Home » Archives for July 2013
Bill Frisell’s Big Sur
The music from the quartet’s first album, 858 Richter, written to accompany a 2005 museum show of new works by the German painter Gerhard Richter, tried to capture his steely abstraction and his pastoral calm, but never quite fused the two. Sign of Life, recorded six years later, settled for the calm; it was almost all gorgeous chamber music. Big Sur is a true synthesis, with a decided tilt toward the graceful and the melodic: the unnerving strands insinuate themselves only slightly, through the color notes and the jagged rhythms (for which Royston supplies the accents).
This is not “difficult” music. Most of it sways, saunters and swings. Frisell has managed to pack layers of sound into his concoctions, and you can bask in the top waves or delve deep into the undercurrents, as you choose. There are pleasures at all levels.
The album’s title shouldn’t be taken too literally. Frisell wrote the music at Glen Daven Ranch in Big Sur, California, and the band performed it for the first time just last year at the nearby Monterey Jazz Festival.
As with Sign of Life, the recording was produced by Lee Townsend, engineered by Adam Munoz, and mastered by Greg Calbi. The sound is both lush and dynamic: a bit pop-electrified, but the effect is apt for this music, and immersive.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Wilson Audiophile Recordings Return
As I learned in a phone chat with Wilson, by the time he released the game-changing WAMM loudspeaker in November 1981 and left Cutter Labs, where he designed medical equipment in April 1982, he had already spent five years recording musicians and music that he loved. In fact, the main impetus for designing the WAMM was his discovery that the reference loudspeakers he initially tried to use could not adequately convey all the information on his recordings.
"I was hearing the real music, and then trying to make the loudspeaker sound like it," he says. "Today, when I hear orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, I listen specifically for sound qualities that I find rewarding, and trying to capture those in the sound of the loudspeakers. If, for example, I hear tenor Rolando Villazón when he's rehearsing and go 'Wow,' I try to figure out what qualities in his sound elicit my reaction, and then work to get my loudspeakers to evoke the elements of his sound that generate the same emotional response. Sometimes, I discover the limitations are in the recordings themselves; other times, I realize that I can do better."
Between 1977 and 1995, Wilson made 33 recordings, 27 of which were released to the public. (The rest were privately commissioned by artists, and never intended for public release.) Using minimal miking and custom-modified recording equipment, Wilson continually refined his recording skills and technique as he sought to get "up close and personal" with the sound of musicians and music he loved. As he explains in an online video, his recordings reflect how he preferred to hear music in live performance.
In preparing the recordings for digital release, Wilson worked closely with Bruce Brown of Puget Sound. Offered a choice between a number of analog-to-digital converters, Wilson discovered big differences in their sound. His eventually settled on a Meitner unit, which, he contends, creates transfers that "sound much better than the CDs, and, in some cases, as good or better than the LP."
Many of Wilson's recordings of chamber, organ, big band, and jazz met with critical and public acclaim, with a number of LPs earning a place on Harry Pearson's oft-changing Best-Sounding lists. HP loved pianist Hyperion Knight's Beethoven "Waldstein" Sonata and Stravinsky Petrouchka, and the Symphonic Winds' recordings Center Stage and Winds of War and Peace. Stereophile, in turn, heaped praise on Steinberg and Abel's renditions of Beethoven's Sonata in G major, Op.96 and Enescu's spicy Sonata No.3, Op.25 (in Rumanian Folkstyle).
Recital
Wilson recalls attending an organ concert in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral and hearing young Stanford University doctoral candidate, James B. Welch. "I've got to record this guy," he thought to himself. A look at the catalog number for the LP of Recital, W-782, reveals that it was Wilson's second recording, made in 1978.
For the recording, he chose the Flentrop tracker organ in All Saints Episcopal Church in Palo Alto. "I absolutely adore these organs for their articulation, detail, and harmonic structure," he says. "It's delightful to me."
For the session, he used AKG 414 microphones in the hyper-cardiod pattern pioneered by the BBC, a 15ips, half-track Revox A77 with modified electronics and cabling, and an Audio Research SP-3 preamp whose phono input was modified to a microphone input. With the AR's power supply separated and isolated from the chassis, Wilson says it sounded "dramatically better" than the stock unit.
Beethoven and Enescu Sonatas
While Wilson had already recorded piano by the time he began working with world-class musicians Steinberg and Abel in the Mills College Concert Hall in Oakland, CA, it was the first time he recorded a violin. Experimenting with different microphone positions in an attempt to capture what he calls the "delicious geometry" of sound emanating from Abel's Guarneri and Steinberg's Hamburg Steinway D, he ended up hanging his Schoeps CMC-36 microphones from a ladder high above the instruments. Of the results, he says, "I'd put the recording up against any chamber music recording. It has to be my favorite."
Reached at their home in Oakland, Steinberg and Abel, whose trio with percussionist William Winant has commissioned music from the likes of John Harbison, Lou Harrison, Paul Dresher, Somei Satoh, and Gordon Mumma (for starters), reminisced about their time with Wilson.
"The session was free of the time pressure and tension that can really get in the way of the final outcome," says Abel. "If we wanted to stop for a bite, or go outside to rest for a while, that was not a problem... Dave kept open to what was happening in the moment, as in a concert. He understood about not making a 'perfect' recording, and instead left the small imperfections... that make the final result sound human and real. One could not ask for better.
"Dave has one of the most sophisticated and perceptive set of ears that I have ever encountered in the recording world. It was amazing the things he would notice. He had an acute sense of the difference between the two instruments, as well as of their melding and blending. It was the awareness one would expect from a musician."
Steinberg recalls that the takes were extremely long, sometimes for an entire movement, with just a few little fix-ups required.
"I didn't feel like I was working for Dave—we were all in this thing together, working to create the recording," she reports. "Dave was the easiest person in the world to work with. He never lost his cool, and was very calm, steady, and patient. He had tremendous energy, and was very accommodating. It was so unlike other recording sessions that I've been in that are tense and structured, with orders barked at us. It was the closest experience I've ever had to creating [an actual] performance. That's why the editing was minimal."
She contrasts Wilson's goal, which was to recreate the experience of live performance, with that of producers and engineers who insist on editing out the naturally occurring imperfections that invariably flavor live performance.
"I think that's impacting what audiences expect in a concert hall," she opines. "They expect to hear what's on the record. It generates a kind of practice on the part of musicians that is absolutely predictable and sounds like the recording."
As for Wilson's take on what he was doing, he says, with extreme honesty, "I was making those recordings for me, frankly. I just wanted that live sound. But capturing it is a real challenge."
As to how well he succeeded, and how good his taste in music and musicians is, you can now hear for yourself. Judging from the few, short, deliciously color-saturated and detailed 176.4/24 clips I have auditioned through Wilson Audio Specialties W/P Sasha loudspeakers; Pass Labs XA 200.5 class-A monoblock amplifiers; dCS's Puccini CD/SACD player/Scarlatti U-Clock combo; Nordost's Odin cabling, brass and titanium Sort Kones, and full compliment of power distribution/noise control devices; Magico QPods; and Synergistic Research's Active USB cable and Tranquility Bases enhanced by their Transporter UltraSE, PowerCell 4 SE, and ART system, I think Wilson is likely to receive your two thumbs up.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Capital Audiofest, Wrap-Up
While I was speaking with Gary Gill, an exhibitor approached and asked if would be too early to sign up for Capital Audiofest 2014; hearing this, another exhibitor expressed the very same thought.
At the midway point of the show's first day, I was inwardly concerned about what appeared to be moderately sparse attendance. The numbers picked up considerably by Day Two—yet even so, the majority of exhibitors with whom I spoke were delighted with the turnout. More than one expressed the feeling that, although the hotel corridors weren't jammed with bodies, the quality of the attendees, in terms of their interest in the gear being played, was markedly higher than usual. (And for all that, according to show manager Gill, this year's attendance surpassed that of CAF 2012.)
As for myself, in spite of eating one crabcake too many and getting far too little sleep, I had a thoroughly wonderful time. In addition to all the above, I enjoyed rare opportunities to lust over vintage gear, including . . .
A selection of original AR loudspeakers in the Audio by Van Alstine room.
An especially nice Thorens TD 124 in a custom-made mahogany plinth by Robert Lighton Audio.
Robin Wyatt's Gray turntable and tonearm (which I covet almost as much as his REL Precedent tuner).
Perhaps best of all, I added a few more titles to my record collection, thanks in part to Chris Hite of Clarion Records pictured in the heading photo (who wrote to me last evening, saying his business was up 50% compared to last year's show).
Capital Audiofest 2013 was, according to any sane standard, a success: Wild horses could not keep me away from CAF 2014.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Capital Audiofest, Day One
That said, it turns out I began my first day at CAF with a somewhat conservative system: a pair of GT Audio Works GTA2 loudspeakers ($6495/pair, above) driven by a pair of very powerful Arion class-D monoblocks ($7500/pair), with a Dodd battery-powered tube preamp ($1750) and Plinius CD 101 CD player (($3300), assembled with various cables from Triode Wire Labs. Though the sound was somewhat skeletal, and left me wishing for a little more timbral flesh on those bass-and-treble bones, an unidentified classical track from the first Philips demo disc was pleasantly compelling, and seemingly free of harshness.
Happily, I didn't have to wait long for the weird to kick in. A visit to the room sponsored by the DC Audio DIY club, offering a rotating line-up of components and systems devised by various members, provided ample evidence of this area's active homebrew scene. During my visit, the system of the moment was built around a pair of Urei 801B full-range drivers on open baffles, created by Roscoe Primrose—whose sense of humor ("Boxes are so passé!") and great taste in demo music (Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad, on vinyl—of course) made my visit a pleasant one.
The good-music trend continued—unsurprisingly—at the room sponsored by Audio Note UK, where Dave Cope demonstrated a system built around the fairly recent Audio Note Empress Silver Signature mono amplifiers ($10,000/pair), each of which uses a pair of 2A3 output triodes in parallel single-ended configuration; the loudspeakers were a well-loved pair of Audio Note AN-E/SPe HEs, the likes of which I've owned and enjoyed for years. Whether it was the room, the quality of the AC power, or something altogether more mysterious, I have no idea, but this system—which I've heard on more than one occasion—sounded better than I've ever heard it, with an ease and a sense of impact that matched its reliable musicality.
More Audio Note gear was to be found next door, in the room sponsored by Robert Lighton Audio, whose namesake designs and sells a range of high-sensitivity Audio Note-inspired loudspeakers of his own. New for this show was the Robert Lighton RL8 monitor ($9800/pair), whose cabinets and exquisite hardwood stands complemented one another, aesthetically, to an extent seldom seen in this hobby. (Furniture designer Lighton also brought his talents to bear on a custom mahogany plinth—price not available—for the Thorens TD 124 he used in his demonstrations.) Even at this early juncture it's hard to imagine another exhibitor topping RLA for Best Music of the Show: Shirley's Horn's performance of "New York's My Home" (a song that was also a high point in David Johanson's live shows as Buster Poindexter), Bobby Short's "I'm Throwing a Ball Tonight," and the title track from the new Love Has Come for You by Steve (Martin) and Edie (Brickell)—all on vinyl—sounded wonderful.
I'm not much of a headphone enthusiast, but I nonetheless enjoyed listening to Alison Krauss and the always-transcendent Tony Rice playing "Sawing on the Strings" in the room sponsored by Woo Audio, a company that designs and manufactures their own (very reasonably priced) headphone amplifiers and D/A converters, and that sells a variety of headphones by Stax, AKG, Beyerdynamic, and others.
Gary Gill, who founded Capital Audiofest and works, seemingly around the clock, to manage its every aspect, stopped by for a listen during my visit to Woo.
A return to a more traditional sort of high-end performance awaited me in one of two rooms sponsored by local distributors/retailers StereoDesk and Audio Prana, where I was impressed by the unusually open yet nicely fleshed-out sound of the Crayon CFR-1 integrated amplifier ($6000) and CCD-1 disc player/streamer ($12,000), driving a pair of the distinctively styled HL 2.2 floor-standing dynamic loudspeakers from Italy's Albedo Audio ($6600/pair).
In the other StereoDesk room I was tantalized by a pair of products that were not yet commercially available: The beautiful Siggwam 12 tonearm from New Zealand—the projected price of which is well under $2000—and an all-silver step-up transformer created by Dave Slagle's company, Emia, both of which were used with a lovely old hammertone Garrard 301 turntable, owned by the noted DC-area audio hobbyist Ijaz Khan.
Even more vintage goodies awaited me in one of the rooms sponsored by the McClean, Virginia-based retailer and manufacturer Déjà vu Audio. In addition to selling new and vintage gear, proprietor Vu Hoang has distinguished himself with a line of original gear that makes generous use of vintage parts, including loudspeaker drivers, tubes, transformers, capacitors, and even chassis, faceplates, knobs, and switches. I was enraptured—no other word for it—by the sound of Deja Vu's Western Electric 753-inspired Hytone loudspeakers ($55,000/pair), the custom cabinets of which were equipped with IPC 15" woofers, original Western Electric KS 6368 horns, and Altec super-tweeters, driven by their custom-built monoblock amplifiers ($13,000/pair), built around Acrosound output transformers, Langevin interstage transformers, and push-pull pairs of original WE 350B output tubes.
For those with neither the desire nor the budget for vintage gear, déjà vu displayed, in a separate room, an all-new system built around an Italian Synthesis A100T integrated amp/digital converter ($7500) and a beautiful pair of ProAc Tablette Anniversary loudspeakers ($2200/pair), whose superb color, textural richness, scale, and sheer authority were all far greater than their tiny size suggested. Yet even in this room, Vu Hoang's dedication to vintage was evident in his own custom-made plinth for the Thorens TD 124 (above): built with shaped plywood, covered with maple veneer, and priced at a surprisingly low $400.
Finally, I had a pleasant meeting with David Janszen, son of electrostatic loudspeaker pioneer Arthur Janszen, who is maintaining his company's good reputation with the model zA2.1 loudspeaker, a non-dipole design in which a pair of electrostatic panels crosses over—at 500 Hz—to a pair of 7" woofers. Manufactured in Columbus, Ohio, the zA2.1 is sold direct for $7495/pair, but David Janszen offers a 20% discount to buyers who are the first in their area to try the brand.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Pre-road downs
Because I regard night driving with the same revulsion that Dothraki horsemen reserve for travel by sea, and because any round trip between upstate New York and our nation’s capital is bound to include at least some driving after dark, I took the train. It was easy and fun—and if your area is served by an Amtrak line that can get you to Washington DC’s Union Station, you can do it, too. It took me just 15 minutes to get from there to the Metro station in Silver Spring, MD, and only 4 more minutes to get from the Metro stop to the Sheraton Silver Spring, which is the new site for Capital Audiofest. See? Easy and fun.
The show begins at 10:00am on Friday, July 26, and runs through 5:00pm on Sunday afternoon. Between now and then I’ll squeeze in all the details that seem to fit, in every sense of the word.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Astell&Kern AK100 portable media player
Ten years later, while the current top-model iPod features a 160GB hard drive, it still can play only files with sample rates of 48kHz and below and a maximum bit depth of 16. Those of us with a growing library of high-resolution files are therefore restricted to playing them in our big rigs at home.
Enter Astell&Kern. At the beginning of 2013, this brand from iRiver, a Korean portable media company, introduced its AK100, a portable player costing a dollar short of $700 and capable of handling 24-bit files with sample rates of up to 192kHz. (A&K calls hi-rez music Mastering Quality Sound or MQS.) All the usual file types are supported—WAV, FLAC, Ogg, APE, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, MP3—but when it was first introduced, the AK100 couldn't play Apple-format files, including those encoded with Apple's Lossless (ALAC) codec. This was a major problem for someone like me, whose iTunes library consists almost entirely of ALAC files. This shortcoming was addressed with an early 2013 firmware update (v.1.30), so I arranged for a review sample. Now I could take my hi-rez files on the road!
The AK100 . . .
. . . is a small and elegant-looking device, its electronics housed in a case of black-anodized aluminum with a hairline finish. A 2.4" color touchscreen grants access to the usual transport controls, as well as the ability to navigate the player's folders and files. The playback volume can be controlled with the touchscreen, but there's also a small volume wheel mounted on the side, to the right of the screen. On the left side, three pushbuttons duplicate the onscreen transport controls, while on the bottom are a micro USB port for connecting the AK100 to a PC and, under a slide cover, two Micro-SD memory-card slots.
A long push of the top-mounted button boots up the AK100. This button also wakes up the display when music is playing; a second push and hold turns the player off. (A cute "SEE YOU SOON" message appears on the display.) Also on the top panel is a 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting headphones, which will also, with an adapter (not included), accept a TosLink optical datalink, so that the AK100 can stream S/PDIF data to an external D/A processor. A second 3.5mm jack is used to send optical S/PDIF data to the AK100, again via an adapter, so it can operate as a standalone DAC.
When music is playing, touching a hexagonal bolt-head icon on the bottom right of the screen brings up a menu. The Info icon shows you the filename and type, the bit and sample rates, and the file size. The Equalizer icon brings up an On/Off button for the equalizer; pressing it on brings up 5 EQ bands that can be boosted or cut with a simple swipe of the finger; pressing on each band brings up a submenu that lets you choose that band's center frequency—the choices are 62Hz, 250Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz, and 16kHz—and further adjust the boost or cut in 1dB steps from –10dB to +10dB . A + icon allows you to add files to a new playlist. And with two more icons, you can select loop or shuffle play.
The AK100 comes with 32GB of internal flash memory. While this may sound like a lot of storage, remember that hi-rez files are large. Whereas a lossless-compressed CD album in ALAC and FLAC formats needs 200–300MB of space, its 24/96 equivalent will need 800–900MB, its 24/192 version 1.2–1.5GB. Fortunately, the AK100's internal storage can be supplemented with one or two 32GB Micro-SD memory cards (the SanDisk and Transcend brands are recommended by Astell&Kern), to give a maximum possible storage of 96GB. Each card appears as a separate drive when you connect the AK100 to your computer and you drag'n'drop music files to it in the usual manner.
The AK100 is said to be the first portable audio device to use Wolfson's WM8740 DAC chip. The WM8740 is a two-channel sigma-delta part that supports data input word lengths from 16 to 24 bits and sampling rates up to 192kHz, and includes digitally controllable mute and attenuator functions. According to its datasheet, the WM8740 offers a reconstruction filter with sharp or slow rolloffs, but Astell&Kern don't specify which they use in the AK100.
Setup
Transferring music to the AK100 is straightforward. PC users can run the iRiver plus4 software, which can manage multiple multimedia files and save them to the AK100, as well as automatically upgrading the player's firmware. Macintosh users connect the Astell&Kern to their Mac with the supplied USB cable and choose "Connect Removable Disk" when that's shown on the touchscreen. ("Charge Battery" is also an option.) The AK100 appears as an external drive on the desktop, and the message "USB Connected" is shown on the touchscreen. Music files can be dragged'n'dropped into the pre-existing "Music" folder. (Unless these are WAV files, the metadata and cover art travel with the audio.) When the AK100 is disconnected, choosing "Settings" on the touchscreen, then pressing "Advanced," then "Auto Library Scan" sorts the files by the associated metadata. Hi-rez files are also added to the MQS playlist during this process.
When you navigate to the Artist folder with the onscreen menu, you can select either each album, in which case the songs will play in the original order, or "All Songs," to play all of the songs on all that artist's albums in alphabetical order. The touchscreen has a little more latency in its response than iPads and iPhones, I found.
As the AK100 isn't supplied with a battery charger, it needs to be connected to the user's PC for its internal battery to be charged. It takes just over five hours for the battery to be completely charged, and the battery life is specified as "up to 16 hours." (A&K say that playing hi-rez files takes more power than CD-quality files.) Playing all sorts of files, I got between 12 and 16 hours per charge.
The AK100 has a Bluetooth function, hwich I assumed would allow it to act as a Bluetooth DAC, though one limited to sample rates of 48kHz and lower. It proved easy to pair with my iPhone 3GS via Bluetooth. However, for some reason, I wasn't able to stream audio to the AK100 from my phone. Astell&Kern subsequently let me know that the Bluetooth function isn't for streaming, but to allow users to hear their phone ringing.
A question of impedance
The Astell&Kern website lists five headphones that they recommend for use with the AK100: the Denon AH-D7100, Audio-Technica ATH-W3000ANV, Beyerdynamic DT1350, and Shure SRH840 and SE425. I don't have any of those, so to assess the AK100 I used the four sets of headphones I regularly use: two over-the-ear models, the Sennheiser HD650 and Sony MDR-7506; and two in-ear monitors, JH Labs' JH16 Pro and Ultimate Ears' 18 Pro. As you can see from the measurements sidebar, the AK100 has an output impedance of 22 ohms. This is significantly higher than iPods and iPhones and will be on the high side for many headphones. With a headphone having an impedance of the same 22 ohms, for example, the output voltage will be halved. And the frequency responses of headphones whose impedance varies with frequency—all of them!—will be modified by the interaction between this high source impedance and those of the headphones.
For example, if you look at the measured impedance of the JH16 Pro, this averages 13 ohms in the lower midrange and bass, rising to 35 ohms at 2kHz, then dropping to 12 ohms at 7kHz. This will modify the headphones' frequency response by –2.6dB in the bass and midrange, +1.8dB in the low treble, then –3dB in the high treble. Similarly, the Ultimate Ears 18 Pro average 18 ohms in the lower midrange and bass, and 11 ohms between 8 and 10kHz, rising to 30 ohms in the low treble. With both of these in-ear monitors, this variation in impedance will shelve down the lower mids and bass compared with the low treble when driven by the AK100—but more so with the JH16 Pro than with the 18 Pro, where the bass and lower midrange will be suppressed by 0.9dB and the low treble emphasized by 1.2dB.
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
I'd Love to Turn You On
My musical history began in the 1980s at a 10W radio station attached to the library of my high school in Holliston, Massachusetts. From my freshman through my senior year, I had a radio show on WHHB where I proudly swam against the stream of popular taste. Sandwiched between the classic-rock shows, Top 40 programs, and live basketball broadcasts, I played records by Sugarhill Gang, Black Flag, Grandmaster Flash, Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, and many other favorites that were relatively unheard of in my small New England town. I admit that this was done partially in teenage defiance, but also in the earnest hope that some of my classmates would join my musical adventures. Thankfully, a small handful came along for the ride.
I was already collecting records, and working in a record shop after school and on weekends. Each of my colleagues had their musical specialty—jazz, country, dance, post-punk, '60s psychedelic rock—and every day was a musical education. In addition to deciphering Christmas lists presented by confused parents (the most memorable: "Institutionalized, by Led Zeppelin"), I was able to recommend to customers the albums I loved. In turn, while digging the bins at Nuggets, in Boston, I often bought what was spinning on the store's turntable. I remember the clerks behind the counter being rather bemused when a teenage girl asked to buy the copy of the album that had been playing on the deck: the Roland Kirk Quartet featuring Elvin Jones. My experience working at four different record shops where I could develop a musical dialogue with each customer could not have been replicated through selling and buying records online. This was and still is the joy of record shops: turning people on to and being turned on to great music.
In New York City, I joined WNYU, where I hosted several radio shows and eventually became program director. At the time, WNYU was one of the most significant college radio stations in the country, due to its huge urban listening audience, and as we were located in the same town as a lot of record companies, artists like the Sugarcubes, Billy Bragg, and others could swing by for an interview or live set. I was a host on The New Afternoon Show, a three-and-a-half-hour program that featured new music such as the latest from Nick Cave, the Butthole Surfers, or the Pixies. I also hosted a '60s-psychedelic-garage-prog-rock broadcast called—get ready for this—Plastic Tales from the Marshmallow Dimension. Later, I was relieved to discover that my lofty pretensions had been shared by one of radio's greats: In the late '60s, John Peel, the eminent BBC Radio One DJ, had a radio show called The Perfumed Garden.
At David Mancuso's Loft parties, I discovered how amazing music could sound. The first time I walked in, I saw a big wooden dance floor surrounded by ten Klipschorns wedged into false corners, the speakers' mid/high drive-units elevated above head height. There were Mark Levinson electronics, and two Mitch Cotter turntables with Fidelity Research tonearms and Koetsu Onyx cartridges. At the time, I didn't know what the hell all of this was, but it looked incredible—and sounded even better! I stood in the center of the dance floor and immersed myself in a musical world of the Orb, Jimi Hendrix, the Blackbyrds, Giorgio Moroder, the Clash, New York house, Detroit techno, and more. The music surrounded me, coursed through me, and I heard things I had never heard before.
The Loft's system was (and is) not purely audiophile: there's a splitter from the preamp to the numerous channels, and the side channels are delayed approximately one millisecond per foot. It can be described as a hi-fi married to an early prototype for a club PA. (David began his parties in 1970.) I was hooked, and David became a mentor. Soon after, he entrusted me with not only playing music for the most discerning dancers in New York City, but also with playing records on his Koetsus. Once, after finishing a 12-hour set that ended at noon, I worked a full day at the record shop Dance Tracks. Oh, the glory of youth.
When I moved to London, I was in demand as a DJ, spinning and mixing vinyl at clubs all over the world. I would play the cool and credible dance music I'd discovered to a small but packed underground party in Kagoshima, Japan, or to a 10,000-capacity amphitheater in Florence, Italy. However, I was unimpressed with many of these clubs' PAs, and frustrated that dancers had grown used to settling for less. So I teamed up with a couple of friends, took out a business loan, and bought equipment similar to the Loft's for our own Lucky Cloud parties in London. My husband and I stored two of the Klipschorns (which dominate our tiny cottage living room), and, after deciding that we needed to up our game, invested in Quad monoblock amplifiers, a Mark Levinson ML-1 preamp, a Nottingham Analogue Ace Space Deck turntable, and a Koetsu Rosewood cartridge.
It sounded sweet, and when friends came over for Sunday lunch, I asked which of their favorite albums they'd like to hear from my extensive collection. I was hoping they would hear it in finer detail and have a deeper listening experience. One friend asked for Brian Eno's Another Green World. After he'd listened to it in its entirety and been appropriately blown away, I turned to him and said, "It's like a classic-album Sunday." Voilà! It was time to communicate this experience on a larger scale.
I feel spiritually rich from a lifetime of sharing music, especially through playback on quality hi-fis—fans should have a more immersive listening experience. And when people scream with joy from a record I play at a Lucky Cloud party, or shed tears when they hear an album at a Classic Album Sunday, it makes the endeavor worthwhile.
Thanks for listening.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Home Theater Merges with Sound & Vision
SIM executives joined these two brands under the Sound & Vision banner because of the undeniably quick evolution of home and portable electronics products. Sales of new audio/video components like soundbars, wireless speakers, high-performance headphones, and computer audio gear have virtually exploded and join more traditional A/V equipment in a vibrant new marketplace. “Using the all-encompassing Sound & Vision name we can more easily address the new ways in which consumers use their entertainment systems,” says Keith Pray, publisher of Sound & Vision, Stereophile, InnerFidelity.com, AudioStream.com, and AnalogPlanet.com.
As a result of the merged brands, Pray notes, advertisers will enjoy benefits like the strongest industry print circulation, a growing digital, interactive version of the magazine and an abundance of digital apps. “Advertisers will find that Sound & Vision’s reach is unrivaled in the industry,” he says.
Rob Sabin, currently editor-in-chief of Home Theater and a former Sound & Vision executive editor, will guide Sound & Vision beginning with the October 2013 issue. It will boast an exciting redesign, new features and a line-up preserving the best elements of both magazines.
“Bringing these two entities together has the effect of putting virtually all of the industry’s most noted experts in one place,” Sabin explains. “We will be ramping up our product review program to cover more gear across a wider range of categories and under the Sound & Vision name we can broaden our audience while continuing to support the serious audio/video enthusiast with the depth of coverage they’ve come to expect from Home Theater.”
The new Sound & Vision publishes ten times a year following the original publication schedule of Home Theater.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
2013 Recommended Components
Components listed here have been formally reviewed in Stereophile and have been found to be among the best available in each of four or five quality classes. Whether a component is listed in Class A or Class E, we highly recommend its purchase.
Each listing—in alphabetical order within classes—is followed by a brief description of the product's sonic characteristics and a code indicating the Stereophile Volume and Issue in which that product's report appeared. Thus the September 2012 issue is indicated as "Vol.35 No.9."
Some products listed have not yet been reported on; these are marked (NR), for "Not Reviewed." We recommend that you read any product's entire review before seriously contemplating a purchase (products without reviews should therefore be treated with more caution)—many salient characteristics, peculiarities, and caveats appear in the reviews, but not here. To obtain back issues of the magazine, visit our website: www.stereophile.com. We regret that we cannot supply photocopies or e-mail copies of individual reviews. All full reviews are reprinted in our website "Archives" Section: these are marked "WWW." More are added each week, so check the on-line listing.
In general, components do not remain listed for more than three years unless at least one of the magazine's writers and editors has had continued experience with them. Discontinuation of a model also precludes its appearance. In addition, though professional components—recorders, amplifiers, monitor speaker systems—can be obtained secondhand and can sometimes offer performance that would otherwise guarantee inclusion, we do not generally do so. Stereophile's "Recommended Components" listing is almost exclusively concerned with products currently available in the US through the usual hi-fi retail outlets.
How recommendations are determined
The ratings given components included in this listing are based entirely on performance—ie, accuracy of reproduction—and are biased to an extent by our feeling that things added to reproduced sound (eg, flutter, distortion, colorations of various kinds) are of more concern to the musically oriented listener than are things subtracted from the sound (eg, deep bass or extreme treble). On the other hand, components markedly deficient in one or more respects are downrated to the extent that their deficiencies interfere with the full realization of the program material.
We try to include in "Recommended Components" every product that we have found to be truly excellent or that we feel represents good value for money. Bear in mind that many different tastes are represented. The listing is compiled after consultation with Stereophile's reviewing staff and editors, and takes into account continued experience of a product after the formal review has been published. In particular, we take account of unreliability and defects that show up after extended auditioning. The fact that a product received a favorable review cannot therefore be regarded as a guarantee that it will continue to appear in this listing.
The prices indicated are those current at the time the listing was compiled (January 2013). We cannot guarantee that any of these prices will be the same by the time this issue of Stereophile appears in print.
There is a near-universal consensus that at some point in the upward climb of component prices, severely diminishing returns (performance versus price) set in. However, there is no agreement as to the exact price level at which that takes place. Where we have found a product to perform much better than might be expected from its price, we have drawn attention to it with a $$$ next to its listing. We also indicate, with a ✩, products that have been on this list in one incarnation or another since the "Recommended Components" listing in Vol.33 No.4 (April 2010). Longevity in a hi-fi component is rare enough that we think it worth noting (although it can also indicate that the attention of design engineers has moved elsewhere).
We are not sympathetic toward letters complaining that the Symphonic Bombast A-123 that we recommended heartily two years ago no longer makes it into "Recommended Components." Where deletions are made, we endeavor to give reasons (there are always reasons). But remember: Deletion of a component from this list does not invalidate a buying decision you have made.
Individual reviewers mentioned by their initials are: John Atkinson, Jim Austin, Paul Bolin, Lonnie Brownell, Martin Colloms, Brian Damkroger, Robert Deutsch, Art Dudley, Michael Fremer, Larry Greenhill, Jon Iverson, Fred Kaplan, Erick Lichte, John Marks, Stephen Mejias, Paul Messenger, Thomas J. Norton, Wes Phillips, Bob J. Reina, Kalman Rubinson, Markus Sauer, Jonathan Scull (J-10), Chip Stern, and Sam Tellig.
How to Use the Listings
The classes each cover a wide range of performance. Carefully read our descriptions here, the original reviews, and (heaven forbid) reviews in other magazines to put together a short list of components to choose from. Evaluate your room, your source material and front-end(s), your speakers, and your tastes. With luck, you may come up with a selection to audition at your favorite dealer(s). "Recommended Components" will not tell you what to buy any more than Consumer Reports would presume to tell you whom to marry!
Class A
Best attainable sound for a component of its kind, almost without practical considerations; "the least musical compromise." A Class A system is one for which you don't have to make a leap of faith to believe that you're hearing the real thing. With Super Audio CD, 24/96 DAD, and DVD-Audio now available, we have created a new Class, A+, for the best performance in those digital categories. Class A now represents the best that can be obtained from the conventional 16/44.1 CD medium. We also created Class A+ categories for turntables and phono preamps, to recognize the achievements of the Continuum Caliburn and Boulder 2008, respectively.
Class B
The next best thing to the very best sound reproduction; Class B components generally cost less than those in Class A, but most Class B components are still quite expensive.
Class C
Somewhat lower-fi sound, but far more musically natural than average home-component high fidelity; products in this class are of high quality but still affordable.
Class D
Satisfying musical sound, but these components are either of significantly lower fidelity than the best available, or exhibit major compromises in performance—limited dynamic range, for example. Bear in mind that appearance in Class D still means that we recommend this product—it's possible to put together a musically satisfying system exclusively from Class D components.
Class E
Applying to “Loudspeakers,” these are entry-level products.
Class K
"Keep your eye on this product." Class K is for components that we have not reviewed (or have not finished testing), but that we have reason to believe may be excellent performers. We are not actually recommending these components, only suggesting you give them a listen. Though the report has yet to be published in certain cases, the reviewer and editor sometimes feel confident enough that the reviewer's opinion is sufficiently well formed to include what otherwise would be an entry in one of the other classes, marked (NR).
Article Continues: Turntables, Tonearms, Cartridges, etc. »
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
The Good Rats' Peppi Marchello dies at 68
The press coverage of Marchello's passing says it all: within 12 hours of Peppi's death, Long Island's Newsday had an obituary on its website. And 10 hours later there was a longer article including interviews with Marchello's musician brother and son and details of the funeral arrangements, which was open to the public. As I write this, six days after Marchello's death, the New York Times still hasn't published a word.
Although The Good Rats never achieved the notoriety of their Long Island-based contemporaries, which include The Young Rascals, Mountain, The Blue Oyster Cult, and Vanilla Fudge, their music today stands up better than that of these other bands. Marchello's music mated accessible catchy melodies with a backdrop of sophisticated double electric guitar harmony and counterpoint over driving rock rhythms. His lyrics spoke of everyman topics and gravitated towards music and the music industry as well as women. From "Songwriter, from their first album Tasty, from 1974:"
"The songwriter can make you laugh or cry
He's pumping gas at night just to survive
And all he asks of you to sing his songs
And put his name in lights where it belongs"
From 1978's "Dear Sir," a cynical take on management in the music industry:
"I am nothing but some red ink or some black
I'm a promotion or a second Cadillac."
Marchello's arrangements demanded nothing less than technical virtuosity and The Good Rats never failed to deliver. Drummer Joe Franco (who literally wrote the book on doubled-bass drumming technique) and bassist Lenny Kotke laid a solid rock foundation for guitarist John Gatto's serpentine rock leads. Peppi's brother, Mickey, was the band's utility infielder. He could provide solid rock rhythm guitar behind Gatto, while holding his own on harmony and counterpoint guitar leads. On the jazzier tunes, he could comp jazz voiced chords as well as an archtop master while providing an angelic vocal harmony to counter his brother's aggressive, raspy soulful lead vocal.
I'll admit that I was obsessed with this band during their heyday in the mid-'70s. That time was the nadir of rock music creativity during my lifetime and I'll admit, I was addicted to Marchello's music, as it filled the void nicely. It was easy to get personally involved. When the band released its second album, Rat City In Blue, without major label support in 1976, I helped Marchello get some airplay on commercial radio in Philadelphia, where I was living at the time. But it was easy to get hooked on this music. When my then-12 year-old cousin, Chuck Bonfante, a fledgling drummer, visited me one day to play me his Osmonds Live album, I rolled my eyes and said, "You want to hear a great live rock band?"and then played him a live version of the largely instrumental gymnastics show,Marchello's "Klash Kabob" from the first Good Rats album, Tasty.
Although he did not admit it to me at the time, that listening session had moved my cousin so much, that, in later years, he sought out drummer Franco to study doubled bass-drumming technique and ended up playing with The Good Rats in an iteration of the band in the late 1980s.
The band's lack of commercial success was frustrating, as bands such as The Cars, Blondie, Cheap Trick, and The Ramones opened for The Good Rats. They achieved stardom but the Rats were left behind. After a number of personnel changes, The Good Rats broke up in 1983 but Marchello remained active over the last 30 years. He had lead several versions of The Good Rats since then, which included one or both of his sons Gene and Stefan, and, over the last three years was especially busy. He would perform with his current version of The Good Rats about six times a month, performing old and new material, mostly at Long Island clubs, and would reconvene the original Good Rats band annually for sold-out shows at New York City's B.B King's.
At the time of his death, The Good Rats website listed 25 upcoming shows, including a March 2014 reunion concert at B. B. King's to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Tasty album. There are also four CDs of newer and never released Marchello material available on Marchello's Uncle Rat Music label at www.goodrats.com.
The Good Rats, circa 1974
It's sad that Peppi Marchello died at a time of intense personal musical activity. At his wake over this past weekend, the Marchello family had tastefully outfitted the funeral home as a virtual Peppi Marchello museum, with rare photos, posters, and memorabilia on display with classic and rare Marchello tunes being piped throughout the funeral home's sound system. Although most of the photos were family related (Marchello is survived by four children, eight grandchildren, two siblings, and his mother), there was also a poster board on which was displayed the music to several tunes he had written over the past two weeks.
Article Continues: The Good Rats Discography »
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
Emily Tries but Misunderstands
"What's arrived?" My 13-year-old daughter Emily showed some uncharacteristic curiosity.
"The new Pink Floyd two-DVD set, P.U.L.S.E, which I've had on order for what seems like forever. It contains four hours of music!"
"What's that, like three Pink Floyd songs?"
Emily is big into the Smiths, Green Day, and AFI. She doesn't yet understand why P.U.L.S.E is a contender for the best live music video ever. Or why the Floyd are the most important rock band of all time. Or how what was once called "psychedelic rock" fueled the growth of what is now called "high-end hi-fi," as we improved our systems to get more of what we knew had been placed in those grooves by a band that cared as much as we did about sound. Or how the arc of the band's career echoed our own growth as baby-boom music lovers. Or why this visual document of the Floyd (minus the long-departed Roger Waters), recorded live at one of their final Earls Court, London concerts in September 1994, at the end of what was to be their final tour, is the musical event of 2006. At least on DVD.
P.U.L.S.E—or, to give it its full title, Pink Floyd in Concert P.U.L.S.E (Columbia Music Video 0-7389-0550-X)—includes extras such as a forgettable backstage video, the films that were projected onto the circular screen above the band as they performed, the band's 1996 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan (who joins David Gilmour and Rick Wright in an impromptu "Wish You Were Here"), and a number of bootleg live videos. But it was for the live concert footage, directed by David Mallet in its original 4:3 aspect ratio, that I had been waiting with such anticipation since this set was announced at the end of 2005. Augmented with longtime Floyd associates—underrated guitarist Tim Renwick, bassist Guy Pratt, Jon Carin on keyboards, Gary Wallis on percussion, sax player Dick Parry (of course), and singers Sam Brown, Claudia Fontaine, and Durga McBroom—the band works their way through 145 minutes of classics, including all of Dark Side of the Moon.
As with the 1995 two-CD edition (Columbia C2K 67064), the DVD packaging proudly proclaims "This is an analogue recording," and the owner is given three choices of sound quality: 5.1-channel Dolby Digital at 448kbps; a higher-resolution 5.1 Dolby Digital at 640kbps; and Stereo. The last is what I listened to—I shall leave it to one of Stereophile's multichannel mavens, Kal Rubinson or Jon Iverson, to add some comments on the effectiveness of James Guthrie's and David Gilmour's surround mixes—but both the DVD liner notes and the discs' setup menus are devoid of any information about whether the Stereo track is Dolby Digital or linear PCM. Whichever it is, it sounds remarkably close to the original CD, which was also mixed by Guthrie in QSound.
Some reviews of the CD back in 1995 complained that band appeared tired—the Earls Court concerts came at the end of a four-month tour. Others noted that the (very few) times when the band improvises—Guy Pratt's slapping and popping at the end of "Another Brick in the Wall," for example—seemed a bit out of place. But Gilmour, who carries the lion's share of the lead vocals and guitar solos, is in fine form. The star of the concert, though, is the light show, directed by Marc Brickman, who choreographed what seems a limitless number of computer-controlled spots, light-boxes, lasers, projectors, and pyrotechnics, as well as risers and two inflatable pigs, to create a visually exhausting but totally involving spectacle. When the monstrous mirror ball, 16' in diameter, splits open at the end of "Comfortably Numb" to reveal a 12kW "brute" of a light inside, it seems as if the world itself has split!
There are more than three songs, Emily: 22 in all, though there are some notable omissions compared with the CD, especially Hey You and Astronomy Domine. The latter, of course, was a mainstay of the live show when founding guitarist-singer Syd Barrett, who wrote it, fronted the band.
The week before P.U.L.S.E arrived, I heard the news of Barrett's passing, on July 7, at the age of 60. When Barrett left Pink Floyd in 1968, it was assumed that he was another acid casualty, but as producer Joe Boyd described it in a tribute broadcast by NPR on July 11, it was more as if a "switch in Syd's brain had been thrown." Certainly the photograph on p.211 in Inside Out, drummer Nick Mason's autobiographical look back at his life in Pink Floyd (Chronicle Books, 2006, ISBN 0-8118-4824-8), taken of a shaven-headed, overweight Syd when he synchronistically happened by Abbey Road's Studio 3 during the "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" sessions in June 1975, indicates more than drug abuse. In the photo, Barrett's eyes are indeed "black holes in the sky."
Picking up an amplifier for measurement from Michael Fremer just before writing these words, I listened to a couple of tracks from Barrett's 1970 solo album, The Madcap Laughs, on Mikey's mondo system (Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge and Continuum tonearm and turntable at the front end, ASR integrated amplifier in the middle, Wilson MAXX 2 speakers at the other). Mikey had an original pressing, of course, but, the superb sound aside, it was a reminder of a direction Pink Floyd had had to abandon post 1968. Check out "Jugband Blues" on the 2001 Echoes compilation (Capitol CDP 5 36111 2) to hear Syd's curtailed genius.
I have written before about how, despite SACD and DVD-Audio both being pushed at music lovers as candidates for the next-generation music carrier, a better case can be made for the CD's replacement being the live-concert DVD-V. P.U.L.S.E reinforces that case, along with David Gilmour's mainly acoustic In Concert DVD (2002, Capitol C9 4 92960 9), recorded live at London's Royal Festival Hall, and Roger Waters' In the Flesh—Live DVD (2000, Columbia Music Video CVD 54185), both with PCM two-channel audio tracks. And, of course, Disc 3 of the Live 8 DVD (Capitol C9 3 41982 9), in which Waters reunites with Gilmour, Mason, and Wright to show the younger folks that a bunch of sextuagenarians can still rock hard (though with a Dolby 2.0 stereo audio track rather than PCM). Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
Originally published in the July 2006 Stereophile eNewsletter.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Amar G. Bose, PhD: 1929–2013
Photo: Bose Corporation
Dr. Amar Bose, founder and CEO of the most successful privately-held consumer-electronics company in history, died Friday, July 12, at his home in Wayland, Massachusetts. He was 83.
A native of Philadelphia, Bose showed an early interest in tinkering with model trains and electronics. He took a degree in Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later, as a PhD candidate at MIT, Bose’s thesis advisor was Norbert Wiener, who made pathbreaking contributions in set theory, information theory, noise-filter theory, and self-regulatory systems. Bose’s PhD thesis was on non-linear systems. Bose was later awarded a patent in non-linear class-D power processing (No.3,294,981).
Bose became interested in research in audio engineering and psychoacoustics after buying a stereo system and being disappointed by its sound. Bose’s first attempt at loudspeaker design was a quasi-omnidirectional array of 22 small drivers mounted over the surface of a 1/8th sphere that was intended to be mounted in the floor or ceiling corners at the front of the room (Patent No.3,038,964). The disappointing results led to Bose’s famous empirical research in the balance of direct and ambient (reflected) sound in concert halls.
Bose’s famous Model 901 direct/reflecting loudspeaker fell like a thunderclap upon the audio industry of the late 1960s. While Stereo Review’s Julian Hirsch pronounced the 901 to be simply the best, J. Gordon Holt, later writing in Stereophile, declined to agree:
“If we were to judge the 901 in terms of the best sound available, then, we would say that it produces a more realistic semblance of natural ambience than any other speaker system, but we would characterize it as unexceptional in all other respects.”
Consumer Reports’ unfortunately worded negative review of the 901 from 1970 was ultimately parsed and passed upon by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 US 485 (1984).
Over the years Bose Corporation earned a reputation as an aggressive litigator; other targets included JBL, Infinity Systems, Thiel Audio (footnote 1), and CEDIA.
Although Bose was assisted at the outset by angel investors, Bose resolutely stayed in control and kept his company private (and reportedly, as debt-free as possible) so that he could pursue expensive long-term research projects that a publicly-traded company might be faulted for. Amar Bose’s keen sense for business-expansion opportunities was revolutionary for a loudspeaker designer. While other loudspeaker designers were content to eke out incremental improvements in their existing products, Bose redesigned the idea of what an audio company could be.
Another successful home-loudspeaker designer might have tried selling aftermarket car-audio speakers directly to consumers. Bose approached the auto manufacturers, offering to custom-engineer systems to be built into new cars. This allowed a seamless integration of the components and better sound—as well as creating a “halo effect” for his company’s home-audio products.
Other Bose innovations were the “enforced systems approach” to loudspeakers and electronics, wherein Bose’s small cube satellite speakers and under-couch woofers would properly work only with the Bose amplifier that contained the necessary equalization circuits; the “Wave Radio” portable table radio, which at the outset had an alternate-channel direct-sales business model that later became one of the most successful direct-marketing campaigns ever, noise-canceling headphones, and affordable portable sound-reinforcement systems for use in small clubs or temporary venues. Just about the only Bose business initiative that did not prosper was its pre-Internet entry into direct sales of compact discs via a print catalog and an 800 number. Bose Corporation’s 2011 financial results were $2.28 billion.
Bose built up an engineering staff that could do more than just squeeze cost factors out of mass-market products. One Bose custom-engineering project (which may or may not still be in place) was to design a multi-zone DSP-driven echo-canceling system for use in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. Other prestige projects include designing sound systems for the Mercedes S-Class and the revived Maserati sedan.
In 2011, Bose, a longtime faculty member, donated the majority of the (non-voting) equity in his company to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Footnote 1: Bose sued Thiel in the early 1990s on the ground that Thiel’s model name “CS2.2” infringed upon Bose’s trademark in its Model 2.2, with the result that Thiel changed its product’s name to “ CS 2 2,” with a space replacing the decimal point. However, seeing as Bose did not own a loudspeaker trademark involving a decimal point and a “3,” Thiel’s later speaker was named the “ CS2.3.”— John Atkinson
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Wayne Coyne
Always an entertaining and often enlightening conversationalist, Coyne was decked out in a blue metallic leather suit when we spoke. Forever obsessed with all things interplanetary, he had a splay of Ziggy Stardust–like spangles in an arc below one eye and each of his fingernails was intricately painted in a different color scheme. There truly is no one in music, or on planet earth for that matter, like Wayne Coyne. Back on the wagon, Stephen exercised while we spoke. “I don’t think it’s dark,” Coyne said about the new record. “It’s ambiguous and kind of cold and it’s full of anxiety you know. I think it’s purposely not singing about giraffes.
“We wanted to be very focused and not be hodgepodge and all over the place. We decided it would be nine songs. Some of our favorite records are short records. Dark Side of the Moon. Even something like Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. They’re a great listen but they’re not an hour and half long. They’re this little arc. And we had done Heady Fwends which is a lot of music and previous to that Embryonic (2009) as a double record. It was a lot a lot of music and I think we were like, we don’t want to do that and so it seemed like we could do this type of music, if we were only gonna have to go this little arc. And that was appealing to us as artists.”
So what’s the process? How did the record come together?
“We go into this music and we’re discovering the music that we’re making, and on the way up there we don’t know what it is, and suddenly we discover it. And there’s this short period of time after we discover it that we really find our way. You have all these things you can pick from, but you’re really just listening and you kind of secretly go, `Ohh, I’m drawn to this' and you start to go that way. And before you know it you’re been working for a couple of weeks and you go `Wow, we really have a weird little sound here.’"
Many reviewers have mentioned how the oceans of electronics and gloomy, ethereal vibe of The Terror’s owe a debt to Krautrock. “There’s some of the emotion [of Krautrock], some bleakness, something triumphant about that, not quite finished and that’s such a truism of what life is. You think you know, but you don’t really know. There’s something ambiguous. There’s no way if you’re being honest that the music that you like and the music that you make aren’t going to sound alike. You can’t really know what it is and I think that’s what appeals to us the most.”
Tunes like “Try to Explain,” where by the end Coyne is emitting crying sounds or “You Are Alone” where he again ends the song with more ghostly, mournful yawls seem to be cutting close to the bone. Is this the Lips therapy record? Again, is this the aural portrait of the Lip's unsetting personal situations?
“I can’t help but think that some of it is because the things that you sing about are the things that you’re probably in your mind wondering about. Rarely do you sing about certainties. But I don’t think they are really that connected. We play the song “Try to Explain” like it’s this powerful thing, but it’s just a song. I would never, if I was aware of it, sing a song that would go so deeply into other people’s lives. So we weren’t doing that at the time, no.
“There’s a lot that this record could hint at. Well, here’s a truth. We talk about love and pain and we don’t control the controls. And I can see how all that…but it’s really not like that. You don’t get to know. There was despairing going on, but I don’t think the music sounds despairing.”
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
