Copper


One Down, One to Go

Issue 51INDUSTRY NEWS

Starting in  Copper #40, there have been several occasions when we’ve looked at the activities of two companies that historically have been truly important to the worlds of audio and music—though not...

Tom Fine, Part 3

Issue 51THE COPPER INTERVIEW

[Tom Fine is an archival/recording/mastering engineer, and if if his name sounds familiar, it’s likely because he’s the son of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart Fine. One of the rare husband-wife teams in...

CES: A Look Around

Issue 51FEATURED

Our little world is categorized as “High-Performance Audio” (HPA) by the Consumer Technology Association, the group that puts on CES every year, and I think that’s a far better term than...

David Myles

Issue 51... AND INDIE FOR ALL

David Myles is a Halifax-based singer/songwriter with a smooth and tender voice, a vaguely retro look and sound, and an insatiable love of many types of music. At 36 years...

15,000 Pages!

Issue 51VINTAGE WHINE

I started reading when I was 3. I say that not to evoke any particular reaction in the reader, but just to make clear the fact that I’ve been reading...

The Deal (or: How Adolf Hitler Bought Me a Jaguar)

Issue 51MUSIC'AL NOTES

Reading the deed in the Grundbuch (land registry) in East Berlin was chilling. It showed that my grandmother had purchased a property in Lichtenberg in 1932. In 1941 a swastika...

Climbing to the Audio Summit Part 1: Turntables

Issue 51TWISTED SYSTEMS

I want to thank you all for your comments on the “Great ’67 Psychedelic Shoot-out”.  [In case you missed it: Part 1 Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5   The Winner!  —Ed.]  Spoiler alert!: The winner was Pink...

Loudness

Issue 51QUIBBLES AND BITS

It was Lee Atwater, a controversial campaign strategist for Bush Sr.’s successful 1988 presidential campaign who coined the phrase “Perception is Reality”.  Unfortunately for Bush (but more so for Atwater, it must...

In the Land of the Surreal, Is Realism Relevant?

Issue 51THE AUDIO CYNIC

I despise dogma—especially when it comes from me. So when I find that pretty much everything I say regarding CES has become strident and predictable—it worries me. Enough so that I may have to...

Danny Thompson

AND OTHER ILLNESSESAUDIOIssue 51MUSIC

While writing the last few chapters, I talked on occasion to Rick Turner. He suggested that I should write about someone who it turns out is a favorite upright bass...

Searching For Big

Issue 51TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

I’ve been listening to, or watching, a lot of new opera lately. Saw Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel at the local multiplex, via Met HD; listened to the live Pentatone recording of Jake Heggie’s It’s...

Issue 51

Issue 51Opening Salvo

Welcome to Copper #51! We've passed New Year's, we've passed CES, and the whole world seems to be recovering from the flu. We hope you're either well, or on the mend. Our...

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We're Golden!

Issue 50Opening Salvo

Welcome to Copper #50! It's hard to believe we've reached our 50th issue---and thanks to all of you for supporting us, and helping us to reach this milestone. Even more unbelievable is...

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Tom Fine, Part 1

Issue 49THE COPPER INTERVIEW

[Tom Fine is an archival/recording/mastering engineer, and if if his name sounds familiar, it’s likely because he’s the son of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart Fine. One of the rare husband-wife teams in...

Cables: Time is of the Essence, Part 2

Issue 49FEATURED

[In the last issue of Copper, we began a series of articles by Belden engineer Galen Gareis on the science involved in the design of audio cables. We continue here with Galen’s explanation...

Valerie June

Issue 49... AND INDIE FOR ALL

When Valerie June was growing up in Tennessee, everyone in her family sang as a matter of course. Now that she’s a New York singer-songwriter with a burgeoning career, her...

Editor’s Choice

Issue 49VINTAGE WHINE

No, not this Editor. Continuing from my last column, inspired by the arrival of a big batch of old issues of The Absolute Sound, The Editor referred to is TAS‘ founder, HP—Harry Pearson. For...

Eating

Issue 49MUSIC'AL NOTES

“If you touch me again,” I yelled, “I will kill you”— and I meant it. I travel quite a lot, and often the high point of the day is eating...

Still More of the ’67 Psychedelic Shootout!

Issue 49TWISTED SYSTEMS

Both the Beatles & The Rolling Stones released 2 albums in 1967. For the purpose of this face off (and because I, alone, make the rules) we are only dealing...

Brainz the Size of a Planet, Part 3

Issue 49QUIBBLES AND BITS

I have been describing the free-access crowd-sourced music metadata database MusicBrainz over the course of the last two issues of Copper.  I started out by describing the need for what I...

What Will Be New, in the New Year?

Issue 49THE AUDIO CYNIC

It’s been 141 years since Bell’s first call over the device that became the telephone. 140 years ago, Edison’s phonograph became the first device that could play back recorded sound....

What Is a Bass? Part 3: Alternative Materials

AND OTHER ILLNESSESAUDIOIssue 49MUSIC

In the first two installments, I talked about a bit of the history of electric basses, and covered the innovations that came from Alembic. This time, I want to discuss...

Special Effects

Issue 49TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

It’s holiday season as I write this, and I can’t help feeling grateful for the bread I’ll break and the people with whom I’ll break it. This year I also...

Happy New Year!

Issue 49Opening Salvo

Welcome to Copper #75, and welcome to 2019! It truly is difficult to believe that the year is gone, but here we are. Let's get to it! From our usual gang of...

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Tom Fine, Part 2

Issue 50THE COPPER INTERVIEW

[Tom Fine is an archival/recording/mastering engineer, and if if his name sounds familiar, it’s likely because he’s the son of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart Fine. One of the rare husband-wife teams in...

Qobuz Comes to the US; Circuit City Returns?

Issue 50INDUSTRY NEWS

If CES is good for nothing else, it’s good for generating press-releases. As we can read in the press-release that will follow, Qobuz (koh-BOOZ, if you’re French; KO-buzz, if you’re...

Mozart Chamber Music

Issue 50SOMETHING OLD / SOMETHING NEW

Mozart’s string quartets and sonatas are deservedly adored members of the classical canon. But he wrote many other genres of chamber music as well. Three recent recordings remind us to...

Cables: Time is of the Essence, Part 3

Issue 50FEATURED

[We began this series of articles by Belden engineer Galen Gareis in Copper #48 , and continued it in Copper #49. We now present the conclusion of  Time is of the Essence, on time-based distortions in audio cable design,—Ed.] 7) Dielectric...

The River Runs Through It: Rick Hall

Issue 50MUSIC TO MY EARS

Trains and rivers run through America like blood brooding through the veins of a thoroughbred.   There are few things more magical to a working man than looking down that track...

Yellow Light Machine

Issue 50AND INDIE FOR ALL

When you hear the word “indie,” you probably think of New York. Or Toronto. Maybe Seattle. Even Reykjavik. But what about Nairobi, Kenya? There’s a burgeoning indie music scene there,...

Equal Time

Issue 50VINTAGE WHINE

In Copper #48 I began the perusal of a hefty box of old issues of The Absolute Sound, kindly sent by Australian reader Ian Lobb (and again, goodonya, mate!). Last issue I focused on the influence of TAS‘ founder...

Jazz

Issue 50MUSIC'AL NOTES

“God bless you honey, God bless you”, said Alberta Hunter to my mother. Greenwich Village in the seventies was dirty and gritty. Crime was rampant and bodies floating in the Hudson...

The Final Countdown!

Issue 50TWISTED SYSTEMS

We’ve arrived at the finals of the ‘67 Psychedelic Shoot-out!!! There was no way of knowing how this whole exercise was going to peel out. It really just started as...

“The Japanese Beethoven”

Issue 50QUIBBLES AND BITS

Modern popular music differs most significantly from classical music in that the original performance is considered to be the definitive expression, and any others that follow are generally considered to...

What Is a Bass? Part 4: Electronic Guitars

Issue 50MUSIC AUDIO AND OTHER ILLNESSES

I want to wrap up this attempt to answer the question of what goes into a bass (a question only asked by one person) by talking a little about the...

Voices

Issue 50TOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Whenever people talk seriously about recorded music, sooner or later the matter of scale comes up. Some musics and musical experiences get big. Others win by staying small. So, public versus intimate. Meta...

Cables: Time is of the Essence, Part 1

Issue 48FEATURED

[If there’s a name that’s synonymous with wire and cables for electrical connections, it’s that of Belden. Belden is a multi-billion dollar corporation based in St. Louis, founded 115 years...

What Is a Bass?

Issue 47MUSIC AUDIO AND OTHER ILLNESSES

I’ve been contemplating this topic for a little while, although my reticence to finally put it to “paper” must be some kind of sign that I’m a genuine writer…. Anyway,...

Circuit City Bankruptcy Enters Tenth Year

Issue 47INDUSTRY NEWS

Circuit City began by taking over the last few stores of the defunct Lafayette Radio chain, and was once one of  the largest electronics dealers in the world, and second only...

Southern Italian Wines, Part 3: Of Gods, Monste...

Issue 47FEATURED

The wine history of Sicily, like that of most of Italy, particularly the southernmost regions, is ancient, and colorful, replete with outrageous tales of gods –- both Greek and Roman...

Torque

Issue 47FEATURED

The house just down the hill was having a lawn party with a live blues band in attendance. I was at the back of our own home when I first...

The Band, Part 2: From Dylan to The Last Waltz

Issue 47MUSIC TO MY EARS

There were many remarkable moments in the history of The Band.  The first was the incredible luck we all had that these teenagers found themselves in the same band at all. ...

Crying

Issue 47... AND INDIE FOR ALL

Remember those frantic, chirpy sounds that old 8-bit video games used to make? Did you know there’s a pop subgenre inspired by those sounds? Wait, don’t run away. Chiptune, as...

Brainz The Size of a Planet, Part 1

Issue 47QUIBBLES AND BITS

There is a seismic shift underway in the manner by which consumers interact with their music. We can feel the first tremors, and some of us are even starting to...