Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2016 i Stereophile

THIS ISSUE: Is classical music on record heading for extinction? THERE ARE AS MANY OPINIONS AS THERE ARE EXPERTS One of the benefits of belonging to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a subscription to their monthly magazine, IEEE Spectrum. Superbly written and edited, this journal keeps me up to date on emerging technology, and entertains me with things like reprints, on the final page, of vintage advertisements. Their January 2016 issue, for example, featured an ad from December 1920, promoting the Victor Talking Machine Company’s Victrola: “By all means get a Victrola this Christmas, but be sure it is a Victrola and not some other instrument made in imitation. $25 to $1500. Victor dealers everywhere.”1 In 1920, “$25 to $1500” was the equivalent of $300 to…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website dedicated solely to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophilesocieties. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@XLinkAudio.com. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. ARIZONA Wednesday, February 24, 7–9pm: The Arizona Audio Video Club will hold its monthly meeting at Esoteric Audio, to celebrate the reopening of this storied audio store in its new location, in downtown Phoenix (111 W. Monroe Street, Suite 100, Zip 85003). Audio can be sampled from such superb brands as Aesthetix, Basis Audio, Boulder, Devialet, Focal, Rockport, VTL, and many more. You can visit Esoteric Audio’s website at…

For a growing number of people, music is free, or virtually so. If you don’t want to deal with ads, $9.99 a month buys you unlimited, ad-free access to millions of tracks. At least at present, streaming from services like Spotify, YouTube, and Pandora is where music consumption is headed—and it’s really all that most people want. You and I are different. We collect music, and care about the quality of our listening experience. We care because listening to music is something we do while not doing anything else. This makes us: a) an increasingly rare species, b) not content with lossy streaming, c) on the road to complexity, and d) simultaneously richer and poorer. For collectors, digital music means discs or files. Removing the spinning disc from digital playback…

Analog Sources Garrard 301, Thorens TD 124 turntables; Abis SA-1.2, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT OFD 25 & OFD 15 & TSD 15 pickup heads; Denon DL-103, Miyajima Premium BE Mono II cartridges. Digital Sources Halide Designs DAC HD USB D/A converter; Apple iMac G5 computer running Audirvana Plus 1.5.12; Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player. Preamplification Auditorium 23 Hommage T2 step-up transformer, Shindo Laboratory Aurieges Equalizer Amplifier phono preamplifier & Masseto preamplifier. Power Amplifiers Shindo Laboratory Corton-Charlemagne monoblocks. Loudspeakers Altec Valencia, DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96. Cables USB: Wireworld Revelation 2.0. Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Nordost Blue Heaven, Shindo Laboratory Silver. Speaker: Auditorium 23. AC: manufacturers’ stock cords. Accessories Box Furniture Company D3S rack (source & amplification components), Audiodesksysteme Gläss Vinyl Cleaner.…

MANHATTAN SYSTEM Digital Sources Oppo BDP-105 universal BD player; Baetis XR2 PC-based music server; exaSound e28, Merging Technologies NADAC Multichannel-8 D/A processors; QNAP TS569L NAS. Preamplifier Audio Research MP1. Power Amplifiers Benchmark Media Systems AHB2, McIntosh Laboratory MC303, Parasound Halo A 31. Loudspeakers Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamond. Cables Digital: AudioQuest Vodka (HDMI) & Carbon (USB), van den Hul Flat 180 (HDMI). Interconnect: Audio-Quest Earth balanced, Kubala-Sosna Anticipation (RCA/XLR). Speaker: AudioQuest Oak biwire. AC: AudioQuest NRG-10, JPS Aluminata, Kubala-Sosna Emotion. Accessories CyberPower 850PFCLCD AC filter (supplied with Baetis server), Environmental Potentials EP-2450 power conditioner. CONNECTICUT SYSTEM Digital Sources Oppo BDP-103 universal BD player; Apple Mac mini server running Boot Camped Windows 7, JRiver Media Center; miniDSP U-DAC8 DAC; UpTone Audio USB Regen USB repeater QNAP TS569LNAS. Preamplifier-Processor Marantz AV8802a. Power…

Analog Sources Pioneer PLX-1000 turntable, Ortofon 2M Black cartridge; Thorens TD 124 Mk.I turntable, Abis SA 1.2 tonearm, Zu Denon DL-103 or Jasmine Turtle cartridge; Technics SL1200 Mk.2 tonearm, SME M2-9 tonearm, Soundsmith Carmen or Shure SC35 cartridge; VPI Scout Jr. turntable, Ortofon 2M Red cartridge. Digital Sources Onkyo Integra DPS-7.2 disc player, Halide DAC HD DAC. Preamplification Intact Audio step-up transformer; Blue Horizon Ideas Profono, Schiit Audio Mani phono stages. Integrated Amplifiers Hegel Music Systems H160, Line Magnetic LM-518 IA, PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium, Rogue Audio Sphinx. Headphone Amplifiers Audeze Deckard, Linear Tube Audio microZOTL, Schiit Audio Asgard, Simaudio Moon Neo 230HAD. Headphones AKG K812, Audeze EL-8, AudioQuest Night-Hawk. Loudspeakers Dynaudio Excite X14, Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a, KEF LS50, Magnepan .7, Technics SB-C700. Cables Speaker: AudioQuest Type 4, Auditorium 23, Kimber…

Analog Sources Kuzma Stabi S turntable & Stogi tonearm; Denon DL-103, Ortofon 2M Red cartridges. Digital Sources Apple MacBook computer, Halide DAC HD, Western Digital T2 Mirror Drive (2). Preamplification Auditorium 23 A23 moving-coil step-up transformer, Shindo Laboratory Allegro preamplifier. Power Amplifier Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion. Loudspeakers DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93, Snell Type J/II. Cables Interconnect: Analysis Plus, Shindo Laboratory. Speaker: Auditorium 23. Accessories Music Hall Aztec Blue & Mooo record mats; Clearview Double Helix Mk.II power strip (on loan); Salamander five-tier rack; IKEA Aptitlig bamboo chopping boards (under turntable, preamp, power amps); Mapleshade Isoblocks & 3" studio treatment foam damping of ceiling & walls. Listening Room 12' L by 10' W by 12' H, system set up along short wall; suspended wood floor; 6"-thick walls (plaster over two-by-four construction); wood-beamed…

BEETHOVEN Symphony 9 Christiane Karg, soprano; Mihoko Fujimura, alto; Michael Schade, tenor; Michael Volle, baritone; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Mariss Jansons BR Klassik 900139 (CD). 2015. Wilhelm Meister, prod.; Ulrike Schwarz, balance eng., Elisabeth Panzer, Bernadette Rüb, engs. DDD. TT: 63:23 After this, I may never have to review another Beethoven Ninth. Of more than 100 recordings now available, at least 25 are excellent: from Toscanini and Furtwängler through Klemperer and Karajan (1962) and Bernstein (with the Vienna Philharmonic, not Berlin 1990), and a few on period instruments (Gardiner, and Norrington’s 2004 recording). Its familiarity has not dulled its power, and while the entire symphony is masterful, and the way it builds thematically to its final movement is not only admirable and audible but an object lesson in…

NICOLE MITCHELL, TOMEKA REID, MIKE REED Artifacts Nicole Mitchell, flute, electronics; Tomeka Reid, cello; Mike Reed, drums 482 Music 482-1093 (CD). 2015. Michael Lintner, prod.; Dorian Gerhing, Dave Zuchowski, engs. DDD? TT: 47:15 The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is one of the most important organizations in jazz history. These musicians accomplished what Charles Mingus attempted with Debut Records and Harold Battiste attempted in New Orleans with A.F.O. Records: establish a path to self-determination for jazz musicians outside the restraints imposed by the traditional music industry. Fifty years later, the AACM is still creating some of the most forward-looking music on the planet. These current AACM members all lead their own bands (check out Mike Reed’s A New Kind of Dance), and here they pay tribute to…

“We’re not forcing it on anyone, like you need to drink this while you listen to this record. It’s just a cool way to get artists involved. On the Youth Lagoon record [the recipe] is for a gin drink that was what he was drinking when he was making the record.” THERE’S ONLY TWO KINDS OF MUSIC: THE BLUES AND ZIPPETY DOO-DAH. –TOWNES VAN ZANDT The world of music is suddenly awash in vinyl LP reissues—from legitimate labels and artists, as well as from sources that most discography websites gently term “unofficial.” Now that the return of the LP seems to have legs, Vinyl Me, Please—a company based in Boulder, Colorado (www.vinylmeplease.com)—has decided to try to make an “experience” out of vinyl reissues. They think that by pressing their LPs…

TAKE HEED! Unless marked otherwise, all letters to the magazine and its writers are assumed to be for possible publication. In the spirit of vigorous debate implied by the First Amendment, and unless we are requested not to, we publish correspondents’ e-mail addresses. The Magnepan rating Editor: “Class C (Restricted LF)” for the Magnepan .7 (“Recommended Components,” October 2015, p.131)? Are you serious? —Francisco Claudio Barroso Botelho barrosobotelho@gmail.com Always.—John Atkinson Clam fishing Editor: In his review of the Questyle Audio QP1R (December 2015, p.139), John Atkinson reacts to Paul Desmond’s “clam,” as he calls it, in the second chorus of “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” His reaction is amusing and surprising. He asks why no one has ever previously mentioned this “mistake.” The answer is simple: it’s not important enough…

I don’t listen to music when I write, even when I write about listening to music: When there’s music playing, it almost always gets my full attention—and I’m no good at multitasking. (And if I’m around music that’s awful and I’m powerless to stop it, I have to leave the premises.) A rare exception is when I listen to CDs while proofreading, because proofreading is fairly brainless stuff— and as playback formats go, the Compact Disc isn’t the most musically compelling. In recent years, that last observation has been challenged a very few times, most notably by CD-playing source components from Naim Audio, Ayre Acoustics, 47 Laboratory, and Audio Note—products that upset my composure by leading me to the music and making me drink it. Now another new product is…

SUBMISSIONS: Those promoting audio-related seminars, shows, and meetings should e-mail the when, where, and who to JAtkinson@enthusiastnetwork.com at least eight weeks before the month of the event. The deadline for the May 2016 issue is February 20, 2016. US: YOUR LOCAL NEWSSTAND John Atkinson Audiophiles are often accused of being interested in the gear first, and in music a distant second. Yes, we all love our audio systems, but owning such a system would be pretty pointless if we didn’t have music to play on it. Something that Stereophile’s reviewers have in common is that, no matter how expensive their audio systems, their collections of recorded music are worth more. So at the beginning of each of the last 25 years, this magazine has celebrated its love of music by…

THIS ISSUE: Peter Guralnick’s new Sam Phillips biography. SAM PHILLIPS: THE MAN WHO INVENTED ROCK’N’ROLL by Peter Guralnick. Little, Brown and Company, 2015. 763 pp. Hardcover, $32. In Lost Highway, published soon after he was introduced to Sam Phillips, in 1979, Peter Guralnick said he had long dreamed of meeting the Sun Records founder, who produced the hits that introduced Elvis Presley and other pioneering rock’n’roll performers. He dedicated Lost Highway to Phillips and the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf, calling them “the real heroes” of the musical genre, and a quarter-century relationship between Guralnick and Phillips followed. This long, densely detailed biography is its affectionate culmination. Many rock’n’roll fans will relish every ingredient of this banquet of a book; others won’t care that Jack Clement got his job at Sun…

I measured the Metronome CD8 S with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 “As We See It,” http://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4). As well as using test signals on CDs, I tested the Metronome by feeding its coaxial input S/PDIF data from the SYS2722, and its USB input data sourced from a battery-powered MacBook Pro running Pure Music 2.0. The S/PDIF input would accept data sampled at all rates from 44.1 to 192kHz. Apple’s US Prober utility identified the Metronome as “Combo384 Amanero” from “Amanero Technologies,” and confirmed that it operated in the asynchronous mode. Mac’s AudioMIDI utility stated that the Metronome’s USB input would accept 32-bit integer data at all sample rates from 32 to 384kHz. However, when I fed the CD8 S’s USB data sampled at 384kHz,…

I performed a full set of measurements on the Masters Series M22, using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” www.stereophile.com/content/measurements-mapsprecision). As the M22 has a class-D output stage, for almost all measurements I used an Audio Precision AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter ahead of the analyzer, which eliminates noise above 200kHz. The M22’s voltage gain into 8 ohms measured 28.9dB from both its balanced and unbalanced inputs, and both inputs preserved absolute polarity (ie, were non-inverting). The unbalanced input impedance measured 23k ohms at 20Hz, dropping to 18k ohms at 1kHz and 10k ohms at 20kHz. The balanced input impedance was a consistent 75k ohms at low and middle frequencies, dropping inconsequentially to 70k ohms at the top of the audioband. The output impedance…

I performed a full set of measurements on the Simaudio Moon Neo 340i using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” www.stereophile.com/content/measurements-maps-precision). I looked first at the behavior of the optional digital-input board, using either S/PDIF data sourced from the Audio Precision via optical or coaxial links, or USB data from my Mac Book Pro running on battery power. To avoid overloading the power-amplifier section, I switched the loudspeakers off and looked at the signals at the fixed line-output jacks. The TosLink input locked to data with sample rates up to 96kHz, the coaxial inputs to data sampled at all rates up to 192kHz. Apple’s AudioMIDI app revealed that the Neo 340i operated with 32-bit integer data at all sample rates from 32 to…

When I unpacked the Spec amplifier for testing, I was at first confused: Although Ken Micallef was supposed to have reviewed Spec’s RPA-W7EX, a label on the amplifier’s rear panel identified it as an “RPA-W5ST.” It turned out that this very early export sample of the ’W7EX had been assembled before the correct labels were ready. Jonathan Halpern, of US distributor Tone Imports, assured me that the review sample was representative of current production. Reassured, I performed a full set of measurements on the RPA-W7EX using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It,” www.stereophile.com/content/measurements-maps-precision). As the ’W7EX has a class-D output stage, there was around 310mV of RF noise present at its output.1 For almost all the measurements, therefore, I used an Audio Precision…

It’s a classic case of addition by subtraction. On December 23, 1964, on a flight from Houston to Los Angeles, Brian Wilson had a panic attack—or, perhaps, a full-fledged nervous breakdown. Two more such episodes followed in quick succession, and Brian realized that he could no longer tour with the Beach Boys. At first, Glen Campbell was brought in to replace him in the band’s touring edition, until Bruce Johnston permanently took his spot. In an interview conducted by Earl Leaf, quoted by Tom Nolan in the October 28, 1971, issue of Rolling Stone, Wilson had this to say about his decision: “I told them I foresee a beautiful future for the Beach Boys group but the only way we could achieve it was if they did their job and…

RANDALL BRAMBLETT Devil Music New West NW6440 (CD). 2015. Gerry Hansen, prod., eng.; Chuck Ainlay, Ed Cherney, Elliot Scheiner, Brandon Schexnayder, Bobby Tis, engs. AAD? TT: 49:49 Some of my favorite Americana-tilting albums have a sonic potency that marries airy atmospherics to earthy, primal playing; think records by Mark Knopfler, Chris Whitley, Buddy Miller. Devil Music, by erstwhile Sea Level member and Southern-rock mainstay Randall Bramblett, is in that category, due partly to a swinging, gutbucket roots’n’blues vibe headed up by Bramblett’s gravel-scoured, close-miked voice, and partly to how his arrangements breathe and often even expand, to give the songs a wide-open-skies ambiance. But it’s a Nashville studio affair featuring several prominent guests: fellow Southerners Derek Trucks and Chuck Leavell, plus (speaking of whom) Mark Knopfler. The Dire Straits legend…

THIS ISSUE: Melco and Simaudio respond to our reviews of their products Melco N1A music server Editor: The N1A Network Player should be connected to the Player Ethernet port in order to gain the full sound-quality advantage, as the Melco N1A manages the network traffic in a rather special way, and also filters out nonessential traffic such as TV sets’ DNLA, keeping the feed to the player nice and clean. If the Network Player is connected to the Player port and the LAN port is connected to the rest of the network, including a router, then the tablet connected to the network will control the Player that is connected to the Melco M1A—no problem. If there is not any network connected to the LAN port, then the Melco is set…