Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

We added a new piece of reference music to our regular lineup - we mentioned it previously, but it has proven to be enlightening. Genesis Selling England by the Pound's second song "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" The track is full of stereo tricks - including a lawmower moving across the stage, but the most spectacular part of it is the lyrics are Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel singing in close harmony.  A system that isn't resolving will sound like Peter Gabriel with a little bit or reverb.  The more revealing the system, the more you will notice that it is the two people singing quite distincly form one another. The Quads sailed through this, where there was no way you could not tell it.  Martin Logan Spires was clear if you knew it already, the Thiel CS2.4s if you listened carefully, and the Bose 901's we own (that's audiophile sin #349, for those keeping track) it was reverb city but a stadium concert wide soundstage to make up for it.  W...

We just got back after a trip to Buffalo to demo a set of speakers for our blog - and I have to correct myself from an earlier post.  (And in Winston Smith 1984 style, it has been corrected in the blog as if I was right all along ... we are at war with East Asia, we have always been at war with East Asia ... Eurasia is the enemy.  Eurasia has always been the enemy ... ). When you do any sort of demo ... bring your CD's - that is all you will need. In fact, I'd say if you bring your digital files - even if you arrange things ahead of time - you will spent 30-40 minutes fussing around with various USB ports, and consulting manuals rather than getting down to business.  And likely as not, if it isn't seamless in the first 10 minutes, you will end up deploying your secondary 'chute and using the CD's anyway. Thankfully we brought our CD's - since that's what we do as a "backup." They had a SACD* player, too, that we pressed into service - and...

When I first got into Vinyl I found at a used record store an album by Bill Evans called Explorations - and the piano playing was terrific.  I asked my (now) Father In-Law if he had ever heard of him - and was met with an incredulous stare - the kind of stare you give to someone who claims to have never ridden in a car, or never eaten a hamburger.  After him shaking his head, undoubtedly in wonderment on how I could have lived 40+ years and not have known.  I looked up a bio on Bill Evans as soon as I could afterwards. What an interesting guy.  He was a jazz pianist that was part of the group that brought forth the album A Kind of Blue with Miles Davis, and had a strong career right up until his untimely death in 1980 amongst drug addiction and sickness. I started picking up a few more of his albums when I saw them in the store and online. But what an artist, what a pianist! In my current rotation is one of my favorite albums of his, recorded in 1961, Waltz...