The System
The Usher S-520 is Dr. Joseph D’Appolito designed, 50W, 8 ohm, two-way, front-ported compact loudspeaker. It does not use a D’Appolito configuration. Rather, the tweeter is in the corner, a port offset to the opposite side below it…
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It was hot—the kind of hot where the second you get out of the shower, you start sweating. My ceiling fan could’ve provided relief, but the repeated clink of its pull-chain added an offbeat to the music. My goal was to analyze my system’s current strengths and weaknesses and define my “reference sound”. The fan had to go. It was time to listen.
In collaboration with Coursera, the online learning company, and starting September 3, The Curtis Institute will be offering at no charge the course Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, taught by Curtis Institute's Neubauer Family Foundation Chair in Piano Studies Jonathan Biss.
The course will last five weeks, with an anticipated workload of 1–2 hours a week. Jonathan Biss studied at Indiana University and at the Curtis Institute of Music, and he has embarked upon a multi-year project to record all Beethoven's piano sonatas.
Biss states: "This course takes an inside-out look at…
Acoustic Sounds Inc. has today announced that it has launched a new high resolution download service, Acoustic Sounds Super HiRez, at www.superhirez.com that will differ from other such services by focusing on uncompressed Direct Stream Digital (DSD) technology. Downloads, across all genres of music, will work with both Mac and PC computers. There are currently about 35 titles available for download with many more to come. High resolution albums will be available for $24.99.
“My customers have been asking me for DSD downloads for years and overall, I’ve always tried to provide the highest…
David Chesky: Jazz in the New Harmonic
David Chesky, piano; Javon Jackson, tenor saxophone; Jeremy Pelt, trumpet; Peter Washington, bass; Billy Drummond, drums
Chesky JD358 (CD). 2013. Norman Chesky, exec prod.; David Chesky, prod.; Nicholas Prout, prod., eng. DDD.? TT: 69:15.
Performance ****
Sonics *****
David Chesky, piano; Javon Jackson, tenor saxophone; Jeremy Pelt, trumpet; Peter Washington, bass; Billy Drummond, drums
Chesky JD358 (CD). 2013. Norman Chesky, exec prod.; David Chesky, prod.; Nicholas Prout, prod., eng. DDD.? TT: 69:15.
Performance ****
Sonics *****
If there's a word that describes the feeling, the vibe present throughout Jazz in the New Harmonic, it's trance. Pianist and session leader David Chesky even uses it without prompting when asked how, among all his music endeavors—an album of difficult non–Joplin-like New…
No one ever had to pay for recorded music—it was always "free" on the radio—and the home taping of LPs, the copying of cassettes, and, later, burning CDs made buying music optional. Then Napster and other file-sharing sites kicked it up a notch and made it very easy to assemble a 10,000-song collection without spending a dime. Now, Spotify, BitTorrent, SoundCloud, MOG, and YouTube make music instantly accessible on demand. It raises the question: Will music lovers continue to buy music? Paying for recorded music is now, more than ever, a voluntary act.
A generation gap is part of this…
Fred von Lohmann Offers a Counterpoint
Steve Guttenberg's "As We See It" in the September 2013 issue brings to mind John Philip Sousa's famous 1906 polemic, "The Menace of Mechanical Music," where the famed composer championed copyright reforms to shut down then-new recorded music industry. (Now in the public domain, and thus freely available through Google Books.) One of Sousa's main concerns was that the player piano (and recording technology in general) would destroy the culture of amateur musicianship that thrived in America in the 19th century. So it is particularly ironic to hear…
Video vs audio vs a common goal
Editor: Regarding JA's March "As We See It," McLuhan's distinction between hot and cold media is less relevant to JA's argument than is the mind-set with which viewers/listeners approach the media experience. That is, audio is not intrinsically more involving than video—except to audiophiles and music lovers. Ask the same question of a videophile or a cinematographer and you'll find that she is absorbed in elements of the video production that pass the casual viewer by. The distinction is therefore more one of interest than of the character of the media…
Those of us who groan at the appearance of every new five-figure digital source component in a massively oversized chassis—and who groan in greater torment when the offending manufacturer says his customer base insists on products that are styled and built and priced that way—can take heart: The appearance of such sanely sized and affordable products as the Halide Design DAC HD ($495) and the AudioQuest DragonFly ($249) would suggest that the market has a mind of its own.
Yet more good news comes in the form of Meridian Audio's Explorer ($299), a 4"-long USB digital-to-analog converter…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-box, USB bus-powered digital/analog converter and headphone amplifier. Maximum word length: 24 bits. Maximum sampling rate: 192kHz. Input: mini USB-B. Line-level–S/PDIF output: 3.5mm mini-jack combining 2-channel analog and TosLink optical digital. Headphone output: 3.5mm mini-jack. Maximum line-level output voltage: 2V RMS. Headphone output impedance: 5.25 ohms measured. Maximum headphone output power: 130mW.
Dimensions: 4" (102mm) L by 1.25" (32mm) W by 0.7" (18mm) D. Weight: 1.76oz (50gm).
Serial number of unit reviewed: MA03BQ/…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301, Thorens TD 124 turntables; EMT 997, Ikeda IT-407 tonearms; EMT TSD 15 70th Anniversary pickup head; Miyabi 47, Miyajima Premium BE mono cartridges.
Digital Sources: AudioQuest DragonFly, Halide DAC HD, Wavelength Proton USB DACs; Apple iMac G5 computer running Apple iTunes v.11.0, Decibel v.1.2.11 playback software; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Standard (SPU version), Hommage T2 step-up transformers; Sutherland Insight phono preamplifier; Shindo Masseto preamplifier.
Power…