Issue 202

Looking back at 2023, I realized it was a fairly good year for me musically. I don’t buy many new recordings, but I caught up on some reissues from the past few years, picked up some new reissues released in 2023, and found a couple of new recordings this year despite not following most of the current music being released.

For my favorite new release of 2023, Peter Gabriel slowly unfolded his new album i/o over the course of the year, beginning in January, releasing a new “Bright Side” mix on each full moon, and a “Dark Side” mix with each new moon. After 12 moon cycles, he had released the entire album, and as of December 2023 the entire package was available for purchase on CD, Blu-ray Audio, and vinyl. Rather than have a single official album, he released Bright Side and Dark Side versions, and the In-Side Mixes (originally exclusive to his subscription on Bandcamp) are available only on the Blu-ray version.

Musically, it is a treat for Gabriel’s fans, who have waited 21 years since his previous album Up was released. Where Up was often dark and heavy, i/o Is perhaps a bit more hopeful and upbeat, a reflection on mortality, rebirth, and how our input and output (I/O) makes us part the world around us (“stuff coming out, stuff going in, I'm just a part of everything”).

In other new releases, one of my favorite groove jazz groups, Four80East, offered up their tasty new album Gonna Be Alright. There wasn’t much new on the Mavericks front, another of my favorite bands, other than Raul Malo’s solo instrumental album Say Less, which features a few tracks with the full Mavericks lineup. I didn’t yet pick up Brian Setzer’s latest record, The Devil Always Collects, but did give a listen to the self-titled album by a group called The Barnestormers, an “international” studio band featuring among them the band’s namesake Jimmy Barnes on vocals (Australia), Jools Holland (UK) on piano, and Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom (USA).

It’s not that I’m against new and recent recordings, but in a life where I have a backlog of older music to explore, it’s hard to fit a lot of new music into the schedule! One of my projects this year was doing a deep dive into the CTI Records catalog (Creed Taylor’s record label), and I’ve found several favorites among the nearly 100 albums I have documented so far on the CTI, Kudu, and Salvation labels.

That leads to my most listened to album this year: Idris Muhammad’s Power of Soul. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea (especially if they enjoy jazz, but see Bob James in the credits), but it has turned into a “comfort food” album for me. It has an all-star cast including the keyboards and arrangements of Bob James, and solos by Grover Washington, Jr.; Randy Brecker; Joe Beck; and a handful of other familiar names. It features Muhammad’s solid drum groove woven through a set of tracks that are compelling yet easygoing. A good chill-out album, in other words. The sound is clear as a bell on the high-res download, and the Music on Vinyl pressing is similarly excellent.

Another favorite this year and perhaps the second most played is Gambler’s Life by Johnny “Hammond” Smith. A dense and sometimes chaotic album, it is squarely in the soul jazz groove, featuring production and appearances by the Mizell Brothers (Larry and Fonce). It took me several listens to finally “get” the entire record, but it’s a keeper, mixing elements of funk and soul with a touch of jazz. Johnny Hammond forgoes his usual Hammond B3 organ for a Fender Rhodes stage piano, giving his music an entirely different groove. I’m fortunate to have found a high-res download of this, as clean original vinyl is difficult and/or expensive to locate.

I’ve enjoyed a handful of the Blue Note Records reissues this year. My favorite of the batch is Electric Byrd by Donald Byrd. What is notable about this release is that the record was mastered and pressed at Third Man Pressing in Detroit, Michigan, in the Blue Note 313 Series (313 being Detroit’s area code, the artists in the series all Detroit-based). In addition to being sold in black and “Blue Note blue” vinyl versions, there are two additional colored “eclipse” pressings limited to 313 copies each – one is black/yellow (Third Man’s official colors) and the other blue/white (Blue Note’s colors), both available only at the Third Man store (the former) or the official Blue Note store (the latter).

I find the music fascinating, an album styled by the influence of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, but more melodic and varied at times. Thanks to the participation of percussionist Airto Moreira, his track “Xibaba” is almost reminiscent of his work with the first version of Return to Forever. Warren Defever’s mastering brings out the nuances well. A worthwhile addition to the collection!

Donald Byrd, Electric Byrd, Blue Note 313 series black and yellow pressing. Courtesy of Rudy Radelic.

Other 2023 remasters I purchased this year on vinyl include the following:

• Tito Puente: Mambo Diablo (Craft Recordings Latino/Concord Jazz Picante)
• Bill Evans: Sunday at the Village Vanguard (Craft Recordings/OJC)
• Bill Evans: Waltz for Debby (Craft Recordings)
• Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd: Jazz Samba (Verve Acoustic Sounds series)
• Wynton Kelly Trio/Wes Montgomery: Smokin' at the Half Note (Verve Acoustic Sounds series)
• Art Pepper: Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series)
• Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Further Out (Impex Records, a surprise I discovered at AXPONA last year)

Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Further Out, album cover.

I am happy to say that the pressing quality and mastering on all of these titles is top-notch, and in addition to the numerous 2021 and 2022 Blue Note reissues I purchased this year in the Classic Vinyl and Tone Poet series (all remastered by Kevin Gray), it was a very good year for vinyl at Casa Rudy.

Finally, I can’t conclude a year-end review without mentioning some of my used record scores. I typically buy most of my used vinyl through Discogs, as I can locate exact versions of what I’m looking for, and often find what I want in sealed condition. Yet I had an opportunity to visit some used record stores on a road trip in late July, picking up 26 titles between four different stores, one in Boulder, Colorado (Paradise Found Records), and the other three in Colorado Springs (Earth Pig Records, Tiger Records, and Independent Records, which, unfortunately, was having a going-out-of-business sale, but still had a substantial selection to choose from). Most of the records cleaned up quite well, and only a couple were too worn to keep.

Despite my good luck at the record stores, my top vinyl find of the year was Horace Silver’s The Stylings of Silver, which I found a 1970s reissue copy of for a very fair price. Anyone buying older Blue Note vinyl knows the insane prices some of these titles fetch, so my copy for less than $25 (which is an excellent player) was quite a treat. One of my favorite of Silver’s albums, Silver’s Serenade, is being released on a Tone Poet reissue this coming April, and I would rather pay $35-ish for a new record than take chances on multiple used $35 copies.

That wraps up my 2023 in new (to me) music. I hope yours was just as fruitful. Let us know in the comments what tickled your ear in 2023!

In 2023, record label Rhino launched its Rhino High Fidelity series, dedicated to releasing high-quality vinyl reissues of classic Warner Music album titles. As Rhino notes, all the album lacquers are AAA (completely analog throughout) cut directly from the stereo master tapes by noted mastering engineer Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. The 180-gram pressings are done by Germany’s Optimal Media.

The packaging certainly deserves to be called deluxe, with heavyweight tip-on glossy fold-out jackets, and booklets that feature photos of the master tape boxes and lacquer-cutting notes on the outside, and interviews and photos on the inside. I received review copies of four titles from Jaco Pastorius, the Doobie Brothers, Van Morrison, and Herbie Hancock, and the vinyl quality on all of them is immaculate. Each album release retails for $39.98 exclusively at rhino.com and is produced in a limited edition of 5,000.

Jaco Pastorius – Word of Mouth

Although, like everyone else, I was astounded by bassist extraordinaire Jaco Pastorius’ 1975 self-titled solo album debut and his subsequent work with Weather Report, I somehow missed hearing his 1981 solo follow-up, Word of Mouth. I expected to hear more of the virtuosic, bass-in-your-face style of his debut, and though there’s plenty of that – his playing on the opener “Crisis” is nearly superhuman – it’s a surprisingly nuanced, musically sophisticated and varied record.

A look at the inside cover tells why – more than 40 musicians are credited, and they’re a who’s who of jazz/fusion, including Don Alias, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Jim Pugh, Snooky Young, Toots Thielmans, Wayne Shorter, Tom Scott, Michael Brecker, and a whole lot of other A-listers. The music ranges from the frenetic “Crisis” to the more contemplative “Three Views of a Secret,” an unmistakably “Jaco” take on the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” and a lot in between. “Three Views of a Secret” and “John and Mary” almost sound like they could be Gil Evans charts, with gorgeous orchestration. The ensemble playing on “Liberty City,” featuring Herbie Hancock, is tight.

The sound quality is excellent – super-clean, dynamic, with extended frequency range and a defined soundstage. The various instruments – and oh boy, are there a lot of them, from Jaco’s fretless electric bass to horns, electric pianos, many varieties of percussion, harmonica, vocals and much more – all have their distinctive timbral colors. Jaco’s bass is not exaggerated or overly prominent, although on the title track, he gets to absolutely rip, using effects like fuzz and some kind of chorus or modulation effect to go crazy wild. The percussion is crisp, yet warm. For me, the mid-to-late 1970s was the Golden Age of Analog Multitrack Recording, and on Word of Mouth you can hear why. Has digital caught up with or surpassed analog? Listening to this album, I wonder.

Van Morrison – His Band and the Street Choir

I admit – Van Morrison was always one of those artists I respected more than listened to, like U2 or Bruce Springsteen or Ornette Coleman. This is somewhat unfair and perhaps a result of the fact that, as a gigging musician, I got tired of hearing people requesting “Brown Eyed Girl” and playing “Moondance” a long time ago. Neither of which are on 1970's His Band and the Street Choir, which starts off with the decidedly not-overplayed and irresistibly cool “Domino.”

Jeez, I realized I’d never heard the song on a good system, and what a revelation this reissue is. The opening riff to “Domino” leaps out of the left channel, the horns have jump and snap, and the overall sound of the record is warm and smooth. Other instruments include acoustic guitar (I didn’t know Morrison was such a good acoustic guitarist until hearing “I’ll Be Your Lover Too”), harmonica, percussion, organ, mandolin, and piano.

The band is tight, and I especially dig the bass player, John Klingberg, who plays with the perfect combination of groove and taste, and locks in with the drummer old-school style. The band and the sound of the album are organic, with an Americana/R&B/blues feel that reminds me a little of the Band. While not an “audiophile” recording, the instruments have good presence, like the acoustic guitars and mandolin on “Virgo Clowns” and the organ playing throughout. The almost-hit “Blue Money” is as catchy and classic as “Domino.”

Listening to His Band and the Street Choir gives me new respect for Van Morrison, because, good lord, what an incredible, emotionally powerful singer he is, something that you can very clearly comes through on this LP. I looked at the liner notes and what do you know: the album was recorded by Elliott Scheiner (with assistance from Dixon Van Winkle, Ed Anderson, Mark Harman, and Richard Lubash). In the notes, Cory Frye interviews Scheiner, who sums it up better and more authoritatively than I ever could: “All the vocals we did were primarily live vocals. They were so good, so brilliant. What would come out of his mouth showed such presence.”

“The best Black singer I ever worked with was Ray Charles. The best white singer was Van Morrison.”

The Doobie Brothers – The Captain and Me

One very nice thing about reissues is that they can remind you of albums you haven’t heard in a while, maybe decades, and maybe you’ve never heard them on a high-fidelity audio system. Such is the case with The Doobie Brothers’ 1973 release The Captain and Me. The last time I heard the LP was in college, or maybe on my parents’ very-lo-fi Masterwork stereo system. So, spinning the Rhino reissue was like revisiting an old friend. The album has the massive hits, “Long Train Runnin’” and “China Grove,” and a solid if not always scintillating selection of other songs including “Clear as the Driven Snow,” ”Without You,” and the title track, which will bring back a flood of fond memories.

Well, I sure never heard The Captain and Me like this before. Once again, the remastering is excellent. No one would claim this as audio demo quality or the last word in dynamics, but the sound is clean and has width, depth and solidity. There are some sonic standout moments, like Tiran Porter’s picked bass on “Long Train Runnin’” and the acoustic-based “Busted Down Around O’Connelly Corners,” where you really get the sense of fingers plucking the strings. The multiple electric guitars are well-recorded and there are all kinds of flavors of overdriven guitars for fretboard freaks like me to salivate over. The guitars on “China Grove,” for example, are rawer and raspier than you remember hearing them on the radio, and it makes the track sound more “real,” the sound of amps being pounded to beyond their limit. Tom Johnston’s lead guitar on “Dark Eyed Cajun Woman” (my all-time Doobies favorite) is sublime. I’m guessing it’s a Gibson hollow body into a dimed Fender black face or silver face amp. And that’s Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on pedal steel, and Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil guesting on synthesizers!

It’s fun to hang with old friends.

Herbie Hancock – Crossings

I’m completely, utterly blown away by this 1971 album, which I hadn’t heard before, both by its music and sound quality. It’s a heady mix of fusion, free jazz, world music, percussion grooves and…well, by the time you get to side two it becomes simply impossible to categorize. I’m going to be a contrarian here, but for me, this is the album Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew could have been. I’ve always thought the latter was an indulgent half-effort of musicians screwing around in the studio, to be assembled into something resembling an album later, or maybe Miles putting one over on the critics, or all of the above, though of course it has its moments.

Herbie Hancock, Crossings, album cover.

Crossings is dazzling in its navigation of musical moods, tempos, and textures, from slow and spartan to deeply complex. The album features Mwandishi Herbie Hancock on electric and acoustic piano, mellotron and percussion (at the time of the album, the band members had all taken Swahili names), along with band members Swahile Eddie Henderson (trumpet, fluegelhorn, percussion), Mwile Benny Maupin (soprano saxophone, alto flute, bass clarinet, piccolo, percussion), Jabali Billy Hart (drums, percussion), Pepo Mtoto Julian Priester (bass, tenor and alto trombone, percussion) and Mchejazi Buster Williams (electric and acoustic bass, percussion). They’re joined by Patrick Gleeson on Moog synthesizer, Victor Pontoja on congas, and vocalists Candy Love, Sandra Stevens, Della Horne, Victoria Domagalski and Scott Beach, who act more like other instruments – there’s no conventional “singing” on this album.

The music admittedly might not be for everyone. This ain’t no Waltz for Debby or any other kind of traditional jazz. It gets pretty far out there, though never sounding as caterwauling or abrasive or downright noisy as some free jazz can get. There’s always a harmonic underpinning, a groove, a sense of structure, and above all, a remarkable feeling of the musicians listening to, communicating with, and playing off of each other. There are just three tracks. “Sleeping Giant” (which takes up all of side one), “Quasar,” which really does sound like a missive from a distant galaxy with its sci-fi synths and echo-delayed horn – but where the aliens dig jazz – and “Water Torture,” which is musically exactly the opposite of what its title seems to imply, unless you just don’t like this kind of exploratory musical thing. Which is cool. I, however, find it spellbinding.

The sound is superb. The instruments have a richness and harmonic rightness that is a joy to listen to. The soundstage is vast at times. The tonal balance is excellent, and there’s plenty of musical detail, from the articulation of the acoustic bass and various percussion to the subtle, at times almost subliminal synth sounds. Hancock’s Fender Rhodes electric piano sounds lush and deep, one of the best recordings of a Rhodes I’ve ever heard. The mix is really well done, with instruments and vocals well-placed throughout the musical space.

Just fantastic.

“We'll always have Paris...”

Ken Kessler dons a trench coat and fedora to retrace Bogie’s footsteps with a visit to the Paris Audio Video Show.

It’s been six years since I last attended the Paris Audio Video Show, and I am delighted to report that it has returned to the Palais de Congrès de Paris. Arguably one of the best venues imaginable for a hi-fi show, it can accommodate all manner of audio and video gear thanks to its scale and layout – an exhibition center like Munich’s M.O.C. rather than a hotel-type venue.

As the event’s name informs you, the combination of sound and vision is why the attendance was spectacular, with circa 20,000 visitors. An impressive crowd by any measure, the best thing about it was a demographic of individuals not needing Zimmer frames. Whole families, females, teenagers more au fait with gaming consoles than the Marantz Consolette – it was almost baffling, so accustomed am I to the clichéd, “beardy old men” profile of hi-fi show visitors. (Of which I am a part, though sans face foliage.) Much credit goes to organizers savvy enough and young enough to have used social media and who highlighted headphones, Bluetooth, A/V and other products which don't excite those more focused on $50K-plus phono stages and $100K speakers.

Aah, you’re thinking, “Do I really want to circumnavigate the massive multi-channel home cinema booths from the major Japanese consumer electronics brands, or detour around the acres of headphones, to find a few obscure tube amps?” Fortunately, there remains enough serious hi-fi equipment to attract the still-breathing audiophiles who established the event some four decades ago.

Separate corridors house the high-end gear, so you don't have to rub shoulders with tattooed and/or nasally-pierced Gen-Z types if that worries you. Familiar names such as Tannoy, NAD, D’Agostino, McIntosh, Wilson Audio, Krell, PSB, Astell & Kern, MartinLogan, REL, Roksan and dozens of others were there to ensure that serious separates were represented.

Paris’ premier A/V event has a way to go to attain the levels of international interest afforded to Warsaw and Munich, but I’m optimistic: the general buzz it created suggests a great future because seasoned attendees were staggered by the size of the crowds.

While not overburdened with global product launches, many of which awaited Warsaw the next weekend (see next issue), the French have a penchant for novelty and clever design features. My favorite discovery of the show – French Acoustics – is a powered portable speaker of the affordable, Bluetooth variety, if hardly what a seasoned hi-fi enthusiast would look at twice. And the proliferation of turntables being ogled by attendees younger than the wines in my cellar? They intimate that maybe hi-fi has a future.

Crowds appeared early on Saturday.

French Acoustics' utterly brilliant 10 x 4.3 x 4.3-inch Proton V2 wireless speaker is sold singly for €299 or €579 per pair. and they can be positioned in any way you like thanks to their angular design.

Headphone halls with hundreds of pairs of active cans are one way to attract a demographic too young to remember when Clinton was President, let alone DeGaulle.

Here's Jean-Marie Hubert, the founder of the show and one of France's high-end legends, returned to present brands including MartinLogan, NAD and Perlisten.

Lines formed around what is arguable Pro-Ject's most witty celebrity turntable so far, the brilliantly conceived Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon – though I still get a bigger kick out of their Yellow Submarine model.

Supatrac's Blackbird is a radical tonearm from Great Britain with – are you ready for this? – a sideways uni-pivot bearing providing adjustability while playing. It's available in 9-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch lengths.

A blast from the past hit me when I saw this Cary Audio CAD-300-SEI integrated amplifier, but what was more telling was displaying the amp without tubes to prevent theft.

Perlisten was certainly making a lot of noise for a relative newcomer, especially with the S Series' S7t, an imposing 51-inch tall floorstander boasting lots of advanced materials.

Here's Perlisten's S5t tower, which uses the same 28 mm beryllium tweeter found in the dearer models.

Header image: Triangle's flagship Magellan Quatuor loudspeaker flanks the Borea BR08 – both front-ported, the former stands 4-feet, 3-inches tall, and boasts three woofers, while the 3-foot 4-inch Borea manages with two.

All photos courtesy of Ken Kessler.

In case you missed it, funk is back and may be poised to be even stronger than it was in the 1970s. Ignited by a connection to the jam band world, bands like Lettuce and Galactic and individual artists like Cory Wong are quickly drawing attention to a music form with remarkable roots and a level of musicianship that rivals jazz and other genres that demand serious chops. Regardless of where funk may move, its American origins remain strongly rooted in New Orleans, where bands like The Meters created music that is timeless in its capacity to make us move. The spirit of these NOLA acts lives on with the seven-member band, The Rumble, where their approach unapologetically touches every one of your senses.

Formed out of another legendary New Orleans band, Cha Wa, The Rumble completely immerses the listener into the culture of New Orleans, and their commitment to preserving the music and art of the Crescent City sit at the center of what their mission was about from the beginning. Composed of Second Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr. of the Golden Eagles, trumpeter Aurélien Barnes, trombonist José Maize Jr., bassist TJ Norris, guitarist Ari Teitel, keyboardist Andriu Yanovski, and drummer Trenton O’Neal, the band create a form of funk that is anchored in tradition yet made modern with elements of hip-hop, jazz, and R&B.

Their debut record Live From The Maple Leaf has just been nominated for a Grammy award in the category of Best Regional Roots Album. In celebration of that impressive nod, the band is releasing a vinyl bundle which includes a double 12-inch record paired with a limited-edition screen-printed poster featuring artwork by artist Rob Winchester.

The Rumble, Live From The Maple Leaf, album cover.

Copper caught up with Ari Teitel and Trenton O’Neal to talk about how the band was formed, what their vision is for where things can go, and – in addition to a good amount of touring – what 2024 has in store for a band that has quickly caught the attention of many and is armed with a caliber of talent that has the potential to take funk further than it’s ever been.

Ray Chelstowski: The Rumble was formed out of the band Cha Wa. What does this new construct allow that you weren’t able to explore with your old band?

Ari Teitel: Total and complete musical freedom, and that’s inherent with every band member having an ownership stake in the band. It allows a total democracy to exist. In some ways it can be tougher because there are seven people fighting for their ideas to be heard, but ultimately it results in the best music possible because it’s so collaborative.

RC: How do you ensure that happens and that every voice is heard?

Trenton O’Neal: Through weekly meetings. You have to meet, talk through things, and voice opinions. I think it’s important to be comfortable with your band as well. We spend a lot of time together in vehicles touring so it’s important that we trust each other’s opinions and when you do it makes for a really cohesive group.

RC: When you decided to form the band was there a vision that you collectively had for what it could or would become?

TO: It’s interesting to hear you ask that, because we constantly think about that and are about to have another meeting about vision. That’s evolved as we have [evolved] as musicians. The talent in the band is very precise. There are players in this band who have worked with really big-name acts. I think that and the work we are doing in this community are opening all kinds of doors. But the main vision is to preserve the culture and music of New Orleans.

AT: I think we all knew that we could expand what we were doing with Cha Wa while preserving black and indigenous ownership in the band, while also maintaining a cultural integrity. We saw the success we were having with Cha Wa and felt we could do that on an even larger scale. We felt that if we were the owners we could do it even better.

RC: What prompted you to make your debut a live record?

AT: We knew our live show is kind of our calling card, and it provides this kind of holistic New Orleans experience. If you go to a show you’re going to see and hear elements of Mardi Gras Indians, of brass bands, of the New Orleans funk tradition, and even modern jazz, hip-hop and R&B. When you’re in it it’s an incredible thing. We wanted to be able to capture that, especially at the Maple Leaf Bar where there’s such a palpable energy in the room. That was also the first place that we played. The band debuted in 2022 with a five-Wednesday residence. We played all five Wednesdays leading up to Mardi Gras. That became our home base, and we wanted to take some of the songs we wrote for Cha Wa and show everyone how we perform them; what The Rumble identity is of those songs.

RC: What current drummers and guitarists inspire you?

TO: I’ve been following a bunch of different people but I’m digging on Blake Smith right now and his use of the pocket. I’ve also been listening to this New Orleans legend that just passed this year, [drummer] Russell Batiste Jr. He brought such an energy to the music. But there are a lot of people I follow.

AT: In New Orleans I love Ian Neville. I think he’s very underrated. I love Isaiah Sharkey, Erick Walls, Agape Jerry, and there’s a young guy, Xavier Lynn, who’s really awesome. There’s also Marcus Machado, he’s a friend of mine and I love hearing him play and playing with him too.

RC: What prompted you to release this vinyl bundle and how did the artist Rob Winchester become involved with the project?

AT: Rob got in on the ground floor. As soon as we started the band we started contacting him for graphics. Our friendship goes back years with him and he’s always been an ardent supporter, and has always gone the extra mile when it comes to art and design for the band. He understands that our look and sound are unique and he really translates that through his art. 

Rob brought the bundle idea [of releasing our music] to us. He thought we should have a vinyl version because a lot of fans had been requesting it. Until then we had been printing CDs, and obviously they are an archaic form of media, and we thought, with the Grammy nomination it would be a great time to put this out; but do it as a double album and make it special.

RC: Some of the band members have been nominated for Grammy awards before. What made this one particularly special?

AT: This is my third [nomination] and it’s the one that hit me the hardest. I literally cried when I found out because I thought of all of the hard work that it took from all of us just to get here. The fact that everyone in the band had ownership and put in the work to make the album happen was really special. It was more than just playing on a record. When you are actually involved in the whole creative process it already feels like a win; not just for us but for everyone who has helped us along the way.

RC: The 2024 tour dates on your site are limited, and skewed toward the South. Do you have a plan to extend the number of dates and hit other regions?

AT: What’s on our site currently is an extremely small sampling of what you are going to see in 2024. We have a couple of festivals. In February we are doing the Olympia Funk Festival in Washington, and the Gasparilla Festival in Tampa. We also have a lot of unannounced festival and summer dates that are going to be announced soon, including an East Coast and a Mountain/West Coast run, so we’re going to be pretty busy.

RC: Is there any new music coming from the band in the New Year?

TO: Definitely. We’re working on a studio record. Interestingly enough, we recorded an album in 2022 and I’m really excited about the drop. I think if you enjoyed the live record you’ll really enjoy this.

There was a time when Dan Fogelberg’s albums sold like crazy, but a lot of people made fun of his sappy sound. The fact is, he churned out a lot of albums over thirty years, but had only a few lasting hits. And there’s far more to the Illinois native’s output than the cheesy love lyrics and breathy voice that made him famous.

Admittedly, his first album, Home Free (1972), contains a large helping of Seventies synth syrup, but there is one track that hints at a more interesting songwriter. “Wysteria” goes light on the synthesizers and lets simple acoustic fingerpicking bring out some unusual chord progressions. Fogelberg was a skilled guitarist, as he shows in the overdubbed solo at 1:00. His lyrics about a troubled but strong woman avoid sentimentality while his voice cracks slightly with a melancholy that seems genuine.

In his next two albums, Souvenirs (1974) and Captured Angel (1975), Fogelberg moved more solidly toward a folk sound. There’s also a touch of rock showing up on some tracks, for example “The Last Nail,” from Captured Angel. It starts out acoustic, but that gentle sound gets nudged out in the third verse by electric guitar and drums (longtime Fogelberg backer Russ Kunkel, although most of the instruments on this album are played by Fogelberg himself).

Also worth noting here is a common characteristic of the best Fogelberg lyrics, moments of very specific and unusual imagery that bring the world of the song into vivid color: “We walked together through the gardens and graves…”

Although the pendulum swung back to overly sweet synth sounds and surface-level love songs for Nether Lands (1977), the following album gave Fogelberg more street cred in the neighborhood of rock and roll. Phoenix, which went double-platinum in 1979, amps up the intensity. “Face the Fire” has all the characteristics of a hard rock anthem, except that it’s about protesting nuclear and other popular energy sources in favor of solar:

Despite such heavy tracks, Fogelberg doesn’t abandon his previous styles as he gains new ones. Prime example: there was a time when you couldn’t go to a wedding without hearing his saccharine-oozing ballad “Longer,” which also comes from the Phoenix album.

Among the handful of Fogelberg songs that still get any airplay are “The Same Auld Lang Syne” and “Leader of the Band,” the two songs that really don’t fit with the rest of his 1981 two-disc set, Innocent Age. Overall, Innocent Age is a song cycle in the classical sense – short songs somehow related to each other; in this case, I would say the theme is man’s relationship with nature and the cosmos, not to mention the meaning of life. Those two hit songs are the only ones that deal with more specifically personal topics.

On display in the other 15 cuts are Fogelberg’s philosophical mind, expressed in some wise and articulate poetry. In “Stolen Moments,” he pithily captures a truth about how humans interact: “Waiting out the worst, we keep the best inside us / in hopes our hearts can hide us, in hopes our tears don’t show.” The music is catchy old-school rock, with some interesting shapes to the phrases, but not so complicated that they pull attention from the lyrics:

The Innocent Age cycle ends with “Ghosts,” one of Fogelberg’s finest songs. The track features singing that’s noteworthy for its range, control, and expressiveness as part of an artful arrangement (produced by Fogelberg with Marty Lewis) that blooms from lone piano to full strings and chorus, then dwindles again to eerie quiet. Dealing with the sense of loss we humans inevitably experience as time goes by and things change, the lyrics include some of that distinctive Fogelberg imagery: “Along the walls in shadowed rafters / Moving like a thought through haunted atmospheres…”

Country music was a big influence on Fogelberg; he honed his chops as a session musician in Tennessee as a young man. The album High Country Snows (1985) is dedicated to that genre. And he tangles with the best: “Shallow Rivers” is a knee-slapper featuring masters like Herb Peterson on banjo, Charlie McCoy on harmonica, David Grisman on mandolin, and Jim Buchanan on fiddle. Fogelberg seems as comfortable writing and playing Opry-style tunes as he does with folk and rock.

With Afro-Cuban inspired percussion and R&B-style back-up brass, “Holy Road” is an example of the world of musical influence Fogelberg welcomed into the sessions for his 1993 album River of Souls. (I also recommend the joyous tribute to the music of Africa in “Serengeti Moon.”) The pleasing tenor voice of Fogelberg’s youth is shot, but he takes advantage of the hoarseness to push out a rugged, soulful performance.

The final Fogelberg studio album is Love in Time. (A live recording, Dan Fogelberg – Live at Carnegie Hall, was issued in 2017.) Love in Time was released by his widow in 2009, two years after his death from cancer at 56. It comprises the title song (a charity single he’d written for her as a Valentine’s gift in 2005) plus 11 previously-unpublished songs. “Come to the Harbor” is a fitting farewell for us. The song pays tribute to Fogelberg’s early love of both country and Celtic music. His physical weakness may show in the wobble of his voice, but his spirit is still flying free with the lilting melody.

Dan Fogelberg was very much an artist of his time: an intelligent, thoughtful, gentle wordsmith with wide-ranging taste that he was determined to explore. His like is not welcome on the charts anymore, and much of his music has already fallen into obscurity. There’s a movement to change that, though. In September 2017, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center presented the world premiere of Part of the Plan, a jukebox musical with a score made up entirely of Fogelberg songs.

Will it ever come to Broadway and bring this songwriter back into the limelight? Probably not. But it’s good to know that someone cares enough to try.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Epic Records publicity photo.

This article was first published in Issue 64.

The most recent Capital Audiofest took place where it has for the past few years, at the Hilton Rockville in Rockville, Maryland. It’s grown from a casual affair in 2010 to one of the audio world’s major shows, with well over 300 brands on exhibit in more than 120 rooms (a 30 percent increase from 2022) ranging from modest to immense. The variety of analog and digital gear and loudspeakers is almost dizzying. If you’re an audiophile or music lover, you’ll certainly find something to interest you and undoubtedly make you happy. 

I couldn’t make it this time but had eyes and ears in my very capable colleague Harris Fogel. Of course, in a show of this scope, it’s impossible to cover it all in any case, but if you want to see what’s it’s all about, you’ll have a chance next year at Capital Audiofest 2024, which will take place November 8 – 10, 2024 at the same venue. Or, you can attend the first-ever Southwest Audio Fest, run by the same organizers, which will happen at the Anatole Hilton in Dallas, Texas, March 15 – 17, 2024.

Capital Audio Fest show organizer Gary Gill and happy attendee Ron Baker were all smiles.

Here's a selection of what was exhibited. All on-site photos are courtesy of Harris Fogel.

ATC featured its CA-2 preamplifier ($3,249). It’s a pure-analog design with a built-in, fully-adjustable phono stage. It’s adept at driving ATC’s powered speakers, as well as use in a standard system with power amplifiers. The CA-2 features discrete low-noise Class A circuitry, a headphone amp, five inputs and remote-control operation. It’s hand-built in the UK.

Bending Wave Audio showcased the Divin Marquis high-end loudspeakers ($90,000/pair), complemented by the Riviera Audio Laboratories APL01 Special Edition tube preamplifier ($46,995) and AFM 100SE mono power amps ($82,800/pair). The source was provided by the WADAX Atlantis Reference DAC, server and Akasa optical system ($166,420, $68,800 and $20,400 respectively), and the system was rounded out by Nordost and Gobel cabling and accessories, and Core Audio equipment and amplifier stands.

The Riviera Labs APL01 Special Edition preamplifier.

Meze Audio has been making a splash lately with its high-end headphones, and CAF featured the launch of the new Empyrean II ($2,999), the next generation of the company’s open-back planar magnetic. Its design goals are neutral sonics, reproduction of fine musical detail, and as the company notes, an “easy to listen to” character. The Empyrean II features the Rinaro Isodynamic Array Driver, which utilizes a combination of switchback and spiral-coil drivers. Copper’s writers have had nothing but good things to say about Meze Audio headphones. And you can’t miss that very cool Art Deco-looking earpiece grille.

Feed your head: Meze Audio's new Empyrean II planar magnetic headphones.

Boston dealer Blink High End and Audio Group Denmark presented a system comprised of the Borresen M1 stand-mounted loudspeaker, powered by the Aavik C-880 preamplifier, P-880 Class A power amp, S-580 streamer and D-580 DAC, all tied together with Aavik DT-C Supreme cables, power conditioning, and accessories.

Alta Audio demoed its Adam 3-way floorstanding speaker ($17,000 - $18,000 per pair, depending on finish), designed to, among other things, deliver imaging that sounds natural and accurate in size, placement, and timbre. I’ve heard these speakers and I can attest that they deliver on these goals. They incorporate a neodymium-magnet aluminum ribbon tweeter, combined with a 6-inch midrange and 8.75-inch woofer in Alta’s XTL (Extended Line Transmission) enclosure. The scale and depth of this speaker belies its relatively modest proportions.

Alta Audio's Adam loudspeaker in rosewood.

Canadian manufacturer Infigo Audio introduced its Method 6 stereo amplifier (SRP: $20,000). It’s a Class A design that’s said to reduce the heat such a topology can produce by using multiple, smaller, “cleverly biased” output devices. The Class A design eliminates crossover distortion and is said to maintain excellent transient response.

Stenheim featured its Alumine Two.Five loudspeakers. For more on these, please see the article elsewhere in this issue.

Walter Schofield of Nexus Audio Technologies brought a little bit of Switzerland to Maryland via the Stenheim loudspeakers.

The Infigo Audio team, Hans Looman, Mathilda Looman, and Calvin Johnson, taking a break from the show.

The Infigo Audio Method 6 stereo amplifier.

Doshi Audio always has a superb system on offer, and CAF 2023 was no exception. They exhibited with their partners Command Performance AV, Cardas (cables), Joseph Audio (loudspeakers), and J. Sikora turntables. Doshi demonstrated their Evolution Series stereo amplifier, phono preamp and line preamp. J. Sikora featured its stunning Standard Max Special Edition turntable in Ferrari Red, making it perhaps even more of a head-turner than the standard-finish models. The turntable was mated with the Aidas MkII Gold moving-coil cartridge, with a body made from a 21,000-year-old Siberian wooly mammoth tusk! The system also included the Joseph Audio Perspective2 Graphene speakers ($16,999/pair), Cardas Audio Clear cables, and a Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC.

As noted, I couldn’t be there, but having experienced previous Doshi/J. Sikora/Joseph Audio systems, I have a feeling it didn’t disappoint. (I’ll cheat and look at some other show reports later to see if I’m right…and for the record, I didn't look at any other publications' CAF reports to compile this one. It's amazing how much information you can get if you just ask the exhibitors...)

Joseph Audio speakers could also be heard in three other rooms: the Now Listen Here suite, which showcased the Pearl Graphene floorstanding ($44,999/pair), along with EMM Labs electronics and an Innuos Pulsar streamer. Analog playback was provided by a Pure Fidelity Horizon turntable with a DS Audio optical cartridge.

Wells Audio played Joseph Audio’s Pulsar2 Graphene stand-mount loudspeaker ($9,999/pair) with Wells’s integrated amplifier and DAC along, with an Innuos Server, VPI Signature DS turntable ($6,500), VPI Avenger Phono stage, and Cardas Clear cables. Rogue Audio used the Pulsar2 Graphene with their RP-5v2 preamp and DragoN amplifiers, along with a Rega P8 turntable ($3,495) with Lyra Delos cartridge ($1,995). Also in the system were a Benchmark DAC3 B ($1,899), and Darwin Cable Company cabling including Keystone interconnects ($395/pair), Natural RCA interconnects ($895/pair), and Natural speaker cables ($1875/pair).

VPI's Harry Weisfeld shows off one of the company's turntables to political analyst (and audio enthusiast) Randy Fishbein.

Another Command Performance room featured the new Magico 2023 S3 loudspeakers, featuring a newly-designed “quieter” enclosure, a diamond-coated beryllium tweeter, a honeycomb aluminum core midrange driver, and woofers with Magico’s Graphene Nano-Tec cone material.

Border Patrol Audio hosted the first North American showing of the Living Voice R80 speaker system (pricing ranges from $42,750 to $54,250 depending on finish). This horn-based system was created by designer Kevin Scott to be more modestly-proportioned and priced than his larger models. It features a midrange/treble/midrange driver design in a reflex-loaded enclosure, with A Scan-Speak Ellipticor dome tweeter and dual 8-inch Ellipticor midrange/woofers, said to provide better clarity than a larger single woofer, and enable the full frequency range to be covered in a two-way driver design with a more efficient crossover. Scott feels that the crossover design is crucial, and all the crossover components are made in-house by hand or by outside sources specifically for the R80.

Boy do I wish I’d had a chance to check out the Caprice Audio room, as it was one of my favorites at the last CAF I attended. Caprice showed their Core noise management system and Slipstream interconnects and speaker cables, designed to work in conjunction with one another to shunt system noise and improve sonic purity. The room also featured the new Lumin U2 streamer and the gorgeous Rosso Fiorentino Fiesoles Series 2 standmount speakers. I mean, even the stands are striking. Among other attributes, the 2-way design utilizes a variety of materials for damping and internal bracing, and features a silk-dome tweeter and a new ribbon “ultrasonic generator” for extended high-frequency response.

Here's the Pure Audio Project room with its Trio15 loudspeakers, complemented by a Pass Labs INT-25 integrated amplifier and XP-17 phono preamp, Denafrips Terminator Plus 12th Anniversary Edition DAC, and VPI Scout turntable with Shyla cartridge, and Silversmith Audio Fidelium cables.

Gryphon Audio debuted its Diablo 333 integrated amplifier, which incorporates technologies and components from the company’s mammoth Apex power amplifier at a price of $24,990. The integrated amplifier offers a variety of flexible functions, with optional phono and DAC modules available.

NOLA Speakers spared no effort in the effort to blow attendees’ minds. They demonstrated their Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 loudspeakers ($150,000 per pair), in conjunction with the new Valve Amplification Company (VAC) Essence electronics, a CEC belt-drive transport, and an IDEON DAC, all linked by Nordost Odin 2 cable.

Speaking of VAC, they introduced the new Signature 202 iQ Musicbloc switchable mono/stereo amplifier ($22,000), Essence 80 iQ monoblock amp ($9,990 each), and Essence Line Stage ($9,000). The Signature 202 incorporates the same circuits, technologies, and materials of VAC’s Statement 452 and Master 300 electronics, with features like VAC’s patented iQ Continuous Automatic Bias System, direct-coupled Class A triode input and driver stages, and a choice of fully balanced or single-ended operation (100 watts per channel in stereo, 200 watts in mono). The Essence components, according to VAC, “take the essential circuits, premium parts, and construction techniques from our finest models and present them in an elegant, elemental, and essential form.”

Jacksonville, Florida dealer House of Stereo showed a selection of high-end components including a VPI Titan turntable with a DS Audio optical cartridge system for the analog front end, and a Wolf Audio Systems Red Wolf 2 SX server with a T + A SD 3100 HV streaming DAC to handle digital playback. The room featured Arion Audio’s Apollo five-piece loudspeaker system with full-range line source towers and open-baffle woofer towers with eight drivers each. The system also employed Trinnov DSP room correction and Synergistic Research cables.

The T+A SD-3100 streaming DAC, featuring internet radio capability, dual headphone outputs, and a wealth of high-end features.

Here's Arion Audio's mighty Apollo speaker system. 

Since the Technics brand was revived by Panasonic in 2015, they’ve become a regular and welcome presence at audio shows. CAF 2023 was no exception. Their main room, hosted by Delaware dealer Overture, featured Technics Reference and Grand Class components including the SU-R1000 integrated amplifier ($9,999.95), SL-1200G turntable ($4,299.95) and SL-G700M2 SACD player ($3,499.95), powering Sonus Faber Sonnetto V speakers ($4,999/pair). The analog front end also included a Hana SL Umami Blue moving coil cartridge ($2,500). HRS provided the racks, and Clarus tied everything together with their Aqua and Crimson cables and Sextet power conditioner. (System price: $52,000.)

Technics also provided an SL-1000R turntable for the Matterhorn Audio Group’s one-million-dollar system, complemented by MC Windfeld Ti and MC Diamond cartridges. I am told system also featured Aavik electronics and the $220,000/pair Kroma Atelier speakers. And yes, I wish I was there to have heard a million-dollar setup, but COVID Round Two made sure I didn't. Ultra-high-end manufacturer DartZeel also used a Technics SP-10R turntable, 12-inch SME tonearm, and Air Tight cartridge in their room. I have to say that I have a soft spot for the elegant look of components like Technics, Luxman, T + A, the JBL Classic Series and others, which combine the appearance of the audio components so many of us grew up with, with a modern refined sensibility. (Then again, when I see amps like Audio Research and VAC with their banks of vacuum tubes, I get equally jazzed. One of the many great things about being an audiophile is that there’s room for all of it.)

GoldenEar showed their new T66 floorstanding speakers ($3,450/pair), in a system that also featured AudioQuest ZERO-Tech cables and PowerQuest power conditioners. The T66, the first speaker in the company’s T Series, features a built-in DSP-controlled subwoofer amp, GoldenEar’s High-Velocity Folded Ribbon AMT tweeter, “quadratic planar radiators,” and other refinements including an available new red finish.

A Ray Milland's-eye-view of the GoldenEar T66 loudspeaker.

American Audio & Video had two rooms at CAF 2023, one with a full complement of top-end Audiolab 9000 Series components, Mission M770 and M700 speakers, and Dual CS618 and CS 429 turntables (the latter being fully automatic – shades of the Good Olde Days of Audio). The second room offered Cyrus electronics and Spendor Audio speakers, both brands still designed and built in the UK. I enjoyed the AAV rooms at AXPONA and in fact wound up buying an Audiolab 7000CDT transport, which, as an audiophile on a not-unlimited budget, I am very happy with.

JansZen showed its new Nine.Five hybrid electrostatic/dynamic loudspeaker ($21,500/pair). It’s inspired by Arthur A. Janszen’s legendary KLH Nine, with updated looks and tech. The stat panel is configured as a “synthetic aperture line array,” and divided into five narrow vertical segments, with sequential time delays from the center panel outwards. If this sounds similar to the way QUAD electrostatic speakers work, it’s because it is.

Classic Audio Loudspeakers and Atma-Sphere teamed up for a mighty system in one of CAF’s larger rooms. The room featured the T-1.5 field coil powered system ($79,950/pair) and T-3.4 field coil powered system ($59,950/pair), along with their Tungar DC power supplies ($8,000/pair). Electronics included Atma-Sphere’s MP-1 Mark 3.3 preamplifier ($23,890 with installed options), and Novacron Mk3.3 amplifier (no longer available). The sources were strictly analog, including a Technics SP-10 Mk III with modifications from Music Technology and Krebs Upgrades, a TriPlanar Ultimate 12 tonearm ($11,500), a van Den Hul Colibri Stradivarius Reference cartridge ($13,000) and Studer 810 and Crown CX-800 tape decks. Purist Audio Design supplied their new Neptune Series cables.

TAD (Technical Audio Devices) introduced three products: the TAD-GE1 speaker system, TAD-C1000 preamplifier, and a piano black version of its TAD-CE1TX stand-mount loudspeaker ($40,000 per pair). The TAD-GE1 (for Grand Evolution One) brings the technology and look of the company’s flagship Reference Series to a $65,000 per pair price point, and features TAD’s CST single-point driver with a concentric magnesium midrange and beryllium tweeter, along with dual woofers.

Newtown Square, PA dealer The Voice That Is exhibited a system that included the TIDAL Audio Contriva G3 loudspeaker ($79,000/pair), Contros digital controller ($60,000) and Intra integrated amplifier ($28,000), wired with Siltech Ruby Crown cable and fed by an Equitech 2RQ power conditioner ($6,990). An Ictra Design PROTO rack ($25,000) completed the system.

The TAD Evolution C1000 preamp – which has got to be one of the coolest-looking components I’ve ever seen – utilizes a single-stage, current-feedback amplifier originally developed for their M700 power amplifier. The audio circuitry is laid out symmetrically, said to enable audio signals to be “amplified in a unified electrical and mechanical environment,” for better stereo imaging. Th TAD-C1000 provides balanced and single-ended connections, offers remote-control operation, and is priced at $24,950. 

MBL went all-out with its full Reference Electronics System which includes the imposing 9011 amplifiers, and the company’s unmistakable 101 Extreme MKII omnidirectional loudspeakers. Once again, the room hosted United Home Audio’s After-Hours Analog Tape Events, with UHA’s new Ultima5 deck with a fully DC-powered outboard power supply. The listening sessions started at 8 p.m. and went well into the night.

Functional beauty: the TAD C-1000 preamplifier, also available in black.

Unmistakable: the MBL 101 Extreme MKII loudspeaker system, featuring the company's Radialstrahler 360-degree dispersion technology, active subwoofers, parametric EQ capability, and a whole lot more.

“Audio shows” and “vinyl” are synonymous, and at AXPONA, Luminous Audio Technology featured Ed Hughes spinning records from his personal collection. Not just any records, but stuff like an early Bob Ludwig-mastered “hot pressing” Led Zeppelin II (read here to find out why this pressing is notorious), an original British The Dark Side of the Moon, a German Magical Mystery Tour pressing and other rarities.

Genesis Advanced Technologies premiered two floorstanding loudspeakers in its Genesis 7 lineup, the G7 Minuet ($8,000/pair) and G7 Foxtrot ($13,800/pair). (Was the "Foxtrot" name a coincidence? The band Genesis has an album by the same name.) As owner Gary Koh noted, the speakers are designed for both audiophiles and music lovers, and can be tuned either to deliver a larger sweet spot for multiple listeners, or can be focused on a single listening seat. The speakers utilize environmentally-friendly materials such as bamboo cabinets. The Foxtrot is an all-new design for the company with isobaric woofers (rather than Genesis’s usual powered servo woofers), and both models features ring-ribbon tweeters, a titanium-cone midrange, and a Soft/Bright frequency control.

This gathering of audio luminaries includes Tony West and Merrill Wettasinghe (Merrill Audio), Gary L. Koh (Genesis Advanced Technologies), Mat Weisfeld (VPI), Larry Borden (Genesis), Lissa Borden (Distinctive Stereo), Erica Martin (VPI guest, kneeling) Rose Cermele (Merrill Audio), and Bob Clarke (Profundo Audio).

Cable manufacturer Triode Wire Labs introduced three new power cords at Capital Audiofest 2023: the Digital American II, Nine Plus, and Eleven Plus. Pricing starts at $299.

I’ve come to like what I’ve seen from Treehaus Audiolab – literally as well as figuratively, since their wood-hewn, natural-look loudspeakers and matching vacuum-tube electronics look strikingly different and imperfectly beautiful to me. At CAF 2023 they premiered their updated Phantom of Luxury loudspeaker, which features a full-range Super-Aero 10-inch field coil driver by Atelier Rullit, along with a Fostex T900A super tweeter for frequencies above 14 kHz, and a new, custom Acoustic Elegance 15-inch woofer. Internal speaker wiring by Iconoclast Cable is available as an optional upgrade.

Steve Heinecke of Audio Note shows off some of their gear.

VPI had a strong presence at CAF 2023. Here's a Scout turntable with the gorgeous VPI JMW Memorial Tonearm.

Adam Sohmer (Sohmer Associates) enjoys a break with Terry Medalen of Scandinavia's Primare. The company introduced its I35 Prisma, an integrated amp with a built-in DAC, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, featuring a host of balanced, single-ended, and digital inputs and 150 watts per channel into 8 ohms.

Roy Hall (Music Hall), and Greg Weaver (The Audio Analyst, Positive Feedback, others) get some fresh air. Roy finally got a chance to relax after surviving the show: little did we know he was in the process of selling his company!

Michael Fremer (The Tracking Angle, The Absolute Sound) and Dwight DiMartino (Fidelis Distribution) are holding a copy of Rufus Reid presents Caelan Cardello, which Fremer co-produced with Robin Wyatt of Robyatt Audio.

Erol Ricketts of NSMT Loudspeakers with lineup of Clairvoyant monitor speakers.

Magnepan service manager Mick Bucher stands in front of their new MG1.7ix planar magnetic speakers.

The Geshelli Labs Zoofa integrated amplifer made it’s a debut as a prototype a year ago at Capital Audiofest 2022. Here's the final version, complete with beautifully carved one-of-a-kind wood case.

Chris O’Neill of O’Neill’s Creation Workshop hangs out with Courtney, Rachel, and Jacob from Geshelli Labs.

Jacob George of Rethm kneels before the company's Trishna speakers.

A Rega Planar 8 turntable with RB880 tonearm and Rega Apheta 3 moving-coil cartridge made music in the Belleson room.

Here's Tyler and Christina Lowe in the the Belleson room. 

And here's Amy Hansen of Nordost, the cable of choice for the Triangle and other rooms at CAF 2023.

Capital Audiofest is always a gathering of friends and colleagues. Here, the ever-popular David Solomon of Qobuz (center) is surrounded by two attendees who had just flown in from Bermuda (left), and Jerry Bryan, Todd Prince, and Tyler Griffin of MBL on his right.

Header image: the Synergistic Research Galileo PowerCell SX power conditioner.

Copper has an exchange program with AAA (Analogue Audio Association) magazine of Switzerland (and other publications), where we share articles, including this one.

Willi Studer.

Willi Studer's life's work is monumental: as the founder of Studer/ReVox, and in over 60 years of working in the audio industry, he created a body of work that is second to none, and also tells a piece of Swiss industrial and cultural history. Walter Stutz wants to preserve this legacy with his waVox Vintage Sounds Museum, and make it accessible to the general public – a heroic life's work.

12 years ago, Walter Stutz took the courageous decision to start collecting Studer and ReVox equipment. After 46 years at Swiss Post, most recently as Head of Human Resources, he was looking for a fulfilling and challenging job for his retirement. But he had no idea what he was letting himself in for. What began as a modest collection in his apartment soon grew to such an extent that he had to look for premises outside. The second move to an industrial building in Zürich-Altstetten in 2017 allowed him to expand the collection to its final size. Today, he is only missing a few tube-based sets to complete the collection, and it is gigantic!

Walter Stutz. 

From Studer's Beginnings to the Production of Tape Recorders

Walter’s [museum collection starts with Studer’s] earliest devices, the Tell brand radios, which Willi Studer built in 1932 in his first sole proprietorship, called Helvetia. This was followed by Televox brand radios, even before Studer was able to secure the naming rights for the ReVox brand he invented. This was a small company in Melano near Mendrisi/Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland, which manufactured small table clocks and, fortunately for Studer, was in financial difficulties. So, he bought the ReVox brand (which stands for “reproduction of the voice”). Under the new name, Studer and his team soon developed numerous high-quality devices for music reproduction, such as preamplifiers and power amplifiers, but also entire music systems, especially the console systems with record players that were popular at the time, some of which he brought in from Thorens.

What is striking is how Studer always thought about the user. How can a device be set up sensibly or built into a piece of furniture? How can it be operated logically? His approach was pragmatic and highly quality-conscious.

When an acquaintance asked Willi Studer in 1949 to rebuild a Soundmirror tape recorder brought in from the US, Studer dismantled it and quickly realized that he could produce it himself in better quality. Thus began the development of the legendary Studer and ReVox] tape recorders, which can be seen, device by device, in the waVox Museum, and which ended around 1985. Studer skillfully created variants of the machines for various applications in both the private and professional sectors. Over the years, this resulted in an immense wealth of models that can almost overwhelm visitors to the museum. The total number of units produced is also impressive, [especially considering their retail prices]. The ReVox A77 is probably the best-selling tape recorder in the world. Around 450,000 units left the factory.

The first Studer tape recorder, a Model 27A. This one was used for live recordings at Radio DRS in Switzerland.

Studer Expands Into Various Areas of Audio Technology

Willi Studer was active in the entire field of recording and playback technology. The museum illustrates how he was able to offer devices for the professional sector under the Studer brand and the private sector under the ReVox brand, sometimes with minimal differences. Increased export activity led to the creation of variants of various models to meet local needs and applications. The immense know-how and high manufacturing quality [of the company] allowed for rapid adaptations. Studer invested heavily in production and built its first production facilities in Zurich-Affoltern, moved to neighboring Regensdorf in 1962, and opened its first plant in Löffingen, Germany in 1964. A plant in Mollis was added in 1969, plus two plants in Bondorf and Ewattingen in the Black Forest region in 1972.

A subassembly room in 1970.

The factory at Löffingen, Germany in 1965.

The number of employees grew from six in 1949 to 45 in 1953, then to 120 by 1958. Ten years later, there were 560 employees and just four years later in 1972 the workforce doubled again to 1,112. Willi Studer was 60 years old at the time. By 1986, the number of employees had peaked at 1,882, before beginning to fall in the 1990s. By 1992, the sale of the company to Motor Columbus AG resulted in a massive reduction of 1,000 employees. Willi Studer passed away in 1996.

In the golden age [of the company], Studer had a good nose for the areas of audio technology in which the company could establish itself. He expanded the professional sector early on in order to be able to offer a wide range of equipment for radio and recording studios as well as for fixed audio installations. Studer A 80R tape recorders were used to record the concerts of the Montreux Jazz Festival on Agfa tapes for Swiss radio stations (DRS, RSI, RSR). He discovered the potential of the emerging language labs and offered his robust technology. Studer products were certainly not the cheapest, but they had a legendary reputation for their build quality and operational reliability. All this is wonderfully documented in the waVox museum by the [tape machines on display], accompanied by instruction manuals and other documents.

Detail of the Studer Model 69-48 sound control desk for the Bundeshaus (the Swiss Federal Parliament Building), from 1958.

Visitors can immerse themselves in this unique world of audio technology of the post-War and economic miracle years. [The museum has on display a] mixing console that once controlled the audio for the National Council and the Council of States of Switzerland, and [later used] in Swiss radio studios where [many] famous broadcasts were produced. Thanks to a tape recorder from Vatican Radio, you [can see] that the Popes also appreciated solid Swiss technology. In the case of the legendary [Studer] tape recorders, the musicians who worked with Studer equipment are well-known, above all, the Beatles in Abbey Road Studios in London [starting around] 1967.

A Studer J37 four-track tape recorder, as used by the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios.

Swiss Quality and Engineering

Studer electronics are a prime example of Swiss engineering expertise and their famous, almost fanatical awareness of quality. The buttons on the devices are always clearly labeled, nice and large, and the devices are built to last and were considered highly robust. The [overall] design is functional. In the [waVox] museum, [every machine on display is] ready for use and connected!

What an immense effort Walter Stutz has put into this. His meticulousness is hardly inferior to Studer's, yet he seems very relaxed when he talks about it. Fortunately, Walter could and can rely on a network of specialists who have actively supported him over the years. It is also wonderful that some of the important Studer engineers are still alive and ready to help when questions arise. The company's knowledge has not been lost, and Walter Stutz has carefully stored all the construction plans for the Studer machines. You could start building these [tape decks] again tomorrow! Walter himself shines during the tours [he gives] with his immense knowledge of the characteristics of the devices, their intended use, and the adventurous stories of how he came to own them.

A ReVox A36 mono tape recorder built in 1954.

The history of Studer is meticulously documented in the waVox museum. Many lucky discoveries, photos, and documents are available and could be used for an even more impressive presentation later on [if Walter Stutz desired]. If you want to delve deeper into the [company’s] history, we recommend the very comprehensive work by Peter Holenstein, The Talking Machines, which can be downloaded from the waVox Museum website. The book itself is unfortunately out of print. A free download of it is obtainable here: https://www.förderverein-studer-ReVox-museum.ch/Dokumentenablage-der-Firma/Buecher,-Literatur-ueber-die-Firma/

Studer is History, But ReVox Lives On

We audio fans are particularly familiar with ReVox tape machines, and it is these that are still used on a large scale today and are therefore also restored. While Studer tape recorders are highly valued by a small niche of analog freaks in studios, and privately, ReVox is a living reality for many hi-fi fans who have restored and use Studer tape decks. [Studer is now owned by Evertz Audio Solutions, which purchased the brand from Harman International in 2021. Studer currently manufactures mixing consoles and signal routing devices. – Ed.]

This is due not only to their legendary quality, but also to the characteristic design [attributes]. Regardless of the era [of manufacture], Studer's engineers had a knack for [elegant, functional design]. In the [waVox] museum, you are gripped by the large wall [of ReVox tape machines on display], [which gives an understanding of] the advantages of an analog era when devices were still operated with buttons instead of by swiping across glass surfaces. [ReVox tape decks] always looked contemporary, which is surprising when you look at Studer's old-fashioned office furnishings in old photos. If you spot a ReVox system, [on the other hand,] you get the feeling that a spaceship has landed!

ReVox B Series Compact Disc players.

ReVox technology has always been modern and sophisticated [for its time]. One example is the legendary ReVox B790 record player with tangential tonearm. It came onto the market late, in the 1970s, because Studer had secretly left [the production of the record player] to Thorens. A few years before the advent of the CD, Willi Studer and his team came up with a radical solution for this record player that was easy to operate. This led to an unusual, functional design that still looks very modern today.

A new chapter began for ReVox in the 21st century with a move towards modern, multiroom-capable devices to complement [their] classic hi-fi [offerings]. The brand lives on today in luxury condominiums/homes, hotels, and other areas. “Invisible” [in-wall and in-ceiling] loudspeakers have been developed, in keeping with Studer's pragmatism, but serving a niche market. [ReVox today offers a full line of compact and floorstanding loudspeakers, as well as audio systems, servers, CD players, and turntables. – Ed.]

The waVox Museum does not (yet) collect these devices. The focus is on the more famous history. However, today's ReVox company, based in Villingen-Schwenningen, is endeavoring to build a bridge to this history and offers its Classic series, older products that have been completely restored to mint condition [The company also provides repair and restoration services for owners of older ReVox equipment.] (This idea has also been the business model of AAA Magazine member Pascal Vogel for a while now, and stands for sustainability.) Pascal is refurbishing and repairing all kinds of ReVox and Studer devices.

A Studer A827 Gold Edition: their last analog 24-channel tape machine.

The waVox Museum – Today’s State of Play

Walter Stutz has done an immense amount of work [over the years] to complete the museum's collection. At the same time, by founding the waVox Association under the name Förderverein Studer ReVox Museum, he has laid a foundation to support his activities more broadly and to subsidize them to a very modest extent. Anyone who would like to support this idea is cordially invited to join the association.

However, the question of what to [ultimately] do with this gigantic private collection is completely open. Since it has been open to visitors on request for around six years, Walter Stutz has guided over 800 people through [the museum]. The amazement and enthusiasm of the visitors is high. For the future, however, Walter is looking for a stable sponsor, preferably also from the public sector, to make the collection accessible to a wider public in a more attractive form.

The ongoing discussion with private individuals and institutions are very promising. More and more people are understanding the immense cultural value of this collection. It truly represents a visible and easily-communicable part of Swiss and Western European cultural and industrial history. The widespread use of Studer and ReVox devices in numerous areas of life creates a vivid picture of the importance of analog audio in the second half of the 20th century through to the threshold of the digital age. The sensuality of analog devices, the fascinating mechanics, and the possibility of operating them offer a promising basis for inspiring a wide audience. The collection seems to me to be ideally suited for an [expanded presentation] with reference to the cultural and social context of the time.

More from Walter Stutz's vast collection.

Studer's last digital tape machine, the Model D827. This one was used at Vatican Radio.

A Revox training model for students in language schools.

One of the last 50 Studer A827 Gold Edition tape machines.

It occurs to me that the Montreux Jazz Festival's video and sound recording collection was recently included in the UNESCO Memory of the World register. Perhaps Walter Stutz’s Studer/ReVox collection is not of worldwide importance in the same way the Montreux Jazz Festival is, but I can't think of any other company that has a similar product range with this [kind of] breadth and depth, and with this cultural and social relevance, at least [for Switzerland]. Walter Stutz has tirelessly created a great beginning. At the end of our tour, he said that the apple was now ripe for the picking! We know that biting into the apple at the dawn of mankind and more recently when the digitalization of society began, was fateful. Hopefully in a good way for Walter!

If you want to take a deeper look into the waVox museum, please visit:

https://www.förderverein-studer-ReVox-museum.ch/Videos-vom-heutigen-Museum/

About Markus Thomann:

Markus Thomann worked as an architect before professionalizing his passion for audio technology a good 25 years ago and founding the company Klangwerk. Under this label he manufactures exclusive loudspeakers and runs a high-end store in Zürich. Every spring he organizes the “Klangschloss,” an audio fair at the medieval Castle in Greifensee. He is on the board of the Analogue Audio Association Switzerland.

All images courtesy of AAA magazine.

I first became aware of Switzerland’s Stenheim loudspeakers at the 2019 New York Audio Show, where their Alumine Three loudspeakers impressed me, as much for their understated elegance and obvious superb craftsmanship as by their clear, transparent, and what I heard to be uncolored sound. So, when I got an invite to hear the world premiere of Stenheim’s Alumine Two.Five floorstanding loudspeaker at Manhattan’s fabled Power Station recording studios, I didn’t want to miss it. I was feeling sluggish, having recently battled a second bout of COVID, and in fact almost turned back on the train ride in, but I’m sure glad I made the effort.

I’m as much of a pro audio geek as an audiophile, so I was stoked to visit the Power Station, which is, no other way to put it, legendary. It was established as Avatar Studios in 1977 by producer Tony Bongiovi and his partner Bob Walters, and has been the site of recordings by artists like Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Lady Gaga, Paul Simon, John Lennon, the Kinks, Billy Joel and many others. In other words, hallowed ground. It’s now owned by BerkleeNYC and is a fully operational multi-room recording complex and educational facility, combining vintage gear (like a swoon-worthy 1981 Neve console) with up-to-the-minute tech.

Karl Sigman of Audiophilia.com gets us buzzed in.

Even the coat rack was high-tech.

It is a truism that the effect of the listening room on an audio system is of great importance, perhaps paramount. More on that later.

The two-way Stenheim Alumine Two.Five (SRP: $23,500 per pair) is an evolution of the company’s first-ever 2010 speaker, the Alumine Two bookshelf. The four models in the Alumine series are so named because the cabinets are machined from solid aluminum, in order to be sonically inert and eliminate unwanted resonances and colorations. The Two.Five utilizes highly efficient drivers, which, as the company’s Christophe Savioz and Jean-Pascal Panchard explained, are a key design element in contributing to the speaker’s dynamic ease and clarity. The Two.Five features a one-inch soft-dome tweeter and two 6.5-inch woofers, in mirror-imaged pairs in a front-ported design. The speaker is available in metallic light gray or dark gray with contrasting black front and rear panels, along with three optional custom colors. I have to say that the fit and finish were impeccable. This matters.

The rest of the system was comprised of the DartZeel LHC -208 integrated amplifier and the 432 EVO Master music server. Top-quality gear.

The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five loudspeakers.

You couldn’t help but have a good vibe when walking into the Power Station. Unlike many recording studios that look like stark industrial facilities, the Power Station is all about wood…the ceilings, floors, walls, and equipment cabinets are all made of it. The walls and ceilings have a multifaceted shape, have an organic feel, and are acoustically superb. The studio space had, to my (admittedly ain’t-what-they-used-to-be) ears, a perfect tonal “balance” and sounded neutral, yet not dead. It was good to see a lot of my industry friends, including event host and PR master Adam Sohmer, Walter Schofield of brand management company Nexus Audio Technologies, and lots of reviewers.

The superb quality of the studio acoustics was apparent when we then heard a live performance by saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh and his trio, with Joe Martin on acoustic bass and Kush Abeday on drums. The fact that the instrumentation was sparse only highlighted the wonderful sound of the room even more – you could hear every nuance and inflection of the players, and all the richness and tonal colors of the instruments. A musical treat, and not entirely a coincidence – next year the trio will be releasing an album, Heart, on a new record label, Analog Tone Factory (funded by a number of sponsors including Stenheim), which was recorded in this very space – which should make for a very interesting comparison.

A mural in the lobby, and some recycled electronic art.

The studios had plenty of vintage gear including this Mesa/Boogie amp – wonder how many great guitarists played through that? – and its companion, a suspiciously homemade-looking "Booger" speaker cabinet.

Digging the music of Jerome Sabbagh and his trio.

Jean-Pascal Panchard and Christophe Savioz give us the lowdown on the Two.Five.

I also thought it was a really ballsy maneuver – listening to a live band before listening to an audio system? How on Earth could the latter compare?

Well, it turned out to be a smart play. After the band finished, we were ushered into a separate listening room to hear the Alumine Two.Five. I put my best Audio Reviewer’s Poker Face on – which lasted about two seconds. The system sounded remarkably clear and open. The first cut, a solo piano rendition of “Imagine,” sounded inviting, and lifelike in scale and depth, with the speakers easily not only filling the deceptively large-ish room, but sounding right in it. Melody Gardot’s “She Don’t Know” from her Currency of Man album was somehow intense and ravishing at the same time, and the tight bass was surprising from speakers of this size. The rest of the sonic spectrum was well-balanced. We heard a couple of other cuts, and the word I kept coming back to again and again was “purity.”

Next, the Stenheim guys wanted to just flat out wow us, and up came “Jean Pierre” from bassist extraordinaire Marcus Miller. Wowed I was. The articulation, harmonic realism and “snap” of Miller’s bass was fantastic. In fact, I’ve heard very few actual bass amplifiers sound as good as these speakers did on the low end.

I’m an audio guy. I’m well aware that a system can only sound as good as the room it’s in – and sometimes I’ve been sadly reminded of that, when I’ve heard what I know to be great gear being compromised in performance because of being in lousy rooms at audio shows. But, hearing the Stenheim system in the utterly sensational listening space at the Power Station brought the point home to a degree I’ve never before experienced. If you have a great system in a great acoustic space, it’s the recipe for sonic nirvana. On November 30, 2023, I was elevated.

Header image: the Stenheim system in one of the Power Station's rooms.

In 1973 I was a freshman at the State University of New York at Albany. One night I was lying in bed in our dorm room, drifting off, when my roommate Tim asked if I minded if we kept the stereo on. Half-awake, I said sure. The announcer at radio station WRPI-FM, or maybe it was WQBK-FM, said, “we’re now going to play side one of the new album by Genesis, Selling England by the Pound.” That’s nice, I’d never heard of them, yawn…

Immediately Peter Gabriel’s voice called out: “‘Can you tell me where my country lies?’ Said the uni fawn to his true love’s eyes…” Then the band joined in, a hauntingly beautiful tapestry of acoustic and electric guitars, piano, and organ, while Gabriel continued, “‘It lies with me!’ said the Queen of Maybe. For her merchandise, he traded in his prize…”

I sat up, now riveted.

Shortly after, the full band – Gabriel (vocals, flute, oboe, percussion), Phil Collins (drums, percussion, vocal), Steve Hackett (electric and nylon-string guitars), Mike Rutherford (12-string, bass, electric sitar), and Tony Banks (keyboards, 12-string guitar), blasted in, with dazzling up-tempo hurricane force. This was incredible! And like nothing we’d ever heard before. After about six minutes of musical and lyrical twists and turns and astounding virtuosic playing, the song faded out in a hypnotic swirl of flutes, delicate guitar arpeggios and atmospheric keyboards.

I looked at my roommate and we both said something like, “holy sh*t! What was that?”

Genesis aficionados will of course realize we were getting our minds blown by the leadoff track, “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight,” the first cut from Selling England by the Pound, which has recently been re-issued by Analogue Productions on 2-LP 45 RPM vinyl and hybrid stereo CD as part of Atlantic Records’ 75^th anniversary celebration.

I consider the album to be an absolute masterpiece. Genesis had done superlative work before (as I was later to find out) on albums like Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme, but Selling England was where, I think, it all really came together for the band, combining instrumental brilliance with complex yet nuanced songwriting, clever and one can only say literary lyrics, muscular rocking tightness, a seemingly endless variety of instrumental textures, and did I mention astoundingly remarkable instrumental prowess?

The second track, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" lightens up the proceedings with a tale of a young man who’d rather sleep on a park bench than listen to the advice of his overbearing elders. Next comes one of the greatest songs in the Genesis canon, “Firth of Fifth.” Beginning with Tony Banks’s arpeggiated, classical-influenced piano intro, the song gradually builds and builds into Steve Hackett’s monumental fuzzed-out endlessly sustaining Les Paul guitar solo, one of the greatest moments in progressive rock. In fact, I’d call it the greatest guitar solo in rock history. The side ends with the 12-string-driven ballad “More Fool Me,” featuring Phil Collins on vocals, a hopeful, plaintive ending to side one.

The epic “The Battle of Epping Forest” kicks off side two with a martial drumbeat and Gabriel’s flute, the perfect musical lead-in to a tale of gangland warfare where nobody wins, but there’s plenty of smart wordplay, tempo and musical mood changes, and some outright humor along the way. Next up is “After the Ordeal,” a truly beautiful instrumental driven by Hackett’s sweet nylon string guitar and plenty of guitar harmonies, and more of that signature Banks arpeggiated keyboard playing.

Then comes, even by this album’s standards, one of the most astonishing songs Genesis has ever recorded: the spellbinding and multifaceted “The Cinema Show.” It’s a charming story about a latter-day Romeo and Juliet that starts slowly and calmly, and over the course of about 10 minutes builds to a breathtaking display of instrumental virtuosity. Phil Collins doesn’t get enough credit for being the great drummer he is, as this track shows, and the rest of the band is absolutely on fire. The album concludes with the short coda, “Aisle of Plenty,” a needed cool-down after the blazing musicianship that precedes it.

Genesis promotional photo, 1972. Standing: Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett. Seated: Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks. Photo by Barrie Wentzell.

Selling England by the Pound has been a favorite of mine ever since I first heard it that night at 306 Delancey Hall in Colonial Quad at SUNY Albany. It's one of those albums I can never get enough of, even 51 (!) years later. However, I wish the sound quality of the original LP was better. Not that it's bad, but my original US “The Famous Charisma Label” pressing is dynamically compressed, more than a little flat and murky, and lacking in transparency. The same goes for the later US Atlantic LPs. The later Definitive Edition Remaster CD isn’t much better, maybe improving on the dynamics and clarity a bit. The 2007 Stereo Mix...well, I’ll be diplomatic...and say this is not the way this album is meant to be heard. (However, it’s better than not hearing the music at all.) I recommend seeking out an original LP or Definitive Edition Remaster CD.

...or better yet, this new LP from Analogue Productions. (I confess, I didn’t review the SACD, as I don’t have a compatible player on hand.) It’s mastered directly from the original master tape by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, and pressed on excellent 180-gram vinyl by Quality Record Pressings. It is, as the record cover states, 100-percent all-analog. The cover, by Stoughton Printing, is beautifully done, with a glossy finish and the original inner sleeve lyrics reproduced on the inner gatefold.

(January 9, 2024 update: the original mix of SEBTP is just now available again on Tidal and Qobuz, and at retail, after years of not being able to hear anything other than the 2007 Stereo Mix on streaming services.)

The sound quality on the Analogue Productions reissue is by far the best I’ve ever heard for this album. There’s far more presence, depth, and “air.” You can hear Peter Gabriel’s enunciation more clearly – and the fact that he was using a really good microphone, whatever it was. There’s more character to the fuzz box in Steve Hackett’s guitar – it has a more distinct “vowelly” tone and grainy decay.

The rumbly synth “lawnmower” intro to “I Know What I Like” has more texture and definition, and at the end of the song you can hear that it’s actually not one, but multiple synthesizers. In fact, there’s more separation and character to all of the keyboards, whether it’s the “swirl” of the Mellotron or the percussive attack of the organ and grand piano, which has more stereo separation here and a greater sense of two hands hitting the keyboards. Phil Collins’ drums have more impact and distinctiveness, especially the tom toms, although I get the impression that there was only so much they could squeeze out of the master tape in terms of dynamic range. There’s slightly better separation of lead and background vocals overall.

There are a number of sounds I simply hadn’t heard before, and keep in mind that my hearing isn’t what it used to be, and that I’ve heard this album more than 100 times. There’s a tambourine on “Firth of Fifth” I never noticed before, as well as what sounds like a tape edit when the synth part comes in right before Hackett’s solo. Gabriel’s flute is breathier. “More Fool Me” has an electric guitar through some kind of modulation pedal that was previously hidden. 

You can now really hear the fact that there are bongos in the left channel on “The Battle of Epping Forest,” and that they’re tuned to distinct pitches. You can also now more clearly hear the background vocals on this track – check out when they say “picnic,” for example.

There are internet pundits who say the early Genesis albums suffer from a lack of “production.” Umm, they’re wrong. Listen to this track on this vinyl set with its subtle reverbs, tremolo keyboards, panning, and other sonic nuances. Or how about the layers of 16^th-note playing at the beginning of “After the Ordeal?” And there’s some kind of clinky percussion/keyboard thing going on at the beginning of “The Cinema Show” that was hitherto unrevealed, to me anyway. Speaking of that track, Tony Banks’s titanic synthesizer playing during the ending skyrockets him into the Progressive Rock Keyboard Hall of Fame.

The only other version of Selling England by the Pound that comes close to this is the Classic Records 33-1/3 RPM LP reissue from I want to say the 1990s. In fact, according to a review of this album in The Tracking Angle, this new reissue has the same "dead wax" writing as a Classic Records 45 RPM test pressing from 2010. My Classic Records 33-1/3 copy has "FC-6060" in the dead wax of side one, while the reissue has "FC-6060-A1-45" there.

Nevertheless the new Analogue Productions 45 RPM LP reissue is not only the clear sonic winner, it’s an absolute gift to everyone who has loved this album over the decades.

In fact, albums like this are the very reason for audiophile reissues. It’s easy to get cynical sometimes and think that record labels are just milking the wallets of audiophiles with a never-ending stream of reissues. But I’ll put it into personal perspective. I cherish Selling England by the Pound. I treasure the music, and my life has been richer for it for a very long time. I can now hear it in better sound quality than ever before. This is a wonderful thing.

A clichéd admonishment that practically every musician has heard during their developmental years is “don’t give up your day job.” The odds for most aspiring musicians to be able to earn a successful living with their music are slim, just like in many other creative arts. Most heed the advice of that old cliché. However, others stubbornly refuse, and either reach success or crash and burn. Some, like Alan Chapell, find a way to do both.

With his band Chapell, Alan Chapell has released several albums and has attained an impressive degree of critical acclaim, commercial success, and respect from his musical peers. Concurrently, he is also a highly-regarded privacy rights attorney who is on the cutting edge of dealing with the current threats posed by digital technology. He’s even had a character created for HBO’s Silicon Valley cable TV series based on his attorney/musician dichotomy. His upcoming album, The Underground Music Show, will be released in March 2024.

Alan Chapell spoke with John Seetoo for Copper on these and other topics.

John Seetoo: As a tech industry privacy rights attorney, does your “day job” inform the lyrical content of your music at all, or do you keep those aspects separate, and why?

Alan Chapell: Thanks for the questions, John.

I lived in India for a bit, and when I came back I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. I was always drawn to privacy and other human rights issues, and thought it might be fun to study human rights law at Fordham in New York City. It took me a few years out of law school to start to figure things out, but I eventually gravitated to [specializing in] privacy issues in the tech space.

I wasn’t doing nearly as much with my music during that time, but I didn’t get out of it entirely. When time permitted, I’d sit in with other friend’s bands – usually on keys or backing vocals.

I see my writing as a reflection of life, and that includes my work in privacy and tech. I went pretty heavily into the impact of tech dystopia in my fourth album PENULTIMATE (e.g., the song “Ride”), and then there are occasional references in other songs. My first album, The Redhead’s Allegations, had a song called “Heroes” that talks about the impact of climate change. My third album, Love in the Summer of Trouble, has “Waiting,” about gun violence. My fifth album – Cinco – has [a song called] “Spin” that talks about how cable news can warp people’s minds. I’m currently working on a song called “America” that explores what happens when two groups of people continue to talk over each other.

Overall, I try to bring the same creative energy to my work in tech as I do in my music.

JS: Given your field of expertise in the tech sector, what are your opinions about AI and its potential uses as well as abuses in music? Can you explain your perspective on how you think you could use it as a helpful tool and what safeguards you think should be instituted to prevent copyright infringement and other kinds of problems.

AC: We’ve already reached the point where AI is disrupting copyright law. I remember reading somewhere recently that a handful of artists were suing a gallery for taking their art and making AI-enhanced derivatives of that artwork available for sale. We’re almost certainly going to see more and more of that in music. And the [recent] labor disputes in the film/TV space have as much to do with AI and digital rights as anything.

Eventually, someone is going to make millions by asking AI to “write a love song as if it was written by Taylor Swift and John Lennon.” But I don’t think we’re there yet. Personally, I’ve played around with AI tools a bit. They are interesting if you have a phrase in your head and you want to understand whether it’s really unique (i.e., do any other songs contain this phrase). But as of today, AI is closer to a modern version of Auto-Tune. It’s an interesting tool that some will use as a gimmick and others will eventually use in a way that’s more artistic and that opens the door to even more creativity.

Also, the closer we get to perfectly-polished music for the masses, the more that other listeners will want to experience the imperfections and raw jagged edges of music. I’m betting my musical career on that latter group.

Alan Chapell at the Belly Up Tavern, San Diego, California, opening for the Gin Blossoms. Courtesy of Maria Downing.

JS: As an independent musician, you certainly understand the reliance that musicians have on digital distribution, merchandising and marketing to earn a living with their art. How do you reconcile that with being an attorney for privacy rights, where one’s mouse clicks are sending very detailed metadata disclosures of their personal preferences and even more revealing and potentially compromising info? Is there a middle ground?

AC: The changes in the music industry over the past 25 years haven’t been helpful to independent musicians, but it’s not like the good old days were really all that great. What’s changed is that power is concentrated a bit differently and the way that musicians can actually make money has shifted. Getting to 10 million plays of your songs isn’t going to directly make you much money, but the notoriety that comes with those 10 million plays will hopefully allow you to generate revenues in other ways. Is that more fair or less fair than, say, back in the 1990s? I think that depends upon who you ask.

As a musician, what gets me frustrated about digital distribution is that I’m completely dependent on the mechanics of platform algorithms like those run by Spotify and Apple Music. If the platform algorithm doesn’t like my latest single, I’m almost entirely out of gas as an artist. And I have no understanding of how the algorithms work, whether the algorithms are being manipulated by the platforms via some form of digital payola, or if the numbers of plays are even accurate. And the platforms – often citing privacy rights – don’t give artists much in the way of data about who is listening. Yeah, they give us scraps of data – but I’ll bet you that Spotify has a much better understanding of who is listening to my music than I do.

Here's wishing that one could just buy the algorithm a bag of weed like any other gatekeeper from back in the good old days, but I digress… 

JS: You said you lived in India for a period of time. Did that experience influence any of your music or have an impact on your outlook towards tech? If so, please explain.

AC: I lived in Mumbai back in the 1990s, having joined an east-west fusion band named Kalki. At the time, I was really interested in weaving classical Indian instruments and themes into more traditional Western rock. That experience taught me to draw from different cultural experiences in order to create something completely new. We never really got off the ground with Kalki, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. For one thing, my time in India was my first experience with yoga and meditation. I couldn’t imagine my life without them [now].

JS: You’ve worked with Jerry Harrison (of the Modern Lovers, Talking Heads, and a producer and solo artist). How did that come about, how did you define your roles, and will you collaborate again?

AC: I grew up in Connecticut and got to know Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz from Talking Heads pretty well. They used to come out to listen to my band when I was in college. I adored their work as musicians, but I was also really into some of the work Chris and Tina were doing as music producers. We kept in touch over the years. And back in 2010, I had a bunch of songs I was really excited about and was looking for some production help. So, I reached out to Chris, who in turn introduced me to Jerry Harrison. Jerry and I really hit it off both creatively and personally. Jerry helped me put together a band of mostly Bay Area musicians (Jerry’s studio was in Sausalito).

Jerry has become a bit of a mentor for me – both in music and life. Both Jerry and [producer] ET Thorngren emphasized the importance of having a strong process for recording. And it all started with the quality of musicians you play with – particularly if you’re a solo artist in need of a band.

I still see Jerry every time we’re in the same city and he’s a great sounding board for new ideas. I’ve enlisted ET to mix a bunch of my albums since The Redhead’s Allegations. They also happen to be two of my favorite people.

JS: Did I read correctly that HBO’s Silicon Valley created a character that was allegedly based on you? Can you tell me about that?

AC: Funny story. I was at the airport and my flight was delayed for a couple of hours. So I went to the airport bar to grab dinner while I waited for my flight to take off. At the airport bar, I struck up a conversion with someone who turned out to be a producer and creative consultant for the show Silicon Valley. He was also a musician. We started talking about music and Silicon Valley – and over the course of a few beers, we came up with the idea of having the Pied Piper gang go through a very big privacy scandal. You may remember, there was a very funny scene discussing the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in Silicon Valley season 4, episode 2.

Anyway, the idea was to have them call their big shot privacy counsel because they needed some answers and advice really quickly. They call their privacy guy, and he picks up the phone just as he was sound checking on some big stage. And [the character] Dinesh is trying to tell him what’s going on with Pied Piper, but the privacy guy can barely hear over the din of his sound check. And the privacy guy keeps being interrupted by issues with his band. (The guitarist won’t leave his dressing room because someone ate his pepperoni and anchovy pizza, and the guitarist literally wants to line up the crew and smell their breath for the anchovies so as to catch the pizza thief.) Anyway, after a few minutes, Dinesh asks what they should do. And the privacy guy simply tells Dinesh that they are completely fu*ked – and hangs up. End of scene.

Anyway, the [show’s producers] decided to go in a different direction. I think the fact that Pied Piper’s attorney featured a guitar in his office made them fear that they might be accused of repeating themselves.

Chapell in concert with Lorenza Ponce (electric violin) and Ali Culotta (keyboards). Courtesy of M. Deneher.

JS: I understand that you deployed a unique process by which you recorded your vocals in Sausalito, California while at the same time your band in Brooklyn performed the music. Can you explain the process, the technology that pulled it off, and how you arranged the communication feeds and audio in the respective studios?

AC: I live mostly in New York City with my wife and baby daughter. My daughter was an infant – maybe two months old when the COVID lockdowns first started. We were suddenly feeling a bit trapped in our New York apartment. We wanted to be out in the wilderness a bit more, so [we] decided to head out to the houseboat community of Sausalito.

I had first lived in the houseboats when I was recording my album with Jerry Harrison. So during the pandemic, we ended up living out there for almost two years. Nobody was really touring back then, so I started writing and ultimately had about 30 songs to record for The Underground Music Show. But I had one problem. My band was in New York City and I was committed to living in Sausalito for a while. So my friend Tim Hatfield (a fantastic producer/engineer who I’ve worked with for years) suggested we try this product called AudioMovers. Using that tool, we had my band rehearse in Tim’s studio, so they were all in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. And I was in Sausalito and would send in my vocal and keyboard tracks in advance and the band would play to those tracks.

Recording this way allowed me to hear what my band was playing in near-real-time and provide feedback. It’s a big change from recording with them in the same room – and there are definitely pros and cons. When you’re singing along with the band in the studio, you’re able to feed off of the band. But you’re also focusing more on your individual performance and less on the band’s collective performance. By recording without being in the room and without performing, I wasn’t focusing on singing. Rather, I was really listening to the rest of the band, and was able to function more as a producer of the tracks.

JS: What, if any changes, overdubs or re-recording of the songs afterwards was needed, or did the tracks all meet with your approval? If any further production work was required, can you please give examples and why?

AC: I have the best band in all of New York City. Rodney Howard (drums), Malcolm Gold (bass), Ann Klein (guitar) and Lorenza Ponce (violin) are all spectacular musicians in their own right. What I really love about each of them is their willingness to explore with me – to reinvent themselves with each new album. Take Lorenza – on one song, she might be doing more of a traditional violin part. One the next song, she’s doing something closer to an 80s lead synth part using a whole host of pedals. And we’ve also used violin to bring in a series of sound effects, rhythm patterns and all kinds of ambient drones. It’s a gift that gives us the ability to bring something new to almost every song.

The band recorded all of the basic tracks at a studio in Brooklyn. And I was really pleased with how they turned out. I’m a huge fan of getting a live feel with the basic tracks. We also did a fair amount of overdubs and general experimentation as we were trying to bring the songs to life. I worked with SoundBetter, a tool that lets you collaborate with people from just about anywhere. It’s really helpful, but during the COVID pandemic, that type of tool was essential. It allowed me to open up creatively and experiment with a whole bunch of different vocalists and guitar players. Meanwhile, I reworked the keyboard parts, taking stems (individual musical elements of the final mix) from the recording sessions and putting them into GarageBand so I could play around with a bunch of different synth or electric piano ideas. I also experimented and re-sang the vocal parts a bunch of times. I use the WA-251 tube condenser mic from Warm Audio that I really dig and lets me record from wherever I’m living.

JS: Where and how did you mix the record? Can you please walk us through the signal flow, equipment used, and any special gear or effects that made appearances?

AC: I worked primarily with a guy named Josh Gold at the Basement studio in Massachusetts. We’re doing some of the initial work virtually and I’ll be out there for final mixes.

I asked Engineer Josh and he said, “I mixed these 100 percent in the box in Pro Tools. The vocal chain [went through] mostly Waves EQs and the Renaissance R-Comp compressor and R-Vox processor. Plus, some parallel Slate Digital and Soundtoys [plugins] for compression and effects. I supplemented the kick [drum] with a Slate trigger, which I love and use in some way on almost every track. Nothing too crazy! Mostly EQ, compression, reverb and delay.”

JS: As an indie artist who has experience in professional studios (an increasing minority), what is your criteria for auditioning a prospective new studio under consideration for a future project? Are there must-have pieces of gear or layout requirements and are there particular recordings that you like to use as audio references?

AC: At home, I use KEF LS50 speakers powered by Cambridge Audio [electronics]. I really try to keep in mind that a good deal of people don’t have a perfect audio setup. So when I’m mixing, I try to listen via a good set of speakers, but also rely on my MacBook air and a set of mid-level headphones. The song needs to work within all of those environments. I always felt that the [really expensive studio monitor] speakers you find in most studios can be a trap.

I’m not much of a gearhead in the studio. Fortunately, I’ve worked with people like Tim Hatfield and ET Thorngren over the years – and they really know what works.

But for me, it’s really about vibe. I typically try to pull my band out of New York City to record. That way, you get everyone together for a few days to a week and create more of a communal feeling. If everyone gets to go home every night after the session, then the outside world gets to creep in and people start to lose focus. I also really enjoy being with all of these people – I learn something new about everyone each time we record together.

We did a couple of sessions at the Power Station New England in Connecticut. And we also did a session in Woodstock, NY at Dreamland. I really dig Dreamland because they have rooms for the band to stay at night – and so you’re literally all together in the same building, being creative for a week’s time. Sort of a band summer camp vibe.

JS: As someone with dual careers, you are part of a musician club that includes Jeff Baxter (Steely Dan/Doobie Brothers/Department of Defense consultant), Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull/salmon farm owner), Steve Morse (The Dregs/Deep Purple/airline pilot), Brian May (Queen/astrophysicist), and Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins/wrestling club owner/promoter). Do you get a sense of fulfillment from both law and music? Are they similar and/or different, and in what ways?

AC: I used to be much more reluctant to talk about my tech/privacy work when hanging out with other musicians. One of the things I noticed about Jerry Harrison is that he’s just as savvy a businessman and entrepreneur as he is a musician. Watching Jerry really changed my point of view – that being able to navigate both worlds can be an asset. Jerry and I have even collaborated a bit on the business front as we both advise a biotech company called Ophirex – the company has discovered a universal antidote to venomous snake bites. As someone who’s spent time in India and seen the impact of snake bites on poor, rural families, I’m really excited about the potential impact of this company to make people’s lives better.

Header image courtesy of Shervin Lainez.

The story of music streaming is a tale of both technological evolution and cultural shifts.

It all kind of kicked off in the late 1990s with the advent of MP3 files. The pitch for this new digital format was the efficient compression of audio files – drastically reducing their size without a significant loss in sound quality (though plenty, including myself, might argue the opposite). This technological innovation was a stark shift from physical media like CDs, vinyl, and cassette tapes that we all had been accustomed to collecting and playing on our dedicated hardware.

The MP3's rise to prominence was fueled by the internet's growing reach and speed, which made it possible to transfer music files across the globe in minutes, and eventually, in seconds. The cultural impact of this was profound. It democratized music distribution, allowing independent artists to share their work broadly without the need for a record label or physical production. It also sparked a cultural shift towards a more personalized and on-demand music experience.

Moreover, the portability of MP3s aligned perfectly with the rise of portable digital music players, the most famous being the iPod, which further accelerated the transition from physical to digital music. This shift also led to the development of various music player software options for computers, forever changing how people interacted with their music libraries.

The Apple iPod helped fuel a musical revoution. Courtesy of Pixabay.com/Clker-Free-Vector-Images.

There was, inevitably, a dark side, most notably the rampant file sharing and piracy issues epitomized by services like Napster. The ease of copying and distributing MP3 files led to a massive upheaval in the music industry, forcing a reevaluation of intellectual property laws and the financial model for artists and record companies.

In response to the piracy crisis and the demand for legal digital music options, platforms like iTunes emerged, offering paid downloads and effectively legitimizing digital music distribution. The success of iTunes and other similar services proved there was a market for legally purchasing digital music and set the stage for the next evolution: music streaming.

Streaming services, which began emerging in the mid to late 2000s, took the concept of digital music a step further by offering access to vast music libraries over the internet without the need to download files. This model granted users the ability to listen to music from anywhere, as long as they had an online connection, fundamentally altering the concept of music ownership and paving the way for the streaming-dominated landscape we see today.

As the dust settled on the file-sharing era, Apple emerged as a key player with the launch of iTunes in 2001. iTunes revolutionized the music industry by providing a legal, user-friendly platform for digital music consumption. It offered a pay-per-song model, which was a stark contrast to the subscription model used by most modern streaming services. iTunes not only addressed the piracy issue but also laid the groundwork for the digitization of music, setting the stage for the streaming revolution.

The Rise of Modern Streaming Services

With the foundation laid by iTunes, streaming services began to emerge, fundamentally changing how we access music.

While streaming services offer unparalleled convenience, granting access to vast libraries of music at our fingertips, this convenience came at a cost – sound quality.

Understanding Bit Rates and Codecs

The core of this issue lies in the technology used for streaming – specifically, bit rates and codecs. A bit rate, measured in kilobits per second (kbps), represents the amount of data transmitted over the internet per second. Higher bit rates generally translate to better sound quality. Codecs, on the other hand, are methods of compressing and decompressing digital audio. Common codecs in streaming include AAC, MP3, and OGG Vorbis.

A few modern streaming services, like Tidal and Qobuz (among others) offer lossless options, but we’ll get to that in a moment. For now, let’s see what each of the services has to offer us audiophiles.

Comparing Major Streaming Services

• Spotify: One of the most popular streaming services, Spotify uses the lossy OGG Vorbis format. It offers different streaming qualities up to 320 kbps for its premium subscribers. While this is respectable, it’s not even close to the highest quality available in the streaming world and certainly not lossless.

• Apple Music: Apple employs its lossy AAC format, which is known for its efficiency and quality at lower bit rates. Recently, Apple Music has made strides in offering lossless audio, allowing streaming up to 24-bit/192 kHz, a significant leap for us audiophiles seeking higher fidelity.

• Tidal: Tidal positions itself as the service for audiophiles, offering lossless high fidelity sound quality at CD level (16-bit/44.1 kHz) and even Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) recordings, a lossy format (this should open a can of worms since MQA pitches theirs as only ‘losing” info we don’t need). Tidal provides resolutions up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

• Qobuz: Similar to Tidal, Qobuz specializes in high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/192 kHz in FLAC format, appealing to those who seek both quality sound and a deep connection to music. Qobuz is my personal favorite for sound quality.

Hi-res audio from services like Qobuz can be accessed via a variety of devices. 

Balancing Convenience and Quality

For the average – non-audiophile – listener, the differences in sound quality among these services may not be perceptible, especially when listening on standard earbuds or car speakers. However, for us crazy audiophiles, these differences are not just noticeable but crucial. The choice often boils down to balancing convenience and quality. While Tidal and Qobuz offer superior sound, their libraries may not be as extensive as Spotify’s. Apple Music’s recent foray into lossless audio is a promising middle ground, offering both a vast library and improved sound quality.

The Role of Equipment

It’s important to note that the benefits of higher bit rates and lossless audio can only be fully appreciated with the right equipment. High-quality DACs and streamers, USB-isolators, proper cabling, highly-resolving speakers, and amps and preamps able to convey these differences are integral to extracting the nuanced details and richness of lossless audio.

Physical CDs and SACDs vs. Streaming

The debate among us audiophiles regarding the sound quality of physical CDs and Super Audio CDs (SACDs) versus streaming is ongoing. CDs have long been a benchmark for high-quality audio, offering a reliable 16-bit/44.1 kHz resolution. SACDs, on the other hand, offer an even higher resolution with their Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format, providing what I and others consider an unparalleled depth and clarity of sound (note: as an example, PS Audio’s Octave Records captures everything in high-bit-rate DSD and produces only downloads and SACDs in support of this level of quality sound).

Comparatively, streaming services have made significant strides in offering high-quality audio. Tidal and Qobuz, with their lossless and high-resolution streaming – depending on who you talk to – challenge the supremacy of physical media. However, many audiophiles, including me, argue that the tactile experience and the unique sound characteristics of CDs and SACDs still sound better, though the gap is being narrowed, not by changes in the streaming services but by the streaming equipment used to render that music.

The impact of music streaming services on sound quality is a complex and evolving narrative – a debate I suspect will continue on for years. From the controversy of Napster to the innovations of modern streaming services, the journey of digital music has been one of adaptation and advancement. As technology continues to evolve, so too will the ways in which we experience and appreciate the art of music.

Header image courtesy of Pixabay.com/Bernd Everding.

Copper has an exchange program with selected magazines, where we share articles, including this one, between publications. This one's from PMA Magazine: the Power of Music and Audio. 

 

Welcome to my series, Treasures from the Vinyl Vault. In it, I will feature select gems from my approximately 12,000 ever-growing vinyl collection, accumulated over a 45-year period and counting.* This will not be your typical “Greatest Of All Time” list, but more of a guided tour, occasionally accompanied by an anecdote or two, of the singles and albums in my collection that are most precious to me, both for their historical value and the impact they’ve had on my musical journey. In order to cover the greatest number of them, I will not go into much detail about the record’s history or its sound quality – for those aspects I invite you to visit my Top 500 SuperSonic List at http://soundevaluations.blogspot.ca/.

Records will be presented in chronological order based either on their recording date or original release date, and not reissue date – which means, for example, that Miles Davis’ iconic Kind of Blue album will be featured only once, in 1959, despite its many re-masterings and re-pressings over the years. Also, all pressings are US ones unless specified otherwise. If mono is not indicated, then consider it stereo or that the stereo version of it is my de facto choice of the two. Let’s continue, shall we?

 

 

11- Buck Clayton featuring Woody Herman – How Hi the Fi

Columbia – CL 567 (mono) (1954), Pure Pleasure Records PPAN CL 567 (UK) (2007), (2 × 33 1/3 RPM).

Genre: Kansas City jazz, swing, big band, bluesy ballads

I already had two of trumpetist Buck Clayton’s Jam Session LPs on Columbia, which are good, but this Pure Pleasure Records remastering of How High the Fi – now on two LPs instead of one – is my favorite for music and sound. Each side sports only one roughly 14-minute track ranging from hot, swinging Kansas City jazz jams, such as the title-track, and “Moten Swing,” to slower, sultry bluesy ballad standards, like “Blue Moon” and “Sentimental Journey.” Count Basie hired the trumpet player in 1937 until he was drafted in 1943, and Basie’s influence is quite evident. The album, pressed by Pallas in Germany, was recorded in December, 1953 and March, 1954 in New York City, and has a crisp, dynamic, and well-balanced mono sound that’s excellent.

 

 

12- Richard Strauss, Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Also sprach Zarathustra

RCA Victor Red Seal – ESC-1 ( September 1954) reel-to-reel, 7.5 ips, 1/4-inch 2-track, 7-inch reel, LSC-1806 Living Stereo series (1960), 33-1/3 RPM, Classic Records – LSC-1806 (1994), 33-1/3 RPM, 180g, LSC-1806 (200?), (4 x 45 RPM single side), 200g.

Genre: classical, post-romantic, modern

Thanks in large part to Kubrick’s 1968 landmark epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Strauss’ Zarathustra was one of the first classical pieces I discovered along with Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube,” which is also featured prominently in some of 2001’s space sequences. Actually, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony was probably the first classical piece I heard, but I’ll get to that later. By sheer coincidence, a few days after I’d seen 2001, I entered a small hi-fi store, where, without any prompting from me, the vendor played the same demo-worthy Zarathustra excerpt from the movie on a reel-to-reel tape deck, switching speakers in real time with a switch box control. I know, the latter practice is a purist no-no now, but was popular in the day.

In the film, Kubrick uses only the famous majestic intro but I soon got hold of the complete score from a 1969 Zubin Mehta interpretation on London ffrr for a couple of dollars, which opened my ears to the entire tone poem. This 1954 Reiner version on RCA Victor, engineered by Leslie Chase, is one of the earliest stereo recordings ever done, and part of the first batch of Classic Records’ reissues that came out in 1994, of which I bought that title and other similar ones early on for about 45 dollars each. Later, I ordered directly from Classic the four-single-sides 45 RPM edition. Both versions sound excellent, quite dynamic and transparent. The only drawback from the latter version are the fade-out and fade-in interruptions in the score that break the ambiance.

 

 

13- Offenbach, Boston Pops, Arthur Fiedler – Gaîté Parisienne

RCA Victor Red Seal – ESC-15 (1956) reel-to-reel, 7.5 ips, 1/4-inch 2-track, 7-inch reel, RCA Victor Red Seal – LSC-1817 (1958), Classic Records – LSC-1817, Living Stereo series, QUIEX SV-P 45 (2002?), (four single-sided x 45 RPM), 200g.

Genre: classical, orchestral

Recorded in stereo only three months after the preceding Zarathustra, Fiedler’s interpretation of the Gaîté Parisienne ballet is one of the most dynamic orchestral compositions found on record. Based on German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach’s music from the 19th century, this is a suite of fun, peppy short classical movements arranged and orchestrated in 1938 by French conductor-composer Manuel Rosenthal and Offenbach’s nephew. Bernie Grundman’s remastering-cutting for Classic Records is a true sound stunner both on the regular 33-1/3 RPM and the four-single-sided 45 RPM edition.

14- Ravel, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch – New England Conservatory Chorus – Daphnis et Chloé

RCA Victor Red Seal – LM-1893 (mono) (1955), LSC-1893 (1960), Classic Records – LSC-1893, Living Stereo series, (1995), 33 1/3 RPM.

Genre: classical, impressionism

Recorded in stereo in January 1955 – seven months after the Offenbach title – this release was available initially only in mono, before it was released in stereo five years later. Best known for his Boléro, the French composer premiered this ballet, commissioned by Russian ballet critic and founder of the Ballets Russes Sergei Diaghilev, in 1912. Like many, I consider it Ravel’s mystical masterpiece. The orchestration is rich in timbres, textures, and dynamic shadings – a pure delight for the ears and senses. Engineer Lewis Layton did an incredible job of balancing everything, including the celestial-sounding chorus. Grundman pulled it off again in his remastering of this Classic Records reissue.

 

 

15- Tchaikovsky, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteux – Symphonie No.6. “Pathétique”

RCA Victor – GSC-15 (April 1956) reel-to-reel, 7.5 ips, 1/4-inch 2-track, 7-inch reel, RCA Victor Red Seal – LSC-1901 (1958), Classic Records – LSC-1901, Living Stereo series, (1995), 33 1/3 RPM.

Genre: classical, classicism, romantic

This is another early stereo recording, recorded just two days after the preceding Ravel. Like the first two RCA selections, this one was initially released on pre-recorded tape, before being released two years later as a stereo LP during the advent of that format. Tchaikovsky’s famous, final completed symphony, the “Pathétique” – or originally titled “Passionate” depending on historical accounts – is one of my earliest encounters with classical music along with both previously-mentioned Strauss works. The reason? Back in the 1970s, there was a weekly current affairs TV show that used an excerpt from the third movement for its theme music. Years later, one of my aunts – who loved classical music – gave me an LP box set from RCA Living Stereo which not only featured the entire 6th symphony, but the exact same Monteux version that Classic Records reissued in 1995.

To prove how our earliest musical memories stay with us throughout our lives, to this day I usually listen to only the third movement and forego the rest. The recording was engineered by Leslie Chase, and again, Grundman did amazing work on this reissue, endowing it with impressive dynamics and soundstage dimensions, which surpass those of my original box set LP. Interestingly, Tchaikovsky would conduct the first performance of this work just nine days before his death.

16- Bartók, Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Concerto for Orchestra

RCA Victor – ESC-9 (April 1956) reel-to-reel, 7.5 ips, 1/4-inch 2-track, 7-inch reel, RCA Victor Red Seal LSC-1934 Living Stereo series (1958), 33-1/3 RPM, Classic Records – LSC-1934 (1994), 33 1/3 RPM.

Genre: classical, modern

While Liszt was Hungary’s most famous classical composer of the 19th century, Bartók certainly took up the torch in the 20th. Opposing and fearing the Nazis’ close ties with his country, he fled for the United States in October, 1940. Composed as a five-movement orchestral work in 1943, the Concerto for Orchestra – closer to a symphony than a typical concerto – is one of his last and best-known compositions. With hints of eastern European, Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovak folk in the mix, Bartók alternates between atonality and tonality, dissonance and consonance, throughout the entire piece, inching towards contemporary music. With its mysterious, dramatic moods evoked by massed strings punctuated by blaring brass, and tempos ramping up and down, the music reminds me of the tension-filled score that might accompany a chase scene in one of those old action-adventure movies or TV shows. Excellent job – again! – by Grundman and Classic Records. Like the previous Strauss and Ravel selections, I haven’t heard Ryan K. Smith’s remasterings for Analogue Productions, which might, perhaps, even surpass that of Grundman’s.

 

*I would be remiss not to mention that some of those 12,000 records I share with a fellow vinyl hunter, co-conspirator, and lifelong friend.

 

_{2023 PMA Media. All rights reserved.}

Few tourists take a photo from this point in Zion National Park because the road is narrow and there is no pullout at this location. But on a motorcycle, one can pull over to the side of the road without blocking traffic, which is how I got this shot.

Wilco's front man has a new album and book almost all the time

Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording With Wilco, Etc., (2018)

World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music (2023)

Cousin: Album by Wilco, 2023.

And there was a detachment between the band and the audience that made me feel awkward. Everyone was on their phones, or taking pictures with their phones, or selfies with their phones. There wasn't the bond between band and audience that would make a young concert-goer, perhaps just starting to learn guitar, to be inspired the way Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy was by his forebears, seeing the Replacements, for example, as a 14-year-old in a St. Louis club near his home in Belleville, Ill.

Wilco is considered the great Chicago band of our era, owners of The Loft, the musical magnetic North Pole of the midwest. Their masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was recorded there. Released free on the Wilco website in 2001, while the band extricated itself from Warner's Reprise label, only for the album to surface and thrive on Warner's smaller, curiously curatorial Nonesuch label under the guidance of then-president (and now chairman emeritus) Robert Hurwitz. Pitchfork, then still Chicago-based, gave it a 10 out of 10.

"He wasn't raised in Chicago, like Billy Corgan or Dennis DeYoung," said our savvy midwestern correspondent and former Sun-Times music journalist Don McCleese. "He didn't move there until after Uncle Tupelo. But Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and everything since is definitely part of the Chicago musical mythos. He has a Chicago work ethic and a very Chicago wife, so I'd say their sons are Chicago purebred."

But he is not one for local small talk, especially if you want to talk about Chicago’s summer obsession, the Cubs. In Let’s Go, he rants:

“Every time somebody asks me, “How ’bout the Cubs?” I want to respond with “yeah, the Cubs, they’re going to die someday. Do you ever think about that? All of them. All of them. Rizzo. Bryant. The one with the goatee. The other ones. The entire team. Some of them probably soon, you don’t know. They could be dying right now while we’re sitting here making conversation about baseball. Death is lurking.”

Wilco's new album, Cousin, is not necessarily Wilco at its best, but as always has some memorable songs: opener “Infinite Surprise” is top of the game, the title tune an interesting chemistry lesson. The chemistry comes from the hiring of Cate Le Bon, the Welsh singer-songwriter, to produce the record. Original and offbeat, she brings some of the space noise that longtime associate and sometime band member Jim O'Rourke did/does as engineer, mixer, and musician, sounds that allow what is essentially folk-rock allow Wilco to be commingled by some with Radiohead as avatars of 21st century “art rock.” When Tweedy uses strings or effects on a record, for example, they have to be appropriate to "a doom-dabbling, 50-year-old, borderline misanthrope, nap enthusiast." One of my favorite songs from Cousin is "Evicted" in which Tweedy reduces his soft-boiled self-critical lyric style to hash-oil essence: " I'm evicted/From your heart/I deserve it."

Tweedy wrote that line about being a borderline misanthrope in Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording With Wilco, Etc., (2018). Since then, he has had two more books published: How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back (2020), which I have not read, and World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music (2023), released earlier this month. He also started a Substack, Starship Casual, to which I am a paid subscriber and elicited a "like" for my comment on a song called "Having a Hard Time" (subtitle of the post: "Unreleased sadness"). I've since realized that there have been 89 comments, and Jeff Tweedy (or his social media/Substack manager) has "liked" every single one. Don't let the hubris bite.

Tweedy was once a rock musician and songwriter who dabbled in prose. Now, it's fair to consider him an author who is also a rock musician. Which is the side hustle and which is the main gig are all mixed up, which is nice because Tweedy writes in an attractive, occasionally repetitious ("Geez, man" as go-to phrase; stories intermingled) prose, self-deprecating to the point that he is often quite hard on himself. Though in the intro to the memoir he says there will be no drug or rehab stories, he follows that up with a "just kidding!" because otherwise, as he wrote, it would be like a Keith Richards memoir without the heroin. (Wilco also released a double-album, Cruel Country, in 2022. I’m still playing catch-up.)

Tweedy's impulse to chase the dream and fight off migraines, panic attacks, and prescription drugs, began in Belleville, on the other side of Illinois, closer to St. Louis. Tweedy writes about his life in Belleville, where his dad was a railroad man who sang loud and well when he drank too much, which was often. Jeff was close to his encouraging mom, who sometimes made him feel awkward with her own boundary-edging candor. I wrote a little about Tweedy's Belleville on this link, where I dreamed about writing and performing “Born to Run” with Lee Harvey Oswald, because Tweedy had talked about telling people when he was in third grade that he wrote and sang it.

The "Etc." in the memoir would be his frenemy Jay Farrar and the band that put them both on the map, Uncle Tupelo (1987-1994). Their influential debut album, No Depression, became the title of the "house"magazine of the Americana indie rock movement, and Uncle Tupelo the root of that hard to define, you-know-it-when-you-hear-it roots-folk-rock style, with a trace of olde country music. (There is also a fraught relationship with Jay Bennett, in Wilco from 1994-2001, who died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2009.)

World Within a Song is like the next chapter of Tweedy's ongoing memoir. Here are some highlights from the selections:

"Who Loves the Sun" from Loaded, by the Velvet Underground, recounts when Loose Fur, a spinoff trio of Tweedy, Wilco's genius drummer Glenn Kotche, and Chicago's studio wizard Jim O'Rourke, played a show in NYC and Lou Reed was in audience. Tweedy writes as a fan: "For a brief moment, at least, he was aware of my existence...We never met, and I'm pretty okay with that, considering how awful his reputation was when it came to making people feel like sh*t...it also sidesteps the likelihood that he might have called me a schmuck or made me cry with a withering stare...to a lot of us, Lou Reed represents the triumph of form over beauty, ideas over sentiment, honesty over bullshi*, vision over acceptance..."

There are also dark backlighted anecdotes that stand alone from songs, not unlike the Dylan book. In the late 1990s, Tweedy was invited to John Cale's home to write songs with him. Cale's idea: put a recipe to music. "Me, smart person, suggesting the banana pancake recipe located near the front of Gravity's Rainbow," Tweedy writes. "Which I was familiar with because it fell within the zone of pages I had read before eventually giving up on the rest of the book, something that happened at least seven or eight times. Playing acoustic guitar while John Cale read aloud with his Welsh accent, which was totally familiar to me from his records... peel more bananas, slice lengthwise... Still feeling like this is more made up or dreamed than real. No evidence it ever happened... but it did."

[During the COVID lockdown, I made it all the way through Gravity's Rainbow on my 10th or 11th try – I felt duty bound, since one of my former students who I had turned on to Pynchon began signing his emails "Slothrop," and I didn't want to be a fraud. A funny thing happened to the original paperback I bought: the further I got into the book, the larger the chunks of paper broke away from the binding. When I finished reading it, there was no book left to read. Maybe that’s what it’s about!]

The Beatles: the only chapter not a song, but about the idea of the Beatles on Tweedy: "The scale of magical structure they built is unattainable, but the sandbox is still full of the same sand – we're all allowed to build with the same material."

R.E.M.: "Radio Free Europe": "These were our thoughts – our confused internal dialogues – our wild curiosity, muffled by the slight embarrassment of our own earnestness being sung back to us. At the time it didn't even feel like the band themselves knew what to make of it all. And their bewilderment fed our relief in them."

Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive": "Bon Jovi possesses the type of arrogance that compels one to swing for the fences every time one steps to the plate... every song is angling to be a world-changing anthem. It's completely alien to me. ... This song sucks and you should not like it." Tweedy is no fan of New Jersey arena rock: He dislikes Bruce Springsteen, even though in his memoir he told his third-grade classmates in 1975 that he wrote and sang "Born to Run."

In high school, a girlfriend took him to see Springsteen, the Who, and John Cougar circa 1982 at a St. Louis arena. From the memoir: "It all sounded so bad to me. I wasn't just bored; I hated those shows. I felt sad afterward. Nothing about the experience was exciting to me."

The Replacements: "God Damn Job": In both books, Tweedy writes about the impact of being 14, to see X (with Exene Cervenka and John Doe) and opening act the Replacements at a club at which those under drinking age were limited to an area known as "the Kiddie Korner." Paul Westerberg falls off the stage, face first, but keeps singing and playing. Tweedy realizes, "The only thing worse than needing a job is having one...The self-liberation directly in front of my eyes. I am free – as long as this exists – this feeling – this moment where nothing else in in the world matters. This is where I will choose to live."

"I Will Always Love You." Any version. "I don't like this song. I think it stinks... Doesn't matter who sings it. It fries my nerves... I think I have a tough time with extra syllables being added to long notes in general." He's tried to like it, because Dolly Parton wrote it, and Tweedy knows it's un-American, as well as un-Americana, to criticize Dolly. "She wrote that song and 'Jolene' the same day... All I'm saying is that 'Jolene' was enough work for one day." The opposition to the multisyllabic single-syllable in song is echo'd in my lifelong disinclination toward Mariah Carey.

John Cage: 4'33" "I doubt that I would have ever thought about songs quite the way that I do without this bold, misunderstood, even more often maligned, colossally important artistic gesture." Found at the music library at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, while not going to classes, Tweedy writes, "I came to this music like an early rock n roll pioneer – by being dumbstruck with curiosity enough to feel compelled to find more at any cost. Picture me sneaking out of Bible studies class... listening to a piano bench squeak and some coconuts being cracked open with a hot microphone." It's a good thing Tweedy went (in theory) to SIU Edwardsville. If he'd gone to Harvard, his band might have been Weezer.

Television "Little Johnny Jewel": the ROIR cassette live version, heard as Wilco's van raced across Oklahoma first SXSW appearance at Austin's Liberty Lunch. "After ingesting a mismanaged amount of pot cookies," he goes to a place beyond paranoia into ego death, becomes convinced that if the cassette ever stopped playing he would die... "psychotic not stupid." Years later, Tweedy ran into Television's Richard Lloyd and tells him about how "LJJ simultaneously ripped me apart and held me together." Lloyd replied: "That's nothing! I once spent a month convinced my radiator was playing 'Over Under Sideways Down,' by the Yardbirds!" They laughed, then shrugged, understood they "were lucky to be alive."

"History Lesson – Part Two" by the Minutemen. Its influence on Uncle Tupelo was enormous. The opening line of this song was nabbed by Michael Azerrad for his influential and highly regarded book about the punk underground: "Our band could be your life/Real names'd be proof/Me and Mike Watt played for years/Punk rock changed our lives." Shortly after singing those words, D. Boon of the Minutemen died when his van crashed in the desert. Tweedy writes that the Minutemen, miles musically from Wilco or Uncle Tupelo's sound, shared a brotherhood of spirit.

"What we wanted to be: sonically, we were informed by then; lyrically emboldened, but beyond all of the artistic influence, the Minutemen, speed punks from San Pedro, CA, was how they did it: Start your own band. Get in the van. What are you waiting for? It was an easy ethos to embrace. It was altrusitic and human scaled. Be honest!" The song was played by Uncle Tupelo in rehearsals, and thinking back to the friendship he and Jay Farrar shared, "part of me will always just be 'playin' guitar with Jay. And I doubt that there'd be much to share here in this book without this song and a friendship that mirrored its wisdom."

Farrar's post-Wilco band Son Volt have been important keepers of the flame. Son Volt's latest, Day of the Doug, (2023) is a tribute to Texas hippie mainstay, Doug Sahm. I wonder if Tweedy's words are a kind of invitation, diplomatic outreach to get back, somewhere, for some reason. They could do it for world peace. They could do it for global warming, to address the fentanyl crisis, support gun control. Son Volt/Uncle Tupelo/Wilco benefit shows, St. Louis, Chicago, Belleville, Ill. Stranger things have happened. Plenty of "standing o's." Do these things ever work out? I'm not sure it's a good idea. I'm just tossing it out there.

Copper has an exchange program with FIDELITY magazine (and others), where we share articles, including this one, between publications.

 

160 rooms, 150 exhibitors, 600 brands. Like the Munich HIGH END Show, only a little smaller, you might think at first glance – and you’d be way off the mark: The Audio Video Show in Warsaw is so refreshingly different from any other trade show, it’s a special highlight for us every year. Formally, the second-largest hi-fi trade fair in Europe may largely follow the model of a classic hotel trade fair, but the music, the audience, the atmosphere – as an audiophile in particular, you have to see and hear it at least once. B2B is clearly in the background here; the Warsaw event is all about the end consumer. And it’s not just the exception that he is in fact a she; also, significantly less than half of the visitors are gray-haired: the established doctor or architect is of course represented, but teenagers also scurry curiously from room to room, and mothers guide their awestruck kids through the demonstrations – the Warsaw trade fair is refreshingly in touch with the average consumer.

 

 

Of course, said average consumer is not primarily listening to Anette Askvik or Patricia Barber – the various rooms leak a colorful mixture of Toni Braxton, Hans Zimmer, Pink Floyd and many others. Here and there, hard techno or Rammstein can also be heard. Don’t worry: audiophile fare is also on offer, but by no means dominates the fair’s general sound. The atmosphere is refreshingly unpretentious: mass manufacturers such as JBL, Pioneer and Onkyo exhibit party speakers and affordable AV receivers in the immediate vicinity of high-end manufacturers such as McIntosh, Wilson Audio and Audio Group Denmark, who demonstrate what is technically possible to exactly the same “unspoiled” audience.

 

 

In between, various manufacturers entice visitors with wheels of fortune, lottery drums and other competitions to burn themselves permanently into their memories with small gadgets and real prizes such as headphones or smart speakers. Top-class home cinema systems are not only demoed with blockbuster movies and rock concerts, in many places game consoles are also connected for everyone to try their hand at. At Pioneer there is even a Simrig complete with racing seat, force feedback steering wheel and a serious pedal set, and a couch racer is sharpening his skills on the latest Forza title – that’s how you grow new hi-fi audiences!

 

 

The Radisson Blu Sobieski Hotel has been the main event venue since the very beginning, but has long since run out of space to host the entire event. In addition to the Golden Tulip diagonally opposite, the AVS has also been using the Warsaw soccer stadium, PGE Narodowy, since 2015 – the opportunity to look out onto the pitch through the window front on the front wall of the listening rooms alone creates a very special flair, while the DJ duo in the foyer does the rest to reliably keep out any hint of dust and crustiness.

 

 

Also in line with the interests of a younger clientele, a generous area in the stadium is reserved exclusively for head-fi [headphones and accessories]. Tables with numerous listening stations are lined up in a spacious, always-busy foyer and together form Poland’s largest headphone zone. From Audeze to Sennheiser to Warwick Acoustics, everything can be found here, and those looking for something special can also browse through a selection of customization options such as third-party ear pads for their audiophile headgear.

 

 

The [show] organization is excellent, by the way: while you only have to cross an – admittedly huge – intersection diagonally to get from the Sobieski to the Golden Tulip or vice versa, the PGE is a good hour’s walk from both hotels. The best way to cover the distance is to take the shuttle bus, which shuttles back and forth between the Sobieski Hotel and the PGE stadium every half hour. This means you never have to wait too long for the next departure, and the journey itself takes a good 10 minutes. So if you are there all day, you can change locations several times if you like. Nevertheless, a little pre-planning is still highly recommended – there is a lot to see and hear, and the long weekend will be over sooner than you think…

A Cornucopia Of Curiosities

…especially when you want to really take in the sheer breadth and diversity of the exhibitions on offer. The quality of the experience at any hi-fi trade fair is determined by the equipment on display. The usual big names such as Accuphase, Bowers & Wilkins, DALI, Innuos and Transrotor are of course represented, as are the big local heroes: Fezz, Pylon, Lampizator, and Taga Harmony, to name a few of the weightier names. But a big reason to visit such an event is of course the opportunity to look beyond the horizon, to manufacturers that are more off the beaten track in the hi-fi landscape – and it is precisely in this regard that Warsaw traditionally has a cornucopia of exotics and curiosities to offer.

While most of the hotel rooms in the Radisson Blu are quite cozy, there is a room on the second floor that seems surprisingly empty despite its dimensions being identical: a freely-positioned, technoid-looking mannequin consisting of a torso and head dominates the room. What at first glance could be mistaken for an extremely elaborate headphone stand – the head is adorned with a Stax electrostat – actually provides amplification via the torso section.

A quick sound check is convincing, but anyone who thinks the installation is [merely] a head-fi system with a "wow factor" effect is also wrong: As the mischievously smiling demonstrator explains to me, the solution to the puzzle lies in the head section: A naked clockwork is ticking away just about where you would expect to find the brain. It is in fact a cooperation with a renowned Swiss manufacturer, [and] the object is primarily a luxury clock – the high-end headphone system is just an extra, so to speak.

 

The Heart on the Outside

The DIYAudio.pl forum room is worth a visit every year. Here you can admire the creations of the Polish DIY scene, all of them built with top-of-the-shelf components, some of them quite experimental designs. Electronics and crossovers are on open display here, inviting curious glances.

 

This year, the range of approaches to cabinet design was particularly striking: a pair of tiny speakers that could both fit in the palm of my hand demonstrated how clean a 3D-printed cabinet can look, while the opposite pole was [represented] by two stand-mount speakers that rely on the inertia of roughly-textured concrete.

 

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

When it comes to hi-fi, there is always the question of which component is the most important – loudspeaker or amplifier? Or the source, perhaps? Anyone looking for a controversial opinion on this topic need to look no further than ZenSati’s room. As I enter the room, I think at first that the demonstration is still under construction: The rack is facing the front wall, and the entire front half of the room is full of a dense tangle of power cords, speaker cables and interconnects in shimmering, thick silver-braided tubes.

 

 

At the splice points, the mighty rigging gratuitously displays gold plating. The driving electronics from Audio Analogue not only fade into the background here, they almost disappear completely. The price for the cabling? Just a number – the target customer simply takes note of it and pulls out his black Visa card without batting an eyelid.

 

Controlling the Entire Signal Chain

You have to believe me when I tell you that the pair of JBL L19s in the RT Project room was something special – but in this case it has a lot to do with the environmental variables. The only production model the young manufacturer offers is a high-end DAC, available with a transistor, tube or hybrid output stage. For the Warsaw show, however, the developers have created a more than complete front-end: The DAC feeds a pre/power amp combo that is still in the prototype stage, but whose unusual form factor with side-mounted transformers and tubes would be an absolute eye-catcher in any setup.

I write "more than complete" because RT Project goes one step further still: Ultimately, what comes out of the speaker drivers is largely determined by the crossover, and this was evidently not good enough for the Polish engineers – so they quickly developed external networks whose housings are coupled to the stands of the American stand-mounts via bricks. The result was definitely worth listening to!

If you really want to experience hi-fi in all its facets, the Audio Video Show in Warsaw is a must – the audience is just as colorful as the systems on display, and the whole thing is embedded in a refreshingly unpretentious, approachable atmosphere. We are already looking forward to next year!

 

All images courtesy of FIDELITY magazine.

It might be low in cost, but we bet it sounds good. From Electronics World, September 1959, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.

How can something as utilitarian as this Eico Model 950A capacitor tester look this cool? Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joe Haupt.

Late night entertainment, 1950s style. Here's Polish amateur radioman Michał Wysokiński, call sign SP1QE, and his radio station. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.

Compact classic: A KLH Model Twenty-One radio, circa 1967. Boy did these sound good. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joe Haupt.

TheaterByte.com offers a review of the AirLens music streamer. Lawrence D. Devoe, MD noted, “BlueCoast’s DSD256 recording of Australian pianist Fiona Joy Hawkins and violinist Rebecca Daniel treated my ears to the title track of their recent album Heavenly Voices. Both instruments and Fiona Joy’s vocals were reproduced with a warmth and a sense of space that put everything right into my sound room.” He also found, “Just as remarkable was an MQA 96kHz/24-bit download of Peter Gabriel’s best album So. During Gabriel’s duet with Kate Bush in “Don’t Give Up.” The power of the expansive synthesizer, persistent percussion, bluesy piano and the details of this complex score were clearly heard from side to side and front to back.” He concluded his review by calling the AirLens “highly recommended.”

Click here for the full review.

In Issue 130 of Positive Feedback, Dean Waters began his extremely detailed review of the PowerPlant 15 by saying, “ If you wanted to set out to build the most perfect power source solution for your system, you'd be hard pressed to do better than Paul and Scott McGowan and their team at PS Audio.” He also commented, “It's easy to consider this a "must-have" device for anyone serious about music and having components perform at their peak.”

Click here for the full review.

Three PS Audio products were included in Future Audiophile’s 2023 Gear of the Year awards. The DirectStream DAC MK2 D/A converter was listed in the Best Digital Audiophile Product of 2023 (Cost-No-Object) category, and the Sprout100 integrated amplifier made the Best Audiophile Integrated Amp of 2023 rankings. The Stellar PowerPlant 3 power regenerator won the Best Audiophile Accessory of 2023 award. Future Audiophile said, “The technology in the PS Audio Stellar PowerPlant 3 isn’t new, but is vastly improved over the years to solve even more of today’s real-world power problems.”

Click here for the full article.

DirectStream DAC MK2