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Why review another recording of Stravinsky's great ballet score for the 1913 season of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)? Besides the fact that it's a fabulous performance, it's part of a disc that: 1) showcases one of our most renowned conductors, Riccardo Chailly, leading the superb Lucerne Festival Orchestra; 2) includes the world premiere recording of Stravinsky's long-lost 11-minute Chant Funèbre, Op.5 (1908), a tribute to his late teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, which disappeared after its first performance at a memorial concert in St. Petersburg in 1909…
Jim Austin auditioned the Mytek HiFi Brooklyn DAC+ in April 2018 (Vol.41 No.4):
In the year since I sampled Brooklyn's music scene—in my November 2016 review of Mytek HiFi's Brooklyn DAC—there's been a lot of local music news. Jay-Z (whose name is or ought to be derived from the subway lines that pass through Williamsburg and Bushwick on the way to Jamaica, Queens) was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the first rap lyricist to be so honored. He released a new album, 4:44, to critical acclaim. (I listened. It's good.) He also had twins—a boy and a girl—with his wife, Beyoncé.…
Multichannel MQA again, from April 2018 (Vol.41 No.4):
"Not MQA again!" I'm sure some of you will say, regardless of where you stand on it. The loud debate is often less about how MQA actually sounds and works than about opinions and, to an alarming degree, charges of dishonesty and bias. While Stereophile's John Atkinson and Jim Austin continue to strive to rise above all that, all I want to know is what value MQA might have for my own enjoyment of music.
This is not my first stab at this: In the May 2017 Stereophile I both recounted my long-ago first exposure to MQA, which…
It is doubtful that pianist Alexander Melnikov had audiophiles in mind when he decided to record great works by Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Stravinsky on pianos the composers were accustomed to hearing and playing at the time of composition. Melnikov is, after all, an early music specialist who, like András Schiff, has a number of impeccably restored historic instruments in his personal collection. Nonetheless, given that Harmonia Mundi has recorded him in high resolution (24/96), seemingly without compression, in the fine acoustic of Teldex Studio Berlin, and that each instrument has a…
"When good Americans die, they go to Paris."—Oscar Wilde
There is a particular art that many Americans have mastered, involving the collective lamentation of the unwelcoming nature of the French towards American tourists—whether this has been experienced firsthand or not is irrelevant—coupled with inexplicable, unwavering desire for all that the French stand for. The art, the wine, the cheese, the architecture, the haute couture—it is all of these, yes, but it is (I believe) the all-encompassing French vibe that we are drawn to.
Naturally, I was a Francophile before I ever was an…
I find quite appealing the image invoked by Museatex to describe its Real Time Ripple Effect (RTRE) loudspeaker line: a stone rippling the surface of a "still pond on a warm summer afternoon." Replace the stone with a voice-coil attached to the center of a stretched Mylar diaphragm and you begin to get a glimpse of the RTRE technology's conceptual beauty and promise. The idea of cohesively covering at least the midrange and treble with a single driver, without crossover filters, quickens my audio pulse.
Technology
It has been less than three years since Paul Burton and Highwood Audio…
Massed strings fared no better. String tone on Chesky's reissue of the Beethoven Ninth with René Leibowitz (CD66) has been tonic to my ears through many a speaker. Here, massed strings were decimated, taking on an irritatingly threadbare texture. Nor did Midori's violin (on Midori Live at Carnegie Hall, Sony SK 46742) receive preferential treatment: The loss of overtone sheen and sweetness were quite apparent.
The upper registers of soprano voice consistently sounded somewhat coarse. Kathleen Battle's Baroque Duet album with Wynton Marsalis (Sony SK 46672) is a perfect example of what…
Sidebar 1: Measurements
The impedance magnitude and phase for the Hybrid 6 are shown in fig.1. (Both channels were essentially identical.) The impedance never dropped below 4.2 ohms (the cursor position). This, in conjunction with the low phase angle over nearly all the audio band, means that the Museatex represents quite an easy amplifier load, much like a 5 ohm resistor. In the bass, the valley between the twin impedance humps defines a port tuning frequency of 44Hz. Normally these low-frequency impedance peaks are much larger in magnitude, suggesting that the '6's bass-reflex…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description :Two-way, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: a 16" by 10" RTRE (Real Time Ripple Effect) panel transducer and a 5.25" cone woofer. Woofer alignment: bass-reflex (ported). Crossover frequency: 450Hz, with first-order slopes. Frequency response: 55Hz–20kHz, ±3&dB.Nominal impedance: 6.5 ohms. Sensitivity: 86dB/W/m (2.83V).
Dimensions: 45.5" H by 14.5" W by 12" D.
Serial numbers of samples tested: 503 & 504.
Price: $1299/pair (1993); no longer available (2018).
Manufacturer: Museatex Audio Inc., Calgary, Alberta T2B 1N5,…
Lincoln Mayorga: Lincoln Mayorga & Distinguished Colleagues Vol.II
Lincoln Mayorga, arranger, harpsichord, piano.
Lincoln Mayorga, Doug Sax, prods.; Bill Schnee, eng.; Sherwood Sax, design engineer.
Sheffield Lab S-10 (LP).
Lincoln Mayorga, arranger, harpsichord, piano.
Lincoln Mayorga, Doug Sax, prods.; Bill Schnee, eng.; Sherwood Sax, design engineer.
Sheffield Lab S-10 (LP).
Ever wonder just how much sound quality is lost by recording stuff on tape before making a disc? Here's your answer. This program of soft rock and cool jazz arrangements was recorded straight from studio to disc, and the sound is incredible! Suddenly, a veil that we never realized was there has been lifted, and we had the feeling we were listening…