Jason Victor Serinus

To accompany my review of the Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems Progression monoblock amplifier elsewhere in this issue, I talked to Dan D'Agostino about the amplifier's design. I started by asking him what were some of the major differences between the Momentum and the Progression monoblocks?

Dan D'Agostino: I took the best parts of the Momentum's more sophisticated and complex circuitry and put them in the Progression, without using the same high parts count. Each stage of the Momentum's gain amplifier is separate, with input stage and driver stages on separate rails. All of the Momentum's devices are designed for maximum performance in a small package, which requires a lot more of them, and a significantly bigger input card than the Progression's. These differences create subtleties, because I'm able to run much higher current in the Momentum's front end.

How to describe music that is so personal, so deeply reflective and rooted in Buddhist contemplation that only listening to the music itself, without distraction, will suffice? Such is the conundrum that, hopefully, will lead you from this page to Channel Classics' hybrid SACD, Sounds & Clouds: Works by Hosokawa & Vivaldi.

The most eagerly anticipated opera release of 2017, Warner's set of 20 remastered complete live opera performances and five filmed recitals by soprano Maria Callas (1923–1977), hit the real and virtual stands on September 15. Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the soprano's death, which occurred on September 16, the physical edition of Maria Callas LIVE: Remastered Live Recordings 1949–1964 includes a 200-page, multi-language booklet that frames introductions to each opera with numerous photographs of Callas both rare and frequently reproduced. Each of the 20 opera sets within the box also boasts a handsomely reproduced front photo, usually from the performance.

What was to have been the first Southern California-based T.H.E. Show organized without input from its late co-founder, Richard Beers, who died in 2016, has been postponed until 2018. The inaugural T.H.E. Show Anaheim, as the former T.H.E. Show Newport Beach is now called, was to have taken place September 22–24 at the Hilton Anaheim. The reasons for the late postponement are spelled out in a two-page letter to exhibitors, which was released on September 6 by Beers' close friend and long-time associate, Show President Maurice R. Jung.

The embrace of MQA by audio companies and labels has widened. At last weekend's IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, MQA announced that its technology will be embedded in LG's new, globally distributed V30 flagship smartphone. In addition, two Sony Walkmans, the WM-ZX300 and WM-A40, will become equipped for MQA music playback. Worldwide music streaming platform Deezer is also planning to go the MQA route, with Bluesound, LG, Onkyo, Moon by Simaudio, and Sony amongst its partners.

Harmonia Mundi's recent hi-rez release, Bach Cantatas for Soprano with the Freiburger Barockorchester under Petra Müllejans, demonstrates why Carolyn Sampson has succeeded the divine Emma Kirkby as the leading British early music soprano of our time. Tuneful beyond belief, the recording delivers joy upon joy.

Judging from Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot's latest recording of the orchestral works of Charles Ives (1874–1954), much of his totally iconoclastic oeuvre sounds as if it could have been inspired by present day events. Ninety-one years since Ives ceased composing, his anything but conventional music continues to cast light on the contrasting and conflicting elements that make America the current meltdown melting pot that it is.