Michael Lavorgna
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12 New Folk for 12.12.12
Music Downloads
Michael Lavorgna • Dec 12, 2012 • 0 comments
Larkin Grimm Parplar
Larkin Grimm's Parplar released on Michael Gira's Young God label in late 2008 is a study in simple, contained strangeness. Guitar, strings, and backing vocals all spare and sparse like a cold wind blowing over an open field. I picked up Parplar when it came out and have been enjoying its strange fruit for years. Available from Bleep.com in FLAC format.
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2012 International CES The Wrap!
CES 2012
Michael Lavorgna • Jan 17, 2012 • 4 comments
Jon Iverson told me not to miss the 13th floor

From the first minute I hit the Venetian's crowded elevator bank to the last, I could not help feeling behind. There's no way one person can cover everything at CES and T.H.E. Show unless their area of coverage is defined to include only those companies whose name begins and ends with an X.

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24/192 USB DACs (a list)
DAC Reviews, Hardware How-To, Michael Lavorgna
Michael Lavorgna • Oct 29, 2011 • 41 comments
This question comes up often enough so it seemed to make sense to make a list. Here are the DACs that according to their manufacturer handle 24 bit/192kHz via USB input.
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3D Lab/Jean Marie Reynaud
Munich 2013
Michael Lavorgna • May 16, 2013 • 0 comments
French company 3D Lab. was new to me but they offer a complete line of electronics from multi-format players, to Network Players, to DACs, to preamps, amps, and integrated amps. On display and in use was the Nano UPnP [Network] Player (€1,700), Millennium Preamplifier/DAC (€6,000) that offers 2x Coax S/PDIF, 2x Toslink, AES/EBU, and USB inputs that can handle up to 24/192 data. There are also 5 analog RCA inputs and RCA and XLR output pairs. A pair of the M Millenium monoblock amplifiers (€3,200/each) drove a pair of the Jean Marie Reynaud Concorde Supreme speakers ($14,000/pair).
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47 Laboratory Model 4733 Pre Amplifier/USB & Coax DAC
DAC Reviews, Integrated Amp/DAC Reviews, Preamp/DAC Reviews
Michael Lavorgna • Oct 21, 2011 • 3 comments
I'll start by saying I've been a fan of 47 Labs designs from the first time I saw and heard the 4706 Gaincard and 4713 Flatfish. It helped that Herb Reichert wrote about the 47 Labs Gaincard (Listener, volume 5, number 2 Spring 1999) since he was a favorite writer on Hi-Fi and someone I felt I could relate to in ways that included non-Hi-Fi stuff (now that I've had an opportunity to meet Herb on a few occasions, I discovered I was righter than I knew). If a minimal design aesthetic appeals to you in a general sense, i.e. you enjoy the work of Ray and Charles Eames, Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, the Bauhaus, etc., then the design approach of Juni Kimura should tickle a similar fancy. Juni Kimura's quote, "Only the simplest can accomodate the most complex" adorns the 47 Labs US Distributor's home page.
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A Brief Q&A With Other Music
Industry Voice
Michael Lavorgna • Jun 06, 2012 • 9 comments
I sent an email to "technical support" at Other Music regarding their WAV offerings and got a very pleasant response and had a brief but interesting exchange with Gerald Hammill (Other Music Webmaster) that I think is worth sharing. Without further ado...
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A Listening Party (online) Today!
News
Michael Lavorgna • Apr 03, 2013 • 2 comments
Thanks to Stereophile's Ariel Bitran for the heads up on this one. Noisey is hosting their first ever "Listening Party" featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' upcoming Mosquito in its entirety.
Remember the unifying universal experience of listening to an album for the first time the day it hits stores? Judging by our age demographic breakdown, you probably don't. Music's migration to the digital stage over the past 20 years has brought with it an abundance of positive developments—the ways we discover, distribute, and interact with music has evolved immeasurably—but we've lost something vital along the way. The experience of being a listener went from record releases dates, music mags, and "we," to album leaks, 140 characters, and "I."
Hear hear! And...
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A Lossless Music Locker and a Q&A with OraStream
Industry Voice, News
Michael Lavorgna • Jun 08, 2012 • 7 comments
Do you remember OraStream? In brief, I got to demo a "proof-of-concept" online service that provided 24/96 streaming rates (>2000 kbps according to the OraStream player). You can read more about that here. Since then Orastream has been busy working toward the launch of their forthcoming lossless music locker service. What's that? Frankie Tan, CEO of mp4sls the developer of OraStream, gave us hint in his comments to my last post, "We'll launch a web-service next for content owners to get their music into Orastream and stream-able on mobile devices and web browsers." For the past few weeks, I've been uploading, storing and streaming back my CD-quality music through OraStream's beta site.
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A trio of Free HD Downloads from Gimell
Free Music, HD Music Downloads
Michael Lavorgna • Feb 07, 2012 • 1 comments
A big thank you to reader Brian R. for pointing us to three lovely and free downloads from Gimell:
Josquin - Missa De beata virgine and Missa Ave maris stella, The Tallis Scholars
Josquin - Missa Malheur me bat & Missa Fortuna desperata, The Tallis Scholars
Victoria - Lamentations of Jeremiah Victoria, The Tallis Scholars
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Accuphase DC-901
CES 2012
Michael Lavorgna • Jan 16, 2012 • 0 comments
In another Axiss Distribution room sat the much more serious Accuphase DC-901 Precision Multiple Double Speed DSD (MDSD) Digital Processor ($32,500). The DC-901 (sitting on the middle shelf) offers seven digital inputs (XLR, 2 Coax, 2 Toslink, USB and HS-Link). All inputs accept up to 24-bit/192kHz and up to 2.8224MHz /1 bit (2ch DSD) via HS-Link which is used to connect to the $32,500 Accuphase DP-900 transport.