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Details: CD music

December 2017

Kwimu Music
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

When you’ve heard someone play music as often as I’ve heard Ottawa-based guitarist Roddy Ellias over the past 40 years, it’s easy to overlook some of the things you hear; not to say that you ever actually take their musicianship for granted. With the 68-year-old Ellias, who has been more than a passing acquaintance for much of those four decades, it’s not so much familiarity or ubiquity that contributes to that state as his quiet self-deprecation. He’s so low key that it’s easy to forget that he’s both a world-class player and composer.

Details: Feature Reviews

November 2017

Wireless loudspeakers are propagating at a remarkable rate. The first appeared in the 1990s, and received music signals from the source components via RF. But they sounded pretty awful, and didn’t catch on. The next wireless speakers used Bluetooth, which have gradually become better as Bluetooth’s codecs have improved, from SBC to aptX to the new aptX HD. Lately we’ve seen a proliferation of wireless speakers that work via Wi-Fi; these are easy to implement, as most people’s homes now have a wireless network. Apple, Google, and Amazon are the latest and biggest players in this market, with voice-activated products that also play music.

Details: Pulse!

November 2017

As I write this, I’ve just returned from the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, where I moderated a panel titled “Best Headphone Rigs vs. State-of-the-Art Audio Systems.” One comment, from PSB Speakers founder and chief engineer Paul Barton, especially stuck with me. As best I can recall, he said, “Once you go to blind testing, where the listeners can’t see the identity of the products, everything changes,” and he punctuated it with a wave of both arms.

Details: Feature Reviews

November 2017

I’ve been asked to review several home-theater soundbars over the years, and I usually decline. In my experience, the vast majority of them don’t sound any good. They’re so compromised in size and abilities that they wouldn’t be on the radar of most home-theater enthusiasts. Nor have I had an easy way to accommodate a soundbar, either in my home-theater room or my living room. The speakers in my living room are on-wall models, and running wires from my receiver to a traditional soundbar would be messy.

Details: CD music

November 2017

Megaforce
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Outrageously overlooked in the annals of recent rock history in favor of other mid-’80s bands like Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, Living Colour is back, and sounding tougher than ever. The quartet’s sixth album -- its first since 2009 -- is an extended meditation on the blues that is stuffed full of slamming guitar hooks and uncompromising social commentary.

Details: Feature Reviews

October 2017

The Missus and I relocated to the Carolina coast earlier this year, and are now happily perched next to a tidal creek and its wondrous array of wetlands avifauna. When we moved, two desires (read: edicts) were that the living area of our new house have excellent music and movie sound but not be awash in speakers. This is something I clearly understand. Few artifacts of modern living disrupt domestic feng shui more than arrays of surround-sound speakers, and man, there can be a host of them -- 11.2 channels, anyone?

Details: Pulse!

October 2017

Asked the question I pose in the title of this article, most of the people I deal with in the audio industry with would say, “Of course.” But a few -- including most high-end audio publications and some high-end audio manufacturers -- might say, “No.” “Trust your ears,” they tell us over and over, implying that whatever you hear, or think you hear, is just as real and valid -- and perhaps even more so -- than conclusions derived from blind testing, laboratory measurements, or scientific research.

Details: Music Everywhere

October 2017

Audio-Technica is vigorously promoting its new Pure Digital Drive headphone models, the ATH-DRS7BT ($299 USD) and ATH-DSR9BT ($549). But lest you feel left out in the cold by those prices, A-T also offers the dandy ATH-SR6BTBKs for $199 -- $100 less than the ATH-DSR7BTs, which I reviewed in July, and an appealing alternative about which there’s much to like. One catch -- the ATH-SR6BTBKs are available only at selected Best Buy stores and Best Buy’s website.

Details: Feature Reviews

Sennheiser HD 4.50 BTNC headphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.

October 2017

Reviewers' Choice Some of the fabled audio brands of my teen years, in the 1970s, seem to be aging even less gracefully than I am as they face brutal competition from online merchants and low-cost Chinese brands. Sure, established names like Sennheiser can still command a premium over such brands as Fleeken, Hiearcool, and Paww. But when consumers can choose between OK headphones for $70 and name-brand cans for $350, most will likely cheap out. I’m guessing this is why Sennheiser has introduced the HD 4.50 BTNC noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones for $199.95 USD -- half the price of their next-least-expensive current models of this type, the PXC 550 Wireless and HD1 On-Ear Wireless, both at $399.95.

Details: CD music

October 2017

Rounder 1166100054
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

The first music review I had published examined an album by Gregg Allman. By then, 1977, I’d already been hearing his voice for seven years. So I approach his final recording with both sadness and a wealth of historical context. Although I met Allman only once -- very briefly on a beach in Macon, Georgia, in 1979 -- I feel like I’m saying farewell to an old friend.

Details: Feature Reviews

JBL E55BT Quincy Edition headphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.

September 2017

The E55BT Quincy Edition headphones take me back to the early days of the headphone boom, when it seemed that the primary goal of headphone brands was to get a celebrity to endorse their products. While endorsements were once common to the point of absurdity -- Soul Electronics sold a model endorsed by Tim Tebow -- these days they’re rare. I think the E55BT Quincy Edition ($199.95 USD) is the first set of celeb-endorsed headphones I’ve reviewed in about four years.

Details: Blu-ray movies

September 2017

Second Filming of a Hemingway Novel Scores on Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 889
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment

Picture Quality

Sound Quality

Extras

The Breaking Point (1950) was Warner Bros.’ second stab at Ernest Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not. The better-known earlier version (1944), which shared its title with the novel, featured the onscreen chemistry of Humphrey Bogart and 19-year-old Lauren Bacall. I believe that The Breaking Point is just as good, and one of the best films ever made by its star, John Garfield.

Details: Pulse!

September 2017

High-end audio thrives on controversy, and recently, when the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Why Vinyl’s Boom Is Over,” it got plenty. The high-end audio press attacked the author’s article, WSJ staff reporter Neil Shah. It’s an infuriating piece that presents as fact statements that are little more than opinion. But while it’s depressing that the editorial staff of the WSJ (who are not the same people responsible for the paper’s notoriously provocative editorial page) let this one through, the article does raise a couple of issues that vinyl-loving audiophiles should ponder.

Details: Music Everywhere

September 2017

JBL has upgraded its series of Everest Elite headphones with the new 750NC. A price of $299.95 USD might seem a bit much for a pair of headphones made almost entirely of plastic, but as I grew more familiar with the Everest Elite 750NCs, I began to think they might be worth it.