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Homo Ludens. Piano Music of Lera Auerbach. Eli Kalman, piano. Centaur CRC 3441. There are three Lera Auerbachs (1973) in this program, held together by a powerful, singular voice that only becomes clear after extended listening. The first Auerbach we hear is in Images of Childhood (2000), a dozen short idylls focused on Auerbach's childhood... Read More »

We live during interesting times, at least as far as audio gear is concerned. The arena of cheap and cheerful hi-fi have seen unprecedented advancements of sound quality and have provided the frugal audiophile with a means to achieve a level of playback that was only reserved for the well-heeled hobbyists. For instance, manufacturers from... Read More »

I've been interested in high-end audio since the mid 1970s, maybe even before that, certainly before anyone used the term High End Audio. This was mostly due to my love for music, and happening to have a few school friends and acquaintances who parents had really good systems. It wasn't until I was in college... Read More »

In the world of Jazz, there are the greats, the near greats, the great-but-obscure, and the close-but-no-cigar. It's easy (but contentious!) to list the obvious first tier…my own list, in no particular order, would have artists like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Count... Read More »

Over the past couple of decades, many of my audiophile friends have often questioned my preference for well designed, intelligently engineered 2-way speakers over their 3-way counterparts. This preference has been based not just on listening tests but also on the fact that 2-way speakers enjoy some significant advantages over all but the very best... Read More »

I've told this story before, so bear with me. I first met Janet Feder at the 2012 California Audio Show in San Francisco. That was the show that marked the US debut of the KEF LS50 loudspeaker—I know that because I supplied the Unison Research amplification that powered those amazing little Halloween-colored monitors. Janet walked... Read More »

Since converting my digital playback chain to a heavily modded Mac Mini/Mytek Stereo 192 source (read review HERE) I've been very happily listening to a variety of 16/44 and hi-res files. For once I couldn't think of any upgrades that I really needed. But when I read an ad for the Audioquest JitterBug, it resonated with... Read More »

Joan Tower. Violin Concerto. Stroke. Chamber Dance. Cho-Liang Lin, violin. Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor. Naxos 8.559775.   New Seasons. Gidon Kremer. Glass, Pärt, Kanchelli, Unabeyashi. Kremerata Baltica. Deutsche Gramophone. DG 4794817.   Rosary Sonatas. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Rachel Podger, violin. David Miller, theorbo and arch lute; Marcin Swiatkiewicz, harpsichord, organ; Jonathan... Read More »

We are creatures of habit. For ten consecutive years Lynn and I have taken our summer vacation at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival in Canada, which bills itself as the largest of its kind in the world. It is huge in terms of programming and number of days, if not in audience size. A... Read More »

Wilhelmina Smith, Cello. Britten, Schnittke, and Shostakovich. Thomas Sauer, piano. Arabesque 26801. I had known of Wilhelmina Smith since her career began in the 1990's, knew especially that she played on the wonderful Arabesque album of Copland's chamber music. But I did not know until recently that she had also made a recording as lead.... Read More »

I have come across many audiophiles who have truly splendid turntables, tone arms, and cartridges, of which cost them an arm and a leg. Nevertheless, they still may not enjoy the best that vinyl has to offer if the bottleneck in their audio arsenal is their phono preamplifier. There is no doubt that the phono... Read More »

This is Glyndebourne's first ever staging of an opera by Rameau. Though he was well known as an innovator/thinker in the music world, it was not until he was fifty years old before he composed this opera in 1773. It just might be his best opera. Based on a well-known story from long ago, there... Read More »

"It disturbs me that footers make such a difference." Ain't that the truth, Abe. But then you shouldn't have been so surprised. Remember when you gave me an assist installing the Finite Elemente Pagode APS Amp Stands? Talk about a grand disturbance! Such are the pitfalls of the empiricist grappling with the logic of the... Read More »

Despite the virtual disappearance of EMI Classics as a separate label—having been swallowed into the Warner Music combine—Mariss Jansons's inconsistent but always interesting Shostakovich cycle remains worth examining. (Besides, with online and secondhand shops largely having replaced the big music chains as retail sources, the nominal "availability" of this or that item has become moot:... Read More »

The 20 songs I played a lot more than other songs this year, in alphabetical-artist-order, that were released in 2015 and that ended up on a list I made at the end of the year in 2015… Action Bronson – Mr. Wonderful "Baby Blue" Action Bronson takes himself, and his music, juuuusssttt seriously enough to... Read More »

Never in my wildest imagination did I ever foresee myself facing a mountain of reel-to-reel tapes to review in 2015. Sure, some of the backlog is directly traceable to summer AC problems that halted my reviewing for over two months. At the same time, however, it's also an indication of just how many new companies... Read More »

(Image courtesy of Zesto Audio) Introduced at RMAF in October by Zesto Audio, these new powerhouse mono-blocks have the Zesto signature house sound, which is nearly nothing at all. It also has enough power from tubes to be an amplifier solution to any and all speakers I know of, with extraordinary results. If you loved... Read More »

I am a huge fan of Integrated Amplifiers. I am a firm believer that less is more.  Fewer boxes, cables and resonance control devices is a big plus in my book. Past reviews for models from Vitus, D'Agostino, Pass Labs, Simaudio, BMC, Marantz and more have established several reference standards for sound quality—even when compared... Read More »

Back in the early days of digital-to-analog conversion, I bought one of the first commercially available (for consumers) DACs, a Threshold. I felt the results it yielded were pretty impressive, lifting CD playback to a much more enjoyable and listenable level. My predominantly analog system at that time included electronics by Classe, Magneplanar speakers, dual... Read More »