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Apple AirPods Pro 2 noise-canceling, wireless, in-ear headphones On Bluetooth

Sidebar 1: On Bluetooth

One reason I green-lighted Rogier van Bakel's review of the Apple AirPod Pro 2 is that, while Bluetooth audio has a somewhat dubious past, its future seems promising (footnote 1). Bluetooth is a protocol that enables wireless audio and much else. Operating within the Bluetooth standard, or riding on top of it, are codecs for coding audio including SBC (the basic, default Bluetooth audio codec), AAC (preferred by Apple and used by YouTube), LDAC (from Sony), and several varieties of aptX (standard, HD, Adaptive, Lossless, and so on).

Sony and Qualcomm have…

Apple AirPods Pro 2 noise-canceling, wireless, in-ear headphones Specifications

Sidebar 2: Specifications

Description: Bluetooth wireless earbuds with noise cancellation. Model number MQD83AM/A. Volume swipe controls, active noise cancellation, adaptive transparency, personalized spatial audio.
Dimensions: For each bud: 1.22" (30.9mm) H × 0.86" (21.8mm) W × 0.94" (24.0mm) D. Weight 0.19oz (5.3gm). Charging case: 1.78" (45.2mm) H × 2.39" (60.6mm) W × 0.85" (21.7mm) D. Weight 1.79oz (50.8gm).
Price: $249. Warranty: One year.
Manufacturer: Apple, One Apple Park Way, Cupertino, CA 95014. Tel: (800) 692-7753. Web: apple.com.

Apple AirPods Pro 2 noise-canceling, wireless, in-ear headphones Associated Equipment

Sidebar 3: Associated Equipment

Headphones and IEMs: First-generation AirPods Pro, Moondrop Aria, AKG N400, Etymotic ER4SR, HiFiMAN HE1000se, Audeze LCD-4, Sennheiser HD 600, Bose QuietComfort 25.

Headphone amplifiers: McIntosh MHA100, RME ADI-2 DAC FS. Sources iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPad Pro, Apple TV, Lenovo Think-Centre running Roon ROCK (Roon-Optimized Core Kit), Auralic Vega DAC.—Rogier van Bakel

Rachael and Vilray: Carrying a Torch

As Vilray Bolles marched down Manhattan's Second Avenue on a rainy afternoon late in 2014, participating in a demonstration against police brutality, he slipped on the wet pavement, fell hard on his right hand, and broke his pinky. For a guitarist, a broken finger can be a major, if not catastrophic, setback. But the gods were smiling on Bolles. He was, in fact, a lapsed guitarist, having all but abandoned hopes of a musical career, and the universe was giving him a nudge, not just back into music but into a collaboration with Rachael Price, one of contemporary pop's great vocalists, who,…

Rachael and Vilray: Carrying a Torch Page 2

As Price rediscovered her jazz soul, Vilray experienced his own rebirth. "I didn't feel comfortable playing songs that everybody knew, so I played obscurities, the B-sides of '30s and '40s hits, like Fats Waller's 'My Very Good Friend the Milkman,' until Paul McCartney covered it." Immersing himself in classic songcraft, he gradually discovered his own vocabulary. "The plan was to write songs and tell people I'd found a songbook in someone's attic. But my ego got in the way, and I admitted to writing them."

"He showed me a tune he'd written, and I couldn't believe it," Price recalled. "We…

March 2023 Rock/Pop Record Reviews

Margot Price: Strays
Loma Vista Records (16/44.1 WAV download; also available on CD, LP, cassette tape). 2023. Jonathan Wilson, Margo Price, prods.; Jonathan Wilson, Dexter Green, others, engs.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

Artists with ambition must grow or their vision gets stale and repetitive. They also need something new to sell streams, concert tickets, and records. One sure way to change things up is a guest list that includes Mike Campbell, Sharon Van Etten, and Lucius. Another is to put your art in the hands of a new producer, in this case Jonathan Wilson, who has…

March 2023 Classical Record Reviews

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
Curtis Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
Curtis Studio (24/96 WAV download). Drew Schlegel, prod. and eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

The best American conservatory players can match fully fledged professionals in musicality and polish, so it's no surprise that the Curtis Institute has launched its own label. Kicking off with a showpiece like Scheherazade might have been a gamble, but not with Osmo Vänskä, recently of the Minnesota Orchestra, at the helm.

Once past the self-conscious opening gestures, the conductor limns an unusually…

March 2023 Jazz Record Reviews

The Necks: Travel
Chris Abrahams, piano, organ; Tony Buck, drums; Lloyd Swanton, bass
Northern Spy NS158 (CD; also available on LP, download). 2023. Tim Whitten, prod., eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

The Necks are an acoustic product of the digital age. The longstanding Australian piano trio has worked, with rare exception, in hour-long spans of gradual development that would make Miles Davis and Gil Evans green with envy. On stage or in studio, they execute their warm yet machine-like repetitions with great precision. In 2017, they broke with formula to meet the…

Analog Corner #259: Audio Union Döhmann Helix 1 turntable and Schröder CB tonearm

Turntables, tonearms, and phono cartridges are tuned systems. That each of them can be adjusted to maximize the sound quality—especially the quality called tunefulness, which is difficult to quantify—drives vinyl deniers crazy. Today, one of them e-mailed me: "You are the stupidest motherfucker I have ever encountered. Go shove a tone-arm up your ass." He followed that with this: "You are demented, deluded, and deaf. Records suck, and always have."

Just ignore them. I do. (Well, I try.)

The ability to fine-tune a vinyl playback system is part of what makes it possible to combine…

Analog Corner #259: Audio Union Döhmann Helix 1 turntable and Schröder CB tonearm Page 2

Setup and Use: The Döhmann Helix 1 comes in a compact road case and is relatively easy to set up. It sits on adjustable leveling feet, from which the turntable itself is completely decoupled. It's big: 23.4" wide by 5.2" high by 18.7" deep. The MinusK suspension requires no tuning or tweaking, other than to adjust the vertical "travel" once the arm(s) has been installed: The suspension is very sensitive to weight.

Audio Union supplies a pair of thick, mirror-imaged aluminum armboards that can be machined to accommodate your choice of tonearm. The boards are bolted, from above, to…