Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Stereophile

Based in Bulgaria, European audio company Thrax has been active since 2009. Their ingenious and varied design approaches seen over several product lines have continued to intrigue me with their conceptual originality, innate musicality, and imaginative use of a broad spectrum of technologies. Their products range from valve (tube) amplification to digital audio and, more recently, loudspeakers. There are 16 products in the Thrax range. Thrax founder and chief engineer Rumen Artarski packs a capacious scientific kitbag. His love of music and fine sound reproduction is self-evident. In the disputes that sometimes occur between measuring and listening, Rumen says, decisions made by the ear are final. Writing for HiFiCritic in 2012, I supported Chris Bryant’s evaluation of the all-tube Thrax Spartacus, a 40Wpc triode-based power amp. In 2014, Bryant examined…

When I first got interested in audio in the UK, in the 1960s, four English brands dominated the domestic loudspeaker scene: Goodmans (founded in 1923), Celestion (whose first loudspeaker was launched in early 1925), Tannoy (which started making loudspeakers in 1928), and Wharfedale. Wharfedale was the youngest of these brands, founded in 1932 in Yorkshire—the land of the Dales—by Gilbert Briggs. In 1968, following some failed experiments with home-brewed speakers, I was looking to buy a pair of “real” loudspeakers. I was attracted to the large Wharfedale Dovedale, with its 12" woofer, but ended up with a pair of Wharfedale’s Super Lintons, the two-way model with the “purple jellyfish” tweeter. I was able to afford the smaller Wharfedales, and they fit on bookshelves in my parents’ living room. I subsequently…

Concert arrangements of operatic themes for piano, like Liszt’s famous concert paraphrases, obviously provide an opportunity to display one’s virtuosic keyboard technique. As Denis Morrier’s program note for Harmonia Mundi indicates, however, transcriptions of Wagner served a second important purpose: spreading awareness of the composer’s operas when they only played in a limited number of venues. There was no Spotify or Idagio back then! This labor of love from Nikolai Lugansky, straying from his customary blockbuster repertoire, is certainly welcome. He begins the program with two large-scale arrangements by 19th century Belgian pianist Louis Brassin. The “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla”—the only readily detachable scene from Das Rheingold—begins with lovely, liquid arpeggios under which Donner’s call sounds in the midrange. A gradual, resonant expansion leads to the tossing of…

NEAVE TRIO A Room of Her Own Works by Chaminade, Smyth, Tailleferre, and Boulanger Chandos CHAN 20238, CD (reviewed as 24/96). 2024. Jonathan Cooper, prod. & eng. Despite the preponderance of classical orchestral blockbusters overplayed at audio shows, a goodly number of us enjoy nothing more than basking in the refined beauties of smaller-scaled chamber music. If you would like to spread your wings beyond the giant guys of the literature, the Neave Trio’s exploration of trios composed early in the lives of Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944), Lili Boulanger (1893–1918), Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983), and Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)—the only non-French woman of the pack—is a must. Chaminade’s Trio No.1 mixes romantic sentiments with a delicacy and beauty all their own. The andante is extremely beautiful, the presto leggiero an exuberant, darting…

THIS ISSUE: Brice Marden’s art, two phono cartridges, and a headphone. It was almost Christmas, a perfect, chilly, blue-sky day to visit the Met Museum and see the Manet/Degas show before it ended. On my way, walking north on Madison Avenue, I passed the uptown branch of Gagosian Gallery and noticed a brightly lit poster behind thick glass announcing their exhibition of American artist Brice Marden’s last paintings. The title of the show was “Let the painting make you,” which sounded like an invite and a challenge, so of course I had to go in. I was in the perfect mood to ride in Gagosian’s swanky private elevator and see how a famously serious painter with a six-decade career chose to communicate his last thoughts. Brice Marden died in August…

THIS ISSUE: Seminal Nina Simone in a high-quality Acoustic Sounds reissue. By all accounts, Eunice Kathleen Waymon, aka Nina Simone, who passed in 2003, was a troubled person and a brilliant artist. Why she was not more acclaimed during her lifetime is a question several recent film projects have tried to answer. Did her fierce stand on civil rights lose her fans? Or was it, as the films have implied, a case of self-sabotage driven by mental illness? Whatever the answer, her inimitable work continues to resonate with ever more force and depth. Simone was a gifted, aspiring classical pianist who graduated as valedictorian from an integrated private high school and attended Juilliard for a year on scholarship, using her time there to prepare for the entrance exam at the…

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND Manley Field House, Syracuse University, April 7, 1972 ABB Recording Company (auditioned as CD). 2023. The Allman Brothers Band, prods.; Jason NeSmith, eng. In 1971, the Allman Brothers Band was mourning the passing of guitarist and leader Duane Allman. They decided that the best place to properly grieve was on the road, moving forward with the musical vision he had created. As a five-man band (Gregg Allman on vocals and keyboard, Dickey Betts on guitar, Berry Oakley on bass, and drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe), they embarked on a 22-week, 41-show tour that found them, on April 7, 1972, at Manley Field House on the campus of Syracuse University. Recorded and simulcast on the school’s station, WAER, the concert in various incomplete forms traveled for years…

THIS ISSUE: Aural HiFi’s Jeremy Irwin uses what he’s learned about vintage hi-fi to guide his customers toward the best system for them, vintage or new. Many audiophiles and serious music lovers are passionate about vintage. Vintage has become a popular “way in” to the hobby, especially popular among younger folks. Reasons vary. Many—perhaps most—are seeking more bang for the buck than you can get buying new. Others prefer classic sound and aesthetics: that special vintage vibe. At least a few inherit or receive vintage pieces from audiophile parents; others come across a beautiful bargain they can’t resist. An important niche in our hobby thinks vintage equipment simply sounds better than the new stuff. Not every vintage piece sounds good, however, and not every piece is a bargain. Some can…

IN MEMORIAM: MAGNEPAN’S JIM WINEY Stereophile Staff Jim Winey, founder and chief inventor/engineer of pioneering loudspeaker company Magnepan, died peacefully on January 10. Born in 1934 and raised in Iowa, Winey—before becoming an engineer and multiple-patent-holding inventor of innovative loudspeakers featuring planar-magnetic technologies—was first a music lover. “Music’s pull was so strong that, by the time he entered his teens, Jim Winey insisted on experiencing it viscerally,” David Lander wrote in the January 2003 Stereophile.1 “I was probably 13, 14 years old,” Winey recalled. “I’d come home from school for lunch, and there was a program on every day that had classical music on it. After I had my lunch, I would sit with this portable radio of my sister’s in my lap, kind of pressed to my body so…

THIS ISSUE: Some components are better than others at conveying music’s life force, but none are quite as good as a great saxophonist playing live in your listening room. Ever notice that the language we use to talk about sound can be pretty aggressive? Reviewers often write about amplifiers “taking control” of a speaker, possibly “ironfisted control,” especially if the amplifier in question happens to be a “juggernaut.” In this particular linguistic trash fire, we also find “razor-sharp transients,” “hair-raising dynamics,” and that ickiest of descriptors, “bass slam.” If words could smell like hair gel and drugstore cologne, these might. All this verbiage is describing brute force, which we might use to push open a heavy door. But there’s another kind of force that we encounter in the world, and…

Edmund (Ed) Manfred Meitner’s name and reputation have long been synonymous with pioneering achievements in the fields of digital audio, especially DSD. In 1971, after designing the first fully automated studio console, Ed identified what he calls “the jitter problem.” He worked with Sony and Philips to help create and refine SACD and subsequently designed the first complete six-channel DSD playback system for home use. In 1998, while developing the eight-channel A/D and D/A DSD converters still used to create most SACDs, Ed founded EMM Labs1 and became head of design, with the goal of bringing DSD to the consumer realm. Far more recently, he designed the EMM Labs DS-EQ1 and Meitner DS-EQ2 optical equalizers, which are sanctioned by DS Audio for use with their optical cartridges. Less widely discussed…

In the early 1980s, I worked in a pop band playing AM radio hits, grooving behind my Yamaha drums and Zildjian cymbals as sweat drenched my body and my ears rang. We danced. We pranced. My shiny silk jumpsuit led upwards to a 2"-high afro, which women ran fingers through in hopes of finding contraband smokes. I was not proud. Our band was hot, booked year-round in hotel lounges and standalone clubs from Florida to Virginia Beach. “Beach music” was a popular southeastern style then, an R&B variation on ’40s swing and doowop, with close vocal harmonies, popping brass, and choregraphed dance steps. Like peanut-sized rock stars, we reveled in this insular, south-of-the–Mason-Dixon–line entertainment lifestyle with its small-town intrigues, tasty southern food, and bodacious southern belles. Then overnight, everything changed.…

THIS ISSUE: From Guy Clark, an old issue and a new reissue of Old No. 1. Recently, a letter to the editor from Len Eggert arrived in Stereophile’s digital mailbox that closed with a question: “How about coverage of other notable ‘outlaw’ singer-songwriters who shunned Nashville and put Austin on the musical map: Guy Clark? Kris Kristofferson? Jerry Jeff Walker? Waylon Jennings? Billie Joe Shaver? David Allan Coe? Are you listening, Robert Baird?” Timely if nothing else, that email came just after I had serendipitously acquired a new-to-my-collection, first-pressing LP copy of the first Guy Clark album, Old No. 1. Killing time before a doctor’s appointment near Washington Square Park in Manhattan, I wandered into Generation Records. As loud punk rock blared across the store—which was once filled with bootleg…

JIM SNIDERO For All We Know Snidero, alto saxophone; Peter Washington, bass; Joe Farnsworth, drums. Savant SCD-2215 (CD). 2024. Snidero, prod.; Kent Heckman, eng. Jim Snidero is a veteran of the jazz wars. Arriving in New York in 1981, at age 23, he was a sideman in important bands and produced 26 recordings as a leader. But until For All We Know, he had never made a saxophone trio album. That’s surprising given that Snidero is known as both a master and a scholar of the alto saxophone. No format can shine a light on the instrument like a saxophone trio. This two-track tape was restored by long-time Hendrix producer Eddie Kramer. It sounds outstanding. In this minimalist setting, lacking a chordal instrument, the saxophone is exposed, akin to a…