Copper

Chris Brunhaver, PS Audio’s Head Speaker Designer

Chris Brunhaver is the head loudspeaker designer at PS Audio. Chris will be talking about speakers and much more in our new “Speaker Builder” Column. His early background was covered...

The Giants of Tape: The MCI JH-110, Part One

In the last few installments in this series, California was in the spotlight, with discussions of Ampex and their ATR-100 series of tape machines (see Issue 135, Issue 136 and Issue 137). This time,...

The Not-So-Great Wall

In the year 2002, my penchant for off-the-beaten-path travel was deeply satisfied with my visit to, of all places, China’s Great Wall – but only because I chose to explore...

Indigo Girls – The Bards of Athens

It’s rare for someone you met in elementary school to become a lifelong friend, let alone the key to your professional success for decades. But that’s what happened with Amy...

Size Counts

“The Mindful Melophile” is a new column that will appear in every other issue of Copper. It continues the exploration of best-liked, famous, infamous, and little-known LPs and CDs I started in...

DSD – Is It PCM, Or Isn’t It?

A few weeks back, a prominent person in the audio community shared with me their opinion that DSD is a different thing entirely from PCM, and was surprised to hear...

How Much Do We Actually Hear When We Listen?

In March 2021, The Wall Street Journal published an article about the announcement of Spotify HiFi, touted as delivering high-resolution “lossless” digital audio equivalent to CD-quality 44.1 kHz (a debatable definition for...

In a Latin Jazz Bag: The Recordings of Cal Tjad...

Cal Tjader is a musician I have followed most of my life. My mother was an avid fan of his, and while the fifteen or so albums she owned barely...

Subliminal or Sublime Bass?

In issue 137, Russ discussed the advantages a subwoofer or multiple subwoofers can bring to an audio system. The series continues here. Perhaps one of the barriers of entry for managing the...

Glitch Transitions

Since moving to the new Copper platform, there have been some glitches. We’ve fixed many, but others remain to be addressed, from temporarily-disappearing articles to random fuzzy-looking images and other...

Elektra – My Record Company Gig

We were starting to level off and the pilot said, “okay, take over.” “Really?” I asked. “Yup, sure; I will show you what to do,” he says. “First, keep the...

Woods, The Weather Station, A Touch of Sault an...

Welcome to the new edition of Be Here Now, a column/playlist where we compile inspiring new music for busy folks who would like to discover outstanding contemporary artists. Here is the...

C.J. Vanston – Producer, Film Composer, Musicia...

In Part One (Issue 137), producer/composer/musician C.J. Vanston talked about the beginning of his career and how he got his recording studio break, on what it was like to play...

Nearfield Listening

Surface Noise

Jean-Baptiste Lully – The Sun King’s Favorite

In the 1600s, it was generally agreed that opera was the sole property of the Italians. So, if you happened to be a French king obsessed with big theatrical spectacles...

Issue 138

Ditching the Digital Disc Player and Embracing ...

I do intend to get back to the normal record review format of this column, but I felt compelled this go-around to continue talking about how my DSD-ripping experience has...

Dr. Fang Bian of HIFIMAN

HIFIMAN manufactures high-end headphones, headphone amps, portable music players, headphone cables, and other products. The company was founded in by Dr. Fang Bian in 2007 in China and, two years later, introduced...

Strategy

Despite no record of accidents ever, or tickets for the last 25 years, the state recently demanded I renew my motorcycle license. That included a written test. The California DMV...

Confessions of a Record Collector, Part One

I wonder if a lot of Copper readers are record collectors. Well, I suppose that’s like asking if dogs like bones. Record collecting can be fun or frustrating, cheap or expensive. Finding...

Superstar: The Long Tour

Beginning in 1972, I was involved in the production of Superstar, The Original American Touring Company (OATC). It was a touring version of the hit album Jesus Christ Superstar (see my article in Issue 118). Superstar was...

Sub Missive

Optimizing the bass response of an audio system is well worth the effort, as most audiophiles will attest to. It requires an initial investment of a little time and effort,...

C.J. Vanston – Producer, Film Composer, Musicia...

Record producer to the stars and Hollywood film composer C.J. Vanston has more talents than seems humanly possible. Not only is he a go-to record producer and first-call film composer,...

Dr. Patrick Gleeson: The Interview, Part Three

Musician, engineer, producer,  professor of 18th Century English literature?! You may not be familiar with the name Patrick Gleeson, but he has quite a résumé. He ditched a career as a...

Vertical Integration

Courtesy of Paul's Posts reader Joseph Pickel: “My grandmother worked for Victor Talking Machines in Camden, New Jersey. Throughout the years, she had saved a few ads and I thought...

Head Trip

Orchestral Manoeuvres

The Giants of Tape, Part Four

This time we’re going to have a look at another Ampex tape machine, an ATR-104 with plenty of extras! It lives at Airshow Mastering in Boulder, Colorado (not too far from PS...

Reflectivity

Photo shot at Peña Blanca Lake, Coronado National Forest, Arizona.

Accountability

When you’ve been paying your dues, after a while you want to start drawing on your account! ****** We warmly welcome our newest staff member, Tim Riley. He’s an NPR...

The Jazz Side of Henry Mancini, Part Three

In our last installment (Issue 136; Part One appeared in Issue 135), we left you at the Banzai Pipeline, surfing your way to one of Henry Mancini’s greatest big band tunes....

The Doobie Brothers: Long, Slow Burn

Sometimes a goofy gag turns out to be a brilliant idea. The name “The Doobie Brothers” was supposed to be a puerile reference to the amount of pot the band...

Illinois Jacquet: Reed Man

Sometimes a career is all about meeting the right people at the right time. That was the case when teenaged alto saxophonist Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet got to play for Nat...

Issue 93

Marc Ribler: Musical Director and Solo Artist E...

The late Joe Guercio was the musical director and conductor for Elvis Presley from the summer of 1970 until the summer of 1977 when Elvis made his last concert appearance....

Copper Listens to Copper: Stockfisch Records’ D...

Stockfisch Records is an audiophile label established in Germany in 1974 by owner/producer/engineer/Günter Pauler. The label has been releasing recordings on vinyl, DSD, SACD, Blu-ray and other formats and their artist...

Van Morrison’s Latest Record Project, Volume 1

Van Morrison’s new album is Latest Record Project, Volume 1 (LRPVI). That sounds generic, sure, but after 41 other albums, I guess one might run out of titles. The music is plentiful...

Octave Records Releases Audiophile Masters, Vol...

Octave Records has just released its first compilation album, Audiophile Masters, Volume 1. The hybrid stereo SACD disc features 10 new and previously-released tracks by a variety of Octave Records and other artists...

A Perspective on Streaming Services

If you use the Internet to listen to music and you are, or aspire to be an audio enthusiast, you probably know about music streaming services like TIDAL, Qobuz, Spotify,...

Engineer/Producer Tom Newman: From Virgin Recor...

The birth of Virgin Records, the recording of Mike Oldfield’s landmark Tubular Bells, and a whole new approach to granting recording artists time out of the city to compose with creative...

Dreaming...of Effortless DSD Streaming!

Last issue I wrote about finally figuring out how to break through the seemingly impenetrable barriers of the SACD format in order to rip the DSD layer, to enable relatively...

The Newport / JVC Jazz Festival and “Technomania”

It was 1996 when Bob Guccione was watching The Cable Doctor Show when he purportedly said, “I like that guy; let’s hire him to do tech stuff for Penthouse.” Penthouse editor Peter Block...

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: The Other Two Guys

The rock music biz has had its fair share of power trios, mostly consisting of a front man on lead guitar and vocals, accompanied by a bass guitarist and drummer....

Cliff Chenfeld: From Razor & Tie to Kidz Bop an...

We are proud to have Cliff Chenfeld as a Copper contributor. You may not know that along with Craig Balsam, he was the co-founder of indie label/music publishing company Razor...

With Age Comes Wisdom

I was hanging at the assisted living facility and an elderly Puerto Rican woman came up to me and said, “wisdom is wasted on the old!” In this issue: Anne...

An Appreciation of the Move

As the COVID epidemic winds down (hopefully soon) this time period will go down as one in which home entertainment (via Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, Disney etc. as well as...

Tone Tasting

Previously we have briefly considered just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examining the factors which influence what audio equipment you may decide to buy. For me,...

The Giants of Tape, Part Three

In Part One (Issue 134), J.I. Agnew profiled the legendary Studer A80 open reel deck. Part Two (Issue 135) covered the equally-storied Ampex ATR-100 Series tape machines. In Part Three,...