Archive for Stereophile Magazine
A Stereophile Rave for One Movement Symphonies
Stereophile Magazine critic Stephen Francis Vasta gives Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony a four-and-a-half star rating and the sonics a five-star rating in his review for their new One Movement Symphonies recording: “These three symphonies, all dating from the first half of the 20th century, comprise so apt a program that I’m surprised no one did it before. … The program demands front-line virtuoso playing, and the Kansas City Symphony proves up to…
Stereophile Review for Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Stephen Francis gives 4.5 Stars to Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in Stereophile: “From Reference Recordings, we can count on pellucid sonics, including here. You can “hear through” the textures even in the most violent tuttis, with no trace of congestion. In the finale’s “recitatives,” the divided low strings are wonderfully enveloping. The Adagio‘s airy woodwind chorales are almost tangible. …The music, guided by the conductor’s sharp ear, is…
Break The Chain Vinyl in Stereophile
Doug MacLeod and the LP release of Break the Chain got a nice mention from Stereophile‘s Michael Fremer as part of a review of the Audia Flight FLS1 Pre-Amp/DAC in the April 2019 issue: “Bluesman Doug MacLeod hasn’t put out one bad record in his long career…His latest, Break the Chain (2 45rpm LPs, RM-2519), recorded live at Skywalker Sound by Keith O. Johnson and Sean Royce Martin, with no edits or overdubs, is yet…
Stereophile Highlights PaTRAM’s Teach Me Thy Statutes Recording
The August 2018 print edition of Stereophile Magazine features “Outstanding Choral Recordings” in Jason Victor Serinus’ “My Backpages” column and includes the new PaTRAM Institute release, Teach Me Thy Statutes: “In Teach Me Thy Statutes, 15 compositions by the prolific Chesnokov receive devout performances by the PaTRAM Institute Male Choir… Recorded in hi-rez DSD by John Newton and mixed and mastered by Mark Donahue of SoundMirror… Although the choir’s 42 voices include five basso profundos,…
Dawn To Dust is a Sonic Spectacular!
“Prediction: The visionary new music, system-testing percussion, and virtual rainbow of colors that distinguish Dawn to Dust, the latest hybrid SACD in Reference Recordings’ Fresh! series, guarantee that it will become a hit among music-loving audiophiles who dare play tracks beyond 3 minutes in length. The inventive genius that courses through the recording’s three compositions—Control (Five Landscapes for Orchestra) by Nico Muhly, 34; Switch by Andrew Norman, 37; and Eos (Goddess of the Dawn), a…
ThrowbackThursday — J. Gordon Holt Interviews Keith O. Johnson
Stereophile Magazine recently republished a wonderful interview between Keith O. Johnson and J. Gordon Holt from the 1984 Winter CES in Las Vegas. Read the entertaining lead note from J. Gordon Holt below, and click the link to read the full interview (Note: The much-mentioned Däfos recording has been out of print for many years): “ After a couple of scheduling foul-ups, I managed to corner Reference Recordings’ Keith O. Johnson at the 1984 Winter…
Stereophile Names “Strauss” A Record To Die For!
In the February 2014 issue of Stereophile Magazine, Kalman Rubinson names the new Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Strauss SACD, a “Record to Die For.” “From the first note, one hears an immediate and direct instrumental sound, with instruments on a wide, deep soundstage that begins at the speaker plane and extends deeply. … I find this startlingly close to a real concert experience, where the hall acoustics have a more subtle influence and don’t intrude on…
Doug MacLeod There’s A Time the Stereophile May Recording of the Month!
Doug MacLeod’s new There’s A Time release named Stereophile Magazine’s Recording of the Month! “His original music, which is what he’s documented in the 12 tracks of this warm, alive, natural, very well-recorded 24-bit HDCD collection…works in wise and pleasurable ways…Though he’s probably best known as a canny, nimble acoustic blues guitarist, MacLeod’s voice, with its prominent crying tone and agile phrasing, is the equal of his string jiggering…his singing is every bit as artistic…
Stereophile Reviews Horns for the Holidays
Stereophile.com‘s Jason Victor Serinus has a wonderful review on Dallas Wind Symphony release Horns for the Holidays, and even includes an interview with Keith O. Johnson! “As you can well imagine, Johnson, who has something like nine Grammy nominations for Engineering and one Grammy Award for Best Surround Recording to his credit, takes full advantage of this opportunity to show what Reference Recordings can do. Even heard without the advantage of Johnson’s HDCD decoding, Horns…
Exotic Dances from the Opera already a true Reference recording
Exotic Dances from the Opera is already becoming a true “reference” recording! Check out this quick line from Stereophile‘s California Audio Show report: “With Focal Scala Utopias elevated on stands to decouple them from the floor and make their immediacy available to a room filled with audiophiles, a tape of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Dance of the Tumblers from Reference Recordings’ Exotic Dances at the Opera sounded right on.” Make sure to get your copy of this recording…
Stereophile gets excited about our LPs
Thanks to Stereophile for the great writeup! We’re getting pretty excited about our LPs coming out on Friday, but it’s great to see that others are too! We’ve seen the excitement on Facebook and Twitter, and so we wanted to share some of the great inside information that Stereophile was able to get out of the RR team. From Sterophile: In 2005, when RR became aware of the vinyl resurgence, they searched throughout North America,…
Jon Atkinson Interviews Tam Henderson (1989)
This interview of Reference Recordings’ Tam Henderson by Stereophile Magazine‘s John Atkinson was done in 1989. But, we came back across it today when speak3raudio.com tweeted it today, so we thought it would be fun to share it here!Tam Henderson, Reference RecordingsBy John Atkinson – June, 1989——————————– When we met, I had intended to ask Tam about a major project Reference Recordings had undertaken to record Fats Waller stride-piano pieces both direct-to-CD and direct-to-DMM-LP. Both…
A Fun Timeline by J. Gordon Holt
We just wanted to share this fun timeline published originally by J. Gordon Holt of Stereophile Magazine. We just thought some timeline perspective would be fun as we prepare to roll back out LPs this year and as we prepare to launch our very first…we can’t spoil that surprise yet sorry… Where We Are and How We Got Here By J. Gordon Holt • March, 1982 As another Consumer Electronics Show rolls around, we are…
A Fun Vote from Stereophile Magazine
We wanted to share a link from our friends at Stereophile Magazine for their Vote section. The Vote is “What is the source component you use most in your home system?“ And you have to choose from: CD player ComputerMedia serverDVD-Audio or SACD playerTurntableTunerOther So, we thought it would be a good one to share. So make sure to go to the Stereophile Magazine Vote section and submit your vote! You can tell US your…
2009 Stereophile Records To Die For
Yesterday we came across Stereophile Magazine’s 2009 “Records To Die For” list, and were very happy to see that we had TWO Releases on the list! So, today we thought we’d give you the link to the list, and share some information on the two albums that were included. From John Atkinson: MIKE GARSON: Jazz HatMike Garson, piano; Eric Marienthal, alto sax; Brian Bromberg, acoustic bass; Ralph Humphrey, drumsReference RR-114 (HDCD CD; also available as…