No longer a Talking Head, he’s a thinking writer. David Byrne says some thought-provoking things in his book (How Music Works): “The music perfectly fits the place where it is heard, sonically and structurally. It is absolutely ideally suited for this situation – the music, a living thing, evolved to fit the available niche.” “The […]
For a devotee of recorded music listening, it’s been a two-decade journey of change. When I moved to New Zealand from England at the end of 2003, I had already been a vinyl record and CD collector for many years. The boxes filled a good part of the shipping container that carried our possessions to […]
It’s a black plastic box 140 mm x 140 mm x 42 mm. After reading the impressive measurement result on Audio Science Review, I bought it through Amazon Australia for NZ$377 inc. shipping and tax, and it arrived here in New Zealand just four days later. It’s another of the growing number of fair-priced high-performance […]
I’ve been involved in several discussions in recent days about tone controls for amplifiers, and I’ve also read about loudspeakers tuned to overcome room effects, and a preamplifier with a ‘presence’ control. Equalisation is in the air, at least where I’m sitting! It’s probably not a coincidence that I’ll be 68 years old next week. […]
I read that Bruce Springsteen had originally made Nebraska, a favourite album of ours, with the E Street Band, but it has remained unreleased. I went looking for Nebraska on Amazon Music, and found the Stormy Mondays. They’re a ‘transatlantic Americana / roots’ band from Northern Spain who “slow cook” their music. They’re big fans […]
Following on from my (brief) look at near boundary speaker positioning, comes a piece about Paul Klipsch and his corner horn innovations – he understood room corners as potentially amplifying sound waves. A trio of phrases in the article particularly caught my attention: “he was recalibrating the way humanity experienced music“ “acoustic cornerstone“ “a quest […]
Among the weird and wacky records, when I’m asking myself how did this get recorded and pressed, I find one that is peculiar, but actually good. This one connects players from The Quireboys, It Bites, Take That, Yes, ELO, and others, with ex-postman Jim Brown singing others’ songs Elvis-style – and doing a great job. […]
This record found discarded in an op shop here in New Zealand recently is further evidence that record collecting is worthwhile, even when the recordings have been reissued on CD and can be streamed online. The sleeve carries something of its history, with signatures of the players and a previous owner on the back, and […]
I read that comment somewhere recently, perhaps in the Audio Science Review forums. It wasn’t over at Stereophile, although I did see a local dealer offering a NZ$91,999 Jadis Calliope Hi-End CD Player for sale. Today, on Archimago’s Musings, the truth was stated: Topping also has a PA7 Plus which outputs 300wpc into a four […]
This seemed to be an audio show overview visit report, and yet more interestingly it has two intriguing ideas from products exhibited in Seattle that I wanted to investigate. Jeff Day outlines the pros and cons of near room boundary positioning of loudspeakers – for music listeners, in contrast to what he refers to as […]
I have no particular dislike of any weekday (I’m thinking of the inspiration for the Number 1 Boomtown Rats song!), and, generally, I do like stereo sound imaging. It’s for a long time been my default reproduction imaging effect, but I repeatedly have wondered if there’s a better way, and have experimented with ambiophonics, ambient […]
In reading Paul James’ book Experiencing Gigli with Quality Audio, I’m particularly struck by the ideas of thoughtful listening and audio outlier. I’ve been thinking about what being an audio outlier in order to thoughtfully listen involves, and I’m hoping that Paul will write more about this soon. For now, and referring back to this […]
I love the rewards of my music recording rescue efforts. I can play whatever I like, and I like what I play. How about some Polish Celtic Irish and Jazz? Carrantuohill have been playing Celtic music with a Slavic soul since 1987. This is a double album live recording of a 2005 Celtic and Jazz […]
Sixteen songs written and recorded with vintage guitars, banjo, bouzouki, fiddle, mandolin, and mandola, in Nashville, for Proper American Recordings in 2008. But that doesn’t make this Country music. These are some great folk songs from Tim O’Brien, brother of Mollie O’Brien. He sees folk and country as the same musical pathway, and although naturally […]
This was a seriously pleasing surprise. It’s a TV crime drama with a retired detective who returns to help solve cases, and he co-owns and sings in a Jazz club. Haunted by the loss of his wife and daughter in a house fire, he finds solace from his grief by turning to music and is […]
I’ve been talking again with Adam Rosner and discovering that he’s been busy since I very much enjoyed auditioning his Matariki valve amplifier back in 2019. I recall that what drew me to take an interest in Adam’s work back then was discovering that his father was a recording engineer for prestigious labels including Decca […]
I first read about Dr Paul James’ book Experiencing Gigli with Quality Audio: Exquisitely Beautiful Singing (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022) on Jeff Day’s Jeff’s Place website, and more recently Rafe Arnott’s interview with him on his Resistor Magazine website. Dr James is a longtime audiophile, music lover, and philosophy scholar. I knew it was another […]
In my research on the development of stereo, I found this in the Journal I.E.E., December 1959. “The dimensions of sound: A review of the convention on stereophony“
Scientists have find a practical use for ping-pong balls in protecting against low-frequency noise pollution. When used in certain combinations as an “acoustic metasurface”, these Helmholtz resonators turn out to be very effective absorbers, with use as acoustic insulator, and more. The international rules of the game now specify a ball mass of 2.7g and […]
We’re told she’s taking modern Jazz mainstream and has the mission to bring it to Gen Z. Laufey released her debut album Everything I Know About Love last year, and became the most-streamed Jazz artist on Spotify in 2022. She’s also currently the biggest streaming artist from Iceland! Her new album Bewitched was released in September, becoming the […]
I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Stereophile magazine, and keep going back. The hyper-expensive equipment reviews are out of bounds, but often the music mentioned is worth exploring, and I enjoy some of the articles. I was aware that the team led by John Atkinson had also made almost two dozen highly […]
In 1925 Louis Armstrong moved from New Orleans to Chicago, and away from playing in polyphonic groups, and over the next four years his ensembles made music history by featuring the players in individual solos, laying the foundation for improvisation, and playing the tunes covered here by Wynton Marsalis in 2006 for recording and mechanical […]
Damon Krukowski investigates the nature and appeal of live albums. They simulate the social experience of an event. But are they a record of a performance that can be reproduced in the home? Or are they not a preservation for repetition, but a creation. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/live-albums-social-experience-1202685179/
Damon Krukowski argues that subwoofer bass boost impairs the sound in some styles of music. More is not always better, and may be too much. Most recorded music comprises mid-range frequencies, and turning up the bass reduces the clarity. I previously shared some writing and my thoughts about infrasound. https://pitchfork.com/features/oped/9667-drop-the-bass-a-case-against-subwoofers/
This got me thinking. Which recordings have very low frequency content intentionally added by artists or engineers? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/ghost-fear-frequency-infrasound-horror-movies/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound#Human_reactions?wprov=sfla1 Coincidentally, I installed a sub-woofer in my office audio system today. It’s rated 27-100Hz.
Drummer Damon Krukowski has taught writing about sound in Harvard’s Writing Program, and hosted the Ways of Hearing mini-series on Radiotopia’s Showcase about critical listening in the digital age. His related book was published by MIT Press in 2019. In this post, he points out that there is no single right/best way to hear a […]
I often mention sound quality in my posts, and felt it was time to be specific about what I mean. Subjective sound quality is a comparative assessment of the audible sound produced from the recording, by the rendering equipment, in interaction with the room and my hearing and listening processes. I understand the purpose of […]
Elizabeth Newton, the author of this 2015 article, a musicology graduate researching fidelity and reproduction, is direct to the point: “there is no such thing as an “authentic” reproduction of a sound source”. Paraphrasing, it is possible to identically replicate a musical event, but perfect replication of a listening experience is not possible. There are […]
It stood out among the couple of hundred abandoned LPs today. I recognised that it’s a Sheffield Lab album. Even though it has not had the best of storage conditions! The sleeve is way beyond preservation, and is in the dustbin. It looks so bad that I felt the need to explain to the shop […]
According to my Skeat’s Etymological Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus, euphony is a pleasing, graceful sound. I read elsewhere that euphony is also used as an elegant literary device with balanced melodic and harmonied sounds in prose and poetry to give the reader a pleasing and musical sensory experience. A few years ago, a well-known audio […]
Music & Hi-fi Appreciations 