Copper

The Long Goodbye

Over the last few years of writing this column, I’ve had to write “RIP” in titles several times as friends and colleagues have passed away. Being a typical male, I’ve...

The Sound of Recorded Music

Different time periods in history are associated with particular architectural trends, building techniques and construction materials, different stages of technological development, as well as different styles and forms of musical...

The California Audio Show Part 1

The Ninth California Audio Show took place July 26-28 at the Hilton Oakland Airport, which has been the hosting venue for the last few years. Our reports on the 2017 CAS can...

Billy Taylor: Eight Great Tracks

Pianist and composer Billy Taylor (1921-2010) grew up in Washington, DC, where he took classical piano lessons with a man named Henry Grant. Grant’s other claim to fame in jazz...

A Turntable of my Own, Part 2

Copper #90---Ed.> Here we see the finished laminated fiberglass plinth sitting atop the 1 ½” thick machined aluminum sub-plate. You will notice the ¾” thick grey MDF pieces sitting between...

Hall Sounds

Late this May I fulfilled a longstanding wish—to attend Choral Evensong at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Director Stephen Cleobury retired at the end of June; this was one of the last...

Abandoned in Occidental

The Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of the Vinyl Record

Two of the world’s leading chip manufacturers have recently announced moving on to 5 nm manufacturing. Nanotechnology and micromachining are becoming hot keywords in technical and scientific publications. Micro Electro...

Spandau Ballet

The London punk scene was wearing some musicians out. People like songwriting guitarist and keyboardist Gary Kemp, who wanted to seem like a rebellious musician, but not in the same...

We All Shine On, Redux

49 years ago, in the first international worldwide television broadcast, John Lennon sang to us, “There’s nothing you can do but you can learn how to play the game –...

Happy Landings!

Welcome to Copper #90! By the time you read these, the 50th anniversary of the moon landing will have come and gone, and my landing in Oakland for the California Audio Show will also...

The Dave Clark Five

When writing this column, I frequently close my eyes and go back to certain times in my life – in this case 1964 post Beatles arrival – and try to...

A Turntable of my Own, Part 1

Copper #72, #73, and #74. In that series of articles, Ken described how he cut down trees on his property, milled, planed, and cured the lumber, then built his listening...

Issue 90

Quintessence

Sometimes you encounter stories where it turns out that the story you think you want to tell, is just a very small part of a much bigger story. This is one of those stories-within-stories....

All Fingers on Deck

Welcome to Copper #89! I hope you emerged from the 4th (Independence Day, for our friends around the world) with all digits intact. By now, you've undoubtedly noticed some changes in the...

The Sound Of Music, Redux

There’s something I’ve been thinking about for around 25 years; ever since I started working with Bill Bottrell, and he made me aware of how different my sound was. What that...

My First Visit to China

[This article was first edited by Art Dudley and published by him in the May/June 2002 issue of  Listener magazine; I thank Art for his help. Originally titled, “In a Shanghai Speaker...

Adelpha Californica, Zion National Park

Badwater Basin, Death Valley

Stéphane Grappelli: Eight Great Tracks

Nobody would dispute that Stéphane Grappelli is one of the top jazz violinists in history. So it says a lot about jazz history that, during much of the 1940s and...

Etta James

Born to a single teen mom and passed around foster care, Etta James did not come into this world with many advantages. Even the choir director at her church in...

Is Audio Seasonal?

I’ve been a salesman or worked with salespeople most of my working life, and one thing I know is that as a group, they work hard. They have to. It’s...

TONE!

A recent conversation ‘twixt Uncle Bill and me: Me: This is great bass playing to me:   TONE! Bill: Yup. Me: I hear many bass players who have shitty tone, and if you...

Well, It Ain’t Dieter Rams….

Munich, Part 4

[Previous installments of our Munich coverage have appeared in Copper issues #85, 86, and 87—Ed.] We’ve talked about “the Munich Show”, meaning the High End, as the big show is properly known, and we’ve talked...

Fanny Mendelssohn

If Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) had lived at a time and place when a woman could reasonably pursue a career in composition, Felix might be known as “the younger brother of...

Deep Purple

Deep Purple was originally called Roundabout because its founder, drummer Chris Curtis, planned to have its personnel be established musicians from other groups, who would come and go like cars...

Here Comes The Yet Another Son

First appeared in Goldmine Magazine, edited for Copper. I recently spent 24 hours in Liverpool with my daughter Samantha on a dad/daughter Beatles visit. I had been to Liverpool several times while Twisted...

Party

“This is S.I. Newhouse’s personal secretary, I would like to invite you and your wife to a party to celebrate the construction of his new apartment.” I almost hung up...

The Jewish Cemetery

The Jewish cemetery in Shettleston, Glasgow is a miserable place. Not because of what it is but because of its location. For some reason it is always raining in this...

Life of the Audiophile Party

If You Don't Like THIS One....