April 2022

Stereophile

High-end audio equipment news and reports with audio engineer interviews

Stereophile4 min read
No Server Is An Island.
Around the time I took over as Stereophile’s editor, I bought a Peloton, the internet-enabled stationary exercise bike. It was a lifesaver during the pandemic, when gyms were closed; despite the poor audio quality and the awful music many of the inst
Stereophile1 min read
Stereophile
EDITOR JIM AUSTIN JIM.AUSTIN@STEREOPHILE.COM TECHNICAL EDITOR JOHN ATKINSON SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MICHAEL FREMER, HERB REICHERT, KALMAN RUBINSON WEB PRODUCER JON IVERSON COPY EDITOR LINDA FELACO FOUNDER J. GORDON HOLT COVER PHOTO DAVID DUPUY AR
Stereophile4 min read
Letters
I have found myself considering canceling my subscription to Stereophile over the last year or so. My home hi-fi is immensely satisfying to listen to, a nice “low-end audiophile” system. I find that my need, and even my want, for the gear listed in t
Stereophile2 min read
Calendar Of Industry Events
ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, email Chris Vogel at vgl@cfl.rr.com. (Please note
Stereophile9 min read
Industry Update
In our February issue’s As We See It, Editor Jim Austin discussed the recording industry’s return to profitability, supported mainly by paid streaming subscriptions. Vinyl sales also played a minor role. But vinyl wasn’t the only format to rise in 20
Stereophile12 min read
The Devon and Marlow Excitements
Look closely at the audio system in the photo. It belongs to my friend, and fellow audio seeker, Devon Turnbull (aka Ojas).1 Notice every object in the room, particularly the arrangement of amplifiers, and turntables, and that awesome herd of cartrid
Stereophile286 min read
Rc2022 Recommended Components
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Within each category, products are listed by class; within each class, they’re in alphabetical order, followed by th
Stereophile10 min read
Vivid Audio Kaya S12
Back when Steve Urkel (in the sitcom Family Matters, portrayed by Jaleel White) was showing everybody the best way to dress (and do property damage), my friend Ken Kessler, the high-level audio scribe at Hi-Fi News & Record Review, explained to me th
Stereophile4 min read
Measurements
I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system, an Earthworks microphone preamplifier, and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Vivid Audio Kaya S12’s farfield behavior, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for its nearfield responses. I left the vestigial grille
Stereophile14 min read
Engström Monica Mk3
Have you ever walked through fresh snow in the woods with all your senses heightened? When I did, shortly before the New Year, it was as if I was seeing nature for the first time, through a fresh lens. Never had white-coated surfaces appeared so whit
Stereophile4 min read
Measurements
I measured the Engström Monica Mk3 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system,1 checking some of the results with the magazine’s top-line APx500. (I made sure that the inputs were set to Stereo, as indicated on the front-panel display.) The volume contro
Stereophile12 min read
A Chinese Cartridge Manufacturer Surfaces
What? Suddenly a new Japanese cartridge manufacturer? That’s what I was thinking when Mockingbird Distribution’s Phillip Holmes dropped three cartridges on me from DYLP Audio. Never heard of them—but then I’d not heard of MuTech either when Holmes se
Stereophile10 min read
Lumin P1
I start this review with a confession. I have consistently found that when I play CDs on a transport and feed the digital data via AES3 (AES/EBU) to a D/A processor, the music has more drive, particularly at low frequencies, than it does when I send
Stereophile4 min read
Measurements
I measured the Lumin P1 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system.1 Looking first at the digital inputs, the AES3 and coaxial and TosLink S/PDIF inputs accepted data sampled at all rates up to 192kHz. Apple’s AudioMIDI utility revealed that the P1 accep
Stereophile9 min read
Schiit Freya +
What am I doing with a vacuum tube preamplifier? I haven’t owned a tubed preamp since I bought a Sonic Frontiers Line 3 preamplifier at the turn of the century. I set that aside within a few years as I moved into multichannel because multichannel tub
Stereophile5 min read
Measurements
I measured the performance of the Schiit Freya + with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system,1 checking some of the results with the magazine’s top-line APx500. The preamplifier preserved absolute polarity (ie, was noninverting) with both balanced and unb
Stereophile10 min read
Cyrus CDi-XR
In the 1990s, I was a globetrotter, interviewing musicians in diverse locales for several publications. My habit when arriving in London was to hit the duty-free shops for Cuban Montecristo cigars, move on to the newsagent for the latest issues of Hi
Stereophile3 min read
Measurements
I measured the Cyrus CDi-XR using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system.1 This player doesn’t have digital inputs, so I used test signals burned on a CD-R. As these signals are restricted to a word length of 16 bits, this affected my measurements of reso
Stereophile11 min read
From Congo Square To Times Square
CELEBRATED NEW YORK CITY–BASED JAZZ DRUMMER BILLY DRUMMOND RECALLS HIS FIRST VISIT, WITH THE GROUP OTB (“OUT OF THE BLUE”), TO THE MOUNT FUJI JAZZ FESTIVAL IN YAMANASHI PREFECTURE, JAPAN. IT WAS 1988. THE FESTIVAL’S ELITE DRUMMERS RANGED IN AGE FROM
Stereophile2 min read
Some Jazz Recordings To Listen To
Many recordings are referenced in the main text of this article, in the mini-biographies of particular musicians. Here are some more, for your edification and listening pleasure, a few by drummers not mentioned elsewhere in this feature. Most of thes
Stereophile4 min read
Coltrane’s Live At The Village Vanguard And Crescent, From Impulse! And Acoustic Sounds
John Coltrane spent his final years with Impulse! Records, from 1961 until his death, in 1967, at the age of 40. Those years were his most adventurous, as he sorted through every sound he could create in his spiritual quest, as he put it, to “get the
Stereophile4 min read
Recorded Music’s Hidden History
Jonathan Ward, a historian of recorded sound, has some surprising news. Thousands of early 78rpm recordings were made not to preserve music but as disposable materials for selling gramophones. With manufacturers hoping to expand their sales globally,
Stereophile3 min read
Record Reviews
Starting with her out-of-now-here triumph at the 2010 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition and continuing with the release of four albums including three Grammy winners, Cécile McLorin Salvant, still just 32, has been raising eyebrows and neck hairs for
Stereophile2 min read
Elvis Costello
EMI EMI2047 (24/192KHz FLAC download). 2022. Elvis Costello, Sebastian Krys, prods.; Ron Taylor, eng. Most of us mellow with age; there’s no sin in that. Hell, nowadays I can even cope with people playing U2 in my presence. But whilst mellow doesn’t
Stereophile2 min read
Charming Disaster
Charming Disaster (CD). 2022. Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris, prods., engs. The music of Brooklyn-based duo Charming Disaster—singer/songwriter Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris—has often been referred to as gothic folk in their 10 years together. Their fou
Stereophile2 min read
Black Country, New Road
Ninja Tune (Download). 2022. BCNR, prods.; Sergio Maschetzko, eng. The members of the British band Black Country, New Road know how to improvise, giving a sense of freedom to their second album. What makes Ants From Up There gripping is how that impr
Stereophile2 min read
Mendelssohn
Alina Ibragimova, violin; Cédric Tiberghien, piano Hyperion CDA68322 (auditioned in 24/96 WAV). 2022. Andrew Keener, prod.; Oscar Torres, eng. A thirst for good tunes led me to this new recording of Mendelssohn Violin Sonatas. For a composer as proli
Stereophile1 min read
The Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Marcus Creed, Cond.
OUR Recordings 6.220676 (SACD, auditioned as DXD download). 2021. Michael Emery, prod.; Mikkel Nymand, eng. Perhaps it required visionary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick to first inform us of the interstellar reach of the music of György Ligeti. On this al
Stereophile2 min read
Bruckner
Vienna Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann, cond. Sony Classical G010004595494F (CD). 2022. Florian Rosensteiner, prod.; Martin Leitner, eng. This is one of Thielemann’s more straight-forward Bruckner outings. The symphony’s opening has good buoyancy
Stereophile2 min read
Marcel Zaes
Yarn/Wire Editions Verde EVSFT004 (CD, download) 2022. Jordan Dykstra, prod., eng. There’s a lot of concept behind the 38 parts of Marcel Zaes’s Parallel Prints. The complexity, though, isn’t what makes this realization so good. Their realization is
Stereophile3 min read
Various Artists
World Circuit/BMG WCV050BOX (2CDs + 2LPs). 1997/2021. Ry Cooder, prod.; Jerry Boys, Bernie Grundman, engs. In 1996, American guitarist Ry Cooder and British label owner Nick Gold traveled to Havana to make what they thought would be a Cuba-meets-Afri
Stereophile4 min read
Re-tales
Selling hi-fi gear online is hardly new. If you count mail-order sales, which is much the same thing, it’s been happening since before amazon.com was a discount bookstore. Long before. At first, online sales were mainly for inexpensive and moderately
Stereophile4 min read
Manufacturers’ Comments
I would like to thank Michael Fremer for the review of the Phono 70 Signature. I tell customers all the time that the sound comes from the parts and that the power supply is as important as the signal path. Circuits are mostly for the manufacturers t
Stereophile4 min read
My Back Pages
Axiomatically, audiophile audio is about quality of reproduced sound. Experientially though—for me at least—it’s about visions in the mind’s eye. The older I get, the more attentively I listen to recordings, the more importance I assign to the myriad
Stereophile2 min read
Paul Jost Quartet
Jost, vocals, harmonica; Jim Ridl, piano; Dean Johnson, bass; Tim Horner, drums; two others PJ Music PJM-0121-2 (2 CDs). 2021. Paul Jost, prod.; David Power, eng. Paul Jost is that rare phenomenon among jazz vocalists: a true stylist. He has spent hi
Stereophile2 min read
How To Use The Listing
The classes each cover a wide range of performance. Carefully read our descriptions here, the original reviews, and (heaven forbid) reviews in other magazines to put together a short list of components to choose from. Evaluate your room, your source
Stereophile2 min read
Harold Mabern
Mabern, piano; Eric Alexander, tenor saxophone; Vincent Herring, alto saxophone; Steve Davis, trombone; John Webber, bass; Joe Farnsworth, drums Smoke Sessions SSR-2107 (CD, download). 2021. Paul Stache, Damon Smith, prods.; Paul Stache, eng. Harold

Stereophile

More Issues From Stereophile