Wow!, I thought. This WiSA thing is the future of home…
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Flashback: It was 2012—or maybe '13. I was in a small hotel room in midtown Manhattan. An array of five chunky black speakers teetering on tripod mounts almost filled the room. Every corner held a subwoofer, each with a tiny, unmarked box on top. On the coffee table sat an AVR, a disc player, and another, similar unmarked box connected to the AVR. No cables linked the coffee table stuff to the (powered) speakers and subs. But music was playing! In 5.1 at 24/96 with very low latency and absolute synchronization among the speakers.
Roy Brooks: The Free Slave
Brooks, drums; four others
Time Traveler TT-M001 (LP; auditioned on promo CD).
1972/2025. Brooks, prod.; Zev Feldman, James Batsford, reissue prods.; Orville O'Brien, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ***
Brooks, drums; four others
Time Traveler TT-M001 (LP; auditioned on promo CD).
1972/2025. Brooks, prod.; Zev Feldman, James Batsford, reissue prods.; Orville O'Brien, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ***
In its day, the Muse label featured a roster of significant artists including Sonny Stitt, Cedar Walton, and Kenny Barron. Muse never acquired cult status like Blue Note and ECM. Why? For starters, it lacked their sound quality and collectable cover art.
But time changes everything. Fifty years on, Muse now looks like a repository of…
Richard Ashcroft: Lovin' You
BMG (auditioned as LP). 2025. Ashcroft, Chris Potter, Emre Ramazanoglu, prods.; Miles Showell, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics *****
BMG (auditioned as LP). 2025. Ashcroft, Chris Potter, Emre Ramazanoglu, prods.; Miles Showell, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics *****
Richard Ashcroft, the opening act for the new global Oasis reunion tour, remains forever linked to The Verve. That band's blend of Brit pop and neo-psychedelic haze gave Ashcroft a wide emotional canvas to explore. But when he struck out on his own in 2000 with Alone with Everybody, his music took on deeper resonance. That record was a critic and fan favorite, full of sonic things to explore.
In the years since,…
After I reviewed NAD's Masters Series M10 streaming integrated amplifier in January 2020 (footnote 1), I bought the review sample to use as my daily driver. Not only did I appreciate the fact that the M10 was no bigger than it needed to be—it measures just 8.5" W × 3.9" H × 10.25" D and weighs less than 10lb—it is Roon Ready and includes a free license to use Dirac Live LE Room Correction. (This can be upgraded to a paid Dirac Live Full Frequency version.) The amplifier is supplied with a USB microphone that can be used to measure the responses of the owner's loudspeakers at the listening…
For a lot of bands, the second album is intimidating. There are numerous examples of sophomore slumps, which sometimes lead to a band's quick end. Talking Heads didn't just avoid a sophomore slump; they scored their first top-40 hit and put their career on solid, sky-is-the-limit footing. Through their innate talent and curiosity, relentless hard work, and some good luck, their second effort—More Songs About Buildings and Food—was a smashing success.
Capitalizing on the modest buzz created by their debut, Talking Heads: 77—"Psycho Killer" got some FM airplay and notoriety—the band hit the…
Sidebar: Measuring
I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system to examine the M10 V3's measured performance. Other than the maximum gain being 8dB higher than that of the original M10, at 37.5dB into 8 ohms, the analog line-input performance was very similar to that of the original M10. The source impedance was still impressively low. The maximum power was 150Wpc into 8 ohms (21.75dBW) and 290Wpc into 4 ohms (21.6dBW) compared with the M10 V1's maximum power of 155Wpc into 8 ohms (21.9dBW) and 295Wpc into 4 ohms (21.7dBW). These powers were obtained at 1% THD+noise; the specified continuous…
A conversation with Magico founder Alon Wolf can feel like stepping onto a moving walkway; it's best to find your balance early. Over the course of a spirited five-hour conversation at the company's impressive production facility in Hayward, California (footnote 1), Wolf questioned my choice of gear. Twice. "You should pick what you like of course," he said of a pair of speakers I'd been using as references. "But why?" I laughed, entertained by his cheek.
Hours later, as he piloted his Porsche across the San Mateo Bridge toward a sushi restaurant in downtown San Francisco, I mentioned a…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
For logistical reasons, I measured a different sample of the Magico S2 from those auditioned by RvB. Mine had the serial number 25106. I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone with an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Magico S2's farfield frequency behavior and dispersion with the 132lb loudspeaker raised off the floor on a dolly. I took a full set of farfield measurements with the microphone at my usual 50" distance on the tweeter axis, then repeated the measurements with the microphone 1m away to check that aggressively…
Jim Austin (left) succeeded John Atkinson (right) as Stereophile's editor in April 2019 and has preserved the magazine's Great Wall between editorial and advertising.
In an information vacuum, people tend to make stuff up, especially on the internet. We try to remain above the fray, but sometimes it makes sense to step in and fill the information vacuum with facts. In that spirit, here are some of the most important principles that Stereophile religiously follows.
Stereophile maintains strict separation between its editorial side and its advertising side. Companies cannot buy a…
Two recent Stereophile columns have offered thoughts on record cleaning machines (RCMs). In the March Spin Doctor, Michael Trei wrote about the ultrasonic Klaudio KD-CLN-LP200T (above left), which costs north of $6000 and is great for production-scale cleaning; you can even plumb it directly into your home water supply. In this month's Gramophone Dreams, on p.21, Herb Reichert discusses his new Record Doctor VI 20th Anniversary Edition, which he received as a gift from a friend; those not as lucky as Herb will need to shell out $349 to get one. Herb notes in the column that in his life he has…