August 2020
The Portable is the latest member of JBL’s Link line of Wi-Fi speakers. It’s distinctive in that you can lift it right out of its charging dock and carry it anywhere in your home that your Internet network is available. It seemed a bit costly at its original price of $179.95 USD, but for this summer JBL has halved the price, to $89.95.
August 2020
How to Find and Stream Your Favorite Classic Films
For anyone in love with the art of film, we live in a glorious age of immediate gratification. Within seconds of your being overcome with a sudden yearning to see it again, or for the first time, you can find and watch almost any title in the history of film.
August 2020
Craft Recordings CR00281
Format: LP
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Take every story of wild rock stars, rockabilly cats, and legendary jazz over-indulgers, and set them all aside. No one -- not Keith Moon, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Charlie Parker -- could hold a candle to pianist James Booker for combining outrageous behavior and audacious musicianship.
July 2020
The Criterion Collection 1032
Format: BD
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
After establishing shots of New York City set to composer Bill Conti’s jaunty main theme, we discover a jogging couple: Erica (Jill Clayburgh) and Martin (Michael Murphy). She’s happy and carefree; he’s quarrelsome, nervous, withdrawn. When he steps in some dog poop and begins having a conniption, she placates him, and they then run home to make love. There we’re introduced to their 15-year-old daughter, Patti (Lisa Lucas), and this well-to-do family’s domestic life. It all looks perfect. Later, as Erica and Martin are taking a walk, he trembles as he tells her, “I’m in love with another woman.”
July 2020
Midsummer -- the perfect time for a Bluetooth speaker that can, um, go with you anywhere. But unless you, er, go for a behemoth, such as Grace Digital’s EcoBoulder, you’re liable to find the sound of most smaller speakers somewhat anemic when you use them outdoors. In addition, most of them lack convenient handles.
July 2020
I first heard Laura Nyro’s songs the way many of us who weren’t quite in our teens did in 1968. The 5th Dimension scored a hit in June of that year with “Stoned Soul Picnic,” a song Nyro had written for her second album, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, which Columbia Records had released in March. The 5th Dimension weren’t really hip, and the single stuck out on AM radio as something your parents would like. A year later, they dented the charts again with “Wedding Bell Blues,” a song from Nyro’s 1967 debut album, More Than a New Discovery.
July 2020
SteepleChase 31899
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
If you’re a regular here, or on any of the other SoundStage! Network sites, it’s safe to assume you love music and listen to a lot of it. It’s also likely that you appreciate the subtleties in the characteristics of various musicians -- whether you like jazz, rock, classical, or country. Your ear, to say nothing about your equipment, is sensitive enough to tell the difference between Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, or Carla Bley and Paul Bley, even if they’re playing the same composition.
June 2020
The Criterion Collection 999
Format: BD
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
Independent filmmaker and screenwriter (and novelist) John Sayles has been interested in depicting social injustice in most of his films, and in none so prominently as Matewan (1987), based on a massacre that took place on May 19, 1920, in Matewan, West Virginia. On that date, coal miners organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) confronted 12 agents from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who were working for the mine owners. The mayor, two citizens, and seven agency men were killed, and others were wounded.
June 2020
Founded in 1991 in the United Kingdom by Peter Thomas and Adrian Loader, The Professional Monitor Company (PMC) has gained a sterling reputation for equipping some of the world’s best-known studios with their loudspeakers. Prior to starting PMC, Thomas was employed at the BBC, the famous UK broadcaster, while Loader worked at FWO Bauch, a British audio distributor. In this video, PMC’s Chris Allen first talks about the company’s history in pro audio, and then explains the important differences between active, powered, and passive loudspeakers -- things every person setting up a studio needs to known to attain the best-possible sound.
June 2020
Nothing gets me started in the morning like a brisk shower, especially when accompanied by Vivaldi or Vampire Weekend -- and it’s surprising how many waterproof shower speakers are now available to assist me. I recently reviewed the Jensen SMPS-626; and now it’s the turn of the new DuoTen.
June 2020
ECM 2679
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. Jazz has produced some highly productive and long-lasting collaborative relationships, but none has lasted as long as the one between bassist/composer Steve Swallow and guitarist John Scofield. They’ve worked together, off and on, since Scofield’s 1980 recording, Bar Talk, so it seems appropriate that the guitarist turn to Swallow for both inspiration and collaboration on his debut for ECM Records.
May 2020
Classic Italian Thriller Gets the Ultimate BD Treatment
Arrow Video AV171
Format: BD
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
Films in the Italian genre called giallo, or yellow -- we call them horror thrillers -- were prominent in Italy in the early-to-mid 1970s, and predated and inspired such American slasher films as Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980). The word giallo originally referred to popular Italian mystery novels that were published in cheap paperback editions with yellow covers. A genuine giallo film is a murder mystery containing gratuitous nudity, sex, violence, and lots of graphic gore. Although giallo and slasher movies have much in common, the latter are more about “howdunnit, who’s next”; the giallo, despite its lurid trappings, is more a whodunnit steeped in mystery.
May 2020
Brendon Heinst is a co-owner of TRPTK, a recording studio in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In this video, Brendon talks about his love for multichannel recording using DXD, a digital recording format operating at 352.8kHz. Armed with five KEF Blade Two speakers and equipment from Hegel Music Systems, Merging Technologies, and Furutech, Brendon creates recordings that he believes bring you closer to the music than standard stereo recording can.
May 2020
Having reviewed many Bluetooth speakers, I’ve found that my experience of them falls into categories. From unboxing to setup to use, I’ve found some that were interesting, some demanding, some surprising, and a few that left me perplexed. Only a few of those experiences were joyful, but one of them was the Kanto TUK ($799.99/pair, all prices per pair, USD), which I reviewed in August 2019. Kanto also has a line of smaller, much cheaper Bluetooth speakers, the YU models, each of which looks promising: the YU2 ($219.99), YU4 ($329.99), and YU6 ($399.99). Now Kanto has introduced a scaled-down version of the YU4 with the most basic of model names: YU ($249.99/pair). Have they got it right again?
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