Cohen spins vinyl on a Clearaudio turntable.
(Credit: Clearaudio)Every year, the major record companies produce more miserable-sounding recordings. I'm not surprised by this. The labels know most folks listen to music with iTunes or streaming audio, and sound quality is a low priority for most music listeners. My weekend poll is ample proof of that.
Lyor Cohen, CEO of recorded music for the Warner Music Group, cares about sound, at least at home. He admitted, in so many words, to being an audiophile on the pages of the September 20 New York Times Sunday magazine. The media has been alerted! It's like learning that a fast-food bigwig is a wine snob.
Cohen was Run-DMC's road manager in the 1980s, and he now works with Jay-Z, Madonna, and the Beastie Boys. In the article, Cohen said his hi-fi is his "favorite possession." The Clearaudio turntable pictured in the article is a very high-end German model that "won a gold medal at a consumer technology convention a few years ago."
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JBL's best speaker, the K2 S9900.
(Credit: JBL)Most of you probably think of JBL as a manufacturer of affordable high-performance speakers, but the company offers a truly vast range of consumer and professional models.
The K2 S9900 ($15,000 each) is the best consumer speaker JBL makes. It's a massive thing, weighing in at 182 pounds, and it's armed with a 15-inch woofer, 4-inch magnesium, horn-loaded midrange, and 1-inch magnesium horn-loaded tweeter. It can handle amplifiers as large as 500 watts a channel.
The JBL K2 S9900 will be equally at home in ultra-high-end music and home theater systems.
The K2 was originally developed for the seriously finicky Japanese audiophile market. There it has already achieved legendary status, and it was years before JBL brought it home. American hi-fi at its best.
I haven't heard this latest version of the K2, but I'm somewhat familiar with the previous K2 S9800. That one's sound was huge, incredibly effortless, and capable of delivering truly lifelike dynamic range. That last quality alone goes a long way to making reproduced sound sound realistic.
If you can afford the best, make it your business to hear the K2.
This is Part 2 of a list of my favorite sounding CDs of late, in no particular order. My preference is for realistic-sounding recordings, recordings that allow the band to sound "live." And sure, I still like a lot of recordings that are heavily processed, but I wouldn't by any stretch use them to "test" the naturalness of a speaker.
The first half of the top 10 CD list appeared in the previous Audiophiliac.
A different kind of heavy metal music.
Savage Aural Hotbed, "Wreckquiem"
Talk about heavy metal, Savage Aural Hotbed is a (mostly) industrial percussion group. They rhythmically hit, scrape, or smash pipes, barrels, tenor and baritone snorkelhorns, electric power tools, and drums. I love SAH records for their dense textures and searing dynamics and this new one will give your system an aerobic workout while dazzling your ears with its mesmerizing charms.
Ms. Cash at her best
Rosanne Cash, "10 Song Demo"
OK, this one's from 1996, but it's withstood the test of time. True to the title, it's just Cash accompanied by a small group of players, Production is minimal, so if your system is good enough the music can sound very, very real. The music's a perfect 10.
Jazz that'll rock your world
Gerald Clayton, "Two-Shade"
Clayton's nimble piano trio delivers hard-driving pieces and explosive improvisations that'll push your hi-fi to the limit. The piano, bass, and drums balance is, musically and sonically, as good as it gets. It may be Clayton's trio, but it's a band of equals. The stereo image is set back, behind the plane of my speakers, so it doesn't have the claustrophobic, up close perspective of most contemporary jazz recordings.
... Read moreWhat follows is a list of my favorite sounding CDs of late, in no particular order. My preference is for realistic-sounding recordings, recordings that allow the band to sound "live." And sure, I like lots of recordings that are heavily processed, but I wouldn't by any stretch use them to "test" the naturalness of a speaker.
Here's the first half of the top 10 CDs; the second half will appear in the next Audiophiliac.
The best Costello album in years
Elvis Costello, "Secret, Profane & Sugarcane"
I love Costello, especially his first five albums, and this new one, produced by T-Bone Burnett, is a winner. Acoustic and country influences predominate, and Costello's voice is in great shape. The sound is free of digital grit and glare, so instruments and voices sound like themselves. The tunes are all good; there's not a weak one in the bunch.
Goosebump raising sonics!
Mark Olson & Gary Louris, "Ready For The Flood"
Mark Olson & Gary Louris of Jayhawks fame joined forces to make this gorgeous sounding album. The two voices' harmonies are something to hear, and maybe it's just me, but there's echoes of the Everly Brothers and maybe Simon & Garfunkel in there. "Doves And Stones" is the standout track, but the album's pretty good from start to finish.
Auerbach's solo record is a winner
Dan Auerbach, "Keep It Hid"
Have you heard Auerbach's band, The Black Keys? Anyway, his solo CD presents more varied music than the Keys' hard-core blues-based blasts. Check out the deep bass pounding through "Heartbroken, In Disrepair." Granted, Keep It Hid isn't exactly an audiophile disc, but it sounds great cranked to "11."
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Margery just wants to have fun.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Women sometimes buy quality audio, but that doesn't make them audiophiles.
With rare exceptions, all the audiophiles I've known are men. The unifying mantra for audiophiles is that there's always something, maybe an amplifier or speaker just out a reach that might get them a little closer to the music. Audiophiles are gear junkies. They want to have Aretha Franklin or the New York Philharmonic or their favorite music sound like it's in the house. Audiophiles crave an emotional, visceral connection with their music.
That pretty much sums up Margery Budoff's audiophile urges. Like most audiophiles I know, Margery had an unusually strong affinity for music at a young age. She described herself as "A child musician with an industrial design fetish." Even as a little kid she loved the look of stuff, especially older, big and clunky 1950s and 1960s record players.
The first record Margery bought was "Telstar," then Dionne Warwick, then the Rolling Stones. The record player was the thing that could "Decipher the secret code encrypted in the records. I wanted to hear the sound in all its glory. That's how I became an audiophile."
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The M2, a digital amplifier that sounds as good as analog!
(Credit: NAD)NAD is a lesser well-known brand than Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Pioneer, or Sony, but in my opinion NAD makes better-sounding electronics.
Introduced in the late 1970s, NAD's 3020 quickly became one of the best-selling integrated stereo amplifiers of all time. Not just because it sounded better than anything going for two or three times its humble MSRP, the 3020 had that special something that made it, well, lovable. Over the years NAD maintained its leadership position by consistently designing great-sounding, unpretentious products.
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending an advance preview of NAD's upcoming Master Series M2 Direct Digital Amplifier ($5,999). Yikes, the price was a lot higher than I expected, but don't worry, NAD still makes affordable electronics. Its 40 watt per channel C 315BEE stereo integrated amp goes for $349. It's impossible to beat for the price.
But the M2 is something else again. NAD claims it's not just another digital amplifier, and that's a good thing. I've heard some really nice digital amps over the years, but most don't cut it for serious audiophiles. It's not so much that they sound bad, just kind of bland. They gloss over detail and make everything sound the same.
So the first thing I noticed about the M2 was its resolution and clarity. In other words if I didn't know it was digital, I wouldn't have guessed. It's right up there with the better high-end amplifiers. The M2 is a 250 watt per channel stereo integrated amp.
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David with his Teac recorder.
Most audiophiles are 40+.
True, there's a small sprinkling of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings who love gear, but are there any teenage audiophiles? They're pretty rare, so when I heard about a 17-year-old with 1,500 LPs and a huge collection of analog tapes I had to talk to him.
David M has it bad.
When he was five, his father had Bose speakers. Maybe they were too big, so his dad tossed them out and little David threw a fit! By the time he was eight or nine he started putting together his own hi-fi.
Like a lot of audiophiles David doesn't think he's one. He said, "I've always loved music, and as I've bought better equipment I found I liked the music more. It cycled from there." He's read audiophile magazines like Stereophile since he was in the eighth grade. David sounds like an audiophile to me.
He's totally into it, "I'm all audio, all the time...I thought I was done when I had a Sansui receiver and JBL 4311 speakers, but I'm still on the upgrade path." He now regularly records concerts at his high school and of his friends' bands. I've listened to some of David's recordings and he's good. But David has yet to turn any of his friends into audiophiles; even most of his musician buddies aren't into sound quality. He said, "They don't care. Some of them have already lost some of their hearing." Yikes!
He has one friend with a decent turntable and a collection of records handed down from his parents, but that guy's no audiophile. David set up his ex-girlfriend with a nice hi-fi, and she's getting into vinyl and tape.
He's not turned on by much new music, or anything that's played on commercial radio stations. He likes folk music and obscure '70s pop, a bit of classical, some jazz. David says he's open to trying anything.
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(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
Isoclean makes audiophile-grade gold-plated fuses. This fuse is a "tweak," an accessory that promises to improve the sound of your hi-fi.
Audiophiles eat this stuff up. We put special cones or pads under our equipment to eliminate bad vibes, plug our electronics into AC power line conditioners, and buy equipment stands to coddle our components.
Isoclean isn't the first company to offer audiophile fuses, and I can't say I'm game for these types of tweaks. They reek of "snake oil" silliness, but an audiophile buddy couldn't stop raving about the difference the Isoclean fuses made to the sound of his hi-fi, so I decided to give them a try.
My Magnepan 3.6R speakers have a total of four fuses (two in each speaker), and the fuses are $39 each.
Each Isoclean fuse is packed separately with a thick cleaning cloth you use before installing the fuses. The gold plating is of a high quality, and with the supplied cloth, I buffed it to a shine.
Also noteworthy is the fuses' glass body, marked with a direction arrow. Isoclean recommends experimenting with reversing the direction of the fuse to see which direction sounds better (turn the gear off when reversing the fuses).
To cut to the chase, yes, the fuses did make a difference. The sound was fuller, weightier, and the stereo imaging was more 3D with the fuses in the speakers. Was it a jaw-dropping improvement? No, but it was there.
Audiophiles looking for a little boost to their sound should check out Isoclean fuses. You can use the fuses in some speakers, CD players, preamplifiers, power amplifiers, and other devices.
The audiophile lexicon goes way, way back, at least to the early 1950s hi-fi craze. Here's a place to get a grip on it.
The Audiophile Wiki was initiated by PS Audio's Paul McGowan to help answer questions about audio.
"For years, I have been on a personal crusade to put whatever effort I could into helping raise awareness of our industry," McGowan said. "I have spent hundreds (probably thousands) of hours answering questions about everything from how to connect a loudspeaker to how a transistor works, all in service to PS Audio customers and the high end."
The Audiophile Wiki logo
It's all in the Audiophile Wiki: audio companies, designers, analog, digital, tubes, transistors, reviewers, speakers, amplifiers, turntables, etc. For example, if you're just getting into vinyl, check out the entry for Phono Cartridge:
"A phono cartridge is a device that reads the grooves on a phonograph record. There are multiple types of phono cartridges, moving magnet, moving coil, strain gauge, ceramic cartridge, and many others through the years.
All phono cartridges share in common the conversion of mechanical movement into either sound (mechanical cartridge) or electrical energy for later amplification.
The Audiophile Wiki launched in May of this year, so there's lots of gaps. Feel free to fill in missing facts.
It's a small island, populated by audiophiles, but please don't look down on us for our devotion to good sound.
Yes, it might seem a little strange to outsiders, but we like to hear music the way the producers and musicians did when they recorded it. If they put a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into creating it, it might be worth listening to. Sure, you can play and enjoy music over freebie headphones or $20 computer speakers, just don't kid yourself that you're hearing everything, or more important, the emotion that went into the music.
Computer speakers vs. the real thing.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)But don't get the wrong idea, we're not elitists, we just place a higher priority on listening than most people. That is, we listen, most don't. Sure, they have music on all the time, as background sound while they work, drive, exercise, read, etc, but never just listen. For those that do occasionally listen, well, I'd say they're audiophiles. So you see, it's a state of mind. Listening, appreciating music should be enough, if it's great music why relegate it to the background?
Being an audiophile doesn't mean you're into vinyl, vacuum tubes, or that you're made of money. No, we audiophiles just love the sound of music. So if you listen please join us on the island and whatever your budget, get better sounding gear.
The speaker on the right is an Usher S-520 ($400/pair). It's 12 inches high; the small round speaker came with my old iMac.
