The Magic Numbers: "Outsiders"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
Role Play RPRV03 (CD), Park the Van PTV-LP70 (LP)
Formats: CD and LP
Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ***½
The Magic Numbers have released five albums, and while this British quartet comprising two brother-sister pairs has kept great harmonies and solid pop melodies at the center of their sound, they’ve also worked to keep things fresh. Their first two records, The Magic Numbers (2005) and Those the Brokes (2006), were straightforward in execution, letting the vocals and songs speak for themselves. The Runaway (2010) added string arrangements and a bit more instrumental complexity, and Alias (2014) worked in the occasional distorted guitar and sound effect.
Top Wing Blue Dragon Phono Cartridge
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
I’ve spent the last decade or so watching some audiophiles of my acquaintance twist themselves inside out trying to rationalize spending a fortune they don’t really have on things they don’t really need. I used to be like that, but thank all that’s holy, I grew out of it.
Jeff’s New Room
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
In May of this year I wrote about “Jeff’s New Temporary Audio System” -- a modest stereo setup in the rental house my family moved into after the sale of our previous home of 14 years. In that article I mentioned that we’d bought a piece of land and planned to build a new house from the ground up, including a new listening room. That plan fell through due to that property’s topography. Long story short: Drainage problems made building the house we wanted too expensive. We broke our purchase contract and the plan was scrapped.
Simaudio Moon 888 Mono Amplifiers
- Written by: Aron Garrecht
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
For over a decade, Simaudio itched to produce a state-of-the-art, cost-no-object, reference-grade power amplifier. Unfortunately, low market demand and high development costs forced them to postpone this and other such projects -- but they didn’t stop thinking about them. In fact, a little over a decade ago, Simaudio created what they call their skunkworks bin, where they keep their more technically creative yet economically impractical ideas. Kept under lock and key, this bin is opened only when the high-end market is robust enough to make the design and manufacture of such products cost effective.
Controlling Resonance Control
- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: For the Record
If you’re reading this column, there’s a good chance you identify as an audiophile. I’m with you -- I grudgingly apply that label to myself. But along with all the glory of having a smokin’ system on which to listen to music comes some baggage.
Billy Squier: "Don't Say No"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
Intervention IR-020
Format: LP
Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****
When I got my first apartment, in 1981, the first thing I did was order a cable-TV package that included MTV. In those days, MTV programmed nothing but music videos -- it was the only way I could hear the Clash and the Jam, let alone the English Beat. Punk and New Wave got little airplay on the local FM stations, so MTV helped me hear some great new bands.
Synergistic Research SR25 Limited Edition Power Cord
- Written by: Howard Kneller
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
An audio system’s sound quality can be affected by, among other things, the type of signal cables, vibration-management products, and room treatments used. However, there is perhaps no more important variable than power. Whether this is due to the essential role that power plays in a signal’s generation, as opposed to its conversion or distribution, is hard to say. What is certain is that the stream of ever-better-performing power products installed in my system over the years has never failed to impress me.
Five Things High-End Manufacturers Could Do to Improve Their Press Releases
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
These days there seems to be a lot of activity in the audio industry -- lots of new product launches -- and in the past week I’ve probably read ten press releases from manufacturers. But just as all audiophile products aren’t created equal, neither are the press releases that attempt to attract customers and reviewers to those products. When a company circulates a press release, and I’m deciding if I want to get its subject product in for review, by me or by someone else in the SoundStage! Network, I often see things that bother me. I wonder if they bother you, too.
Balanced Audio Technology VK-53SE Preamplifier
- Written by: Aron Garrecht
- Category: Full-Length Reviews
Balanced Audio Technology, aka BAT, was founded by Steve Bednarski and Victor Khomenko in the early 1990s. Their first two products, the VK-5 preamplifier and VK-60 power amplifier, were launched in January 1995 at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, and those debuts were anything but customary. As the story goes, Geoff Poor, BAT’s current director of sales, had joined Bednarski and Khomenko as a full partner in 1995, having for some years led the marketing department at Dunlavy Audio Labs. Not long before that, while still working at Dunlavy, Poor had invited Bednarski and Khomenko to his family store for a demo of some Dunlavy speakers driven by the forthcoming VK-5 and VK-60. That went so well that Poor convinced John Dunlavy to use the BAT gear to drive his all-new SC-V speakers for their world premiere at the 1995 Winter CES. The tremendous success of this triple debut, held in the ballroom of the Golden Nugget Hotel, created a buzz infectious enough to flood the ballroom with visitors for the rest of the show.
The Steve Miller Band: "Sailor"
- Written by: Joseph Taylor
- Category: Recording of the Month
Capital/Universal Music 00602567239109
Format: LP
Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ****
Steve Miller secured his place on classic rock radio in 1973 with The Joker, which began a run of popular LPs that continued with Fly Like an Eagle (1976) and Book of Dreams (1977). Songs from those albums still get heavy airplay, so your chances of hearing them in the grocery store or a cafeteria are pretty high. While those albums are well crafted and full of good humor, Miller’s best records, for me at least, remain his first four, all released under the name The Steve Miller Band: Children of the Future, Sailor (both 1968), Brave New World, and Your Saving Grace (both 1969).
- Sumiko Reference Starling Moving-Coil Phono Cartridge
- Trying Not to Be That Guy
- Tidal Piano G2 Loudspeakers
- Stuff You Didn't Know You Needed
- Leon Bridges: "Good Thing"
- ZYX Ultimate 4D-X MC Phono Cartridge
- The Music Vault's Greatest Hits
- European Audio Team E-Glo S Phono Stage
- Neil Young: "Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live"
- Balanced Audio Technology VK-255SE Stereo Amplifier
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