Jason Victor Serinus

First Time Ever: Mahler Download in DSD

Jason Victor Serinus Dec 24, 2012

Just in time for the New Year, Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records has released the first-ever DSD (Direct-Stream-Digital) download of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra's recording of Mahler's Symphony No.1. Recorded live in Davies Symphony Hall in September 2001, shortly after 9/11, and first released as a hybrid SACD in 2003, the recording is one of the only four Mahler symphonies in SFSO's complete Mahler cycle that were recorded directly to DSD.

The Mahler 1 files, available in four formats, are all derived directly from San Francisco Symphony's master, not from a copy of the SACD. The formats include two DSD formats: DFF and DSF. For those whose computer playback software or DACs are not equipped to play DSD files, 24/96 and 16/44.1 PCM files in WAV format are also available.

Music and Recording Features

Whole Lotta Horns for the Holidays

Jason Victor Serinus Dec 12, 2012

In order to get in the right mindset for the Dallas Wind Symphony's first ever Christmas CD, Horns for the Holidays, from Reference Recordings and recording engineer Keith O. Johnson, you have to understand something about Dallas.

As We See It

Voices to Live For

Jason Victor Serinus Nov 29, 2012

Every music-loving audiophile has a unique storya story of the first time he or she was grabbed, body and soul, by a first, usually low-budget listen to a 78, LP, CD, open-reel, cassette, or MP3a story that continues today in that audiophile's quest for high-end bliss. For me, it was my desire to move closer to the voices of the singers I most loved.

News

Winning the Loudness Wars

Jason Victor Serinus Nov 23, 2012

At the 133rd Audio Engineering Society (AES) Convention at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, a full house flocked to aptly numbered Room 133 on October 27 to hear Stereophile's John Atkinson and four other major audio professionals deliver a two-hour presentation, Loudness Wars: The Wrong Drug? Sharing the stage were the panel's chair, Thomas Lund of TC Electronic A/S from Risskov, Denmark; Florian Camerer of ORF of Vienna, Austria; fabled recording and mastering engineer Bob Katz of Digital Domain in Orlando, Florida; and the equally fabled George Massenburg, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who engineered, among other things, that audiophile favorite, Jennifer Warnes' "Bird on a Wire."

News

Chord Launches the DSX1000 Network Player

Jason Victor Serinus Nov 12, 2012

Rather than debut its new $13,000 DSX1000 Network Music Player in the UK, where the company is based, Chord founder and chief scientist, John Franks (above), traveled to Mountain View, CA on November 8 for the unveiling. The site was the spacious, extremely attractive Northern California showroom of Audio High, one of the high-end dealers in the US that display Chord's top-end Reference products.

News

Burning Amp Sizzles in San Francisco

Jason Victor Serinus Nov 11, 2012

Nelson Pass in full flight

It was no accident that residential architect Mark Cronander, aka Variac, scheduled the Sixth Burning Amp DIY Fest for October 28, on the same weekend that the AES Convention (Audio Engineering Society) took place in San Francisco. Not only did Cronander attract a fair number of new folks who came into town for the convention, but he also scored, as a speaker, class-D amplification expert Bruno Putzeys of Belgium's Hypex Electronics.

RMAF 2012

BSG Technologies QOL Signal Completion Stage

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 21, 2012

OMG. It’s 4pm on Sunday, the show is over, and I have three rooms left to cover. Dash to door number one. It’s already locked. Next to door number two. It’s locked as well. Is this going to be the worst episode of Let’s Make A Deal ever known to man or audiophile, I wonder, or will I find the pot of gold behind door number three?

Well, kind of. The door opens, there are boxes everywhere, and Larry Alan Kay, former co-founder of Fithe audiophile magazine that ran all those recipes for audiophiles who like to drink and chomp while they listenis packing up the BSG Technologies QOL Signal Completion Stage.

RMAF 2012

Whew from Hsu

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 21, 2012

Sunday afternoon is always the slowest time at an audio show, but you couldn’t tell it from the room dominated by Hsu subwoofers. In the only room I encountered on floors 4 and 5 of the Atrium that was playing action DVDs or Blu-rays, the movie’s obligatory, super-hyped explosions were resonating far outside the door. In what I take to be a statement about popular culture and the American obsession with violence, the darkened room was so packed that there was no way I could even stand in the doorway.

RMAF 2012

Behind Every Great System Lies . . .

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 21, 2012

Peering behind the curtain in a Show room reveals, not the Wizard of Oz, but instead. . .

RMAF 2012

YG Speakers Big and Small

Jason Victor Serinus Oct 21, 2012

In two adjacent rooms, GTT Audio & Video showcased systems dominated by much-admired YG Acoustics loudspeakers. In the smaller set-up, the diminutive YG Acoustics Carmel ($18,000) joined the excellent PS Audio PWT Memory transport ($3500), Devialet D-Premier all-in-one DAC/Phono Stage/Integrated amp ($16,000), and Kubala-Sosna Research Emotion interconnects and speaker cable ($3000/first meter) and power cables ($1100/first meter). The chosen material, Jascha Heifetz’s classic recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, sounded excellent, but the system’s clarity drove home to me that he was playing so fast that much of the soul of the music was lost.