Copper


A Visit to Audeze, Maker of High-End Headphones

Issue 192Featured

If popularity is a sign of importance, one peek around the show floor at a CanJam, Capital Audiofest, or NAMM show makes clear how important headphones manufacturer Audeze has become....

How Do You Listen to Music?

Issue 192Featured

Many years ago, when I was just 19, I started taking guitar lessons from a great friend of mine, to whom I am eternally grateful for his influence and input...

Stairway to Knowledge

Issue 192Parting Shot

A Staircase in the Copper Queen Library in Bisbee, Arizona, named "The Best Small Library in America." The library has been in operation since 1882.

Munich HIGH END 2023, Part One: Analog Hi-Fi

Issue 192Show Report

Copper has an exchange program with FIDELITY magazine (and others), where we share articles, including this one, between publications.   Simply unbreakable: the High End 2023 broke all records – both...

Now That We Are All Ghosts: Joe Cannon of Resur...

Issue 192Idle Chatter

Quirky yet raucous, the music of Resurrectionists is precisely what the doctor ordered if a prescription of heavy doses of punk-meets-alt-rock is what you're after. Still, Resurrectionists hail from the...

Bassist Ron Carter: 60 Years of Jazz – and Coun...

Issue 192Trading Eights

According to reliable sources, bassist Ron Carter has well over 2,000 recording credits. On the majority of those he’s a sideman for other people’s albums, but it’s still a staggering...

Tomaso Albinoni: Recent Recordings of the Pre-B...

Issue 192Something Old / Something New

The passage of time can be rough on a composer. Consider Tomaso Albinoni (1671 – 1751), whose name is most often associated with a moving Adagio that he did not...

Table of Contents – Issue 191

Issue 191Opening Salvo

“I know what I like, and I like what I know” – Genesis, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” Well, there’s comfort in the tried and true, but...

Read more

Matrix Audio’s X-SABRE 3 Digital-to-Analog Conv...

Issue 191The Listening Chair

When my friends at online retailer Apos Audio (www.apos.audio) recommended Matrix Audio’s X-SABRE 3 fully-balanced digital-to-analog converter (DAC, $2,999), I told them several times to send me the silver model....

Restoring Vintage SME Tonearms

Issue 191Revolutions Per Minute

Over the past few years, we have restored a number of SME 3009 and 3012 tonearms, covering most of their variants made over the impressively long production life span of...

A Chat About Audio Writing

Issue 191Frankly Speaking

The other week my friend Ed Burki contacted me and told me he’d caught some kind of bug and was bored sitting around the house, so he’d decided to try...

STOP PRESS: A Copper Sneak Preview! Back to My ...

Issue 191Natural Born Kessler

KK hears a new high-end speaker under beta testing, and it’s a stunner.   Those who have followed my scribbling over the years will know that I have no greater...

Thom LaFond Goes Into Musical Orbit With Lawles...

Issue 191Octave Pitch

Octave Records artist Thom LaFond’s latest album, Lawless, tells a remarkable tale: a wildly imaginative story about a romance between a human and an alien. The album blends synthesizers, acoustic...

PLAYBILL For an Imaginary Musical in One Act Wi...

Issue 191

Back in 1962, a musical opened on Broadway called Stop the World – I Want to Get Off – an intriguing title since we've all felt that way from time...

Barb Hendrickson and Allan Vest of Indie Duo do...

Issue 191Idle Chatter

The music of doubleVee is all about depth. Depth of music, depth of lyrics, depth of the artists who reside within the music…you get the idea. Still, given that doubleVee,...

Trixie the Ticket Taker

Issue 191Parting Shot

As a bookend to James Schrimpf's Parting Shot in Issue 171, “Silent Movie Fan,” this is “Trixie,” the mannequin ticket taker for the historic Sebastiani Theatre in the town of...

The Midnight Callers: A New York City Call to Rock

Issue 191Disciples of Sound

If Steve Van Zandt didn’t have his own record label you would swear that he was directly involved in curating Jem Records’ current roster of artists. All of them present...

Surrealistic Audio Zone

Issue 191Audio Anthropology

Here's a pair of classic JBL L100s, sadly without the iconic grid-like foam grilles, which perhaps have crumbled into the sands of audio time.    Now that is an old-school...

The Cable Doctor Calls On Miloš Forman

Issue 191True-Life Rock Tales

“You’re the doctor,” Miloš said, and I appreciated his deference. We were in his apartment on the 30th floor in the Essex House, situated on Manhattan’s Central Park South. I was...

Some Old Jazz Guy: Exploring Michael Franks, Pa...

Issue 191Featured

“A few years ago we were playing the House of Blues in New Orleans (a perennial stop for us). I left after the sound check to hunt down some vegan...

T.H.E. Show SoCal 2023: Bigger Demo Rooms, Bett...

Issue 191

For 2023, T.H.E. Show (officially, The Home Entertainment Show) was conducted at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa hotel, just west of the John Wayne Airport in California. Being both close...

Living Colour: Rocking Past Stereotypes

Issue 191Something Old / Something New

Once Elvis Presley came along, followed by the British Invasion, rock and roll tended to be very…white. This tendency existed despite rock’s roots in the blues and gospel traditions, not...

The Munich High End Audio Show 2023, Part Two

Issue 191Show Report

Part One of this show report appeared in Issue 190.   Even though I had been meaning to attend HIGH END, the Munich high-end audio show for a number of...

Table of Contents – Issue 190

Issue 190Opening Salvo

Astrud Gilberto – the voice of an angel, the Girl From Ipanema. Sadly, she left us at 83, but the timeless gift of her music lives on. For sheer musical...

Read more

Octave Records Releases Ancient Rhythms By Guit...

Issue 190Octave Pitch

Octave Records continues to expand its musical horizons with the release of Ancient Rhythms by guitarist Bill Kopper, a diverse album that blends Brazilian, African, jazz and other musical influences...

Original Vinyl Pressings or Re-pressings – How ...

Issue 190Revolutions Per Minute

Record collectors around the world will typically part with a much greater share of their hard-earned for a first pressing of an album, than for a subsequent re-pressing. But what...

Made to Measure

Issue 190Audio Anthropology

Here's a rarity for you: A McIntosh car stereo made for Subaru. As an online forum notes, these are difficult to identify, so we don't feel too bad about being...

Personality Crisis: The Story of David Johansen

Issue 190Deep Dive

How does one capture the life of David Johansen, front man for the New York Dolls and later a solo artist? It's a massive feat best left to master storyteller...

Technics EAH-A800 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Hea...

Issue 190The Listening Chair

There’s a lot of competition in the $300 to $400 price range when it comes to audiophile, noise-cancelling, wireless headphones. However, when I received Technics’ EAH-A800 ($349, now available on...

The 2023 NAMM Show: Craftsmanship and Artistry

Issue 190Show Report

The National Association of Music Merchants or NAMM Show takes place annually in Anaheim, California at the Anaheim Convention Center, and is one of the largest music trade shows in...

Another AXPONA 2023 Show Report

Issue 190Show Report

Editor’s Note: You might have noticed that some of our show reports happen some time after the shows occur. This is because of a variety of factors – it takes...

Pushing Jazz and Funk Frontiers: An Interview w...

Issue 190Idle Chatter

How many jazz fans have we got out there? I've always felt jazz is best served in the fall and winter. But in this instance, spring works, too. There's something...

A Visit to Jean Hiraga and the Munich High End ...

Issue 190Show Report

Even though I have been meaning to attend HIGH END, the Munich high-end audio show, for a number of years, this is the first year I have managed to make...

Back to My Reel-to-Reel Roots, Part 31

Issue 190Natural Born Kessler

The Cassette is Back – Or is It? – An Investigation, Part Two It’s taking all I can muster not to be smug about the absurdity of the return of...

Loudspeaker Phenomena – The Result: A Gap

Issue 190Featured

Copper has an exchange program with FIDELITY magazine (and others), where we share articles, including this one, between publications.   A good hi-fi system reproduces an incredible amount of detail: a...

Boogie With Canned Heat: Thank You Henry

Issue 190Twisted Systems

The first time I walked into the Fillmore East (located in the heart of the seemingly dangerous newly-named neighborhood the East Village on Second Ave. and Sixth street) was on...

Talking With Dr. Sean Olive of Harman Internati...

Issue 190The Copper Interview

Dr. Sean Olive is a Senior Fellow, Acoustic Research, at Harman International. He has extensive expertise in the areas of perception and measurement of sound quality, particularly in headphones. Part...

Walking in Bisbee

Issue 190 Parting Shot

Won't you look down over me? Street scene, Bisbee, Arizona.

Reconsidering Conductor James Levine

Issue 190Featured

Great artists and thinkers are no stranger to controversy. Richard Wagner, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Roald Dahl were all rabid anti-Semites. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Norman Mailer – among others...

Maurice Ravel’s Piano and Chamber Works

Issue 190Something Old/Something New

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937) may be best known and loved for his nuanced understanding of orchestration, as demonstrated in the slow and thrilling buildup to the climax of Bolero....

Kurt Elling: Vocalese Virtuoso

Issue 190Trading Eights

Instead of going to music school, singer Kurt Elling earned a history degree from a small liberal arts college and then went to the University of Chicago Divinity School. As...

Audio Shelving

Issue 189Audio Anthropology

There's a reason we're fixated on classic McIntosh gear: the aesthetic is timeless. Here's a superb C26 preamplifier, introduced around the late 1960s.   Just look at those connectivity options!...

Paul Simon’s Seven Psalms: Matters of Life and ...

Issue 189Wayne's Words

The good news is that Paul Simon is still writing and singing about troubled waters. The bad news is that the waters are rising, and there is no longer any...

Table of Contents – Issue 189

Issue 189Opening Salvo

Copper’s Dan Schwartz was a true friend – the kind who told you what you needed to hear, not what you wanted to hear. Sadly, he left us on May...

Read more

Remembering Copper’s Dan Schwartz: A Friendship...

Issue 189Frankly Speaking

I and his friends knew the day would come, but when it did, it was no less of a shock. Copper contributor, bassist extraordinaire and audiophile Dan Schwartz passed away...