Barry Fox | Mar 13, 2025 | First Published: Jan 01, 2025
For music lovers entering the world of home networking, Barry Fox delves into its many acronyms and foibles, before singing the praises of Amazon’s affordable Fire TV Stick
There's no one-size-fits-all approach to high-quality music playback, says Barry Willis - and it's emotional engagement that's important, not the technology which is used to create it
This past winter I visited a new audio dealer, a fellow I'll call 'Colin'. He's a high-end hobbyist working from his home - a time-honoured practice and an increasingly prevalent one in the Internet age. His large demo room was festooned with recent examples of quality gear from multiple brands, but most conspicuous were the many brightly coloured cables connecting them - the work, he said, of a friend who had spent years researching the behaviours of such cables.
Barry Willis | Apr 16, 2025 | First Published: Mar 01, 2025
Front-of-centre drama, battles behind the scenes... Barry Willis attends the opening of Verdi’s Un Ballo in San Francisco, but for him it’s the acoustics that truly bring down the house
Barry Willis | Jun 02, 2025 | First Published: May 01, 2025
Hi-fi manufacturer MSB has a boutique offering of high-end DACs and power amplifiers, all designed, assembled and evaluated at its California HQ. Barry Willis went behind the scenes
Steve Harris talks to the founders of a new global jazz Internet radio platform promising to focus on music recorded in the last year or so while 'veering away from the straight and narrow'
Whenever the BBC makes changes to the sacred rituals of Radio 3, howls of protest follow. New scheduling introduced in February did bring the usual cries of 'dumbing down'. Personally, the changes didn't bother me very much because I'd got so much into the habit of time-shifting my radio listening.
English conductor Sir Andrew Davis stood in for his colleagues at the last minute and saved the day on many occasions, remembers Peter Quantrill. But who will be able to take his place?
On the 20th of August, there will be an empty space - spiritual, if not physical - at the centre of the Royal Albert Hall. At time of writing, the replacement for Sir Andrew Davis had not been announced, but whoever takes on the task, I hope they keep the programme unchanged. Rather than fulsome speeches of tribute, this would be the most humble act to perform in his memory.
They’re everywhere, says Peter Quantrill, but let’s dispel dyspeptic indignation and instead see young and gifted conductors as a sign of hope when it comes to the future of classical music. Tarmo Peltokoski is among the most youthful and gifted products of Jorma Panula’s conducting class at the Helsinki Conservatoire in Finland
As a follower of cricket and football, I got used years ago to seeing professionals at the top of their game (sorry), who had been born within the current millennium. But conductors? DG has lately been making a song and dance about their latest signing, Tarmo Peltokoski. Born in April 2000, he is now principal guest conductor of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and DG has recorded and filmed them together in a trio of Mozart’s mature symphonies.
Mark Craven | Apr 25, 2025 | First Published: Apr 01, 2025
They are the darlings of the home cinema world, but subwoofers aren’t only about bringing a T-Rex into your living room, says Mark Craven – your music system might welcome one, too
Peter Quantrill | May 22, 2025 | First Published: Nov 01, 2024
Music and art can often make an attractive mix for cutting-edge cultural collectives, but the combination is also fraught with plenty of potential pitfalls, reckons Peter Quantrill
There are countless different audio products claiming to pursue sonic accuracy, but Barry Willis believes the hi-fi industry would be much better off if it admitted things are not that simple
Early this past summer, I enjoyed dinner with an audiophile friend. While he puttered in the kitchen, I perused his hi-fi publications. Among them was a 2024 equipment guide, an incomplete but aspirational compendium of products currently on the market, and in a couple of cases, no longer produced but still in plentiful supply. The listings included hundreds of items - phono cartridges from US$99 to $20,000 each, and amplifiers and loudspeakers from a few hundred up to the purchase price of an exotic high-performance automobile.
Steve Harris | Jun 02, 2025 | First Published: May 01, 2025
From Cecil Rhodes’ plan for an African telegraph line to early MP3 players with memory issues... Steve Harris on how rapid changes in technology can leave new ideas looking like old hat
Jim Lesurf | Apr 25, 2025 | First Published: Apr 01, 2025
Before you begin fine-tuning your system’s sound with room treatments and seating changes, you should pay attention to ‘interactions’ further back in the chain, says Jim Lesurf
What’s the best method for turning your analogue LPs into a digital stream? Barry Fox seeks the solution as he digs into a confusing world of dongles, A/D converters and open source software
Experts will tell you it’s easy to make a digital copy of a music stream, or LP, to play in a car or carry around. You ‘just’ suck analogue music out of your hi-fi, feed it into a computer and then ‘just’ send it to a memory device or burn to a blank CD. Yes, but it’s only easy when you already know exactly how. I’ve recently got my hands dirty finding out the easiest ‘how’ for people who want to listen to music, not burrow down computer rabbit holes.
Most computers no longer come with a disc burner. But they do come with USB sockets and for £20 you can buy a portable optical burner that literally just plugs into a USB socket. Software (or an ‘app’ in modern parlance) is needed to copy music to a blank CD or USB memory stick that plays at the press of a button.
Steve Harris | Apr 01, 2025 | First Published: Feb 01, 2025
You’ve made homebrew cassette recordings and burned music files to CD, but what about cutting your own vinyl? Steve Harris looks at the options available from low-fi to hi-fi
Peter Quantrill | Apr 01, 2025 | First Published: Feb 01, 2025
Peter Quantrill finds reasons to be cheerful in the proliferation of young-musician ensembles based on more flexible models of organisation – but can traditional venues follow suit?