In this issue

Jazz at a Dark Moment
This year’s San Jose Jazz Fest blended great American musicians with counterparts from Ukraine.

Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3 loudspeaker
by Kal Rubinson

GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - An affordable purist amplifier with punch

It was a cold March-in-Brooklyn morning. Clouds had been shedding wintery mix since daybreak. By 9am, birds were flash-mobbing my window, demanding suet. But I was frozen-unable to pull my mind loose from the grave flowings of American composer Ned Rorem's Book of Hours, as performed by Les Connivences Sonores on the album Musikalische Perlen (24/48 FLAC, Ars Produktion/Qobuz). The sounds in my room were sensuous and mesmerizing, and I needed to float in their mysterious energy as long as I could.

10+ mins

BRILLIANT CORNERS - Come Hell or High Water

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city,\" John Steinbeck wrote in 1953. \"But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.\" Decades later, the novelist's insight about this appalling, incomparable city still feels true.

10+ mins

SPIN DOCTOR - Swiss precision

In 1928, Swiss engineer and inventor Jean-Léon Reutter created a clock that could run for years without human interaction or any type of external power source. The Atmos Clock required no AC power, batteries, solar panels, or hand-winding. It was able to wind itself by leveraging subtle changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.

10+ mins

HiFi Rose RS520 - STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

My first car was a decrepit, mustard-yellow Peugeot 304 with a navy hood. The blue hue wasn't a fashion statement; after an accident, the previous owner had gone to a salvage yard where only a blue replacement could be procured.

10+ mins

Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3 - LOUDSPEAKER

Over a lifetime of involvement in audio, I have had stand-mount speakers-bookshelf speakers, as they were called back then-only twice.

8 mins

Antipodes Oladra - SERVER/STREAMER/RECLOCKER

Servers, servers, servers. How we who embrace digital hi-fi love them for their potential to make files and streams sound better (more alive, vital, musical, moving, transparent) than music served from a computer.

10+ mins

Miyajima Laboratory Wo-1 - PREAMPLIFIER

A phenomenon formerly unique to Japan, which in recent years has been emulated in cities around the world, is the jazz café (known as jazz kissa in Japan), where salarymen can find respite from their hectic lives, loosen their ties, and enjoy hi-fi jazz over coffee or a drink.'

7 mins

Living Sounds Audio Discovery Warp 1 - POWER AMPLIFIER

It takes a while for audio-related technologies to mature. Tubed amplifiers were invented by Lee de Forest in the nineteen-teens, but while there are still some adherents of early high-distortion triode designs, the age of mainstream high-fidelity amplification dawned with higher-power/lower-distortion amplifiers developed by Williamson and McIntosh followed by the Ultralinear take on the Williamson concept.

10+ mins

JAZZ AT A DARK MOMENT

THIS YEAR'S SAN JOSE JAZZ WINTER FEST HAD MEANING BEYOND MUSIC.

10+ mins

REVINYLIZATION - OJC rises (yet) again

Liner notes from jazz albums of the 1950s and 1960s can be shot through with naivete, hipsterism (usually faux), and callousness toward the abundance of musical talent then working. Few though are as shortsighted as the original essay by Jack Maher on the back of 1960's Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. Opening with \"Miles Davis is the most maligned and idolized musician in modern American jazz today.

3 mins

AURAL ROBERT - Elton's Magic Year

In 1973, Elton John and Bernie Taupin capped one of pop music's most epic periods of sustained creativity by writing, recording, and releasing the 10-track single disc Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and the 17-track double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, both of which are now celebrating their 50th anniversary. As two of the strongest entries among the many classics that make 1972-73 the peak years for rock albums, both went #1 in the US and UK and arguably stand as the dual highpoints of John's recorded legacy.

3 mins

RE-TALES - Succession

Many family-owned hi-fi companies have experienced generational leadership transitions over the last few years: Wilson Audio, Von Schweikert Audio, PS Audio, and VPI Industries, to name a few. In two of those cases, the founding father is still around. One of those is VPI Industries.

4 mins

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