Copper
How to Play in a Rock Band, Part Seven: Playing...
In our last installment (Issue 213) I talked about the challenges of playing on small stages, where you might not even have room to move more than a few inches...
The Vinyl Beat, Special Edition: Miles Davis an...
Much of the audiophile world has been abuzz with this “new” Miles Davis release on Analogue Productions. This package, Birth of the Blue, is a compilation of the four studio...
The Vinyl Beat
Happy New Year everyone! On deck are some recent releases, peppered with a couple of disappointments. After all, not all of our music purchases (vinyl or otherwise) are perfect! ...
The Roots of Rock and Roll (Sort Of), Part One
Introduction A much-debated topic in popular music is the origin of rock and roll music. Some people credit its beginnings to Bill Haley and the Comets for “Rock Around the...
PS Audio in the News
PS Audio components received Gear of the Year 2024 mentions from Future Audiophile magazine. The products listed include the AirLens (Best Music Streamer), StellarGold preamplifier (best stereo preamplifier), and the...
Vintage Voltage
This month we're featuring some very cool gear from Vintage Chief.com, an online seller of restored older audio components, with worldwide shipping from The Netherlands. Here's a Musical...
Back to My Reel-to-Reel Roots, Part 13: Re-Educ...
After the last two issues’ litanies of sins, by both the tape manufacturers and the end users (but not the vendors), I tried to place myself back in the 1950s...
The Roots of Rock and Roll (Sort Of), Part One
Introduction A much-debated topic in popular music is the origin of rock and roll music. Some people credit its beginnings to Bill Haley and the Comets for “Rock Around...
Octave Records Presents an Evening of Live Jazz...
Octave Records’ latest, Louisa Amend Quartet Live at the Muse Performance Space is sure to delight jazz fans and audiophiles alike with its beautifully-recorded songs, captured live in an intimate...
How to Post Comments on Copper
We get queries on how to post comments at the end of Copper articles. Here's how to get set up to leave comments: To comment at the end of an article, you...
Colors in the Sun
This photograph was taken in Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia’s studio at his Gallery in the Sun in Tucson, Arizona. It’s a detail of his palette and some of his paints. DeGrazia...
Table of Contents – Issue 213
Happy holidays from all of us at Copper! There are countless holiday and end-of-year releases, but topmost on my wish list is Talking Heads: 77 Super Deluxe Edition, which features...
How to Post Comments on Copper
We get queries on how to post comments at the end of Copper articles. Here's how to get set up to leave comments: To comment at the end of an article, you...
Capital Audiofest 2024, Part One: The Trend is ...
If I had to sum up Capital Audiofest in a couple of words, they would be: Clarity. Fun. Normally at shows I find everything from rooms that blow me away...
My Experience With Commercial Four-track Tapes,...
In a previous article (published in Issue 209), I talked about my investigations into commercial four-track tapes. These tapes were released from the late 1950s through to the early 1980s,...
Jamie Howarth of Plangent Processes: Making Rec...
In Part One of this interview (Issue 212), Jamie Howarth, President of Plangent Processes and I discussed the fundamentals of the company’s audio speed-correction and stabilization technology, how the idea...
Vampire Weekend'sMadison Square Garden Matinee
With an Electronic Montreal Act and a Billy Joel Tribute Band One Sunday I walked into Madison Square Garden for a concert, as I had done so often during...
A New Normal Was in Sight at Making Vinyl Europ...
In the midst of their busy season, nearly 300 vinyl record professionals, including manufacturers, record labels, and distributors descended on the quaint town of Haarlem in The Netherlands from September...
Life’s Biggest Problem
A good friend of mine recently lamented the degradation of his hearing. He’d been tested and the results were devastating to him. Theo really loves his music, especially now that...
50 Years of PS Audio: The Quest for Perfect Power
Old Rube Goldberg would have thought this so nuts as to probably publish it in one of his cartoons – but still, great ideas usually start out as crazy fantasies. At least...
Two Magnificent Holiday Albums From 2L Records:...
2L, a Norwegian company headed by Grammy-winning engineer Morten Lindberg, has released two holiday-themed albums, Yule by Trio Mediæval, and Fred over jorden (Peace to the World) by the Uranienborg...
The Vinyl Beat: Holiday Happiness
This month, I’m going to jump ahead a little and review some new releases I’ve downloaded that I haven’t yet received on vinyl (as one of them was released a...
Analogue Productions Reissues Genesis: Nursery ...
As part of Atlantic Records’ ongoing 75th anniversary celebration, Analogue Productions has released Nursery Cryme, the latest in its series of Genesis reissues, as a 2-LP 45 RPM set. It’s a...
Test Records and Demo Discs, Part Seven
In the days before digital music, the primary medium for sound reproduction was vinyl records. Sure, there were some who preferred reel-to-reel tapes, but they were in the minority. The...
The Perfect Gift
Happy holidays from all of us at Copper! This cartoon has been previously published.
Swinging in Stereo
It really did start a revolution: the Sony CDP-101, the world's first Compact Disc player. Launched in Japan on October 1, 1982, it was one of the most groundbreaking...
Back to My Reel-to Reel-Roots, Part 12: The Sin...
Following on from last month’s litany of offenses attributed to the manufacturers of pre-recorded tapes, please be aware that not all the misdeeds were committed by the record labels. Once...
Spotlight on Brahms
Copper has an exchange program with PMA magazine of Canada (and other publications), where we share articles, including this one. Here are three discs I recommend for exploring the music of Johannes...
The Experience Hendrix 2025 Tour: Celebrating t...
Jimi Hendrix fans have cause for celebration: the Experience Hendrix Tour, the only official multi-artist celebration of Jimi Hendrix’s musical genius, will return in March 2025. Among a crowded field...
How to Play In a Rock Band, Part Six: Playing O...
If you’re in most of the bands out there, playing mostly local gigs, most of the time you’ll be playing on a small stage. Or maybe, a tiny stage. Or...
PS Audio in the News
Stereophile’s Kalman Rubinson found a lot to like about the Aspen FR5 loudspeaker. He said, “It is hard to criticize the performance of the Aspen FR5s. Placement is not difficult…and...
They've Got Tungs-Tone!
Back in 1921, it was easy to change a stylus on a Victor talking machine, and you could buy 'em by the box. After all, the styli were only semi-permanent!
Honey, I Shrunk the Editor!
This isn't a 3/4-scale model of our editor: he's six feet even and standing next to a Sound Lab G9-7C full-range electrostatic loudspeaker ($65,000/pair), which is approximately nine...
How to Post Comments on Copper
We get queries on how to post comments at the end of Copper articles. Admittedly, the process could be easier, and it might be streamlined in the future. For now,...
Table of Contents – Issue 212
RIP Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead bassist and vocalist and one of the greatest musical titans who ever walked the Earth. Grateful Dead fans and millions of us offer boundless tribute...
Jamie Howarth of Plangent Processes: Making Rec...
Plangent Processes offers a unique playback system that corrects for the wow and flutter present in the master tape of a recording, to provide speed stabilization. It’s a combination hardware...
AES 2024 Show Report: The Future of Audio, Today
The 2024 AES (Audio Engineering Society) convention took place in the Javits Center in New York this past October, in conjunction with the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention, which...
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: Woodland
That Old-Time, New Style Roll and Rock You're sitting on a porch in the Shenandoah Valley, or maybe the hills of West Virginia, where freight trains are as common as...
Octave Records’ Jeremy Mohney Puts a Modern Twi...
Octave Records’ latest release is Pennies from Heaven by vocalist and alto saxophonist Jeremy Mohney. The recording features 10 selections from the Great American Songbook in a swinging style that takes...
Dandelion Therapy
The kids in the area called our neighbor’s boy “40 watt” because he wasn’t very bright. Like the rest of us, Danny lived in poverty, but he didn’t realize it because...
Thurston Moore: From Sonic Youth to Flow Critic...
Today, having a sense of daring is something anyone who chooses a life in rock and roll must possess in large quantities. There are few fast tracks to the top,...
McIntosh SESSIONS, Volume 1: The Peter Erskine ...
There is a captivating quality to music recorded on analog tape and released on vinyl during the 1970s, in particular, that has been seared into the memories of countless music...
The Vinyl Beat: the Doobies, Rhinos, Secret Ide...
Welcome to the November Vinyl Beat! This month might be all about elections and (for those of us in the United States) tryptophan from too much Thanksgiving food, but at...
Playing in a Rock Band, Part 5: What Kind of Mu...
So, you want to play in a rock band. An obvious question is, what kind of music do you want to play? Maybe you don’t want to play rock at...
Lou Reed, Joey Ramone, and Growing Up Jewish
Recently, Copper contributor Larry Jaffee, the co-founder of record industry conference Making Vinyl, gave a talk at Long Island University called “The Ambivalent Jewish Lives of Two Rock Gods.” Jaffee...
In the Audience with frontRow Reserve Cables
Audience, located in San Marcos, California, mostly designs and manufacturers home audiophile products. These include cables, power conditioner products, a few system accessories, a loudspeaker, and other items. Though the...
For J: Songs of Love
"I hope these songs bring back happy memories. You will know why I picked them. Every day we were together was the best day of my life. I will love you...
50 Years of PS Audio: 1997 and New Beginnings
When I asked folks to tell me what bit of PS Audio history they'd like to have me tell the story of, one of the most popular was that of how...
Back to My Reel-to Reel-Roots, Part 11
High Crimes and Misdemeanors Nobody ever accused the record labels of unnecessary largesse. While the audiophile companies like Impex, Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, Speakers Corner, Intervention and others show care...