Blogs

Meet Jan Evensmo - Jazz Archeologist

You may have come across Jan Evensmo's work referenced in jazz publications or liner notes or by reading his fascinating website -http://www.jazzarcheology.com/ . I contacted him and he kindly agreed to answer a few questions: Q: Your website is entitled "the treasures of vintage jazz". You have written "solographies" of numerous famous or lesser known artists. When did your passion for jazz start and how did you come to writing these solographies? It started when I was

Qhwoeprktiyns in Vintage Jazz

November 1, 2020

Phil C's Blog

USB and Other Digital Cables Roundup as of July 2020 Revision 1

Introduction Sources for the digital cable roundup include the Internet and audiophile publications and are mainly "Recommended Components" lists, "Editors' Choices" lists, and audio component reviews that mention the digital cable included in the reviewer’s own stereo system. These are lists and reviews I have happened upon over the years. I have no doubt overlooked many lists and reviews, so let me know and I can include them next update. If a cable is mentioned frequently

Phil C

July 28, 2020

Phil C's Blog

USB and Other Digital Cables Roundup as of July 2020

Introduction Sources for this cable roundup are mainly "Recommended Components" lists, "Editors' Choices" lists, and audio component reviews that mention the digital cable included in the reviewer’s stereo system. If a cable appears frequently and over several years in these sources, my theory is that it may very well be a superior cable and worthy of consideration. I hope that my fellow audiophiles and music aficionados will find this roundup helpful, for instance, when researching and s

Phil C

July 25, 2020

Loren Schoenberg on Ben Webster

Loren Schoenberg (of the the National Jazz Museum in Harlem) has published a four part lecture on Ben Webster on YouTube. The production is not of the highest quality (but the content easily makes up for it), and some of the tracks are better heard on youtube directly or from your collection, if you can find them. There are quite a few rarities. Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4:

April 17, 2020

In Praise of Ellington - The Pianist

Duke Ellington recorded music for 50 years. Ask any Ellington fan to pick their favorite album, they will not be able to decide. Ever changing, throughout these 50 years, but always distinctive, what is it that makes Ellington so special ? His arrangements, his compositions, his ability to gather in his band the best talents and use them at their best ? One aspect which I find fascinating is his piano playing. His style and sound is instantly recognizable, and forms the

April 5, 2020

Ellington gems

Ellington never ceases to amaze and suprise me. Witness this short piece, released by Storyville earlier this year: "The Lake", part of his suite "The River", and performed at the end of a 1969 concert. Here are the Storyville notes: "On November 7th, 1969, Duke Ellington and his orchestra played two concerts in Rotterdam, in the famous De Doelen concert hall. The second concert of the evening was prolonged, as the public wouldn’t let Ellington go. So while the rest of the bandmembe

March 21, 2020

Japanese greetings

At this time it is relevant to reflect on the merits of japanese-style greetings. Respect can be shown to others while avoiding the traditional western handshake. Bowing can start when you first see the person at a distance, and continue as you approach them, but has to stop at a one meter distance ! Avoid the mistakes of Trump and Obama.

March 15, 2020

A simple solution to all problems ?

Reading AustinPop's excellent review of the EtherRegen I could not help but thinking - does it need to be so complicated ? Cascading switches, linear power supplies, audiophile network and DC cables, clocks - there has to be be a better way ! Call me naive, but I believe there is always an elegant and simple solution to all problems, and don't see why digital audio should not conform to that rule. If we have not found it, then we need to look harder

March 14, 2020

Remastering quality (for vintage jazz fans)

Here's an example to illustrate the importance of remastering quality. The track is "Stepping into Swing Society" by Duke Ellington, recorded on January 13, 1938. I love the title ! Here's what Eddie Lambert has to say about this track (in "Duke Ellington: A Listener's Guide" - a little publicity for this great book:https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Ellington-Listeners-Guide-Studies/dp/0810831619 ) : "By early 1938, the swing era was well under way. and Ellington in

March 14, 2020

Vintage Jazz

A beautiful interpretation of "I Cover the Waterfront", by Henry "Red" Allen, dating from 1957: Red Allen - trumpet J.C. Higginbotham - trombone Buster Bailey - clarinet Coleman Hawkins - tenor saxophone Marty Napoleon - piano Evertt Barksdale - guitar Lloyd Trotman - bass Cozy Cole - drums In the words of Gunther Schuller ("The Swing Era"): "Recorded evidence of Allen's work from 1946 to his death in 1967 is

March 13, 2020

my simple system

After spending quite a few years experimenting with various components, I finally have a system which satisfies me, so I thought I would describe it and explain why. Speakers: Davis Courbet 4 (http://www.davis-acoustics.com/en/courbet-n4/) Amplifier: Lavardin ISX (http://www.lavardin.com/lavardin-isE.html) DAC: ECDesigns MOS16 DAC (https://www.ecdesigns.nl/de/info/mos16) Source: ECDesigns UPL (with ElectroTos cable) (https://www.ecdesigns.nl/de/info/upl16)

Handy bash scripts for alsa and mpd

March 11, 2020

Audio Preordination

The where and why - a time and place to build

Some three years ago I resided in the state of California. ... After arriving in Nampa it was time to get serious and find a place that would house my ideal system. This actually became an obstacle as just about every older home my wife and I looked at were not planned well for an entertainment room. I mean, low or high ceilings? Hard or soft carpeted flooring? And then there was the main issue the wall for the entertainment system. Floor plans, arrrggghhh for new homes I could not

Shimei

February 20, 2020

Phil C's Blog

USB and Other Digital Cables Round Up as of December 2019

USB and Other Digital Cables Round Up as of December 2019 Follow 0 This round up of USB and other digital cables is gleaned from various audiophile publications and Internet articles that I have happened upon over the years. I hope my fellow audiophiles will find this round up helpful, for instance, when narrowing down choices for a cable purchase. There are two sections: USB Cables and Other Digital Cable

Phil C

December 15, 2019

Keweenaw

Remote locale in NW Wyoming using 4G/LTE cell service for TIDAL

T-mobile allows unlimited "Tidal "HiFi" and "Master" lossless streaming (without data cap) on its cell system with 4g/LTE. We have no Wifi or Fibre optic available in this remote area obviously power that is severely and constantly line conditioned. The CCK adapter works well but was wondering if there is a dpnp or server ios app that could "throw" the content to a Mac Mini or Grace digital tuner then to our DAC. The ability to use the iphone in hand would be preferable to being wi

Keweenaw

December 5, 2019

mpd-monitor: realtime monitor of an audiostream from source, through mpd, to alsa and your DAC

Dear fellow audio enthusiast, Today I published a first draft of mpd-monitor, a minimal load and realtime monitor of an audiostream as handled by mpd. A screencast says it all: Details and documentation are available at the gitlab repository: https://gitlab.com/ronalde/mpd-monitor/. When you experience bugs or issues, which will be the case, please submit those in the gitlab project. I would like to hear your thoughts. Happy list

ronalde

September 4, 2019

Data in a Flash, Part II: Using NVMe Drives and Creating an NVMe over Fabrics Network

Part 2 is about network storage. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/data-flash-part-ii-using-nvme-drives-and-creating-nvme-over-fabrics-network

May 26, 2019

Data in a Flash

Here is a great article from Linux Journal about Flash Storage. This just tops off the my previous article on storage! Data in a Flash, Part I: the Evolution of Disk Storage and an Introduction to NVMe

April 30, 2019

What is all this new disk stuff? -- M.2, NVME, Optane

Over the last few years the form factor for mass media storage devices has started to evolve. PC motherboards and many laptops now have SSD (Solid State Drives) as their primary non-volatile storage. The computer industry invented the NGFF (Next Generation Form Factor) system which is now called M.2. The M.2 interface is directly connected to the bus structure of the computer. This dramatically improves the speed of operations. One of the largest improvements is the NVMe protoc

March 9, 2019

The Elephant in the room -- The Room!

The predominant factor in our sound system is the room. The shape of the room, it's size — the ratio of the sides, the construction materials, the openings to the outside and inside. Then we have the contents of the room, the selection of the speakers and their placement. The furniture, the people and their placement are next in line to address. It is a wonder that we can get our systems to sound right! What is right? I have been on the inside and the outside of this

March 3, 2019

The Human Factor in Audio Systems

In a couple of responses to one of my blog entries there were some thoughtful comments about how we humans perceive sound and changes in sound. Human perception is a very complex and is subject to many influences. I do not pretend to understand them. The influences around us are sometimes very hard to recognize. Things like confirmation bias are very real. I want to at least recognize the fact that there are things that influence our perception that we should try to understand.

February 26, 2019

An interesting article about SSD (Solid State Drives)

I came across this blog post on the Backblaze website. It seems like a perfect addition to my notes here. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-reliable-are-ssds/