Kevin Whelan of the Wrens and Aeon Station

Kevin Whelan is an indie-rock veteran who had long been on the scene with his band, the Wrens. The group, dating back to 1989, has been beloved by fans and...

Jim Anderson and Ulrike Schwarz: Immersive Audi...

With multiple Grammy Award wins and nominations to their credit, as well as European awards such as the Echo Klassik and Le Diamant d’Opera, Jim Anderson and Ulrike Schwarz have...

The Florida Audio Expo 2022 – A Bold Step Towar...

My second trip to the Florida Audio Expo (FAE) in Tampa was one that was marked with a certain amount of uncertainty and anxiety on my part. Initially, I was...

Three Days with Frank Sinatra, Part One

Bill and Judy Green hosted parties for the Who’s Who of the day’s society pages. I recognized most of the people who regularly attended, not only from TV and movies...

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part Eight

Introduced in 1970, the Neumann VMS-70 was the result of the continued evolution of the company’s AM 31 (introduced in 1931 as the first Neumann disk recording lathe), keeping the...

Nero Fiddles While Rome…

Sorry folks but I’m having a hard time thinking about the state of my current audio system or writing about music. The Russian attack on Ukraine has just about eaten...

Sometimes I Sit and Listen to Courtney Barnett

Courtney Barnett had me the first time I heard “Pedestrian at Best,” from her 2015 debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, which, if you spend any time...

Confessions of a Setup Man, Part 14: The Reluct...

I don’t think I really have the temperament to be an audio product reviewer. That’s because I don’t like saying bad things about products or people. Even if they deserve...

The Ups and Downs of Touring

As the spring of 1971 turned into summer we continued along with Superstar’s bus and truck tour. (see “Calling the Lubbock Lights” in Issue 156 for the previous installment about the Superstar, The Original Touring...

How Do You Q? Adjusting A Speaker’s Frequency R...

Do you want to make adjustments to your speaker’s in-room frequency response and quell those unwanted pesky peaks and dips? Do you understand how equalization (EQ) works but have always...

Ann Wilson: From Heart to Fierce Bliss

It is sometimes rare to find established artists who have something new to say, something new to prove, or some new creative impulse they simply have to share. Ann Wilson...

Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part 16

That evening, I related to Melody’s family the story of the interesting dialogue I’d heard from the senior citizens on the beach. Melody’s brother started laughing. “You don’t think they’re...

Back to My Reel-to Reel-Roots, Part 10

In which Ken Kessler makes a discovery linked to his dad. Only the churlish would deny that there’s an element of nostalgia in the Reel-to-Reel Revival, however much the inescapably...

Spring Is in the Airwaves

A pair of ultra-rare circa 1970s KA/Kustom Acoustics loudspeakers, model number unknown, spotted at Angry Mom Records in Ithaca, NY. KA was based in Chicago and is not to be...

Disconnect

Speak, Friend, and Enter

A church entrance in Stow-on-the-Wold, England, that our guide said was the inspiration for the entrance to the Mines of Moria from The Lord of the Rings. We were told that J.R.R....

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Many listeners avoid 20th-century classical music: they associate it with compositions that are aggressive, clamorous, dissonant and, in general, irritating. They don’t like the atonal or 12-tone (dodecaphonic) music that...

Francisco Guerrero: Catching On Again, Five Cen...

The Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero (1528 – 1599) might be nearly unknown outside of early-music and choral circles, but his name keeps popping up on albums over the past couple...

Yusuf/Cat Stevens: Soundtrack of the Seventies,...

His folky, insightful songs, brimming with humor and pathos, helped create the soundtrack to the 1970s. And then Cat Stevens left the field, changing his name and devoting himself to...

My First Speakers

As promised back in my article, “Shop Class” (Issue 151), it was time to build some speakers. I had already built a preamp from a Popular Electronics article, but had no way to really...

John Klemmer, Part Two: The Saxophone Touch

Part One (Issue 157) covered John Klemmer’s early recordings from 1967 – 1970. With five albums at the Cadet and Cadet Concept labels behind him, Klemmer made a move to Impulse!...