Copper


Table of Contents – Issue 199

Issue 199Opening Salvo

“The songwriter can make you laugh or cry He’s pumping gas at night just to survive And all he asks of you is to sing his songs And put his...

Read more

Vikingbåde

Issue 199Music'al Notes

“I wish this boat would stop rocking so much,” I groaned to myself as I opened my eyes and looked in the bathroom mirror. It was only then that I...

Flaunt the Audio Imperfection

Issue 199Frankly Speaking

With a tip of the hat to China Crisis for inspiring the title. I think we can all agree that no audio system is perfect. Perhaps the biggest challenge in...

Sound Waves and the Roaring Twenties: The Legac...

Issue 199Featured

Copper has an exchange program with selected magazines, where we share articles, including this one, between publications. This one's from PMA Magazine: the Power of Music and Audio.   In the early 20th century, particularly the...

A Classic Turntable's Forgotten Roots: the AR XA

Issue 199Featured

When the AR XA turntable came out in 1961, it was an instant classic – almost immune to external shocks and vibrations, low in rumble, and priced at a shockingly...

The Audio Butterfly Effect

Issue 199Featured

The best-fitting suit is a well-tailored one. You likely would never expect to try on a garment in a store and have it fit perfectly, if taken randomly from just...

Unusual Madrigals

Issue 199Something Old / Something New

“Madrigal” is one of those words that showed up in European music under vague circumstances, then stuck around long enough to change its meaning a few times. Most of us...

How Records are Made, Part Two: Plating and Pre...

Issue 199Revolutions Per Minute

   The disk mastering stage, discussed in detail in Part One (Issue 198) was the last stage permitting intentional changes to the sound of the final product, for aesthetic or...

Crossover Design Basics

Issue 199Speaker Stories

Copper has an exchange program with FIDELITY magazine (and others), where we share articles, including this one, between publications.   A point source is the theoretical ideal; why, then, do almost all loudspeakers...

Freedom From Choice

Issue 199Audio Static

  This cartoon originally appeared in Issue 128.

June Millington of Pioneering Rock Band Fanny, ...

Issue 199The Copper Interview

Before the Runaways, before the Go-Go’s, before the Bangles – there was Fanny. David Bowie was quoted in a 1999 Rolling Stone interview about Fanny: “They’re as important as anyone who’s ever...

Separation Anxiety

Issue 199The Run-Out Groove

This cartoon first appeared in Issue 121.

Guitar Influences, Part Five: Mick Ronson

Issue 199Twisted Systems

So now you are saying…“so how do you go from all these blues masters as influences to glam hero Mick Ronson?” Fair enough. As much as the Beatles were the...

Back To My Reel-To-Reel Roots, Part Four: Makin...

Issue 199Natural Born Kessler

By now it has been established that my renewed interest in reel-to-reel is unnaturally narrow, in that I am not a recordist in any manner. I may be the only...

Nothing Comes Close

Issue 199Audio Anthropology

  You know, they might have been right. From Audio, November 1958.     Then again, maybe not! From Audio, February 1965.       Now that’s what we call home entertainment! From Electronics Made...

A Little Knight Music

Issue 199The Mindful Melophile

The Middle Ages lasted from the fall of Rome (c. 500) to the start of the Renaissance (c. 1400 – 1500). It’s a span also referred to as the medieval...

Johnny Hodges: Sax Player for Duke Ellington an...

Issue 199Trading Eights

When you think of classic recordings by Duke Ellington’s big band, an important part of that sound in your head is Johnny Hodges on lead alto sax. Hodges joined Ellington...

Free Electron

Issue 199Parting Shot

Encountered in France: a strange attractor and a sign of a free electron.