Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: Never try.—Homer Simpson
Months ago, as we put together the most recent installment of "Recommended Components," Phillip Holmes, of Mockingbird Distribution, got in touch and asked if we would please remove from our list the Abis SA-1 tonearm, which Mockingbird distributes (and which I first wrote about in our March 2014 issue, footnote 1). As it turns out, Abis is making some changes to the arm, and Holmes didn't think it would be right to let the recommendation endure until we'd had a chance to try the new one.
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While Dolby Atmos, which adds height information to both cinema soundtracks and domestic surround-sound reproduction has created a strong buzz in the mainstream market for home-theater A/V receivers and preamplifier-processors, it's too early to know what, if any, impact it will have on music-only recordings. I'm not sanguine about the prospects—as impressive as I've found Atmos to be for movies, the expansion of sources to the vertical plane would seem to be of little value for music performed on acoustic instruments. Moreover, it seems unlikely that mainstream record labels will adopt this…
The M17 sits on four large, broad spikes, for which NAD provides concave protective plates that center themselves magnetically. Installation was a breeze, and setup involved minimal but predictable use of the M17's menus. I connected the M17's XLR outputs to my Bryston 9BST amp and, later, to NAD's own M27, but fed the RCA outputs to my two subwoofers. After setup, the OSD wasn't needed—the excellent and informative front-panel touchscreen, with its crisp text, sufficed for all normal operations (fig.1). In fact, the M17's is the best info display yet, but is compromised by a niggling issue…
The downside: The Abis TA-1L, though commendably detailed, was slightly lighter in the bass than my Schick—and, for that matter, than my memory of the SA-1. With the TA-1L shepherding my cartridge across Procol Harum, neither B.J. Wilson's kick drum nor Knights's bass had quite the fullness or impact I'm used to hearing from my system; I heard a similar effect with other records.
The SA-1 had no less treble content than its S-shaped sibling, yet that extension was balanced by a stronger bass register—or so it was with the cartridges in my collection. One should bear in mind that Abis…
Our special issue, Stereophile Recommended Components Collector’s Issue, lands on the shelves at newsstands and book stores this week. While the regular “Recommended Components” listings in our April and October issues concentrate on products that have been reviewed in the previous three years, this special 180-page issue features capsule reviews of every audio component that has been reviewed and recommended by Stereophile’s team of writers and editors in the 12 years of listings since 2003: more than 400 loudspeakers and subwoofers; more than 400 amplifiers and preamplifiers; almost 300…
The whole idea of jazz “singles” seems a little absurd. It’s a widely held article of faith among jazzers and rank civilians, that jazz hasn’t had hits since Glenn Miller had folks kissing (?) in parked cars to “Moonlight Serenade.” And if truth be told, there’s only ever been one jazz album since the big band days, never mind the singles, that broke into the larger consciousness and that's Kind of Blue. No, Brubeck, “Take Five,” fans I haven’t forgotten you but if you ask casual fans what the best jazz record is, Miles trumps Dave most of the time.
Which brings me to Thelonious Monk `…
Yes, it’s a broken record but in yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of the “will the musically inclined public buy the same material yet again?” Concord Records which now owns Fantasy (and Rounder) has reissued two of the most surprising LP-sized CD boxed sets of the '90s: The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Volume 2 1968-1971 and The Complete Stax/Volt Singles Volume 3 1972-1975 in a more compact form, but still containing the original liner notes by Rob Bowman, who also wrote the definitive history of the label Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records. The big draw this time out—…
And so what really were the great Stax/Volt albums after 1968? A search of the LPs, and a tip from a dear friend, led me to a few gems, none greater than a 1969 Albert King LP with the stupidly great title, King, Does The King’s Things which was unfortunately changed to the comma-less Blues for Elvis after Presley’s death in 1977. With liner notes by future Presley biographer/tormentor Albert Goldman, this album comes loaded with a secret weapon: the playing and arrangements of Al Jackson Jr., Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper, who were every bit the equal of the Swampers, the Funk…
I've probably raved enough about Analogue Productions' 200-gram vinyl reissue of Masterpieces by Ellington, one of the greatest (yet, strangely, least-known) albums in Duke Ellington's vast catalog—and, despite its vintage (1950, mono) his best-sounding. The good news here: for those of you who aren't into vinyl, AP has now issued it again as a hybrid SACD.
The sonics aren't quite as jaw-dropping as the LP—it doesn't have quite the 3D presence, lush warmth, or snap-crackle percussiveness—but it comes very close. More pertinent, I suspect, is that it sounds considerably better than the…
Audiophilia nervosa. It's a running gag with a mean streak. As audiophiles, we know its effects intimately. We know how it can turn what was once a source of pleasure and pride—listening to good music over a good sound system—into an irritating itch that can't be scratched.
The UrbanDictionary.com defines audiophilia nervosa (AN) as "the anxiety resulting from the never-ending quest to obtain the ultimate performance from one's stereo system by means of employing state-of-the-art components, cables, and the use of certain 'tweaks.' Although the goal is supposedly to achieve maximum…
