The September 2011 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. On the cover, we feature Oppo’s latest universal disc player, the BDP-95: It slices, it dices, it plays everything and sounds great. In his review, Kal Rubinson installs the BDP-95 in his Manhattan apartment where he compares its two-channel output against that of the Sony SCD-XA5400ES, then he takes the Oppo to his Connecticut home and compares its analog multichannel output against that of Oppo’s earlier BDP-83SE. He comes up with some interesting conclusions.
Mirror Mirror, the third album from Glasgow band Sons & Daughters, opens with a single note from a vintage synth. Barely audible at first, it grows and grows and rises vertically in the soundstagefor 15 seconds it grows: a sharp white light in an otherwise dark roombuilding tension, warning of some sort of danger, as it goes. This high-pitched note is met first by stomping feet, then by clapping handssingle file and far, far off, but growing in size and intensitybefore finally being joined by the voices of Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson, singing, strangely singing, barely singing at all, more chanting, intoning, repeating, casting:
Dan Schmalle and Luke Manley smile in the background, while Brian Damkroger and I sit in the engineers' seats. Photo by Philip O'Hanlon.
On the first day of the California Audio Show, I heard some of the most beautiful music in a room hosted by Acoustic Analysis, The Tape Project, and Bottlehead, featuring a system made of Focal Diablo Utopia loudspeakers, Focal SW1000 Be subwoofers, a VTL TL-6.5 Signature line preamp and MB-450 Signature III monoblock power amplifiers, Siltech cables, and a Bottlehead-modified Otari tape machine. The music had such a smooth, effortless quality to it, unlike anything else I heard at the show: The sound of tape. It was an awesome listening experience.
On the following evening, I got to visit the mastering studio where the team from The Tape Project does its work.
For awhile, we were at our wit’s end, feeling buried alive, but everything is okay now: We just finished shipping our massive October issue to pre-press. At 212 pages, it’s our largest issue since October 2008.
We’ll see the proofs on Monday. Until then, we can relax.
To help us do that, we have Cass McCombs’ “Buried Alive,” from the achingly beautiful Wit’s End.
This is one of Jaime's favorites, and Jaime is one of mine.
Cass McCombs' Wit's End is out now on Domino Records. The album is available on CD, LP, and cassette. (Yes, cassette!)
The subject of the e-mail was “boobsheadphones.” Inside, a simple question (“Can you tell me if these are real?”) was followed by a link to an interesting YouTube video.
I don’t really know what to say about this, so I’ll just quote the press release:
The role of an High End amplifier is to reproduce the music, all the music.
Amateur of beautiful often unique parts, GoldAmp is the Only One. An exceptional musical know-how. Celebrate interpreter who knows how to be forgot. A magnificent story which can be told by moments of complicity in the emotion. Reunion with classicals works henceforth dear to our hearts.
I’ve listened to no album this year more than I’ve listened to Wild Beasts’ Smother. For that matter, I’ve enjoyed no album more this year than Wild Beasts’ Smother. It courses slowly and deliberately through colors and moods of pain, longing, love, and desireall that good stuffand it does so with such a gentle touch, a delicious smoothness, a constant, lulling pulse.
It pours from your loudspeakers and into the room.
I received a very kind note from Owen McCafferty, who, along with Ben Meadors, hopes to travel to Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City, meeting vinyl collectors, record store owners, and other vinyl enthusiasts, to discuss why vinyl is important. The duo will document their journey and publish a book detailing their experiences.
Clearly, more and more peopleyoung and old, male and femaleare choosing to enjoy their favorite music on vinyl, a decidedly old-fashioned format. Every time I walk into a record store, I see more vinyl. And more people. The new record bins are growing, the used record bins are growing, LPs are taking up space previously occupied by CDs, and people are shopping enthusiastically, getting in between me and all that precious vinyl. But why?
The August 2011 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. On the cover, we feature the lovely Voxativ Ampeggio.
Made in Germany and imported by NYC’s newest audio salon, Audioarts (1 Astor Place), the beautiful Ampeggio uses a single proprietary 7" dual-cone driver with a large, convex surround, designed to accommodate a much greater excursion than the typical Lowther driver. The complex cabinet, designed and voiced in collaboration with Schimmel Pianos, incorporates a series of facet boards for optimal radiation resistance and houses a twice-folded horn, nearly 9-feet long from throat to mouth. The Ampeggio offered the usual Lowther traits of transient speed, spatial presence, dramatic ease, and physical impact, but added deep, well-controlled bass and excellent soundstaging. “A high-efficiency, single-driver loudspeaker for which no excuses need be made,” said AD. JA was impressed by the Voxativ’s superbly flat in-room response and genuine 98dB sensitivity.
What? Who said that? Excuse me, sorry, sorry: I’ve been writing “Recommended Components” blurbs for the upcoming October issue.
Never mind that. We’re talking about the August issue. It’s now on newsstands. This is important:
Lately, when I’ve been hungry for some good, uncomplicated, headshaking, soul-lifting songwriting, the kind that drops from the summer sky like a sudden shower and leaves a rainbow in its wake, I’ve turned to Slave Ambient, the sophomore release from The War On Drugs.
Recorded over the last four years in front man Adam Granduciel’s home studio in Philadelphia, Jeff Ziegler’s Uniform Recording, and Echo Mountain in Asheville, NC, the album is a drive to the ocean, windows down, head back, shades on. Acoustic and electric guitars, synthesizers, drums, and Granduciel’s voice, rambling and drifting and howling, together recalling heat waves, long days, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
It was just a matter of time, I suppose. Almost exactly a year after Rega replaced their popular P1 record player with the upgraded RP1, the British company has introduced the new RP3.
Ladies love the Linkski Design Exposed loudspeakers.
At pretty much the same time (just around noon on Wednesday), five lovely women sent me pretty much the same e-mail:
“Have you seen these?” they asked. “I want them,” they said.
I had not seen them, but they are beautiful. We can learn from this. There must be a lesson hidden here. But what? Girls like concrete? Girls like it raw and rough?
Let’s read from the press materials. Perhaps we’ll find some clues. The designer, 29-year old Shmuel Linski, says: