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AIG Columns

Audio Ideas: AM On New Blu-ray Releases - Montreux To Monty From Eagle Rock

Monty Python on Blu-ray (thn)“What a feast for Python fans! Starting with a contextual look at the Python origins, and followed by interviews with members, this series is utterly riveting, even going right back to my undergraduate idols, The Goons, led by Peter Sellers. It was the wild and surreal radio antics of The Goon Show that inspired the first Pythons. They bridged the gap from the unseen and imagined to the visual craziness that amazed and entertained British viewers while mystifying and enraging BBC programming executives…”

AM’s Top 10 Pop/Rock/Folk Surround Discs - SACD, DVD-A, DTS, etc., Part 2

Brothers in Arms“You ain’t heard Money For Nothing until you’ve heard it in 5-channel bedlam! There’s so much going on in the mix that it just picks you up and grabs you by the balls…it’s loud, it’s rude, it’s fantastic! And it’s my favourite crank-the-system song! Of course, it’s the full-length version, not the censored short single…”

AM’s Top 10 Pop/Rock/Folk Surround Discs - SACD, DVD-A, DTS, etc…Part 1

Ray Sings, Basie Swings“This album was a project of Concord records producer John Burk, who discovered the tapes from European concert dates in the Fantasy Records archive that contained these unreleased Norman Granz Pablo masters. Burk had spearheaded Ray’s last great recording project, Genius Loves Company (see below), and saw potential in the great vocals in otherwise unreleasable multitrack tapes…”

Audio Ideas: Andrew Marshall Visits Newform Research to See and Hear Their (BIG) New Ribbons

John Meyer Poses with two of his smaller Ribbon Speakers“Coaxial Ribbon LineSource models come in two versions. The LineSource Reference [floorstander] is suitable for front loudspeakers in medium to very large rooms with virtually no restriction on height as they are completely scalable. [In other words,] the LSRs are highly configurable and tuneable to allow the ideal match for room and listening requirements…”

SuperSounds: IsoMike in Surround SACD from Kimber Kable

Iso Mike SACD“The artists featured in these two releases, consisting of 3 SACD multichannel/CD hybrid discs, comprise the Fry Street String Quartet, who came to these recording sessions with a string of awards and prizes in their young history. Winners of the Milennium Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the First Prize at the Yellow Springs Competition, and also receiving an award at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Fry Streeters have been a busy bunch. They’re currently in residence as the Faculty Quartet at Utah State’s School of the Arts…”

Audio Ideas: Customer Service Making the GRADO!

GRADO SR 125 SmallMy decade-old Grado SR-125 headphones don’t owe me anything after all these years of monitoring recordings in progress, or offering wee-small-hours solace for insomnia. I had never liked the stock ear cushions, however, and had bought a pair of larger, deeper foam cushions from Strategic Audio Developments called upgradables that were much more comfortable (Attempts to Google this company were unsuccessful).

Audio Ideas: The Noo Radio Tiew - Amateur Radio, Paid For By You!

CBC Logo“After a couple of weeks with the “noo Radio Tiew”, I must say that I’ve never seen such a complete sabotage of a great radio service in my 45-year career as broadcaster and writer. Just about all the core values have been thrown away, starting with professionalism. Listening to these groping amateurs on the air takes me back to my days of running the Queen’s University radio station, CFRC, in the late 60s and early 70s…”

Audio Ideas: Being Transformed

Andrew Marshall, 2008In the past year I’ve gone through an experience I never expected, the process of moving from the best head amp I’d ever used to a series of transformers in my phono system. It all started with the final fate of my twice-retipped Ortofon MC-3000 MK II, which was to become mono, the left-channel coil failing. And the thing about this wonderfully civilized and detailed cartridge was its very low output, a nominal 30 microvolts, which dictated the active MC stage, the legendary McIntosh MCP-1…”

Audio Ideas: Wrecking Radio 2 - The Sequel & The Growing Opposition

CBC Logo“I was contemplating how to continue to address the ongoing events at the CBC with respect to changes to Radio 2, when an email arrived that summed up events so far so well, that I decided to quote from it at length. The release comes from Peter McGilllivray, radio2@petermcgillivray.com, as he says, “representing a group of people that were ticked off enough at the Changes at CBC to join a Facebook group to try and organize some action to stop it all…”

Audio Ideas: Some Year End Thoughts from Andrew Marshall

UHF Cover, Nagra, Lyrec

“2007 has been an eventful year for all of us at AIG. The transition from print publication to expanded online presence has occupied quite a bit of it, and I am both delighted and relieved that it has been accomplished with only the expected growing pains, for the most part. Aaron called upon some more expert help than himself to get it all done, and you may have read about it in our earlier post on the subject, so I won’t go into specifics about it here…”

Audio Ideas: CBC Radio Two - Intelligent Music Selection Becomes A Sausage Factory

CBC Logo“At my daughter’s wedding in May 07, after polite greetings, the first thing one of the other principal parents said to me, “My God, what’s gone wrong with CBC Radio Two all-of-a-sudden?” Of course, having worked there for a number of years in the 70s, I was thought to be something of an expert. I have kept in touch with friends inside, but quite a few of those folks have retired, or fled, like I did, in disgust….”


  Outside the Speakers

    The CD in Decline
    A Brief History of the LP
    Worst Album Sales Week Ever
    The Devolution of Sound Quality
    Solar Powered Speaker Array

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