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Gray Forecast or Silver Lining?

Photo: VPI

Social distancing. Flattening the curve. These expressions are embedded in our collective psyche as we to try to keep COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus that causes it at bay. Few of us who live through this will ever forget them.

But life and work must somehow go on, if at a slower pace than before. Even now—as I write, just a couple of weeks after the earliest stay-at-home order went into effect, in California—the pandemic anxiety and resulting closures have businesses across all sectors taking a huge hit. Today's unemployment numbers were staggering, dwarfing those…

Gray Forecast or Silver Lining? Page 2

Meanwhile, Schiit has shifted forward plans to expand its operations to a facility in Utah, a state not under lockdown and, Jason says, one that is less likely to be. "Yeah, don't be surprised if the words on our site change very quickly to, like, 'designed and manufactured in California and/or Utah,'" he chuckles.

"Of course, like everyone, I'm sure we've taken a bit of a hit, but the orders are coming in. People are still asking questions. People still need to have service performed. What we're trying to do is do that without jeopardizing anyone here."

Looking forward,…

Innuos Statement music server

We carry within us the wonders we seek outside us.—Rumi

There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don't allow yourself to become one of them.—Ralph Marston, The Daily Motivator

Put these two quotes together, shake vigorously, and you've got the essence of a music server. Unless your container isn't tightly sealed, in which case you've got a mess.

A dedicated streaming music server has but one overriding purpose: to enable the discovery and delivery of digitally encoded music—and then get out of the way. Ideally, it performs like the best of servants, keeping…

Innuos Statement music server Page 2

Vitorino's music collection centers on blues, rock, and progressive rock. Pink Floyd, "the odd Dire Straits and U2," and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are among his faves and currently serve as examples as he learns to play guitar. Recently, he's been listening to electronic music, including Yello and Boris Blank, and to titles influenced by "the psychedelic Pink Floyd aesthetic." After citing David Gilmour's "Faces of Stone" and Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Touré's "Amandrai," he admitted, sheepishly, that he uses the Eagles' "Hotel California" to test equipment. As I contemplated playing…

Innuos Statement music server Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Dedicated music server/ripper/streamer running Linux-based InnuOS operating system. Formats supported for ripping: FLAC (zero compression), WAV. Formats supported for playback: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, AAC, MP3, MQA (with supported DACs), DFF, DSF up to DSD128 via DoP, Native DSD on selected DACs. Ports: 2 OCXO-reclocked Ethernet Ports, 2 USB 2.0 (1 reclocked for output, 1 non-reclocked for input), 1 USB 3.0 (backup). Storage: 1TB to 4TB enterprise-grade SSD (EMI and vibration-treated). Memory: 8GB (4GB dedicated to memory playback). Library management…

Innuos Statement music server Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital sources: dCS Rossini SACD/CD transport & Rossini DAC & Rossini Clock & Network Bridge; EMM Labs DV2 DAC; Roon Nucleus +; Linksys routers (2), Small Green Computer Systemoptique optical isolation bundle, TP-Link gigabit Ethernet media converters plus multimode duplex fiber optic cable (2); Small Green Computer linear power supply & Small Green Computer/HDPLEX four-component 200W linear power supply (2); external hard drives, SSD USB sticks, iPad Pro.
Power amplifiers: Dan D'Agostino Master Systems Progression monoblocks.
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Innuos Statement music server Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

As with the Roon Nucleus+ that I reviewed in the August 2018 issue, it's difficult to determine what measurements would be meaningful with a product like the Innuos Statement. However, when I examined the analog output of an Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty D/A processor with the Roon server, I did find that sourcing J-Test data via USB from the Nucleus+ gave a slightly cleaner spectrum than when the same data was sourced from my MacBook Pro laptop. The Ayre DAC has long since been returned to the manufacturer, but I did have three D/A processors with USB inputs that I…

Being There: Reflections on Ways of Experiencing Jazz

I remember the only time i ever saw Chet Baker. It was at Parnell's, a jazz club in Pioneer Square in Seattle, long since defunct. It was a few years before Baker died under mysterious circumstances, in Amsterdam in 1988, after a life of creativity, notorious dissipation, and addiction.

Emaciated, with a caved-in face, he already looked near death. He played like an angel. I remember something that happened to me toward the end of the night. Sometimes last sets in jazz clubs, when the crowd has thinned, seem to exist outside of time. There came a moment when, almost alone with Baker's…

Being There: Reflections on Ways of Experiencing Jazz Page 2

McDiarmid's largest group of live recordings was made at Smalls, a funky little basement dive in Greenwich Village. In the early years of the 2010s, the smallsLIVE label was a highly effective way for people outside New York to get to the city —in their minds. Most smallsLIVE albums were recorded either by McDiarmid/Countryman or by Jimmy Katz (whose engineering brilliance was the subject of my article in the August 2019 issue of Stereophile, Vol.42 No.8). Albums in the Live at Smalls series, like Jimmy Greene's, recorded by Katz, and Joel Frahm's, recorded by McDiarmid/Countryman, put you…

Being There: Reflections on Ways of Experiencing Jazz More Recordings

More Recordings

In addition to the recordings mentioned in the article, the following are recommended:

Ambrose Akinmusire: A Rift in Decorum, Live at the Village Vanguard
(Blue Note) Tyler McDiarmid, Geoffrey Countryman, engs.

Sonny Rollins: Way Out West
(Contemporary, also JVC XRCD and Analogue Productions SACD reissues) Roy DuNann, eng.

Bennie Wallace: The Old Songs
(AudioQuest, also JVC XRCD reissue) Roger Rhodes, eng.

Tomasz Stanko Quartet: Matka Joanna
(ECM) Jan Eric Kongshaug, eng.

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