Stereophile May 2023

This month’s music feature, by Mike Mettler, is an interview with John Doe, best known as cofounder, in 1977, of the legendary punk band X. During X’s long recording career, Doe’s urgent voice has offset the starkly contrasting voice of co–lead vocalist (and songwriting partner) Exene Cervenka, who was Doe’s girlfriend before she joined the band; it’s one of the most recognizable sounds in punk. Over 45 years, X has continued to record (sparingly) and to evolve, from the literate punk of Los Angeles—to me one of the great albums ever, in any genre—through Wild Gift, which leans toward country, to Under the Big Black Sun, which went in several directions at once: rockabilly, funk, folk, pop, and beyond. Meanwhile, Doe has maintained a career as a solo and collaborative artist,…

A knowing smile All of us have read numerous audio reviews ending with the same tired phrases: “Highly recommended,” “Must audition,” “Put it on your short list.” Jason, in his review of the dCS Vivaldi Apex, goes in a different, original, direction: “If you’re fortunate enough to own one, you will have read this review with a knowing smile.” While most of us will never own a dCS, we can appreciate the quality of the component with that one simple sentence. Jay Valancy,Sacramento, California Home is where the A/B testing is A million years ago, I went to a high-end dealer to listen to a new-to-me speaker called the Quad electrostatic. What a revelation! However, once I got them home: no bass. No change in components could remedy that. Eventually, I moved on to the Infinity…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, email Chris Vogel at vgl@cfl.rr.com. (Note the new email address.) It is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless it is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA Friday–Sunday, June 9–11: Save the dates for T.H.E. Show, which is moving to a new Hilton venue in Costa Mesa (Hilton Orange County, 3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa, CA 92626), approximately 28 miles south of the prior Long Beach location. Tickets will be available soon. For more information, visit thehomeentertainmentshow.com. Friday evenings, 5–7pm PST: The San Francisco Audiophile Society hosts a virtual Happy Hour via Zoom, open to anyone…

BRYAN STANTON PASSES Jim Austin I met Bryan Stanton before I knew I had met him, not too long ago. AXPONA 2019 was over. I packed my bags, came downstairs, and saw several of my colleagues sitting at a table. I’d be heading for the airport soon. With them was a gentleman I didn’t know—or anyway, not by sight. Everyone assumed we knew each other, no one introduced us, and neither of us introduced ourselves. We all chatted like old friends, then I excused myself. My car had arrived to take me to the airport. Not a mile down the road, I got an email from Bryan. While we didn’t know each other by sight, we’d exchanged many emails—the first one in my inbox is from 2005, when Bryan was representing NAD and I…

Since the 1980s, I’ve been asking every speaker designer I meet, “What amplifier do you recommend using with your speakers?” Annoyingly, they always say, “My speakers are easy to drive. Any amp will do.” Whereupon I’d whine, “Aww, come on man, don’t feed me that. What amp did you use when you were designing the speaker?” The closest any manufacturer came to providing a real answer was Wendell Diller of Magnepan, who, when I reviewed his .7 quasi-ribbon speaker, said, “We used an amp of our own design. It’s not for sale. But any amp that doubles its power into 4 ohms will be fine.” Wendell’s answer helped me choose effective amplification and feel more confident about my conclusions. Unlike loudspeaker manufacturers, headphone manufacturers know that which amp a reviewer uses…

It turns out that PVC, or polyvinyl chloride—the stuff used to make Starbucks gift cards, imitation leather wallets, inflatable pool unicorns, the pipes under your sink, and Billy Idol’s pants—is also the main ingredient in phonograph records. And today we’re living in the silver age of PVC. Not the golden age, since records are no longer the dominant medium for recorded music, but these days we’re lucky to again have access to a remarkable amount of music stamped on top-quality hot plastic. Better still, as listeners have become more knowledgeable and demanding, vinyl releases have become more scrupulously sourced, pressed, annotated, and packaged. Many of today’s records show an unprecedented level of care and transparency about their production—and sound terrific to boot. Some of these new records happen to contain old…