Sheffield Steel? Doug Sax
Doug Sax is undoubtedly one of the most controversial and outspoken figures in audio. As co-founder, with Lincoln Mayorga, of Sheffield Lab, Doug pioneered the first modern direct-to-disc recording. His perfectionist methods may be controversial, but the results certainly are not: Sheffield Lab recordings are nearly universally praised by the audiophile community, while the Billboard Hot 100 always features at least one Sax-cut disc.
Siegfried Linkwitz
Siegfried Linkwitz was born in Germany in 1935. He received his electrical engineering degree from Darmstadt Technical University prior to moving to California in 1961 to work for Hewlett-Packard. During his early years in the USA, he did postgraduate work at Stanford University. For over 30 years Mr. Linkwitz has developed electronic test equipment ranging from signal generators, to network and spectrum analyzers, to microwave sweepers and instrumentation for evaluating electromagnetic compatibility.
Sisters in Sound
We all know that women generally have better hearing than men and enjoy music at least as much as men do, but women are conspicuously absent from every segment of the high-end audio scene. The vast majority of high-end companies are owned by men, and any head count of female designers, retailers, reviewers, or consumers will yield a pitifully small number. High-end audio is a man's, man's, man's world.
Sound Chaser #6: In Living Colour's Vernon Reid Runs the Hoodoo Down
Once and forever iconoclast Vernon Reid, the Britain-born guitarist for iconic American band Living Colour, is perpetually in pursuit of sonic excellence, regardless the point of entry. "A lot of different things have attracted me—everything from gentle breeze to thunder and lightning," Reid told me during a recent Zoom interview.
Soundsmith's Peter Ledermann: Building, Mastering, and Giving Back
Six weeks ago, Jana Dagdagan and I visited the Peekskill, New York factory of Soundsmithher first time there, my second. Although I didn't mention this to the company's President and Chief Engineer, Peter Ledermann, the thing that most impressed me during my second visit was how little had changed since my first, in April of 2015. In particular, all but two of the employees I saw at Soundsmith this year had been there during my first visit; that suggests an experienced workforceno small advantage in the manufacturing of phono cartridges, where the requisite skills are specialized, to say the leasta setting where people feel sufficiently challenged and appreciated that they stick around for years rather than mere months.
Southern Avenue: The New Stax!
Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Sam & Dave, Otis Reddingfew studios have ever achieved the kind of distinct sound that once poured out of Stax Studios in Memphis, TN. A bit of that gritty, funky mojo lives again in the music of Southern Avenue, a new R&B act from Memphis that's named after the street that runs by the old Stax Studio.
Spencer Chrislu: Master Quality Authenticated
Most people who have heard music recordings encoded with Master Quality Authenticated agree that it sounds really goood (footnote 1)but even they recognize that at least one major challenge remains: ensuring that listeners can actually get, in MQA format, the music they most love. I spoke with Spencer Chrislu, MQA's director of content services, about the company's efforts to meet this challenge.
Stereophile Editor John Atkinson on Axpona, Affordable Audio, Analog, & Audiophiles
At the 2013 AXPONA in Chicago in March, Cool Cleveland asked JA for his thoughts on the state of high-end audio. His answers might surprise you.
Steve Albini: Serve The Servants
Notoriously opinionated and obstinate Steve Albini, a guy ever vigilant and vocal about the wicked ways of the music business, showing up in Austin, Texas, at the annual South by Southwest festival? This I had to see. After a near-miss at his Austin hotel, we spoke the next morning on the phone.
"It was unspeakable on all levels, as bad as I imagined, and in some ways worse."
Any notion that he'd somehow softened, somehow accepted the music biz as it
Wait. What the hell am I thinking?
Steve Berkowitz: A Record Man For All Seasons
Photos by M. van Dorp.
Does anyone use the term "record man" these days? In an earlier era, it would have been used in the same way the term "ad man" was used, as a particularly American job description. People who spend their careers in and around the music business. Some of these record men are known by the publicsome of it anywaywhereas others may be familiar only to colleagues.
I met Steve Berkowitz under the best of circumstances: sitting in a basement listening room hearing beautiful recordings made in 1958 that I'd never heard before, by the Miles Davis Quintet. It was the recently issued Miles DavisBirth of the Blue (Analogue Productions APJ 172). The album was, the credits state, "Supervised by Steve Berkowitz." The name rang a bell, though prior to this meeting, I didn't have a face to go with the name.