Copper

Now that’s what we call holiday gift-giving! Circa 1960s. Does it come with snake oil spindle lubricant? Circa 1950s. We’ll take this over the The Yule Log. And in vintage 1959... Read more...

Zen and the Art of Criticism

Who hasn’t walked out of a show, turned to a friend and said, “that really sucked,” or, “that was amazing!” Everyone has the capacity to be a critic. My recent... Read more...

A World Without Keith Jarrett

“I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am – I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”... Read more...

Dave Alvin – From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings

You’re driving through the New Mexico desert in the dark. Your teeth are grinding, though the buzz of the blue meth or whatever you were on has long worn off... Read more...

Hey Joe Covers: Crime or Sublime?

The first time I heard Jimi Hendrix’s recording of “Hey Joe” was in English class at Shelter Rock Junior High School, an institute of higher learning where students dissected both... Read more...

To Test or Not to Test, That is the Question? Part Two

In the last installment, I discussed the most quoted test measurement in audio, total harmonic distortion ((THD), and its correlation with sound quality. Once upon a time, audio magazines mostly... Read more...

Beck: Where He's At

Let’s talk lo-fi. Not on the listening end, of course, but as an approach in the recording studio. Singer-songwriter Beck is a pioneer of this strategy that lets the listener... Read more...

Whatever Happened to Honk, Bonk, Boing and Blomp?

While doing her Stripsody, performer Cathy Berberian expressed herself by making vocal sounds like woo woo, stomp, boing. blomp, honk, bonk, thud, ouch, ugh, brrrrr, pant and achoo. She wasn't... Read more...

Audio Research: Making the Music Glow

If I had to bet on it, I’d say 99 percent of Copper readers are familiar with Audio Research Corporation (ARC) and its creator, William Z. Johnson, as Audio Research is one... Read more...

Hope for the Holidays

The term “Happy Holidaze” has become a cliché, the progenitor of silly memes and cards – and has also taken on a new meaning in 2020. What a year it’s... Read more...

When Jerry and The Big Man Almost Busted This City in Half

This past March Round Records released GarciaLive Volume 13. The Grateful Dead’s output over the prior twelve months had already been prolific so it was surprising to see another Jerry Garcia-related... Read more...

Hit the Board, Jack

When I was a teenager, no one understood how I suffered. No one detected my secret genius. When I saw kids my age on TV or in the movies, they... Read more...

Those Christmas Movies

I don’t live my life by many rules. Basically, I have two. First, treat others as you would like to be treated. Second, don’t store super glue next to the... Read more...

Vertical Tracking Angle Meets Stylus Rake Angle, Part Two

In Issue 125, J.I. covered the mechanical aspects of record cutting with respect to stylus rake angle (SRA) and vertical tracking angle (VTA). The series concludes with a further examination... Read more...

Bach’s Goldberg Variations

According to an anecdote in an 1802 biography of J.S. Bach, the maestro had a harpsichord student named Johann Gottfried Goldberg who worked for a certain Count Kaiserling, an insomniac.... Read more...

Wedding Belle Blues

Christmas Songs Worth Listening To

As the calendar days inexorably approach Christmas, the usual playlist combination of the same 20 or so songs, such as Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Wham!’s... Read more...

Steve Guttenberg: the Audiophiliac, Part Two

In Part One of this interview (Issue 125) we talked about Steve’s first memory of listening to music, his careers as a projectionist and an audio salesperson, and how he... Read more...

A Holiday Gala

The 2018 Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society annual gala. A reminder of times past, and times to come. Bob Levi (in the black coat, standing, on the left)... Read more...

Rossini (Bel Canto Part 2)

Here’s a question that should be a softball: who was Europe’s single most influential musician in the early 19th century? Was it Beethoven? After all, we had hoped to celebrate... Read more...

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