The system included Orchard Audio owner/designer Leonid Ayzenshtat's PecanPi+ Streamer Premium ($1500) and Soundfield Audio 1212C active speakers ($16,000/pair). Kimber Kable Hero XLR interconnects ($562/pair), Kimber Kable speaker cables, and Kimber Kable PK10 Ascent power cables ($710/ea.)…
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Succasunna, New Jersey's Orchard Audio didn't come to play. Joined by Kimber Kable and Soundfield Audio, Orchard got down to business, but quick. "We are an audio company that provides an immersive listening experience by offering top-quality DACs, streamers, and amplifiers," its website states.
Robert Lighton's custom rig included his prototype turntable with a rosewood armboard and customized 10" Audio Note tonearm with a Miyajima Madake MC cartridge. An Audio Note S9 step-up transformer ($28,000) and M9 phono preamp ($185,000) did the analog business. An Audio Note CD 4.1x ($16,000) made music from shiny silver discs. Finally, an Audio Note Gaku-On amplifier ($330,000) drove Lighton's speakers. Audio Note Sogon interconnects and speaker cable provided the connectivity. A Furman power conditioner worked silently.
"This is the first showing of my RL 12 speaker system ($…
High Water Sound's Jeffrey Catalano is renowned for assembling fantastic-sounding systems, room after room, year after year. Just as compelling as his sonic assemblages is his exceptional taste in music on vinyl. He did it again at T.H.E. Show NYC 2025, where he was joined by Colin King’s Gestalt Audio of Nashville..
The records Jeffrey brought spanned a cosmos of sound: jazz, ambient, space-age travel-rama epics, and down-and-dirty blues. Titles included Casimir Liberski ReTRio's The Z Suites, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio's Cold As Weiss, Širom's In the Wind of Night, Hard‑Fallen…
Sharing one of two HiFi Loft rooms with owner Jason Tavares, 2WA Group (led by Walters Schofield and Swanbon) showcased a system built around SPL components and Falcon Acoustics speakers.
The system included the SPL Director Mk.2 preamplifier/DAC ($4700) and the Performer s800 stereo amplifier ($4350). Speakers were Herb's beloved Falcon Acoustics Gold Badge LS3/5a in Burl Walnut ($4850/pair), plus Falcon Acoustics F50 S/E in European Walnut ($2490/pair).
ArgentPur cables provided connectivity, including Athene RCA ($1400), Heracles RCA ($1900), Amen RCA ($2400), Athene…
Was it something in the air, something in the water? Cosmically inspired by the stars and the moon? Or maybe the devil was finally claiming his own as rock music in all its variants was unassailably ascendant.
A more temporal reason why 1975 was such a rich year for music is that by the middle 1970s, audio engineers had mastered the arts of recording on multiple channels and cutting and editing tape. Even more crucially, the profit motive still existed in music. Back when people bought vinyl LPs by the binful, it was still possible for musicians (and by extension record labels) to get…
Ortofon's limited-edition MC A90 was the first phono cartridge made with selective laser melting (SLM). Using this technique, metallic powder is fused to build up, layer by layer, a specific shape. SLM allows the creation of complex constructions impossible to fabricate from a block of wood or metal using traditional machining techniques. What's more, it makes possible, in the individual layering, a precise control of variations in density that can result in a highly self-damped internal structure.
To demonstrate that last point at the 2009 Munich High End Show, Leif Johannsen, the MC A90…
Elvis Presley: Sunset Boulevard
RCA/Legacy 19802905512 (5 CDs). 2025. Ernst Mikael Jørgensen, prod.; Matt Ross-Spang, Vic Anesini, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics **½ ****
RCA/Legacy 19802905512 (5 CDs). 2025. Ernst Mikael Jørgensen, prod.; Matt Ross-Spang, Vic Anesini, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics **½ ****
While Ozzy Osbourne's longevity despite a heroic effort at self-destruction was a near miracle, the audible proof of rockstar immortality lies in the seemingly endless trail of posthumous releases of long-dead stars like Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley. A barrel that may be nearing its bottom, the Presley RCA archives continue to be explored by the longtime, indefatigable Presley reissue producer Ernst Mikael…
Dave Pietro: Satori
Pietro, alto saxophone; five others
East 15th E15R (CD). Pietro, prod.; Tyler McDiarmid, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
Pietro, alto saxophone; five others
East 15th E15R (CD). Pietro, prod.; Tyler McDiarmid, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
Dave Pietro is one of those dead-on reliable artists who are part of the bedrock on which the current jazz art form is built. His arsenal of reed instruments has been essential to the greatest jazz orchestras of our time, including those of Maria Schneider and Ryan Truesdell. He has now made 11 albums as a leader. For the last three, he has stayed loyal to the same core group of world-class collaborators. They include keyboardist…
Brahms: Piano Concerto 2; Three Intermezzi
Francesco Piemontesi, piano; Gewandhausorchester/Manfred Honeck
Pentatone PTC5187461 (CD). 2025. Johannes Kammann, prod. and eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Francesco Piemontesi, piano; Gewandhausorchester/Manfred Honeck
Pentatone PTC5187461 (CD). 2025. Johannes Kammann, prod. and eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
The opening horn solo steps straightforwardly; the plaintive answering wind chorale picks up. The forte piano scales, brilliant and peremptory, propel the theme into a precipitate but firmly grounded tutti, setting things in motion. But it's a feint: Piemontesi and Honeck bring out the composer's lyrical, autumnal side. It's the quieter passages that linger in the mind's…
In 1979, I was the road drummer for Boston singer-songwriter Andy Pratt, a local celebrity known both for his musical talent—showcased on his 1973 Columbia album Andy Pratt—and for being the great-grandson of Charles Pratt of Pratt Institute and Standard Oil fame. I was part of the touring band for Pratt's Motives album, performing regional hits like "That's When Miracles Occur," a standout track from his 1976 breakthrough, Resolution. Rolling Stone's Stephen Holden considered Resolution revolutionary: "By reviving the dream of rock as an art and then reinventing it, Pratt has forever changed…