**********

Update: Mone acknowledged that she had suffered an injury in a social media post, writing: 

WRESTLING!!!! Phew not how I dreamed for tonight to go. I’m so sorry and I love you guys so much. I’m gonna heal and be back better than ever. Moné

@njpwglobal

PWInsider notes that "The word making the rounds" is that Mone suffered a broken ankle.

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**********

Mercedes Mone suffered an injury in the main event of NJPW Resurgence on Sunday. 

Mone was carried out of the ring following her main event match against Willow Nightingale to crown the first-ever NJPW Strong Women's Champion, a match won by Nightingale. 

The injury seemed to occur on a spot where Mone jumped from the top rope and ring post to the floor in clotheslining Nightingale's neck across the top rope. After the move, Mone appeared unable to put any weight on her right leg. 

The match continued for about 60 seconds after the apparent injury, including a spot where Nightingale hit a powerbomb to Mone, covered for a pin, Mone did not kick out, but the referee did not count to three. 

After a few seconds of confusion, the referee signaled that Mone had gotten a shoulder up. Nightingale then immediately hit a second powerbomb, this time for a three count. 

The entire sequence can be seen in the tweet below: 

Nightingale and Mone both competed twice at Resurgence in a one-night tournament to crown the first NJPW Strong Women's Champion. 

I remember the only time i ever saw Chet Baker. It was at Parnell’s, a jazz club in Pioneer Square in Seattle, long since defunct. It was a few years before Baker died under mysterious circumstances, in Amsterdam in 1988, after a life of creativity, notorious dissipation, and addiction.

Emaciated, with a caved-in face, he already looked near death. He played like an angel. I remember something that happened to me toward the end of the night. Sometimes last sets in jazz clubs, when the crowd has thinned, seem to exist outside of time. There came a moment when, almost alone with Baker’s soft trumpet glow, in the presence of a lyricism ethereal as mist, I suddenly felt like I had been taken out of my body. It was a feeling of surpassing peacefulness. I had been released from the bondage of self. This instance of spiritual liberation came at the hands of a junkie, but the only drug involved was music.

I have often thought that such moments made me a music collector and an audiophile. I wanted to be able to repeat that experience, and others like it. I wanted to be able to choose the sensation of being there. For me, and I suspect for many readers of this magazine, that desire leads to the acquisition of better and better playback equipment and more and more recorded music. It also leads to the realization that recorded music varies enormously in its sonic quality and character, and therefore in its ability to provide the illusion of being there.

This is a story about one audiophile’s pursuit. The subject is large. I could focus on gear, talk about my first, worst, best-loved music system—it was a KLH Model Eleven—and the many increasingly expensive systems I have owned since. I could discuss my permanent, ongoing search for the right jazz recordings (since jazz is my drug of choice).

Instead, I will attempt to understand—and in so doing convey—a narrower, more specific, sometimes elusive truth: that in the experience of recorded music, the quality of the music and the quality of the recorded sound are interdependent.

As a practical matter, Stereophile provides two ratings with every record review: “performance” and “sonics.” But they are not entirely separable. The illusion of being there requires both. This story deals with some jazz albums that meet those requirements—excellence in both performance and sonics—and seeks to understand how those records got made.

This may be the time to remind ourselves of an obvious fact: That sense of being there is indeed an illusion. A recording is a reproduction. Italians have a good name for a recording: “registrazione,” or “registration.” Keith Jarrett, a skeptic, has a different word. He has said that a recording is like a “fax” of a concert. But whether a recording is a reproduction or a registration or a fax, the point is to make it seem real, to get as close to being there as possible.

Since the 1970s, one label has been famous for making people aware that some jazz recordings sound better than others: ECM. Thousands of pages, in many languages, have been written about “the ECM sound,” but no commentator has isolated its particular magic. No one has been able to explain fully why, when an ECM album begins, a hush descends on your listening room.

The ECM sound is grounded in the aesthetic consciousness of legendary producer Manfred Eicher. But the label’s culture is so strong that its sonic identity is sustained across a range of musical styles, engineers, studios, and producers.

Case in point: Steve Lake. As a member for decades of ECM’s inner circle in Munich, he writes the label’s press materials and liner notes. He has been called “ECM’s undercover producer.” He supervised the March 2019 session for the remarkable album Three Crowns by Polish alto saxophonist Maciej Obara. (ECM excels at finding the emerging badasses of European jazz.) The engineer was Gérard de Haro, and the studio was La Buissonne, in Pernes-les-Fontaines, France.

On Three Crowns, the opening hesitant, widely spaced piano notes by Dominik Wania and the first plaintive saxophone call from Obara set a rapt atmosphere that is never broken, even when the music grows turbulent later on. As a listener, you’re immersed in the aura. Everything that happens, including the swirling, shimmering cymbals of drummer Gard Nilssen, deepens the drama.

I asked Lake to provide some insight into how he conceives of his role of producer, within the ECM aesthetic. From Munich, he responded: “Commitment and focus are the primary qualities needed. I think one of the things that Manfred is very good at . . . is the goal of keeping projects on their particular artistic and musical trajectory. The idea is that an album is a story unfolding, and you have to be faithful to its plot line. It doesn’t have to be a straightforward narrative, and there may be detours, or flashbacks, or dream sequences, but the thing is still moving forward with a sense of integral cohesion.”

As for what the ECM sound is and how it’s produced, Lake said that he is probably “too close to the subject”: “Not many people have heard all 1700 ECM recordings, but I have.” If he had to identify “common denominators,” ideas like “clarity” and “transparency” would come up. (Those terms should ring true to all who have loved the ECM sound.) He quoted an avantgarde trumpet player who never recorded for ECM: “‘It’s a matter of following the sound.’ Donald Ayler said that, and I think it’s worth adopting as a motto. To be able to follow the sound, as a listener and as a player, you need to be able to hear what is going on. ECM productions . . . have illuminated the detail in the music in new ways.”

ECM is not the only label that can foster vivid illusions of being there. Consider “I Fall in Love Too Easily” from the Fred Hersch album Alive at the Vanguard, on Palmetto. There’s no place most jazz fans would rather visit, vicariously or otherwise, than the Village Vanguard, the most revered jazz club in the world and a famously fortunate acoustic space in which to record music. (To date, 156 albums —and counting —have been made there.) Hersch’s clear piano notes enter and then linger in the room, which comes fully alive when John Hébert’s deep, warm bass looms over the melody. It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to put yourself at one of those tiny white tables, in perhaps the second row.

Tyler McDiarmid recorded the album, working with his frequent collaborator Geoffrey Countryman. McDiarmid has become one of the busiest jazz engineers in New York and therefore the world. Like many engineers, he started as a musician (further proof of the unity of “performance” and “sonics”). He has a master’s degree in jazz studies from NYU. He has been a lead technician on Saturday Night Live for six seasons. “I never studied engineering officially,” he told me. “I learned on the job.” When asked the eternal jazz question—which are better, live or studio recordings —he answered, “Live recordings are where I started. I do a lot of studio work now, but if I had to choose, I prefer live. The mentality is completely different. In a studio, even with a band that is not 100% rehearsed, by the time you get to the second or third track, there’s usually something missing. You’ve lost that first-take feeling. Musicians play a little differently in a studio when they know that something can be fixed. And nine times out of 10, they’re not in the same room with each other.”

As for recording in the Vanguard: “Most jazz clubs are subpar, acoustically, and you’ve got to try to make it work. But the Vanguard just sounds good. It sounds natural in there, to begin with. Still, players are close together on that stage and things are going to spill into other things, for sure. So it’s about learning where to place the mikes. Where we put the room mikes really makes a big difference for how live the recording feels.”

“The equipment I use is a big part of my sound. I have lots of ribbon mikes and some vintage Neumann tube mikes. I use top-of-the-line Apogee A/D converters. My specific angle always comes back to my being a musician. What I strive for in a recording is to recreate the feeling I get when I’m up on a stage with other musicians, playing my guitar. I tend to err on the side of less reverb, less compression, less EQ, because I’m after that feeling of being in the midst of the music.”

A major live recording by McDiarmid (and two other engineers, Countryman and James Farber) is Lines of Color, by Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project, on Blue Note/ArtistShare. Truesdell conducts a world-class 25-piece orchestra playing previously unknown Gil Evans arrangements at the Jazz Standard in New York. Big jazz bands are famously difficult to record live. Lines of Color puts you in the believable presence of a great orchestra on the job. All the nuances of Gil Evans’s art are rendered, and when the full ensemble kicks in, we get to hear the crowd react to the crescendos. McDiarmid said, “We went in and miked every instrument individually, with the finest mikes we could get. It was a massive setup.”

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The KO Show, a United States title defense, plus two more matches have been announced for the May 26 episode of WWE SmackDown. 

On the eve of Night of Champions, Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa will appear as guest on the KO Show with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Reigns and Sikoa will challenge Owens and Zayn for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at Night of Champions on Saturday, May 27. 

Austin Theory will defend the United States Championship against Sheamus on next week's episode. Theory called out Sheamus in a promo segment on this week's show, then Sheamus left Theory laying with a Brogue Kick. 

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Also announced for next week, AJ Styles will face Karrion Kross in singles competition. Styles will face Seth Rollins in the finals of the World Heavyweight Championship tournament at Night of Champions. 

Additionally, Raquel Rodriguez will team with a mystery partner against Damage CTRL's Bayley and IYO SKY next week. Rodriguez and Liv Morgan were stripped of the Women's Tag Team Championship on Friday's SmackDown due to an injury suffered by Morgan. New Champions will be crowned in a four-way match on the May 29 Raw. 

Next week's SmackDown is being taped this week following Friday's SmackDown episode. 

Next week's announced lineup: 

WWE SmackDown, Friday, May 26 —

The KO Show with Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Roman Reigns & Solo SikoaUnited States Championship: Austin Theory defends against SheamusAJ Styles vs. Karrion KrossRaquel Rodriguez & a mystery partner vs. Damage CTRL (Bayley & IYO SKY)

I am a Sharpener. I can acknowledge being a Sharpener—someone who, as explained by Stereophile reviewer/psychology professor Robert Deutsch in our March 2009 issue, tends to look for and exaggerate differences—without feeling a need to enter a 12-step program or confess to a crime. That’s because there’s nothing wrong with being a Sharpener.

Being a Sharpener does affect how I’ve set up my reference system and how I approach components under review. What some may consider a needlessly complicated, overly expensive system, I’ve found essential for distinguishing subtle differences. To help ensure that my conclusions are fair, everything from cabling to equipment supports remains identical from one review to the next, except of course the component under review. Save for the times when I say “eff it all,” turn off my critical mind, and sit back to enjoy, my nature as a Sharpener colors everything I contribute to this magazine. That’s something readers have a right to know.

Why do I say this at the beginning of a review of the Wolf Audio Systems Alpha 3 SX audio server ($9295 base price with 2TB SSD, or $9895 as auditioned, with optional Flux Capacitor USB clock card)? Because as I went back and forth between the Alpha 3 SX and my reference Roon Nucleus +, I was aware of focusing on details that would be of minimal importance to many others, or even inaudible in some systems. As you read, please keep in mind that, once I had more or less figured out how to operate the Alpha 3 SX—a complex component whose Linux-based operating system is quite different than this confirmed Apple user’s reference—I really enjoyed what I was hearing.

What is it?
I’ve developed an aversion to using Swiss army knife analogies, and yet, here I go: The Wolf Alpha 3 SX is similarly versatile, albeit less potentially dangerous. It stores and plays back music, rips the contents of CDs to its internal drive, and includes a TEAC Blu-ray transport that can play DVDs—both video and audio—as well as Blu-ray discs. The Alpha 3 SX handles many formats, including WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, AAC, M4A, MP3, OGG, DSF, DFF, DXD, SACD ISO, and MQA. It can decode PCM up to 32-bit/1536kHz, DSD up to DSD1024 (either Native or DoP), and it does multichannel DSD up to DSD256.

The Wolf Alpha 3 SX works with your choice of music-playback software, including (but not limited to) JRiver, Roon, Audirvana, or Amarra. Because those applications integrate various streaming services—some or all of Tidal, Qobuz, Google Music HD, Spotify, Deezer, etc.—it can stream music as well. The server’s front panel is home to an on/off button, a Wolf logo, and a thin disc slot that, from a distance, looks like just a black horizontal line. (Apparently I’m not the only human who at first mistook the disc transport for a design element intended to make the server’s plain front appear more interesting.)

On the rear panel sit, amongst other things, one network port (Ethernet), two HDMI ports, four USB-3 ports (two of which pass data through the optional clock card), and lots more. I can’t detail them all because, during the review period, neither a manual nor online photos of the rear panel were available. (Once installed in my system, the back of the Wolf was not accessible.) In their stead, I received a Red Wolf 2 manual, which I promptly abandoned after discovering how different its rear panel looks. Hopefully, by publication time, a manual and photos will be available.

Lacking documentation, I was dependent upon the assistance of Wolf co-founder Joe Parvey, who often used TeamViewer to log into and monitor my server. We communicated a lot by phone, email, and text. I’m told that Wolf, which incorporated in 2015, has five people devoted to technical support, and that timely assistance such as I received should be available to all Wolf owners.

Wolf servers run WolfOS, a Linux-based operating system the company introduced at the 2019 Capital Audiofest. Before that, Wolf used a Windows-based version. I’m barely treading water when it comes to explaining such things, so it’s best to quote Joe, who co-founded Wolf in Florida with fellow “technologist and audiophile” Fred Parvey, Joe’s dad:

“We have designed a custom kernel, the back end or core of the OS, to offer the lowest latency possible, as well as keep the audio processes of the system carefully isolated and separate from the rest of the server. This allows a Wolf server to work as closely and seamlessly with DACs as possible and provides users with the ability to add on applications as they are needed or become available.

“In my opinion, the OS that runs all the apps is as important as the apps themselves, because how it is run and configured is absolutely critical to good sound. Our extremely low latency WolfOS is absolutely tuned for audio and has a big impact on sound quality.”

The Wolf Alpha 3 SX is a one-piece unit, but Joe feels that “its full potential can be unlocked with a monitor and keyboard, which is especially useful for downloading video.” Joe sent, with the server, a remote control receiver that can be used with an Apple Remote or a home automation remote—I didn’t use it—and a keyboard ($225), as well as a 22″ Planar touchscreen monitor ($350 with 25′ cables).

Another Alpha 3 SX option, which I also used, is the Flux Capacitor USB clock card ($600), which reclocks the audio signal prior to sending it to your DAC via USB. Yet another Wolf-provided upgrade is to one of three Audience power cords ($200–$1310). “We were very lucky to meet some great people in the industry who helped answer my questions and explain things that I didn’t quite understand,” Joe said when he visited to set up the Alpha 3 SX. “Those people include John McDonald and Lenny Mayeux of Audience. When Wolf first began, we played with linear power, dismissed the commercially available linear power systems, and decided to make our own. Then, when we switched to using Audience copper internally, we had this huge bump in sound quality. It was a collision of circumstance and really good people that helped us start Wolf Audio Systems.”

I did not explore the power cord option, which would have added another variable to the review. Instead, I stuck to my reference Nordost Odin 2 power cables. The Alpha 3 SX has Wolf’s most powerful processor, largest amount of RAM, and best, fastest, and largest system drive. Case treatment, power supply, and quality of copper wiring also distinguish the 3 SX from the basic 3. Joe Parvey insists that the Alpha 3 SX is a “big upgrade over the standard Alpha 3,” which uses an i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 250GB SSD for the operating system and a 2TB SSD for music storage. The SX ups that to an i7 processor, 32GB RAM, a 1TB system drive that runs at 3.5GB per second, and a choice of SSD music storage, currently topping out at 12TB. “Pairing the right RAM with the right motherboard and processor is very important,” Joe said. “We spend a lot of time doing arduous listening and parts matching in every Red Wolf 2 and Alpha 3 SX server.”

The “SX” in Alpha 3 SX stands for “Stillpoint/eXemplar Audio” and refers to grounding, vibration management, and RF/EMI rejection technology designed by those two companies. “The Alpha 3 SX contains roughly $2000 worth of Stillpoints, eXemplar, and Wolf technology that take the Alpha line to the nth degree,” Joe said. Wolf intends to upgrade the company’s flagship server, the two-chassis Red Wolf 2, to both Red Wolf 3 and Red Wolf 3 SX status by the end of 2020 because Joe considers the Stillpoints and eXemplar Audio additions major improvements.

“The 3 SX includes new, patent-pending grounding technology that was jointly developed by Wolf, Stillpoints, and eXemplar,” he said. “It sits directly on the hot, neutral, and ground lines of the incoming power and pulls MHz- and GHz-spectrum noise off the power lines before it reaches critical components. It also contains the same Stillpoints standoffs inside every Stillpoint Ultra Mini filter. That technology, which consists of two pieces of metal separated by a pocket that holds ceramic bearings, is used to hold up the server’s critical internal components. Imagine each internal component supported by four Stillpoints Ultra Mini feet.”

By publication time, Wolf anticipates an additional optional upgrade that will replace the unit’s stock feet with either three or four Stillpoints Ultra Mini or Ultra SS filters. Cost varies from three Ultra Minis ($375) to four Ultra SS filters ($1000). While screw-on Ultras weren’t available during the review period, I tested their efficacy by using three and then four of the Stillpoints Ultra SS filters that I had on hand. The only difference between Ultra SS and the Ultra Mini is the size of the bearings.

Setup, software, setbacks
I placed the Wolf Alpha 3 SX on one of the two top shelves of my double Grand Prix Audio Monza rack; on the other sat the comparison server, Roon’s Nucleus + ($2499), which was powered by an HDPlex 4-unit linear power supply ($485) I use in place of the Nucleus +’s switch-mode power supply (footnote 1). All three units were supported, initially, by Grand Prix Audio Apex feet and connected to Nordost Odin 2 power cables. A Nordost Valhalla 2 USB cable connected the servers to either the dCS Rossini DAC or EMM Labs DV2 DAC; I switched between them. A Wireworld Platinum Starlight Ethernet cable hooked the components up to the network.

Moving back and forth between servers involved a simple switch of three cables and devoting up to five minutes to rebooting servers and apps. When using Roon with the Alpha 3 SX, I sometimes needed to reboot again after I’d take a break for the night. After restarting, everything worked fine, most of the time.

During Joe’s visit, we attached a 22″ Planar touchscreen monitor to the Wolf via HDMI and positioned it next to me. The monitor kept going blank and then returning every time Joe tried to do something. Since he was loading my music onto the server and working with code, this proved frustrating. A replacement monitor worked far better, but its touchscreen needed far more pressure and more repeated poking than my Apple touchscreens require. Touchscreen-typing into “Search” proved frustrating, so I frequently resorted to the wireless keyboard Joe provided.

Footnote 1: See my discussion of the sound in the April issue’s review of the Innuos Statement music server.

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Wolf Audio Systems

3110 Beach Blvd.

Jacksonville, FL 32207

(234)770-0660

wolfaudiosystems.com

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After a year away from in-ring action, Trinity (the former Naomi in WWE) will make her Impact Wrestling debut on tonight's AXS TV show.

She will face KiLynn King, one half of Knockouts Tag Team Champions The Coven along with Taylor Wilde. Trinity laid King out last Thursday as she came to the aid of Deonna Purrazzo and Jordynne Grace after The Coven attacked them.

In a preview of next Friday's six-way no. 1 contender's match at Under Siege, Moose, Eddie Edwards & Franke Kazarian will team up against Alex Shelley, Yuya Uemura & Jonathan Gresham.

X-Division Champion Trey Miguel will face Laredo Kid in a non-title match ahead of his title defense against Chris Sabin at Under Siege.

Ace Austin, one half of the Impact Tag Team Champions, will face Jason Hotch of The Good Hands in singles action.

The BTI pre-show will see The Design's Kon & Deaner take on Zicky Dice & Johnny Swinger.

**********

Before the Impact

George Iceman revealed that Dango and Joe Hendry narrowed down the culprit about who attacked Santino.

The Design (Deaner & Kon) (w/ Angels) defeated Johnny Swinger & Zicky Dice

Johnny Swinger was an excellent babyface in this match, as Deaner and Kon got the heat on him. His selling was fantastic, and the crowd actually really got into wanting them to make a comeback. Of course, Dice died after a powerbomb from Kon and then a DDT from Deaner for the win.

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“What happens in college stays in college” might be the best policy for most undergrad-formed bands, but Snarky Puppy is an exception to that rule (and a number of others). Bassist/composer Michael League found fertile musical ground in the jazz studies program at the University of North Texas when he formed Snarky Puppy in 2003. The band thought big from its inception as a 10-piece group and has continued to morph and shapeshift to the present, living out of vans, paying dues, relentlessly gigging, and garnering three Grammys along the way. In 2017, the group was tagged jazz group of the year by the Downbeat readers’ poll.

It has been quite a musical journey—from Denton, Texas, to playing London’s Royal Albert Hall in a 14-piece incarnation this past November. A recording of that concert (Snarky Puppy Live at the Royal Albert Hall, GroundUP Music LHN 070 LP 2020) was recently released on the GroundUP label, an umbrella for management and recording the band has built over time. Currently, the group is based in the New York City area, with a studio there as well.

Like the big bands of yesteryear, the band’s lineup is bound to change. Michael League highlighted for me several players who have been with Snarky Puppy for a long time: keyboardist Justin Stanton, trumpeter Mike Maher, guitarist Bob Lanzetti, guitarist Chris McQueen, and drummer Nate Werth. That consistency surely contributes to the power and tightness one hears in their live performances and recordings.

Performing sometimes-lengthy instrumental compositions that meld complex ensemble work and melodic material with improvisation, Snarky Puppy has achieved a special kind of recognition: the kind that comes from stumping the critics. Is it jazz? Is it fusion? Is it R&B, or contemporary classical—what the heck is it? The music resists pigeon-holers and intrigues audiences. Though the majority of the Snarky Puppy discography is instrumental, vocalists are occasionally featured in interesting contexts, notably including, in recent years, close encounters of the David Crosby kind. Adding fuel to the fire, Michael League leads a parallel group, Bokanté, which emphasizes world music and includes musicians from four continents.

Taking the F-train to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, I caught up with Michael League sitting outside on the stoop in the sun on an early-spring New York day. Then we went in and down, into his almost-dark basement lair, and I got to hear directly from someone who is helping to shape new music for his generation going forward.

Sasha Matson: Are you into listening to music? Not all musicians are.

Michael League: I’m way into it. [Points to his stereo system.] This is not representative of my preferences. This is my basement rig. I bought all this stuff on Craigslist. My new house in Spain is going to be done with renovations in a couple months. I can’t wait, because I will get to put my system in: a beautiful Marantz amp, two sets of speakers from Polk, and a nice Denon turntable.

Matson: Do you listen to a lot of vinyl?

League: I don’t listen to anything else unless I’m mobile. If I’m in a house, it’s always vinyl.

Matson: Here’s a real softball. Snarky Puppy is a great band name. Who came up with that?

League: My brother was going to use it for an Irish traditional band he had in high school, and they went with the other name. So I always kind of saved it away. When Snarky Puppy was playing its first gig, I didn’t have a name for it. I thought I would just use it for that one time. Had I known we’d still be around 15 years later, I would have come up with a better name!

Matson: It’s a winner. Maybe it’s responsible for your success?

League: Could be! [laughs]

Matson: What are you listening to that’s new and great?

League: Ninety percent of the music I listen to was recorded more than 20 years ago. There’s a record by a guy named Moses Sumney that I really like; it’s his debut record (Aromanticism, Jagjaguwar JAG 308, CD/LP 2017). All the stuff on GroundUP. We’ve done over 30 releases from around 15 artists, maybe more, since we started seven years ago. I really like to go out and hear artists live, because I think now that is where the truth is, whereas in the ’60s it was the album thing. Money for recording is such a scarce resource for independent artists.

Matson: From your expanding discography, give me a pick in terms of the sound, that you would like Stereophile homies to hear.

League: I would say the second Bokanté album (White Heat, Real World Records Ltd. CDRW221 CD/LP 2018), because the whole band is playing acoustic instruments, and we have the 52-piece Metropole Orkest behind us. For engineer Nic Hard and I, that was the biggest mountain we’ve ever had to climb. The band was recorded in New York, and the orchestra in Holland. Normally, mixing is one song a day, whereas this was a month if not more.

Matson: Writers seem to love wrestling with genre labels for Snarky Puppy. For me, Michael, featuring keyboards a lot does push it legitimately towards jazz and jazz-fusion, as opposed to jam-band music. I’m hearing a lot of fine-sounding analog synths and keyboards on your recordings.

League: Definitely. Bobby Sparks is always playing a Hohner D6 Clavinet, Hammond B3 organ, Minimoog Model D. Justin has a Prophet. Bill is playing a Fender Rhodes. Sean is playing a Talk Box and a Moog. The guys are really into that era of keyboards.

Matson: Recordings now, given the situation with streaming, seem almost a form of PR; it’s hard to make them pay.

League: The strange thing now, with album releases, the money that previously would have been earned from recordings has disappeared. However, the importance of releasing recordings is the same. So it’s a weird shift: You must continue to release albums in order to get promoters to book your gigs, and for publications to write about you. You need new records coming out, and yet you don’t make money off of them. So they are like publicity solicitations now, like business cards. So musicians are seeking out ways to make cheaper recordings. Musicians have to be ingenious these days to figure out how to sustain their art.

Matson: It is more democratic; you can have a studio under your bed now.

League: It’s a big advantage in many ways, but I don’t think anyone will contest that you are not going to get the same result from your bedroom studio as you are from the A-room at Avatar or EastWest studios.

Matson: You have been putting in touring time. That seems still to be the bedrock for groups?

League: Ten years ago, I would have agreed with that. But now, with Instagram and YouTube and all that kind of stuff, there are artists that have achieved significant levels of visibility without touring. Snarky Puppy did not have that experience: We spent 10 years of really nasty touring before we had any degree of success.

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A Snarky Six-Pack

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The Ring of Honor Tag Team Championship will be defended on next week's AEW Dynamite. 

The Lucha Bros (Penta El Zero Miedo & Rey Fenix) are set to defend the ROH Tag Team titles against Blackpool Combat Club's Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta on the May 24 Dynamite episode. The match was announced during this week's Dynamite. 

Castagnoli, the ROH World Champion, defeated Fenix in a Double Jeopardy match on last week's Dynamite where the winner would get a shot at the loser's title. Castagnoli chose Yuta as his partner for the Tag Team title challenge. 

Also announced for next week, AEW owner, president, CEO, head of creative, and GM Tony Khan will reveal the location for the debut of AEW Collision set for Saturday, June 17. Khan announced the dates and location for episodes two through six of Collision during this week's Dynamite. 

Next week's lineup to this point: 

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AEW Dynamite, Wednesday, May 24 —

ROH Tag Team Championship: The Lucha Bros (Penta El Zero Miedo & Rey Fenix) defend against Blackpool Combat Club (Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta)Tony Khan will reveal the location for the debut episode of AEW Collision

I’ve been wrestling with my elders about new ways to measure loudspeakers, lobbying for methods that might correlate more directly with a listener’s experience. And wouldn’t you know? Right in the middle of this Socratic dialogue, I put the fresh-from-UPS, $1000/pair, Tannoy Revolution XT 6s into my reference system, plunking them down on my 24″ Sound Anchor Reference stands in the same spot my Harbeth P3ESRs had been sitting. And I freaked! I was using the Rogue RP-7 preamp and the Rogue Stereo 100 (100Wpc) amplifier, and I could never adequately describe how bad the shiny white Tannoys sounded. Imagine sound that’s thin, metallic, herky-jerky, dull, and rolled off completely below about 90Hz.

I repeat: rolled off completely below 90Hz.

I tolerated their horridness for about two hours and then considered the possibility that somehow the oldest, most revered British loudspeaker company had mistakenly put some wrong parts in the crossovers. I was getting ready to call Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio (Tannoy’s new importer) and tell him something was wrong. But I decided to wait.

I figured some break-in would help, so I let them mumble and squeal for a few days. They sounded bad the second day too. The third day, while I was out for the afternoon, I forced the XT 6s to play through all the Ry Cooder albums on Tidal.

When I returned, my favorite Ry Cooder album—Jazz (16/44 FLAC, Rhino/Warner Brothers/Tidal)—was playing. Cooder’s voice, on my favorite song on that album, “Nobody,” sounded the way it sounds when it sounds good on an expensive hi-fi. When my second favorite song, “We Shall Be Happy,” came on, I noticed a full octave of bass had magically appeared as I was riding the subway and shuffling the streets. Finally, after about 20 hours, the sound was as rich and clear and full as I could expect from a 6″ driver in a 0.38 cu.ft. box.

The bass drum on “We Shall Be Happy”—mostly in the 50–100Hz octave—came through weak but clear, doubling a tuba belching the same beat in the same frequency range. (That tuba would have been really sad if it knew how desperately the Tannoy’s multifiber cone was struggling to give its song-stealing efforts a clear, “happy” voice.) After three full music-playing days, the XT 6s were still a little iffy below 120Hz.

Above 120Hz, they played a little soft but detail-rich, true of timbre and a touch on the warm side of neutral. I hoped they were still breaking in.

History
Founded in London by Guy Fountain in 1926 as the Tulsemere Manufacturing Company, Tannoy is among the oldest loudspeaker manufacturers in the world. The company name was changed to Tannoy Ltd. in 1928. Like Altec and Western Electric in America, Tannoy originally manufactured public address systems serving the military and public sectors during WWII.

In 1947, the year Klipsch was founded in America, Tannoy premiered their first “Dual Concentric” (co-axial) driver, which would become the technology most closely associated with Tannoy loudspeakers. In 1974, Tannoy was acquired by Harman International Industries; Fountain, Tannoy’s founder, retired. In 1976, the company moved from London to Coatbridge, Scotland. Next, Tannoy merged with British loudspeaker company Goodmans, forming Tannoy Goodmans International (TGI). In 2002, TGI was acquired by Danish company TC Electronic to form TC Group. Then, in 2015, TC Electronic was acquired by the Music Group, a Philippines-based holding company, which in 2017 changed its name to Music Tribe (footnote 1). On the back of the Revolution XT 6 cabinets it says “Music Group Manufacturing PH Ltd” and “Designed and engineered in the U.K.” On the cardboard shipping box, it says “Made in China.”

Description
The front of the Tannoy Revolution XT 6 is 8.7″ wide and 16″ tall, but the back of the cabinet is only 6.5″ wide; the cabinet has a trapezoidal footprint. The actual enclosure is only 14.5″ tall and is separated from a 1″ thick plastic plinth by four 0.5″ high chrome-finished plastic spacer columns that allow the XT 6’s bottom-firing port to breathe. I presume this bottom-port architecture—and the handsome look of the whole speaker—was intended to make the XT 6s more shelf-and-bureau friendly.

Top-front, behind a flimsy, magnetically attached plastic-and-fabric grille, lies a single 6″ multifiber-cone woofer with a coaxially mounted 1″ “Linear PEI” (polyetherimide) dome tweeter located at the throat of a waveguide with what Tannoy calls “Torus-Ogive” geometry; Tannoy calls this assembly “Dual Concentric.” Second-order low-pass and first-order high-pass filters separate the tweet from the woof at 1.8kHz. Nominal impedance is specified as 8 ohms, sensitivity as 89dB/2.83V/m. Except for the grille, the fit, finish, and quality of materials make the Revolution XT 6 look considerably more expensive than its modest $1000/pair price would suggest.

Setup
When I placed the Tannoy XT 6s on the shelf above my desk, they sounded extremely good. Bass response was smoother here than on stands. But out in the room, on my 24″ Sound Anchor stands, I experimented: I moved the XT 6s nearer and farther from the front wall, trying to make the 50–200Hz octaves come into focus. But wherever I positioned them, they sounded the same. This speaker is relatively unaffected by the proximity of room boundaries.

Upscale Audio’s Kevin Deal says the XT 6’s concentrically mounted tweeter and its “Torus Ogive” waveguide allows the tweeter’s output to combine with the bass-midrange output to generate a forward-expanding “mushroom cloud” of phase-coherent energy.

Listening with the Rogue Stereo 100
I have never owned Tannoy loudspeakers, but several of my golden-eared friends do. Every time I hear one of their systems, all of which are powered by low-wattage tube amps, I feel the speakers need more amplifier power than their owners are giving them. My gut feeling is that these coaxial drivers require at least 30W to sing and 100W to dance. Therefore, I started my auditions with the 100Wpc Rogue Audio Stereo 100, wired in Ultralinear mode.

My first post-Cooder notion about the XT 6’s sound character came while playing the record I use to set phono cartridge VTA/SRA: Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours (LP, Capital W 581). When “Deep in a Dream” puts a full Frank in front of me; when the distorted hi-fi part of the sound disappears leaving only Frank’s voice and the Nelson Riddle–conducted orchestra; when the smoke from Frank’s cigarette climbs through the air and I fall deep in a dream of her: That’s when I know my system is right. The Rogue/XT 6 combination let that happen. Ol’ Blue Eyes sounded incredibly natural and Nelson Riddle’s orchestra had a most agreeable tone—no hint of stridency.

Switching to the present era and a more demanding program, the Stereo 100 drove the XT 6s to 90+dB peaks (at 2m, C-weighted) playing David Byrne’s “I Dance Like This” from American Utopia (24/96 FLAC, Nonesuch/Qobuz). The bass power on this recording can humiliate small speakers, so, naturally, below 60Hz there was some noticeable distortion on the synth bass and drum machine, but it was subtle and minor. The little Tannoys showed a bit of force and a ton of coherence. For the next issue, I am doing a follow-up review on Rogue Audio’s latest version of their Sphinx integrated amplifier, the Sphinx V3 hybrid tube–class-D amplifier ($1595). (The original Sphinx was my first review for Stereophile.) So of course I tried the V3 with the XT 6s. Stereophile reviewers avoid using unreviewed ancillary equipment in our reviews, but I would be remiss in my honest reviewer duties if I did not now at least mention how the 100Wpc Sphinx V3 drove the Tannoy XT 6s with more excitement and raw musicality than the three-times-more-expensive RP-7 + ST-100 combination. It was a “Wow!” moment.

Listening with the Schiit Aegir
One March morning, I made coffee and installed the $799, 20Wpc Schiit Aegir stereo amplifier behind the Tannoy XT 6s. I was curious how the low-power Schiit would play “I Dance Like This” from the abovementioned David Byrne album. I listened critically as I sipped my coffee. The 20-watt Schiit sounded liquid smooth, with exceptional texture reproducing Byrne’s voice, but the Tannoys grumbled and distorted trying to reproduce the heavy-driving bass energy. When I turned the volume down (to 80dB average at two meters), things cleared up a lot, and the sound of Byrne’s voice and the synth background became sweeter and mellower and very nicely sorted.

Footnote 1: Probably the parent company’s best-known brand is pro-audio manufacturer Behringer.—John Atkinson

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COMPANY INFO

Tannoy Group Ltd.

US Distributor Upscale Audio

2058 Wright Ave.

La Verne, CA 91750

(909) 931-9686

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Page 1
Page 2
Specifications
Associated Equipment
Measurements

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Raw last night averaged 1.72 million viewers and drew a 0.58 rating in 18-49.

The key takes were again the lower first hour, big increase in hour two, and then a fall in hour three, which is an exaggerated version of previous years' patterns as summer approaches. The other thing from last night was a huge increase in 18-34 viewers, doing a 0.41.

The increase shows how hot WWE is with younger viewers, but in comparison to recent weeks, this had less competition, with the only major sports event being Seattle vs. Dallas in the NHL playoffs on ESPN that did 2.75 million viewers (0.97 rating in 18-49).

Raw was second to the NHL game in 18-49 and second in every key demo. In total viewers, it was was seventh behind the game and five news shows. Raw also beat everything on network TV in 18-49 except Jeopardy! Masters on ABC, and a 0.62 on cable in hour one is far better than the 0.66 than Jeopardy! Masters did, given the reach of homes.

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Raw was down four percent in viewers from last week, but up 11 percent in 18-49 and up 14 percent in 18-34. Last week was the stronger marquee episode but the competition last week was tougher with the NBA playoffs.

From one year ago, Raw was down one percent in viewers, but up 29 percent in 18-49 and up 37 percent in 18-34, and that's not even factoring in that USA Network is in far less homes than a year ago.

The first-to-third hour changes saw women 18-49 decrease eight percent, men 18-49 increase three percent, women 12-34 decrease 20 percent, and men 12-34 decrease 11 percent.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 1.69 million viewers9 p.m. 1.82 million viewers10 p.m. 1.63 million viewers

After the shocking events of this past Wednesday, Don Callis will appear on AEW Dynamite to give his rationale for why he turned on Kenny Omega.

At the conclusion of Omega's cage match with Jon Moxley, Callis entered the ring and delivered a shot to Omega's head with a screwdriver, leading to Moxley getting the win.

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As the four-way for the AEW World title at Double or Nothing draws near, two of the challengers will be in competition.

In one match, "Jungle Boy" Jack Perry will take on Rush for the first time ever. Perry has won eight of his last nine while this is Rush's first singles match in AEW since a February loss to Bryan Danielson.

Sammy Guevara has also been announced for the show as being in action, but his opponent was not announced. Guevara and AEW World Champion MJF were unsuccessful in defeating Perry and Darby Allin this past Wednesday which made the four-way official.

Here's the current lineup for Wednesday's show in Austin, Texas:

Chris Jericho vs. Roderick Strong in a falls count anywhere match with JAS & Adam Cole banned from the buildingThe Outcasts (Saraya, Toni Storm & Ruby Soho) vs. Britt Baker, Jamie Hayter & Hikaru ShidaRicky Starks vs. Jay WhiteJack Perry vs. RushDon Callis promoSammy Guevara vs. TBAFollow-up on Wednesday's "huge" AEW announcement