When Older Audiophiles "Discover" Old Things
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
As the editor in chief of the SoundStage! family of websites, I’m sometimes pitched ideas by reviewers. Often these ideas are quite good. For example, our resident jazz expert, James Hale, inquired about writing “Best of the Decade in Jazz” for the December 2019 edition of SoundStage! Xperience, in place of his monthly review. I gave him the go-ahead, and the resulting article turned out to be one of my favorites for the year, and one I’ll consult when I’m in the mood to hear a jazz release I might have missed.
McIntosh Laboratory MC1.25KW Mono Amplifiers
- Written by: Aron Garrecht
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
For the past few years, McIntosh Laboratory has been refreshing and expanding its product line at an unprecedented pace. The subject of this review, the MC1.25KW mono amplifier ($12,500 USD each), made its debut in late 2017, and I haven’t been able to take my eyes off it since. Imagine my elation when Mark Christensen, McIntosh’s marketing coordinator, offered to send me for review a pair of MC1.25KWs and their flagship preamplifier, the C1100 (review in the works). In discussions with Christensen, I learned that the MC1.25KW is both a replacement for and an evolution of McIntosh’s beloved MC1.2KW amplifier, and offers more dynamic headroom, upgraded parts and connection points, and refreshed industrial design and lighting.
In Canada: Silencing Winter Static Snaps with the Furutech destat III and Buying Pot -- Lights, That Is
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: For the Record
Way back when, before the age of computer audio, about the time of the ascendancy of the Compact Disc, my expanding collection of records became unmanageable. Milk crates no longer cut it. I ended up buying a five-by-five Expedit shelving unit from IKEA and proceeded to at last sort my records.
Charles Mingus: "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
Impulse! 000602577573736
Format: LP
Musical Performance: *****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****
Charles Mingus recorded three albums for Impulse! Records, and one of them, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963), is among his masterpieces. It stands with two other Mingus albums, Pithecanthropus Erectus (Atlantic, 1956) and Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959), as essential jazz recordings that belong in any collection of American music. Mingus went so far as to write, in the liner notes for Black Saint, “I feel no need to explain any further the music herewith other than to say throw all other records of mine away except maybe one other.” He doesn’t name the other record.
Sonus Faber Heritage Collection Electa Amator III Loudspeakers
- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
I’ve reviewed many loudspeakers over the years, and while many were quite good, only a few stand out in my memory. There seems to be a limit to how much pleasure I get from looking at rectilinear boxes made of MDF over the 12 weeks of the average listening period for a review. Some manufacturers, in an effort to stand out from the crowd, might throw in a curve here, a flourish there, maybe a super-high-gloss finish to add flair to yet another box whose primary -- and, for most listeners, sole -- purpose is to move air.
The Audiophile Apocalypse
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
Last May in Munich, walking the halls of High End 2019, I happened on perhaps the most physically imposing digital-to-analog converter I’ve ever seen: the Wadax Atlantis Reference DAC. I quickly learned that its over-the-top visual design is matched by its price: €110,000. For a DAC. One DAC.
Rockport Technologies Avior II Loudspeakers
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
High-end audio gear can get expensive, but the meaning of expensive depends on the context. For the sake of SoundStage! Ultra, I put most equipment in one of two mental categories: house money and car money.
In the US, the median price of a home is $236,100 (all prices USD); the average transaction price of a light vehicle is $37,577. I used to review house-money gear, and these days many manufacturers make loudspeakers priced in that category. But most folks can’t afford a second home; it’s fair to say that you must be pretty wealthy to afford that much for a pair of speakers.
The Beatles: "Abbey Road: Anniversary Edition"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
Apple B0030719-01
Format: LP
Musical Performance: *****
Sound Quality: ***
Overall Enjoyment: ***½
The Beatles’ Abbey Road turned 50 in September, and Apple Corps Limited, along with Universal Music and, in the US, Capitol Records, have marked the occasion with six commemorative packages, much as they did with the 50th-anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles (aka “The White Album”).
Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH-SP adio 3D Sound Processor
- Written by: Howard Kneller
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
Theoretica Applied Physics, based in Princeton, New Jersey, has the most revolutionary digital signal processing (DSP) technology you’ve never heard about. The company’s website states that this technology, the Band-Assisted Crosstalk Cancellation Hierarchy-Stereo Purifier (BACCH-SP), uses digital interaural crosstalk cancellation (IXTC) to create “unprecedented spatial realism . . . [thus] allowing the listener to hear . . . a truly 3D . . . sound field that is simply unapproachable by . . . existing high-end audio systems.”
The New Audiophile
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
Last month, in “The Ultra High End Better Start Offering More,” I explored what I would require of a new pair of flagship stereo loudspeakers circa 2019. The article has been bothering me ever since I wrote it, though probably not for the reason you might assume. I’ve been an audiophile for more than 30 years, and you might suppose that, in the interim, a bit of nostalgia had hit me, and I was feeling myself pulled back by hankerings for the days of old. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m bothered by last month’s article because I think it didn’t go nearly far enough.
- PMC Fact Fenestria Loudspeakers
- Listening to European Audio Team’s Jo N°8 Moving-Coil Cartridge
- J. Geils Band: "The Morning After"
- GigaWatt PC-4 Evo+ Power Conditioner
- The Ultra High End Better Start Offering More
- Luxman D-380 CD Player
- Charles Mingus: "Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus"
- SGR Audio Model III Symphony Equipment Rack
- Buying Audio by the Pound: Loudspeakers
- TAD Evolution One TX Loudspeakers
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