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August 2021

Blue Note B096C185JM
Format: 8 CDs

Musical Performance

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Like me, you probably have a few recordings you’ve played so many times you know every note, every nuance.

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July 2021

Pristine BD Transfer of a Classic Film Noir by Samuel Fuller

The Criterion Collection 224
Format: BD

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The title of this 1953 thriller rolls easily off the tongue, crackling with the promise of adventure and excitement. The film itself provides that and much more. In writing the succinct, hard-hitting screenplay, director Samuel Fuller used his background in journalism to bring to life Dwight Taylor’s original story, based on a rejected filmscript. In my opinion, it’s one of Fuller’s best films.

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Note: for the full suite of measurements for the iFi Audio Zen Phono from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

July 2021

When the stars align, the intersection between art and commerce can benefit both artist and audience, but the meeting is never anything but unpredictable. Sometimes, the two forces collide with terrible results.

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July 2021

Last time in “Fix It in the Mix,” I talked a lot about planning a recording session. I’ll talk a bit more about that here, but this installment is mostly about the process of recording itself. I don’t focus too much on precisely where to place the microphone(s) for any given instrument—there are countless sources for the best way to mike, for example, a drum kit or an acoustic guitar (all of which are both right and wrong). This series is more about giving you the most basic tools for translating what you hear in your head into something playable on a stereo. And in this installment I talk about how microphones “hear,” and give you some basic techniques for getting them to give you the sound you want.

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July 2021

There’s no beauty contest for outdoor Bluetooth speakers, but if there were, JBL’s Pulse 4 would win. The cylindrical Pulse 4 has many LEDs distributed all over and around its single curved vertical/longitudinal surface that can distribute patterns of light through 360°. And it sounds good. It might seem costly at a list price of $249.95 USD, but it’s more than a portable Bluetooth speaker—many would consider the Pulse 4 a work of electronic art.

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July 2021

BAG Production BAG018
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

I credit my father for indoctrinating me with a love for the clarinet. As a young man, long before my time, he immersed himself in the music of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw the way I would later cleave to Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman. And before either of those guitarists were making records, my father was filling my ears every Sunday morning with the sounds of Goodman, Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Herman, and others who had made the clarinet the equivalent of the Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul in his day.

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June 2021

A Memorable Descent into Hell in a Pristine BD Transfer

The Criterion Collection 1078
Format: BD

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In Nightmare Alley, Stanton “Stan” Carlisle is a self-proclaimed selfish heel—but, as played by Tyrone Power, you can’t take your eyes off him. Power took on this complicated character in an effort to prove that he could be more than a matinee idol. He succeeded—his multilayered performance was worthy of (though didn’t win) an Oscar. But Darrell F. Zanuck, then head of 20th Century Fox, didn’t like the film, didn’t promote it, and let it die a box-office failure and a write-off. Now it’s recognized by many film critics as a masterpiece, an A-list film disguised as a B movie, the darkest of films noirs.

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Note: for the full suite of measurements for the KLH Albany II loudspeaker performed in the anechoic chamber at Canada’s National Research Council, click this link.

June 2021

Everybody Digs Bill Evans—the name of a recording released in 1959—seems like little more than a hip album title until you reflect on the broad admiration the late jazz pianist engendered in most of the people who encountered his playing. Even in the atypically aggressive performances toward the end of his life, listeners could hear his sensitivity and heart, to say nothing of his deft touch and ability to find original ways of phrasing—even with a hoary chestnut like “Danny Boy.” So outsized is his influence it’s actually possible to make the case that Evans played a disproportionate role in making Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue the album that many people—including those who generally dislike improvised music—cite as their favorite jazz recording.

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June 2021

JBL continues to upgrade and update its models of portable Bluetooth speakers. The new Clip 4 offers some welcome new features while omitting some of the attractions of its predecessor, the Clip 3. At $69.95 USD it’s a bit pricey for its tiny size, but it can be found online for considerably less.

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June 2021

Modern Recordings
Format: CD

Musical Performance

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Overall Enjoyment

In a less-fragmented musical landscape, composer-arranger Vince Mendoza might be a household name on the scale of Burt Bacharach or Henry Mancini. After all, the 59-year-old has won six Grammy Awards (and been nominated for a total of 34) and worked with stars like Björk, Elvis Costello, Sting, and Joni Mitchell. As it is, Mendoza’s reputation is largely confined to the jazz community, where he’s made his name by furthering so-called “third stream” music with the Metropole Orchestra and soloists like trumpeter Randy Brecker.

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