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V-Moda M-80 Headphones Sweepstakes
According to the company:
Masterfully tuned by a legion of legendary musicians, producers and DJs, M-80 packs unique materials, professional acoustics, natural noise isolation, ultimate ergonomics and military-level ruggedness into a design 53% smaller than its now legendary, over-ear sibling, Crossfade LP. M-80's first-class materials are virtually indestructible including a steel frame, STEELFLEX headband, interchangeable brushed metal shields, durable microfiber suede and replaceable memory foam cushions. The M-80 also comes fully loaded with two Kevlar-reinforced microphone cables for universal smartphone compatibility and an exoskeleton carrying case for added road warrior armor.The nucleus of M-80 is its patent-pending and biggest-in-class 40mm Dual-Diaphragm Drivers that deliver multi-driver sound with the energy efficiency and consistent quality of a single driver. To recreate a pure balanced sound analogous to Vinyl, M-80 uses no batteries or artificial sound processing and instead relies on immortal acoustic techniques. The masterfully crafted V-PORT V3 provides natural noise isolation, life-like staging, vibrant bass, vivid mids and vivacious highs.
By utilizing a 31-band EQ with select master musicians and producers, every step of the frequency response curve was finely sculpted. The headphone also offers long-play comfort through a tailored, fashionable fit without unsightly gaps and minimal pressure on the head and ears, the result of years of ergonomic research. Since the fit is the sound, M-80 utilizes replaceable supple memory foam cushions, a bespoke STEELFLEX headband and tactile arm extensions.
To enter the sweepstakes, all you need is an account on this website. If you don't already have one, click on the link labeled "register" at the bottom of this announcement or "Create new account" in the right column (under the ads). Then, enter a username and a valid e-mail address, and click on the "Create new account" button. A message will be automatically sent to the e-mail address you specified, which will include a link to activate the account.
The final step (and only step for those who already have an account) is to log in and leave a comment right here on this announcement—any comment will do, as long as it's not profane or spam. Then, when the sweepstakes closes, a lucky commenter will be chosen at random to receive the prize. So post a comment, and good luck!
For complete sweepstakes rules, click here.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Peachtree Audio decco65 D/A integrated amplifier
In digital audio, time waits for no one—and so it goes here. The iDecco, which sold for $999, is no longer in the company's lineup, and while Peachtree continues to put iPod docks in various of their amps and preamps, today they're betting on a simpler yet more highly evolved addition to their stable: the decco65 ($999), in which a 65Wpc amplifier and a hybrid tube/solid-state preamp share space with a 24-bit/192kHz D/A converter.
Description
Much as they've succeeded in setting the right categories and price points for their products, so has Peachtree Audio found a winning formula for the decco65's industrial design: an attractive wood wrap—too curvy to be called a box—surrounding a chassis that's just big enough to contain its working parts and a bit of cooling space. The wrap, which comes in a choice of high-gloss black paint or, for $100 more, a veneer of cherry or rosewood, fits snugly around an elegant satin-finish panel, the latter including a soft-touch standby switch, a row of smaller buttons for source selection, a large volume knob, a headphone jack, and a clear plastic window for the decco65's single vacuum tube: a 6N1P dual-triode, used not for voltage gain but as an interstage preamplifier buffer. A button on the remote control allows the user to switch between tubed and solid-state buffering, the former indicated by a blue light at the center of the tube's socket; thus the window offers visual confirmation of an audible function that some may consider subtle.
Inside, much of the decco65's size and weight are accounted for by a large toroidal power transformer, with the remaining power-supply components located on the rear half of the main preamplifier printed circuit board. A class-D power amplifier, built around a Texas Instruments (née Toccata) Equibit chipset, occupies a 5.5" by 3.2" board of its own, approximately 30% of which is taken up by a single chunky heatsink. The amp board sits near the center of the decco65 chassis, itself formed from a single piece of thin-gauge steel and finished in textured black paint.
Alongside three other Peachtree products introduced at the same time—including the more powerful nova125 that Sam Tellig reviewed in January—the decco65 is the company's first product to offer a USB digital input capable of handling 24-bit/192kHz data, and operating in the preferred asynchronous mode. In the decco65 and nova125, the iDecco's ESS Sabre 9006 DAC chip has been replaced by ESS's 9023 chip. According to Peachtree Audio's David Solomon, the asynchronous USB datastream is clocked right at the DAC.
Installation and setup
During its time in my home, the Peachtree decco65 replaced the electronics in two different systems: For the first few weeks it sat atop a nothing-special bookshelf in my living room and drove my restored Quad ESL loudspeakers; for the serious listening that was the basis of the observations below, the decco65 drove my Audio Note AN-E SPe/HE loudspeakers and the review samples of DeVore Fidelity's Orangutan O/96 speakers, both in my 12' by 19' listening room. In the latter setting, the Peachtree occupied two different spaces: When playing CDs and LPs—the latter by means of a borrowed Leben RS 30EQ phono preamplifier—the decco65 sat on the middle shelf of a Box Furniture rack; when playing music files streamed through its USB input, it sat on a short pinewood table near my Apple iMac, to keep USB cable length to no more than 1m. Hookup was easy and logical; my only serious criticism of the decco65 from that perspective is its lack of more than one pair of line-level inputs. The hobbyist who wishes to use a phono preamplifier and a CD player—not to mention a tuner or a tape deck—will have to look elsewhere.
The decco65 became only mildly warm to the touch during use, no doubt aided in that regard by the metal cooling vents built into the top and bottom surfaces of its wooden wrap. Unfussy in its cabling requirements, it seemed perfectly happy with the fabric-sheathed, copper-conductor speaker cables from Auditorium 23 that have become my favorites over the past five-plus years. The decco65 didn't appear to invert absolute signal polarity when driven with line-level sources—my Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player, my AudioQuest DragonFly USB D/A converter, and the aforementioned Leben phono preamp—but I was slightly less sure when listening to its S/PDIF and USB digital inputs. I found myself very slightly preferring the sound with the polarity inverted at both pairs of output terminals, although those differences seemed smaller than usual, and did not, for whatever reason, call to mind to the sonic indicators I usually associate with correct and incorrect signal polarity. Go figure.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
Nick Drake's Mama.
With cooing vocals rich with longing guided by a gentle stream of tape hiss, a recently unearthed batch of recordings from Molly Drake elicit memories real and imaginary.
I've touched on the subject of the collision of music and memories—how music can transfer the listener from one space and time to the next affirming Kurt Vonnegut's theories of Trafalmadorian time travel, which proclaim each moment of time is interconnected. One can transfer in and out of moments, both past, present, and future. In this case, the vehicle of time transportation is the music of Molly Drake. And while I can't say I've ever experienced my own mother quivering like Edith Piaf in front of a living room piano with such convicting and mournful words as, "I remember firelight / You remember smoke...I remember trees / You remember gnats...I remember oranges / And you remember dust," that doesn't mean I haven't felt the sadness Drake shares. Drake contrasts the subjectivity of memory in these lines. She remembers sweetness (oranges), but her lover remembers none (dust). Despite the connectivity of memories and music, it is different for each person experiencing it.
This depth could have only come from one woman, Molly Drake, who could have only given birth to one special little boy, singer-songwriter Nick Drake. An unreleased collection of Molly Drake's songs will be released by Squirrel Things Recordings on March 5, 2013. The songs were recorded in living room sessions on tape and direct-to-disk recorders in the Drake household in the 1950s. Molly Drake's piano ballads and telling imagery puts you both in her shoes and in that living room. Like her son's music, Drake's songs carry both a pensive sadness and a star-gazing optimism.
The recordings were restored by John Wood, the engineer on all three of Nick Drake's albums. The CD can be pre-ordered from Amazon. On Amazon one can also hear extended clips of songs unavailable on the bandcamp page. The CD includes a custom letterpress jacket, a sixteen page booklet of family photos, and a biography by of Molly Drake by daughter Gabrielle. Hopefully her collection of memories can paint this musical heritage a little bryter.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Vondelpark: "California Analog Dream"
Their sound is surprisingly mature for such a young band—all of the members are in their very early 20s—but I really shouldn’t be surprised: Listening to their aptly titled “California Analog Dream,” I’m reminded of fellow Londoners SBTRKT, the XX, and James Blake, all of whom have cultivated distinct, sophisticated sounds that belie their age. This music is understated, restrained, and undeniably smooth, but still manages a deep and soulful groove.
If “California Analog Dream” is too radio-friendly for your taste, try also “Dracula,” which combines lush electronics, a gentle break beat, and reverberant vocals for a listening experience that’s as lulling as it is intriguing.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
CocoRosie Announce Tales of a GrassWidow
If the first single, “Gravediggress,” serves as an indication, I think expectations will be met. The song, like my favorite work from CocoRosie, utilizes jazz, folk, pop, and experimental elements to match an uninhibited, childlike playfulness with an underlying darkness—an unsettling but compelling sound.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
More Cassettes
Interestingly (to me, at least), a day later I heard from David Crookes, a reporter for The Independent, who was working on an article about certain technologies and gadgets that refuse to die. (Damn, I do love being seen as expert on obsolete technologies.) You can read David’s piece here.
And, a day after that, I heard from Paul Ashby, sales manager for the outstanding distribution company Revolver USA. Revolver, too, had just put together a (long) list of the cassettes they currently have in stock. There are nearly 100 titles, most of which come from smaller labels (Boner, Ammp, Bennifer Editions), but larger and more established independents like Drag City and Not Not Fun are also represented. And while most of the artists are relatively obscure, a few names—Blues Control, Silver Jews, Om, Woods, Sic Alps—should be familiar to regular Stereophile readers.
Did you say, "cassettes"?
Why, yes, I did.
While sales "aren't exactly brisk," Paul Ashby sees more and more labels getting in the mix. And with Drag City in on the action, I wouldn't be surprised if that trend continued.
Check out Revolver’s list of cassettes here.
Looks like cassettes are indeed refusing to die. And that's good news for everyone because more music equals more happiness.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Vandersteen Audio Treo loudspeaker
But of perhaps equal if not more importance to the commercial success of the Model 2 and its variants—more than 80,000 pairs had been sold by the turn of the century, and the speaker is still available as the 2Ce Signature II—was the fact that Vandersteen had offered the speaker at a price significantly lower than should have been possible for the sound quality on offer: $1125/pair in 1986, and only slightly higher, $1295/pair, in 2000. He managed this by dispensing with the usual wood-veneered enclosure, instead surrounding the speaker's carcass with a black rectangular sock.
And such was the Model 2's performance/price ratio that it wasn't until the introduction, in 1997, of the technically sophisticated Model 5, with its powered subwoofer section, that Vandersteen had a loudspeaker that wasn't undercut by the then-venerable Model 2. The Model 5 also broke with tradition by having a veneered enclosure for its low-frequency drivers, though it continued the minimal-baffle concept for its upper-frequency drivers. Vandersteen's Quatro and Quatro Wood, respectively reviewed by Michael Fremer in July 2006 and Wes Phillips in December 2007, combined a less-expensive development of the Model 5's powered subwoofer with a tweeter/midrange/upper-woofer array mounted on a conventional baffle at the top of a tall enclosure. The Wood had a veneered enclosure; the basic Quatro saved its purchaser money by enclosing an unfinished box in a black cloth sock. However, the Quatros continued the minimal-baffle concept by tapering the enclosure toward its top.
The next Vandersteen designs were both more and less expensive than the Quatro. The Model 7, reviewed by Michael Fremer in March 2010, took Vandersteen's design ideas to a new level of performance, though at a price: $48,000/pair upward, for which you could purchase 20 pairs of Model 2Ce Signature IIs (which now costs $2395/pair). The Treo, which I listened to in prototype form at the 2011 CES, goes in the other direction. It's conceptually similar to the Quatro Wood, but replaces that speaker's active, equalized bass unit with a conventional 6.5" woofer and an 8" flat-cone subwoofer, both loaded with a 2" port. Whereas the Quatro Wood costs $10,900/pair, the Treo is priced at $5990/pair. Once the Treo was in production, I asked for samples; Richard Vandersteen sent me a pair in fall 2012.
The Treo . . .
. . . has the same dimensions as the Quatro Wood—43" high by 10" wide by 15" deep—but weighs 80 lbs, compared to the more expensive speaker's 122 lbs. The enclosure is finished in wooden veneer, but all but the bottom 7" of the front baffle is covered by the substantial black cloth grille. Each of the three upper drive-units stands proud of the baffle on a small subchassis; the grille's frame surrounds each of the diaphragms with a smooth surface to optimize diffraction and minimize reflections of the high frequencies from the baffle edges. Use of the grille is mandatory, therefore.
The tweeter is the same ferrofluid-cooled, hard-anodized, aluminum-alloy dome used in the Quatros and the Model 5. Mounted immediately below it on the gently sloped-back front baffle and crossing over at 5kHz is what appears to be the same 4.5" midrange unit as used in the Quatros: a woven-composite cone and dustcap terminated with a flat surround, and a die-cast chassis with minimal aerodynamic obstruction behind the cone. Mounted immediately below the midrange is the 6.5" upper woofer, which handles frequencies below 900Hz and has a woven-fiber cone and a substantial half-roll rubber surround.
At the base of the baffle section is an 8" subwoofer, covering the range from 36 to 80Hz. This features a shallow carbon-loaded pulp diaphragm to which, over the dustcap, a ring has been glued to add mass. The two woofers are reflex-loaded with a 2"-diameter, downfiring port mounted under the Treo's integral plinth. Two cones screw into the front of the plinth to provide the necessary floor clearance for the port. A third cone screws into the center rear of the plinth, while two outrigger spikes prevent the Treo from tipping over.
The crossover is first-order, with 6dB/octave slopes. Electrical connection is via Vandersteen's traditional terminal strip mounted to a metal plate on the speaker's rear, with one pair of screw-down terminals supplied for the midrange and tweeter, another pair for the two woofers. Richard Vandersteen holds that a terminal strip provides a more secure, more reliable connection. However, the Treo's terminals are too narrow for the chunky spades of my AudioQuest Wild cables. I used Cardas Clear connected to the low-frequency terminals, with Kimber Kable jumpers connecting the upper-frequency drivers.
Overall, the Treo is a good-looking piece of audio furniture, elegantly proportioned.
Listening
The Treos proved relatively straightforward to set up in my room. The primary adjustments I made were to bring the upper- and lower-midrange regions into balance by experimenting with the distance of each speaker from the nearest sidewall. However, the upper midrange remained a little emphasized in absolute terms. This didn't lead to any noticeable coloration, but it undoubtedly aided the Treo's superb clarity.
Footnote 1: Stereophile has reviewed several variants of the Model 2 over the years. Click here, here, here, here, and here.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
Recording of March 2013: Old Yellow Moon
Nonesuch 534285-2 (CD). 2013. Brian Ahern, prod.; Donivan Cowart, eng.; John Baldwin, Noland O'Boyle, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 41:04
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
A recent survey of my teenaged nephew and his friends turned up a number of musical trends both predictable and surprising. It sent them into paroxysms of disbelief and laughter when the old-man uncle asked whether they liked any guitar bands, like, say . . . Green Day. Guitar bands, to say the least, ain't cool. Pop-oriented hip-hop artists like Whiz Khalifa are. So are white, pop-rock "country" singers like Jason Aldean, whom teenaged boys, even in the age of piracy, continue to spend money on, be it downloads or a CD to rip.
Like everything else in the music business these days, Nashville has changed. What labels remain now chase hit singles rather than solid albums. The loudness wars there are over, with overprocessed sound the clear winner. And the songwriting, once the unassailable jewel in Music City's crown, has turned to soulless, soft-rock gruel played and sung by a bunch of clean-cut, tattooed halfwits, who are more concerned with overnight stardom than any lasting artistic impression. A universe away from Hank and Patsy, not to mention Willie, Waylon, and the boys, Nashville is now the pop-rock capital of the world, and in the process has sadly lost much of the soul that once poured from that monument to craft and heart known as Music Row.
Yet back in the 1970s, when Nashville had room for more flavors, from Charley Pride to Charlie Daniels, a young singer could cut her own trail. From Pieces of the Sky (1975) through White Shoes (1983), the team of Nova Scotian producer Brian Ahern and former Gram Parsons duo partner Emmylou Harris recorded an alternate universe of country music. That first album, Pieces of the Sky, announced to the world that Harris and Ahern, who married in 1977, meant to respect the past and incorporate the present while keeping an eye firmly fixed on the future by drawing material from the Beatles, Shel Silverstein, and, in the case of "Bluebird Wine," from a young, unknown singer-songwriter from Texas named Rodney Crowell. More a country-rock or perhaps a folk-rock album, Pieces of the Sky also quickly became known as one of the more expensive records of its era to produce, largely due to the fact that Harris and Ahern had paid to build one of the greatest backing bands in rock history, aptly known as the Hot Band. Although several tracks on Pieces of the Sky were cut with members of Parsons' former band, the Fallen Angels, the rest were recorded, with little rehearsal, by the new group. To assemble this killer ensemble, Harris and Ahern decided to raid the hottest band they could think of at the time, recruiting pianist Glen Hardin, drummer Ron Tutt, and the incomparable guitarist James Burton, from Elvis's band—which, despite its leader's many problems, was always incredibly musical. Although there were personnel changes over time, the hottest incarnation of the Hot Band was the one that simmered with the vocal duets of Harris and Crowell.
Now the pair have reunited to record an album that both re-creates their long-ago vocal magic and is the antithesis of today's soulless country music. Opening with the mid-tempo "Hanging Up My Heart," by former Hot Band pedal-steel player Hank DeVito, and Roger Miller's "Invitation to the Blues," which Ray Price made into a honky-tonk hit, the album shifts gears with "Spanish Dancer," by Patti Scialfa (Mrs. Bruce Springsteen), with Harris's soprano, still strong if agreeably burnished and mellowed, leading the way. Next is a slow duet on Crowell's "Open Season on My Heart," with Ahern on acoustic guitar, Fallen Angel John Ware on drums, and Pieces of the Sky alum and Little Feat keyboardist Bill Payne on B-3 organ, all of whom underline the famous opening stanza:
Here's to the corners yet to turn
Here's to the bridges yet to burn
Here's to the whole thing blown apart
It's open season on my heart.
But then these two veterans reach into their bag of tricks, kick up the tempos, and pour on the country soul in a swinging version of Kris Kristofferson's "Chase the Feeling." That vibe continues in a new version of "Bluebird Wine," recorded here at a faster tempo, with Crowell singing lead instead of Harris. Given this pair's vocal abilities and introspective personalities, a sad song or two is inevitable, and none here is greater than their soaring, intertwining, bittersweet rendering of Matraca Berg's epic "Back When We Were Beautiful." A gentle, lyrical "Old Yellow Moon," another DeVito number, closes the album. Like the Ahern-Harris productions of the past, the sound is beautifully delineated and detailed. A long-overdue good idea proven to be great.—Robert Baird
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Artemis Systems Eos Signature loudspeaker & Base Module
Though the original Artemis Systems Eos has been around for a few years, it doesn't seem to have made a big impression on audiophiles. Judging by a brief but exciting audition of the new Eos Signature and its accompanying Base Module at HI-FI '96, I found it hard to understand how it could remain such a well-kept secret. A few weeks later, to my surprise, Wes Phillips asked me if I wanted to review a pair and, throwing caution to the winds, I jumped at the opportunity. Rash move. The movers delivered three large boxes and two absolutely huge crates. Inside the boxes were the two Eos Signatures and their external crossovers. Each crate contained a Base Module, and their appearance struck fear into my heart. I had gone too far—each one weighed 300 lbs, and together they were more commodious than some apartments in my Manhattan neighborhood. I signed for the delivery, then panicked when I realized there was no way to get these unpacked before my wife came home. Indeed, I didn't know how I was going to do it at all.
Enlisting a friend with a strong back and a sturdy dolly (the kind with wheels), we began by removing the multitude of screws that held the top and one side of each crate. We then gently walked each 225-lb Base Module onto the dolly for its trip to the other end of the listening room. While I can describe this task in two sentences, it was a long and serious undertaking. We had an easier task with the Eos Signatures (only 70 lbs each) and crossovers, and the precisely matched wood grain confirmed that each Signature was positioned correctly on its Base Module.
For wiring to their external crossovers, the Eos Signatures came with four stout lengths of Cardas Golden Hex 5C cable. But the Base Modules require separate wiring, so we quickly hooked up the Signatures without the Base Modules to see if our strenuous efforts had been in a good cause. Within seconds, we smiled at each other; these speakers were something special.
Description
From the front, the Eos Signature looks like a truncated pyramid. The front panel tilts gently back, its sides and top strongly chamfered. Under the grille one finds a damping pad of thick felt with openings cut precisely to accommodate the 1" concave ceramic-dome HF driver and the 7" three-layer Kevlar/Nomex honeycomb woofer/midrange. The rear surface of the Eos bears a large flared port. While the standard Eos looks the same and has a first-order crossover network built-in, the Eos Signature has an external crossover box. Despite this, the Signature is no lighter than the standard Eos; a substantial internal damping system has been added to a cabinet that already had 1.25"-thick side walls and a 3"-thick front panel! The Signature's external crossover is first-order (6dB/octave), providing significant overlap in the output of the two drivers, and its larger-capacity components are isolated from the busy acoustic environment of the speaker enclosure.
The width of the Base Module's upper surface fits the Eos Signature exactly, and its chamfered sides mirror those of its companion. The Base Module is heroically constructed of a five-layer composite with 2"-thick side walls and a 4"-thick front panel. It's simply oblivious to knuckle raps. Inside is an 11" Kevlar/Nomex driver similar to the 7" woofer/midrange, and the flared port on the rear is a bigger version of the one on the Eos. Although the Base Module contains a low-pass filter tailored to match the rolloff of the Eos, the two are wired in parallel, with no additional high-pass filtering on the Eos. The combined shape of the Eos/Base Module is graceful, the quality of the finish extraordinary, and, surprisingly, it does not dominate the room. In fact, this is the first loudspeaker in my living room to elicit favorable comments from my wife and from my interior-decorator neighbor, neither of whom cares a lot about sound.
Let's hear it already!
We wired up the Eos Signatures, leaving the Base Modules to serve only as, well, bases, and positioned them in a seemingly reasonable location facing straight ahead. From the get-go, it was apparent that these speakers can make music come alive. Focused as we were on the hardware, it was especially stunning to hear them "disappear." Sounds seemed to emanate from the spaces between, above, behind, and even beside the Eoses, but only rarely from the cabinets themselves.
Think about it: With an ensemble playing in a wide, deep soundstage, no more than one voice/instrument could be where the speaker is; and yet, many speakers draw your attention to themselves. I'm not talking about phase anomalies to give a false sense of spaciousness. Not here. Every voice was precisely and repeatably localizable. In addition, the Eos Signature sounded smooth and coherent, as evidenced by the fact that sibilants were placed with the rest of the instrument or voice, and not drawn toward the drivers. Even when I walked up to and around the speakers, the sound still seemed to hang in nearby space.
This was so encouraging that I decided to live with the Eos Signatures alone for a while, and not wire up the Base Modules until I'd gotten a full appreciation of the sound without them. After all, at the asking price, the Eos Signatures by themselves are a serious purchase option, and Artemis does offer spiked, sand-fillable stands for such use. The Signatures seemed pretty indifferent to placement, so long as they were at least 3' from any wall and at least 10' from the listener. Artemis says that 6' is minimal, and that 8' or more is optimum. I can't agree that anything less than 10' could be called "optimum," although the speaker is "listenable" even at 5'.
Toe-in, of course, will be dependent on listening distance and environment. In my setup, with a listening distance of about 12', I used only about 8° of toe-in; the medial surfaces of the cabinets were still visible from the listening position. With a Sonic Frontiers Power 2 amplifier, bass response seemed ample, and the balance was not much affected by various speaker placements unless one got too close to the back or side walls. The effect of such proximity was decidedly negative, tilting the balance toward the bass and muddying it as well.
The SF Power-2 and McCormack DNA-1 power amps drove the Eos Signatures easily and successfully, although not identically (see below). With either amp the sound of the speakers was quite transparent, the unspecified crossover frequency difficult to characterize (I guess it to be about 3kHz). I developed an obsession—exacerbated when I added the Base Modules—with trying to find fault by attending to mediocre recordings and broadcasts. Every morning before I stepped into the shower, every time I got home, and every evening just before turning in, I had to sample a randomly selected FM broadcast. Each time I did this, I was amazed: the system sounded wonderful! This is not to say that all the music was wonderful, but I consistently felt that I was listening through the system to the recording and the music. The speakers had a quite neutral balance, and did not seem to impose any character on most recordings. If it was an old LP with scratches and surface noise, the noise was in a different and distinct space, and the music was still coherent. What was most remarkable was that the noises and vagaries of less-than-perfect recordings were eminently apparent, but didn't obtrude on my musical appreciation!
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
The Mission System
Farad, however, was effectively the sole driving creative force eight or nine years ago, when I used to regularly visit him at his London apartment and witness stages in the design of a loudspeaker that, in retrospect, would put Mission Electronics on the high-end map. As well as drinking large amounts of his liquor, night after night I would witness Farad putting record after record on his Linn, listening to what seemed to be innumerable prototypes of what became the Mission 770, trying to match the midrange accuracy of the classic "BBC-sound" Spendor BC1 but marrying it to a less loose bass region, more suited to the special requirements of modern LP replay.
And to a large extent he succeeded. I can remember almost painfully exquisite reproduction of Jackson Browne's live Running on Empty album, Emmylou Harris just taking my breath away with Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town, and Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing causing us to boogie until we were disturbed by the early-morning sounds of London's pigeons taking their first cough. The 770 was one of the first speakers to use a polypropylene-cone bass/midrange unit; the combination of an upper-midrange transparency rare at the time of its launch, and low frequencies that, while never quite as tight as those of the Linn Isobarik, nevertheless were "fast" and played tunes effectively, caused the 770 to be the loudspeaker of choice for many UK audiophiles in the early '80s.
Farad and I somewhat lost contact over the following years, and perhaps inevitably, I found myself losing sympathy with the sound of Mission's loudspeakers. While always detailed and fast, and offering excellent value for money, they increasingly featured, in my opinion, a somewhat forward midrange which didn't fit with my awakening tastes for subtlety and restraint in high-end sound. If you take perfection in sound reproduction to lie at the top of a broad-skirted mountain, then you could say that Farad's and my paths toward perfection diverged around opposite sides of the mountain. The destination may be the same, but the incidental scenery is totally different.
Time passed, however, and in 1986 I found myself being drawn again toward the sounds of Farad's brainchildren. Aided by the set-up skills of one of the partners in Mission's Canadian subsidiary, Armi Leonetti, Mission had always obtained excellent sound in their CES exhibits. While the top models in Mission's new generation of loudspeakers, the 770 Freedom and 780 Argonaut, didn't look or sound anything like their distinguished ancestor, the original 770, they sounded good on their own terms. Low frequencies had excellent weight, without the almost universal propensity for box loudspeakers to lose definition in the upper bass, while sensitivity was high, so that the speakers would produce high sound-pressure levels with the relatively modest output power of the Mission amplification.
Intrigued, I spent a weekend at Mission's Canada HQ in Toronto, listening to an Argonaut- and Cyrus-based system put together by Armi. Impressed with what I had heard, I requested a complete Mission system for review, resulting in the words you are now reading. Each piece of equipment—the PCM 7000 CD player, Cyrus Two integrated amplifier, and 780 Argonaut loudspeaker—was first auditioned in the context of my own usual system, based on a Linn Troika/Ittok/Sondek feeding an Audio Research SP10/Krell KSA-50 combination which in turn drives Celestion SL600 loudspeakers on spiked Foundation stands. Interconnects and speaker cables are by Monster; beer by Corona; Scotch by The Macallan. Following that experience, the three components were auditioned as a complete Mission system.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
Berklee College Offers Free Online Course on Music Production
Image courtesy the Berklee College of Music
Since its founding, Boston's famed Berklee College of Music has marched to the beat of its own drum section, preferring experienced working musicians over credentialed academics as instructors, and emphasizing practical knowledge over disembodied theory.
As examples, Berklee offered the first college-level instrumental program in guitar, as well as the first college-level course in jingle writing. Alumni include Toshiko Akiyoshi, Donald Fagen, Arif Mardin, and Brad Mehldau, while Stereophile’s Bob Reina studied composition with Jack Stock at Berklee. Berklee pioneered the use of media technology in arts education, starting in 1959 with its Jazz in the Classroom LP series of student compositions.
In collaboration with Coursera, the online learning company, and starting March 1, Berklee will be offering at no charge the course Introduction to Music Production, taught by Berklee instructor Loudon Stearns.
There is an informational video on YouTube; registration information can be found here. The online course's six units cover recording, editing, mixing, and effects. There are to be both real-time quizzes, and homework assignments that will involve manipulating supplied MP3 tracks for peer evaluation. The anticipated workload is 6–8 hours a week.
Future online free Berklee/Coursera courses will include Songwriting, Introduction to Guitar, and Introduction to Improvisation. Future non-Berklee Coursera music courses will include History of Rock and Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Ben Goldberg's Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues
The band is topnotch: Goldberg on clarinet, Joshua Redman on tenor sax, Ron Miles on trumpet, Devin Hoff on bass, and Ches Smith on drums. (I recently raved about Miles' album, Quiver, with Bill Frisell and Brian Blade; I'm less familiar with Hoff and Smith, though intend to rectify that.)
There's a clairvoyance in their playing, an ensemble flair for stretching the tempo and snapping it back in a way that lets the music float without drifting. Even when the polyphony gets ripe, each line is crisp and propulsive.
The streams flow so clearly, thanks in part to the CD's sonic purity and dynamics. Along with Dave Douglas' Be Still (engineered by Joe Ferla), Subatomic Particle... is one of the best-sounding new jazz CDs I've heard in a long time. The horns are right there, arrayed in a row; you can practically see the air pushing through their shapes and out into the room. The bass snaps and sings; the drumkit slaps and sizzles.
Jeff Cressman, the Bay area engineer who laid down the tracks, tells me he recorded the session on 88.2kHz/24-bit digital with Apogee converters in a now-defunct studio renown for its well-balanced acoustics. He used two Coles 4038 ribbon mikes for the Bb clarinet (switching to an RCA77 when Goldberg played contra-alto), an omni Schoeps MK2 capsule for the trumpet, a Neumann TLM170 for the bass, and a mix on the trapset, including AKG 452s overhead, Beyer M380s on the tom-toms, Schoeps hyper-cardoid on the hi-hat, and a large tube condenser on the kick drum. Mark Orton, a Portland mixing engineer, sent it through an analog outboard, with little tampering, before converting it back to digital.
It sounds great.
One sad fact: The session was recorded in 2008. After failing to find a buyer, Goldberg started his own label (BAG Production Records) and put it out there, along with a growing line of products, which I also intend to check out.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Cats and Audio
Alright. I've already broken my promise by talking too much about Larry.
Here's a couple pictures from Reddit user whitekeys of his Adcom GFA 5802 amplifier after years of his feline friend using it as a heated chair.
After whitekeys cleaned his amp of cat hair, he said heard improvements in the bass.
Larry tends to stay away from my Cambridge 540a integrated amplifier. Rather than comfort, Larry seeks excitement and dreams of becoming a DJ. I can't stop him from jumping up on my Rega P1 and pressing his paws against the spinning vinyl. Scratch-Scratch.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
