Copper

By the time you read this, Axpona will be over. With the blessings of the pixel pixies, we'll have a feature next issue. We seem to be well and truly into Spring,... Read more...

Spring has sprung

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. Read more...

American Symphonies

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... Read more...

Big Bang For Bucks

Feeling a bit inspired about low-fi and mid-fi based upon the Paul’s Posts series this past week, I thought I would send some shots of my latest room to give... Read more...

hhgregg Shuts Down and Neil Young Returns

hhgregg to Liquidate Assets [Never a big player in audio beyond the HTIB (home theater in a box) segment, Gregg is yet another once-sizable CE chain biting the dust. It is a sad fact of bankruptcy and shut-downs that before they bring closure, there is chaos; for the last year or so the chain has trotted out salvation plans and potential suitors—but as in the case of Radio Shack, it was all to no avail. Ultimately, there is confusion even regarding the number of stores closing: while the press-release mentions... Read more...

More Q & A on Getting Better Sound

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... Read more...

What’s the Warmth in Tube Amps?

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... Read more...

Damaged Bug/Trans-Siberian Orchestra

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... Read more...

Johnny B. Goode: Johnny Winter

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... Read more...

Brendan Maclean

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... Read more...

The Mother Of All Speakers (MOAS)

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... Read more...

Doh! A Deer!

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,... Read more...

Whatever Happened to Tone?

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... Read more...

The Minimalist Groove of Nik Bärtsch

I first heard of composer Nik Bärtsch from director Robert Harmon around the time of Bärtsch’s earliest ECM releases. A little while after that, my friend Pete Devine started raving about him and his group. I thought I should pay attention. It isn’t exactly minimalist music — but it’s not anything else either. Bärtsch has used the terms “ritual groove” and “zen funk”, which are kind of groovy as terms but don’t really say anything about what it sounds like. Those are more a way into how he thinks about... Read more...

When Pop Music Meets Politics...

..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... Read more...

Simple Acoustics,
Complicated Spouses

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... Read more...

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