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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"The Magnificent Ambersons"
March 2019
Orson Welles's Truncated Masterpiece Looks Great on Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 952
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
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RKO Radio Pictures cooked up this truncated version of Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) while the director was away in South America, filming his next (unfinished) film, It’s All True. At first Welles tried to communicate with RKO via long-distance calls, using fellow director Robert Wise as go-between, but to no avail: RKO made drastic cuts, rearranged the order of scenes, shot new scenes -- some directed by Wise -- and tacked on a sappy, happy ending.
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- Category: Music Everywhere Music Everywhere
Grace Digital Mondo+ Classic Wi-Fi Radio
March 2019
Grace Digital has built a well-earned reputation for giving great value for the dollar, and their latest product is no exception. The modestly priced Mondo+ Classic Wi-Fi radio ($249.99 USD) is built for the future, but can be enjoyed aplenty in the here and now.
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- Category: "On HiFi" with Wes Marshall "On HiFi" with Wes Marshall
iFi Audio's Pro iDSD: Streamer, DAC, Headphone Amp, Preamp -- All in One!
March 2019
SoundStage! has covered multiple products from iFi Audio. We began by looking at their earlier, value-centered products, many of which were involved with some aspect of headphone listening. In the last few years, iFi seems to have decided that the high end offers a promising marketplace as well. Their Pro iDSD ($2499 USD) now joins their Pro iCAN headphone amp ($1799) and Pro iESL electrostatic headphone amplifier ($1499) -- attempts to challenge the Mount Everest of the highest-quality audio products while maintaining at least a semblance of reasonable pricing.
Jeanne Lee & Ran Blake: "The Newest Sound You Never Heard"
March 2019
A-Side 0005
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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A decade before two young music nerds met at Bard College and sparked the evolution of Steely Dan, two other young oddballs -- 21-year-old Ran Blake and 17-year-old Jeanne Lee -- met on the same campus. Blake was a polymath pianist with a deep interest in Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Mary Lou Williams, gospel music, and film noir. Lee was equally eclectic, developing choreography for music by Arnold Schoenberg and simultaneously studying child psychology and literature. When she heard Blake playing piano one March afternoon in 1956, she told him he put her in mind of Art Tatum -- a musician most people would never associate with Blake’s minimalist style -- and he knew immediately that she had impressive ears.
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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"Horror Express"
February 2019
A Cult Classic Done Right from Arrow Films
Arrow Films AV179-TM
Format: Blu-ray
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Produced in Spain in 1972 for a measly $300,000, Horror Express has received terrible treatment since its release. It flopped in Spain but was better received in the UK, where it got excellent reviews. The US release was a disaster. The distributor had so little interest that it provided misleading poster art and, according to some reports, released a workprint to theaters.
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- Category: SoundStage! Encore SoundStage! Encore
Recording Drums with Howard Bilerman, Part 1: Philosophy
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- Category: Music Everywhere Music Everywhere
Music Everywhere: Bluesound Pulse Flex 2i Wi-Fi Speaker
February 2019
Ever since the huge success of Sonos’s wireless home sound systems, other manufacturers have been trying to imitate or surpass them. Bluesound seems to have come closer than anyone, albeit at premium prices. The Pulse Flex 2i might be their smallest and least costly model, but it’s packed with features, if still pricey at $299 USD -- but those features, which include a nifty app and the ability to stream from just about any source, will make it worth that price to many.
Joe Lovano: "Trio Tapestry"
February 2019
ECM 2615
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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As the pre-eminent tenor saxophonist of the past 30 years, Joe Lovano has taken on just about every musical style -- including Third Stream, in collaboration with pioneer Gunther Schuller, and operatic arias. The son of Anthony “Big T” Lovano, who was a tenor-playing hero around his hometown of Cleveland, Joe has been playing the instrument since 1958, when he was five.
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- Category: Music Everywhere Music Everywhere
Sbode M400 Bluetooth Speaker
January 2019
Sbode is a subsidiary of Chinese manufacturer Shenzhen Sbode Technology Co., Ltd., and their products are sold in the US exclusively on Sbode’s own website and on Amazon.com. The M400 Bluetooth speaker, despite its low price of $49.99 USD, offers more whistles and bells than speakers costing a lot more, and even has an FM radio. I was eager to see if all of its functions actually worked, and they did. But what about the sound quality?
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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"Forty Guns"
January 2019
Barbara Stanwyck as The Woman in Charge
Criterion Collection 954
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
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Forty Guns (1957) opens in silence. There’s an overhead long shot of the arid prairie, a small wagon crossing it like an ant. In a medium shot, the wagon is revealed as carrying three men whom we later learn are the Bonell brothers: Griff (Barry Sullivan), Wes (Gene Barry), and Chico (Robert Dix). The sound of hooves is heard, getting louder and louder. Suddenly, from around a bend in the road, Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) appears all in black, on a galloping white horse, leading 40 horsemen in two ranks. They split up to surround the wagon, and the point of view nervously shifts between high and low shots, emphasizing the tenseness of the situation. Drummond won’t appear again onscreen for another 20 minutes, but . . . what an entrance! Stanwyck was given one of the most memorable introductions ever caught on film.
