Once that hypothetical customer acquired a second Phantom, a pair of Trees, and a Dialog, she or he will own a serious stereo hi-fi system—that, anyway, is Devialet's claim. Just add a source—a laptop or…
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As we motored across Paris, Gold Phantoms on our laps, Leblais told me that many customers buy just one Gold Phantom at first and use it solo—mono—until they save up enough to acquire another. A lone Gold Phantom can be thought of as a heavy, high-end Bluetooth speaker (though it's not limited to Bluetooth); as a standalone mono sound system; as a modernist sculpture that makes music.
If you do a Google search for "loudspeaker" combined with "full-range," "line source," "one-way," and "modular," you'll get results that match some, but not all, of the characteristics of the Ruel Audio R7. The Audience ClearAudient 16+16 comes the closest, with 16 drivers firing forward and 16 to the back, but its small full-range drivers are supplemented with eight 6x9" passive radiators, and it does not have modular construction. Plus, it appears not to be in production. For that matter, Google misses Ruel, but it has been granted a provisional patent.
It's a very interesting,…
How many times can one write "beautiful" before the word loses all meaning? And yet, what else can I say when Brahms' sole violin concerto, as well as his first Violin Sonata, are so profoundly touching, and played so exquisitely by violinist Vadim Gluzman, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under James Gaffigan, and pianist Angela Yoffe?
Although Vadim Gluzman has yet to receive the same attention as some of his contemporaries, in no small part due to his embrace of a long-term contract with the BIS hi-rez record label rather than Universal Classics, Sony, or Warner, his schedule for the…
Totem Acoustic has always impressed me with their ability to get big sound from small boxes, but never more so than when I listened to the Tribe Tower ($US5300/pair) at this year's TAVES. Designer Vince Bruzzese has surpassed even his own high standards here. My first impression, before I heard the speakers, was that this is a "lifestyle" product: stylish in a modern way, with a small footprint that allows it to blend into most home environments. Almost by definition, sound quality is not top priority with lifestyle products
And then Vince played some music. I don't remember what it was…
Dear Reader,
Not long ago, I lost patience with coffee.
Before that, I'd never quite made it to coffee-nerd status, but I had all four wheels on the onramp. A few years ago I got rid of my cheap coffeemaker and switched to a French press, because it was more hands-on. I started buying whole beans instead of ground coffee, and grinding them in the store's grinder, on its coarsest setting. When that wouldn't do, I bought an inexpensive electric coffee grinder. When that wouldn't do, I bought a manual grinder. There was only one brand of bean I liked, and I had to drive 45 minutes…
Highlights of the considerably more expensive Goofus system were some of the hottest and newest products of the day, including a SOTA Star Sapphire turntable with Sumiko Premier MMT tonearm and Talisman Sapphire cartridge, a Spectral DMC-5 preamp, a BEL 1001 power amp, and a pair of Thiel speakers whose model designation I can't recall. Any or all of those might have been great when used with other products—I foolishly assumed that they'd all work well together—but after months of straining to convince myself that the system as a whole was great, I realized that Goofus was a screechy mess…
While it may elicit shakes of the head, nasty, distasteful looks, or vociferous yawps about its being nothing more than a load of warmed-over psychedelic pandering, the time may have come to listen again to Their Satanic Majesties Request, the much-maligned 1967 album by the Rolling Stones—and perhaps think of it in a slightly more humane light. Few records from that or any other era have been as widely savaged. It's easy to make the argument that any record with such a pretentious title deserves to be ridiculed. The music itself is scattered and feels unfinished in spots. Then there's that…
Landi said she wasn't being vague about the tapes for any reason other than that she and ABKCO (like every other label on earth) have been taken to task in online forums about sound issues. And just about everything else, for that matter. It's a subject near and dear to audiophiles, or at least those who participate in the Internet scrums over gear, music, you name it. I tried to counsel her that savoring unkind forum posts is a sort of art form in its own right. She smiled.
"I get a headache when I look at the forums. There's some guy on one of the forums yelling about the opening of '…
America's premiere DIY gathering, the almost-annual Burning Amp, promises to burn brighter in 2017. Scheduled for Sunday, November 12 at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center, the event has become so popular that hours have been extended and the show now runs from 8:30am to 8:00pm.
While the opportunity for DIYers to hear each other's creations, gain fresh insights, and form new friendships has always been one of Burning Amp's main attractions since it began in 2007, the event's speaker presentations and raffle items/giveways have also been major draws. To up the ante on the speaker front, as…
The agreement was simple. I would confine my record shopping to a single afternoon. No last minute runs to out-of-the-way shops the next day. No desperate pleas about "Just one more," or "I'll be quick, I promise." On the vacation with my wife that we'd been planning for an entire year, and one that almost immediately became a quasi-business trip, I had one Sunday afternoon to satiate my desire—the word "addict" has occasionally been thrown my way in anger—to check out vinyl LP stores in San Francisco. Given my limited time, I decided to ask SF friends for suggestions and to stay away from…