September 26, 2022
September 26, 2022
It doesn’t take much imagination to realize jazz kissa – jazz cafes – could have only been conceived from a culture, like Japan’s. Started in the ‘30s as islands of serenity, and sometimes reverential respite from the endless din of Tokyo streets, jazz kissa offered customers hours of Zen ascension through travel to another realm of consciousness through the solemn appreciation of jazz albums played on large scale horn-loaded loudspeakers powered by valve amplification.
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September 9, 2022
September 9, 2022
There’s something nostalgic and mysterious about horn loudspeakers. Despite, historically, their industrial build quality, brutalist design aesthetic and domestically imposing dimensions, they nonetheless evoke a sense of wonder and awe with their sonic capabilities.
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August 31, 2022
August 31, 2022
Can a cultural analysis along with the connection of historical, interstitial circumstances obtained through hundreds of interviews with those directly involved reveal the birth of utopian dance floor culture in a little-known Manhattan loft five decades ago? Many feel Tim Lawrence – British author and a professor of cultural studies – has done just that.
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August 21, 2022
August 21, 2022
A listening space. What is it to each of us who pursue to perfect this domain? In a hobby divided along tribal lines, each subset fiercely territorial in their machinations, can their be agreement to the parameters such a space should adhere to? I believe there is a deep undercurrent of tightly-held beliefs that above all else a listening space should be where one can escape everyday stresses which pervade modern life in this digital age of information overload.
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August 7, 2022
August 7, 2022
Black magic. Voodoo. These are the usual replies when asked what’s inside one of the small silver boxes kept near my turntable. The answer doesn’t stray too far from the truth, because the passive step-up transformer, or SUT, offers such a marked increase in the level of performance from an moving-coil cartridge as to be considered supernatural.
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June 26, 2022
June 26, 2022
Less esoteric, and certainly less portly than the record weight, or stabilizer, the record mat nevertheless – in my experience – has greater impact on how the cartridge is translating the information it tears from the groove at 20-inches a second.
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June 19, 2022
June 19, 2022
A calling does not always ring clearly through time and space. Many struggle through life trying on jobs or careers which turn out to be a poor fit for their unique dimensions. Joseph Long followed a circuitous employment path before finding himself behind a high-powered microscope intuiting the needle and the damage done to phono cartridges.
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