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PAT METHENY
FROM HIS PLACE
Vincent Audio SV-737
INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
REVINYLIZATION
Blood, Sweat & Tears began as Al Kooper’s dream of a rock band with horns. By the time he realized the concept—on the band’s 1968 debut, Child Is Father to the Man—it had become much more: an engaging hybrid of New York soul, Greenwich Village folk, and innovative jazz arrangements. With producer John Simon at the helm, Child was a virtual definition of the possibilities inherent in the heady musical experimentation of the late 1960s. Kooper’s writing and arranging for that record (including the monumental “I’ll Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” later a hit for Donny Hathaway) is one of the high points of his storied career. The record was justifiably praised as the conceptual breakthrough it was, and work had already begun on a follow-up when the band decided it needed a lead singer with more polish. Kooper left the group along with a couple of other key members.
Michi by Rotel M8
MONOBLOCK AMPLIFIER
Magico A5
It’s rare for a Stereophile reviewer to review two loud-speakers in a row from the same manufacturer, but then these are unusual times. Because of the pandemic, Magico’s M2s got stuck here for a year (I know: poor me). By the time they were packed up and shipped out, it was time for a long-scheduled review of the less-expensive, more-massive Magico A5 ($24,800/pair).
Line Magnetic LM-845IA
INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
FOLLOW-UP
The greater my own longevity, the more I admire that very quality—longevity, that is. An “upgrade path” is similarly appealing—if, regrettably, rarely available to humans, who are stuck with the equipment we were born with, give or take a prosthesis or two.
Esoteric Grandioso C1X
LINE PREAMPLIFIER
BOOK REVIEW
CHAIRMAN AT THE BOARD: RECORDING THE SOUNDTRACK OF A GENERATION, by Bill Schnee. Backbeat Books, 2021. 219pp. $24.49, hardcover; $21.49, Kindle e-book.
Classical Rock / Pop Jazz: Record Reviews
In its sixth year, International Anthem seriously stepped up production. 2020 saw the Chicago label releasing a fast succession of rewarding albums, including a standout disc by Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker and adventurous jazz by Rob Mazurek and the collective Irreversible Entanglements.
NAD C 298
POWER AMPLIFIER
ELAC Alchemy DPA-2
POWER AMPLIFIER
Fun with Moose and Squirrel
’Cause, it’s hard to say what’s real / When you know the way you feel —Flaming Lips, “One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21,” from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Marten Parker Trio Diamond
LOUDSPEAKER
GRAMOPHONE DREAMS
The bijou sub We have inherited an infinitely vast library of recorded musical art, the majority of which is well-recorded but has yet to be fully and completely reproduced.
Clearaudio Concept Active Wood
TURNTABLE
Focal Aria K2 936
LOUDSPEAKER
DCS BARTOK DAC/HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER
THIS ISSUE: Herb Reichert on the dCS Bartók; Ken Micallef reprises his Schiit Sol review, trying it out with some better ancillaries.
The magnificent eight
The Story of the Grateful Dead, a 14-LP, 8-album collection of Grateful Dead recordings with booklet and deluxe packaging, from Vinyl Me, Please (VMP-A006, 2020), is intended as a curated sampling of the high points in the Dead’s extensive catalog. The first seven albums were cut from analog tape, while Without a Net comes from the original digital master. The sound is breathtaking.
T+A Solitaire P headphones and HA 200 DACheadphone amplifier
What I categorize as mainstream, dealer-based, fancy-pants stream-ers and big-speakers audio is actually only the gold-plated tip of a gigantic asteroid-like monolith that extends (underground) from New York to Hong Kong, from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica. This immense audio-social mass is mostly invisible to the Madison Avenue mainstream, but simple Google searches expose millions of proletarian audio-gear constructers (DIY’ers) working in shops, basements, and garages, scratch-building everything from turntables to tonearms to phono cartridges, to capacitors and vacuum tubes, to amplifiers, headphones, ribbon and electrostatic speakers.
MAKE MORE NOISE!
The title of this set—4 CDs and a book—comes from British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst’s call to arms for women to fight for their rights: “You have to make more noise than anybody else,” said Pankhurst, who died in 1928.
RECORD REVIEWS
EDITOR’S PICK - RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Landscape into music
It says something about the power of music that some individuals fading into dementia can still recognize the music they knew earlier in their lives. Not to denigrate new music, or music one hasn’t heard before, but our mental jukeboxes award top chart numbers to music that we have lived with over time. Those DJs making their playlists in our brain are the toughest of critics. They don’t care what anyone else might think, “Close to You” is staying in the rotation. Music and memory are linked.
Some great new reissues
For jazz fans, a new batch of releases in Blue Note’s Tone Poet series—vinyl reissues remastered with care and cut from the original analog tapes—is the reason for celebration.
PS Audio Stellar M1200
MONOBLOCK POWER AMPLIFIER
McIntosh MAC7200
STEREO RECEIVER
Marantz Model 30
INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
KEF LS50 Meta LOUDSPEAKER
LOUDSPEAKER
Cambridge Audio CXA81
INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
BOWIE, CURATED
FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ICON’S PASSING, A FAN REVIEWS THE POSTHUMOUS RELEASES