Little Feat’s “Waiting for Columbus” master-tapes 💫

 

Among the best and most underrated music ever recorded: Lowell George’s Fender Stratocaster blended with The Tower of Power’s horns is pure-magic 💫

Notice “NAB + 3” eq. was used, at 30 i.p.s. 🥇

A masterpiece 💎

Weird Music - Evan Parker

 

Amazingly, haunting and immersive journey into math-like music: IMHO, it’s like listening to this…

Exploring the almost infinite possibilities of soprano sax 💫

Weird Music - Current 93

 

Atmospheres from the darkest universe…

💫

Another J.F. Pontefract’s masterpiece 💫

 

Another J.F. Pontefract’s engineered masterpiece and music to-par 💫  - or, rather: to-tar 😏 - one of the very best HMs’ in my humble opinion and the birds (blackbirds, as per my knowledge) are singing outside the recording venue 💫)

Again: one of the very best of the crop, music- and recording-wise.

💎

CH Precision D10 Reference Transport 💫

 

CH Precision D10 Reference Transport: Beyond Compromise

For most high-end manufacturers, disc transports begin and end with outsourced mechanisms—even in six-figure products. It’s expedient, but it imposes limits.

At CH Precision, we reject that compromise. Every component is conceived for a single purpose: to preserve musical information with absolute fidelity.

The D1.5 embodied this philosophy. The new D10 Master Transport elevates it to another realm—a heroic achievement, Olympian in scale and execution. 

At its heart is the in-house designed and engineered MORSE  mechanism. MORSE (Mechanically Optimized Reading & Stability Enhancement) represents something entirely without precedent—an achievement unmatched in the history of disc playback.

Composite suspended platform of aluminum and brass for unmatched vibration control

Alpha-gel isolators that suppress noise below 20 Hz

A transport assembly weighing 13 kg—over 10× the D1.5

The result: flawless, time-true extraction of CD and SACD content, and a new reference standard in optical playback.

The D10 isn’t just a transport—it is the summit of digital performance.

All the above care for details has a cost: ~ € 96K 😏

Riding the Big Horn 💫

 

How I feel, designing and re-shaping my Gotorama 2.0

Thanking Jim Woodring for the nice artwork… 

Ella by Pablo 💫

 

I Advance Masked 💫

 

Some cool pictures of master-tapes and studio logs 💫

… and - why not? - on cassette, too 😏

💫

Aurora preamp by Scientific Fidelity Inc. 💫

 

The SCI-FI Aurora preamplifier 

Scientific Fidelity, formerly Man, is the company that markets the splendid designs of a singular figure named David Man, in my opinion one of the most brilliant minds in the entire high-end scene.

Man presents himself as an American engaged in that strange mix of intents: selling (and trying to sell a lot) objects that appeal both to the user's cultural sensibilities and (too often predominantly) to their wallets.

In any case, his devices always have an extremely original aesthetic, often futuristically retro. Once I defined the aesthetics of one of its most prestigious chains (the one this Aurora preamplifier is part of), in the "Metropolis" style, clearly referring to Fritz Lang and certainly not to Peu-Sci Fi products are the perfect embodiment of what I've been repeating for years: that contrary to the dictates of a certain prudish esotericism, good can, indeed should, equate to beautiful, and there is no reason why the "spender" of money (a lot) intended for the acquisition of objects that, in addition to reproducing music at their best, represent important presences in the visual field of his existence, should at all costs have to own objects that, when they're not obviously ugly, are awkward or overbearing.

I've been fascinated by them since their first appearance at a

C.E.S. in 1989 (but notable Man product’s prototypes had been seen since 1986), a deep admirer of David Man's products, and if the siren song that first attracted me to one of his stands was the splendid aesthetics of his equipment (the Áurora preamp, the Trilium tube power amps, the Tesla speakers), the objectivity that led me to carefully follow their evolution is the fruit of the unmistakable quality of their sound, forming a cocktail that today is almost unique of different and splendidly cohesive beauties.

The Aurora preamp is an object that cannot fail to fascinate with its futuristic line, as futuristic as the machines imagined by Jules Verne, or as futuristic as the futuristic design of a certain school of interior architecture in the 1920s and 1930s (I'm thinking of Mius Van Del Rohe but also John McIntosh). In short, an archaeological futurity whose reinterpretation is brilliant and executed with extraordinary taste.

This is unprecedented in high fidelity:

the preamplifier is a sort of tubular handlebar, consisting of a wide, flat base in the shape of a low chromed parallelepiped, topped by a rectangular-based, triangular-section polyhedron mount, with a rounded upper corner, positioned orthogonally to the center of the base. A large tubular element passes through a hole drilled in the polyhedron, at the ends of which are four bands of synthetic material illuminated in a shaded, opalescent carmine red. These separate four knobs machined from the solid steel tube, flush with it. On the back of the polyhedron are the input and output pins, arranged in an orderly (and hidden) array.

In short, the Aurora, connected to a system consisting of a Michell Gyrodeck turntable with a SME Series IV tonearm personally modified by Allistair Robertson, a Spectral MCR Signature cartridge, a Micromega Duo CDP with a Duo Pro converter, Klimo Kent Silver Mono power amplifiers, and Diapason Adamantes loudspeakers, delivered a remarkable display of musicality, competing virtually on equal terms with the tube Linnett Silver Special that I use as a reference. This is a transistorized preamp with very few of the classic defects of solid-state preamps: it suffers neither from coldness nor a tendency to sharpness in the high range, which is nevertheless well extended and presents a slight coloration from emphasis above 10 kHz (noticeable as a hint of hyper-definition). 

Above all, it doesn't compromise its splendid transparency and ability to detail in the midrange with the dryness typical even of very high-quality equipment (e.g., Levinson 26 or Treshold FTen), although it doesn't possess the same astonishing tonal homogeneity. In the bass range, the Aurora behaves like a great preamp, with a resolution of even the smallest details (e.g., the touch of the bass strings or the textured texture of certain drums) of no less than exceptional quality, great dynamics, and remarkable depth characterized by an extraordinary harmonic richness. The soundstage is wide but not overwhelming, dimensionally very consistent, with a good contribution in terms of depth, which gives the sound a nice depth. In short, a different object, but far from strange, and, ultimately, one of the best preamplifiers currently available.

Thanks to the late, beloved Bebo Moroni for his a.m. review 💫🙏💫

Hello! What’s this?!?

 

Thanks a ton to Robert Crumb (he knows 💫)

Jordan-Watts “Flagon” - some further considerations 💫

 

Their limited bandwidth, rather than annoying or disappointing, gives a very pleasant "reading" of the music... the bass and treble are there, but the midrange is so beautiful and plump that you don't get tired and listen to record after record after record and discover details that other speakers hide with too much unwanted information... the high notes of a live violin are much more similar to the violin reproduced by the JW Flagons! 

Another merit of these seldom-seen loudspeakers, coming from the fervent and unashamed creative mind of Ted Jordan, is their point-like emission character - i.e. - they virtually disappear in the room and you’re not able to identify their physical size as music comes, not forced or screaming, but free and with a wide, natural “breath”.

The “Flagon” on their Foundation Design stands 💫

Truly surprising... when in old Studietto, the listening sessions weren’t so much satisfying…

P.S. - the MOST satisfying and wonderfully matching amps I used with my “Flagon” (16 ohm) proved to be the venerable Quad II mono-blocks with GEC “smoked” KT66 🥇🥇🥇

💫

The Grateful Dead goes 3D 💫

 

The 50th anniversary deluxe 3-disks edition of “Workingman Dead” is delivered with a cool, nice gimmick box, a 3D lenticular image like the iconic Rolling Stones’ “Their Satanic Majesties…”.

💫

A tesseract

 

Fondly remembering a Robert A. Heinlein’s novel about a one of a kind crooked house.

💫

The Fidelity Research Accurate Attenuation System AS-1 “Transìtion”

 

Despite the quite pompous model name, with its serious, no-frills appearance this marvelous piece of gear plays like music… it makes all, ALL other preamps I owned, currently own or tried in my system sound like veiled, slow, lifeless in a direct comparison.

This Japanese humble little box is precise as a razor, light-speedy and makes music and audio system “breathing” in a seldom heard way… with Misho’s Phono stage it’s an heavenly matching and working with my studio reel-to-reel machines is a bliss, as I’m able to fully appreciate recording quality and machine sonic footprint. 

Truly amazingly and aptly named “Transition”, it sure represented a transition, a door to better perception.

Among the VERY best passive preamps on the planet, period. 💫

Bob Dylan’s original Columbia master-tapes 💫💎💫

 

These Scotch tapes and Albert Grossman’s written studio log were auctioned a few years ago…

For us, common people, it’s already cool looking at the seldom-seen pictures.

💫