Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i Hi Fi News

Paraphrasing Mark Twain when he read his obituary, reports of the death of surround sound are greatly exaggerated. The ascent of decent soundbars and reticence among normal people to house five or more speakers have taken their toll, but – undaunted – 2L in Norway and Dutton-Vocalion in the UK have been producing surround sound discs for years, as have some Japanese labels. Last year, the Rhino division of major label Atlantic joined the club with its Quadio range. For those so equipped, the riches of multichannel sound are worth exploiting. Here are 20 brand-new SACDs, DVDs and Blu-rays offering a mix of DTS and Dolby formats. Aside from 2L’s and Squeeze’s recordings, nearly all date from the original ‘quadraphonic’ era of the 1970s. DOLBY VS DTS Quadio releases are…

Time, it seems, to forget all the stereotypes of high-output power amplifiers as massive devices that dim the lights when fired up and convert even the chilliest of spaces into a listening-room sauna. Instead, the £7299 Perca stereo power amp from Dutch manufacturer Mola Mola is just 215mm wide and 110mm tall, and weighs a mere 5.25kg, yet claims a stereo output of 150W/8ohm, doubling to 300W/4ohm. Styled to match the company’s £10k Tambaqui DAC [HFN Nov ’19], complete with the signature wave-like top-plate to complement those fishy product names, the Perca – Latin for perch – shares its casework with the Kaluga monoblocks [HFN Aug ’17]. The latter up the power to 400W/700W and are yours for around £12k a pair. And yes, you could use the Perca with…

The Eno documentary recently shown in cinemas caused a bit of a fanfare because, characteristically of our eggheaded pal Brian, it wasn’t just any common-or-garden doc covering his illustrious career. Instead, it employed groundbreaking technology to accomplish something that had never been done before. Using generative software designed to sequence scenes and create transitions out of interviews with Eno and an archive of never-before-seen footage, each showing featured different scenes and music in a different order. Every time it played, it was a new experience. CHANGING TUNES A cinematic first, no doubt, but it got me thinking about The Grateful Dead, because what Brian Eno had brought to the flicks, The Grateful Dead brought to the gig. The group, originally formed as The Warlocks in 1965 in the Bay Area…

ORIGINAL VINYL (1971) The UK double LP version of this album [Liberty LSP 103/4] is still available for around £50 in decent nick, and the Terre Haut pressing won’t offend your demanding 21st century ears. As mentioned in the main article, Alan Wilson died shortly after the recording, and the photo on the album cover was taken after his death, with the result that the gatefold packaging of the LP left puzzling anomalies for fans to ponder over. Wilson’s picture can be seen in a frame on the wall, while guitarist Henry Vestine went AWOL on the day of the shoot. Therefore, standing in front of the window in the original photo is the band’s manager/producer, Skip Taylor. But if you look closely you can see that Henry Vestine’s mutton-chopped…

No matter how expensive your hi-fi streaming amp may be, its Internet radio function is only as good as its ‘portal’ or ‘aggregator’ software. This indexes international Internet stations so we can choose from a genre or geographical list, such as ‘jazz’ or ‘opera’ from ‘USA’, ‘UK’ or ‘Oz’. Then click and listen, without the hassle of keying in station URLs. Users are not in control of whatever software choice the manufacturers made, and the world of portals is a can of worms. So I’ve done my best to dig out some hard facts. In the early days, Internet radio was used mainly in portables, often from British companies Pure and Roberts. Pure initially used its own portal system, called Flow, then adopted a portal from British chip-maker Frontier Silicon.…

Composers have often been inspired by artists, and vice versa. The Schoenberg anniversary celebrations serve to remind us that extraordinary individuals can even become accomplished in both fields. No one would claim that his paintings approach the originality and mastery of his music, however, and a better example of an artistic all-rounder is Mikalojus Čiurlionis, celebrated in his native Lithuania as a hero both for his art and his music. LOOK AND LISTEN Tate Modern in London has been showing an extensive exhibition of the ‘Blaue Reiter’ school of artists, many of them friends of Schoenberg’s, such as Wassily Kandinsky. It was Kandinsky who broke ground by attempting to paint not just musicians, but the experience of listening to music, in compositions such as Impression III (Concert), from 1911. On…

I have spent the past few months listening to a selection of mono and multichannel/surround sound albums in preparation for two new round-ups. These ‘Top 20’ album gatherings [see p32] have been proving popular because they’re useful introductions to genres you might otherwise not have explored. As far removed from each other as possible, the musical journey from mono to surround sound proved enlightening even for this old fogey. SYSTEM WORKOUT Music genres are the most obvious round-up topics, eg, a selection of goth, metal or jazz albums, but formats are another story entirely. Following on from my August column, when I looked at how surround sound is not yet dead, I have been giving my 5.1 system a workout and it’s proved to be an ear-opener. Yes, I can…

Back in the mid-1990s, when the notion entered my noggin to revive the NME Awards in opposition to how moribund the BRITs had become, I did a little research to discover just why the event had been dropped from the calendar in the first place. After all, the show had run annually with enormous success at the Empire Pool, Wembley for a decade from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, drawing massive sold-out audiences year after year. It arguably reached its zenith in 1966 when the lineup included The Beatles (their last UK show not counting the rooftop event in Savile Row), The Rolling Stones, The Who, Small Faces, The Walker Brothers, Dusty Springfield, The Yardbirds and The Spencer Davis Group. The greatest gig ever, right? Right. Anyway, it…

Analogue fans are in general agreement that the professional open-reel tape speed (linear velocity) of 30in per second (30ips, or 72cm/s) is unexcelled when it comes to capturing both musical detail and dynamics. It can sound really impressive with 1in or 2in tape. Yet 30ips is not a practicality for consumer use – the amount of tape needed to capture even a 20-minute performance can be daunting. This ultimate professional speed is divided down by halves for less-demanding formats: 15ips, 7.5ips, 3.75ips (38cm/s, 19cm/s, 9.5cm/s, respectively). These latter two speeds are common for consumer use. During the heyday of open-reel popularity, factory-made pre-recorded tapes were often issued in the 3.75ips format, to squeeze the maximum amount of music onto 7in reels. UP TO SPEED Half of this slower open-reel velocity…

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2. AMPLIFIERS NAIM Nait XS amplifier plus remote and power lead. Good condition, £400, collection only. Tel: 0208 8663523 DEVIALET 140 Pro stereo amplifier with DAC. £2250. Absolutely immaculate condition, fully boxed and still under warranty. Happy to demonstrate the amp (South Wales). Tel: 07906 499046. Email: ianmitchell2000@yahoo.com. CAMBRIDGE Audio Azur 351A amplifier. Spotless condition. £115. Tel: 07505 057414 EAR 834P phono stage, MM/MC, shiny black front fascia, re-valved and capped in 2022 with DP valves, direct replacement caps. Perfect working order, UK only please unless collecting. £800. Tel: 07528 826431. Email: jlc2me@aol.com EAR 834P phono preamp. MM/MC. Excellent condition. £495. Tel: 07505 057414 EAR Yoshino 864 preamp. Serviced by EAR in 2018, mint condition, £1690 ono. Tel: 07555 950223. Email: jdsnell@hotmail.co.uk MUSICAL Fidelity X-A1. 50W per channel. Mint condition.…

Now scheduled for just one event per year instead of two, the result has been a busier Audiojumble at the Angel Centre in Tonbridge. This year’s fair was reminiscent of the first to follow the Covid lockdown in 2022, all that pent-up hunger for vintage gear and bargains ensuring good crowds for the vendors, who had been stocking up on turntables and assorted electronics. If there’s been a trend, it’s the increasing rarity of what were the most coveted items. Radford amps were notably absent and there were fewer LS3/5As for sale, but equally the number of open-reel decks increased – a direct response to the cult revival of reel-to-reel. There was also an increase in used vinyl on display. Don’t miss the next one, on Sunday, March 2nd 2025.…

Smetana grew up speaking German and Czech, though one of these languages came more naturally to him than the other. His father recorded the news of his son’s birth (in March 1824) in Czech, but named him Friedrich. The boy grew up in a German-speaking culture, not least because of his father’s occupation as a brewer. The family spoke Czech at home but the young Smetana wrote his diary in German, and struggled for many years to master a ‘pure’ form of his native tongue. COMIC TURN This awkward bilingualism is key to an understanding of the cycle of tone-poems that established Smetana’s reputation as the father of a native Czech music. After various failures to secure recognition or steady employment in Prague, he had left for Sweden in 1857.…

According to contemporary accounts, Hooker arrived at the recording session in LA dressed to kill, wearing a plaid cap, leather jacket, black satin shirt, and dress slacks. With his favourite old Epiphone guitar, he was in performance mode. And producers Skip Taylor and Robert Hite were ready to bottle his magic. They tried eight different guitar amplifiers before finding an old Silvertone model that they felt nailed the authentic Hooker tone they wanted. Then they built a plywood platform for Hooker to sit on while he played. One microphone was positioned on the amp and one set up for him to sing into, while a third was located close to the wooden platform to pick up his feet stomping, thereby achieving the distinctive rhythm that brings his solo performances to…

AUDIOPHILE: VINYL BRYAN FERRY Mamouna/Horoscope BMG BMGCAT796DLP (two LPs) Our Digital Album of the Month in March, this also warrants top rating, too, even though it contains less material. To recap, it’s the 30th anniversary remastering of 1994’s Mamouna, Ferry’s first entirely self-composed solo album. The CD set unveiled the unreleased Horoscope, a lost-in-the-shuffle album which insiders and hardcore fans knew about, that was finally made available in approved form. The transition to vinyl, however, sacrifices CD3’s ten demos and works-in-progress later used on both Horoscope and Mamouna, plus a track for 2014’s Avonmore. Diehards may want both, but the superior sound of the half-speed mastered LPs more than makes up for the loss of the outtakes. KK Sound Quality: 95% DECEMBER’S CHILDREN December’s Children Sundazed LP5676 Pink vinyl Surely…

Once, when all was in black and white – well almost! – it wasn’t unknown for me to have a dozen CD players piled up for review. The process of ‘load disc, play, switch player and repeat’ became so ingrained that I welcomed with open arms my first CD-R machine, allowing the creation of a test disc with multiple tracks chosen to illuminate the qualities of a player in the shortest possible time. Fast forward to 2024, and some reviews recently published in these pages of the first new CD players I’d encountered for a good while. Out with some familiar discs and I was soon listening and enjoying again. Except… A BLAST FROM THE PAST I think it must be that I’ve become so used to streaming music from…

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