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August 2017

New West 6398
Format: CD

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Beck’s idiosyncratic mashups generally defy cover versions, let alone by veteran southern jazz-rock artists. So finding a credible version of “Devils Haircut,” one of the core tracks of Beck’s breakthrough Odelay, on the 14th album by Randall Bramblett is a surprise.

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July 2017

“Schiit happens.” It’s not the sort of language usually found in an owner’s manual for a headphone amplifier like Schiit Audio’s Jotunheim ($399 USD). No, an owner’s manual is usually full of bland marketing copy, loosened rules of grammar, regulatory warnings, and stultifying technical detail. I almost never use them, and unless you’re a novice audiophile, neither should you. The folks at Schiit seem to agree. In the preface to their safety instructions, they state: “The following is required by the roughly 9,542 government agencies and regulations we have to comply with. If you have some common sense, they should seem pretty straightforward.” Who are these guys? I did some digging.

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July 2017

An Oddity from an Unexpected Source

Arrow Films AA011/A-TM
Format: Blu-ray

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We have the Criterion Collection to thank for a 21st-century interest in French film director Georges Franju (1912-1987). The release of the black-and-white horror film Eyes Without a Face (1959) singled out Franju as a most interesting artist, and his Judex (1963), also reissued by Criterion, also proved worth watching.

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July 2017

Audio-Technica was perhaps a little late to the Bluetooth game, but since then the company has produced many headphones of distinction that include the wireless technology. Now they’ve come up with a new type of digital transmission that makes their new ATH-DSR7BT over-ear headphones ($299 USD) unique, and well worth considering as all-around ’phones that live up to the Hi-Res Audio badge printed on the box.

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July 2017

In the last six weeks, I’ve been to two audio shows -- High End, in Munich, and the Los Angeles Audio Show -- while fielding my usual volume of new-product announcements and visits to manufacturers. In that time I’ve witnessed the debuts of hundreds of audio components. What strikes me, though, is not the large number of products I’ve seen, but the extremely small number that I remember.

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HiFiMan Susvara headphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.

July 2017

Trying to judge the HiFiMan Susvara headphones on the basis of only their performance and design is as hopeless as trying not to think of an elephant. Once you see the Susvaras’ $6000 USD price tag, there’s no way to banish from your mind this question: “How can a set of headphones be worth so much?”

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July 2017

A couple of years ago, I was working on a story about Roon and its use as a database tool for recording studios. As I talked with one engineer, he mentioned that studio monitor speakers -- especially those made by Barefoot Sound -- had achieved such a high level of quality that musicians and engineers could now hear the functional equivalent of a straight wire with gain from recording studio to control room. Pro-audio magazines and websites were passing along a lot of similar buzz about Barefoot monitors, especially from musicians, many of whom requested -- even demanded -- having Barefoot monitors in the control rooms of the studios they worked in. Over the last decade, Barefoot’s monitors grew in reputation until one model, the MicroMain27 Gen2 ($10,495/pair), became the recording industry’s de facto standard.

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July 2017

Pi 69
Format: CD

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Alto saxophonists Ornette and Steve Coleman share more than their instrument of choice and surnames; the younger Coleman was the first major bandleader since his namesake to make music that moved mind and body in equal measure.

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June 2017

A Much Better Film Than I Thought in 1983

The Criterion Collection 869
Format: Blu-ray

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Director Francis Ford Coppola has usually alternated his big blockbuster movies, such as The Godfather (1972), with more personal, insightful, lower-budget offerings such as The Conversation (1974). After Apocalypse Now (1979) and before The Cotton Club (1984), he directed two small films based on novels by S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983). Sharing many cast members, the films are quite different. The Outsiders is a color, stylized-by-Hollywood effort; Rumble Fish is more personal, moody, and was shot mostly in black-and-white.

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June 2017

I’ve just reached a milestone: the first time in my life I can recall passing an independent record store without going in. I did give the shop -- in downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia -- a good once-over. But faced with the prospect of missing one of Ljubljana’s other attractions because of the 30 to 60 minutes I’d spend browsing the store’s racks, all to acquire more records that I wouldn’t be able to play except in my listening room, I kept moving.

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