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MartinLogan Renaissance ESL 15A
Paradigm Persona Series
Electrocompaniet - AW 800M
Electrocompaniet - AW 800M
Arendal 1528
Hegel Music Systems
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Latest

Bruce Cockburn: "Crowing Ignites"

Details
CD music

October 2019

True North TND737
Format: CD

Musical Performance
*****

Sound Quality
*****

Overall Enjoyment
****

If, like me, you grew up in the western annex of Ottawa’s compact urban core, you felt you owned a little piece of Bruce Cockburn, who lived in the area for 18 years. You could recite the names of his early bands: The Flying Circus, Olivus, 3’s a Crowd, and The Children. You got to see him in the tight confines of Le Hibou, the city’s venerable coffeehouse, and you felt a frisson of association when his music caught on worldwide around 1979. If you got to actually rub shoulders with him -- which for me was backstage at Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium in 1980, at the time when he dressed in guerrilla fatigues and a black beret -- you felt like you were hanging with a guy from the neighborhood rather than someone who was about to have an international hit with “Wondering Where the Lions Are” and appear on Saturday Night Live.

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"Magnificent Obsession" (1954)

Details
Blu-ray movies

September 2019

Douglas Sirk’s Extreme Melodrama Gets the Criterion BD Treatment

The Criterion Collection 457
Format: Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 987
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment
**1/2

Picture Quality
****

Sound Quality
***

Extras
***

Magnificent Obsession was the first book written by minister Lloyd C. Douglas (1877-1951), in 1929. Douglas would go on to write many other books, including The Robe (1942), usually considered his best. Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to Magnificent Obsession, and in 1935 John M. Stahl directed a black-and-white version, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor, that received good notices. A second film version, this one in Technicolor and starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, was directed in 1954 by Douglas Sirk, king of the 1950s Hollywood “weepies.” Most people consider the later version to be the better of the two, but I’m not one of them. Fortunately, this two-disc set contains both versions.

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JBL PartyBox 300 Bluetooth Speaker

Details
Music Everywhere

September 2019

JBL’s mammoth PartyBox 300 speaker is aptly named. It stands 27”H x 13”W x 12.7”D, weighs 34 pounds, plays really loud, and has microphone and guitar inputs for karaoke. Two PartyBoxes can be set up for stereo, and the LEDs that encircle its woofers light up with an impressive show of mesmerizing color patterns. It’s physically imposing -- but does it justify its price of $449.95 USD?

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Bill Frisell: "Harmony"

Details
CD music

September 2019

Blue Note B0030782-02
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
*****

Overall Enjoyment
****

In several ways, guitarist Bill Frisell is the ultimate Baby Boomer improvising musician. Born in Baltimore in 1951, raised in Denver, Frisell grew up listening to the rich panoply of popular music in the ’50s, fell in love with the Beach Boys and the Beatles, and had his mind blown with the rest of us by Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and the other revolutionary electric guitarists of the late ’60s.

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"Klute"

Details
Blu-ray movies

August 2019

A Mesmerizing Jane Fonda on Criterion Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 987
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment
****

Picture Quality
****1/2

Sound Quality
****

Extras
****

Jane Fonda won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Klute (1971). Though she went on to win another Oscar, for Coming Home (1978), as well as many Golden Globes and other awards, we perhaps most easily remember her for the prostitute she plays here. Klute was one of the first films I remember seeing that explored the desires and vulnerabilities of a strong female character. Not long into rehearsal, Fonda wanted to quit, but director Alan J. Pakula (1928-1998) persuaded her to stay on. At the time, Fonda was heavily involved in the movement to end the war in Vietnam, but Pakula later attested that she never let that get in the way of her profession.

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Kanto Tuk Powered Loudspeakers

Details
Music Everywhere

August 2019

It’s refreshing to see a speaker system that has a model name instead of a number. The Tuk ($799.99/pair USD) comes from the Canadian company Kanto Distribution Inc., and is named for Tuktoyaktuk, a remote village on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, where the aurora borealis is particularly spectacular.

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Anthony Braxton: "Quartet (New Haven) 2014"

Details
Download music

August 2019

Firehouse 12 FH12-04-02-030
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC download

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
*****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Anthony Braxton loves Merle Haggard.

That’s right. Braxton. The cardigan-wearing, pipe-puffing cypher who plays every reed instrument under the sun and gives obscure titles to his avant-garde compositions. He loves the Okie from Muskogee so much that he and his bandmates -- guitarist Nels Cline, trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum, and drummer Greg Saunier -- devote an entire hour of this four-hour improvised session to him. According to the other dedications on Quartet (New Haven) 2014, he also digs Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and James Brown.

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"War and Peace" (1966-67)

Details
Blu-ray movies

July 2019

Sergei Bondarchuk’s Restored Masterpiece Dazzles in a New BD from Criterion

The Criterion Collection 983
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment
****1/2

Picture Quality
****1/2

Sound Quality
***1/2

Extras
****

Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace is in the DNA of all Russians. I don’t know if it’s true any longer, but in the 1960s, when this film version was released, every Russian teenage girl wanted to be Natasha Rostova, here radiantly portrayed by Lyudmila Saveleva -- at least, that’s a view supported by one of the excellent extras Criterion includes in this Blu-ray Disc edition.

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Grace Digital EcoXGear EcoTrek Bluetooth Speaker

Details
Music Everywhere

July 2019

Reviewers' ChoiceI remember when Grace Digital launched their first EcoXGear model -- a small, waterproof Bluetooth speaker. Now the line has swollen to more than 20 speakers of all sizes and prices, and something for everyone. One of the most recent is the mighty EcoTrek ($229.99 USD). Weighing 19.2 pounds and measuring 17”H x 15”W x 10.2”D, it falls midway between the EcoBoulder ($249.99) and the EcoXplorer ($169.99), both of which I’ve reviewed -- but the EcoTrek is the only stereo model of those three. Or you can link two EcoTreks, set up as much as 30’ apart, for two-speaker stereo.

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Bruce Springsteen: "Western Stars"

Details
CD music

July 2019

Columbia 19075941972
Format: CD

Musical Performance
*****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

The summer I turned 14, my father took us on a month-long road trip through the US Midwest, out to the western edge of Montana. Fifty years later, the enduring memories include the early mornings speeding west along Interstate 90 -- the sun rising behind us and Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” ubiquitous on AM radio.

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"The Heiress"

Details
Blu-ray movies

June 2019

An Oscar-Winning Film Gets the Criterion Treatment

The Criterion Collection 974
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment
****

Picture Quality
****1/2

Sound Quality
***1/2

Extras
****

The Heiress, released in 1949, was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Oliva de Havilland; Best Art Direction/Set Direction, Black-and-White, John Meehan, Harry Horner, Emil Kuri; Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Edith Head and Gile Steele; and Best Music, Aaron Copland. Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s screenplay was based on their play, which in turn was based on the novel Washington Square, by Henry James. In addition to de Havilland, The Heiress starred Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, and Miriam Hopkins. William Wyler, whose The Best Years of Our Lives had won no fewer than seven Oscars only three years before, directed with a sure hand.

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Recording Drums with Howard Bilerman, Part 3: The Mix

Details
SoundStage! Encore

June 2019

As a drummer, recording engineer, producer, and studio co-owner, Howard Bilerman understands what it takes to music sound alive -- and real. In this third part of the “Recording Drums with Howard Bilerman” series, Bilerman lets you listen to the sounds of the individual microphones he set up to record drummer Loel Campbell (from the band Wintersleep), and he lets you hear combinations of the microphones to demonstrate how they can be used to change the sound of the drums to best suit the recording.

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JBL Link 300 Voice-Activated Wi-Fi Speaker

Details
Music Everywhere

June 2019

With the increasing popularity of voice-activated speakers, JBL offers its Link series, now five models strong. The two smaller models, the Link 10 ($149.95, all prices USD) and Link 20 ($199.95), use rechargeable batteries, whereas the Link 300 ($249.95) and its bigger brother, the Link 500 ($399.95), must be plugged into the wall. There is also the Link View ($249.95), which includes an 8" high-definition screen. All include Google Assistant -- the speaker stays put, and you become the portable part of the system.

Read more …

Various Artists: "Jazz Fest: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival"

Details
CD music

June 2019

Smithsonian Folkways 40250
Format: 5 CDs

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
***

Overall Enjoyment
****

It’s not exactly a guilty secret since I’ve shared it with others, but call it a regret-with-reason: I’ve never been to New Orleans. While I regret having never sampled one of the world’s most distinctive cities, I’m not a fan of humidity. And because I already live in a city where the humidex occasionally reaches oppressive levels, I’ve never been drawn to the Crescent City for a vacation.

Read more …

  1. The Allman Brothers Band's "At Fillmore East" at 48
  2. “A Face in the Crowd”
  3. Audioengine 512 Portable Bluetooth Speaker
  4. Michael Gregory Jackson Clarity Quartet: "WHENUFINDITUWILLKNOW"
  5. "To Sleep with Anger"
  6. Recording Drums with Howard Bilerman, Part 2: Loel Campbell on Setting Up Drums
  7. JBL Charge 4 Bluetooth Speaker
  8. Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea Reissued in Blue Note's Tone Poet Series
  9. Van Morrison: "The Healing Game (Deluxe Edition)"
  10. Grace Digital Mondo+ Classic Wi-Fi Radio
  11. "The Magnificent Ambersons"
  12. iFi Audio's Pro iDSD: Streamer, DAC, Headphone Amp, Preamp -- All in One!
  13. Jeanne Lee & Ran Blake: "The Newest Sound You Never Heard"
  14. "Horror Express"
  15. Recording Drums with Howard Bilerman, Part 1: Philosophy

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