Innehållsförteckning för August 2022 från Stereophile

The setting is surreal. As you drive into the Satsop Business Park in rural Elma, Washington (pop. 3500, max), eyes immediately fixate on the looming 481'-tall cooling towers of an abandoned nuclear facility.1 Remnants of the largest nuclear power plant construction project in the United States,2 the site was mothballed in 1983, in part due to concerns triggered by reports of what had happened at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island four years earlier. The abandoned site’s reactor and turbine buildings now house NWAA Labs, a 13-year-old independent laboratory that tests loudspeakers and materials for the audio, acoustics, and construction industries. NWAA Labs’ founder is Stanford-educated electrical and mechanical engineer Ron Sauro, 76. Initially, Sauro juggled work at NASA with performing as the Vox organist of the 1963 Gold Record–earning group the…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Genelec G Three’s frequency response in the farfield. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. Genelec specifies the G Three’s input impedance as 10k ohms. As this is an active loudspeaker, I calculated the input impedance by using spot frequency tones generated by my Audio Precision SYS2722 and examining how the nearfield sound pressure level dropped when I increased the source impedance to 600 ohms from 20 ohms (single-ended) and 40 ohms (balanced). The single-ended impedance was close to 3.6k ohms across the audioband; the balanced impedance, as expected, was twice that value. While the lowish unbalanced input impedance won’t present drive difficulties with solid state sources, the…

I measured the Ideon Ayazi mk2 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system.1 I performed the testing using the Ayazi’s coaxial S/PDIF input, which accepted data sampled at all rates up to 192kHz, and its USB port. I repeated some of the tests feeding data to the 3R Master Time Black Star’s USB port, the data then passed to the Ayazi’s USB port. Apple’s AudioMIDI utility revealed that the Ayazi’s and Black Star’s USB ports accepted 16- and 24-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1kHz to 384kHz. Apple’s USB Prober app identified both the Ideon products as “AYAZI True HD Audio\000” from “IDEON-AUDIO\000,” with the vendor ID as “C-MEDIA ELECTRONICS INC.” (CMedia Electronics is a Taiwanese computer hardware manufacturer.) The USB ports operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode.…

I measured the first sample of the WiiM Mini with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system,1 repeating some tests with the second sample. Looking first at the WiiM’s analog inputs and outputs, the input impedance was a usefully high 32k ohms at 20Hz and 1kHz, 13k ohms at 20kHz. The analog output preserved absolute polarity (ie, it was noninverting), and the source impedance was a low 33 ohms from 20Hz to 20kHz. The gain was 0.37dB with the fixed gain set to “1V.” With the fixed gain set to “2V (Loud),” the gain was 5.8dB at the outputs; that is, an input of 1V resulted in an output of 1.955V. The analog input offered a frequency response that rolled off rapidly above 21kHz (fig.1), which is due to analog input signals…

The cover art for Wilco’s finely hewn double album Cruel Country resembles a hand-stitched doily or the kind of patch you might have seen sewn onto the back pocket of a pair of vintage faded jeans circa 1978. It’s appropriate: Wilco’s music has long been a patchwork, piecing together the scope and potential of American music for the band’s nearly 30 years. Cruel Country, Wilco’s latest, is anything but cruel: it’s a longform love letter to an American artform, specifically the one described by the title’s second word. The songs and sounds produced by this Chicago-bred sextet over many concerts and albums have often approached country music, even caressed it. On this album, Wilco’s 12th made in the studio, frontman/singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy has doubled down on country, capitalizing the “C.”…

Scofield, electric guitar, looper ECM 2727 (auditioned in 16/44.1 WAV, available as CD, LP). 2022. Manfred Eicher, exec. prod.; Tyler McDiarmid, eng. In a distinguished half-century jazz career, John Scofield has been everywhere, played with everyone, and done everything. But he has never made a solo guitar record. Until now. This eponymous release is his most intimate, most introspective album, though it’s not entirely mellow. Scofield has roots in rock and country, and on his first solo record, he sometimes rocks out and sometimes gets twangy. He uses a looping device for chordal and rhythmic accompaniment. On Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” the rhythm track twitches with the song’s famous Bo Diddley beat—but this is a unique version, complicated by surprising inner details that could only come from a jazz…

London Contemporary Orchestra, Shiva Feshareki, James Bulley, Kit Downes NMC Recordings NMC D266 (CD, download). 2022. Jonathan Manners, Ellie Mant, prods., Gilly Chauhan, Andy Garratt, Ross Sanders, engs. For her first proper full-length, Britishborn Iranian composer/performer Shiva Feshareki set her ambitions high, reaching up into the ether and backward into the early days of electronic music. Feshareki has garnered acclaim for her live mixing of electronic and acoustic sounds. On the strength of her live performances and two limited-edition EPs, she was invited to the BBC Proms in 2021, where she employed the BBC Singers, the London Contemporary Orchestra, organ, and electronics to realize a 1950 score by Daphne Oram and premiere a work of her own. There’s a lot in the mix, but Feshareki builds her Aetherworld into an…

Lockenhaus Artists; Nicolas Altstaedt, cello Alpha861 (24/96 WAV). 2022. Peter Laenger, prod.; Martin Nagorni, Andreas Ruge, balance engs. Adventurous music lovers know that American and European trends in new music differ and that specific regions and festivals often celebrate unique sound worlds. For some very different flavors than those from Adams, Glass, Heggie, Higdon, Muhly, Riley, and Shaw (amongst many others), this fascinating compendium of pieces composed in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Lockenhaus Festival, in Austria, will open ears wide. For Creation, cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, who assumed leadership of the festival from violinist Gidon Kremer in 2012, called on composers who had come to Lockenhaus or had works performed there in the past 10 years. The recording contains two premieres: Helena Winkelman’s fascinating, must-hear Atlas: Concerto for…

Whenever I do turntable-setup seminars, I complain to the participants about the lack of cartridge-pin diameter and clip-opening standards. Anyone who does their own setup has experienced it: The connection is too tight or too loose. Forcing the clip onto the pin usually results in a broken-off clip that most end users don’t have the soldering skills needed to repair; in the worst case, it can even result in damage to the cartridge when you try to remove the clip from the pin. Too loose a fit may result in a plier squeeze that irreparably collapses or breaks the clip, with the same end result. I recommend the toothpick fix. If the pin is too big for the clip, insert a round toothpick into the clip to expand it. If…

On a cold, clear February morning, I attended my first inperson press event since the beginning of the pandemic. Marantz had invited me to a small group session in a suite at the Equinox Hotel at Hudson Yards but gave no indication of what was in store. After two years without live press events or audio shows, I was not going to spurn the offer no matter what would be presented: I was hungry for hi-fi. Upon arrival, I learned that Marantz would be featuring just one new product, a streaming integrated amplifier, the Marantz Model 40n ($2499). Sure, I’m in. A short introduction linked present-day Marantz to seminal Marantz products from the 1950s, represented visually by the distinc-tive Marantz center “porthole,” first seen facing forward on the Model 9…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Q Acoustics Concept 50’s frequency response in the farfield. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses and Dayton Audio’s DATS V2 system to measure the impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle. Q Acoustics specifies the Concept 50’s anechoic sensitivity as 90.5dB/W/m. My estimate was somewhat lower, at 88.1dB/2.83V/m. The Concept 50’s impedance is specified as 6 ohms, with a minimum value of 3.6 ohms. The impedance magnitude (fig.1. solid trace) varied between 6 ohms and 10 ohms over most of the audioband, with a minimum value of 3.79 ohms at 4kHz. The electrical phase angle (dotted trace) is generally benign, though it does reach –56° in…

Pop quiz. What does the following verbiage describe? And what does it mean? “It’s about what we love the most. It’s about what we hate the most. It’s about what we wait for but never happens. Relationships turn on, interrupt, and resume. Or sometimes they just stay still. Floating and suspended. So breathe in. Let go. Let’s begin from nothing.” Huh. Any luck yet? “And suddenly we discover that it’s easier than we thought. It’s more powerful than we ever imagined. You can see and feel what’s around you with an intensity that you never felt before. Just embrace the most pure and authentic connection. Life.” The words are spoken over two minutes of footage showing hyperattractive millennials and Gen Z’ers. There’s also a blink-and-you-miss-it cutaway to a grandfather type.…

Columbia 19439955131 (LP). 1982/2022. The Clash and Glyn Johns, prods.; Andrew Davitt, the Clash, and Tim Young, engs. When you’ve sung “Ha! You think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money!,” it can be problematic when you start scoring major hits. With the Clash, it wasn’t funny; their success increased tensions and led to the band splitting up. Music labels rarely have such qualms, and 40 years later Combat Rock gets the deluxe treatment, with 1 1/2 sides of The People’s Hall, with rarities and previously unreleased material. The remastering gives the mix slightly more oomph, but a great album remains a great album. Of more interest are the extras. What, though, is this trend of half an album? One side of The People’s Hall is blank. Couldn’t they find anything…

Willmann, tenor saxophone; Arne Huber, bass; Jeff Ballard, drums; Asger Nissen, alto saxophone CYH 0002 (CD, available as download). 2022. Patrik Zosso, Fabian Willmann, Sarah Chaksad, prods.; Patrik Zosso, eng. The West Coast style of jazz that became popular in the 1950s, also known as the “Cool School,” has had a unique history. It is regarded with great fondness by many current jazz fans. Reissues of albums by Stan Getz and Chet Baker still sell. But the West Coast genre is rarely an antecedent for today’s jazz musicians. The music of the “Cool School” was light, melodic, and airy. Above all, it was pretty. Most jazz today is edgy and exploratory. It is often not pretty, although at its best it is beautiful. Enter Fabian Willmann, born in Germany 65…

Mari Samuelsen, violin; Scoring Berlin; various soloists and electronics; American Contemporary Music Ensemble. Deutsche Grammophon 02894862096 (CD, reviewed as 24/96 MQA), 2022. Sundry producers and engineers. When a long-time audiophile distributor waxes rhapsodic about a recording, I take notice. So, when an unusually starry-eyed Jay Rein of Bluebird Music told me, in the hallways of the MOC at the High End Munich show, that the 52 minutes he’d just spent listening to Mari Samuelson’s new recording, Lys, was an unforgettable experience and that I shouldn’t miss it, I resolved to check it out post-show. Samuelsen’s Lys presents one of many distinct trends in modern classical music. Where Nicolas Altstaedt’s Creation is filled with dissonance, challenges, and a host of new ideas, Samuelsen presents a far more harmonious, pop-meets–New Age, one-idea-suffices…

San Diego Symphony Orchestra/Rafael Payare Platoon PLAT13061 (CD). 2022. Douglas R. Dillon, prod. and eng. The Eleventh, “The Year 1905,” is a program symphony depicting Bloody Sunday, when the Tsar’s guards fired on petitioners at the Winter Palace. It’s easy for conductors to err by “playing the program”; Rafael Payare instead just plays the music and lets the program fall into place. The conductor sustains tension through a spacious first movement, with quietly menacing timpani and trumpet interjections over eerie string pedals. The second movement depicts the actual conflict: Some renderings (e.g., Rostropovich) are deliberate, even lumbering, but Payare correctly plays it at scherzo tempo. The string triplets roll along inexorably, above which the arching phrases make powerful sense. Later, the wind chorale has an organlike purity. The Adagio’s burnished…

I measured the Marantz Model 40n with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system.1 For the digital-input measurements, I used TosLink data and the HEOS app on my iPhone to play back test-tone WAV files on a USB stick plugged into the rear-panel port. The Marantz’s single-ended line inputs preserved absolute polarity at both the loudspeaker and headphone outputs. The volume control operated in accurate 0.5dB steps, and the maximum gain was 40.6dB at the loudspeaker outputs and 40.7dB at the headphone output. The power amplifier stage offered a fixed gain of 24dB. The input impedance at both the line inputs and the power amplifier inputs was 15k ohms at all audio frequencies. The Model 40n’s output impedance at the headphone output was a relatively high 320 ohms. The loudspeaker output impedance,…

My little corner of Brooklyn happens to have a terrific little record shop. I like it for the usual reasons: well-chosen merchandise, fair prices, fun music on the speakers while you browse. But I like it just as much because great record stores tend to resemble one another in more idiosyncratic ways, and this one has the earmarks of the great record stores of my youth. It’s run by a middle-aged guy with an ambiguous past, a lawyerly knowledge of recorded music, and the uneasy charisma of a carnie, and staffed by the guy’s teenage male acolytes, who comport themselves like insiders privy to a really stupendous secret. For those willing to hang out, it can be a place of authentic learning, like an impromptu grad-school seminar with Johnny Paycheck…

Those of you old enough to have heard it when it was new will recall when you first experienced the music of Jimi Hendrix. I was 13, in 1967, when I came home after school with a friend bearing an LP of the just-released US Reprise Records pressing of Are You Experienced. My dad had a floorstanding, monophonic record player. He’d built some of the parts of himself. Somehow, we got the output from that player plugged into my Vox guitar amplifier, the kind the Beatles used on their US tours. My parents weren’t home, and we cranked that thing up as loud as it would go. I don’t even recall which friend I was with, but boy do I recall that sound! I’ve heard the album many times since…

Domino Records. WIGLP496 (LP). 2022. Dan Carey, Jon McMullen, prods.; Alexis Smith, Joshua Mobaraki, engs. Great debut albums that grab the listener and don’t let go are members of an elite club. Wet Leg has joined it, with a gold membership card. This is a thrilling album, with fun tattooed across it. The band was formed by long-time friends, guitarist/vocalists Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. The two women are the group’s heart, soul, mind, and sense of humor. Coming from the Isle of Wight may have something to do with how fresh they sound. Even allowing for its famous festival, the little island on the south coast of England is hardly known as the center of rock’n’roll—quiet family holidays in trailers maybe, but not R’n’R. There was no big scene…

Mingus, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, bass clarinet; Ted Curson, trumpet; Dannie Richmond, drums Candid CCD 30052 (CD, available as download, LP). 1961/2022. Nat Hentoff, prod.; Bob D’Orleans, eng. This release (along with four other titles) relaunches the Candid label, which had a brief, high-profile run in 1960 and 1961. There was a previous attempt to revive the label, in 1989. The prospect of a fully restored Candid is exciting because its back catalog contains people like Cecil Taylor, Booker Little, and Booker Ervin. All five new reissues were remastered by A-list engineer Bernie Grundman. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus is a major document of its time. The pianoless quartet is Mingus plus Eric Dolphy, Ted Curson, and Dannie Richmond. The program is four Mingus originals. On this early version…

Cédric Tiberghien, piano; Stéphane Degout, baritone; Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth, cond. Harmonia Mundi HMM902612 (reviewed as 24/96 WAV), 2022. Jiri Heger, prod. and eng. The clear-eyed rendition of the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is the highlight. From the opening low-string figurations, pianist and conductor produce a musical line that’s always purposeful, with unfailingly clear textures. Tiberghien, at both piano and forte, maintains clean, crisp articulations even when subordinate to the bubbling orchestral cauldron. Roth guides listeners firmly through the episodes. The G Major Concerto is effective, too, though unconventional. Tiberghien takes care to highlight the melodic lines, sometimes overinsistently. The moto perpetuo writing in the outer movements works well, and the first movement’s second theme expands pleasingly. In the central Adagio, the pianist’s angular lyricism makes the climaxes…

JansZen Valentina P8 I thank John Atkinson for his review of the JansZen Valentina P8 compact electrostatic hybrid speaker (Vol.45, No.6). What made this model worth reviewing again after several years’ gap was mainly a change from 7" to 8" woofers, which brings a dramatic improvement in bass extension and punch, plus a few other improvements. Small deviations from our setup recommendations are expected, and indeed may optimize the sound. In this case, however, JA’s setup deviated substantially and in a manner that diminished the speakers’ performance compared to the inevitable result of following the instructions, which are pretty straightforward: Place the speakers fairly near the front wall (not far away) to attain deep bass and palpable impact; cross their axes at ear level, a bit behind the head position…