Features

A Mosaic of Music: Stereophile's Clarinet Quintet CD

John Atkinson Jun 12, 2002 First Published: Jun 12, 2002

It's the grain elevators that break the monotony of driving across the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle. As you pass one, another one appears on the horizon. Thus you know you're making progress, despite the fact that the landscape remains unchanged.

Features Music and Recording Features Interviews

Dead Man Walking: Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally

Wes Phillips May 06, 2002 First Published: May 06, 2002

People are wrong when they say the opera isn't what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That's what's wrong with it.—Noël Coward

Features Interviews Re-Tales

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Steve Guttenberg Feb 03, 2002 First Published: Feb 03, 2002

There's one phrase a Ferrari dealer never hears from a potential customer: "Ferrari? What's a Ferrari?" Marques such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati are so embedded in mainstream culture that their dealers never have to introduce an unfamiliar but exorbitantly expensive set of wheels to their prospects.

Features Music and Recording Features

One by One: the Cantus Recording Project

John Atkinson, Wes Phillips Jan 09, 2002 First Published: Jan 09, 2002

Just who were these guys?—Wes Phillips

Reference Features

Super Audio CD: The Rich Report

David Rich Nov 15, 2000 First Published: Nov 15, 2000

Although Philips invented the Compact Disc, it was only when Sony got involved in the early 1980s that it was decided—at the prompting of conductor Herbert von Karajan, a close friend of Sony's then-president Akio Morita—that the CD should have a long enough playing time to fit Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a single disc (footnote 1). Even if the conductor was using very slow tempos, and even given the minimum pit size and track pitch printable at the time, the 16-bit data and 44.1kHz sampling rate they settled on gave them a little margin.

Reference Features

Super Audio CD—One Year Later

John Atkinson Nov 15, 2000 First Published: Nov 15, 2000

In his very English way, Sony's then managing director for the UK, Tim Steele, was getting a touch, er, desperate. His oh-so-cultured voice rose a smidgen as he resorted to a direct selling of the benefits of what he was talking about. "Look, you're all sitting on riches," was his fundamental pitch. "You can sell music-lovers your entire back catalog all over again—at a higher price!"

Features

What's Going On Up There?

John Atkinson Oct 29, 2000 First Published: Oct 29, 2000

A much-touted benefit of DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD is that these new media can store digital audio data extending one or more octaves higher in frequency response than the capabilities of the CD. In the August issue's "Industry Update" (pp.27-29), Paul Messenger reported on an add-on supertweeter from English manufacturer Tannoy that would extend the ultrasonic response of loudspeakers so they can reproduce this new information. Putting to one side for now the issue of whether a loudspeaker really needs to be able to reproduce frequencies that no one can hear, the subject of how much ultrasonic content is present in real musical signals is still a contentious one.

Reference Features

Tubes Do Something Special

Peter van Willenswaard Sep 26, 2000 First Published: Sep 26, 2000

Most people who now listen to tube amplifiers began with a transistor amp, and know from experience that a tube amp of a given measured power output sounds louder than its nominally identical transistorized equivalent. The unofficial consensus is that you need two to four times the transistor power to achieve the same loudness as you would using tubes. In other words, given the (subjectively) undistorted sound level a 25W (footnote 1) tube amplifier can provide, if you want the same loudness from solid-state technology you would have to replace it with at least a 50W transistor amp (footnote 2).

Features Music and Recording Features

Elvis Presley: Baby What You Want Me To Do

Robert Baird May 05, 2000 First Published: May 05, 2000

"Here's somebody who just loves to sing." Over the telephone, Peter Guralnick sounds sad, incredulous. "But he's unable at the end of his life to force himself into the recording studio—the fear of completion, fear of exposing your untrammeled idea to execution. What a terrible thing to lose that ability, that faith in yourself."

Features Think Pieces

God is in the Nuances

Markus Sauer Jan 19, 2000 First Published: Jan 19, 2000

This journal has seen a number of thoughtful ruminations on what it is that attracts us to music or to a given audio component, and how we should describe that attraction. The "Letters" pages have been filled by readers who have taken us to task for not adhering to rigorous scientific methods in the evaluation of components, those rigorous scientific methods usually being equated with double-blind listening. Other readers have praised the magazine for its stance that an educated listener in a familiar, relaxed environment will be more accurate in his or her assessment than an average of trained and untrained listeners in unfamiliar, stressful circumstances. Overall, sonic descriptions from diverse reviewers in different publications show a remarkable consensus of observation (not opinion).