CLASSICAL MUSIC APPRECIATION: Challenges and rewards

Under­stand­ing clas­si­cal can be dif­fi­cult and takes patience. While you may become famil­iar with a pop­u­lar track the 2nd or 3rd time you lis­ten to it, most WCM works take dozens of repeated lis­ten­ing ses­sions to acquire basic familiarity. The length of many WCM works is another issue. You can’t just spend 5 min­utes lis­ten­ing, […]

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DYNAMICS: Bringing It Back To Music

“Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it’s not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an […]

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Joe Satriani – The Complete Studio Recordings Box Set (15CD) by

All 14 studios albums, starting with 1986′s Not Of This Earth, are included in this 15CD box set, with the final disc being made of a selection of rarities specially curated by Satriani himself (Added Creations and Bonus Tracks). Everything has been newly remastered under the supervision of engineer John Cuniberti who has a history […]

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TECHNICS: SP10 Mk2 owner causing a headache

My search for audio nirvana is proving frustrating the constant pain in my frontal lobe coming from the continued banging of my head against a brick wall. First things first, my system comprises the following; Technics SP10 MkII Slatedeck plinth SME V Denon DL304 Trichord Dino for vinyl duties, Esoteric X03se CD spinner, Linn Klimax […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

PS AUDIO: Truth or preference?

In our search for sonic truth, there comes a point where the systems get so good their “truth” is more about our personal preference. In fact, personal preferences often trump truth. We know we’ve gotten closer to the truth when it matches what we believe to be the musical truth. Of course, no one knows what musical truth is. […]

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EDITOR’S PLAYLIST

From a long while ago! The hard (but fun) work behind the scenes in our editorial office becomes more enjoyable through listening to music in the background. Our playlist varies of course, depending on the prevailing mood. Sometimes it’s predominantly blues, rarely jazz, occasionally Mozart, and so on. And sometimes like today, a bit of […]

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RAVEL: Boléro … which recording should you buy?

Gramophone magazine write: I don’t know about you, but I love losing myself in unfamiliar urban terrain, the plan being to have no plan, walking aimlessly with a purpose, discovering new perspectives on skyscraper vistas, stumbling into a hitherto unseen street or square. Maurice Ravel’s Boléro scratches that same mesmerising itch. In our October 2010 […]

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Black Light (CD) – John McLaughlin

Expansive, emotionally charged album ‘Black Light’ showcases guitar legend John McLaughlin’s virtuoso 4th Dimension band. As a musician, composer, and bandleader, John McLaughlin’s vast contributions to contemporary improvisational music are only just beginning to be fully understood, appreciated, and absorbed by artists and enthusiasts alike. From Mahavishnu Orchestra, Shakti and his collaboration with Paco De […]

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TAYLOR SWIFT: Worst songs… ever

Robert Silva (for ThoughtCo) writes: Taylor Swift’s Five Worst Songs Taylor Swift is talented. And she’s won every country music award there is. But her elfin charms and precocious musical ability don’t make the singer immune from writing some pretty bad songs. It’s enticing to jump on the Taylor Swift bandwagon, but let’s keep it […]

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“When a scientist wants to declare something as a fact, here’s the process they go through: observe, theorize, measure, repeat.”

Paul McGowan writes: As a follow up to yesterday’s post Just because, a few readers wrote to me defending both sides of their worldview of how things work. The objectivists reiterated “observations are not accepted fact until you can measure them” and the Observationalists  wrote to say “if I can repeatedly observe the same thing […]

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PS AUDIO: Try it sometime

Paul McGowan writes: When I sit in the sound room for critical listening of course I always grab the “hot seat” because certainly in my system, that’s the place where the best imaging and tonal balance take place – and not just by a little bit – it’s seriously better than any other seat in […]

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