SoundStage! Xperience SoundStage! Xperience
  • Features
      • Back
      • Pulse!
      • Music Everywhere
      • Curator
      • Art+Tech
  • Encore
  • Entertainment
      • Back
      • By Category
          • Back
          • DVD Movies, Features & Shows
          • Blu-ray Movies
          • Blu-ray Features & Shows
          • Blu-ray Music
          • CD Music
          • Download Music
          • SACD Music
          • Vinyl Music
  • Equipment
  • WesWorld
      • Back
      • Feature Articles & Reviews
      • Collector's Corner
      • Back
      • SoundStage! Network (portal)
      • SoundStage! Access
      • SoundStage! Australia
      • SoundStage! Global
      • SoundStage! Hi-Fi
      • SoundStage! Life (podcast)
      • SoundStage! Simplifi
      • SoundStage! Solo
      • SoundStage! Ultra
      • SoundStage! Xperience (here)
  • More
      • Back
      • Newsletter
      • Equipment Buying Guides
      • Advertisers
MartinLogan
Paradigm Art Embracing Science
Axiom
Hegel Music Systems
Bluesound
SVS
NAD
PSB
Feed Entries
Bryston

Pulse!

Dire Straits on MoFi Vinyl

Details
Pulse!

March 2020

In 1978, when Dire Straits released their first album, Dire Straits, punk and new wave were rising, and disco’s days were numbered. A glance at the albums released that year, however, shows that there was still interest in the roots-based music that was Dire Straits’ specialty. Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits’ songwriter and lead singer, wrote songs that took in jazz, folk, blues, and more, and his lead-guitar playing was imaginative and elegant. Guitar heroes by then were unfashionable, but Knopfler’s emphasis on melody over flash and his skills as a composer made his band -- younger brother and rhythm guitarist David Knopfler, bassist John Illsley, and drummer Pick Withers -- stand out from the pack.

Read more …

Best of the Decade in Jazz

Details
Pulse!

December 2019

My first best-of-the-decade list was a defensive reaction to the frequently revived notion that jazz is dying, or worse. Those kinds of negative notions were swirling again in 2009, so I decided to look back at the recordings that had caught my ear over the previous ten years.

Read more …

Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea Reissued in Blue Note's Tone Poet Series

Details
Pulse!

This year is the 80th anniversary of Blue Note Records, the venerable jazz label established by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis in 1939. While other record companies played important roles in documenting jazz, Blue Note’s presence in the marketplace overshadows them. It’s doubtful that any other jazz label is better known, or has more recordings currently available in various formats -- the number of Blue Note titles in circulation on CD, as downloads, or on recent vinyl pressings is staggering. Blue Note is also a favorite of audiophile reissue labels, several of which have licensed albums from its catalog to release as new LPs.

Read more …

Bernie Grundman Remasters Frank Zappa

Details
Pulse!

November 2018

Twenty-five years after Frank Zappa’s death from prostate cancer at age 52, it’s still difficult to assess his career, in part because it was so multifaceted. Composer, guitarist, satirist, free-speech activist -- Zappa had many sides, and while they often overlapped, it’s easier to appreciate each of them separately: he was almost compulsively prolific. In his last 27 years he released 64 albums, many of them multi-disc sets, and since then the Zappa Family Trust has released an additional 49 albums, bringing the total of available Zappa releases to 111.

Read more …

Two I Missed the First Time Around: Judee Sill and Murray Head

Details
Pulse!

July 2018

By the early 1970s, rock music was firmly established as a cultural force, and the influx of cash from increased album sales gave record companies incentive to try new things. It was a time when musicians beyond category, such as Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, could have recording contracts with a major label. The ambition of bands both famous and obscure over the previous five years had opened the minds of listeners to all kinds of possibilities, and that willingness to permit and encourage experimentation extended to pop music of all genres. Stevie Wonder, to choose just one example, released some of his most ambitious and groundbreaking recordings in the early ’70s.

Read more …

Newvelle Records' Subscription LP Service

Details
Pulse!

May 2018

Newvelle Records is a Paris-based label that offers jazz recordings on vinyl by subscription. For an annual fee of $400 (plus shipping), the subscriber receives a newly recorded LP every other month and, at the end of the year, a handsome, heavyweight slipcase to store them all in. This year is the third for this service, but you can buy each of the previous annual collections, while still available, for the same price as the subscription.

Read more …

Is There Room for Taste in Audio?

Details
Pulse!

April 2018

The recent launch of Schiit Audio’s Loki equalizer, which I first saw at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, inspired me to rethink some of the ideas I’ve long held about audio. The Loki provides a simple, affordable ($149 USD) way to alter the sound of the music you’re listening to. That the Loki is one of only a handful of equalizers ever marketed to audiophiles spotlights a paradox in high-end audio: It’s generally considered verboten to use an equalizer to change the sound of the music you’re listening to, but it’s perfectly OK -- and, in some camps, preferred -- to alter the sound of music through the use of speakers and electronics that add their own sonic color. Check out the comments sections on audio websites and you’ll see that many audiophiles shun the most scientifically advanced, sonically transparent speakers (PSBs, Revels, etc.) and embrace speakers with demonstrably colored sounds -- such as any model using a full-range dynamic driver.

Read more …

Is High-End Audio Still About Music?

Details
Pulse!

March 2018

When I got into high-end audio, around 1990, I was attracted to its focus on achieving more realistic reproduction of the music that has been my passion since I was eight or nine years old. But I’m starting to feel that high-end audio now often aims at a different goal.

Read more …

A Crisis in Headphone Measurement?

Details
Pulse!

February 2018

I’d thought that the measuring of headphones was improving, but some recent developments have made me not so sure. Last year, the introduction of some excellent new lab gear made it possible for experienced engineers and technicians to make more useful measurements than ever before. But the introduction of some very cheap, nonstandard measurement gear has made it possible for almost anyone to make headphone measurements that are less useful than ever before.

Read more …

What Does a Brand Mean in 2018?

Details
Pulse!

January 2018

My recent review of the Monoprice Monolith M300 earphones, and my friend Steve Guttenberg’s review of the M300s on CNet, have raised a timely question. The M300s seem to be a knockoff of one of Audeze’s iSine planar-magnetic earphone models, but they arrived so soon after the iSines’ introduction that it makes me wonder if some third party isn’t dealing to both sides. The provenance of the tech products we buy is increasingly unclear, a situation that prompts me to ponder: Today, what does a brand mean?

Read more …

  1. The Differences Between Home Theater and High-End Audio . . . Two Decades On
  2. The Problem with Blind Testing
  3. Is It Possible to Say Something Stupid About Audio?
  4. Do Digital Masters Ruin Vinyl Records?
  5. The Indispensable Headphones -- and What They Say About What Matters Most
  6. What We Really Need from New Audio Products
  7. Does Love of Physical Media Have Anything to Do With Love of Music?
  8. What Does Samsung's Purchase of Harman Portend?
  9. Can Headphone Measurements Get Better?
  10. Science, Belief, and Audio
  11. The Five Best New Headphones and Earphones from CES 2017
  12. Six Audio Predictions for 2017
  13. Can We Know What the Artist Intends?
  14. How Audio Products Are Really Designed
  15. Is It Valid to Say that an Audio Product Sucks?
  16. Four Rules for Getting Great In-Wall Sound
  17. Why Most Audio Products Don't Deserve Glowing Reviews
  18. What the USB-C Revolution Will Mean for Headphones
  19. The Future of Headphone Listening
  20. A Cheap Wireless Speaker Shows the Future of Audio
  21. A Shakeup at Sonos Shakes Up the Audio Industry
  22. Can You Trust Customer Reviews on Amazon?
  23. The Five Best New Headphones at CES 2016
  24. What We Can and Can't Tell from Measurements of Headphones
  25. Why Hi-Rez Audio Still Struggles
  26. The Five Best Noise-Canceling Headphones and Earphones (According to Me)
  27. Why Believing in Headphone Break-in Can Be Harmful
  28. The Most Promising (and Unexplored) Area in High-End Audio
  29. The Five Best Closed-Back, Over-Ear Headphones (According to Me)
  30. Does a Product's Backstory Matter?
  31. The Five Best Earphones (According to Me)
  32. Why Headphone Amps Drive Me Nuts
  33. We Need a New Definition of "Audiophile"
  34. How Bad are Digital Streams and Downloads?
  35. What CES 2015 Means for the Future of Audio
  36. The Biggest Audio Development of 2014
  37. Why Simpler Isn’t Always -- or Even Usually -- Better
  38. Audiophiles: Stop Hating on Science!
  39. Should You Listen to Someone Who Criticizes Your Taste in Headphones?
  40. Dolby Atmos: A Lot More than More Channels
  41. Do Subwoofers Have a Sound?
  42. Why Dynamic-Range Compression Is Not the Work of the Devil
  43. Why Designing Wireless Speakers and Soundbars Is So Different . . . and So Much Harder
  44. What Measurements Really Tell You About Headphones
  45. The Point People Are Missing About Pono
  46. Why You Shouldn’t Ridicule the Bluetooth Speaker
  47. Are Headphones for Serious Listening?
  48. Binaural Recordings
  49. A Modern A/V Receiver: The Onkyo TX-NR808
  50. Cheap Stuff Can Be Surprisingly Good
  51. All About the 6th-Generation Apple iPod Nano
  52. ThinkFlood RedEye Universal Remote Application and Transmitter
  53. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Home Audio
  54. Is Bipolar Dead?
  55. Media Players and Servers: Something for Everyone
  56. (Don’t) Look Before You Leap
  57. In Praise of 5.1
  58. 3D Home Theater: Should You Wait?
  59. iPod Touch Apps: Free is Good
  60. The Apple iPad and Alternatives
  61. New Integrated Amps Are Truly Integrated

Page 3 of 10

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
KEF LS60
KEF KC 62

SoundStage! Xperience is part of

SoundStage!

All contents available on this website are copyrighted by SoundStage!® and Schneider Publishing Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

This site was designed by JoomlaShack, Karen Fanas, and The SoundStage! Network.

To contact us, please e-mail info@soundstagenetwork.com