Alex Halberstadt

Klipsch La Scala AL5 loudspeaker

Alex Halberstadt Mar 17, 2023

There's a good case to be made that the world's greatestand strangestaudiophile culture resides in Japan. Probably the most important notion the Japanese have introduced to our hobby is that home audio isn't merely a way of heightening the musical art of others but can be an art in itself. This idea's most flamboyant embodiment was the poet, journalist, chef, and amplifier builder Susumu Sakuma, better known as Sakuma-san.

In the articles on hi-fi that he contributed to the Japanese magazine MJ, Sakuma-san also wrote about film, fishing, karaoke, and pachinko machines, and he usually began and ended his contributions with a poem. He considered himself an evangelist for emotional sound and demonstrated his audio systems in homes, at conferences, and on concert stages around the world. Though he passed in 2018, his fan club, called Direct Heating, remains a happening concern. Sakuma-san was fond of coining mottosone was "farewell to theory"but what has stuck with me most is his description of an ideal sound: "endless energy with sorrow."

This phrase came to mind often during the months I spent living with the Klipsch La Scala speakers, which imbued my musical life with unprecedented amounts of sound and emotion, and which I believe Sakuma-san would have enjoyed.

Brilliant Corners Digital Processor Reviews

Brilliant Corners #3: On the Horns of a Dilemma—A for Ara speakers, the Lejonklou Källa streaming DAC

Alex Halberstadt Mar 02, 2023

The Amtrak Empire service snakes north along the Hudson River before reaching Albany, where it pitches sharply to the west, eventually winding up in Niagara Falls. In November I rode itthe Amtrak Empire service, not Niagara Fallsfrom New York City to the town of Hudson, New York. On my left, the sun beat down on the river's expanse while an occasional sailboat flashed by. Above the water, the undulating domes of the Catskills, with their fading yellow and red streaks, looked like the work of an unsuccessful colorist at a busy hair salon.

I was traveling upstate to visit Rob Kalin, a founder and former CEO of the online craft marketplace Etsy and proprietor of a newish speaker company called A for Ara.

Brilliant Corners Phono Preamp Reviews

Brilliant Corners #2: Manley Steelhead RC phono preamplifier

Alex Halberstadt Dec 27, 2022

The other day it occurred to me that the main difference between audiophiles and more reasonable adults isn't our gear. Plenty of people have impressive hi-fis simply because they can afford them and are running out of things to buy. No, what makes someone an audiophile is the willingness to sit down in front of a pair of speakers (or with a pair of headphones clamped over their ears) and focus the entirety of their attention on listening.

Turntable Reviews

Technics SL-1200G turntable

Alex Halberstadt Nov 23, 2022

People tend to believe that things are what they appear to be. This turned out to be the case in 2016, when Panasonic introduced the limited-edition Technics SL-1200GAE turntable. It appeared almost identical to an SL-1200arguably the best-selling and most loved record player series of all time, discontinued in 2010 after more than 30 yearsbut it cost a whopping $4000. The similar model designation didn't help stem the griping that Panasonic had made a "fancy" version of their legendary DJ turntable at six times the price of the original.

Brilliant Corners Phono Preamp Reviews

Brilliant Corners #1: Auditorium 23, EMIA, Murasakino, and Sound Tradition Live! phono step-ups

Alex Halberstadt Oct 25, 2022

The first audiophile I met lived near a sewage treatment plant on the outskirts of Moscow. It was a few months after the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1992, when I was a college senior, and I recall walking with my father to his home past block after block of the identical dingy white tenements that encircle most Eastern European cities.

Digital Processor Reviews

Ideon Audio Ayazi mk2 D/A processor & 3R Master Time Black Star USB clock

Alex Halberstadt Jul 27, 2022

My little corner of Brooklyn happens to have a terrific little record shop. I like it for the usual reasons: well-chosen merchandise, fair prices, fun music on the speakers while you browse. But I like it just as much because great record stores tend to resemble one another in more idiosyncratic ways, and this one has the earmarks of the great record stores of my youth.

Phono Preamp Reviews

Lejonklou Entity phono preamplifier

Alex Halberstadt Jun 22, 2022

Sometime around 483 BCE, in Kushinagar, the capital of the Malla Republic in what today is the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, an aristocrat named Siddhārtha Gautamaknown better to us as the Buddha, or the Awakened Onepassed away. For 45 years, he had wandered the North Indian River Plain teaching a method of overcoming ignorance, craving, and the cycle of death and rebirth to a growing community of followers.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

JBL 4367 Studio Monitor loudspeaker

Alex Halberstadt Apr 13, 2022

One day in the mid-1990s, my friend J and I sat sprawled on the carpeted floor of a hi-fi shop in lower Manhattan, playing records. J, who was employed there as a salesperson, had dimmed the lights and locked the door of the listening room behind us to make sure we wouldn't be disturbed by actual customers. Earlier, he had lugged in a pair of homemade speakers that an elderly woman brought to the store, hoping to sell some of her late husband's gear.

Digital Processor Reviews

Jadis JS1 MkV Reference D/A processor

Alex Halberstadt Dec 22, 2021

"Resolution can be a tricky thing when it comes to digital," my friend Michael Lavorgna recently told me. "Too much, and my focus shifts from music to sound; too little, and I become less engaged." Lavorgna, a visual artist and proprietor of the online audio-and-music publication Twittering Machines, is one of my favorite people to talk to about records, books, art, and hi-fi. We've been doing it for almost 20 years.

Digital Processor Reviews

Sonnet Morpheus D/A processor

Alex Halberstadt Nov 05, 2021

Playlists embody who we are. We use musical affinities to understand (or at least categorize) others, not only as evidence of their aesthetic discernment but also of their emotional and political affiliations, which amount to an entire worldview. In other words, the database of favorite music that we carry around in our brains is no laughing matter. So, one of the most unexpectedand rewardingthings that can happen in music fandom is a complete and sudden inversion of one's beliefs. Which brings me to the perennially touchy subject of Steely Dan, a band that cleaves the ranks of listeners like a gold-plated katana.