Feature Articles

Mark Weinstein: "Todo Corazón: The Tango Album"

Created on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 00:00

Written by Rad Bennett

Category: Recording of the Month

Todo Corazón: The Tango Album Jazzheads JH1198
Format: CD

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Mark Weinstein insists on doing things his own way. The bassist and trombonist took time off from music to earn a PhD in philosophy, and when he returned to music, his instrument was the flute, his technique and sound entirely self taught.

What I'd Buy: Power Amplifiers

Created on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 00:00

Written by Jeff Fritz

Category: Opinion

Jeff Fritz Along with loudspeakers, power amplifiers have always represented the largest financial investments I’ve made in my audio system. It’s been my experience that I shouldn’t skimp on amplification, and that once I find a great power amp, it’s easy to stick with it over the long term. (Though whether any audiophile, including myself, actually does so is another subject altogether.) A great amp today will still be a great amp ten years from now.

I believe this is so because so much of an amplifier’s cost has to do with hardware. Huge power supplies and massive heatsinks have always been relatively expensive, and unlike digital source components, the technologies involved in the design and manufacture of tubed or solid-state amps don’t change rapidly, the advent of class-D designs notwithstanding.

This series of articles is titled “What I’d Buy” -- these lists I compile are, by definition, limited to the types of products I like enough to pay for with my own money. Therefore, entire swaths of the marketplace will be left undiscussed simply because I have no knowledge of or interest in them. This month, that means you’ll find no tube amps here. Through the years, I’ve admired many tube amps at shows and dealers and while visiting manufacturers, but I’ve always been more drawn to really good solid-state gear; that’s where I’ve spent my money, and that’s the area in which I’ve built my expertise. We have other writers who can advise you about tubes.

Systematic Upgrades, Part Two: From Black to Silver

Created on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 00:00

Written by Simeon Sandiford

Category: General Interest & Interviews

Four frames of reference

Mastering suite Recording steelpan and other genres of acoustic music on location has been my main focal point since 1983. This portfolio was initiated with a portable Nakamichi DMP-100 encoder and Betamax storage system, in conjunction with a pair of Sennheiser HD 580 headphones for monitoring.

In the 30 years since, my recording suite has gradually evolved, and its epicenter is now a Pacific Microsonics Model One HDCD processor (the HDCD technology is now owned by Microsoft). Signal pickup is via two pairs of powered reference DPA microphones with associated preamplifiers: a cardioid Type 3512 and an omnidirectional Type 4004. An Alesis Masterlink ML-9600 hard-disk recorder stores all recorded information as high-resolution 24-bit files.

Daniel Lantz Trio: "Plays Bond"

Created on Monday, 01 April 2013 00:00

Written by Joseph Taylor

Category: Recording of the Month

Plays Bond Do Music DMRCD 012
Format: CD

Musical Performance ****
Sound Quality ****1/2
Overall Enjoyment ****1/2

The James Bond movie series, now 50 years old, is probably as vital today as it was in the Sean Connery years. My son and I agree that Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Connery, and that the last three films are some of the most enjoyable the series has produced in years. The music in the films is almost as iconic as the main character, especially the themes composed by the late John Barry. But pop tunes written for them by other songwriters have also found their way into our collective memories.