Jason Victor Serinus

Danes Peer Through the Lens of Bach

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 29, 2018

The still youthful Danish String Quartet, whose 2016 release on ECM New Series inspired this glowing review in Stereophile, has returned with another hi-rez recording, Prism I (ECM New Series 2561), the first in a projected series of recordings for ECM New Series that will place one of Beethoven's late string quartets in the context of a related fugue by J.S. Bach and another linked quartet.

Tube Power Amp Reviews

Doshi Audio Monoblock V3.0 power amplifier

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 23, 2018

Doshi Audio first crossed my radar at the 2010 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, where I wrote that the sound of the company's tubed monoblocks and preamp, connected to Wilson Audio Sasha loudspeakers via Transparent XL cables, "excelled in midrange strength as the system threw an exciting soundstage." After auditions of Doshi-Wilson pairings at many subsequent shows had convinced me that Doshi's products could truly sing, I contacted company owner and product designer Nishith "Nick" Doshi to inquire about reviewing one of his amps.

Jason Victor Serinus

Debussy As Close as We Can Get

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 22, 2018

I had all but resolved to move on from reviewing recordings honoring the 2018 centenaries of Claude Debussy's death and Leonard Bernstein's birth when word arrived of Warner Classic's 10-CD bargain box, Debussy: Ses Premiers Interprètes / His First Performers. This set's contents are so important that I want to give Debussy lovers a heads-up so that they can either make room for it in their holiday self-gift basket, give friends ample notice for what they'd like to be playing when 2019 rolls around, or start streaming immediately.

Recording of the Month

Recording of November 2018: Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 18, 2018

Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles
Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano; Ryan McKinny, bass-baritone; San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas
SFS Media SFS-0073 (24/96 download). 2018. Jack Vad, broadcast & mastering eng., postprod.; Jason O'Connell, post-prod. DDD. TT: 32:54
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

Why name this short digital download or streamingonly release of a live San Francisco Symphony performance from 2017its native 24/96 PCM broadcast sound is a notch lower than the best-recorded titles in SFS Media's series of Davies Symphony Hall broadcasts as our "Recording of the Month"? Because, as the centennial of the birth of Leonard Bernstein (19181990) draws to a close, this new recording of his eight Arias and Barcarolles from conductor Michael Tilson Thomaswhom Bernstein asked to play piano alongside him when the original version of the cycle, for four voices and piano four-hands, premiered in New York City in 1988is definitive and essential listening.

Jason Victor Serinus

Pärt from Mullova and Järvi

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 15, 2018

Forty years after he wrote his two-movement Tabula Rasa for violinist Gidon Kremer, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, 83, is still alive, engaged and composing. Hence it should come as no surprise that when violinist Viktoria Mullova and conductor Paavo Järvi contacted Pärt about their plan to record five of his works for violin and various instruments for their Onyx album, Arvo Pärt, the conductor attended the recording sessions.

RMAF 2018

Au Revoir, Marriott-Hello, Gaylord Rockies

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 13, 2018

This final shot of the shipping checkout area in the Denver Marriott Tech Center may lack glamour, but so, I'm afraid, does the Marriott itself, post-renovation. The freezing lobby looks impressive, and rooms are lovely for guests, but the latters' ability to accommodate systems plus attendees has been greatly diminished. With unmovable built-in credenzas, poor acoustics, and unacceptably noisy cooling systems, the time has come to move on.

RMAF 2018

Up to the Wire on RMAF Day 3

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 11, 2018

Although most rooms I visited at the end of RMAF 2018 offered fine sound, I single out the new Dragonfire Acoustics Mini Dragon self-powered desktop system ($10,000 total) for two reasons: a) its designer, Dragoslav Colich (aka Dr. C), who continues to design every Audeze headphone, calls these first desktop planar speakers from his new company his "life achievementthe finest transducer I have built," and, b) they sound fantastic.

RMAF 2018

More to See on RMAF Day 3

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 11, 2018

Here's a switch: Instead of a million-dollar system, we begin with a bargain-priced powered-speaker system, the Vanatoo Transparent One Encore ($599/pair). Designed near me, in Seattle, and manufactured in China, this successor to Vanatoo's original model, which was released six years ago, has a new 1" aluminum dome tweeter, more powerful 100W, four-channel amplifier with "much better" DSP-based L/R crossover, remote control, Bluetooth with aptX, and four more "automatically sensed" inputs for analog, USB, Toslink optical, and coaxial digital, the last three accepting up to 24/96 but downsampling to 24/48.

RMAF 2018

More Audio Highs on RMAF Days 2 and 3

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 10, 2018

In the Musical Surroundings room I discovered a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence: a system that contained four products that were reviewed or used in reviews in the October 2018 Stereophile, plus a somewhat more expensive sister of one of the two products that appeared on the cover: Audio Research Ref 160M mono amplifiers ($30,000/pair) and Reference 6 line stage ($14,000), Sonus Faber Aida loudspeakers ($130,000/pair), DS Audio Master1 optical phono cartridge and EQ ($22,500), and Hana ML MC cartridge ($1200).

RMAF 2018

More on Jason's RMAF Day 2

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 10, 2018

I almost missed the huge EMM Labs exhibit on the ground floor until John Atkinson told me that he had visited it, and the sound was exceptional. Don't quote me on the adjective, please. Instead, I'll own it for myself. When a system makes a recording of a 9' concert grandin this case, Murray Perahia's instrumentsounds like it really is a 9' grand, color me very, very impressed. As one should be, given a system price tag of near $1,000,000.