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Lamps and Stuff
My latest addiction is “Stuff I’ve Been Reading,” Nick Hornby’s column for The Believer. I know: It's very hipster/nerdy of me to be reading this stuff; you might even think I live in nerdy Brooklyn. But, I swear, I live in Jersey City, and I have completely sincere and profound reasons for reading The Believer and "Stuff."
Not only does it remind me of how much I admire and enjoy Hornby’s writing—he’s clear, deep, funny, and extremely likable even when he’s being snarky and clever—but it also fuels my passion for reading. And when I read, I feel like a better person: stronger, smarter, healthier, whatever. Profound, see?
When I read, I at least feel like I have something to say. When I read, I’m happy.
You should check it out. In the preface to Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, the second of four published collections of “Stuff,” Hornby reminds us that reading addresses many of our needs, none more important than simple pleasure. Read the books you like, and don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn't enjoy Moby Dick or The Hunger Games or whatever.
There’s something to be learned here, even for you know-it-all audiophiles.
As these things go, I was prompted to search online for more of Hornby’s Believer work. And, at believermag.com, I found out about Love Songs for Lamps. Compiled by Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records and perhaps best known for his work in Dub Narcotic Sound System, Love Songs for Lamps is a mixtape. A real one—on a cassette, you know?
I’ve tried explaining my fondness for cassettes, in person and in print, at least 500 times now, but I've never said it as well as The Believer:
Cassettes—people love them. They want them. Cassettes are cuddly. They are Star Wars while CDs are Battlestar Galactica (MP3s, of course, are The Matrix.) They come in colors; you can collect them and trade them. Hang them on your wall. Use them as Valentines. You don’t have a cassette player? Go buy one at a thrift store for three dollars. Join the fun. Join the cassette party and tape over all of your roommate’s favorite music. Here is a selection of contemporary artists who have, for whatever wise reason, decided to release their work as cassette-only. No CD version, no LP. No 8-track. These bands don’t come with managers, publicists, booking agents, or publishing deals, so no one told them not to make cassettes. Nor are they concerned with their “draw” or “following,” and they won’t bore you with endless discussions about their “careers.” They’re just doing their thing, baby. Dig it.
Want to see the selection of contemporary artists who have, for whatever reason, decided to release their work as cassette-only? Click right here. I figured this would be fun for the cassette lovers (and haters) out there. If you don’t like it, don’t listen. Thank Nick Hornby and The Believer.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Classé CP-800 D/A preamplifier
I hadn't realized that the CP-800 is an example of a new breed of audio component: Not only is it a two-channel line preamplifier, it offers a complete set of digital inputs, including USB and an iPod connector. It can serve as a system's one-box heart, replacing the D/A processor and the cables connecting it to a conventional preamp. It even has a headphone output and a complete set of equalization features.
Plugging my laptop's USB output into the CP-800's rear-panel USB port, I was good to go chez ListenUp! I also vowed that the CP-800 would spend some quality time chez Atkinson.
What it does
The CP-800 shares the curved aluminum front panel Classé has used for its Delta-series products since the beginning of the century. This starts life as a flat extrusion with raised edges, and is gently bent into a U to form the front and side panels. Dominating the front panel is a large color LCD touchscreen that, in combination with the chunky metal remote, gives the user access to all functions via the usual hierarchical menu tree.
Flanking the touchscreen, within its bezel, are the Menu (left) and Mute (right) buttons, these duplicated on the remote. A black horizontal styling strip conceals: the Standby On/Off button to the left of the screen and, to the right, the infrared remote receiver window; a USB host connector for an iPod (Apple portable devices only; the CP-800's remote can control the iPod's transport functions); and a ¼" headphone jack. The large black knob for the shaft encoder that controls volume is at the right end of the black strip.
On the bottom of the rear panel are, from left to right: three pairs of unbalanced analog inputs on RCA jacks; two pairs of balanced analog inputs on XLR jacks; and two pairs of balanced outputs on XLRs, along with a single XLR output labeled Sub—all with their unbalanced counterparts on adjacent RCAs. The second pair of outputs can be assigned to double the main output pair, to permit biamping; alternatively, they can be used to provide stereo subwoofer outputs. The Sub output passes a mono low-frequency signal when enabled, but when the CP-800 is set up via the menu to manage bass, there is full control of crossover frequency and high-pass filter slope.
From left to right along the top of the rear panel are: the On/Off switch, and the AC input on an IEC jack; a USB port for connecting to a computer for audio streaming; a single AES/EBU digital input; three electrical S/PDIF digital inputs on RCAs (all digital inputs are galvanically isolated); four optical S/PDIF inputs on TosLinks; and various trigger and comms ports, including RS-232 and Ethernet. (On the review sample, the latter had still to be implemented.)
How it does it
Inside the CP-800, in front of the rear panel, a large, six-layer printed-circuit board runs the full width of the chassis. This carries the analog circuitry and the A/D, D/A, and DSP sections. Above this board and connected to it with two ribbon cables, a smaller, full-width, six-layer board carries the digital input circuitry. A small board behind the touchscreen, again connected to the main board with two ribbon cables, as well as to the screen with another ribbon, carries the CP-800's microcontroller.
Next to the controller board is the power supply. This is a switching type, but unlike conventional switch-mode power supplies, which have a bad rap in high-end audio circles for their propensity to introduce noise and enharmonic spuriae, the CP-800's supply uses Zero Volt Switching (ZVS), in which the primary switch operates when the incoming DC voltage is at a minimum, thus allowing the supply to have a low-noise RF footprint. In addition, the CP-800's supply is fully power-factor corrected, meaning that the incoming AC voltage and current are sinusoidal and in phase. (A white paper on this and the other technologies featured in the CP-800 can be downloaded here.)
The CP-800's rear-panel USB port operates in asynchronous mode, in which the flow of data is controlled by the DAC clock, not the computer. But the CP-800's operating mode, which Classé calls Optimal Asynchronous with Single Clock Substrate, differs from topologies used in competing products. Usually, the microcontroller in the asynchronous USB receiver chip controls the master clock. In the CP-800, a high-precision clock signal is buffered by a high-speed Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip placed next to the DACs and master-clock oscillators. This is said to result in increased clock purity and more accurate D/A conversion. Additionally, when the CP-800 is processing data encoded at 44.1kHz and its multiples, the 48kHz master clock is turned off, and vice versa, to avoid cross contamination.
In Analog Bypass mode, analog signals are fed straight to the volume control and output circuits and the digital clocks are turned off. (The volume control is implemented with two two-channel Burr-Brown PGA2310 programmable-gain chips, one per channel used as a differential volume control.) However, the tone or equalization controls are implemented using two Analog Devices DSP chips. So if the user wants to use these controls, the analog input signals are converted to 24-bit digital data with a Cirrus Logic 5381 A/D chip. Digital data are turned back to analog using two Wolfson WM8741 DAC chips, each of these a high-performance, multi-bit, sigma-delta, two-channel type capable of operating with 32-bit data. Each DAC chip operates in differential mode, one per channel, and runs at a constant rate of 176.4 or 192kHz. The voltage-output DACs are followed by a fourth-order reconstruction filter with a 100kHz passband.
Operation
While the CP-800 offers myriad customizing options via its touchscreen menu, the default settings out of the box proved to be all that I needed. Pressing any part of the touchscreen's Home screen or the Source Select button on the remote allows you to choose a digital or analog input. The chosen source is then displayed on the bottom left of the Home screen. If digital, the Home screen displays the current sample rate in small print at the bottom. Large numerals in the top half of the screen indicate the current volume setting.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
Fred Hersch Trio, Alive at the Vanguard
His two post-coma albums before this one, Alone at the Vanguard and Whirl, while strong, had the feel, especially in retrospect, of recovery projects. The new one is something else, the work of a pianist—an artist—at peak powers. It's Hersch's best album, I think, since his 1999 live solo breakthrough, Let Yourself Go.
The jazz world is flush with great pianists these days, more so than at any time in a half-century, and Hersch, at 56, surely ranks among the top tier—along with Keith Jarrett and Jason Moran—and may be peerless in his dexterity with rhythm and rubato.
No living jazz pianist is so adept, I think, at stretching and compressing the pace, and space, of a musical passage, and he does this not as a display of virtuosity but as a journey through a song, so seamlessly immersive, it's as if, for the time he's carving its contours, nothing else in the world exists.
Alive at the Vanguard, 15 tracks from a week's worth of sets at the Village Vanguard last February, features ballads, bop, blues, and up-tempo frenzies; originals, show tunes, and covers ranging from Parker and Monk to Rollins and Ornette Coleman. There's not a clunker in the bunch.
His trio-mates, bassist John Hebert and drummer Eric McPherson, keep up with him at every step, though this band is a piano trio, not an equilateral triangle. A few months ago, at the Jazz Standard, I saw Hersch play in a trio with Dave Holland on bass and Billy Hart on drums. It was stunning. I'd like some label to record that group.
Meanwhile, get this one. It was recorded DAD (engineered by Tyler McDiamond and Geoffrey Countryman, mixed to analog tape and mastered back to digital by A.T. Michael MacDonald), and it sounds very good, too.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Recording of September 2012: Sleeper
Keith Jarrett, piano, percussion; Jan Garbarek, tenor & soprano saxophone, flute, percussion; Palle Danielsson, double bass; Jon Christensen, drums, percussion
ECM 2290/91 (2 CDs; hi-rez FLAC files from HDTracks). 1979/2012. Manfred Eicher, prod., mix; Jan Erik Kongshaug, eng., mix. ADD. TT: 106:56
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Keith Jarrett's American quartet (with Redman, Haden, Motian) was prolifically inventive. His Standards trio (Peacock, DeJohnette) continues endlessly rich and ebullient at the end of its third decade. But Jarrett's Scandinavian quartet of saxophonist Jan Garbarek, drummer Jon Christensen (both Norwegian), and bassist Palle Danielsson (Swedish), was something else again. Each player's technical mastery, combined with their collectively perfect attunedness to one other, an apparently effortless intimacy of interplay that sounds telepathic, made them special even in a career as brilliant as Jarrett's—who wrote his best tunes for this band.
These are four immense talents. Jarrett needs no introduction as a player, improviser, composer, and bandleader. Garbarek's heroic tone, equal parts ice and fire, is melded with what seems serene confidence in simple statements made with directness and simplicity, even when entered or exited via flawlessly articulated runs or swoops or turns, in full-force gale or breathy whisper. We know he experiences each note because we can ignore none in the hearing. And for years, every time I saw an album listing the rhythm section of Danielsson and Christensen, I bought it sound unheard, knowing I'd hear yet another example of how much could be done with time and beat and bottom. Never disappointed.
Jarrett's Belonging band (unofficially named for their first album together) convened only occasionally in its five years, and released few records. Belonging (1974) and the very popular My Song (1978) are both studio recordings. The two discs of Sleeper expand their legacy on disc by one-third. Recorded in April 1979 on the same Japanese tour that produced Personal Mountains (1989), and just weeks before the Village Vanguard dates in May that resulted in Nude Ants (2 CDs, 1980), Sleeper is at least as good as any other Belonging album.
Six of these seven tunes, all Jarrett's, appeared on Personal Mountains and/or Nude Ants. "Personal Mountains" is Jarrett's writing at its strongest: smooth angularity full of unexpected turns and resolutions, rhythmic playfulness, dipping in and out of minor key—and, in the solos, in and out of bitonality. Garbarek has mentioned the special joy he took in playing Jarrett's lines in unison with him; that fierce delight is audible here. Christensen plays with a fury reminiscent of Ginger Baker or Elvin Jones—not in style or sound, but in relentless intelligence and drive. Danielsson's bass cinches it all tight with sinewy, sinuous lines tough as olivewood. This was clearly a high-energy night for the group, Jarrett so full of ideas he seems barely able to cram them in fast enough—but the music is never cluttered, and he never steps on his bandmates' toes. His deftness and grace are remarkable. Ditto the rest of this band. Ditto the rest of Sleeper.
In "Innocence," an aural portrait of that quality, Garbarek's tone embodies an almost heroic earnestness. The quality of his affection for this simple, singing line is profound. Hard to imagine anyone handling it better. In his solo concerts, Jarrett often seems to channel the composers of every jazz standard ever written, and "So Tender" is another example. I struggled to remember the words to this tune. It never had any. Here, Garbarek's cool lyricism could sell air-conditioners.
The long (28:13) modal trek of "Oasis" greatly differs from versions on other Belonging albums, which begin with chiming piano. Jarrett plays percussion here, as Garbarek blows double flute Brazilian style, à la Gilberto Gil. The journey to this "Oasis" is harder driven, less ruminative; halfway there, in a beautifully built solo, Garbarek waxes so vocal on tenor, in deep consort with Jarrett's piano (and voice), I half expected his horn to speak words. A striking example of a formidable talent pushing itself, its technique, its instrument all but beyond the possible. Later, his flutter-tonguing conjures a swarm of basso bees. Oasis reached.
The churning "Chant of the Soil" is slower, darker, bluesier than on Nude Ants, Garbarek's defiant solo egged on by elegant comping from Jarrett, who has never received his due for the sensitive attentiveness of his accompaniment. His own blues-drenched solo is ground fine through the implacable millstones of Danielsson's bass and Christensen's drums. The ballad "Prism," written for but until now unrecorded by this band, is all singing lyricism. The joyful beguine of "New Dance" is magicked by Jarrett's always unexpected fills and asides, the counterrhythms of his rich chords full of deft wit. The sheer appetite of these four for making this music radiates through each note.
The concert, recorded in Tokyo's Nakano Sun Plaza, has not quite the sense of space or depth we've grown to expect from ECM in recent years, and there's occasional print-through. But nothing stands in the music's way; Sleeper sounds better than other Belonging CDs.
If ever a great jazz combo were ripe to reunite, it's this one—not to re-create past glories, but to create new ones. What more might they have to tell us on the other side of the 33 years of maturing, seasoning, and living since April 16, 1979? They're all still gigging; the oldest, Christensen, won't be 70 till 2013. Book it now, guys. I can't imagine you have nothing to say to/with one another. If Sleeper is any indication, the only problem you'll have is trying to stop.—Richard Lehnert
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Phil Muzio, Madrigal's CEO
Photo: Mercury Pictures: Chris Fitzgerald
Madrigal's chief executive officer is known for working well into the night, but that's been a goal of his since boyhood. For many years he dreamed of becoming a professional guitarist, and even dropped out of Yale to satisfy a ravenous musical appetite. "Enough of trying to be a Renaissance man," Phil Muzio recalls thinking at the time. His aim was to be out there on the bandstand making music.
Muzio was born in 1954 and grew up on his family's 47-acre vegetable farm in North Haven, Connecticut. (The land, which his Sicilian-born grandfather bought in 1902, is just a 35-minute drive from Madrigal's Middletown headquarters, where Mark Levinson and Proceed components are manufactured and where the marketing of Revel speakers is handled.) At age 16, while still in high school, he took a part-time job at a New Haven audio shop called David Dean Smith. The eponymous Mr. Smith was one of America's first hi-fi specialty dealers.
Phil subsequently entered Yale, but left after his freshman year to study music at the University of Hartford's Hartt School and at the University of Bridgeport, where his teachers included the jazz guitarists Neil Slater and Sal Salvador. He continued to work at David Dean Smith and, one Thursday evening in 1974, he recognized a young musician who strolled onto the sales floor—a bass player, whose picture had appeared on a Paul Bley album cover.
That chance meeting with Mark Levinson was the real start of Phil Muzio's career, which now occupies more hours—day and evening—than he ever envisioned it would.
David Lander: You began working at Mark Levinson Audio Systems in 1974, two years after the company was established. What were your duties in the early years?
Phil Muzio: I was first doing odd assignments for Mark Levinson—delivering things, picking things up. When I started working inside the company, Mark had launched Mark Levinson Acoustic Recordings, and I was inspecting records, doing listening tests and final quality assurance, particularly on the LNP-2 preamplifier. Then I became associated with his engineer at the time, Tom Colangelo. He was overloaded, and he gave me a circuit schematic he needed breadboarded. I had done a lot of that work. I was a hi-fi hobbyist, and I had built several of my own preamplifiers by going into the basement at David Dean Smith and pulling the schematics out of the backs of service manuals and asking a lot of questions of the people in the service department. I built the board and returned it to him in a couple of hours, and he fired it up, and it worked. So he went to Mark and said, "I need this guy in the engineering department." It just kind of snowballed at that point.
Lander: By 1980, you were managing the engineering department. What did it consist of?
Muzio: There were five people, primarily Tom, but zero degreed engineers. It was a design department.
Lander: Was Mark still using John Curl or Richard Burwen designs, as he had done at first?
Muzio: No. We weren't getting any designs from John Curl or Richard at that point.
Lander: Many years ago, you began doing listening tests on equipment under development. That voicing, as you call it, helped create the large, spacious, enveloping sound that characterizes Levinson. What, specifically, are you listening for?
Muzio: I'm not one who gets off on saying that our sound is accurate. Anybody can say "We strive for accuracy." In point of fact, today, products from different manufacturers sound as widely different as they did 20 years ago. The sonic signature is really a personal choice. Bottom line: We're in the entertainment business. Our goal—and we've said this consistently for 30 years—is to re-create the original musical event. That goes beyond saying a violin sounds like a violin and a trumpet sounds like a trumpet. I'm talking about being able to convey the emotional message that the artist can convey in a live performance. Our job is to re-create that within a home.
Lander: What specific sonic characteristics do you focus on in order to get the job done?
Muzio: One is resolution, the detail available in a live musical performance that gives you the cues that trick you into thinking you're there. If it's a live recording, there are cues from the audience. In a piano recital, it's being able to hear pedals being pressed. There's a level of resolution that's key to creating that illusion.
Another one is dynamics. Without that, you'll never believe that it's really music. Acoustic instruments are wonderfully dynamic—-they get loud real fast, they get very quiet. You have to be able to optimize the electronics so they don't limit the capacity to put the dynamics of a performance in the room. That's something we call harmonic richness.
And imaging, the localization of the performers. You get that with the first notes played in a live performance. You know where people are across the performance area, but you also know who's close, who's far away, who's in the back and off to the right. And then you also get a sense of the space. You have to be able to convey that because, on most recordings, all that information is there.
Lander: You've said that you got out of the live music business because you ultimately decided you weren't good enough to succeed as a top-level performer. Before that, though, you did play professionally. Does that experience inform your in-house listening sessions?
Muzio: I had a lot of experience playing in big bands. That was good training. I know that people don't have long aural memories, but I do believe that something develops.
Lander: "The ear educates itself," is how Rudy Bozak—that grand old man of loudspeakers—once put it.
Muzio: Correct. I've spent my life listening, and I think I have a sense of when something sounds right. "Right," to me, means it sounds like it really does occur in the room. And I think I have a sense of when things sound wrong. I was in the rhythm section, so to my left the saxophones were in front, the trumpets were in back. I always got a kick out of people saying, particularly with tube equipment, "It's so musical. It's so warm." If you've ever listened to a trumpet live, you'd never describe it as warm. It's brash. When I read reviewers who say the trumpets were harsh, I never know if they're commenting that they don't like the way trumpets sound or they don't like the way the system is re-creating the sound.
Lander: You've said it varies from project to project, but how many hours might you spend in the listening room evaluating a product during development?
Muzio: Hundreds. We start very early in the design of a product, in engineering, because there are decisions that need to be made at a topological level. That isn't every circuit block in every product; it's up for grabs. There's a lot of science here. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a product that's designed with good engineering practices, good basic physics, good electronics principles, etc., will outperform a product that isn't.
We place a high value on proper design practices and good bench measurements, but there's a flip side to the product-development process. We don't sell the measurements—we sell the experience, and the experience happens in the listening room. It's evaluated by people with their ears. Those two things go hand in hand. You advance the electrical design, and you confirm it in the sound room. From our experience, we know that certain circuit blocks within a product are more influential than others.
We have a whole library of topologies—and we advance them, they evolve. There are a lot of areas in digital design where the library continues to grow, because we're doing more products that have more digital parts to them than ever before. So our guys may come to me and say, "These three circuits all measure well, we think they're all valid to use in this block, but we need you to listen to them to see which one sounds better."
Lander: These days, you listen along with Tom Calatayud, a senior design engineer. Is that so there's someone present who can pinpoint the technological reasons why you're hearing—or not hearing—something?
Muzio: That's part of the reason. We have a pretty stable crew here, and a number of the key players in engineering have gone through this process with me many, many times. They understand what I mean when I say certain things. They know what I expect.
Lander: And, I would think, specific electronics problems create certain sonic aberrations.
Muzio: There are certain sonic characteristics to a system that has ground-loop problems. If it does X, Y, and Z, you have ground-loop problems. There's a whole library of those kinds of things. There's a history that builds up year after year after year.
Lander: Do you know which version of a circuit each prototype under evaluation is using?
Muzio: I never know what choices I'm making. I may know that tonight we need to decide on a feedback loop for a particular amplifier.
Lander: So, in effect, the tests are blind.
Muzio: Yes.
Lander: What are your feelings about the future of SACD and DVD-Audio?
Muzio: I stopped playing the horses, so to speak, some time ago, because I found it not to be productive. With SACD and DVD-Audio, we're talking about formats that, performancewise, have a lot of potential. What I think is important to the marketplace today is compatibility.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Exploring Bayreuth's Fabled Acoustic
The tiered pit, which I was asked not to photograph, lies mainly beneath the stage of Festspielhause. Brass harps and percussion are located in the rear, furthest submerged from the audience, with the first row of strings and the conductor (seated so as to be seen by all players) at the top. Sound travels out an opening in front of the stage, approximately the same width as the second tier of strings on which sit two rows of strings. No one, not even the conductor, can be seen by the audience.
Although the covered, submerged pit hardly subdues the orchestra—it sings loud and clear in the house during forte passages, and sounded gossamer-like when appropriate—it does create a truly unique sonic environment. Under the baton of music director Christian Thielemann, who continues to establish himself as a Wagner conductor of the highest order, the orchestra at the start of the first production, The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Holländer), possessed a powdery luminescence the like of which I had never before experienced. The slight subterranean softening of timbres lent to the sound a unique and warmth and glow, over which voices could potentially float with far greater ease than they can in most other houses.
At the head of the large Bayreuth Festival orchestra, Thielemann proved himself a master of balances. Not only did he maintain a perfect relation between instruments and voices, but he also produced a truly singing orchestral tone at all volume levels. In the overture, the first time the strings entered softly, their texture was of the finest and lightest down. Even when playing at full volume—thrillingly and often—voices floated, seemingly without effort, above the orchestra's luxuriant blanket of sound.
Thanks to the hall's unique construction and layout, voices reached the ear with a remarkable balance between detail and resonant ambience. Not even the largest-voiced singer sounded metallic or overbearing. And performing in a hall with less than half the seats of the barn known as the Metropolitan Opera, singers who possessed significant volume soared over the orchestra with an ease that left them able to focus on expression and nuance without fear of being drowned out.
Upsides and Downsides
The hall's acoustic superiority is also due to its non-traditional interior layout. Instead of a horseshoe-shaped tiered design, with levels set aside for boxes and galleries, seating is arranged, continental style, in a single, steeply-shaped wedge. Basic construction is wood, rather than plaster and stone. This includes the very thinly padded seats whose hard, short backs are reminiscent of uncomfortable pews in churches. The most-reflective surfaces are the large glass globes of the lights on both sides of the hall, and they hardly dominate acoustically.
Nor is there air-conditioning. Everything has been left as in in Wagner's time, with only the sounds of whirring, hand-held fans, feet shifting on the wood floorboards, and the inevitable poke of long-limbed patrons seated behind you distracting from the beauty of the music.
That is, except for the heat. Bayreuth was unseasonably hot for four of the five operas, with the oft dressed-to-the-nines crowd continually shedding coats, shawls, ties, and the like over the course of the festival. This opera lover, who intentionally dehydrates to avoid potential bladder discomfort during performances that can last 2.5 hours without intermission found that most all liquid was eliminated through sweat rather than in the men's room.
But before we move to far-from-the-sublime to the not-so, let's return to the acoustic. The challenge to capture the hall's unique acoustic with a veracity that approaches the live experience is humbling. All the more reason to applaud those recording and mixing engineers who have done so with success.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
NYC Concert Ticket Giveaway from Logitech and Ultimate Ears
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Rush: Working Men
"Ummmm . . . that sounds weird."
Rock musicians—do they ever think about anything but sex?
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson chuckles. He explains that what he meant to say was that he, singer-bassist Geddy Lee, and the exalted, formerly mustachioed object of Planet Earth's most fervent drummer cult, Neil Peart, were trying to write songs during a break in a recent tour.
Easily one of the music world's most polarizing acts, the objects of equal amounts of swooning and derision, Rush has become a rock institution. Those who love and hate the band inevitably cite the same factors: Lee's unforgettably high voice, Peart's grandiose fantasy/sci-fi Dungeons & Dragons lyrics, and the long, multi-part rock suites that appear on many of their studio records. Depending on the listener, all three can be either nauseating or awesome, dude! Other points of contention are Rush's constantly changing time signatures, their heady mix of metal, prog rock, and power-trio bombast, their instrumental virtuosity—and, of course, Peart's drumming on what, for many years, has been rock's most insanely tricked out 360° kit. Think multitudes of mount toms, glockenspiels, and dragon gongs, and you're there. The Peart cult is so fanatical that it's been enshrined in pop culture, thanks to Seth MacFarlane and a classic aside in his animated series Family Guy, starring Chester Cheetah, that's easily available on Youtube.com. The band also appeared onscreen, as their cartoonized selves, in an episode of South Park.
Whatever the merits of their music, lyrics like "Oh, I will dine on honeydew / And drink the milk of Paradise," (which is a near quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan") and costumes that once included elaborate, belted, Asian-style tunics that Lee, in a recent Mojo interview, called "absurdly prophetic robes," Rush has, by virtue of longevity, become one of the most productive acts in the increasingly long-in-the-tooth world of classic rock. They've sold over 40 million albums worldwide—and, in a statistic you may have to read twice to grok, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), this trio of determined Canadians has earned the third-highest number of consecutive gold/platinum studio albums (24) released in the US by a rock band, trailing only the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Their website sells 32 different men's T-shirt designs, six different patterns of Rush socks, and, yes, copies of Peart's copper-mercury-amalgamation, colored, autographed Pro Mark drumsticks, as currently featured on www.neilpeartdrumsticks.com—one of myriad websites devoted to the band's every move. Rush's new album, Clockwork Angels, is their 31st.
After the 14-month world tour supporting their last studio album, Snakes & Arrows (2007), Rush decided to take a year off to write Clockwork Angels, only their third studio album since 2000. But in that time they've made five live albums, and an eight-song EP of classic-rock covers. As so often happens, commerce—in this case, a tour based on the idea of time travel—superseded art, and after a break the band went back on the road, in the process recording Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland, their ninth live set. In the pantheon of live Rush records, Time Machine ranks in the middle of the pack, musically ahead of Exit . . , Stage Left (1981) and the synth-marred A Show of Hands (1989) and behind their two best, Different Stages: Live (1998), with its glorious "lost" show from 1978, and the band's first foray into concert recording, All the World's a Stage (1976), which, though not well recorded, still sounds convincingly raw and real. Prior to the start of the Time Machine tour, Rush recorded five songs in Nashville; two of these, "Caravan" and "BU2B," ended up on the Time Machine set list and became the anchor tracks of Clockwork Angels.
Last year, after the Time Machine tour ended, Rush returned home to Toronto and began to review the music they'd worked on between the legs, as it were. "We went back to what we'd done in that short break, and in those sessions resided "Headlong Flight," and that was really the catalyst for getting us all fired up for writing the rest of the album," says Lifeson (born Alexander Zivojinovich). "?Clockwork Angels" was something that I had written. It was just a bit of noodling—I had a little bit of fun at home during the break. I brought it to the guys, and everyone thought there was something really there. Geddy [born Gary Lee Weinrib] tends to really get into the arranging of the material, and he said, "I really think you have something great here. Do you mind if I cut it up and mess around with it"? And I said, "Sure." I came back the next day, and he had a great blueprint for the way the song was going to be."
Clockwork Angels, a return to a leaner, less cluttered rock sound, is available on CD and LP, and as a 24-bit/96kHz high-resolution download from Chesky Records' HDtracks.com. Geddy Lee's bass is more prominent in the mix than it's been in some time, while Lifeson shows off his monster chops throughout. After years of wear and tear, Lee's voice is lower, with an agreeably rough edge.
Love 'em or hate 'em, Rush remain,without question, a muscular trio of instrumental thoroughbreds. While Peart's lyrics seem more focused and personal than usual—more love and hate, less Xanadu—this is still a concept album, about the mythic journey of a young protagonist who travels through a bewildering world of lost cities and phantasmic landscapes, at every turn battling the evil presence of the autocratic ruler, The Watchmaker. While such phrases as "Cathedral of the Timekeepers" and "alchemist priests" appear in the between-songs story printed in the album booklet, the concept of Clockwork Angels is less intrusive than in past Rush epics. Peart, once a fan of Ayn Rand who, in the Mojo interview, now calls himself a "bleeding-heart libertarian," novelized the album's story with help from sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson. While prog rock and metal are the dominant flavors here, Lifeson in particular has moments where he turns jazzy, bluesy, or speed-metal-esque. Peart, throughout and as always, is the master technician and timekeeper.
Lifeson immediately rejects the comparisons that have been made between Clockwork Angels and the sprawling 2112, whose 20-minute title track, in seven sections, became an unlikely hit when released in 1976, and saved the band's then-teetering career. "No, I don't see that at all," he says. "I think what we managed to nail on this record are some very strong choruses. I think they stand out. The most important thing is that we've stripped it down. It's not as dense as Snakes & Arrows, and I think maybe this is where the comparison comes in. This is more of an older Rush approach. The guitars are just doubled, not quadrupled. We don't have acoustics playing under electrics, or a rhythm-guitar track under a solo. We really made a concerted effort to avoid all of that stuff, so consequently there's a freshness to the record. The drums are live, the bass is live, the guitar is live, you can hear everything, there's great articulation of the instruments and the spaces in between. And Geddy's vocals are great."
While the music on every Rush album is the work of Lee and Lifeson, who've been friends since junior high in Willowdale, Ontario, where they grew up, just outside Toronto, the lyrics have been Peart's domain since he joined the band in 1974, in time for their second album, Fly by Night (1975). Peart's words on Clockwork Angels continue to show the effects of the tragedies that shook his life in 1997, and nearly finished the band: His daughter, Selena, was killed in a single-car accident, and 10 months later his wife, Jacqueline, died of cancer. Peart has said in interviews that he feels she really died of a broken heart. At Jacqueline's funeral, Peart informed the other two members that he was retiring from music.
The joy and pain that we receive
Each comes with its own cost
The price of what we're winning
Is the same as what we've lost.
—from "BU2B," on Clockwork Angels
All I know is sometimes you have to be wary
Of a miracle too good to be true
All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary
Everything in life you thought you knew
All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary
'Cause sometimes the target is you.
—from "The Wreckers," on Clockwork Angels
"This is a story," Lifeson says of Clockwork Angels. "This is not an autobiographical story. Certainly I think Neil is drawing from some experience—but mostly from observation. I think he really nailed it this time. It's not an easy task to work with his lyrics. They can be a little wordy. There are a lot of times where Geddy finds one line that he connects with, and he says, 'I really love the sentiment here, and I think that's the key thing. Can we rewrite everything in this particular song around that?' To his credit, Neil's always up for it. He never complains, and I know it's got to be difficult—he spends a lot of time on his lyrics. But Geddy has this ability—and it's from decades of working together—to really get to the core of what the essence is."
The press materials for Clockwork Angels contain an ominous paragraph about the quality of the project's sound: "Clockwork Angels has been mastered specifically for [sic] iTunes format in mind, ensuring the delivery of the music to listeners with increased audio fidelity, more closely replicating what the artists, recording engineers, and producers intended."
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Jadis SE300B monoblock amplifier
I've never written a love story before, but then, there's always a first time. This romance concerns the stunningly anthropomorhic Jadis Eurythmie II (mostly) horn speakers and the petite, jewel-like and vivacious Jadis SE300B amps—a 10W single-ended triode design with paralleled output tubes. Kathleen and I, having flung ourselves into single-ended's embrace, have become, to some fashion, quite experienced. I've described the purity of presentation available with the Wavelength Audio Cardinal XS monoblocks when coupled with the Swiss-made Reference 3A Royal Master Controls in these pages (January '96). Using the Eurythmie speakers, which supplanted the 3As in our system, we've listened to Gordon Rankin's Wavelength Cardinal XS monos, the Kondo-san Audio Note Kasai parallel 300B stereo amplifier (next SE review to come), the ebullient and eager-to-please Cary 301SE 300B stereo unit, and the Jadis single-ended triodes, as well as our reference Jadis JA200s (yes, Jadis also does push-pull).
And we evaluated a cornucopia of 300B tubes which were slipped into the waiting sockets of these amps: the VAIC VV30B and the less-costly VV300B; the long-anticipated and very suave Western Electric 300B (see my interview with Westrex's Charles Whitener elsewhere in this issue); Chinese Golden Dragon 300B Supers; the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time ESTi 4300BLX; Audio Note-branded 300Bs (carbon-plate ESTi, I'm told). (For the hoopy-scoopy on these tubes, see my "Brace of Bs" sidebar). At this point, even Jimi Hendrix would consider us experienced—if not quite in a Purple Haze. Most of the time.
The Jadis SE300B: the Long View
This amplifier is drop-dead gorgeous. Working front to back on the elegant nonmagnetic highly polished stainless-steel chassis, you'll find an On/Off switch on the front apron with a green LED signaling "power on." There's no provision for warmup/standby mode as with Jadis's larger amps. Topside, there's an oozing-with-casual-quality power transformer, somewhat more diminutive in size than the lump of a hand-wound thing that crouches darkly on the chassis of the JA200s. That's followed by a pair of 5R4 rectifier tubes, a pair of caps, and the elegant Jadis signature square black potted output transformer with its elegant gold top-plate. Behind are "ignited" the two 300Bs, and a single 6SN7 at center chassis rear, flanked by another pair of caps. On the rear apron, there's an IEC power cord socket, an input RCA jack, and a single pair of binding posts.
Jadis SE300B: the Technical View
I'll quote from a spec sheet on the Jadis parallel single-ended triode amplifiers prepared by Jean-Paul Caffi. I haven't paraphrased his words very much, as I found the charm and humor inherent in his Technical Franglais to be without peer in communicating the concepts behind them.
"The SE300B supplies a power of 10W RMS and functions in pure class-A with single-ended mounting (the two tubes are in parallel) with an automatic bias [(footnote 1)]. The two high voltages, driver and power, have vacuum-tube power supplies. The bandwidth (at –3dB) is from 20Hz to 20kHz, without any feedback. The driver stage, powered at 400V, is built around a double-triode 6SN7. The two elements of the tube are mounted in cascade. The output stage is powered at 320V, which allows the tubes to work in the best conditions. The filament voltage is very finely regulated. Like other Jadis units, the output transformers are handcrafted without any gap in the magnetic circuits, and are used well below their full possibilities (they can be employed on 250W amplifiers.) It is important to have a large output transformer because a direct current crosses the primary in this construction, while in a push-pull construction, the direct current in the transformer primary cancels itself out."
I couldn't have said it myself, isn't it so? And before I cancel myself out, how about let's getting to the sound!
Tube matters
The Jadis amplifiers were delivered with a quartet of matched ESTi 4300BLX tubes (evidently from the same Chinese factory that churns out the Golden Dragon BLX.) In addition, there were a quartet of JAN 5R4WGY rectifier tubes from Chatham Electronics, made in the ol' U.S. of A. (These were egg-cup style 5R4s, with a large solid base that extended up part of the way around the glass envelope.) JAN stands for Joint Army Navy, by the way. In addition, there were two input 6SN7s not marked for origin or brand name.
A surprise package arrived soon after from what must be the nicest guy in audio, Wavelength's Gordon Rankin. "I thought I'd send you input and rectifier tubes that'll work well in the Jadis," he explained. Now I smell teen spirit! A public merci, Gordon. (As J-P Caffi seemed quite willing for me to try other tubes in his amps, I felt it very apropos to do so.) Gordon had sent a pair of his favored Sylvania 6SN7s, along with Tung-Sols, NOS (New Old Stock) red-base GEs, Golden Dragon 6SN7GTs, and very unusual looking 6SN7GTYs from the British Valve Electronic Company, whose glass-bottle interiors were coated in black.
I tried all the input tubes with some interesting results. Gordon pointed out to me that the relationship between the input tube, the capacitors used in a particular design, and the output tube affects the sound in significant ways. Keep that in mind—the following description reveals the sound of these tubes in the Jadis' circuit.
As I have always found with Golden Dragons of whatever type, they were exciting, dynamic, but slightly bleached and white-sounding throughout the frequency range. They proved fatiguing over the long haul—just too thin in the end. The Tung-Sols were a pleasant taste o' Olde Tyme Tube Sound, much lushfullness, not terribly transparent, and not very dynamic or extended. The Sylvanias, which I expected from Gordon's experience to sound the best, didn't. They were indeed wide-band and vivid, extended, clear, and spatial, and did great bass, but they proved a shade uninvolving and "hi-fi" like. They sounded a little too clean—music seemed robbed of its emotional content.
The input tube that really floated my boat was the NOS GEs. "Yup, these are the ones!" exclaimed an excited Ben Lichtenstein, an audio-crazy of our acquaintance who had come over to listen to the system. He can hear—the GEs had just the right combination of extension, tremendous air, transparency, rich harmonic structure, and tonal color. In a word, magic. Interestingly, Gordon mentioned that the Sylvanias work much better than NOS GEs with Hovland caps, so once again, be aware that everything in-circuit can make a difference. Relax, open your ears, and have a ball.
As for the output tubes...ahhh, therein lies a tale. The ESTi 4300s went south of the border almost immediately. One pair fell way out of balance, one tube nearly burning itself up while the other sat practically dormant, its filament barely lit. Same with the other matched pair, but here the dominant tube was gassy (sputtering blue light in the bottle) and began sending spitchy high-frequency bursts through the Eurythmies. Out, out, damned spot!
I got on the horn (!) to Frank Garbie, who quickly supplied two matched pairs of brown-base Golden Dragon 300B Supers, which some feel are a better bargain than GD's more expensive black-base 4300BLXs. These worked just fine, sounding enjoyably dynamic, bold, and vivid. They created a large soundstage; had good timing, rhythmic pace, and great bass; and sounded fast. They stayed in the amplifiers until the Absolutely Fabulous Western Electric 300Bs showed up. These Ever-Suave (apologies to ManleyClan™) 300Bs became the reference output tubes for the review. (See my sidebar on 300Bs for details, and check out my interview with Western's Charles Whitener elsewhere in this issue.) As it transpired, importer Garbie has made arrangements with Western Electric, and their wonderful 300Bs will be standard kit on the Jadis SE300B. Truly, a match made in heaven.
And what of the VAIC tubes? In a somewhat comical twist of audio fate, the VAIC tubes simply wouldn't fit into the Jadis amps. The tube sockets are slightly recessed, held in place by a short pair of bolts that terminate with a nut on the top chassis. The VAIC tube's glass envelope becomes very wide almost immediately above its base, and these securing nuts interfered with their seating completely. Pretty funny, if you ask me. Victor Goldstein, VAIC's importer, was somewhat crestfallen. Ex-Goldstein associate and current Jadis importer Garbie was ecstatic!
Goertz cable
We tried many different speaker cables with these little beauties, and eventually settled upon one that was perfect matched in every way—the Alpha-Core Goertz MI Ag silver ribbon cables. In conjunction with XLO throughout the rest of the system, these cables sounded above all ultra-clean and delightfully fast. You'd think a flat ribbon would be an invitation to the RFI Heebie-Jeebies, but this was absolutely not the case. Quiet, full-bodied, apparent DC-to-light extension, extreme high resolution, wonderful spatial qualities, these cables let the Jadis amplifiers be all they might. No editorializing whatsoever, aside from a certain lightness to the deep bass than could be corrected with the crossover adjustment.
Footnote 1: We're talking self-bias here, with a resistor, rather than an auto-bias circuit that requires a negative supply.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
High-End Tunes to Go
I was pulled over by a beefy young Trooper, lights blinking furiously. Oops. [heh heh]. He saw Kathleen and I weren't nuts, checked the papers and my license, then checked out the Lexus very carefully with his flashlight. There was much oohing and ahhing.
"Got a GPS (Global Positioning System) I see," he said.
"Yeah, officer, the SC 430 is only one of two in the New York area, the other's at the Javits for the car show! Hard top goes down into the trunk, and it's got an amazing Mark Levinson audio system in it! Hey, I don't own it, I'm a journalist, I just play a rich man on TV! I get to play with it for a couple of weeks, then bye-bye."
He was smiling. "How's your license, Jonathan?" he asked. We were on a first-name basis by then. (K-10 had the good sense not to blow cigarette smoke in his face.)
"Clean as a whistle!" I chirped. "Okay, lemme see what I can do for you," he said as he headed back to his cruiser.
At the Consumer Electronics Show last January, John Atkinson and I were asked by Madrigal Audio Laboratories if Stereophile would like the use of Lexus' hot new SC 430 coupe for a month or so. We could then write up the Mark Levinson Premium Sound System contained within, of course.
We looked at each other. Nah...
[in best Chris Rock voice] JUST KIDDING!
It all seemed like a dream. But in early April, there it was—a gleaming SC 430 with pearlescent white-over-tan interior, being off-loaded in front of emapUSA's offices on Fifth Avenue. Such a spectacle.
It attracted attention like...well, like Marilyn Monroe the night she sang "Happy Birthday" to JFK? Like Julia Roberts on the phone begging you for a date? Hot, hot, HOT! (Where's Buster Poindexter when you need him?) A guy in Range Rover told me Toyota makes the best cars, bar none...and would I mind if he gave the Lexus the 20/20? I got innumerable thumbs-ups from strangers, and huge, approving grins met K-10 and me no matter where we drove.
The question thrown at me all too often by less couth Noo Yawkahs was: "Hey! How much you pay?" Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. Slowed down in traffic and trying to vary what had become an almost inevitable dialogue, I told one guy, "Too much!" Which elicited the following outraged response in prototypical Noo Yawkese: "Hey! You tellin' me I can't afford that thing?"
Thankfully, the traffic opened in front of us and the SC 430's quad-cam V8 whooshed us into the sunset before further mayhem ensued. Even the toll-taker on the Jersey Turnpike, stirred from her stupor, chirped, "That the new Lexus? Cuuuuute!"
The SC 430 lists for around $60,000, if you want to know. Its top-up profile is reminiscent of the Audi TT's, but more sculpted and less the bathtub shape of an upside-down jelly-mold Porsche 356. The front is blunt but scythes its way quite cleanly through the air—modern computer-aided design, no doubt—so little noise or wind buffeting disturbs top-down motoring, even at high speeds. And I'm a high-speed kinda guy.
Riding with the hard top up gives you an unbelievably quiet interior space in which to lollygag and enjoy the car's rich fitments. Speeding along effortlessly at high zip is a doddle, thanks to a huge-hearted, big-torqued engine with tons of grunt on demand. The SC 430 is a hero—it was a gas, as it were, to press its pedal to da metal.
The Lexus's closing speeds were so much higher, with so much more mass involved than our little low-mileage 1984 BMW 318i, that it occasionally made even the ever-fearless Kathleen jump. And let's just say that the sophisticated traction control, which allows smooth, feather-touch braking, takes a bit of getting used to when changing direction suddenly. Ahem.
The steering wheel, on its motorized adjustment shaft, is a pleasure of ergonomic style and function. The seats can be set to two memory positions. The whole thing simply reeks of luxury. Outside, the SC 430 strikes a nice, contemporary stance with big wheel rims and slim-sidewall tires, which is very popular these days.
The Levinson component
When I tried to get the lowdown on the SC 430's sound from Madrigal CEO Phil Muzio—see David Lander's interview elsewhere in this issue—I collided with someone who is very passionate about the Lexus/Mark Levinson project. I'm not being fatuous (for a change)—Muzio's got religion, and its name is Mark Levinson; everyone at the ML division of Madrigal has done his or her job so well that Lexus came to them: "Do you think Mark Levinson would consider doing an audio system for us?" Well, duh, as it were. According to Muzio, ML had only been considering it for...the last nine years!
"We did it because we always had an appetite to bring what we consider the ML signature sound and refinement to automobiles. But you need a low enough ambient noise level to allow it." Turns out their earlier LS 400 had a noise factor 3dB better than those of several other luxury brands, and Lexus was looking for a replacement for Nakamichi.
The pieces fell into place. As Muzio explained, Harman owns Madrigal, JBL works with Toyota, JBL is another Harman company, and Harman has a "terrific" OEM car stereo division, And in Japan, Lexus employs a lot of audiophiles! So when Lexus' engineering department did the market research, Mark Levinson came out in the top three. "So they came to us..." mused Muzio, amazement still in his voice.
Queried closely about skeptical audiophiles who will no doubt accuse Lexus and ML of badge engineering, Muzio said, "The motivating factor for the mission was to replicate in their car, as closely as possible, that emotional experience people who love music get in their home. People spend a lot of time in their cars—for some, even more listening time than at home. To that end..."
The Mark Levinson Premium Sound System comes standard in the Lexus SC 430 and is an option for the LS 430, GS 430, GS 300, and LX 470. Each Lexus vehicle installed with a PSS is voiced with separate digital EQs, and the SC 430's fairly small cabin mandates a very nearfield experience, as Muzio described it. "Almost like the sound at your computer," he rued. But Mark Levinson uses a proprietary digital signal processing algorithm on the PSS CD player, and with the car's top up, "spatialization" is added by two rear side channels. All of the system's discrete EQ is automatic and separate for CD and FM, top up or top down. There's also Automatic Sound Leveling, which compensates for volume changes depending on ambient noise thresholds. The DSP is realized using Analog Devices SHARC (Super HARvard Computer architecture) chips.
The system is powered by eight discrete amplifier channels based on Mark Levinson amp topology. "Not just an LSI (Large Scale Integrated circuit) like you find on amp chips in other OEM car systems," Muzio enthused. All channels driven, the Mark Levinson Premium Sound System cranks out 240W, 20Hz–20kHz, with 0.01% distortion, according to Muzio. He points out that those "amps on a chip" from other OEM companies never get below 0.1% distortion—a full order of magnitude higher.
Muzio spoke on the phone with me of the literally hundreds of hours he spent in each Lexus model doing their setups. I asked him how he knew he'd hit the mark in each Lexus the ML system went in.
"I used to be a musician. I know when I know. It's a purely emotional thing. After we've got the right electrical parameters and gone all through the double-blind testing, picked which caps go where...It was like that with the No.32 Reference. We knew it was done when we forgot what we were doing and just played music."
We are driven!
There are nine custom-engineered speakers in each SC 430. When I settled my bustle into the luxurious seats and took it all in, I spotted a pair of circular tweeters mounted close in on the "sail" (where the air vent window used to be on older cars) next to the A pillar. These turned out to be ¾" titanium-dome numbers with ferrofluid cooling and neodymium magnets to give very low distortion, about which Muzio is pretty adamant. "In a car, in the nearfield, you sense distortion as harshness and brightness." Below each tweeter, just under each door's upper sill sits a 2½" midrange driver, placed there because it has the same directivity characteristics as the tweeter—important, as there's no center speaker. (A center-channel front driver is used in the GS 430 and GS 300 to create a better image across the dash, while the LS 430 and SC 430 use horn-loaded compression drivers to achieve a high level of directivity in the audible frequency range to aid imaging.) Each door bottom carries a rigid 6" by 9" neodymium-magnet/Kevlar-composite cone midrange driver.
Moving to the back seat...uh, forget it. It's not much more than a nicely upholstered package shelf, or a space for your Louis Vuitton duffel—wow, it's cramped. The rear double-bucket seat might be okay for midgets with no legs, but no way, man. If you managed to wedge yourself in back there, as did our long-suffering photographer, you'd notice the rear side-panel grilles, behind which are 4" mid-high ceramic-magnet (not neodymium) drivers, and feel the 8" subwoofer behind the back seat cushion. The sub's driver once again uses a neodymium magnet, with a copper-clad aluminum voice-coil and a special surround for long excursions.
And can that baby woof! The bass gets way down there, especially with the top up because of the improved acoustic environment mostly due to space being properly pressurized, as well as the trunk not having the hard top sitting in it. The sub driver even sports a patented spider of aramid fiber—a very strong, lightweight, and heat-resistant polyamide.
Muzio recounted how he worked with the vehicle designers to redo the rear "seat" profile and sculpt its (very upright) back for optimal acoustical output from the sub. They even named the system: IVE, for Integrated Vehicle Enclosure.
The trunk can be viewed as a custom enclosure with baffles molded in as part of the trunk to best tune the chamber. Of course, there are two conditions of operation, as they ML characterize it: Top up "and a-way we go!," as Jackie Gleason would say; or top down, more "Step thees way, chérie."
"The internal volume of the chamber changes when the top's down, and the compensation we designed for that is a big part of the story," Muzio explained. "Getting a good tonal balance both ways was one of the real obstacles to overcome in such a relatively small cabin." In short, it's a sophisticated systems approach, like everything Madrigal does, and Muzio feels he's succeeded with his baby.
"Sitting on top of the drivers as you do in the SC 430, you've got to start out with much less distortion. So all EQ is digital because you've got to watch out for phase shift in a car environment—the customers will pick that up in a New York minute."
On the Road
Hey man, what—you think it was, like, bad?
No way. It sounded fantastic. The only problem I had was with all the maniacal people yelling at me "How much?" There was no question that there was anyone who didn't lust after it. Even babes eyed it thoughtfully.
The bass could shiver your liver, matey. On Peter Kruder's Peace Orchestra (G-Tone G-CD 004), the low bass synth set the armrests a-vibratin'. (A few pre-production prototype nits turned up, nothing serious.) With the top up, the bass was always truly awesome.
There was a nice transition to the upper bass and midrange proper, which you'd never guess was coming from the door. You can use the controls to adjust the mids and highs just so, not to mention the bass, which has a subwoofer mode. All controls are easy to use and sensibly laid out.
I listened to the system for hours on end with a variety of discs. And with the mid and high controls no CD was too out of hand to deal with. I could make any CD I played sound enjoyable in the movable feast that is an ML PSS-equipped SC 430, top up or down (but with slightly better sound with the top up)—all while moving along cushily at a blistering pace while adjusting the heated seats just right for my tushy.
Sound fade front to back and left to right is also available, of course. Old man. And the head unit can swallow six CDs right—no need to head for the trunk. A glossy but slightly sticky door on this pre-production car hinges down to cover the radio/CD/tape controls. (But I couldn't find the Cannon or Eject buttons, apologies to Ian Fleming.) The Global Positioning System glides back into the center of the dash and a nicely finished cover slides over it on key-off, while the wheel motorizes back into the dash. Shaken, not stirred—right, old chap?
Sportsmen! Step across the line!
So who are the buyers of the Lexus SC 430 with Mark Levinson Premium Sound System?
"We wanted a system so that music can play an important part of the emotional experience of riding in the car," said Muzio. Even at 120mph with the top down, as Outlaw Phil confesses to have done.
It was a gas dropping the top to the many catcalls and motoring in the still-cocoon-like luxury of the SC 430. Getting nippy? Pull over, mash a button while staring into the eyes of the beauty sitting next to you, and pop that hard top back in place. Hold the button past its "I'm done!" ping and the windows slide up, too.
While I'm sure the larger LS 430 proves a more friendly environment for high-end car audio, the pleasure of the SC 430 lay in its choice of sensual realms: closed-top lux or open-top motoring, Corinthian leather up the pipick, and the finest-sounding car system I've ever heard. And that engine...oy, don't ask.
What can I say? You can afford it and it's your taste? Go for it!
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Visiting Glimmerglass Opera
My discovery of the fact that Glimmerglass has greatly expanded the range of its offerings came about through sheer serendipity. Last summer, we were on the way to Pittsfield, MA, following the route prescribed by iPhone's GPS software. The GPS guided us off the New York Thruway sooner than I had anticipated, but I figured it must know a shortcut, so I kept driving. But wait a minute: we were going south, and Pittsfield is to the north. Better check the GPS settings. Oh, no! It was set to Pittsfield, New York, not Massachusetts! Having reset the GPS, the route took us through gently rolling hills, and then we saw a sign with an arrow that said "Glimmerglass," and decided to take a side trip to explore. As we came around a curve in the road and saw what I later learned was the Alice Busch Opera Theater, on top of a hill and with a small lake in the foreground, I got the strong feeling that we were in a special place. The opera being performed that afternoon was Carmen (decidedly not modern and far from obscure) and the season's lineup included Annie Get Your Gun, one of my favorite musicals (which I have done twice in community theater). We got tickets for it, extending our vacation by a couple of days, and this ended up being one of the highlights of our entire vacation. Annie Get Your Gun starred Deborah Voigt, best known for performances of operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss, and Rod Gilfry, who has done everything from Don Giovanni to Sweeney Todd (and whose CD My Heart Is So Full of You, Narratus 07, I subsequently picked as one of my 2012 "Records to Die For"). We also attended a concert by Deborah Voigt entitled Voigt Lessons, in which she not only sang beautifully, but talked openly about her problems with her weight, alcohol, relationships, and depression. It was one of the most moving performances I have ever witnessed.
This summer's Glimmerglass performance schedule—which, as I write this on August 18, still has a week to go—includes The Music Man, one of the classics of American musical theater, as well as productions of Aida, the Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson Lost in the Stars, and Lully's Armide. There are also numerous concerts—including a concert by Deborah Voigt (not Voigt Lessons), and by Artist In Residence, baritone Eric Owens. There's a show talk (free) before each performance. Glimmerglass has a Young Artists Program, which includes singers (who are in the ensembles and are featured in informal concerts), coaches, and assistant directors. We saw The Music Man, in which internationally renowned baritone—and Cooperstown native—Dwayne Croft showed that Harold Hill's numbers can be actually sung without losing their meaning or dramatic impact, and the concert by Deborah Voigt, in which she again showed the special rapport she's able to achieve with an audience.
But Glimmerglass is more than just performances of opera and musicals. Under Artistic & General Director Francesca Zambello (see photo below), who took over this position in 2011, there has been an expansion of Glimmerglass's mandate to include classic American musicals and concerts, which led to a "re-branding" of the enterprise from Glimmerglass Opera Festival to Glimmerglass Festival. Zambello has made a deliberate effort to make connections with local institutions and the artistic community, like museums and galleries. Zambello takes a decidedly hands-on approach to her leadership role, talking to audience members, making sure that people are happy about their Glimmerglass experience. And all of this effort is working: ticket sales are up 20% since her appointment. Zambello's creativity and ambitions for the Festival seem to have no bounds: there's even a limited-edition opera-inspired beer available, a collaboration between Cooperstown's Brewery Ommegang and the Glimmerglass Festival. (I found out about this too late to request a "review sample.")
Glimmerglass Artistic & General Director Francesca Zambello
One of the distinctive features of the performances of musicals at Glimmerglass is that they use no amplification for the orchestra or the singers. This is never done in current Broadway productions, and even where plays are performed without amplification, such as the Shaw and Stratford festivals, they use amplification for musicals. There is, of course, a special pleasure to be had in hearing voices and instruments as nature intended, but I wondered whether today's audiences are too used to the louder-than-life presentation of voices that is now standard in performances of musicals. I asked Francesca Zambello whether they get complaints from people about not being able to hear well enough, and she said they've had no complaints about this. And, I have to admit that, apart from a few muffled lines in the opening "Rock Island," I had no trouble hearing any of the dialogue or song lyrics in The Music Man. One factor that may be responsible for Glimmerglass being able to do away with amplification in their musicals is that their singers are almost all operatically trained, with the technique that allows them to project their voices without benefit of amplification, something that most of today's Broadway performers have difficulty with.
Planning for the 2013 Glimmerglass season is now in place. There are new productions of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, Verdi's King for a Day (Un giorno di regno), Lerner & Loewe's Camelot, and a double bill of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion. Baritone Nathan Gunn, who will appear as Lancelot in Camelot, and pianist Julie Gunn, will serve as Artists In Residence. Camelot is another great favorite of mine (yes, I've done that, too, once as Lancelot); I can't wait to see the Glimmerglass production.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Jadis Eurythmie II loudspeaker
Frank had set down the Eurythmies in roughly the same position the Avalon Ascents had occupied on the 10' by 4' MDF platform (this screwed and bolted through to the floor and beams below). This left the Eurythmies in the familiar nearfield listening position. We powered them with our Jadis JA200s at first, as we were all still waiting for the single-ended Jadis SE300Bs to appear. Frank had been enjoying the '200s on the Eurythmies in his Durango, Colorado listening room, so was familiar with this pairing's voice. (The '200s are a classic push-pull class-A pentode design of approximately 130W, and our long-time reference amps.)
How practical is it to use high-powered push-pull on a horn speaker? Well, the Eurythmies are a hybrid design of sorts. The 103dB-sensitivity horn array—lower-midrange driver up inside the "butterfly" enclosure, a time-delayed tweeter sitting atop a similarly delayed upper-midrange mahogany horn—is sited above a bass cabinet enclosure containing two 96dB-sensitivity 15" woofers in an "Isobarik" arrangement. Each speaker's external crossover features a potentiometer, adjusted with a digital voltmeter, which varies the sensitivity of the horn array in relation to that of the woofers, thus optimizing the amp/speaker cable interface.
After a day or two fiddling with the crossovers, we realized we still weren't getting them to perform as best they might. Problems revolved around several points. To begin with, I heard that hootie horn coloration I dislike—saxophones sounded like they were made of wood, for example. The imaging was off—I wasn't getting the spread and depth that we've grown accustomed to. The bass wasn't very tight or well-integrated into the overall presentation, and there was a noticeable lack of dynamics.
That particular week John Atkinson was in town, and stopped by to visit. I was nearly cross-eyed from a vicious and debilitating weather-induced migraine, but managed to keep the fires lit—just. Between draughts of Veuve Cliquot, JA focused on the horn coloration, and agreed that the Eurythmies were a touch uninvolving and polite-sounding.
I'm carefully noting these anomalies to make you aware I didn't turn a blind eye to what many consider to be inherent (and terminal) problems with horns of whatever design. But it also occurred to me that, with the renewed global interest in single-ended triodes, it should come as no surprise that advances might be made across a broad front, and that some of these new designs might well succeed in vaulting over the very horns of the dilemma, especially given the advances in materials technology we enjoy today.
A welcome break
As it happens, Kathleen and I had planned a 10-day holiday around then. Like most guilt-ridden New Yorkers, I kept telling anyone who'd listen that it was our first getaway in three years. That's what everyone says. "Oh, I know, me too!" In the event, we had a heart-to-heart with importer Garbie and suggested a post-vacation rendezvous with the two French architects who'd designed the Eurythmies, and Jean-Paul Caffi of Jadis. Thirty-seven-thousand-dollar speakers do not hoot, I was sure.
I thought so, and with that, Kathleen and I bid au revoir to M. Garbie and disappeared into the wilds of Southern California to think no more of high-end audio. We began our vacation with four days of sailing with a waterlogged audio victim of our acquaintance. Nautical activities centered around a 38' racing sailboat—a Catalina. Coming from a sailing family, Kathleen loved every minute at sea, but as for me...taxi!
After several days consuming mass quantities of Dramamine, followed by (even I have to admit) a keenly enjoyable keeled-over faster-than-fast return from Catalina Island to Newport Beach, we found ourselves back on blessed terra firma. (I didn't kiss the ground, but I considered it.) We rented a total pig—a hard-steering barge of a Bonneville strayed far, far from its '60s roots. Cursing Detroit, we headed north out of L.A. for my first taste of the Pacific Coast Highway, complete with a souvenir speeding ticket. Our plans were to visit several SoCal audionuts we have the pleasure of knowing as we headed north up to Fremont near San Francisco, where liveth the Shun Mook Monks and their new Bella Voce "tuned" speaker (what else?). Five kay the pair. More Monkish speaker matters later, he said innocently...
Back in New York...
...we had but one Sunday to decompress before the French Foreign Legion showed up, shepherded by Importer Garbie and his partner at Northstar, Scott Isaacs. We read the Sunday Times, and caught up on audio gossip. Monday morning, off I went once again to the office, encouraged out the door with a smile and one of those very French shrugs accompanied by that they-all-do-it expressive-beyond-words pursing of the lips. It's usually accompanied by a slight shrug of the shoulders and a breathed-out "Ouff." I know, I know...she can handle it!
That evening when I returned, there were Frenchmen scattered everywhere in our loft. Bonjours to Jean-Paul Caffi; the Eurythmie's designer, Jean-Bernard; and his associate Jean-Phillipe; and right back to work. Everyone looked innocently around as I noted that the speakers were set even farther back in the box and fairly close to the sidewalls, finished off with a mild toe-in. I was happy to see the Jadis SE300Bs up and running, wired up with all-XLO. Digital datalinks were the fantastic new Illuminati Orchid AES/EBU, Aural Symphonics glass gooped with ioGel, and the newest Marigo Apparition Reference Signature.
The speakers' aluminum forward bottom-plates were supported on large Audiopoints set into their brass bases. The crossovers had been adjusted to 2.9 ohms, which I was informed is the Jadis amps' ideal setting. Setting the crossover is quite straightforward. The multiple Jeans played Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert ECM 1064 (you can use any well-recorded piano) and listened for an imbalance between the right and the left hands—the treble and bass clefs. When the energy seems equally distributed, and one register doesn't overpower the other, you're there. Piece of gateaux, no?
This leads me to a Scullgression®. I spotted Robert Harley in my review of the Wavelength Cardinal XS for pronouncing the Infinity Composition speakers with their powered woofers as the way to go with single-ended triodes. I demurred, feeling that many aficionados would prefer to listen to single-ended full-range—as one can certainly do with the Eurythmies, in spectacular fashion. However, Jadis's Jean-Paul Caffi, responsible for the Eurythmies' passive crossover, will be introducing an active tubed crossover as an optional replacement sometime soon. Those chasing the final degree of musical perfection might then employ push-pull or big single-ended tubes on the bottom, such as the 211 or 845. The question is, when this further evolution of the Eurythmies' crossover is ready, will I eat my words? (A writerly punishment, no?)
In any case, with the gemlike Jadis 300Bs driven by the Jadis digital front-end (J1 Drive/JS1 Symmetrical Converter) and a JP80MC preamp, things were much improved. I checked the wood factor (tut, tut, tut...) with Saxophone Vocalise, Delos DE 3188. I always get a kick out of listening to track 2, Heiden's (no, not that one) Diversion for Alto Saxophone and Band, which sounds like it was written expressly for the Hercule Poirot series.
I don't know if you're a fan of the diminutive Belgian sleuth with the hyperactive leetle gray cells, but we love his "remarks most pointed." Listening to that track, I couldn't help but visualize Captain Hastings at the wheel of his open Lagonda, an alarmed Poirot at his side keeping his hat in place with the silver beak of his walking stick. Should you suffer from saxophone sweet-tooth, this disc will put you in insulin shock with works by Gershwin, Massenet, Bruch, and several other composers I confess I'm unfamiliar with. The recording is a lot of fun, and the horn in question is beautifully, lovingly recorded. For another check on wood (and imaging), I played "The Nearness of You" from that old favorite Trio Jeepy (Columbia CK 44199) by Branford Marsalis—my favorite thing he's done. Final verdict? No wood. (And no jokes!)
The Eurythmie II
I'll both paraphrase and quote verbatim from the Eurythmie's spec sheets. "Sculptured to reply the laws of nature, they are surprising by aesthetic in appearance. As they cannot be hidden, we have made them into works of art and have used craftsmen's techniques in their manufacture." But of course! One night after they'd first been installed, Kathleen jumped up in front of them and starting dancing sinuously. "Jon-a-ten..." (hence the J-10 moniker, get it?), "they look like hula-hula girls!" That they do, ma cherie. Keep dancing!
In a not-quite-white paper we're reminded that our brains do not actually "hear" acoustic energy; rather they analyze electrochemical data created by the movement of the eardrum. The Jadis Eurythmie speakers create these electrochemical reactions by utilizing horn transducers from 180Hz and above, which allows "30 times as much energy as a traditional speaker. By economizing on the power of the amplifiers, these systems also have the advantage of minimizing the effect of the room due to the controlled direction option." I'll presume we're talking about dispersion here.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
