2nd Edition
Spendor D7 loudspeaker
Hi-fi firms have begun in garages. The English Spendor company was started in a bathtub. Or was it a kitchen sink?
Classic J. Gordon Holt: Credibility Gap
To audiophiles who are aware that their household line voltage changes under varying loads, and have observed the absolutely fantastic differences in the sound of their system when the next-door neighbor turns on Junior's night light, it may come as a surprise to learn that there are folks out there who think you're full of crap.
Classic J. Gordon Holt: Absolute Phase: Fact or Fallacy?
Natural sounds produce different waveshapes during their positive and negative phases, and playback-system polarity reversal often changes the reproduced sound. Does this mean our ears are phase-responsive, or is there something else here we've been overlooking?
Hellzapoppin'
Think it was Robert Johnson who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads? Think again. If longevity is any indication, if it’s all about being battered and beaten and still having an inextinguishable rock and roll flame, then Jerry Lee Lewis, may be the one who really bargained with old scratch.
Vanatoo Transparent One Speakers Sweepstakes
Register to win a pair of Vanatoo Transparent One Speakers (MSRP $499.00) we are giving away.
Music in the Round #69
I grew up in Brooklyn, not in "the city," Manhattan, a place that we traveled to only for special reasons. Audio shops were rare in Brooklyn--I remember only Audio Exchange--but in Manhattan there was a small cluster near Grand Central Station.
Simaudio Moon Evolution 820S power supply
Can a power-supply upgrade produce audible sonic benefits? If you've upgraded the power supply of a phono preamplifier, you probably don't need to be convinced that it does, and those usually cost only a small percentage of the price of the model they power.
Air Tight ATM-1S power amplifier
It's no secret, especially to those who've been following Stereophile for more than a short time: In the first half of 2007, I took the plunge and bought a Shindo preamplifier and monoblock amplifiers.
Roksan Kandy K2 BT integrated amplifier
It was spring. I was planting kale and cabbage, wearing bib overalls, and listening to Pigboy Crabshaw (aka Elvin Bishop) on my iPhone. My girlfriend, "bb," came out, and just stood there laughing. "What's this? American Gigolo: The Alabama Years?"
Focal Aria 936 loudspeaker
Founded in 1979 by Jacques Mahul, Focal--formerly known as JMlab and as Focal-JMlab--is one of audio's success stories. Beginning with a single speaker model produced in a small workshop in Saint Etienne, France, the company is still headquartered there, but has expanded to employ over 250 workers, making products exported to over 160 countries.
1st Edition
TAVES 2014: Part 1
The Sheraton Center Hotel, venue of the 2014 Toronto Audio Video Entertainment Show (TAVES), represents a marked change from the genteel elegance of the King Edward Hotel, the TAVES venue for the past two years.
Nola Metro Grand Reference Gold loudspeaker
For a reviewer, deciding which products to write about is a tricky business. You want to do a professional job of evaluation, but you also want to be able to wrest maximum enjoyment from your music while you do so.
Audio Streams #3
Do you travel? Commute, perhaps? Just like to listen to music privately around the house? No matter--the Astell&Kern AK240 is the luxury choice in high-resolution portable music players. It even comes with a lovely leather case that beautifully cradles its angular beauty.
Communication Breakdown
Classical and jazz notwithstanding, an awful lot of new music is highly compressed, processed, and harsh, and it's about time we got used to it. Musicians, producers, and engineers are, in large part, on board with the sound, and any suggestion of making less-compressed recordings, with a wider dynamic range, is met with confused stares, or worse.
Recording of November 2014: Music for Peter Gunn
To get the full benefit of this album, you must be old enough to remember 1959. Detective shows were the rage. Your parents let you stay up for Richard Diamond, Private Detective, starring David Janssen, and Peter Gunn, starring Craig Stevens. They were the first TV dramas with their own original jazz soundtracks.
Sentec EQ11 phono preamplifier
With quiet elegance, the Sentec EQ11 phono stage and equalizer entered my expanding world of gramophone dreams. The EQ11 ($2500) is a modestly sized, tubed phono stage with the industry-standard RIAA phono equalization and five other EQ curves.
Billy Sedlmayr's Charmed Life
Musicians whose careers were derailed by personal demons is a very old tale. Write about music and after a couple decades they all begin to have a similar ring: someone got addicted to something and began blowing off gigs, trashing friendships, and generally lying to themselves and everyone close to them.
It's the Real Thing!
From the J. Gordon Holt Archives: We are aware that much of what we have to say about reproduced sound in these pages goes completely over the heads of a lot of our readers, simply because they have not heard live, un-amplified music recently enough (if ever) to relate their own listening experiences to our observations.
The Great Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Complete Coverage!
Herb Reichert, Tom Norton, John Atkinson, and Jason Victor Serinus report live from RMAF's exhibits and happenings with photos, commentary and fun facts.
Norman Chesky of HDtracks and Chesky Records
Both Chesky Records and HDtracks have a pair of co-founding partners, but the music-minded press has perpetually focused on one of them, pianist and composer David Chesky, while ignoring his younger brother, Norman.
Source Stereophile
