Saturday, February 8, 2014

Lifatec's "Silflex" Toslink/Toslink glass digital 20" audio cable

I'm getting more life-like music with Lifatec's Toslink fiberglass 20" cable, folks... this unassuming white string is incredibly performing... used between my old, trusty Meridian 500 and 563 24-bit converter instead of the previous reference, the coaxial Actinote.

I already had the Mac mini-plug to Toslink I use with my MacBook Pro for some (primitive) liquid music, mostly radio streaming from iTunes... nice... BUT when I yesterday linked the above mentioned gears with the Silflex'...

From Lifatec's literature:

Our cables exceeds the 15Mbps data rates required by Toshiba's best TOSLINK OPTICAL MODULES.
470 Audio Data SILFLEX Glass Fiber Optic strands
SILFLEX Glass Fibers are custom designed & manufactured to match the NUMERICAL APERTURE & WAVELENGTH requirements of TOSLINK OPTICAL MODULES
Connector end tips are precision machined
Our NEW OPTISILK jacketing is extremely flexible, lightweight and durable.
An additional Internal polymer sheathing & a Kevlar strength member makes this the most durable audio cable on the market
Fiber Optic end tips are polished to a 1 micron optical finish

From my ears: as I told you, I'm getting more life-like music with Lifatec's Toslink fiberglass 20" cable, period.

Light, airy and natural sound... a loooot of new details from well known disks, not bass shy, only a different music and frequencies balance... someway easier to the ear, no frills beauty, no exagerations on any frequency.

Truly a great performance, indeed.

My new reference: cheap and effective cable from a true specialist.

Volker's SME MkI obsession...

A GREAT job made by a new pal from Germany... Volker did his homeworks, indeed.

... and the rare SME Mark 1 with its heavy stainless-steel arm wand revived...

Possibly THE best 12" arm for the Classic Ortofon SPU G-Type... much, MUCH better than the latter SME 3012R with its black resin knife... someway loosing the magic of Mk1 and the even rarer "prototype".

Bravo!

Friday, February 7, 2014

One Million Pages Views!

Yes.

Il Signor Bonaventura (an old Italian comics) and his pup

Thanks to ALL the readers and followers of my humble, little Blog...

Ken Shindo passed away!

My mentor, the man who changed the '70s audio made by corporate monsters companies into a man-made bespoke-things-for-men, again, in the very spirit and heritage of '50s and '60s "proudly made stuffs", sadly passed away in Tokyo after a brief illness... he was 74.

A classy, elegant man... his vision enlightened myself and many, many others worldwide.

Ken Shindo, in 2006 (thanking Brian Kearn for the great portrait...)

A lesser (audio) world it is...

R.I.P. and condolences to his wife Harumi and son Takashi, whom I met at their tiny two storey Tokyo workshop, back in 2009.

The Wand from New Zealand - a unipivot cool arm from Kiwi Land

A beauty!

Something VERY cool is happening, Downunder... a lot of free-thinkers.

Good ol' workmanship - the mighty RCA Type 70D studio/broadcasting turntable

How things should be done...

In the lollowing live word you'll find the User Manual... thanking Coutant.org... super site.

Superb! ... and the ad claims abut 4.500 D-70s sold... where they are, now?!?!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Piazza Demetrio Stratos at Oppido Lucano (Potenza) - Italy & Frank Zappa's in Vilnius, Lithuania

A rock way to name and make younger streets and squares

Wise!

Indeed!

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Musings

He looks quite worried...

154 db... That's fucking HIGH high efficiency!!!

The sound system 'so powerful it can KILL humans': Enormous horn is helping space scientists develop super-strong satellites

Large European Acoustic Facility sound system is capable of generating more than 154 Decibels and is housed in a special room in the Netherlands
The sound is the equivalent to standing next to several jets taking off
It is used to blast satellites and spacecraft with sound
Large horns are housed in a sound-proofed room that is 16.4metres tall

Commonwealth 12D

I rescued from my hard-disk some pixes of my old Commonwealth 12D...

When the battered carton box arrived from Australia, a BIIIG ugly dried & dead hairy black spider was "buried" near the knob...

Now it's happily spinning in Berlin.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Jack Johnson's From Here Now to You

WOW... what a disc... it seems a 300 grams:-))) vinyl and the sound is pure Hawaiian (not in the Gabby Panhuini's vein) laid back music... acoustic and nylon strings guitars, ukelele, tiples, baritone, hand percussions and nice vocals...

From a surfer's son - Jack is - nice after-surfing music, on the beach in front of a fire.

My Gotorama - thanking Garrardzilla and The Peak arm with Lumiere DST - is singing like a blackbird in a springtime morning... Jack and his cohort were - thanks folks - in my room for almost one hour.

Do not think it's Blonde on Blonde or Pink Moon... yet, it's an easy, nice wax... worth every cent and gram... the cover, the sky and clouds says it all about the music.

What a disc, pals.

Bottesini's Capriccio di Bravura for double-bass

This evening it was my VERY first time I attended at a concert where this INCREDIBLE piece for double bass and piano was played...

I cherished my Telefunken's disc, where maestro Ludwig Streicher gives an impressive rendition of this and other Bottesini's beautiful pieces, for years... and looking from first row at the left hand flying over the whole fretboard is, well... magic.

Bottesini's music is pure belcanto... the huge instrument transforms itself into a new sooo light and poetic gentle giant... a tenor voice seems to appear and you... aehm, I discovered me humming during the concert...

For the definitive version, please buy this...

... still available quite easily on Ebay or here for small bucks...

... but I learned this evening that Gergely Járdányi, the double-bassist from Budapest, 56 years old, shown in the pixes, recently recorded Bottesini's masterpieces on Hungaroton label.

... not by chance, mr. Jardanyi studied with Prof. Ludwig Streicher, in Wien.

Class isn't water... but a looooot of dedication and passion and study is necessary for flawlessly playing Bottesini... and everything else:-)

“Beauty of music you must hear twice.”–James Joyce, Ulysses

Sunday, February 2, 2014

R.I.P. Dept. - Philip Seymour Hoffman dies in NYC

Already deeply missed... a very sad event.

P.S.H. in Venice, Italy

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Fly me to the Moon - the coolest Blog of (early) 2014...

From South Korea.

Superb, SUPERB, S-U-P-E-R-B!!!

... and not ONLY talking about Neumann PA-2, SEV1 and DST.

Thanks, Daum! Excellent taste.

Browse this Blog, folks... it's seldom seen stuff.

The definitive neck-lace for horns lovers...

Very distinctive... Viking-style.

Thanking my pal Kim from Norway.

Western Electric 437A - "A HIGH FIGURE OF MERIT TRIODE" - A unique description for this tube alone!

For sale on Ebay now... a cool matched pair... and nice pixes, as well...

... as I use 4 of these on my Mayer LCR Phono stage and also if I Chip'n'Dale-ed 4 x 4 quartets (16) as spares in the last years, all with original white/blue Western Electric original carton box... nonetheless, every time I find these elusive and expensive, BUT most of, INCREDIBLY nicely, smooth and natural sounding tubes, my (audio) heart beats.