Jason Victor Serinus

Hearing It Like It Is in Tampa

I spent the entire first day at the Florida Audio Expo trying to get a sense of the acoustics in the basic listening rooms of the Embassy Suites by Hilton at Tampa Airport. At times, just when I'd begun to think that the faults with one system had more to do with room acoustics than anything else, I'd walk into another, totally untreated suite and discover that the sound was superb.
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First Impressions at the Florida Audio Expo

My first room, sponsored by House of Stereo, showcased Bob Carver's attractive Crimson 350 monoblock amplifiers ($9500/pair), a Bel Canto Black EX preamplifier/DAC ($18,000), Wolf Audio Systems' Alpha 3 music server with Flux Capacitor Clock ($6750), the striking KEF Blade Two speakers ($25,000/pair), new Audience Front Row cabling, and Stillpoints Aperture room-treatment panels.
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The Show is Open

With our own Michael Fremer drafted to cut the ribbon, the first annual Florida Audio Expo got underway right on time on Friday morning. Alan Nastir, Board member of the local Suncoast Audiophile Society, began the short ceremony by welcoming everyone and thanking the show organizers. From left to right in the photo above: Alan Nastir; Bart Andeer, President of the Suncoast Audiophile Society and Resolution Acoustics; Ammar Jadusingh (aka AJ), owner of Soundfield Audio; Mike Bovaird, proprietor of Suncoast Audio; and John Chait, a longtime DIY audiophile who is a member of both the Suncoast and Sarasota clubs.
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CH Precision I1 Universal integrated amplifier

"The sound was to die for," I wrote shortly before my resurrection. I was taking notes about the sound of CH Precision's D1 SACD and CD Drive (now $38,000) and C1 D/A Controller (base price $32,000), in the demo room of Michael Woods's Elite Audio Systems, at the California Audio Show, just three months after the 2015 edition of the Munich High End show. CH Precision's L1 dual-mono, solid-state preamplifier (now $58,000), M1 dual-mono power amp ($104,000), and X1 external power supply ($17,000) had helped deliver "fantastic sound."
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Lutoslawski's Strange and Compelling World

There are many ways to talk about the remarkable Symphonies Nos.1 & 4 • Jeux vénitiens of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski (1913–1994). You could, for example, approach them as does Kimmo Korhonen, whose extremely detailed and well-thought-out liner notes for the recent Ondine SACD of these works from Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra examine the evolution of Lutoslawski's tonal language and explain that they basically represent the beginning (Symphony No.1, 1947), middle (Venetian Games, 1960–1961) and end (Symphony No.4, 1992) of his arc as a mature composer. Or you could simply close your eyes and discover how many fantastic places they take you to.
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Roon Debuts Version 1.6 Playback Software

Roon, one of the major brands of audiophile-quality high-resolution music playback software, has just released its v.1.6 upgrade. Roon 1.6 finally includes a portal for hi-rez streaming Qobuz, whose US launch is rumored for sometime next month. In addition to pairing Roon's rich metadata with the entire Qobuz and Tidal catalogs, the upgrade also offers major new features.
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Groundbreaking Symphonies from Florence Beatrice Price

To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the recent Women's March, we turn the spotlight on Symphonies Nos.1 & 4 of Florence Beatrice Price (1887–1953), the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major American orchestra. In doing so, I extend a big thank you to Naxos, whose invaluable American Classics series continues to record works by American composers both famous and relatively unknown.
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Did Music's Bad Boy Ever Really Reform?

That's the question raised by Antheil: Orchestral Works (Chandos 10982), the latest anthology of symphonic music by composer/pianist George Antheil (1900–1959). This second Antheil title from John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra finds Storgårds exploring music written on both sides of Antheil's successful Symphony No.4, which can be found on Vol.1 of what looks to be an ongoing Antheil series.
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