October 2021 Classical Record Reviews
Trio Mediæval: Solacium, Victoria: Officium hebdomadae sanctae, Ieva Jokubaviciute: Northscapes and Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Enigma.
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Jason Victor Serinus, Stephen Francis Vasta
Antipodes Audio K50 music server
On the face of it, playing and streaming digital music files is a straightforward process. You direct data from various sourcessome local, some "in the cloud"perhaps via a reclocker/signal conditioner to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). "And the music comes out here."
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Not so simple. Bits, it seems, aren't bits, or not only. A digital datastream is also an analog signal. Noise and other signal errors endemic to multi-function computers not designed primarily for music playback can affect how music sounds. And then there are the practical issues of setting up and connecting everything optimally, and then organizing music files correctly, which can be especially difficult when ripping files from multidisc sets.
September 2021 Classical Record Reviews
Kansas City Symphony/Michael Stern One-Movement Symphonies, Sebastian Fagerlund: Nomade Water Atlas and Andrew Von Oeyen: Bach Beethoven.
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Leslie Ann Jones: Recording's Future Now
As she moves quietly across the huge scoring stage at Skywalker Studios toward the large, comfortable control room that sits behind glass, it's obvious that Leslie Ann Jones is in charge. She wears no badge that proclaims her authority, although her professional title is impressive: "Director of Music and Scoring, Music and Scoring Recording Engineer and Mixer".
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Boulder 866 integrated amplifier
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "boulder"? I think of a rugged, mountainous landscape with jagged snow-capped peaks. I see images of the last time I drove up from sunny Boulder, Colorado, to Rocky Mountain National Park and discovered so much snow coming down that if we had dared walk too far in, our trail would have been covered with snow and we'd never have been able to find our way out. But how magical it was!
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August 2021 Classical Record Reviews
J.S. Bach: Cello Suites, Beethoven: Hope Amid Tears: Beethoven Cello Sonatas, Brahms: Symphony No.3, Serenade No.2, Nino Rota: Chamber Music and Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos.4 & 6.
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Accuphase DG-68 Digital Voicing Equalizer
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
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A great conceptsound enough to serve as the foundation for an independent democratic nation.
Yet what's sound in one sphere doesn't necessarily apply to sound in another, namely the rooms in which our systems reside. As much as we audiophiles may wish to declare our independence from room resonances, image smearing from first-order reflections, slap echo, and every other environmental and speaker-related factor that can handicap system performance, no mere declaration will make it so. Not all roomsand not all componentsare created equal.
July 2021 Classical Record Reviews
Hexagon: Les petits nerveux, Luciano Berio: Berio To Sing, Bruckner: Symphony No.3 and Ksenija Sidorova: Piazzolla Reflections.
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Esoteric Grandioso C1X line preamplifier
Even as I was admiring some of the handsomest audio gear I'd ever set eyes on, my thoughts kept returning to equipment of a very different sort.
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Flash back maybe 40 years to my one-bedroom apartment on Elgin Park in San Francisco during the period when I was whistling for my supper and performing Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" in the Emmy-nominated Peanuts cartoon, "She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown." Cue the constant din of an elevated four-lane freeway, since demolished as a blight on humankind, which I tried to pretend was the sound of water in the accompaniment to one of Schubert's many "water and fish" songs.
T.H.E. Show 2021: A Really Fine Show
"We are so proud of everyone who made T.H.E. Show 2021 come to life," texted show coordinator Emiko Carlin about what was the first post-pandemic audio show to take place in North America. "After more than a year of unprecedented losses, this was no doubt a true celebration of audio and musical connection. We are thrilled that 1416 unique attendees showed up to reconnect, and we are delighted that [they] all did it safely and responsibly. As the first audio show in the US to open, and one that had to honor venue attendance caps, we are over the moon with how of T.H.E. Show 2021 turned out. We can't wait for our next event!"
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