Back in the '80s, when I was in college, I tried very hard to get into jazz. Many of my music-loving friends had already discovered it, and they constantly told me that if I found the right entry point I would totally dig it. I tried and I tried but I just couldn't find the... Read More »
Finishing graduate study at Stanford, 1970-72, I was Director of Admissions at the The Athenian School, a small and innovative prep school on Mt. Diablo in the Bay Area. It was funded by the Ford Foundation as a tribute to Dyke Brown, its longtime Vice President, a going away present supporting educational objectives he'd championed... Read More »
Cables, cables, cables. What are we supposed to do? Yeah, there are those who feel that regardless of what one hears, they can't be hearing what they are hearing, because, well you can't hear that as cables done correctly do nothing... to the sound. That is, cables cannot make a difference as long as they... Read More »
Acoustic Revive RPC-1 Power Supply Conditioner The intrigue usually starts with a message from Yoshi-san or Elia-san from the MuSon Project in Osaka, Japan, who export Japanese audio exotica to The World. Every time I get a message from Messrs. Hontani I get pretty excited, because long experience has taught me that with their extremely... Read More »
The Audio Guild (TAG) and the Electro Magnetic Amplifier Co. (EMAC) announce a new headphone amplifier/line preamplifier designed for the most demanding audiophiles. Designed to capture the magic of the classic single-ended triode (SET) vacuum tube amplifier but without the heat, expense and regular replacement of vacuum tubes, the EMAC 535SE uses a unique and... Read More »
Remasters 2016 vol. 1 | vol. 3 | vol. 4 | vol. 24 | vol. 54 | vol. 63 COMPACT DISC | LONG PLAY Warner Music Poland sp. z o.o. Wytwórnia Polskie Nagrania [email protected] polskienagrania.com.pl warnermusic.pl The third meeting of High Fidelity readers with Polish Jazz Remasters (the so-called second "six", as the record label decided to launch... Read More »
LA Audio Show NY PR Firm THERE'S A NEW SHOWMAN IN TOWN LA Audio Show Names NY PR Firm; Goes After New Market LA Audio Show NY PR Firm The Orion Group, operator of The LA Audio Show; with its debut event scheduled for the Sheraton Gateway in Los Angeles, June 2-4, 2017; has retained... Read More »
The National's sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, continues the Brooklyn-based band's streak of melancholy mellow, indie rock. It's reminiscent of the rhythms and monotone vocals of Joy Division and with the suffer-in-silence-like lyrics of The Smiths. "Don't Swallow The Cap" and "Graceless" are dead ringers for Joy Division songs. Singer Matt Berninger and band... Read More »
HiFiMAN Headphones - HE1000 V2 and Edition X V2 Within past several years the world of high-end audio took a course leading it towards the "wall". What wall? A complete price stratosphere. Sure, quality has to cost, and for an exceptional quality one pays double or even triple. Despite this, the current prices for the... Read More »
Greetings from the underground, fellow music lovers and seekers after audio nirvana. As I may have conveyed in my last ruminations many, many moons ago, I am luxuriating in the aural glow of an extended series of incremental tweaks, which coming as they have, in drips and drabs, have brought me to the point where... Read More »
This is an ongoing project by Claude Lemaire of Soundevaluations. Here is the first 10 of his Top 500 SuperSonic List... "This is a journey into sound. A journey which along the way will bring to you new colour, new dimension, new value..." What better way to introduce this new long term project than to quote Geoffrey... Read More »
The NAS element of my Roon/QNAP/microRendu setup is a QNAP TS-251, which has the requisite 64-bit processor and sufficiently upgradeable RAM to run Roon Core effectively. And at a significant cost savings when compared to Roon's recommended QNAP setup ($500 vs. nearly $2000 USD). During my initial explorations of Roon late last year, I quickly... Read More »
Positive Feedback has a lively and diverse creative community on its masthead. One very unforgettable person, and a very close, dear friend of mine, is the inimitable Dr. Jim Merod, a Senior Associate Editor at PF. A professor at Soka University in southern California, Jim is widely renowned in the world of Jazz as The... Read More »
Part 2 of John Marks' Christmas recommendations: This time, the hardware. Like the wise men's gifts, in a set of three. Simple. Affordable. And each clearly excellent at its price point. Very helpful, friend John! Dr. David W. Robinson, Ye Olde Editor Part 1 covered recorded media (CD boxed sets, and an SACD/CD hybrid). Part... Read More »
Very nearly too late, we publish a pair of reviews by God rest ye merry, gentleman, John Marks. He takes us through a set of gift recommendations on this twelfth-like day of Christmas, with worthy recordings suitable for bringing glad tidings of good cheer throughout this new year. Like the wise men who came to... Read More »
In 2014, GoldenEar introduced the Triton One to great acclaim at the Las Vegas CES. Then, the Triton One launched into the marketplace, thrilling listeners and reviewers alike, while achieving stupendous and previously unheard-of sales velocity for a loudspeaker in its price range. And, of equal importance, the One garnered an enviable and unmatched... Read More »
I continue to reflect on the time my father and I drove out to Old Tucson and visited the set of Heaven with a Gun, a western movie starring Glenn Ford. I'm not saying it was a great movie, but it continues to carry great import for me. The text for the film poster reads like this... Certain questions spring... Read More »
GRIEG: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 (rev. Grieg and Grainger)*; Piano Concerto in B minor (fragments); EVJU: Piano Concerto in B minor (on fragments by Grieg)*; GRIEG: Two Songs (trans. Evju for solo piano). Carl Petersson, piano; *Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/Kerry Stratton Grand Piano GP 689. TT: 56.35 Downloads: prestoclassical.co.uk (320-kbps mp3, FLAC);... Read More »
It was clear from the very beginning that the Harmonix X-DC Studio Master Million Maestro power cable was a highly limited product, so it was intended for a small group of customers. Its price only this sealed this exclusivity. I envy the lucky ones who have it in their systems—it is the best power cable, I... Read More »
Serge Prokofiev, Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1. Nos 2, 6, and 8. Alexander Melnikov, Harmonia Mundi HMC 902202. For those of us who find early twentieth century modernism one of the pinnacles, Prokofiev's piano concertos and piano sonatas are among its richest assets. What I have always found especially attractive in this music is a sense... Read More »
Roger Skoff writes about the state of our hobby and the industry that supports it. One of the politicians in the recent U.S. Presidential election asked, with apparently real surprise, "Why am I not fifty points ahead?" Frankly, I'm no expert on politics, so it doesn't surprise me at all that I could not think... Read More »
What's that old saying about the more you learn, the less you know? Boy, does that ever apply to the constantly changing world of audio. Changing technology (and physiology) constantly adjusts what best pleases our ears, as evidenced by a return to my review of the Audio-Technica ATH-A900x headphones four years ago with respect to... Read More »
Déjà vu Audio, one of the nation’s top high end retailers is excited to announce the opening of the third store-Déjà vu Audio West. It is located at 7855 Herschel Ave, La Jolla, CA 92037. Phone is 858-412-4023. Déjà vu Audio was founded in 1995, and now has stores serving Miami, Florida, McLean, Virginia, and... Read More »
At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas I was showing my UHA tape Decks with Tom Campanga of Quintessence Loudspeakers and PBN electronics. We had a nice size room on the main floor at T.H.E. Show in the Flamingo Hotel, thanks to our late pal Richard Beers. The room just happened to be... Read More »
I began this story to share the "joy of boy finds music again," but quickly realized that it's a story with more hats than that simple narrative could support. As a first time contributor to audio discussions not made via posts to forums; an introduction is appropriate. I am Justin Weber of ampsandsound, a certified... Read More »
Herewith is Impressions: Robinson's Brutus Awards for 2016, Part The Last. Part The First can be found HERE, Part The Second HERE, Part The Third HERE, and Part The Fourth HERE. Music Software/Record Companies/Download Sites Year in and year out, we audiophiles and music lovers rely on our trusted labels, recording companies, re-issuers, and download sites to provide us with... Read More »
Osaka, Japan: December 20, 2016- Zanden Audio is excited to announce the launch of our new model 3000mk2 preamplifier at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It replaces the current model 3000 preamplifier in the Classic Series and includes a number of crucial improvements. Input and output transformers have been replaced with amorphous cobalt ones.... Read More »
Bryston leverages their award-winning DAC technology to launch a highly refined CD player Peterborough, Ontario December 21st, 2016 –Bryston (bryston.com) has announced the introduction of the BCD-3 CD player. The BCD-3 joins the highly successful family of digital products in the Bryston lineup, including the award-winning BDA-3 DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). The BCD-3 serves... Read More »
12/2016 Deqx In-Home Audition This month DEQX announces a home audition for its speaker-calibration and room-calibration Preamp/processors - starting from just US$2950. Note: All processors allow seamless integration with one or two subwoofers. Basic measurements demonstrate that loudspeaker's only deliver a fraction of the resolution and accuracy of our media, we never get to hear... Read More »
The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, by David Sax The morning of Black Friday, just two weeks and counting past a very bleak Wednesday, and still a bit drowsy from the previous day's over-indulgence, I opened the front door and stooped to pick up our copy of the NY Times. Instead... Read More »
The Official Debut of MasterBuilt Audio MasterBuilt Audio is pleased to announce the official debut of our high-resolution audio cables with the unveiling of four complete product lines – Performance, Reference, Signature and Ultra – which range from entry-level to the ultimate in signal fidelity. Each of these product lines offers the full range of... Read More »
Herewith is Impressions: Robinson's Brutus Awards for 2016, Part The Fourth. Part The First can be found HERE, Part The Second HERE, and Part The Third HERE. This final installment of my Brutus Awards for hardware in 2016 (there will be a very last installment dealing with labels and music companies) concludes with cables, accessories, and system enhancements. In the... Read More »
YG Acoustics™ (www.ygacoustics.com), the leading ultra-high-end speaker manufacturer, is proud to introduce its first audio rack series: Rack 1.3, 1.4 and 1.6. YG Acoustics™’ Rack series was initially designed as a tool for internal use. The factory’s critical listening room needed a vibration-free, solid platform to allow equipment to play under optimal conditions. In a... Read More »
Anyone who might have read any of my recent babblings here is probably aware that I'm in the process of building a new house that will have a large-ish dedicated listening room with state-of-the-art networking. There will be no computer present in the new room, but there will be available hardwired connections for any peripherals... Read More »
Preoccupations, Preoccupations JAGJAGUWAR, Digital, vinyl, and CD In hindsight, naming a band Viet Cong probably wasn't the best idea, but they did it anyway and controversy ensued. Claims of cultural appropriation and insensitivity sparked outrage from student communities, online communities, and the threat of protest and boycotts forced the hand of concert promoters to cancel shows. That... Read More »
Herewith is Impressions: Robinson's Brutus Awards for 2016, Part The Third. Part The First can be found HERE and Part The Second HERE. There will be a fourth installment to cover this busiest of years...stay tuned! All photographs are courtesy of their respective companies, unless otherwise noted. Aurender W-20 Music Server The Aurender W-20 Reference Music Server, a technological... Read More »
Before I started Love + Gratitude (cuz it's only a week after the first shot at it - sorry bout' that folks ) I made a tactical error in judgement: I remembered that Recondite, one of my favorite electronic artists (writer, engineer, DJ & Superman;) had either just finished an Essential Mix (long-running DJ mix series) or was about to release it.
