Sommaire pour August 2021 de Stereophile

Held every November in normal times, the annual Warsaw Audio Video Show is among the world’s largest. I first attended a decade ago, in 2011, and was amazed by both the number of attendees—more than 10,000 people—and demographics that skewed young and included many families. That show was bigger and better-attended than any I’ve been to in America. The show organizers had arranged for my travel and hotel accommodations in exchange for a series of turntable setup seminars, which seemed like a fair deal. Upon my arrival at Frederic Chopin airport, I was picked up not by someone from the show but by an individual who informed me that he and not the show organizers had paid for my trip, in exchange for setting up his turntable! I was okay…

In 1957, Switzerland-based Thorens introduced the TD 124 turntable, a record player destined to become a classic. (TD is an initialism for tourne disque, French for turntable.) A Thorens brochure from that same year itemized the TD 124’s “11 main elements that result in 41 advantages.” It noted the turntable’s “strongly ribbed, solid chassis, crafted in cast aluminum,” and its two-part platter including a “flywheel [subplatter], crafted in stabilized cast iron, [which] possesses excellent characteristics for the magnetic shielding of the drive system, as well as great inertia.” Continuing, it lauded the TD 124’s “main bearing, fitted with a 14mm spindle made of hardened, mirror-polished steel,” its braking system, leveling dials, surface-mounted spirit level, and four “mushroom-shaped, rubber dampers [that] guarantee smooth suspension in a built-in frame as well as…

The Accuphase DG-68 is a complicated product, comprising an analog–digital converter (ADC), digital signal processing (DSP), and a digital–analog converter (DAC). It also has digital inputs and outputs that bypass the ADC and DAC stages. JVS used it as a complete analog–analog processor, so, in addition to examining the individual performance of the ADC, DSP, and DAC stages, I looked at its behavior as set by JVS. I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1) to perform the measurements, repeating some tests with the magazine’s more-recent APx555 system. While Accuphase specifies the coaxial S/PDIF input as accepting data sampled at rates up 192kHz, it wouldn’t lock at rates greater than 96kHz to the coaxial digital output of either Audio Precision system. The optical…

Does the world need another audiophile reissue of Kind of Blue? This was the obvious question to ask upon news that Chad Kassem’s Analogue Productions was joining the party. The album’s arrival in the mail (yes, of course, I bought one) signaled that something special might be happening: the classy hard-box slip case with the wooden dowel spine, the Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket graced with well-reproduced session photos, a handsome booklet, and, finally, the LP: a 200gm UHQR pressing on off-white Clarity vinyl. Does the package justify its lavishness? Is it worth the $100 price tag? Most importantly, how does it sound? Little need be said about this Miles Davis 1959 masterpiece. It’s the bestselling jazz album ever, arguably the best jazz album and the culmination of Miles’s experiments with…

Chamber Music Éric Le Sage, Emmanuel Pahud, others Alpha746 (24/88.2 download). 2021. Louise Burel, prod.; Jean-Marc Laisné, eng. Indelible memories of Rota’s film scores for Fellini, Visconti, Zeffirelli, and Coppola have obscured his reputation as a composer of merit. Of the close to 100 albums on Tidal and/or Qobuz that contain Rota’s music, only a handful are devoted to his classical compositions. While Rota never aspired to the timeless profundity of Beethoven, his artfully crafted chamber music displays an endearing mastery of color, whimsy, delight, and melancholy. This recording, set down in the confined acoustic of the Salon Festival International de Musique de Chambre de Provence, features pianist Éric Le Sage, clarinetist Paul Meyer, flutist Emmanuel Pahud, violinist Daishin Kashimoto, and seven other players. Nine are at their colorful best…

Symphonies Nos. 4 & 6 London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Antonio Pappano LSO Live LSO0867. Andrew Cornall, prod.; Neil Hutchinson, Jonathan Stokes, engs. Listeners accustomed to Vaughan Williams in his pastoral and folksong modes will find both these symphonies disconcerting. No.4 flings out jagged, edgy episodes one after another; even in less agitated passages, unstable harmonies and irregular meters perpetuate a general unease. The Sixth, supposedly mirroring the horrors of World War II, is more formal—its third movement is a recognizable ABA scherzo—but equally unsettled: A laborious control renders the quiet passages ominous, after which the outbursts are the more stark and terrifying. Pappano, a Briton by birth, applies his operatic temperament to these scores’ dramatic intensity. Rhythmic energy, in themes and accompaniments, propels the music forward, and he’s attentive to color:…

Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album Hasaan Ibn Ali, piano; Odean Pope, tenor saxophone; Art Davis, bass; Kalil Madi, drums Omnivore OVCD-411 (CD). 2021. Nesuhi Ertegun, Patrick Milligan, others, prods.; Tom Dowd, Michael Graves, engs. This brilliant Philadelphia pianist’s only previous appearance on record was on The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, released in 1965. A quartet album under Hasaan’s leadership was recorded a few months later but mothballed when Hasaan was jailed on drug charges. A fire destroyed the master tapes in 1981, and Hasaan passed away three years later. Tapes made from dub plates were discovered in 2017, containing all but one original track plus three alternate takes. Restored and remastered, these have now been issued, and though the sound lacks the clarity and presence of a…

Standing in the Doorway BMG UK B0948JY5Q4 (streaming; physical release in August). 2021. Tchad Blake, James Walbourne, prods. and engs. Aside from being the tough, rocking, sexy, enduring leader of the Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde is a musical seeker. Her solo outings include a jazz turn with the Valve Bone Woe Ensemble, and the Pretenders have been a great cover band from Day 1. Here, she and Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne dive into Bob Dylan’s songbook during the folk legend’s 80th-birthday year. Hynde is no stranger to Dylan or folk. She has covered both during Pretenders concerts and performed with Dylan, including at his 30th anniversary concert. Dylan’s lockdown release “Murder Most Foul” inspired Hynde and Walbourne to undertake a YouTube-remote series of Dylan covers. This album comes from those recordings.…

From my writing chair, I can see about a dozen moderately priced tube and solid state audio amplifiers. The five stacked next to my desk are First Watt or Pass Labs models designed by Nelson Pass. Across the room is a hybrid tube/class-D Rogue Sphinx V3 integrated. That black Sphinx is standing on its side behind one of the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 speakers. Next to the Orangutan is a Schiit Aegir. The most conspicuous amp in the room is my BFF, the Line Magnetic LM-518 IA,1 which breaks the night’s darkness with its tall, bright-emitter 845 triodes. Next to that is Ampsandsound’s Bigger Ben KT88/6L6 single-ended speaker and headphone amp. Behind the Ben is the made-in-Japan Elekit TU-8600S single-ended 300B kit-amp. In the shadow of the Elekit sits the…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Dynaudio Confidence 30’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I measured the speaker’s impedance with Dayton Audio’s DATS v2 system. Dynaudio specifies the Confidence 30’s sensitivity as 88dB/2.83V/m; my estimate was within experimental error of that figure, at 87.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. The Confidence 30’s impedance is specified as 4 ohms with a minimum magnitude of 2.8 ohms at 85Hz. The impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) remains above 8 ohms over most of the audioband; the minimum value is 2.7 ohms between 88Hz and 92Hz. The electrical phase angle (dashed trace) is occasionally high, which means that the EPDR1 drops below 2 ohms between 53Hz and 101Hz and between 228Hz…

I was aware that Canadian company Verity Audio, founded in 1995, made loudspeakers, like the Sarastro II that Fred Kaplan reviewed in May 2009.1 But when Jason Victor Serinus and I attended the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, we were both impressed by the sound of an all-Verity system that featured Verity’s Monsalvat AMP-60 power amplifier. Jason Victor Serinus favorably reviewed the AMP-60 in May 2019;2 I didn’t have to be asked twice, therefore, if I wanted to review Verity’s Montsalvat DAC/PRE (see later). The DAC/PRE The DAC/PRE, priced at $25,000, is an example of an increasingly popular product genre: a D/A processor that incorporates a volume control to allow a system’s preamplifier to be dispensed with. Although Verity refers to the DAC/PRE as a “DAC/Preamplifier,” it doesn’t have analog…

AUDIO RESEARCH REFERENCE 6SE LINE PREAMPLIFIER Jason Victor Serinus’s first impressions of this $17,000 tubed preamplifier1 in Stereophile’s November 2020 issue2 were very positive: “Am I really getting paid to do this?,” he wrote, calling it “some of the most polished, transparent, and arresting sound I’d heard from my system.” But as his auditioning resumed after a break of a few days, he discovered that the REF 6SE sounded very different than it had a few days earlier. “Much of the tonal beauty that had momentarily caused me to hold my breath remained,” he wrote, “but the shiny polish and transparency that had knocked me over was gone.” After some investigation, JVS found that the REF 6SE was very sensitive to system tuning. “The essential building blocks—the components—remain unchanged, but…

CROSSING BORDERS AND GENRE BOUNDARIES IS NEVER EASY, BUT FOR BRYCE DESSNER, IT’S BECOME A FAMILIAR EXPERIENCE. Dessner, 45, a classically trained guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, has racked up multihyphenates over the last couple of decades of his musical career. Arguably best known for his work with indie rock band The National—where he shares lead guitar, piano, songwriting, and other duties with his identical-twin brother Aaron—he’s also an accomplished arranger and producer and cofounder of two record labels. He’s also one of those rare musicians who have authentically crossed—and blurred—the lines between classical music and pop/rock. In a recent phone conversation, we discussed his recent projects, his process, and—of course—music. Dessner has been working remotely on projects predating the pandemic and also on new collaborations. He’s used to traveling as…

Hope Amid Tears: Beethoven Cello Sonatas Emanuel Ax, piano; Yo-Yo Ma, cello Sony 690197 (24/96 FLAC). 2021. Steven Epstein, prod.; Richard King, eng. A good 33 years after their first early digital recordings of Beethoven’s five sonatas for piano and cello and variations on themes from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma reunite for a second, far better recorded go-around. Sounding nothing like slowed-down elders, their wholehearted embrace of joy in the second movement of Sonata No.2 in G Minor, Op.5 No.2 reflects a mature understanding that bliss opens a portal to the divine. The music and music-making are equally marvelous. Ax’s touch is as light as a feather; other times, it glows with the same warmth that characterizes Ma’s approach to all except the most vigorously bowed…

Out of the Cool Gil Evans, piano, arrangements; Johnny Coles, Phil Sunkel, trumpets; Jimmy Knepper, Keg Johnson, Tony Studd, trombones; Ray Beckenstein, Eddie Caine, Budd Johnson, Bob Tricarico, reeds; Bill Barber, tuba; Ray Crawford, guitar; Ron Carter, bass; Elvin Jones, Charlie Persip, percussion Impulse!/Universal/Acoustic Sounds (LP). Creed Taylor, prod.; Rudy Van Gelder, eng.; Ryan Smith, remastering. Out of the Cool is nearly as striking an album now as it must have been when it hit the bins in 1961. Not only is it Gil Evans’s masterpiece and his best album that didn’t front Miles Davis as a soloist; it’s a peculiar masterpiece, stretching modal jazz to minimalist extremes yet soaking with swing. The first track, the 15-minute “La Nevada,” pivots from G major to G minor-7 as several of the…

Sunrise Reprise Chris Potter, saxophones, clarinets, flutes; James Francies, keyboards; Eric Harland, drums Edition EDN1171 (CD, available as download, LP). 2021. Chris Potter, prod.; Josh Giunta, eng. That Chris Potter sits very near the top of the saxophone world proves that jazz is a meritocracy. He looks more like a middle-aged accountant than a jazz heavyweight. All he does is play his bad ass off, sublimely. He has made many fine records. Sunrise Reprise is not one of them. To be sure, it has some wonderful moments. “The Peanut” is an inspired five-minute performance that sustains a domain of creativity only elite players know about, where virtuosity serves soul-baring plaintiveness. Potter’s Circuits Trio is an electric band. James Francies plays synth and keyboards, and Potter adds a sampler and keyboards…

US: HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA Jim Austin As I was finishing up the Magico A5 review for the July issue, corresponding with Magico CEO Alon Wolf as he reviewed the final proof, I was planning a post-vaccination trip with my wife to the SF Bay area, to spend some time in Stinson Beach, a favorite vacation spot for us for many years. I mentioned the trip to Wolf, and he suggested I stop by to hear the new Magico M9s. At 80" tall, 40" deep, and 1000lb—plus another 100lb for the active external crossover and its power supply—the M9 is among the largest domestic loudspeakers in current production. The speaker ships in two parts. The bass cabinet utilizes dual 15" bass drivers. The middle section—the bottom section of the top cabinet—holds a…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. A great concept—sound enough to serve as the foundation for an independent democratic nation. Yet what’s sound in one sphere doesn’t necessarily apply to sound in another, namely the rooms in which our systems reside. As much as we audiophiles may wish to declare our independence from room resonances, image smearing from first-order reflections, slap echo, and every other environmental and speaker-related factor that can handicap system performance, no mere declaration will make it so. Not all rooms—and not all components—are created equal. To reference American mythology, Dorothy may have closed her eyes and clicked her ruby-red heels together three times as she declared, “There’s no place like home,” but she knew exactly what home felt like.…

My incommodious room favors small standmount and panel speakers that some audiophiles would say require a subwoofer. But I was never inspired to try one until a new category of subwoofer appeared: the “micro” (aka soccer-ball) subwoofer. The minute I saw the little KEF KC62, a 10" cube, I imagined it could do 0–100Hz and back to zero in record time. I reported on the KEF microsub last month, in Gramophone Dreams #49. Just after I completed that report, I spied the SVS 3000 Micro. It, too, looked like a well-tuned, high-revving four-cylinder racer. When my request for a review sample was approved, my mind began to ask itself: What makes one subwoofer better than another? What does it actually mean for a subwoofer to be “fast”? Do some subs…

I measured the Verity Audio Montsalvat DAC/PRE with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1), repeating some tests with the magazine’s Audio Precision APx555 system. Apple’s USB Prober utility identified the Verity as “Combo384 Amanero” from “Amanero Technologies” with the serial number string “413-001.” The Verity’s USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode, and Apple’s AudioMIDI utility revealed that the DAC/PRE accepted 32-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1kHz to 384kHz. The AES/EBU and coaxial S/PDIF inputs accepted 16-and-24-bit data sampled at rates up to 192kHz. The DAC/PRE’s output level at 1kHz in DAC mode was 3.43V from the balanced outputs, 2.1V from the single-ended outputs. In Preamp mode, the output with the volume control set to “0.0 dB” was…

I’ve long felt no need for a power conditioner. When we moved to our current house, back in 1995, on the advice of a fellow audiophile I had an electrician install hospital-grade outlets, wired to a discrete 20-amp circuit for all my audio gear. It was the most cost-effective improvement to my system that I’ve ever made, and I would advise anyone to take this step before doing anything else to treat your AC power. Over the years, I’ve tried a few devices to cleanse the dirt that ConEd was zapping into my house. One (I forget the brand) did little more than compress dynamics. Another (Monster Cable’s voltage regulator) was a great surge protector but did almost nothing to perk up the sound. The Bybee Signature Power Purifier smoothed…

Cello Suites Justin Pearson, cello; Pedro Silva, 5-string cello; Katherine Rockhill, piano Chasing the Dragon VALLP014 (5LP). 2021. Mike and Françoise Valentine, prods.; Matt Sartori, Petronel Butuc, John Webber, engs. Here, skilled musicians take a back seat and the recording takes the wheel: five LPs of solo (and near-solo) Bach recorded with a single stereo array of tubed, AKG C12 clones (by Flea), vintage Focusrite pres, and a Sony reel-to-reel connected up with Nordost cable. Lacquers were cut on a Neumann VMS 80 lathe and vinyl was pressed at Optimal. The recording engineer (Mike Valentine) is a 15-year BBC veteran. Webber, the mastering engineer, is most familiar (to me) for his 2020 Atlantic remaster of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. The musicians are skilled but not well-known. Silva, the five-string cellist,…

Symphony No.3, Serenade No.2 Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer. Channel Classics CCSSA43821 (CD). Jared Sacks, prod. and eng. I couldn’t help thinking that Iván Fischer didn’t trust the symphony. In the tricky first movement, he’s attentive to details like the pulsing string afterbeats—though, when the horns get them, it’s a bit unsubtle. But whenever he tries to lean into important arrival points, or to set them up with rubato and agogics—even heading into the recap—coordination becomes tentative. The plausible Andante pushes slightly rather than flows, and the second theme is self-consciously shaped. The strings’ legato, conversely, projects easily through the reed decorations, and they expand nicely into the surging peaks. In the Poco allegretto’s great melody, the lean, nasal cellos disappoint—a far cry from Szell’s dusky intermezzo, though the recap’s mournful…

Westward Bound! Harold Land, tenor saxophone; eight others Reel to Real RTR-CD-006 (CD, available as download, LP). 1962-64-65/2021. Cory Weeds, Zev Feldman, prods.; Jim Wilke, eng.; Dave Sikula, sound restoration Great stuff keeps coming, on several labels, from Jim Wilke’s huge stash of tapes recorded at the Penthouse in Seattle in the 1960s. Previous releases have included the famous (Cannonball Adderley) and the all-but-forgotten (Jack Wilson). Harold Land is somewhere in between. He played and recorded with many of the major musicians of his time—Clifford Brown, Thelonious Monk—but he never really broke through. Land was “in between” stylistically. He was smoother than the hard boppers but edgier than saxophonists of the West Coast “cool school,” like Getz and Mulligan. Westward Bound! comes from three Penthouse gigs. The tight 1962 working…

Sabotage Super Deluxe Rhino R1 645954 (4LP). 2021. Black Sabbath, Mike Butcher, Hugh Gilmour, prods.; Andy Pearce, Matt Wortham, engs. Black Sabbath’s sixth album was birthed amid legal warfare between the group and their management. In an all-too-familiar music-biz story, management skimmed large sums and the group was left in deep debt, despite a half-decade of endless touring and rapidfire release of an oeuvre that invented and defined heavy metal music. Slogging through 1973–75, the group battled in court, toured relentlessly, and sweated out long sessions at Morgan Studios’ facilities in London and Brussels. They emerged with a masterpiece. Aside from enhanced studio production, the album includes two extended cuts, “Megalomania” and “The Writ” (referring to court papers served during a recording session). And then there are the Sabbath classics,…

SW1X LPU I Special First and foremost, thank you to Michael Fremer and to Joe Cohen of the Lotus Group for arranging this review. Overall, the review is spot on and constitutes what I think is a great review. It provides insight into how a component behaves in a different system with different cartridge/SUT combinations and with many different recordings. Perhaps it is important to mention that the EF86 valve input stage of the LPU I Phono is based on a classic circuit design from the 1960s used to master R2R master tapes and all those great-sounding vinyl recordings. Also, the EF86 valve input stage of the LPU I is identical in its circuit design to our higher performance-level Phono ranges, LPU II & III. Besides materials and components, the…