LINN: ‘we have our own way of walkin’ and talkin’ – circa 1983

Lacking the grace and calm agility of a latter-day Fred Astaire, it was beyond my ability to rise to my feet while foot-tapping, finger clicking and ……. head nodding – all at the same time! I just didn’t have the necessary co-ordination. Clearly some did though. Last night I received an amusing phone call from […]

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BRENNAN: Martin Brennan (engineer)

Martin Brennan is a computer engineer who developed pioneering personal computers such as the Loki (for Sinclair Research) and the Atari Jaguar video game console. A physics graduate of Cambridge University, he was a co-founder of Flare Technology,[1] a design house involved in the design of the ill-fated Konix Multisystem. Brennan initially worked for Sinclair […]

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BREUER 8 DYNAMIC TONEARM: Howard Popeck ponders the departure of his.

From our archives ….. I’m thinking here of the engineering design and execution rather than anything else. The arm that gave the most musical enjoyment was the Breuer-8 Dynamic. After that the SME IV. The Ittok with any Dynavector was magnificent. Sonically the most disappointing were the cheap and shoddy uni-pivots of the 1980s. But […]

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RENEE FLEMING: Ravel, Messiaen …

Joel Kasow writes: Two recital albums on Decca have recently come our way featuring two “house”singers. Renée Fleming’s Poèmes shows off the soprano, highlighting the extraordinary vocal beauty in exotic repertoire, thus demonstrating the soprano’s eagerness to lead her fans outside the customary paths. The most familiar item, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, is given one of the […]

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FAITH: Losing mine in the high-end … except speakers

I have had two experiences of downgrading that make me wonder about the vfm of much hi-end equipment. First I replaced a Naim 52/250 for a while with a cheapo NAD C320BEE and felt the NAD sounded better. More recently my modified Pioneer PD-S904 (called an Eikos) died and I put in a standard PD-S904 […]

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GERALD WILSON: Little Big Man

Originally posted September 2011 Robert Baird writes ….. Big bands died out back in the 1950s, right? They went away when the jitterbug faded and folks began dancing to music other than swing? And then real jazz fans departed when the bebop soloists came along and made big-band players look clumsy and quaint?Despite that widely […]

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Does purity lead to distortion?

There are many multi-driver speakers, but few that go floor to ceiling like the IRSV. Floor to ceiling multi-driver speakers are called a Line Source. What’s counter-intuitive about a line source is how specific the imaging can be. With that many drivers, one would think the image would be tall, rather than lifelike, when the […]

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