Issue 31

Spring is finally here and in many parts of the world, it's still cold as we wait for summer (at least in this hemisphere). A last minute warm-up in a hot springs is welcome to any camper.

Writer Philipp Meyer said something worth repeating a couple of weeks ago:

Literature—or any art—should move you before you understand why. It should feel as if you’re in the presence of something holy—that you’ve come across some ancient code that explains the human race. . . . You read something and you realize: Hey. I’m not alone.

Or you hear something. When I first heard West Side Story, I was almost too young to realize it properly: Hey. I’m not alone. Wasn’t ancient back then, of course; sounded more like here and now. Meyer’s “ancient code” fits better with hearing Ives for the first time. Using bits and pieces of old hymns, Stephen Foster songs, and ragtime, Charles Ives (1874–1954) remembered, recycled, re-invented an earlier America he wished he’d known. Mixed with all the nostalgia was a stiff shot of 20th-century mania for what was new: Edison. Edgard Varèse. Estate planning. Ives didn’t just remember, he sought to transcend memory with all the sonic experiments he could muster, plus a few he could only imagine.

So: American symphonic music draws on both our collective memory and our rejection of it. We are a nation of newcomers, old-timers, solitary explorers, eager joiners, rugged individualists. We are large, we contain multitudes. When one of us writes a symphony, that most public and communitarian of genres, we do so with its historic function in mind—we speak for (sing for) the people.

Here are some new recordings from American symphonists, beginning with Ives, going on to Bernstein and then to Christopher Rouse, David Rakowski, and Adam Schoenberg.

Ives was not always considered our “Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln of [American] music.”[1] But you wouldn’t know that from all the new recordings coming out. Best of the lot are symphonies and other orchestral works from Sir Andrew Davis with the Melbourne SO and Ludovic Morlot with the Seattle SO.

Chandos has just released the third of its Davis-helmed Ives volumes (CHSA 5174; SACD and download). Volume 1 featured Symphonies 1 and 2; volume 2, the most-loved shorter orchestral works (“Holidays,” Three Places in New England, Central Park in the Dark, The Unanswered Question); volume 3 delivers Symphonies 3 and 4 and Orchestral Set No. 2. It may seem odd that an Australian orchestra and its British chief conductor have given Americans the best Ives we’ve had in years, but there it is. We are large, we contain multitudes. Davis and his family live in Chicago now, where he presides over the Lyric Opera. Maybe he’s learned something about American visionaries from doing landmark performances of other visionaries, e.g., Berlioz, Grainger. Sir Andrew, like classic outsider Alexis de Tocqueville, may know more about us than we do ourselves.

Not enough space here for a capsule Life & Works of Ives, so let me just play a couple of excerpts from No. 4. First, the Prelude:

Watchman, tell us of the night,
What its signs of promise are.
Trav’ler, o’er yon mountain’s height,
See that glory-beaming star!

And from the lengthy second movement, a Comedy inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Celestial Railroad” (1843). In a dream, the narrator leaves the sinful City of Destruction in a modern train. But this pilgrim makes only fitful progress:

Recorded sound throughout the series is superb. Davis’s readings are not brashly extrovert, and that worked for me. It’s time we stopped celebrating Ives mainly for Breaking Rules. He did, but his vision remained steadfast. Good to see someone treating his music like, well, music.

Here’s a convenient YouTube version of Ives’ Second à la Davis, the best place to start if you’re a newbie but you like Brahms and Stephen Foster.

If you hanker after more boisterous Ives, give Morlot and Seattle a try. They’ve covered Symphonies 3 and 4 plus the most popular short works here, and Symphony 2 here; high-res downloads are available. As with their Dutilleux series, great sound, caught live.

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) wrote just three symphonies. It’s no secret he preferred stage works. Even his symphonies are packed with protagonist-driven drama. In No. 1 (1942) that comes from Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet who warns the sinful they will starve, then be plundered and taken captive. Bernstein helpfully labels the symphony’s three movements “Prophecy,” “Profanation,” and “Lamentation.” The last movement, a setting of Jeremiah’s mournful words for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, was composed first. Later, when Bernstein needed a big closer for two more movements he was submitting to a competition, he realized his earlier piece would fit the bill. “Jeremiah” is interesting today chiefly because it shows an ambitious young composer working on the basic styles—angst-ridden lyricism, lively mixed-meter dances—for which he would become famous.

Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 (1949, rev. 1965) tells a better story with far greater skill. In 1947 he was swept away by W. H. Auden’s 80-page, Pulitzer-Prize-winning epic poem “The Age of Anxiety,” calling it “one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of the English language.” (Lennie was never much for understatement.) Here’s the key to “Age”: Bernstein set out to capture not just the poem’s content but also its formal strategies, not just the subject matter (four people in a bar, talking about civilization and its discontents) but the craft of creating an instrumental narrative. From beginning to end we are riveted more by the musical skill on display than by Auden’s ostensible dialogues. (Bernstein pulled a similar trick a few years later with the Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium.”) There’s a solo pianist involved (the poet/protagonist?). Here is a reflective episode from Part I, the craft-heavy half of the work:

Now hear this rip-roaring chunk of Cubist stride piano from Part II, where it functions as momentary escape from all the Deep Thinking elsewhere:

Marin Alsop’s new Naxos release (8.559790) offers both 1 and 2, completing a Bernstein symphony survey begun in 2015 with No. 3, “Kaddish” (Naxos 8.559742). These discs are extremely well-recorded—about as good as Redbook CD ever gets—and you may never hear better performances. NB: this is not just my usual hyperbole. Check out The Washington Post’s astute Anne Midgette, who acknowledges all the TMI about Bernstein’s flawed but deeply felt “Kaddish” (1963) while also celebrating Alsop’s magisterial way with this music. You have to hear “The Age of Anxiety” (did I mention that Jean-Yves Thibaudet is the pianist?). You might enjoy “Kaddish” too.

Quickly: three more new recordings worth your consideration. First: Stolen Moments from composer David Rakowski (b. 1958), courtesy of Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP 1048). The title work started out as chamber music that Rakowski then rescored for small orchestra. Its third movement is a tango, sort of:

Also on the disc, Rakowski’s Piano Concerto No. 2, fiendishly difficult but fun for us. Thanks, BMOP.

Second: The much-recorded Christopher Rouse is back with four relatively new works via Alan Gilbert and the NYPO (Da Capo 8.226110). Of the music here—two symphonies and two single movements—my favorite is Prospero’s Rooms, based on Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. Here’s an excerpt:

Master Da Capo engineer Preben Iwan was not on hand, but these live performances are more than adequate sonically, especially in 24/96 download form.

Finally: Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980), who makes this list largely because “Prof” Keith Johnson recorded an all-Schoenberg disc for Michael Stern and the Kansas City SO (Reference Recordings RR-139; SACD and downloads). Maybe they hear something I don’t. Mr. Schoenberg, no relation to Ahnold, teaches film scoring at Occidental College (IMDB tells us he’s scored exactly one full-length film in his career). Everything in this album certainly sounds like film music to me, i.e., colorful, amorphous, insubstantial. Besides his American Symphony, the KCSO plays Finding Rothko and Picture Studies, both based on visual art. Click on the catalog number above for excerpts.

Next time in this space: Exiles, American and otherwise.

[1] Leonard Bernstein, early 1950s.

Continuing with our questions & answers series, I have two that have always caused some contention.  In that respect, I hope you find them interesting:

Why you should be sour on a “wide sweet spot” for serious listening with two-channel playback

Hey, we might as well get this topic kicked off with a bang…

A “wide sweet spot” is almost like having your own harmonic distortion generator! With stereo sound, there’s simply no way a serious listener should be satisfied to sit more than a foot away from the “equal path length intersection” (center point) of sound from a pair of loudspeakers. Inter-channel phase and timing information will have been badly compromised, destroying instrumental timbres.

How is it that many audiophiles will accept only phase and time-aligned loudspeakers and then they expect to sit off the acoustic center point, totally destroying the inter-channel phase/time information?

Look at it this way…

First, since you probably know this stuff, please forgive the simplified averaged wavelengths, but for purposes of illustration, let’s assume that an 1100 Hz tone (or harmonic) has a length of about 12 inches. Then 550 Hz is almost 2 feet in length (from the top of the sound-wave crest to the top of the next). And 2 kHz is almost 6 inches in length, 4 kHz is 3 inches, etc.

Now imagine that a female vocalist is recorded with her image centrally located in the stereo stage. If you sit two feet off-center, any fundamental notes and their harmonics from 500 Hz and above have been altered, some dramatically, some slightly. This is audible, and it’s depressingly measurable!

Before we examine the disastrous effects of stereo comb filtering (what I’m euphemistically calling harmonic distortion), let’s look at what’s happened to our stereo imaging…

OK, let’s say that, by sitting to the left of center, you’re now about two feet closer to the left speaker than you are to the right one. Imagine a centrally recorded image that is reproduced at equal volume (amplitude) from both speakers in order to give the illusion of a precise center image.

Without going too far into recording techniques or speaker dispersion patterns, a panned mono center image (such as is produced in a studio) may appear to have shifted left somewhat, while a center image recorded from a stereo pair of microphones seems to “stay put” a little better. But these are phantom images at best, lacking in the ultimate richness of tone and body. Here’s why…

It’s not the potential “image wander” that’s troublesome. It’s the harmonic distortion! (Technically, it’s not distortion, but the alteration of harmonic relationships.) The positive cycle (top of the wave crest) of an 1100 Hz overtone arrives at your ear from the (closer) left speaker before it does from the right one. Due to the resulting phase cancellation from different arrival times, there’ll be an audible—and very measurable—change at that frequency (or harmonic overtone).

Should the distance be equivalent to a half-wavelength further (6 inches), then that particular overtone (harmonic) will arrive exactly out of phase. And you know how your stereo plays less bass when the speakers are out of phase? Well, the effect is exactly the same— a reduction in level at that particular frequency.

Here’s a simple test for you:

Put on a Sheffield or other disk that contains pink noise in both channels (pink noise is best, because it contains equal energy per octave, just like music).

Now, as the cut of pink noise is playing, while sitting in the center (equidistant to the speakers) position, slowly move your head to the left or right. That huge change in mid/treble tonal balance is exactly what happens when you sit off axis.

And because the wavelengths vary according to frequency, the varying time arrivals of harmonics also produce an unpredictable cancellation effect (well, it is predictable in that it’s never a good thing). And a ‘wide sweet spot’ isn’t really so sweet…

 Why is this important?

The unique relationships of vocal overtones are different for each voice & instrument. For example, the first overtone (harmonic) may be 87.3% of the fundamental, the second just 48.1%, the third 54.7%, etc.

The exact relationship of these overtones (their relative strength, compared to the fundamental) is the identifying “genetic code” of the instrument/voice. It turns out that all instruments and voices have their own particular set of harmonic ratios.

That’s how we know how to differentiate two different instruments that are playing exactly the same note—let’s say A (440 Hz). It’s how an original Guarneri will be chosen over a “replica”—it’s all in the “tone”—which is actually the harmonic—or overtone—structure.

So, if you’re sitting where the path lengths are significantly unequal from the left and right speakers, you are absolutely guaranteed to hear shifts in the harmonics, meaning that an instrument or voice will not sound exactly as it should. This is not just some subjective acoustic theory. It’s not only audible; it’s also shockingly measurable in your room at your listening seat when compared to a nearby seat!

The sad fact is, you’ve just altered your system’s harmonic relationships. So why did you buy all that stuff with “vanishingly low distortion” if you’re going to introduce a far worse version by not sitting in the center point where the path lengths are equal? Incidentally, this is an incontrovertible law of physics that is part of the good—and the bad—of stereophony. It has no bearing whatsoever upon sitting off – center in the concert hall, because the sound is not being reproduced from a pair of widely spaced loudspeakers which are subject to severe comb-filtering due to varying time arrivals at your head.

From a perfectionist’s standpoint, it doesn’t matter if your loudspeakers produce a smooth response off-axis. Even in an acoustically dead room, the varying wavelengths from two loudspeakers – when received at a listening position off the acoustic center – will always produce uneven response on centrally recorded images (actually all images, but it’s easier to think about the centrally recorded image for the purposes of illustration).

Now that I’ve told it like it is, I’ll also admit to having absolutely wonderful experiences listening to music while others have occupied the best seat. If a system has dynamics, if it’s effortless, if it at least starts out being pretty accurate tonally, then it can be quite listenable off-axis. Just remember that the phantom image produced off -axis in stereo is only an approximation.

Sweet, it ain’t!

If you’re past 50, can you really hear well enough to care about your sound quality?

I’ll never forget these intertwined events. It was in the early 1980s, and I was recording the Alabama Symphony for the Birmingham National Public Radio affiliate.

Several leading union musicians (from the Symphony tape committee) and the conductor would visit my shop one night each month. I’d play back the master recordings that I had recently made of concerts that were to be broadcast. Their job was to pick the best performance. Then I would prepare the broadcast master from my 30 I.P.S. analog master.

I came to know and to spend some time around the conductor. I’d say he was in his middle ’70s at that time. In our informal meetings, he’d have a problem with discrimination, which is common for older folks. In this case, discrimination is the term for being able to listen to someone and understand him while others are talking at the same time.

Before I tell you my main point, you need to know one more thing: It’s REALLY LOUD on stage with a full orchestra when it’s playing power music. I once went out onstage while doing a test recording during a dress rehearsal for Gustav Holst’s The Planets. As luck would have it, it was during “Uranus,” one of the loudest sections.

I had measured the peak sound pressure levels in the front rows of the audience. I knew they were about 95-100 dB. But up on stage, standing next to the conductor with all the brass and percussion wailing away, I was shocked at how loud it was. It felt like my hair was being blown back like that old Maxell tape ad!

Of course, this conductor – who has been exposed to these incredible sound levels for 50 years – is bound to have significant hearing damage. Add to that the age factor, and this man should have been lucky to hear an ambulance siren!

During our listening sessions at my shop, he always picked up on problems, often before the much younger musicians (with technically better hearing). Furthermore, in the middle of a Beethoven Symphony #6 rehearsal, I saw him tell a second violinist several rows back to retune. On more than one occasion, he’d have to call somebody on a blown entrance when there was a full orchestra wailing away!

It always amazed me that he could hear so precisely during the playback sessions and during the rehearsals. My point is that age, and even exposure to lifelong loud levels, seems not to be the only indicator as to whether a trained listener can still hear.

For example, I often sit with younger men and women, teaching them about sound, or just kicking back listening to music. I’m older than they , but I can reliably hear things that they miss entirely.

One more point – I have found that if a music lover can enjoy live music, then he or she can enjoy reproduced music as well.  Don’t worry if you’re past 50. It just means that you’re experienced!

Note, these answers are edited versions of topics from Get Better Sound and the companion Quarter Notes newsletters. You can also read Jim’s work at his website. www.getbettersound.com   

Why are we, as audiophiles, entranced by the reproduction of music using vacuum tubes?

As it turns out, noise is traditionally thought of as something to be minimized in all high end audio systems. However the proper reproduction of noise is actually the key characteristic that makes tube amplifiers sound so good. This article explores why noise is so important to the “tube sound.”

There are volumes of theory regarding how tube amplifiers saturate and produce harmonics and how their distortion characteristics affect listening. Here, we will explore how tubes reproduce noise and how this particular characteristic represents the basis of why tube amplifiers have a unique, characteristic sound that defines audiophile listening.

In order for us to explore the reproduction of noise, lets first define what we mean by noise. Noise, as applied to audio listening, is defined by three separate characteristics. For the purpose of this article, lets separate those characteristics and define them and their sources. Instead of using the generic term, noise, lets call anything that is not part of the desired soundtrack an artifact.

The first artifact we concern ourselves with is interference. Interference is hum, cable modem chatter, cell phone crosstalk, microphonics, etc. It’s outside of the soundtrack, electrical sound in our gear. In our world today, we are bombarded by these sources of interference that largely work their way into our audio equipment through radio frequency (RF) coupling. They are  primarily of man made origin and are controlled by good engineering practices that reduce these artifacts from being picked up.

The second artifact is distortion. Distortion is a byproduct of the nonlinearities of our audio equipment and add directly into the audio soundtrack. Distortion can be either harmonic in nature, ie, overtones of the desired soundtrack or it can be intermodulation effects–mixing products of multiple tones contained in the desired the soundtrack. There also can be non-harmonic distortion such as clipping. Clipping is where the amplifier just runs out of power to reproduce all of the content of the soundtrack as each instrument is recorded and therefore cannot produce the sound amplitude as intended. All audio gear has linear and nonlinear operating regions and hence will produce some form of distortion. It’s the task of the design engineer to increase the linear operating regions and design them around the primary listening regions both in frequency and amplitude to reduce these sources of distortion.

The third artifact, and the one we will focus on for this article, is thermal noise. Thermal noise is a phenomena of nature where ambient heat causes electrons in conductors to vibrate and hence cause electrical noise. Thermal noise is the limiting factor for amplifier design and starts at the pickup and is amplified and added  through the entire amplification process. Because, by nature, noise is a very low amplitude, high gain stages such as phono stages are much more susceptible to corruption by the effects of thermal noise. Due to it’s process of creation, the vibration of electrons in conductors, thermal noise is statistical in frequency and amplitude and it’s overall level is directly a function of the bandwidth of the amplifier. Audiophile grade amplifiers tend to be very broadband and therefore amplify a significant amount of thermal noise to a level where it can interfere with listening levels if not properly controlled by design. For discussion purpose, thermal noise is defined by the equation:

Noise Voltage = KTB  (EQ 1)     Thermal Noise Equation

Where K is a constant, T is the ambient temperature in Kelvins and B is the bandwidth (in Hertz) of the amplifier.

Noise is an important factor because it is always present in audio reproduction. Noise is the sound we hear between the musical notes. It’s the background. The quietness we hear when there is a break in the soundtrack. Vacuum tube amplifiers have some unique physical characteristics that reproduce this noise that we audiophiles describe as warmth. We also describe the non musical intervals as having a black background and these characteristics are unique to the physics of how vacuum tubes actually amplify the soundtrack as well as the noise. We will discuss the difference of how tubes amplify the signal and noise and compare these properties to how solid state devices—transistors and integrated circuits–amplify the desired signal and noise.

As we learned in EQ1, noise power is derived from thermal agitation of electrons in all of the equipment conductors and hence is a thermionic effect that generates a noise voltage with a very low, almost immeasurable current. In order to achieve a black listening background, we want this naturally occurring noise to be reproduced just as it is created. We want to maintain its bandwidth and statistical properties. Now with this concept in mind, lets go into how our devices actually amplify—the tube versus the transistor.

A vacuum tube amplifies because of it’s thermionic control characteristics. Vacuum tubes modulate a stream of electrons that flow from the tube cathode to the tube plate by impressing a control voltage on the tube grid. The grid is a fine wire mesh inserted between the cathode and the plate that controls the flow of electrons. The grid responds to an impressed voltage and draws no current from the input source. So in mathematical terms, the tube plate current is a function of the grid voltage. There are no current demands from the source by the tube grid.

So, in a practical application, a phono stage with 65 dB of gain, will amplify the desired signal plus the thermionic noise without changing the statistical characteristics of the noise. Because the tube grid draws no current, the thermal noise presented to it is amplified just as it is created–statistical in amplitude and frequency. Hence we get the full bandwidth of the natural noise. It is not changed by requiring the noise to have any current content or minimal voltage threshold before it is amplified. In short, because the tube is a thermionic device and noise is a thermionic effect, the tube, by the nature of it’s physics, amplifies the noise just as it is created in nature.

In the case of a solid state device, the amplification is defined by the current that flows between the emitter and the collector. The current flow between the emitter and collector is controlled by the semiconductor junction current.  So the transistor current is controlled by the transistor junction current. This control feature is not a thermionic effect but rather a junction effect controlled by current rather than voltage. So the key difference between solid state amplifiers and tube amplifiers is that solid state devices require a current rather than a voltage to cause amplification. Remember from EQ1 that thermal noise is a voltage rather than a current so when a transistor amplifies noise, it requires that noise to create a junction current before it is amplified hence the noise no longer retains its statistical properties in amplitude and frequency. Some components of the natural noise are changed before they are amplified. The noise sounds different!

This explanation is not to say that tube amplification sounds better or worse than a solid state amplifier, only that it sounds different. The difference we hear is the warmth—the sound between the notes—the noise.

The noise characteristics of amplifiers are defined by the earliest stages in the amplification chain because the noise is a very low level and impacted by the succeeding gain of the amplifier stages. So, if the tube warmth and blackness is a desired characteristic, it is best to use tube amplification early in the gain process. In short, the phono stage characteristics are more important to the background sound than the power amplifier characteristics.

In summary, the tube amplifier has a sound that is different than a solid state amplifier largely due to the way it reproduces background noise. The warmth and blackness in the background of the tube amplifier is due to the fact that the tube amplifier is a thermionic device and reproduces background noise more faithfully than a solid state device. While it is always the desire of the design engineer to minimize any noise that will interfere with the desired soundtrack, noise is always present and it defines what we here when there are pauses in the music–the sound between the notes.

One final thought on noise. Noise, because of its statistical qualities, is an analog effect. Digitization will also profoundly affect the sound and nature of background noise and hence analog amplification more accurately reproduces naturally occurring background noise.

At Rogers High Fidelity, we design our analog audio gear using exclusively vacuum tubes. Our PA-1A phono stage has the industry’s highest signal to noise ratio.

[Roger Gibboni is President and Chief Engineer of Rogers High Fidelity—Ed.]

Album: Bunker Funk

Artist: Damaged Bug

Release: Castle Face Records, March, 2017

As the needle drops, Bunker Funk oozes through the speakers and brings me back right where Damaged Bug’s 2016 album Cold Hot Plumbs had left me. Dazed and wanting more.

I ordered the Hazed and Dazed edition (only 300 printed) and was pleasantly greeted by the fluorescent slim green that covers LP1 and the translucent window washer fluid blue of LP2. Also, Side D has an etching, though no songs. Multi-instrumentalist (and California based Castle Face Records founder) John Dwyer became a familiar name to me for his art (check out his new book Exploded Globes, which documents the hundreds of handbills, fliers and tour poster he has created and printed since 1999) and the familiarity of his most popular band Thee Oh Sees. In the liner notes of Bunker Funk, John is credited for playing: synths, vocals, guitar, bass, mellotron, omnichord, flute, drums, saxophone, conga & bongos, percussion, electric bag pipes, crickets and moisturizer. It’s printed, so it must be true! There are three members to this “full-time side project”, and the amount of off-kilt rhythm and syfi-synth caught me off guard by bringing a large spectrum of instruments to the recording. This is no easy task, and the more you give Damaged Bug a chance, the more you’ll train your ear for (hopefully) many more adventures into the strange and odd. Listening to this band i often think of the weird and abstract art from the pulp fantasy books of the 1960s and 1970’s. Look up images of Frank R. Paul for a better visual.  Bunker Funk has the magic to transform any room where played into a warm damp cave. This may be a reason Bunker Funk was also offered as 200 print run of glow in the dark double LPs.

Castle Face Records has one of the most competitive album releases out there. Super-limited vinyl runs, in more than a couple styles per release, which all look equally scrumptious to a vinyl collector like myself. These limited runs sell out immediately, and usually before I get a whiff of what CFR just released.

Bunker Funk, as an album and listening experience, never becomes too much to handle in one dose. The album crawls and slugs along from start to finish creating its own atmosphere. After first listen I wanted to throw this new offering on again and again to see what I missed from my previous listen. There are some serious jams on this release as well. Side B’s “Gimme Tamanthum,” starts with distorted guitars and a camp fire like chant and settles into a saddle of flute riffs with fuzzed out tribal drumming. This is then followed by an instrumental track “No One Notice The Fly”. The lyrics are out there, the sound is funky and the production is calibrated. John Dwyer has created one of the most exciting record labels and the sound of Bunker Funk correlates perfectly.

Favorite Side of the Album

LP 2, Side C

10. Mood Slime

11. Liquid Desert

12.Unmanned Scanner

13. The Night Shopper

—Dan McCauley

####

Albums: Beethoven’s Last Night, Nightcastle, Letters from the Labyrinth

Artist: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Releases: Atlantic Records/ Republic Records, 2000-2015

I love classical music. I love rock. I love big, powerful, beautiful sound. I love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO).

Like most of their fans I first became aware and enamored with this musical force because of their Christmas recordings which I loved for both their sound and content. There is an awful lot of original Christmas music and wonderful remakes of Christmas classics from which to listen.

I then discovered that they had non-Christmas albums and in order to narrow things down that is my only focus here.

There are currently 3:

Beethoven’s Last Night

Nightcastle 

Letters from the Labyrinth

Let me pluck out just one listing from each and then let the reader/listener come to their own conclusion about the sort of unique sound this group creates.

Beethoven’s Last Night, released in 2000. From the 22 listings I chose the opening overture.

It opens with Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata and uses it to weave together his Ninth and then Fifth Symphonies. It ends with a roil of thunder which touches the story told that there was a clap of thunder, Beethoven picked himself up off from the pillow, shook his fist at heaven and fell back on his pillow….Dead!

From Nightcastle I have picked out the first piece from the 2nd disc called “Moonlight and Madness”.

This is a magnificent fusion of classical music with a mature, complex, powerful creation of contemporary rock instrumentation. It opens with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and transforms itself into an edgy powerhouse of sound, fury and glory.

Lastly there is their recent album: Letters From the Labyrinth.

A little different, less cohesive album. Many of the listings require the listener to listen through a song to get to the musical payoff. I sometimes skip one or even 2 songs.

From this disc I have selected “Mountain Labyrinth”.

This song opens with strings and synthesized organ leading to an exciting opening which very rapidly builds into a loud drumbeat/guitar chord driven version of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. Wonderful.

I think it should be about the music first and the sound 2nd. But if you have a chance to reproduce these recordings on something big,  I think you will be in for a real treat.—Fred Schwartz

[TSO founder Paul O’Neill passed away at the age of 60 on April 5, 2017.—Ed.]

The car went over a heave in the road and the radio came on.  There was something wrong with the wiring in your dad’s ’28 Studebaker, it didn’t like East Texas roads so the radio was spiteful, holding back then rolling out at usually unfortunate moments. No one even messed with it anymore.  Life in the 1950’s, just waiting for something to happen.  You’re a ten year old kid in Beaumont Texas riding in the back.  You’re also a cane-switch skinny albino, a rare thing anywhere, that gets the crap kicked out of him a couple times a month just cause, I don’t know, yer too white.  The heat is so cruel the scratchy sounds of Hank Williams coming from the radio seem stifled, wavy almost.  All the windows are open and the view out your window is a shimmered mirror.  Shaky skinny, with the beak of a hawk, a little cross eyed, face and body all sharp angles.  Riding in the back of the old man’s dusty jalopy he wouldn’t show his mother, you turn to your younger brother sitting next to you in the back.  He looks exactly like you.

That’s the blues man.

John Dawson Winter was born in 1944 and grew up in a town of wildcatters and dock workers.  The year before Johnny D was born Beaumont experienced race riots that got national attention in a summer where there were riots across the country in cities like Detroit, Mobile, LA and Harlem.  The war years had created jobs, but it threw together whites, African-Americans and Latinos  who flocked to the cities for defense work.  The lack of city foresight, planning, resources, and housing across the country resulted in tensions inflamed by racism and fed by war lust.  A black military policeman riding a bus in Beaumont was forcibly dragged out, beaten, and shot four times by the local constables because his knee was too close to the whites-only section.  A white woman claimed she was raped by a black man, and despite being unable to identify her assailant 4000 white dock workers and concerned citizens got it on.  Roving gangs destroyed 100 homes in the black section and these hoodlums spread across the city looking to make things right through widespread violence, burning and looting.  The National Guard and Texas Rangers were called in to knock heads together, always a calming influence on a rioting populace.  The state highway patrol had to shut down access to the town to keep more whites from surrounding areas from joining the party.

Times turn slowly in places like East Texas, and Beaumont retained its stew of segregation and muttering mistrust.  But Johnny Winter was undeterred.  He fell in love with 50’s rock and roll, listening to local DJ’s like JP (Big Bopper) Richardson and Clarence Garlow who had a radio show at a black radio station in Beaumont KJET.  Winter was opened to rural blues and Cajun through Garlow who took the kid under his wing.  Despite continuing racial strain in the city Johnny was hitting the black blues clubs in his early teens, unable to stay away from that heartbeat he would hear his entire life.  And somehow, even being the only white boy in the club, he was protected by his sincerity, and finally, his guitar.  When he was 17 he and his 14 year old brother Edgar went to see B.B. King at the Raven in Beaumont.  He enlisted people in the club who knew him to cajole B.B. into letting the white boy play.  King eventually relented.  Even at 17 Johnny had his chops in and got a standing ovation.  Here we go.

8 years later here he is with Johnny Winter And at the Capital Theater in Port Chester NY. That’s Rick Derringer on backup guitar.

Easily the shortest live 12 minute song I know.

Johnny D had the magic fingers that slapped the blues upside the head with jaw dropping rock and roll.  He wasn’t playing the guitar.  He was using it.  He was using it to scream at the blues angels.  And his voice was as distinctive as his guitar playing.  You hear that slide, those licks, or that voice, and you knew immediately who was on the radio.  My son, a devoted vocalist snob, will talk your ear off for a half hour about the essential tools a vocalist has to have to be considered a great singer, like vibrato, tone, pitch, range, growl across that range culminating in Michael Jackson, the greatest ever in his opinion, and that’s hard to argue with.  But even Dean at the end of his rant will pause, and go, “Then of course, there was Johnny Winter. Amazing.” No rules.  Just plugged in with that crazy emotion.

In 1968 at 24 Winter had the attention of the national blues/rock scene and started recording for Columbia.  His first album of blues classics went to No. 24 on the Billboard album charts.  In 1970 he recorded Live Johnny Winter And.  That was my first album of Johnny, and he’s been a favorite ever since.  He didn’t just have style and chops, he had a volcanic approach to his playing that flew out of the speakers, grabbed you by the throat, and walked you right over a cliff.

After wearing out an album and two 8 tracks of this rocket, I got a chance to see Johnny at the Waterbury Theater in CT around 1973.  I have never been that excited to see anybody, then or since.  I remember vividly the weeks leading up to the concert with two tickets in my hand for myself and brother Ed.  I was going to see the master.  Experience the power in a venue designed for movies.  It was going to be a night that could change my life.  Yeah, we all have a predilection for hyperbole at that age.  But if you believe it, it don’t matter man.  It can happen.

These were the days when audiences got the weird idea that throwing a bottle of wine at the band was the height of homage.  People that should’ve stayed in their trailers would heave a quart bottle of Boone’s Farm at the stage trying, I don’t know, to connect somehow.  When Johnny came out on the stage the rowdies were already rocking an organ back and forth down front on the floor, and halfway through the first song the bottle flew right at Johnny’s head.  That was it.  He yelled at the crowd and walked out.  End of concert.  As the curtain closed Ed caught sight of Edgar Winter in the wings.  If he was there, he was going to play.  Balls.  Life ended up not changing that night.  I can still feel the hole in my stomach as we walked out through the front door of the theater, knowing we’d missed something crazy special.  Assholes on parade.

Winter went though the 70’s like a tsunami.  His trio with Tommy Shannon on bass and Uncle John Turner on drums kicked ass everywhere they went.  Shannon later played for Stevie Ray Vaughn and now backs Tab Benoit.  One of the luckiest musicians in history, second only to Ringo Starr.  In 1977 Johnny produced and played guitar on the Grammy winning Hard Again with Muddy Waters and James Cotton. Unbelievable album, and introduced a new fan base to the Mannish Boy.

I still own a copy of his Let Me In album from 1991, full of his signature rock/blues and scorching solos. And as Johnny got older he returned more and more to the rural blues he loved on his recordings.  Which was alright by us.  Even pulled out the old National Steel for one cut.

Johnny.  Be good man.  Loved you madly.

Phew.

In Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 movie The Great Gatsby, the small role of party-crasher Ewing Klipspringer was played by singer-songwriter and fellow Australian Brendan Maclean. Although it was not a singing part, Maclean was an appropriate choice. Like Jay Gatsby himself, the singer – as well as his music – might be described as a glittery shell with a heart of darkness.

Maclean’s debut EP was White Canvas in 2010. It won a handful of listener and video awards, particularly for the singles “Practically Wasted” and “Cold and Happy.” The latter may be conservative compared to Maclean songs to come, but you can already hear his fast-vibrating tenor voice and his sardonic view of relationships.

The 2014 EP Population included the single “Stupid,” which nearly charted and won lots of awards for its video. As usual, Maclean has a dismally practical viewpoint on love’s disappointments. Of course the relationship in question fell apart: “You work in an office, / and you got other offers.” That slant rhyme of “office” with “offers” is almost painful, but you have to laugh at the wit. The song bursts with sarcastic humor about knowing his lover is cheating, even as he tries to convince himself the relationship wasn’t worth it anyway. The video’s over-energized choreography, alone at an abandoned school dance, is the perfect dramatization of the song’s hollow message.

The single “Free to Love” tells you everything you need to know about Maclean’s wide-ranging sexual and gender viewpoint, not to mention his vocal range. For the verses, he uses a deep, sultry voice, but the bridge and chorus feature falsetto. The lyrics are about sexual liberation, even obsession, and the musical style leans appropriately on R&B, the genre that brought raw sexuality into pop music for the first time. This song is also a good demonstration of how much effort Maclean puts into his videos to help sell his music, as if we were back in the first decade of MTV. (It doesn’t hurt that he is a fearless, if unusual, dancer.)

While “Free to Love” is a general celebration of all types of love, “Undetectable” is specific. Something tells me Maclean appreciates an uptight industry irony found on Spotify and iTunes. Despite off-handedly describing gay sex acts, this track is not marked as “Explicit,” presumably because it contains no swear words. The lyrics are simply Maclean being honest. Sex is part of life, so of course you should talk about it!

With a piano intro that recalls Kermit the Frog’s banjo hook in “Rainbow Connection,” Maclean’s “Beat Me to It” weaves a surreal waltz. In an oddly compelling metaphor, the lyrics equate domestic bliss with having a neighborhood baker (a situation ruined when “You bought his cake / You brought him home). The video illustrates this with flour sprinkled constantly onto Maclean’s nose until it’s piled so high that a quick inhale could suffocate him.

One of the tracks on the 2015 EP Thought I’d Cry for You Forever is a spoken-word piece by celebrated fiction-writer Neil Gaiman (Coraline, American Gods). The seemingly random choice makes sense once you know that Gaiman’s wife, the unquantifiable performer-artist Amanda Palmer, is Maclean’s most frequent collaborator.

Palmer sings Maclean’s hilariously sarcastic “On the Door” on the 2016 EP funbang1. It’s a send-up of club gig life from the perspective of the performer. Friends always expect free tickets, as if the money to pay an artist appears by magic rather than via ticket sales. The song is marked “explicit” for this pithy line explaining why most people should not get in gratis, since they have nothing to offer in return: “If you want the door list, you’re pushing all your luck. / The door list is for those I want to see, undress, and f—.”

Palmer brings out the performance artist and social commentator in Maclean, as you can see in this live performance of “Glacier,” featuring Maclean in a long black lace dress. He peels off his finery to sing the biting, mournful lines about men in power: “What they want is commonly referred to as theocracy. /What that boils down to is referred to as hypocrisy.”

Also from the funbang1 EP is “Hugs Not Drugs (or Both)”. Tooth-grinding electronic pulses seem to represent the ridiculous realities of love and sex. Part of the humor comes from internal rhymes – “Let’s both get drunk and text both of our exes” – that are perhaps more interesting than the predictable harmonic sequences and upbeat club rhythms.

In total Maclean has released five EP’s so far, but his output is more about individual songs than collections. At first he relied on the music website Bandcamp, selling tracks on a pay-what-you-can basis. For the past few years he’s been using the crowdfunding service Patreon, which, he’s quick to point out in interviews, is the opposite of Kickstarter, where people give a bunch of money all at once for a particular level of reward. Instead, Patreon is a platform for subscribers willing to donate a certain amount per project for an ongoing enterprise. It’s frequently used by literary journals, but musicians are catching on.

For $1 per “creation,” fans can subscribe to Brendan Maclean, and they’ll get access to songs, videos, even a live EP made exclusively for Patreon patrons. “No one will get more stuff than anyone else,” he explains in his profile statement, “everyone will just get more music. It’s artistic communism at its best!”

I had begun writing a piece about the history of horn loudspeakers (still to come, don’t panic) when MOAB—the Mother Of All Bombs—appeared in the news. That triggered a memory for me of the biggest, baddest horn loudspeaker of them all, one of the weirder annals in the history of American acoustics: MOAS, the Mother Of All Speakers.

At the outset of the first Gulf War, the US Army saw a need for a portable, high-output sound-source that could be used on the battlefield to call for the surrender of Iraqi combatants. The late Dr. Hank Bass at the University of Mississippi’s National Center for Physical Acoustics was charged with the project. Dr. Jim Sabatier, now recently retired from NCPA,  helped design what Bass’ wife Cathy dubbed “the Mother Of All Speakers”,  after Saddam Hussein’s promise of “the mother of all battles”.  Internally, the project was quickly known as MOAS; the Army retained the acronym but cleaned it up to stand for MObile Acoustic Source, or Mobile Outdoor Acoustic Source.

Additional requirements called for reproduction of a 10Hz signal at 140dB @ 1 meter, so as to allow for realistic reproduction of the 11Hz rotor noise produced by helicopters…and maybe the rumble of approaching tanks, as well. And of course, you should be able to hear it miles away. Simple, right?

The frequency and volume requirements dictated the basic parameters of the horn, and almost made a mockery of the term “mobile”: a round-section exponential horn, 56′ long, with a mouth diameter of 10′. Regular old drivers couldn’t meet the required specs, and so sound was to be produced by an airstream modulator, basically a valve controlled by a voice coil.

The pressurized air to be modulated would come from a large air compressor producing 3000 CFM at 12-15 PSI. And how does one drive such a compressor in the middle of a desert battlefield? With a 150 HP diesel engine, of course!

The modulator was the Wyle Laboratories WAS-3000, still used today in simulations of rocket launches and airport noise-cancellation projects. On the MOAS project it was quickly discovered—and anyone familiar with supercharged engines could’ve told them this!—that the compressed air being fed to the modulator would be very, very warm. Warm enough, in fact, to melt the voice coil driving the valve.

Just as is often done in supercharged engines, air-to-air intercoolers were installed to cool the incoming compressed charge. An occasional spritz of compressed nitrogen or carbon dioxide also helped. As I said: simple, right?

The Army also authorized the construction of a second horn which would point up in the air, in an attempt to extend its range and to better simulate the sounds of copters and tanks.

Neither version ever made it to the battlefields of Iraq: blessedly, the war ended too soon. The horizontal MOAS did make it to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for testing, where, lo and behold, it acquitted itself admirably. In the years since it has been used in noise-abatement testing at airports and other sites, where it was utilized in a complex noise-cancellation set-up.

These days, MOAS is mothballed at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Who knows? Maybe one of these days it’ll be trotted out to do sound-reinforcement at Coachella or Burning Man….

PS: I spoke too soon. B. Jan Montana sent this pic of a horn speaker used at Burning Man in 1999. Alpenhorn, anyone?

When I was a kid, growing up in a rough area of Glasgow, we were all taught music at elementary school.  I have a memory going back to about age eight, sitting in a classroom that was right next to the school gym.  I clearly recall the teacher writing a very strange word on the blackboard – “Beethoven”, which in my mind I pronounced to rhyme with Teeth Oven.  Frankly, I don’t remember much else about it.  I do know that we were also taught the so-called “Tonic Solfa”, – Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do, which is, in musical parlance, the major scale.  On a piano keyboard this is easily played as C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.  I think it is sad that this sort of thing is no longer taught in most schools as part of the core syllabus.

We probably also all know that those notes I mentioned form only the white keys on the piano keyboard, and that there are also black keys that sit between them, set back slightly from the front of the keyboard.  Every pair of white notes has a black note between them except E/F and B/C.  This gives the piano keyboard its characteristic pattern of black keys, which alternate up and down the keyboard in groups of two and three.  If we play our Do, Re, Mi,… scale on the piano keyboard beginning with the C, then we only need play the white notes.  But if we start with any of the other keys then we have to incorporate one or more of the black notes to make it work properly.  So a Do, Re, Mi,… scale that starts with a D will use a different pattern of notes than one which starts with a C.  In fact the required note pattern is unique for each of the different notes that you can start your scale on.  We call those patterns “key signatures”, and each one is named for its starting note on the Do, Re, Mi,… scale.

Any performing musician will tell you that it is critically important to get your instruments in tune before you start playing.  And if you are in a band, it is important that all the instruments are in tune with each other.  Some instruments (most notably stringed instruments) have a propensity to go out of tune easily and need frequent tune-ups, some even during the course of a performance.  Even the very slightest detuning will affect how the performance sounds.  Let’s take a close look at what this tuning is all about, and in the process we will learn some rather interesting things.

Something else that I think you all understand is that the pitch of a note is determined by its frequency – the higher the frequency, the higher the note.  And as we play the scale from C to the next C above it (I could denominate those notes as C₀ and C₁ respectively), we find that the frequency of C₁ is precisely double the frequency of C₀.  In fact, each time we double the frequency of any note, what we get is the same note an octave higher.  This suggests, mathematically, that the individual notes would appear to be linearly spaced on a logarithmic scale.  If we arbitrarily assign a frequency to a specific note by way of a standard (the musical world generally prefers to define the note A as having a frequency of 440Hz), we can therefore attempt to define the musical scale by defining each of the adjacent 12 notes on the scale (7 white notes and 5 black notes) as having frequencies which are separated by a ratio which is given by the 12^th root of 2, or 1.0595:1.  If you don’t understand that, or can’t follow it, don’t worry – it is not mission-critical here.  What I have described is called the “Even-Tempered Scale”.  Using even-tempered tuning, music has the property that any piece can be played in any key and will sound absolutely the same, apart from the shift in pitch.  Sounds simple and sensible, right?

Of course it does.  But unfortunately, it’s not the whole story.  With music, it never is.  We need to dig a little deeper into it.  As I mentioned earlier, if you double the frequency of a note you get the same note an octave higher.  But if you triple it, you get the note which is the musical interval of “one fifth” above that.  In other words, if doubling the frequency of A₀ gives us A₁, then tripling it gives us E₁.  And clearly, we can then halve the frequency of E₁ and get E₀.  So, multiplying any given frequency by 1.5x gives us the note which is a musical fifth above it.  Qualitatively, the interval of one-fifth plays very harmoniously on the ear, so it makes great sense to use this simple frequency relationship to provide an absolute definition for these notes.  In other words, if A₀=440Hz, then E₀=660Hz.

Next, we’ll look at the fourth harmonic of A_0.  This gives us A₂ at 17600Hz, so we’ll move right on to the fifth harmonic, 2200Hz.  Subjectively, this gives us a note which is a musical interval of “one third” above the fourth harmonic.  This turns out to be the note C#₂.  So we can halve that frequency to get C#₁, and halve it again to get C#₀ at 550Hz.  The notes A, C#, and E (at 440Hz, 550Hz, and 660Hz) together make the triad chord of A-Major, which is very harmonious on the ear.

We have established that we go up in pitch by an interval of one-fifth each time we multiply the frequency by one-and-a-half times.  Bear with me now – this is what makes it interesting.  Starting with A₀ we can keep doing this, dividing the answer by two where necessary to bring the resultant tone down into the range of pitches between A₀ and A₁.  Using this procedure we can map out every last note between A₀ and A₁.  Starting with A₀, the first fifth gives us the note E₀.  The next one B₀.  Then F#₀.  Then C#₀, and so on, eventually ending up at A₁.  If you are sufficiently interested (and understand the geography of a piano keyboard), it is instructive at this point to get out a piece of paper and a pencil and do the math.  Because, somehow, this calculation ends up defining A₁ as 892 Hz – when it should be 880 Hz!  Why is there a discrepancy?  Something is obviously not right.

The problem lies in the definition of the interval of one-fifth.  On one hand we have a qualitative definition that we get by observing that a note will play very harmoniously with another note that has a frequency exactly one-and-one half times higher.  On the other, we have a more elaborate systematic definition that says we can divide an octave into twelve equally-spaced tones, assign each tone with the names A through G, plus some black notes (sharps/flats), and define one-fifth as the interval between any seven adjacent tones.  I have just shown that that the two are mathematically incompatible.  Our mathematical approach defines an “Equal-Tempered” scale and gives us a structure where we can play any tune, in any key, but our harmonic-based approach is based on specific intervals that “sound” qualitatively better but don’t add up if we try to extend the principle to other notes.  How do we solve this conundrum?

This was a question faced by the early masters of keyboard-based instruments, where each individual note can be precisely tuned at will to a degree of precision that was not previously attainable.  All this took place in the early part of the 18^th Century, and it turns out they were very attuned to this issue (no pun intended).  The problem was, if you tuned a keyboard to the “Equal-Tempered” tuning, then pieces of real music played on it did not sound at all satisfactory.  So if the “Equal-Tempered” tunings sounded wrong, what basis could you use to establish something better?  It turned out that there wasn’t – and still isn’t – a simple answer for that.  Every tuning that isn’t equally-tempered will, by pure definition, have the property that a piece played in one key will sound subtly different if played in another key.  So you have a choice.  You can have a tuning that sounds identically bad in every key, or one where each different key has a sound that may vary slightly in character, but none of which sounds “bad” in the way that the “Equal-Tempered” tuning does.

This problem shares many aspects with the debate between advocates of tube vs solid-state amplifiers, of horn-loaded vs conventionally dispersive loudspeakers, even of digital vs analog sound.  However, by Johann Sebastian Bach’s time (~1750’s), a consensus emerged in favor of what is termed “Well-Tempered” tuning.  Bach famously wrote a collection of keyboard pieces entitled “The Well-Tempered Klavier” whose purpose is to illustrate musically the different tonal characters of the different tonal keys resulting from this tuning.  I won’t go into the specifics regarding how Well-Tempered tuning is obtained, but in practice it has been adopted as the basis of all modern Western music.  Even so, you may (or, being audiophiles, may not) be surprised to learn that there is no modern consensus on what, precisely (since in 2017, unlike in 1717, we can be as precise as we want), a “well-tempered” tuning actually is, or why.

One thing which emerges as a result of all this is that the tonal palette of a composition is affected, to a certain degree, by the key in which it is written.  Below is a web site that explores the “character” of each of the different tonal keys.  You may (or, being audiophiles, may not) be surprised by the level of inconsistency, not to mention ambiguity!

http://biteyourownelbow.com/keychar.htm

This is what is behind the preference for classical composers to name and identify their major works by the key in which they are written.  Or even to decide what that key was going to be in the first place.  You may have wondered why Beethoven’s ninth symphony was written in D-Minor, or, given that it had to have been written in some key, why the key always gets a mention.  Well, now you know!

During  the way-too-many years that I’ve been involved with audio, a number of terms that were first used by JGH, HP, JA , and other initialed Editors,  have risen to common usage. Before them, I think you’d have difficulty finding terms like “soundstaging”, “imaging”, “image specificity”, and the like. Along the way, the only term my parents and grandparents ever used to describe sound quality seems to have disappeared.

Whatever happened to “tone”?

I think one of the reasons that audiophilic pursuits came to be viewed as the acts of a bunch of antisocial navel-gazers is the obsession with imaging. Yes, it’s important, and certainly imaging specificity aids in the creation of that holy-crap-they’re -HERE sensation we all love…but is that all there is? Oftentimes, I hear many audiophile-darling products sounding sterile, bleached, lacking body—but boy, that image location is needle-sharp.

But is that even real? When I’m at a concert or even listening to a church choir, it’s not all that easy to say “that third old lady in the soprano section clearly has a bit of asthmatic wheeze”, or “fourth chair violin is tuned half a semitone sharp”. One of the points of having a large body of musicians is that their sounds intermingle, intermodulate, and the group produces something altogether more  than just a bunch of separate, disparate sounds. And certainly, when one listens to music at home with a bunch of, shall we say, laymen, they may say something like, “man, it’s like we’re right there“…but they’re not going to say, “oh, Christian McBride’s bass is clearly 3.2 meters to the left of and half a meter behind Diana’s piano”….which might be the sort of thing you’d hear at an audiophile society meeting. I exaggerate, but not much.

We’re talking about the difference between listening to music for enjoyment, and as a social act– or listening critically to a bunch of sounds.

Back to my parents: as was true of many of their generation (born WW I, fought in WW II) they grew up with music on the radio, on records, in movies. Theirs was probably the first generation which could be constantly exposed to music without actually performing it, thanks primarily to radio. Music was heard over AM radio or on 78 records, both of which had rolled-off high ends, but could still sound very present and real, when done right (go figure).  The music my parents favored was big bands or the small combos of Nat King Cole, Sinatra, Clooney. Melody was king. On those rare occasions when they spoke of the quality of reproduced sound, their touchstone was tone.

Even the kitchen radio was judged by that standard: rejects were said to sound “shrill”, or “thin”. The ultimate accolade? “Oh, it has such nice tone.”

Look at the beautiful first-generation Fisher 500 receiver at the top of this page. Aside from being one of the first real hi-fi receivers and a technical marvel—just look at it. Look at that beautiful, golden-bronze sheen: that’s the visual analogy for the sort of sound that was sought in those days, warm and non-fatiguing and…well,  nice. Pleasant. Just what you’d expect from those pictures of easy-chair-seated,  pipe-smoking, sweater-clad dad reading a book in a golden pool of light while the hi-fi played Copland or Kenton. It was an immersive approach to music, not an analytic one; even when music was analyzed in school, it consisted of following individual instrumental lines in a symphonic piece—not scrutinizing placement of singers in the “soundstage”.

I suppose I’m a bit of a hypocrite, kvetching about the overimportance given to imaging, while owning speakers that are famously good at just that. But the magic of the Spica Angelus to me is just how unobtrusive they can be, with that imaging well-matched to good control at the frequency extremes, and sound that stays the same all over the room. To me, most audiophile-fave speakers constantly draw attention to themselves, pointing out just how pinpoint their imaging is, how high they’ll go, and by God, you’d better sit RIGHT THERE. Pfui. As my then-10-year-old son once said of Diana Krall, they just don’t “sound sincere.”

Give me a nice, humble, sincere speaker any day over those quarter-million-dollar monoliths. They just don’t have good tone.

You’ll note that the big Fisher at the top of the page has bass, treble, and loudness controls—tone controls. Is it a coincidence that we lost tone controls about the same time that high-end gear lost tone? I don’t think so.

One last thing: I admired the late Harvey “Gizmo” Rosenberg, and had many phone conversations with him, though we never met. He may have been a flamboyant kilt-clad crazy in public, but in private he was a generous, patient man very willing to share his considerable knowledge of audio. Besides that, in his own way, he was a savvy marketer… who applauded my idea of a craft beer shipped in pony-sized bottles shaped like 300B tubes.

The slogan? “300B: The beer with the beautiful tone.”

Try selling a beer on the basis of imaging. Pfui, again.

..things may not go as planned.

The recent presidential elections highlighted the use of pop music by candidates, and the controversy that the use of the music caused. This article will help to explain this use and answer the questions I get asked the most in this regard.

The reason why I am especially qualified to discuss this is that Donald Trump used one of our most famous songs, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and that caused much controversy, both for and against.

First, some basic information regarding the use of music in public spaces:

When you walk into a bar, gym or sports arena for example, you hear music. Usually sports teams in particular find the 10 songs that work the best, and play them over and over. Twisted Sister is one of the fortunate artists who have not one but two songs on most sports teams ‘must play’ list: “We’re Not Gonna Take It” & “I Wanna Rock”.

The organizations that license these venues to allow the use of the music and keeps records of the amount of play are ASCAP, BMI & SESAC. These are performance rights societies. All songwriters are signed to one of them in the US.

The venues pay a yearly license fee (how much depends on the size of the venue) and then the venue can play any of the songs that are licensed to the provider.

Between the three organizations they cover 99% of all music you know. Once you have that yearly license you don’t have to ask for permission, you just use the song, whenever and however you want. The venue then accounts to the performing rights organization, who in turn pays the writer/publisher for the use of the song(s).

When friends of mine go to any sporting event and hear my song, they text me and say “Hey man, just heard your song at the Mets game…Ka-Ching…”

Ka-Ching?

Here is the deal.

The artist who performs that song (including the singer(s). And musicians, get paid….”0”  That’s correct….nothing, nada.

The songwriter (or music publisher who owns the song rights), however does get paid….about 2 cents per play.  You are reading that right…about 2 cents.

Now… you may wonder then, how and why. Well, as was explained to me years ago: “That’s the way the system operates”.

If you have a very popular song and you multiply that play times all the stadiums, bars, gyms etc then the pennies do add up— but only for the songwriter.

Now let’s deal with politics.

When a candidate, or really anyone or any organization, who rents out or uses a venue like an arena, auditorium or stadium for a rally, and that venue pays performance licensing fees, then the user can play whatever song is controlled by these organizations (about 30 million!) they want without asking any additional permission.

The difference between using a song at a sports event or a political rally is simple. When they hear a song at a sports event, no one automatically assumes that the artist who is performing that song is somehow favoring that team. People know that the use is generic.

But…when a politician uses a song, there is an assumption of support.

This all began in 1960 with The Rat Pack recording and performing the song “High Hopes” just for JFK. Jimmy Carter had the Allman Bros. play at his inauguration ball, Clinton used Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow” and also had them perform. John McCain used Chuck Berry’s song “Johnny B. Goode” as his theme song.

With that as background, Donald Trump started using famous rock songs as intro music when he walked on stage. He used songs by the Rolling Stones, Adele, Queen, Springsteen, and Twisted Sister at his rallies.

Because of the controversy Trump created by his inflammatory rhetoric, all these artists asked their publishers to have their songs taken off Trumps playlist (remember, he had the right to use the songs without having to gain permission.

Trump ignored the requests.

The only way left, if the politician (in this case, Trump) does not want to stop using the song is for the artist to publicly shame the user. This always works. That is what The Stones, Queen, Adele & Springsteen did. Politicians, in these cases, don’t want the protracted negative publicity and stop using the songs immediately.

In our case, my singer, Dee Snider, was a contestant of Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice and Trump helped Dee raise money for his selected charity. The use of our song, therefore, put us in a sensitive situation.

We were getting hammered by our fans about Trump's use of our song in public, at rallies. We were accused of either supporting Trump, or of selling out for a ton of Trump’s money!

Dee decided, and I fully supported this, to not publicly shame Trump but to go behind the scenes and explain to Trump that the band has historically stayed away from group endorsements of politicians and that this was creating a problem for us with our fans. That we didn’t want to publicly shame Trump either.

Trump stopped using our song immediately.

Case Closed.

When I was a teenager, I told a girl that I loved her so much that I would die for her. She replied that if I died, she’d no longer find life worth living. So if I lost my life pushing her out of the way of a moving trolley, my sacrifice would be meaningless! What was I supposed to do, jump out of the way and let her take the hit? That would kill my sense of integrity and then I’d find life meaningless. What a dilemma!

My uncle warned me that women would complicate my life. Can’t live with them, can’t die without them.

That’s how I feel when I’m asked to assess someone’s audio system. If I’m honest and say that I don’t like the sound, the audiophile may feel that my life is no longer worth living. If on the other hand, I tell him it’s great when it’s not, it would be a meaningless statement which would kill my sense of integrity! It’s a no-win situation!

I’m often asked to provide audio assessments for members of our audio club. Perhaps it’s because some big players in the industry have lauded my home-made speakers. Maybe it’s because I’ve been President of our local audio club for 15 years and have experienced most every member’s system. Or maybe it’s because they know I’m not good at obfuscation.

Politely, I try to compliment only their system’s positive characteristics. Once done, it’s best to shut up, ask for a beer, and steer the discussion towards hops and barley. Invariably however, after a few glasses, the audiophile will ask what I really think. I always end up betraying my feelings. Maybe I should stop drinking.

My frequency-spectrum analyzer is my savior. If I don’t like the sound, I take a reading and point to the graph indicating the in-room frequency response. It’s not unusual to find bass peaks as high as 20 db, or giant black holes in the midbass. Then the readings can take the rap and I’m off the hook. That’s often followed by a discussion of how measurements are meaningless.  (Try explaining that to a speed cop.)

In one grand home, I was pleased to discover some accurate floorstanding speakers in a large audio room. That’s where my pleasure ended. The amps were some exotic design with a giant single output tube per channel. (My tube is bigger than yours!) The SETs were connected to cables which resembled a Boa Constrictor swallowing a sea turtle. Those lumps choked the sound as surely as the turtle choked the snake. Or was it the other way around?

I knew the speakers were a demanding load and that the amp couldn’t control them properly.  Jerry bought his system entirely on the basis of the “Recommended Components” list. He’s not a big reader. He’s the type who measures once, cuts twice, then buys more material—but he really should have read the full equipment reviews. Audio writers are usually pretty good about addressing compatibility issues.

I didn’t engage my spectrum analyzer. Didn’t need to.  The high frequencies were as compromised as Jerry’s hearing. He loved the sound and that’s all that mattered.

But many of the guys that call me don’t love their sound. Most of the time, it’s not due to the equipment. With the exception of some exotic designs, which seem to focus on maximizing one characteristic at the cost of all others, most equipment these days is soundly (!) designed and executed. If doesn’t sound good, it’s more often a result of poor room acoustics than equipment. Many of their listening rooms are as reflective as the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles.  Your canary can’t fly in a hall of mirrors and your system can’t sing there, I tell them. The reflections will totally confuse your cerebral processing center and cause it to crash.

However, like everything else, there are exceptions. One member’s listening room had plaster walls, a ceiling-to-floor window, oak door, tile floor, and a large marble coffee table right in front of the listening position. He claimed he loved the sound, so I deduced that this guy couldn’t hear either. I was wrong.

When it was time to audition, he moved his listening chair in front of the coffee table and close to the speakers for nearfield listening. He played small jazz groups and female vocals at low volumes. Big orchestral works at the volumes I prefer would have been a disaster in that room, but his material sounded wonderful. The hard surfaces added ambiance. Note to self: Check context before making assessments.

My house has a large garage, but a small living room unsuitable for audio. My wife fell in love with the kitchen and the bathrooms, so she decided we were moving in. My uncle warned me that women would complicate my life. I love my wife, so I made what I considered to be a huge sacrifice. In return, the garage was dedicated to motorcycles.

But how do I get big sound from a small listening room? That’s like asking how to get expensive speakers for cheap. It can be done but it’s not easy. My solution was to do the homework and build the speakers myself (but that’s a story for another time). As it’s always necessary to do the homework, I read everything I could on acoustics, and attended as many lectures as possible — both in person and on-line.

I discovered that bass problems can be solved electronically. Find the peak and reduce its amplitude by means of a parametric equalizer. I do it in the digital domain to keep artifacts at a minimum.  It’s not a perfect solution, but it beats 20 db peaks.

Nulls (black holes or dips) in the bass response are sometimes curable through relocation of the speakers, but not without compromising other factors of the sound. Subwoofers are best when using that method. Fortunately, our ears are much less sensitive to nulls than peaks, so I ignore them like the “news”.

Some audiophiles have baulked at introducing EQ into their systems believing it will somehow mess up the purity of the sound.  Most don’t realize that their phono pre-amp applies a more radical EQ curve than that needed for most bass correction.

I also learned that midrange and high frequencies cannot be successfully equalized by electronic means. It must be done with room treatment. But how?

One year, I heard a lecture by Anthony Grimani at The Home Entertainment Show in Irvine.  I was so impressed, I asked him to address our local audio club. Anthony has a great curriculum vitae  and constantly travels around the world, so it took a year before he could find some time, but he provided the solution to my big sound/small room conundrum.

His lecture lasted for almost 3 hours with lots of graphs, equations, and photos of concert halls, studios and home theaters. He explained how all his measurements were made, how the solutions were computed and implemented, and how they were tweaked to taste afterwards.  My head was spinning. I have neither the equipment, inclination, nor patience to engage in such a time consuming and painful process. I’m no rocket surgeon. When I looked around, it appeared that the rest of the audience weren’t rocket surgeons either.

Anthony must have sensed our qualms. Just before he closed, he added that after analyzing and treating many spaces for several decades, his company had discovered five consistencies in their results:
1.  About 20% of their clients’ walls usually needed absorptive panels.
2.  About 25% had to be covered with diffractive panels.
3.  Reflective points always needed to be covered.
4.  The front wall between stereo speakers responded best to diffraction.
5.  The area behind the listening position always needed absorption, especially if it was close to the back wall.

That formula was simple enough for me to understand, and I trust you’ll understand it as well.  The only question remaining is:  how much will the woman in your life complicate it?