara from MQA will present original concert recordings with and without MQA, as well as other MQA comparisons.
Space will be limited. Please RSVP by phone to (212) 634-4444 or via email here.
My pretend-award for this year's "speakers most like Mega Bloks" category goes to Israeli company PureAudioProject, whose Trio15 modular open-baffle speaker concept proved a hit at the Montreal show. A pair of Trio15 speakers is sold in kit form, in the loose sense of that term, since there's not much kit to assemble. What there is is a metal frame, two outboard circuit-board crossovers (below), and three rectangular panels, each pre-fitted with a driver, that "snap" together vertically to create the speaker's front baffle. Customers can choose between a variety of different drivers and…
Saturday at the Montreal Audio Fest dawned snowy: a clear sign that God wanted us to stay inside all day and listen to music. So I made an early start and began my rounds at the Bluebird Music suite, where proprietor Jay Rein and I had the luxury of a mostly empty, pre-throng room in which to listen and catch up.
Before being shushed and chased out of the room—by the same co-exhibitor who ignored me when I first walked in!—we listened to the new Spendor D9 floorstanding loudspeakers ($US9995/pair), driven by a Chord SPM 1200 power amplifier ($US12,300), fed by Chord's Dave DAC ($US10,588…
I have an impression of Yamaha as a company that can not only make anything they want, but can do so exceeding well. My first contact with the brand came when my sister got a pair of Yamaha skis; a couple of years later, ca 1970, I bought a Yamaha acoustic guitar—a professional quality instrument at a dirt-cheap price. (Loudon Wainwright III played one on his 1970 debut album; nearly 30 years later, Elliot Smith played a Yamaha at the Oscars ceremony.) Later in the '70s, Yamaha audio gear—their stereo receivers in particular—came to prominence in the US (although the company actually got…
With all the momentous passings in music this past year—Prince, Bowie, Merle Haggard, Glenn Frey, Leonard Cohen—it has become harder to remember all those who have gone before. In my estimation one death the jazz universe has never quite gotten over is the passing of pianist/arranger/orchestrator Gil Evans.
On a fine new Analogue Productions 200gm stereo LP reissue of Gil Evans and Ten, (Prestige 7120) ($35), his first recording as a leader, the man's many strengths combined to create a tour de force. This is first time these recordings have been released in stereo on LP. For starters,…
If there's one thing that brings me more joy than seeing a lot of happy people at the Montreal Audio Festival, it's getting a seat in an exhibitor's room. Unfortunately, I often can't have it both ways. Those same happy people, if there are enough of them, will make it so there's no chair left for me to sit in.
One way to improve one's sitting chances is to go on Sunday, generally the day with the least amount of show goers. I call it the Sunday rule.
Except that some rooms stubbornly refuse to abide by the Sunday rule. They're always packed. It doesn't matter that they're located…