"I walked in and watched this…
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"When it starts to impact your ability to get to gigs, play gigs, get to rehearsals, meet with producers, get forward momentum to your career, it's not good. The band had fits and starts and fits and starts. Within two years, the singer and the drummer got in a fight, and the singer had brought a rifle ... because we were playing in upstate Massachusetts and there was a family of hunters who lived in the same building that the band was staying in and they said to Michael [O'Neill, the founding lead vocalist], "Next time you come up, we'll go hunting.
The Replacements: Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (Deluxe Edition)
Rhino R2 659038 (4CD/1LP). 2021. Peter Jesperson, Paul Westerberg, Steve Fjelstad, prods./various engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *** (Intentionally Lo-Fi)
Rhino R2 659038 (4CD/1LP). 2021. Peter Jesperson, Paul Westerberg, Steve Fjelstad, prods./various engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *** (Intentionally Lo-Fi)
The Replacements have a great rock'n'roll Formation Story: Four rough-and-tumble Minneapolis kids, in and out of trouble, bitten by the music bug and headed for either stardom or dead ends. They chose to go all in and make this debut album, which is still heating the blood 4 decades on.
Front-man Paul Westerberg sums up the spirit of Sorry, Ma…
Joe Farnsworth: City of Sounds
Farnsworth, drums; Kenny Barron, piano; Peter Washington, bass
Smoke Sessions SSR-2105 (CD). 2021. Paul Stache, Damon Smith, prods.; Edwin Huet, Paul Stache, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Farnsworth, drums; Kenny Barron, piano; Peter Washington, bass
Smoke Sessions SSR-2105 (CD). 2021. Paul Stache, Damon Smith, prods.; Edwin Huet, Paul Stache, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
We are at a point in time when most new jazz releases were recorded during the pandemic. Many are direct artistic responses to the crisis. The response of drummer Joe Farnsworth is bound up with the city where he has lived for 30 years.
In New York, the center of the jazz universe, the music stopped in early 2020. Farnsworth says, "I've learned…
Sol & Pat
Sol Gabetta, cello and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin
Alpha757 (24/96 FLAC download). 2021. Peter Laenger, prod. and eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
Sol Gabetta, cello and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin
Alpha757 (24/96 FLAC download). 2021. Peter Laenger, prod. and eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
For fans of these two highly idiosyncratic artists, the only surprise this album may hold is the music. Others may reel as much at the spontaneous improvisatory nature of the playing as the wildness of the repertoire and the uniqueness of its sequencing.
If there's anything that Leclair's short Tambourin in C major and C.P.E. Bach's Presto, Helm 66 VI have in common with two movements from Jörg…
Peter Ledermann, founder and chief designer of Soundsmith, Inc. (footnote 1), began his adventures in phono cartridges by reverse-engineering Bang & Olufsen's Moving Micro-Cross moving-iron cartridges for customers B&O had abandoned when it got out of the LP player business, and putting them into production. The B&O cartridges were of the direct plug-in variety; once they were no longer made, a worn or broken B&O cartridge would render a B&O turntable unusable.
For those unfamiliar with them, in a moving-iron (MI) cartridge a tiny piece of iron—not a coil or a magnet—…
The Hyperion delivered the sort of microdynamic information that can bring a recorded performance to life. If you listen mostly to acoustic music, whether small or large ensembles, I found that the Hyperion delivered both convincingly.
The other evening I played for a friend—a mastering engineer who shall remain nameless—Bob Ludwig's legendary "pulled from the shelves" (footnote 3) original mastering of Led Zeppelin's II (LP, Atlantic SD 8236). He was awed by the shimmer and sizzle of John Bonham's cymbals, and the tuneful slam of the rest of his drum kit.
The Hyperion's…
It would appear that there are still people out there who are unaware that this is the age of the transistor. Not only are tubed amplifiers not vanishing from the face of the earth, they are proliferating. Audio's equipment directory for 1977 listed three tubed power amplifiers. The same directory for 1984 lists over 30 of them, and the Quicksilver amplifier is not even included!
This very hefty (95lb) stereo power amp uses eight EL34 tubes to deliver a rated 95 watts per channel into 4 or 8 ohms. The unit comes with a plug-in milliammeter for setting bias, and detailed adjustment…
Sidebar 1: Amplifier Comparisons
Comparing the Quicksilver MS190 with the Berning 2100 that I also review in this issue was rather difficult because they sound so different. If you like "tube sound," you are more likely to be happy with the Quicksilver, because it embodies more of what are generally conceded to be the positive (and, by tube detractors, negative) attributes of good tubed components. If you like solid-state bass and tube midrange, the Berning approaches this rare amalgam more closely than any other amplifier we have tested. For the best "tube highs," choose between the…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Tubed stereo power amplifier. Rated output: 95Wpc into 8 or 4 ohms (MX190). Frequency response: +0/–3dB, 16Hz–70kHz, full output power. Outputs: 4 and 8 ohms. Power consumption: 300 watts.
Weight: 95 lb.
Price: $2495 (1984); no longer available (2022).
Manufacturer: Quicksilver Audio: Van Nuys, CA (1981–1985); Stockton, CA (1985–1992); Reno, NV (1992–2005) Denver, CO (2005–2008) 7475 Murray Drive, Suite 17, Stockton, CA 95210 (2008–present). Tel:(209) 957-6640. Fax:(209) 957-6641. Web: quicksilveraudio.com
Photo: "Still Life with Tiptoes"—John Atkinson
Memorandum:
To: Steve McCormack, Chief Designer, The Mod Squad (footnote 1)
Dear Steve:
I cannot question the general value of Tiptoes in many specific applications. There are a great many areas where I, many other audiophiles, and a number of leading manufacturers have found that Tiptoes can improve any audio system in which the components are subject to. mechanical or acoustic vibration from speaker sound—that is, virtually any audio system.
While initially skeptical, I now concede that Tiptoes are a worthwhile…