I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Wilson Alexia 2's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. Because of the speaker's weight, I was unable to raise it off the ground for the measurements, which reduced the resolution of the frequency-response graphs in the midrange. And as with the original Alexia, there was the problem of which axis to place the microphone on for the farfield measurements. I wanted to measure it at my standard 50" microphone…
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Herb Reichert reviewed the Joseph Pulsar in July 2018 (Vol.41 No.7):
Ever since loudspeaker designer Jeff Joseph, owner of Joseph Audio, delivered and carefully positioned in my Bed-Stuy bunker a pair of his stand-mounted Pulsar loudspeakers ($7700/pair without stands, serial nos. P-0187L/R), I've been experiencing a new variety of audio pleasure. I'd experienced short, scattered moments of a similar pleasure in Joseph's rooms at various audio shows, but I'd never been able to understand its cause or perceive its full nature until I heard the Pulsars in my home system. As I told Joseph as…
Art Dudley wrote about the HoloAudio Spring DAC in July 2018 (Vol.41 No.7):
Praise it all you want, but digital audio is still my second choice: In a life in which the enjoyment of art is infinite but the hours in which to do so are limited, and given the choice between listening to LPs and 78s on the one hand or files and CDs on the other, digital is a waste of my time: It doesn't connect me with the music as well as analog does, period. In my experience, digital audio isn't evil, merely banal.
But digital is getting better all the time, and part of my job description is to…
Kjell Tore Innervik: Utopias: Radical Interpretations of Iconic Musical Works for Percussion
Xenakis: Psappha. Morton Feldman: The King of Denmark.
Kjell Tore Innervik, percussion
2L 2L-141-SABD (SACD/CD, BD, downloads: DXD, DSD256, MQA). 2018. Morten Lindberg, prod., editing, mix, mastering, balance; Beatrice Johannessen, rec. technician. DDD. TT: 46:04
Performance *****
Sonics *****
Xenakis: Psappha. Morton Feldman: The King of Denmark.
Kjell Tore Innervik, percussion
2L 2L-141-SABD (SACD/CD, BD, downloads: DXD, DSD256, MQA). 2018. Morten Lindberg, prod., editing, mix, mastering, balance; Beatrice Johannessen, rec. technician. DDD. TT: 46:04
Performance *****
Sonics *****
With 32 Grammy nominations, 24 for Recording Engineer and Music Producer, Morten Lindberg and his 2L label continue to issue one astounding recording after another. Their recordings are…
Photos: Jim Austin
I'm sitting in a rented Nissan just off Highway 61—yes, that Highway 61—looking out at a Shell station through the bug-stained windshield and across a litter-strewn, not-yet-planted cotton field. It's late March, and I've just left Clarksdale, Mississippi, on my way to Memphis. Leaving Clarksdale made me thoughtful, so I've pulled over to jot down a few notes.
Clarksdale—specifically, the intersection of highways 61 and 49, at the town's southern edge—is the crossroads where, according to legend, Robert Johnson encountered the Devil and exchanged his soul for his…
In the rural home in Cherry Valley, NY that my family and I inhabited from 2003 to 2017, we had dirty water but clean electricity. Evidence of the latter was seen in the results of tests performed by a technician from the local utility, National Grid—I told him I intended to do commercial sound recording on site, which was close enough to the truth that I considered my sin venal rather than mortal—and heard in the sound of my playback system, which rejected as superfluous or worse all of the AC-conditioning products I tried there. As for that, keep in mind that the purification of power,…
Anxious to prolong my mono-maniacal buzz, I reached for an early LP version of soprano Bidú Sayão's 1945 recording of Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras 5, with the composer conducting an ensemble of eight cellos and one double bass (LP, Columbia Masterworks ML 5231). With the Mr. T, her voice was more human and compelling than without. Again, tempos seemed steadier, and the plucked notes of the cellos had greater apparent force. It was here that the word Wow made the first of many appearances in my notes.
My Shindo Monbrison preamplifier and Shindo Haut-Brion power amp were beginning to…
Sidebar: Contacts
Shindo Laboratory, 20-9, Hongo 2 Chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. Web: www.shindo-laboratory.co.jp. US distributor: Tone Imports. Web: www.toneimports.com
AudioSilente, via Felice Grossi Gondi 29, 00162 Rome, Italy. Tel: (39) 3289610968, 0686323102. Fax: (39) 0686323102. Web: www.audiosilente.com
Twenty-five years after the premiere of John Adams' Violin Concerto, the music remains as vital, exhilarating, and strangely moving as the day it was birthed. An extremely demanding work, its three contrasting movements present a triathlon challenge of sorts to anyone who dares try to play them.
Here, she who rises to the challenge is violinist Leila Josefowicz. Provocatively pictured on the CD cover as a curious cross between an athlete in repose and Rodin's reflective thinker, and shown inside the booklet in very hip, thoroughly artistic renegade drag, Josefowicz lives up to her…
On the second morning of a recent audio show, I walked into the exhibit room of Bricasti Design.
"How about some Mahler?" asked cofounder and designer Brian Zolner.
"Oh God. Not at 10am!"
Listening to Mahler had become de rigueur for my visits to the exhibits of this Massachusetts-based company. From the very first time that Zolner had played part of Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra's recording of Mahler's Symphony 2 (SACD/CD, Channel Classics 23506) through a system that combined Bricasti's M28 monoblock power amplifiers, M1 DAC, and M12 Source Controller…