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Mary Halvorson: Amaryllis
Mary Halvorson, guitar; Adam O'Farrill, trumpet; Jacob Garchik, trombone; Patricia Brennan, vibraphone; Nick Dunston, bass; Tomas Fujiwara, drums; Olivia De Prato, Maya Bennardo, violins; Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola; Thomas J. Borden, cello
Nonesuch 7559791273 (CD). 2022. John Dietrich, prod.; Chris Allen, Scott Hull, engs.

Who says jazz is dead? Not Mary Halvorson, a former Anthony Braxton pupil who has reset the parameters of the avant-garde. A far cry from the screechy free jazz of the late 1960s, her sophisticated…

Sonny & Cher: "I Got You Babe"
Atco Records AT.4035 (7" single). 1965. Sonny Bono, prod.; Stan Ross, eng.

I promise you, whatever age you are now, your lifeforce will be greater after you've heard Sonny Bono sing Put your little hand in mine / There ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb. Bill Voss of Technics played Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" from a 12" Greatest Hits disc, and it earwormed its way into the next month of my life. When I got home from the show, I bought a VG+ version of the single on eBay for $11.95, and every time I see…

Al Di Meola/John McLaughlin/Paco de Lucía: Friday Night In San Francisco
Di Meola, McLaughlin, de Lucía, guitars
Columbia FC 37152 (LP). 1981. Barrie Marshall, Philip Roberge, prods.; Rex Olson, Tim Pinch, Ray Bardani, engs.

If concerts had traffic stops, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucía would have been pulled over for breaking the California speed limit during this December 5, 1980, performance. No one should be able to play an acoustic guitar this fast and articulately while creating such transcendent music, even quoting The…

The Camberwell Now: All's Well
ReR Megacorp DUP0022 (CD). 1992. The Camberwell Now, prod.; Keith Hancock, Barry Woodward, Dave Bernez, The Camberwell Now, engs.

Born from the ashes of the London-based experimental avant-prog band This Heat, The Camberwell Now was a trio, formed by This Heat drummer and lead singer Charles Hayward, the band's final bass player, Trefor Goronwy, and its sound engineer, Stephen Rickard. Rickard's "tape switchboard" was a cross between a sampler and a Mellotron created by connecting a stack of cassette decks to a keyboard…

After performing the CH Precision L10 balanced input's Calibration procedure, I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system to perform a complete set of measurements using the L10's direct-coupled balanced inputs and outputs with the input impedance set to High, the gain adjust set to "0dB," feedback set to Local, Phase Polarity set to In Phase, and the Ground Lift switch set to Opened. I then repeated some of the tests using the unbalanced RCA inputs and outputs then did more tests with the magazine's higher-performance APx555. The supplied umbilical cables were long…

It doesn't matter whether the artist worked in Paris or Polynesia, in the 15th or 20th century. The force of the creator's persona, united with the constraints of the cultural system that supported the making of that type of art, determines the vibe the object emits. That vibe is what I'm hoping to grasp.

Whether I'm examining a Zulu beer pot or a John Cage drawing (both of which I've lived with), my first step…

Listening
Whenever I play records through my sound system, I need to feel the personas of the artists coming through. I want some authentic John Fogerty attitude. I want as much edgy John Lennon as I can get. I want to feel Tina Turner's moves. I want Aaron Neville's sacred voice to haunt me 'til we meet by the river.

As I sat listening with the Stax SR-007S, it took only a few seconds for Aaron Neville singing John Hiatt's sexy dreamy "Feels Like Rain" (16/44.1 FLAC A&M/Qobuz) to lope its way into my heart and choke me up.

I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone with an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition's farfield frequency behavior and dispersion. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses and Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system to measure the impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle.

Dynaudio specifies the Contour 20 BE's sensitivity as 86dB/2.…

Lucskai, a Hungarian who emigrated to Spain 15 years ago, calls himself a Personal Audiophile Journey Advisor. With Costa Soniqa, he aims to serve Germans, Brits, Poles, and other Europeans who wish to buy a house in Spain that can readily be outfitted with a high-end listening room. For the demanding and the highly committed, he even finds entire homes that can qualify as "…