Nativ Sound, an audio start-up based in Hong Kong working on a family of elegant touchscreen music components, has announced that they have passed their $100,000 fund raising goal on Indegogo in one week. This exceeds the company's original goal of reaching that milestone in 2 months. Nativ's family of music system components includes Nativ... Read More »
"Shine on you crazy diamond" - by Pink Floyd First of all, I should say that I like the Simaudio MOON Neo 280D ($2200) very much and that, with the optional MiND module, it provides for a one-box media server solution, WiFi support, DSD256-capable DAC, and all. Having said that, I did run into a... Read More »
Prokofiev, Scythian Suite & Symphony No. 3. Orchestra: Sao Paulo Symphony. Conductor: Marin Alsop. Recording: Naxos NBD0047 There certainly are significant differences in the music composed by Prokofiev compared to those famous Russian composers that preceded him. It is our good fortune to have his compositions available now. Yes, he turned out those compositions needed by performers in the... Read More »
Hark, now hear the sailors cry Smell the sea and feel the sky Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic And when that foghorn blows I will be coming home And when the foghorn blows I want to hear it I don't have to fear it and I want to rock your gypsy... Read More »
Mozart, Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Alina Ibragimova, violin. Cédric Tiberghien, piano. 2 CD's. Hyperion CDA 68091. Most of us know when we're hearing the real Mozart and not a near miss, we know in our heads and elsewhere what is required of a genuine Mozart performance. Today we have the composer's Sonatas for Keyboard... Read More »
The Digital Source So Good, Only An Analog Leader Could Have Built It! Thirty years after the introduction of their first Digital-to-Analog Converter, Brinkmann Audio is proud to introduce “Nyquist,” the world’s most advanced DAC, at the 2016 Munich HiFi Show. Authored by the newly expanded Brinkmann design team, Nyquist sets new standards in adaptability,... Read More »
Things can pile up. From time to time, especially when I get too busy, miscellaneous projects and notes accumulate. They don't warrant a major article, but they are items that I should mention to you. And this is a brief and very different sort of flash for you. Ergo 21 As a writer and editor,... Read More »
The 2120 Stereo Amplifier is a reference-‐level digital music source in the 2000 level products from Boulder. With the completion of the HDMI input module, Boulder Amplifiers is pleased to announce the full release and shipment of the 2120 D/A Converter. The original 2000 Series was in continuous and... Read More »
Daedalus Audio will be in the Marketplace with a full head-fi setup to audition the new DiD (Daedalus isolation Devices. We will show the DiD with the new Tryst tube headphone amp from Modwright and the ModWright Elyse DAC, as well as all WyWires cables, including both Blue and Platinum series headphone cables. The DiD... Read More »
A Personal Audio Odyssey Dan Wrights ModWright Tryst headphone amp was stunningly musical & engaging. CanJam SoCal 2016 was a very special time for me, and it was a raging success for Head-Fi.org and the personal audio community. A good friend recently said on the phone, "Sounds like it couldn't have gone any better," he... Read More »
Lublin is a city in the south-east part of Poland and the capital of Lublin Voivodeship (province). The name Lublin, exactly the same as today which is quite rare, first appeared in chronicles in 1228. Just like Kraków comes from the name of Krak, a legendary ruler residing on Wawel Hill, also Lublin comes from... Read More »
The winner of the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition The 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition which took place between the 1st and 23rd October 2015 in Warsaw was a tremendous artistic and, in a way, commercial success. It was not a coincidence—the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute responsible for organizing the competition, in cooperation... Read More »
Schnittke, Penitential Psalms; Three Sacred Hymns. RIAS Kammerch0r, Hans Christian Rademann, conductor. Harmonia Mundi 902225. Russian Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), as I've written many times before here, is one of those second generation modernists who makes you go to him and who generally makes you glad you did. His Penitential Psalms confront us with sternness until... Read More »
Anne Bisson: Blue Mind, Co-sponsored by Wuti Larnroongroj, Brilliance Music and Studios and Gary Koh, Genesis Advanced Technologies. 15-ips, 2-track, reel-to-reel tape. Originally produced and recorded by: Guy St. Orge. Recorded July 21-22, 2008, Reference Studio, St-Calixte, Quebec. Remastered by Bernie Grundman. http://www.annebisson.com/en/. Price: $600. It's rare that performers get to revisit and remaster their... Read More »
So in my last Audio Ramblings, I wrote… "Not sure how this came about, but man do I have a lot of stuff here to review… the PS Audio BHK250 amplifier and their AC12 and AC5 power cables, the Aurender N100H streamer, the Entreq Poseidon Grounding box and cables, several items from Synergistic Research (Black... Read More »
MIT Cables Launches First Non-Cable Audio Product on Indiegogo Manufacturer puts its patented Multipole™ Technology in an active circuit for the first time = March 25, 2016-Rocklin, CA – MIT Cables has done something they never said they would do, which is put their patented Multipole™ Technology inside an active circuit, making their brand new product, the Vero HCA 29 High... Read More »
Kinsky, Copula Mundi. SPV Poland/Requiem Records 104 | 2015. Premiere: 1993. Re-edition: 2015. Medium: Compact Disc The Kinsky band, which was created in 1992, existed only for six years and recorded only one album, but, perhaps thanks to this, it has become the legend of underground rock music in Poland. Its music is most frequently described as a combination of... Read More »
Considering the present times and other Pylon Audio products, 23 loudspeakers from the Sapphire series have untypical proportions. If they had been produced a few years ago, that would not have been strange. At that time, almost all loudspeakers offered by Pylon Audio, Monitor Audio and other manufacturers representing the base and medium price ranges... Read More »
[Joe Cohen is a long-time friend of Positive Feedback, and owner of The Lotus Group, a high-end audio company in California. Joe is married to the Jazz vocalist Daria, and has a deep love of music going well back into the early days of his life. I read an earlier, shorter version of his musical... Read More »
Music & Film, Audio & Video, Learning & Understanding, Art & Life: "The Soundtrack" – A musical accompaniment created by the Gods! Often when I watch a film, the music portion of the soundtrack can take a back seat to the dialog and sound effects, which make up the better portion of what we experience sonically... Read More »
Want to start an argument with your audiophile friends? Tell them cables don't make a difference in sound. Or conversely, tell them cables do make a very clear and easily discernable difference. One side or the other, you are bound to get all kinds of personal experience stories and possible pseudo-science claims as to why... Read More »
Zu Audio: divine, evil, beautiful, disgusting; Or, "Careful with that tone, mister." So what kind of sound are you after? Accurate? Musical? Okay. But according to whom? Because, the fact is, each of us has a brain that's unique, including in what it perceives as being accurate and musical. Does this make us all somehow... Read More »
AXPONA 2016 welcomes a number of new exhibitors, showcasing the very best in high-end audio equipment. Rosemont, IL, April 15-17 AXPONA (Audio Expo North America), the defining high-end consumer audio show in the United States, returns to the Westin O’Hare Rosemont April 15-17, with over 20 new manufacturers and dealers making their debut at the show,... Read More »
Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 in D minor, "Wagner" (Nowak ed., 1877) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/Nikolaus Harnoncourt Teldec 4509-98405-2. TT: 54.35 The "historical performance" movement that arose in the 1960s proved more popular, at first, among academics than among regular listeners; eventually, however, its notions of performing older scores without the stylistic accretions of later eras... Read More »
THE Show announces the death of Richard Beers on January 25, 2016, due to lung cancer. This is the text of their press release, which arrived minutes ago: "Dear Industry Friends, My name is Maurice Jung and I am the interim President for T.H.E. Show Newport. It is with heartfelt sorrow that I must inform... Read More »
I love writing about what we audio geeks call "reference-level" audio components. By reference-level we mean state-of-the-art, "reference" meaning close to referencing the real thing: The sound of music in real time and space.
Aurender, a leader in award-winning, high-resolution audio products, announced that their latest downloadable software upgrade, System SW 4.5.58 (5.5.58), adds several new significant features, including: Qobuz high fidelity streaming, and the company's unique Smart Copy® function that allows direct music uploading, within their Conductor App, to any Aurender Music Streamer/Player's internal HDD directly from your... Read More »
Star Wars Original Soundtracks in Stereo DSD and Analog Tape Horch House has released the first three original soundtracks from the Star Wars Series: Episode 4: Star Wars – A New Hope, Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back and Episode 6: Return of the Jedi in Stereo DSD, analog tape, and WAV formats. The albums... Read More »
George Frederick Handel, Water Music. Academie fur Alte Musik Berlin. Harmonia Mundi HMC 902216. Handel was German, but he was also a Londoner for 47 years and lived and studied for four years in Italy. We can hear all of this in his music, an extremely satisfying blend of three distinct baroque musical cultures. He... Read More »
"Help!" —The Beatles In memory of Lee Weiland, the man who introduced me to the concept of a digital music server and whose Locus Design cables I still use All my audiophile friends have NAS clusters. There's tremendous peer pressure for me to have one, too, and I tried an inexpensive one to see how... Read More »
Sony Electronics is expanding the company’s High Resolution Audio line with a new Car Audio System, Turntable and Universal Disc Player which all support Double DSD (5.6 MHz) and PCM music files during 2016. The new products build upon the company’s High Resolution Audio line which started in 2013 and was timed to support the... Read More »
F703 SENNHEISER × FREITAG URBANITE limited edition fuses one-of-a-kind style and a club sound on the move Sennheiser’s award-winning URBANITE headphones have become the definitive choice for great sound, deep bass, and rugged style on the move. Now, a new collaboration with Swiss accessory manufacturer FREITAG – creators of the iconic messenger bags made from... Read More »
Reference 3A has a brand new monitor out called the Reflector. It’s the most advanced speaker they have ever made. http://www.reference3a.com/reflector.html The REFLECTOR is the pinnacle of Reference 3A and the finest standmount monitor we have ever released. Cabinet sides have layers of thick glass, laminated with an absorbine material in constrained mode, structurally integrated... Read More »
Not sure how this came about, but man do I have a lot of stuff here to review… the PS Audio BHK250 amplifier and their AC12 and AC5 power cables, the Aurender N100H streamer, the Entreq Poseidon Grounding box and cables, several items from Synergistic Research (Black Box, Atmosphere, MiG, and HFT), iFi Audio's new... Read More »
When I first encountered the vertical walls of houses and the hard, straight lines of streets I was still suffused with a memory of something altogether different. It's no easy task to describe this memory. I guess I knew it mostly by contrast to the new world into which I was suddenly dropped. After all, how... Read More »
Label: Aigle Music | Universal Music UK/Warner Music Japan WPCR-17045 Released: Nov. 20th 2015 Format: Mini LP CD Dark Sky Island is the 8th studio album by Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, known rather as Enya. Her career started in 1980. She, together with her family, became a member of the band called Clannad. She became really famous... Read More »
How our memory works is still a mystery. We know where memories are stored, we can literally point out parts of our brain responsible for that. But the answer to a question of how it actually works still eludes scientists. They know some, they assume some but they can't be really certain. It is possible... Read More »
