CATEGORIES

The Werewolf

If music reflects the life of the person who created it-if, for example, we can hear Mozart's inner turmoil in his operas-then Warren Zevon's song catalog is uncommonly revealing. Headless mercenaries, killer rapists, and yes, impeccably dressed werewolves with a taste for pina coladas are all part of the colorful world of WZ's twisted imagination and especially of his masterpiece, 1978's Excitable Boy.

Charles Mingus's Changes: The Complete 1970s Atlantic Studio Recordings

The standup bass genius and jazz force of nature Charles Mingus made his first album for Atlantic Records, Pithecanthropus Erectus, in 1956. Several of his most memorable musical masterpieces, including The Clown (1957), Blues and Roots (1960), and Oh Yeah (1962), followed as he intermittently returned to the label throughout the 1960s and early '70s.

ASTRUD GILBERTO, RIP

HER FIRST PROFESSIONAL RECORDING BECAME A CAREER DEFINING GLOBAL HIT, CHANGED THE CULTURE, AND HELPED MAKE BOSSA NOVA A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON. BUT THERE'S A DARK SIDE TO THE SUCCESS OF \"THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA,\" WHICH FOLLOWED THE BRAZILIAN CHANTEUSE UNTIL HER RECENT DEATH.

RECORD REVIEWS

At 79, Pulitzer Prize winner and NEA Jazz Master Henry Threadgill is one of the last men standing among the founding fathers of the jazz avant-garde. Because his output of recordings is not voluminous, every new Threadgill release is an event. The Other One is more of an event than most because of its ambition (it is an album-length suite) and its scale: It introduces a new 12-piece ensemble.

Harbeth Super HL5plus XD - LOUDSPEAKER

What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits-the 1974 album by those San Jose yacht-rock sages the Doobie Brothers-could also describe an audiophile's life.

Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Roon Core - STREAMER/SERVER/DAC

A useful way of thinking of this device is as a 21st century integrated preamp on steroids, where Roon (plus streaming services) is the new tuner, and a way to play records, with the possibility of endless future improvements via software updates.

MoFi Electronics SourcePoint 8 - LOUDSPEAKER

When I got these new speakers for review, they were so new that, at the time I unpacked them, no official user manual was included or posted on the manufacturer's website, and the promised matching stands didn't exist. Yet, I have the abiding feeling that I am getting to the party long after it has started. The Mobile Fidelity SourcePoint 8 is the newer, smaller sibling of the SourcePoint 10 reviewed by John Atkinson in Stereophile's February 2023 issue, with a follow-up by Ken Micallef in June.¹

Audio Research I/50 - INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

The first true high-end component I owned was an Audio Research SP-10. I reviewed this two-box, tubed preamplifier in the May 1984 issue of the English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review.

SPIN DOCTOR

Hallo München!

GRAMOPHONE DREAMS

It's all about the source

Acelec Model One

LOUDSPEAKER

MY BACK PAGES

Five things I learned at hi-fi shows

RABBIT HOLES

Quincy Jones: An Appreciation in Five Albums

REVINYLIZATION

Little Feat’s evolution in two classic albums

AURAL ROBERT

Vince Mendoza’s learning laboratory

SAMARA JOY

THE STEREOPHILE INTERVIEW

SME Model 60

RECORD PLAYER

Raidho TD3.8

LOUDSPEAKER

RE-TALES - Succession

Many family-owned hi-fi companies have experienced generational leadership transitions over the last few years: Wilson Audio, Von Schweikert Audio, PS Audio, and VPI Industries, to name a few. In two of those cases, the founding father is still around. One of those is VPI Industries.

AURAL ROBERT - Elton's Magic Year

In 1973, Elton John and Bernie Taupin capped one of pop music's most epic periods of sustained creativity by writing, recording, and releasing the 10-track single disc Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and the 17-track double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, both of which are now celebrating their 50th anniversary. As two of the strongest entries among the many classics that make 1972-73 the peak years for rock albums, both went #1 in the US and UK and arguably stand as the dual highpoints of John's recorded legacy.

REVINYLIZATION - OJC rises (yet) again

Liner notes from jazz albums of the 1950s and 1960s can be shot through with naivete, hipsterism (usually faux), and callousness toward the abundance of musical talent then working. Few though are as shortsighted as the original essay by Jack Maher on the back of 1960's Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. Opening with \"Miles Davis is the most maligned and idolized musician in modern American jazz today.

JAZZ AT A DARK MOMENT

THIS YEAR'S SAN JOSE JAZZ WINTER FEST HAD MEANING BEYOND MUSIC.

Living Sounds Audio Discovery Warp 1 - POWER AMPLIFIER

It takes a while for audio-related technologies to mature. Tubed amplifiers were invented by Lee de Forest in the nineteen-teens, but while there are still some adherents of early high-distortion triode designs, the age of mainstream high-fidelity amplification dawned with higher-power/lower-distortion amplifiers developed by Williamson and McIntosh followed by the Ultralinear take on the Williamson concept.

Miyajima Laboratory Wo-1 - PREAMPLIFIER

A phenomenon formerly unique to Japan, which in recent years has been emulated in cities around the world, is the jazz café (known as jazz kissa in Japan), where salarymen can find respite from their hectic lives, loosen their ties, and enjoy hi-fi jazz over coffee or a drink.'

Antipodes Oladra - SERVER/STREAMER/RECLOCKER

Servers, servers, servers. How we who embrace digital hi-fi love them for their potential to make files and streams sound better (more alive, vital, musical, moving, transparent) than music served from a computer.

Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3 - LOUDSPEAKER

Over a lifetime of involvement in audio, I have had stand-mount speakers-bookshelf speakers, as they were called back then-only twice.

HiFi Rose RS520 - STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

My first car was a decrepit, mustard-yellow Peugeot 304 with a navy hood. The blue hue wasn't a fashion statement; after an accident, the previous owner had gone to a salvage yard where only a blue replacement could be procured.

SPIN DOCTOR - Swiss precision

In 1928, Swiss engineer and inventor Jean-Léon Reutter created a clock that could run for years without human interaction or any type of external power source. The Atmos Clock required no AC power, batteries, solar panels, or hand-winding. It was able to wind itself by leveraging subtle changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.

BRILLIANT CORNERS - Come Hell or High Water

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city,\" John Steinbeck wrote in 1953. \"But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.\" Decades later, the novelist's insight about this appalling, incomparable city still feels true.

GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - An affordable purist amplifier with punch

It was a cold March-in-Brooklyn morning. Clouds had been shedding wintery mix since daybreak. By 9am, birds were flash-mobbing my window, demanding suet. But I was frozen-unable to pull my mind loose from the grave flowings of American composer Ned Rorem's Book of Hours, as performed by Les Connivences Sonores on the album Musikalische Perlen (24/48 FLAC, Ars Produktion/Qobuz). The sounds in my room were sensuous and mesmerizing, and I needed to float in their mysterious energy as long as I could.