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Magic Picture Shows

Herb Reichert Apr 06, 2022 First Published: Apr 06, 2022 0 comments

Axiomatically, audiophile audio is about quality of reproduced sound. Experientially thoughfor me at leastit's about visions in the mind's eye. The older I get, the more attentively I listen to recordings, the more importance I assign to the myriad moving pictures I see between my speakers.

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On creaks and coughs and candy wrappers

Rogier van Bakel Mar 03, 2022 First Published: Mar 03, 2022 0 comments

The advantage of a highly resolving music system is that you can hear deeper into recordings. The disadvantage is that you can hear deeper into recordings.

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Forget about the sound of the recording

Jim Anderson Feb 10, 2022 First Published: Feb 10, 2022 0 comments

Hello, and Happy New Year! I'm greeting you in October 2021just before Halloween, in anticipation of Stereophile's publication deadlinebut by the time this magazine arrives in your mailbox, it'll be after the holidays.

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Ray's Scream

Tony Scherman Jan 04, 2022 First Published: Jan 04, 2022 0 comments

Back in the mid-1960s, I was the unusual white, suburban preteen who, for reasons I've long pondered and never fully understood, was drawn much less powerfully to the Beatles than to blues and R&B. I was a bit of a jazz snob, too. Given these leanings, it's no surprise that one of the half-dozen or so albums that fried my impressionable young brain was that seamless blend of blues, R&B, and jazz, Ray Charles at Newport.

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A Wolf Howled in Chicago

Larry Birnbaum Dec 01, 2021 First Published: Dec 01, 2021 0 comments

In the early 1970s, my hometownChicagowas a hotbed of blues. I discovered the blues in high school via the Rolling Stones, and I began to frequent the city's blues clubs as a college student, at first while still underage. From Theresa's, the South Side tavern where Junior Wells performed, I progressed to the West Side, where on weekends I would head down Madison Street to see Howlin' Wolf at Big Duke's Blue Flame Lounge.

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Listening Deeply

Jason Victor Serinus Nov 02, 2021 First Published: Nov 02, 2021 0 comments

Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditations

The one activity that distinguishes audiophiles from other music lovers is our practice of sitting in solitude and listening closely to music reproduced on a finely tuned playback system.

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Lou Reed's Dirty Boulevard of Dreams

Kurt Gottschalk Oct 05, 2021 First Published: Oct 05, 2021 0 comments

New York City is a dream you can't haveglitz, glamor, grime, too much to take in from within, too much to understand from afar. It's a metropolitan manifestation of the Heisenberg principle, its nature changing with how you look at it. No matter how you try, you can't see the forest for the skyscrapers.

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My journey to hi-fi

Rogier van Bakel Sep 08, 2021 First Published: Sep 08, 2021 0 comments

Step 1. When I was in my mid-20s, an older editor at the Dutch current-affairs magazine I worked for told me he wanted to write a piece about audiophiles: He had been bitten by the audio bug himself. Because I often wrote about rock and pop music, he asked if I had a quality hi-fi system, and if so, would I be willing to be interviewed for his article

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Alive at the Cafe Au Go Go

Jeff Weiner Jul 27, 2021 First Published: Jul 27, 2021 0 comments

I grew up in a household that didn't have a record player and was pretty much devoid of music. In high school, I got a little stereo and began collecting records. By the time I entered Brooklyn College, in 1963, my "main man" was Trini Lopez; I also had a couple of Jack Jones albums. In New York, I discovered the Cafe Au Go Go.

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The Beatles: Liverpool Fantasy

John Swenson Jun 29, 2021 First Published: Jun 29, 2021 0 comments

Last week, I had a puzzling dream. When I woke, the vision remaining from the dreamscape was of a single thread of conversation, almost oracular, with no context. Ringo was telling me, "That was actually John singing on that one, mate."

I searched for a hidden message. Maybe it was one of those naked-in-public dreams, the Beatles drummer chastising me for misidentifying the singer in some review I wrote. I soon forgot about it.