A fascinating mix between a prodigious writer of inviting pop tunes and a musical mad scientist with a seemingly endless appetite for self-indulgence, Rundgren's career has bounced up…
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One format that is often an afterthought in discussions about downloads, LPs, and every other music storage and playback medium is the SACD. Fiercely beloved by a determined minority, most of them audiophiles, SACDs continue to be manufactured, most recently by Mark Piro's New York-based Analog Spark label. His latest hybrid SACD release is a reissue of Todd Rundgren's 1972 masterpiece, Something/Anything?.
On at least one occasion that I can recall—in 1996, in the early days of Listener magazine—a US publicist for the Japanese manufacturing company Denon told me that they planned to discontinue their DL-103 moving-coil phono cartridge, an enduringly popular model that had been in production since 1962 (footnote 1). At the time, neither the DL-103 nor any of their other cartridge models appeared on Denon's US price lists, and neither English-language promotional materials nor even a basic spec sheet was available to American consumers or press. (All of this is charbroiled into my memory because…
I re-auditioned the MusiKraft with the recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto by David Oistrakh and the French National Radio Orchestra, under the direction of André Cluytens (EMI Centenary SAX 2315). The cartridge's strengths, well known to me now, were all there: the timpani taps that open the piece were temporally taut yet endowed with a realistically resonant tone and generous die-away. Oistrakh's entrance came across with a degree of nuance that seemed unlikely to be artifice: he pulled back, almost imperceptibly, against the tempo set by Cluytens, seemingly to let the listener know…
I have long been aware of English audio company Prism Sound, both from my use at the turn of the century of their excellent PCI card–based DScope2 measurement system (footnote 1), and from some of my friends' enthusiasm for Prism's SADiE digital audio workstation. Prism Sound was founded in 1987 by two DSP engineers, Graham Boswell and Ian Dennis, who had first met when working at mixing-console manufacturer Rupert Neve, in Cambridge, England. From the beginning, Prism Sound operated exclusively in the world of professional audio, but a year or so ago I began seeing their first domestic…
And so we circle back to the question of the permanent storage of LPs. If my money holds out, I'll ask the man who built my present shelves—a cabinetmaker who's also made some fine loudspeaker enclosures—to build shelves for my next house. Of course, that will depend on how much cash I have left after down payments, property taxes in escrow, closing fees, and moving expenses. If my savings are devoured by the above and if time allows, I may have to go it on my own. Or I might turn to IKEA, whose Expedit line of shelving units—their "cubbies" are, intentionally or not, the perfect size for…
Sidebar: Great Mother of Burl!
Frequent attendees of US audio shows know Gordon Burwell's copious handlebar mustache and cheerful demeanor almost as well as his Burwell & Sons loudspeakers. Dedicated to building his own interpretations of Altec Lansing's iconic A-7 Voice of the Theater speakers for his top-of-the-line Homage series of products, Burwell travels the US in search of Altec and JBL drivers, then installs those vintage components in horns and cabinets crafted from and veneered with salvaged, high-quality woods. Burwell's speakers are some of the most striking audio…
I'm not sure if Ry Cooder, guitarist extraordinaire, ever made a bad record but I damn sure know that Paradise and Lunch will forever be his brightest classic.
For the first time since it was released in 1974 and repressed in 1976, the album has been reissued on LP in the US by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, who has done its usual beautiful job in terms of both sound and packaging. Originally produced by Warner Brothers honcho and co-visionary (along with Mo Ostin) Lenny Waronker and SoCal cohort (and Randy Newman producer) Russ Titelman, the album was always well-recorded in the extreme.…
If the last thing you need is one more serious dive into the depths of the human psyche, you will find happiness in Handel Goes Wild: Improvisations on George Frideric Handel. A delight from start to finish, this latest Warner release from theorbist Christina Pluhar and her crack early music ensemble, L'Arpeggiata, lives up to its director's reputation for refreshing baroque repertoire with new, out-of-the-box ideas.
The first thing to know about this Handel Goes Wild, which I auditioned via 24/96 WAV files downloadable from multiple sites, is that none of its 15 selections receives…
At 8:30am on Friday, my 2017 RMAF began on a solemn note: a moment of silence for Focal's Gérard Chrétien, who passed on October 1st. Along with Jacques Mahul, Monsieur Chrétien was an important member of the Focal team since 1990. He was a fan of sound and music who contributed copious style, innovation, and intelligence to the mystique of the French company's sophisticated international image.
The other reasons for this 8:30am press breakfast were to explain Focal's 28.5% growth in sales since 2015—and the international unveiling of their new three-way Kanta loudspeaker, which features…
Perhaps it was due to the notable increase in active exhibit rooms, or a CanJam so packed with exhibitors that it has spilled out into the hallway and a nearby open ballroom (see photo below). Or maybe it was because of the completion of the Marriott remodeling, and the feeling of freshness it brought to a show that has regained its footing as the largest consumer audio show in the United States. Or was it the warm weather (not that you could feel it in a heavily air-conditioned hotel), or the food trucks? For whatever reason(s), Day 1 at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest got off to a very…