Copper


The Chamber Music of Gabriel Fauré

Issue 182Something Old / Something New

Sometimes all it takes is one outstanding teacher to release a young student’s artistic gifts. French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924) found such a mentor in Camille Saint-Saëns at...

CTI Records Part 4: Sax (and Violins)

Issue 182Featured

Like any jazz record label, CTI Records was no stranger to saxophone players. The label had its share of talent, from established names such as Stanley Turrentine and Paul Desmond...

Ulrike Schwarz, Jim Anderson, and Their New Par...

Issue 182Featured

Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom’s Picturing the Invisible: Focus 1 recently garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Immersive Audio Album. Produced and engineered by multiple Grammy winners/nominees Ulrike Schwarz and...

Clickbait Articles Belie Reality: The Vinyl Man...

Issue 182Featured

New trade advocacy group, the Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association, is establishing best practices and standards Two recent online articles ushered in the new year with headlines that the vinyl boom...

Lounging with In-Ear Monitors, Part Three

Issue 182Featured

In our previous two articles (Issue 180 and Issue 181) we have briefly considered some of the factors which may affect the sound quality of in-ear monitors, aka IEMs, in-ear...

Artificial Reverberation in the Analog World, P...

Issue 182Revolutions Per Minute

In the previous episode (Issue 181), we had a look at various types of analog-domain reverberation options for music production and recording. A couple of years back, during the “big...

The Cranberries: Time Was Ticking Out

Issue 182Off the Charts

When Dolores O’Riordan died suddenly in 2018, the blow reverberated around the indie music world. She was more than just the lead singer of the Cranberries; her ghostly, emotional voice...

An Audio Journey, and More Photos from Capital ...

Issue 182Show Report

One of the most interesting and revealing aspects of an audio show is how it forces one to consider their own audio journey. Mine was pretty simple. It started with...

NRBQ: Not Playing Around With Tiddlywinks

Issue 182Disciples of Sound

NRBQ has always been a band that rock insiders considered to be the best in the game. Founded in 1966 as the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet, they have had...

Blues Master Otis Taylor Releases Banjo… on Oct...

Issue 182Octave Pitch

Octave Records has released Banjo… by blues master Otis Taylor. One of the most compelling blues artists working today, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Taylor is the winner of five DownBeat awards, and Living...

Treehaus Audiolab: Striking Design, Performance...

Issue 182Speaker Stories

Sometimes, a certain combination of sight and sound is impossible to forget. Among the open-baffle speaker systems on exhibit at the New York Audio Show 2022, Treehaus Audiolab’s Phantom of...

Heaven is a Place

Issue 181Opening Salvo

“The band in Heaven, they play my favorite songPlay it once again, play it all night long.” – Talking Heads, “Heaven” In this issue: John Seetoo talks with Grammy-winning engineers...

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Ulrike Schwarz, Jim Anderson, and Their New Par...

Issue 181FROM THE SWEET SPOT

High-resolution recording of music for immersive audio requires the utmost attention to detail in order to capture pristine tones and reproduce the hyper-realistic sound of music performed live from a...

Spending Time With the Esoteric Grandioso G1X M...

Issue 181From the Listening Chair

Word clocks are common in high-end and professional and some high-end digital systems. They are used to synchronize devices that connect via digital audio signals. Would audiophiles be interested in...

Capital Audiofest: Up Close and Personal, Part Two

Issue 181Show Report

In Part One of our Capital Audiofest 2022 coverage (Issue 180), I touched upon the family nature of the specialty audio business. And I’ve found it interesting how the industry...

Lounging with in Ear Monitors, Part Two

Issue 181Featured

There are so many in-ear monitors (otherwise known as IEMs, earbuds, earphones, or in-ear headphones) in the marketplace, how can one navigate the minefield of IEMs which are out there?...

My Favorite Yes Album: Drama

Issue 181Featured

When I bought Drama (1980), my first Yes record, I wasn’t aware that it marked an end of era as Jon Anderson, the iconic voice of Yes, and Rick Wakeman...

An Interview with Kelly Hansen of Foreigner: Fe...

Issue 181Disciples of Sound

Foreigner burst onto the rock scene in 1976 with songs and a sound that were unlike anything else. There was an energy to the music and a depth of production...

Octave Records’ Artist Clandestine Amigo Return...

Issue 181Octave Pitch

Octave Records' Clandestine Amigo has released their third album, Pinnacle, showcasing the vocal, piano and songwriting talents of Jessica Carson. The new album, available on SACD/CD and high-resolution download formats,...

The Road Not Easily Taken

Issue 181Parting Shot

Shafer Canyon Road, aka BLM-142, one of the Bureau of Land Management roads open for recreation in Utah. We had entered the unpaved Shafer Canyon Rd. into the canyon from...

Unusual Takes On Others' Songs, Part Four

Issue 181Complete Recovery

This edition of Complete Recovery includes more than a few novelty acts and parodies. Here are some more of my favorites that are distinctly different from the originals: Abbatoir (not...

Jutta Hipp: The Jazz Piano Virtuoso Who Disappe...

Issue 181Trading Eights

There was nothing ordinary about Jutta Hipp, from the fact that she was the only white European woman signed to Blue Note Records in the 1950s to the fact that,...

The Byrds: Folk-Rock Originators

Issue 181Off the Charts

They recorded Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and hit No. 1 with the single before Dylan himself had a chance to release the song. That early triumph represents the Byrds...

Decisions, Decisions

Issue 180Audio Anthropology

Here are a few stunning shots of a Barber & Howard stereo integrated amplifier, and tuner. We could find almost nothing about this brand online – the company was founded...

Around the World In 80 Lathes, Part 30

Issue 180Revolutions Per Minute

Having pretty much completed our journey around the world in 80 lathes (or perhaps a bit more than 80, but anyway), today we will be visiting The Netherlands, not to...

Capital Audiofest 2022: Up Close and Personal, ...

Issue 180Show Report

My wife, Nancy Burlan, editor and reporter for Mac Edition Radio, asked me: “should we attend the Capital Audiofest this year.?” That was back in July 2022. It seemed like...

Jeff Beck: In Memoriam

Issue 180Twisted Systems

No, there is no cute way to begin this one. There is no “another one bites the dust.” Not even a “somewhere over the rainbow.” I just don’t have it...

Stephen Stills’ Manassas: An Album, A Band, A W...

Issue 180Wayne's Words

I came to praise Manassas, or Manassas, but now I’m not so sure. It seemed like a good idea a few weeks ago, when a streaming link to this Stephen...

Octave Records Debuts The Art of Hi-Fi Series w...

Issue 180Octave Pitchweb-2517

PS Audio’s Octave Records’ has introduced an all-new series called The Art of Hi-Fi. Each recording in the ongoing series will showcase a different aspect of high-quality audio reproduction, beginning...

Goodbye to Jeff

Issue 180Opening Salvo

Sadly, we’ve lost a lot of great artists, but this one hit particularly hard for a lot of us: Jeff Beck passed away on January 10, 2023 at the age...

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Checking Out xDuoo's Affordable MT-604 Headphon...

Issue 180From the Listening Chair

Earlier this year, I received a sample of xDuoo’s MT-604 fully-balanced tube headphone amplifier from online retailer Apos Audio. At an asking price of $169, it offers more sexiness per...

Celebrating the Linn Sondek LP12 Turntable, Par...

Issue 180Natural Born Kessler

Ken Kessler recounts anecdotes from the LP12’s heyday to create an impressionistic picture of the scene in the 1980s. For those who “weren’t there” – that is, living in the...

Back to Analog – Academy Award-Winning Songwrit...

Issue 180The Copper Interview

“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” was the Billboard Number 1 Hot 100 hit single from the 1987 Dirty Dancing soundtrack album, one of the biggest selling (over 32...

Ryan Hamilton: A Wicked Cool Rocker

Issue 180Disciples of Sound

When Huey Lewis and The News sang “the heart of rock n roll is still beating” back in 1984, rock was arguably in its strongest position ever. FM rock radio...

Lounging with In-Ear Monitors, Part One

Issue 180From the Sweet Spot

If one of the greatest limitations to getting good stereo sound is the dominating effect of your room’s sonic and tonal personality, then what might be a better way of...

Home Entertainment Formats Over the Past 50 Yea...

Issue 180Featured

Technological advances in the 1970s brought unprecedented conveniences for consumer home entertainment that continues a half century later in the digital age. Further examination of the machinations that ultimately gave...

Dig This: Philadelphia’s Vibrant Vinyl Scene

Issue 180Featured

I spent a lot of time in Philadelphia when I was a graduate student at Rutgers University. It was an easy trip from New Brunswick, New Jersey to central Philly...

Talking With Producer/Musician Butch Vig of Gar...

Issue 180Idle Chatter

It's safe to say that the landscape of alternative music would be wildly different without the efforts of producer, engineer, and drummer Butch Vig. In the 1980s, Vig positioned himself...

Miles and Miles, Part Two

Issue 180True-Life Rock Tales

My thinking was that since I made it from NY to Chicago on Wednesday then I could make it to Denver on Thursday. Only a thousand or so miles, slightly...

Daft Punk: They Were the Robots

Issue 180Off the Charts

When Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were in high school in Paris in 1992, they started a band called Darlin’. It was a guitar-based indie trio with a friend...

Exploring CTI Records, Part 2: The Subsidiaries

Issue 180Featured

CTI Records had been an independent label for only a year when Creed Taylor began creating subsidiary labels. While a couple of these subsidiaries were very limited, the Kudu label...

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion: New Interpretations...

Issue 180Something Old / Something New

There have been some great creative duos in music history. The pairing of Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte justifiably gets a lot of attention – they wrote Don Giovanni,...

Highway 61 Revisited — And a New Beginning In t...

Issue 180To Be Determined

I have a long history with the Charleston, South Carolina area, beginning when my high school best friend Steve’s dad bought a fixer-upper 35-foot sailboat and had it towed to...

Lord Knows I Try

Issue 180Parting Shot

Photographed in Manhattan on 15th Street between Second and Third Avenue.

Issue 179

Issue 179Opening Salvo

Our B. Jan Montana concluded his epic Pilgrimage to Sturgis saga in Issue 178. A number of readers and this editor were sad (and some quite emotional) to see it...

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