As in fairy tales come true, eight years later, Yende entered the young artists' program at the house where Maria Callas reigned, La…
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At age 16, South African soprano Pretty Yende (b. 1985) encountered the now legendary British Airways TV commercial whose soundtrack included the gorgeous "Flower Duet" from Délibes's Lakmé. Astounded, she immediately went to her high school teacher in the small town of Piet Retief, about 200 miles from Johannesburg, to ask what kind of music she had heard. When she learned that it was opera, she knew almost immediately that she wanted to be an opera singer.
The January 2018 issue of Stereophile, which will hit newsstands at the end of this week, features GoldenEar Technology's flagship Triton Reference loudspeaker on its cover, with a review inside from John Atkinson. When GoldenEar's co-founder and president Sandy Gross visited JA last July to set the speakers up in his Brooklyn listening room, John asked Sandy about his loudspeaker design goals, his preferences in sound quality, his tastes in audio, and the state of the high-end audio market.
As the day this video was shot was one of the hottest days in the New York summer and JA'…
Loudspeaker manufacturer SVS is embarking on a launch event tour for its new 4000 Series subwoofers. These free events will feature prize giveaways, home-theater demos of the new subwoofers, and a presentation by SVS president Gary Yacoubian, as well as "festive" local refreshments.
The next event will take place at Electronics Expo (491 US 46W, Wayne, NJ 07470) 6–8pm, Tuesday December 5. Please RSVP here.
Following events include Starpower Home Theater & Audio/Video (15340 Dallas Parkway, Dallas, TX 75248), 6–8pm, December 7—RSVP—Primetime Audio Video (6917 East State Street…
The King's Singers: A Contemporary Collection
Works by Peter Dickinson, Malcolm Williamson, Richard Rodney Bennett, Krzystof Penderecki, Paul Patterson
EMI EMD 5521 (UK LP). MMG Records MMG 1142 (US LP). 1975. Christopher Bishop, prod.
Works by Peter Dickinson, Malcolm Williamson, Richard Rodney Bennett, Krzystof Penderecki, Paul Patterson
EMI EMD 5521 (UK LP). MMG Records MMG 1142 (US LP). 1975. Christopher Bishop, prod.
Astounding performances! Every piece here was commissioned by the King's Singers, those six English gentlemen whose vocal artistry surely has never been surpassed. The works here are by Peter Dickinson, Malcolm Williamson (recently appointed by HRH Elizabeth II to the post of Master of the Queen's Musick, succeeding the late Sir Arthur Bliss),…
Editor's note: The subject of "Absolute Phase," more correctly called "Absolute Polarity," was of intense interest to audiophiles in the 1980s, culminating in the publication of Clark Johnsen's 1988 book The Wood Effect. I wrote an article on the subject for the November 1980 issue of English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review, which expanded on that subject to include some thoughts on audio reviews in general, thoughts that are just as relevant now as they were 37 years ago. It is reprinted here with the kind permission of Paul Miller, the editor of that magazine, now called just Hi-Fi…
One way, an initial compression at the microphone caused the speaker to deliver an initial compression (absolute signal phase maintained) and the other way, the initial compression at the microphone caused the speaker to deliver an initial rarefaction (absolute phase inverted). Extending this to hi-fi equipment, he found, when applying a rigorous methodology, developed with his co-worker John Vanderkooy, to two items which still sounded different when all the above-mentioned differences had been removed, that the matching of their absolute phase characteristic then removed that audible…
Poland's Audio Video Show, held in Warsaw each November and now firmly established as Europe's No.2 hi-fi event, has a very different feel from Event No.1: High End, held each May in Munich, Germany. Unlike High End's business-to-business approach, the Audio Video Show is very much for regular consumers, of whom more than 14,000 attended over the show's three days, November 17–19. Boosted by a modest "Smart Home" presence, that was an increase of nearly 18% over last year's show, alongside more modest growth in the numbers of exhibitors and exhibit rooms.
Having grown steadily over some…
One of the joys of reviewing loudspeakers is that there are always intriguing aspects of any particular design. The problems involved in producing a speaker that has an even tonal balance, well-controlled directivity, good bass extension, and a smooth integration of the outputs from often widely disparate drive-units have what appears to be an infinite number of solutions. The result is often a speaker so different from the norm that it just cries out to be auditioned.
Such was the case with the Delaware Acoustics DELAC S10, which costs $629/pair. Only sold factory-direct, this would…
Sidebar 1: System Details
The review procedure followed, with minor changes, that established for my previous loudspeaker reviews: Each pair was used with a pair of VTL 100W Compact monoblocks, connected with Monster M1 speaker cable, while the preamplifier was a combination of the Mod Squad Line Drive Deluxe AGT and Vendetta Research SCP2 phono preamp. Source components consisted of a Marantz CD-94 CD player used to drive a Sony DAS-R1 D/A converter, a 1975-vintage Revox A77 to play my own 15ips master tapes, and a Linn Sondek/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on a Sound Organisation table to…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The higher-than-usual source and load impedances presented by the Mod Squad Line Drive and VTL 100W power amplifier (more than 2000 ohms including source, and 130k ohms, respectively) mandated my using the "H" version of the E10. I assessed its effect on the signal by measuring the voltage at the VTL's output terminals while the amps were connected to the speakers. (It will therefore include the interaction between the power amp's 1 ohm output impedance and the impedance curve of the speaker. I thought this valid as it actually will relate to what I heard.)
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