CES 2016 marked the first time that three writers for Stereophile—Editor-in-Chief, John Atkinson; AnalogPlanet analog guru, Michael Fremer; and this Contributing Editor—could sit down in the same room with Bob Stuart of MQA/Meridian and spend a concentrated amount of time comparing before- and after-MQA encoded (Master Quality Authenticated) tracks. Joining us were recording engineer Peter McGrath, also of Wilson Audio,…
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Digging MQA (from L–R): Peter McGrath, Jason Victor Serinus, and Michael Fremer, with Bob Stuart anxiously looking on and Winai Pawitwatana behind. (Photo: John Atkinson)
Many of you have seen the posts about Graham Nash touring the high end audio exhibits at CES earlier this month. The experience taught me this: it isn't how good you hear, but how well you listen.
I'm not sure what readers expected from this, and I certainly wasn't sure what to expect, which is why it was an attractive idea. Yes Nash ended up liking what he heard, but for those cynical enough to think he was just being polite, I'm here to tell you first hand that he was excited by the experience, and his enthusiasm was genuine.
As it should be, because I think everyone who was…
See that huge line? It's a small indication of the huge, multi-national, multi-industry group of CES attendees whose numbers—170,000, if the former CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), now CTA (Consumer Technology Association) counts accurately—set new attendance records.
There's just one thing. That line was not at the Venetian Hotel, where all but a few of what CES dubs the "high-performance audio" exhibits were staged. Instead, it was at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Just about everyone you see had no idea that the High End of the audio industry was holding forth on floors 29,…
"The Record Player Reborn" declare the new issue's cover, referring to reviews of LP players from Oracle, Acoustic Signature, and VPI. But digital isn't forgotten, with John Atkinson raving about about Chord's new $599 portable DAC, Larry Greenhill upgrading his Bryston BDP-2 file player with a new soundboard, and Digital Audio Review's John Darkø kicking off the issue with a guest editorial on the boom in personal listening in Japan. And topping it all off is our annual "Records to Die For" listing: 56 albums every audiophile should have in their collection.
Mobile Fidelity's two-LP, 45rpm reissue of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is one of the most eagerly awaited audiophile jazz reissues, which may seem strange given how many reissues already exist. Yet the 1959 album is that rare thing in any art form: an accessible, popular work (it's the best-selling jazz album of all time and continues to sell thousands of copies a year) and also an artistic breakthrough (marking a shift from harmonies based on chord changes at set intervals to those loosely patterned on scales). And Columbia's original six-eyes stereo pressing, miked by Fred Plaut, stands as…
Audiophiles are often accused of being interested in the gear first, and in music a distant second. Yes, we all love our audio systems, but owning such a system would be pretty pointless if we didn't have music to play on it. Something that Stereophile's reviewers have in common is that, no matter how expensive their audio systems, their collections of recorded music are worth more. So at the beginning of each of the last 25 years, this magazine has celebrated its love of music by publishing "Records to Die For," aka R2D4: a list of the two albums that each reviewer, whether of equipment or…
Another Monday, another rock passing, another reappraisal. The death of Glenn Frey, 67, a member of a band widely known for being stronger in the studio than it was on the concert stage (at least until Joe Walsh and Don Felder arrived) brings up two questions. Given the Eagles run of smash hits from 1974 (“Best of My Love”) through the end of that decade, all of which were played literally to death by the radio, can anybody still listen to Eagles records these days? And if so, is that audiophile fave, Hotel California really the band’s creative peak?
On the last question, I’ve always…
"You're only as good as your most recent gig," was literally drummed into me in my pro musician days; I've found it to be just as true in magazine publishing. No matter how much hard work went into, say, an equipment review, a couple of months down the line that review will be as fresh as yesterday's undunked donut. And no matter how good-sounding the product, or how much it excited the writer, it will always tend to be overshadowed by the latest and greatest products written about in the new issue—the "moving finger, having writ..." syndrome.
Needless to say, this is a drag. I want to…
Loudspeaker of 1992
Sonus Faber Extrema ($14,000/pair including stands (footnote 1); reviewed by Martin Colloms, Vol.15 No.6, June 1992 Review)
I first heard a Sonus Faber speaker some years ago in the home of a friend in England. I forget which model it was, but this minimonitor boogied like a good'un, while managing to avoid destroying the subtleties present in the music we played. (I've been surprised at the fact that this Italian range of beauties has only recently been distributed in the US.) When Martin Colloms told me at the beginning of the year that he wanted to review the…
Amplification component of 1992:
Melos SHA-1 headphone amplifier ($995; reviewed by Corey Greenberg & John Atkinson, Vol.15 No.10, October 1992 Review)
When I tallied the close voting in the amplification category and realized that this strange little beast was the 1992 winner, I smiled. It might be expected that in awards schemes like this, the contenders whose designers have been allowed effectively unlimited design budgets have an overwhelming advantage. Yes, there are some very expensive components carrying away kudos from the Stereophile scribes, but this line/headphone…