Month: Dec 2016

Written by Dr Richard Varey

NAIM Audio’s “True Stereo”

NAIM’s “True Stereo” is claimed to be one of the most faithful techniques to capture music in a recorded format. The final sound results from just one single pair of microphones, set up in a space selected for good natural acoustics. The end result gives the listener a live, acoustically realistic perspective of the music […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Saving the self through music

“Songs, in their highest form, are pieces of the soul, moving through eternity, to heal the heart. Exposing our humanity unfreezes stranger-hood, and creates communion. Spirit moves through music and song, and songwriting is one of the healing arts. The object of art is not to make salable products. It is to save one’s self, […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

A sense of place in recorded music

T Bone Burnett: “A sense of place is very important to me in recording. When I’m listening to a record, I always want to feel I’m there in some proximity to the musicians, listening to them in a room, and there’s that kind of fidelity, that kind of experience.”  (Stereophile, June 2008, p. 69) I […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Who are the audiophile musicians?

Robert Baird (Stereophile, June 2008, p. 63) boldly asserted that “It’s no revelation that many musicians have tin ears. Rare is the player – or producer – who knows good recorded sound from bad”. This is at least surprising, if not disappointing, even mystifying in a field that plays and records music for listener appreciation. […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Hifi magazines abandoned

A frustrating experience today, when I spotted about 70 discarded hifi magazines in a local charity shop, in a box marked “free magazines” – mostly Stereophile and HifI+ from around 2005-2009. I asked if I could take them and was told “no, they are for customers who can take one when they buy something”. I […]