2nd Edition
THE Show of Shows Starts Friday
The countdown to the start of THE Show Newport in Orange Country, California has begun. The largest three-day consumer audio show in America kicks off for the public on Friday, May 29. Stereophile will have several writers ready to cover the show.
Clearaudio Maestro V2 phono cartridge
Clearaudio began making moving-coil cartridges in the 1970s, and only later got into the moving-magnet business. Moving-magnet cartridge designers must now be mindful that most of today's tonearms are of medium to high mass and that therefore, to be compatible, their MMs must be of low to medium compliance and of higher mass than those of the 1960s and '70s.
Abandon Folly, Not Hope
The day before I began writing this, John Atkinson posted on Stereophile's website a chart from Nielsen Soundscan showing the ski-jump–like path CD sales have been on since 2004. In 2004, total sales were 651 million units; in 2014, 141 million units.
Bruce Lundvall
The jazz world, not to mention the record business as a whole, lost one of its true gentlemen and most positive role models when Bruce Lundvall died on Tuesday, May 19 at the age of 79 from complications associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Recording of June 2015: Yesterday I Had the Blues
Unlike the conundrum of today's country music, whose lyrics celebrate family and tradition even as the country-music community ignores and disrespects the giants of the music's past, jazz and rock have for the most part remembered and celebrated their musical pioneers and game changers, and the singular, monumental virtuosity of artists like Billie Holiday.
The Thrill Has Gone
The Blues Boy is gone. And with him the second generation of bluesmen; the guys who came north, most from Mississippi, after the original acoustic Delta blues cats like Son House, Skip James and Robert Johnson had seen their time in the spotlight fade.
Dave Douglas: Sound Prints & High Risk
Trumpeter Dave Douglas has two very different new albums out: Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival (Blue Note), featuring a Wayne Shorter tribute-band co-led by tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano; and High Risk, a collaborative excursion into electronica.
From The JGH Archives: The Weakest Link
While we will not pretend for a moment that the millennium of high fidelity has arrived, we are finally having to face up to a fact that has been staring us in the face and nudging us in the ribs increasingly rudely of late: The state of the art of sound reproduction has gotten to be pretty damned sophisticated.
From The JGH Archives: Audio Research D-100 power amplifier
We cannot recall when any new products have generated as much of a stir among perfectionists as the new solid-state equipment from Audio Research. Preceded by rumors of "a new kind of amplifying device--a cross between a tube and a transistor"--the announcement of ARC's new power amp and SP-4 preamplifier elicited very mixed reactions from loyal ARC customers.
1st Edition
Munich 2015 Show Report!
Starting early next week, Jason Victor Serinus will be posting from the Munich High End Show in Germany.
JGH Archives: Meridian's Bob Stuart
I met with Bob Stuart of Meridian at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in January, 1986. My first question was about the name of the company he runs with industrial designer Alan Boothroyd.
SoulPsychJamRocktastic
Could it be that Jim James and My Morning Jacket are becoming a sly soul band? Hold on: make that a psychedelic rock outfit? Or is it orchestral jam pop this time out? And what about all those persistent prog-rock leanings?
JGH Archives: Transcriptors Vestigal tonearm
Because this is an unusual and controversial tonearm design, and has had astonishing claims made for its performance by the manufacturer, this in-depth report goes deeper and is longer than is usual for Stereophile.
Steve Coleman, Synovial Joints
Two years ago, I hailed Steve Coleman’s Functional Arrhythmias as a career breakthrough. His new CD, Synovial Joints (on the Pi Recordings label), is his masterpiece--a thrilling kaleidoscope, densely polyrhythmic, but also brisk and airy.
Bow to the Temples of Syrinx
So the story goes that after Caress of Steel stiffed, undoubtedly because of tracks like the super indulgent and fairly leaden, 20-minute, “Fountain of Lamneth,” an early misguided attempt at heaviosity, the Canadian trio Rush knew they were about to be dropped by their label, if not the music business, the listening public and the entire human race, so they figured WTF.
Bricasti Design M28 monoblock power amplifier
Google Bricasti and all that comes up are sites relating to Bricasti Design products. The name must be fanciful--it sounds Italian, but cofounders Brian Zolner and Casey Dowdell most likely are not, and the company's headquarters are not in Milan or Turin but in Massachusetts.
Audio Streams #6
Back in the day, I owned a Sony Walkman cassette player. I loved it. I took it everywhere I went, listening to Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Neil Young (with and without Crosby, Stills & Nash), Miles, Coltrane, and more.
Music in the Round #72
I spent most of my time at the January 2015 Consumer Electronics Show exploring amps and preamps for Stereophile's on-line coverage of the show, but there were a few items of interest to fans of multichannel.
Luxman Classic CL-38u preamplifier
If you look at it from a distance and squint a little, Luxman's Classic CL-38u preamplifier ($4200) could almost be mistaken for that most classic of all classic hi-fi products, the Marantz Model 7C control center.
AXPONA 2015 Show Report
How do you measure success? Some show promoters count the number of lanyards they've given out and call those "attendance figures." According to Liz Miller, AXPONA/Audio Con Content and Marketing Director, “We sold 5137 tickets, an 18% increase over 2014."
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