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.
Having been stopped in his tracks by the sheer enjoyment of listening to music, Jim Lesurf wonders how long his favourite recordings can continue to resonate with distant generations
Afew days ago I decided to listen to a CD that I'd not played in ages. The impact was almost immediate. I'd intended to have it as pleasing background music while I did some work in the kitchen, but after a few bars of music - time stopped! Totally captured by the sheer beauty of the sound, I just stood and listened, unable to do anything else. And this was in a room where there was no stereo imaging as such, and the acoustics of which would never be accepted as a good listening environment for hi-fi sound.
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.
Internet radio promises unrivalled listening choice, but what happens when your favourite station goes missing? Barry Fox gets to grips with tweaking TuneIn and adding third-party hardware
A friend gets cross when I reckon that most IT is designed by engineers who don't think about the people who will use it. He says I shouldn't expect computers to work like hi-fi systems. Which is ironic because many modern hi-fi boxes are disguised computers reliant on networking, and they really need to be connected to a monitor screen because a strip display is only adequate for basic control needs.
Walk into any hi-fi show and you'll spot towering horn-loaded loudspeakers, says Steve Harris, but 'big' speakers in the UK have typically gone down another route, as he explains...
Not so long ago the idea of a hi-fi system costing a million pounds would have raised eyebrows and hackles. Such systems might exist, we thought, but only in the secret hideaways of a few eccentric billionaires. But today you can have a good chance of hearing a million-pound sound just by walking in to a hi-fi show.
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.
When an FM/DAB tuner supports only one antenna, you'll achieve better performance from both types of transmission using a VHF aerial, says Jim Lesurf. But which type, and where to put it?
A few decades ago, FM radio transmissions - particularly those on BBC Radio 3 - were an excellent way to hear music with a very high level of sound quality. Sadly that has been eroded over the years due to a number of changes, which have occurred for various reasons.
Barry Willis believes a subwoofer can bring a performance boost to your hi-fi system as long as you take the time to calibrate it - so look out for models with remote/app control
A properly setup subwoofer can add enormously to your musical satisfaction. Improperly setup, it can be an annoying nemesis.
Many subwoofers are designed for maximum dynamic impact with multichannel movie soundtracks. While they may excel at making explosions sound convincing, they may not contribute much to your enjoyment of music. Truly musical subwoofers are rare.
British trumpet player Enrico Tomasso on stage at the Felpham Village Memorial Hall in West Sussex. During lockdown Tomasso bought the microphones and equipment needed and taught himself how to stream his music from scratch
When the Covid lockdown made traditional music concerts a no-go, artists and venues turned to live streaming over the Internet. But first, says Barry Fox, they had to master the technology...
With recent data suggesting the vinyl revival is beng solely spearheaded by Taylor Swift, plus environmental concerns about LP production, Steve Harris wonders where it goes next
How much longer can it last? In America, as here, vinyl sales have been growing year on year for nearly two decades. But a 2022 slowdown in growth set some commentators suggesting that the vinyl boom could soon be over.
A century-old legend of suspicion and exceptionalism continues to haunt attitudes towards English music, says Peter Quantrill - and it appears that it's the English who won't let it go
The spring cleaning of schedules at BBC Radio 3 took its listeners by surprise, to judge from comments both within and outside the media. The 'shop window' of Record Review on a Saturday morning moved to the first floor, in the afternoon. The spoken-word programmes were shunted off to Radio 4, while Friday Night Is Music Night has resurrected an antique Radio 2 title. The channel's once-serious coverage of new and contemporary music is almost entirely effaced under the controllership of Sam Jackson, who formerly headed up Classic FM.
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.
Silicon chips have been so successful there's a valley named after them, but new materials that are better suited to high-power applications are ready to replace them, says Jim Lesurf
Reading the review of HiFi Rose's RA280 amplifier had me thinking about the ways in which technology has developed over the decades. Modern audio enthusiasts are fairly familiar with the choice between 'solid-state' electronics and 'valve' (or 'tube' for our American colleagues). However, the full story of the choice of devices used for audio and radio kit has shown far more evolution over the decades - and is probably now evolving again.
Supporters of Evovinyl, a sugar cane-based alternative to PVC, claim it can be used to make records that sound as good as 'the real thing'. For Barry Fox, the proof will be in the pudding
It's hard to be green and analogue. Manufacturing vinyl LPs consumes a lot of fossil fuel and heat energy - one estimate puts the production of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) at 30,000 tonnes per year for use by the global vinyl industry. So, it was big news when British speaker company PMC recently announced investment in UK company Evolution Music Ltd and Evovinyl, an alternative to PVC made from natural sugar cane.
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