Johnny Sharp on the creation of the artwork for Elvis Costello's 1979 album Armed Forces
For a man not blessed with the kind of appearance naturally lending itself to the limelight, Elvis Costello always did a damn good job of promoting himself. It helped that those around him were past masters of pop marketing. After all, music lovers of a certain age will recall the infamous t-shirt of his first label Stiff, bearing the deathless slogan: 'If it ain't Stiff, it ain't worth a f**k'.
New kid on the block, Perlisten Audio, is creating a stir straight out of the gates. We test the flagship floorstander
There's a perception that the US, the home of muscle cars, foot-long hot dogs and canyons a mile deep, is also the home of monster-sized loudspeakers. And not, it must be said, without good reason – there are various American manufacturers that frequently put the floor into 'floorstander', building models that require considerable carpet space and suit large listening rooms. So it wasn't much of a surprise to discover Perlisten Audio, a new brand from Verona, Wisconsin, kicking things off with the S7t, an almost 1.3m-tall seven-driver tower weighing in at 55kg.
This month we review and test releases from: Alexander Scriabin/Andrey Gugnin, Clandestine Amigo, Dzsindzsa Band, Petra Magoni & Ilaria Fantin and Blue Violet.
Synonymous with legends such as Sinatra, The Beach Boys and Nat King Cole, this studio in Hollywood has a pedigree spanning over 60 years. Steve Sutherland on Capitol...
Imagine if Jimi Hendrix had decided to release an album that wouldn't feature any guitar. Or that John Coltrane announced a long player sans any sax. Or Miles Davis did an LP on which you didn't hear one toot of horn. Madness, right? No way José.
The most comprehensively-equipped component of Roksan's Attessa quartet combines phono, line and digital inputs with a BluOS streaming platform and beefy amplifier
So it turns out that network amplifiers built around BluOS streaming technology are like buses. No sooner had we waved goodbye to the £1299 NAD C 700 [HFN Feb '22], then up popped the Attessa Streaming Amplifier from Roksan, a little more expensive at £1495 but cut from the same just-add-speakers cloth. This joins a competitive market alongside not only NAD's device but Bluesound's £850 BluOS-based Powernode, plus other streaming integrateds including Cambridge Audio's Evo 75 and Audiolab's Omnia. Handy for Roksan, then, that it has a lot going for it.
New kid on the block, Perlisten Audio, is creating a stir straight out of the gates. We test the flagship floorstander
The most comprehensively-equipped component of Roksan's Attessa quartet combines phono, line and digital inputs with a BluOS streaming platform and beefy amplifier
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