Two or Three a Month
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: For the Record
In my younger, poorer years, I spent an inordinate amount of my free time scouring garage sales and rummaging used-record stores for LPs. In those days, the early 1990s -- God help me, nearly 30 years ago -- used vinyl was plentiful and cheap.
"Baby Face" Willette: "Face to Face" and Grant Green: "Grant’s First Stand"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
“Baby Face” Willette: “Face to Face”
Blue Note B0029750-01
Format: LP
Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: *****
Overall Enjoyment: *****
Grant Green: “Grant’s First Stand”
Blue Note B7745061
Format: LP
Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ****½
Blue Note’s celebration of its 80th birthday continues, and I wanted to cover two new pressings featuring nearly the same players but released in different reissue series. “Baby Face” Willette’s Face to Face has been returned to print on vinyl as part of the Tone Poet series, mastered by Kevin Gray under Joe Harley’s supervision. Grant Green’s Grant’s First Stand is part of the Blue Note 80 series, also mastered by Gray but produced by Don Was.
McIntosh Laboratory MT10 Turntable
- Written by: Jeff Sirody
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
McIntosh Laboratory was founded in 1949, when vinyl was a growing source for music reproduction. But it wasn’t until nearly 60 years later that the venerable company, based in Binghamton, New York, introduced its first turntable model. The debut of the MT10 turntable ($11,500 USD) was polarizing: Those who first saw it loved it or hated it. I remember some of the comments: “A turntable with a meter? Why?!” or “I don’t care how it sounds, it just looks too odd.” But most of the people who panned it had yet to hear it.
My Most Controversial Review Ever
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
In May 2005, SoundStage! Hi-Fi (then simply SoundStage!) published my review of the darTZeel Audio NHB-108 Model One stereo amplifier. I had lots of good things to say about this super-cool Swiss product, and in the years since, it seems that many audiophiles have enjoyed having one at the heart of their high-end systems. To say it has had a successful run would be an understatement.
Magico A3 Loudspeakers
- Written by: Hans Wetzel
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
In June 2016, when I reviewed Magico’s S1 Mk.II loudspeaker ($16,500/pair; all prices USD), I loved it. “The finest two-way speaker I’ve heard,” I declared. In late 2017, when Magico announced their new entry-level model, the A3, I was cautiously optimistic. The A3 struck me as a vitally important product for Magico, which had built its reputation on speakers whose performance ceilings were exceeded only by their sky-high prices. As with everything else in life, if you want the state of the art, you have to cough up the dough. The A3’s original price of $9800/pair put it in direct competition with models from many hi-fi heavyweights. And there was something else: Would the A3 look and feel like a Magico speaker? Most important, would it sound like a Magico?
Stan Getz: "Getz at the Gate: The Stan Getz Quartet Live at the Village Gate, Nov. 26, 1961"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
Verve 80029739-02 (2 CDs), B0029738-01 (3 LPs)
Formats: CD and LP
Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ****
When Stan Getz returned to the US in 1961 after three years in Europe, John Coltrane had just won the top slot in the Downbeat and Metronome jazz polls, a position Getz had held for the previous 11 years, and Sonny Rollins was returning to the scene after two years of study and practice. Coltrane and Rollins were now the leading tenor players of the day. Getz was a little out of step.
Merrill Audio Element 118 Mono Amplifiers
- Written by: Aron Garrecht
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
Merrill Audio Advanced Technology Labs, LLC, was founded in 2010 by Merrill Wettasinghe, who not only earned a BS in electrical engineering and an MBA, and enjoyed a career in R&D and marketing with Hewlett-Packard, but has long had a passion for purity of sound. In 2011, Wettasinghe released the first Merrill Audio amplifier, the Veritas monoblock ($12,000 USD per pair, discontinued). The Veritas was considered a breakthrough product not only for its sound quality, but also for being one of the first amplifiers to be based on Hypex’s Ncore NC1200 class-D power module. At the time, it was also one of the few amps to use point-to-point litz wiring of ultrapure copper, rhodium-plated binding posts of solid copper, and top-quality XLR connectors -- all made by Cardas.
Five Products I Really Want: Summer 2019 Edition
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
I’ve been a reviewer of high-end audio gear for 22 years now, but precisely two years ago my expenditures on gear took a sharp decline. That was when I announced that “Jeff’s Getting a New Stereo System,” for reasons explained in that article. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still hanker for products I’ve heard or seen, whether at shows or in press releases from manufacturers, and it doesn’t mean I don’t still get super-enthusiastic about cool gear.
Valve Amplification Company Master Preamplifier
- Written by: Garrett Hongo
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
When I was a teenager growing up in South Los Angeles in the 1960s, the most vaunted among us were the guys who tinkered with their cars and souped them up with fuel injection, overhead cams, dual carburetors, heavy-duty MacPherson strut suspensions, and 8-track super stereos with speakers arrayed in the dash, the doors, and the rear deck under a tinted back window. This was the SoCal car culture celebrated by the Beach Boys in “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” and “Don’t Worry Baby” -- male-teen sexual prowess sublimated and distilled into small fleets of superb, gleaming machines and gallant jalopies. A guy I knew in my neighborhood was always under the hood of his ’50s Dodge coupe, working some sort of magic I had no clue about. His father and uncles were partners in a gas station and garage, and my friend had been a grease monkey since childhood, at first just pumping gas and changing tires and spark plugs, but quickly advancing until he could swap out stock parts for custom, fine-tune an engine’s timing, raise a car’s suspension, and supercharge everything in his inline six engine until it could accelerate faster than a stock V8. He was a marvel among us and his wheels were so cool, he got all the girls we could only dream of dating.
My Last Stand and MoFi's Terrific MasterTracker Cartridge
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: For the Record
A few months ago, I commissioned a new audio rack -- a double-wide, overbuilt, steel-and-wood monstrosity. Well, I recently got a call from the craftsman, Jason Trauzzi, who told me it was nearing completion. He was building the rack from 2” square-section steel tubing, a top shelf of 2”-thick walnut, and three lower shelves of 1”-thick walnut. The smartphone photos he sent me were stunning -- I figured I’d better get the rest of my ingredients in order.
- Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan: "Epistrophy"
- Constellation Audio Revelation Andromeda Phono Stage
- Why You Want Your Audio Gear Measured
- Audio Research Reference 6 Preamplifier
- Stan Getz & Bill Evans: "Stan Getz & Bill Evans: Previously Unreleased Recordings"
- Essential Sound Products MusicCord Pro Power Cord
- Being an Audiophile Is Not a Serious Endeavor. Or Is It?
- Gryphon Audio Designs Mojo S Loudspeakers
- A Death in the Family -- and Record Cleaning with Revolv
- Sam Rivers: "Contours"
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