October 2020 - Twittering Machines

Movies That Don’t Suck: Häxan and A Halloween List

October 31, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Danish film director, actor, and screenwriter Benjamin Christensen found a copy of Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th C treatise on witchcraft, in a Berlin bookshop that sent him on a 2-year journey resulting in the silent film classic Häxan.

Album of the Week: Adrianne Lenker | songs and instrumentals

October 30, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Adrianne Lenker holed up in a one-room cabin in the woods of Western Massachusetts last Spring, sat down in front of a tape deck or Walkman and recorded two albums-worth of songs and instrumentals. The results are some of the most simply beautiful bitter tears […]

HiFi Pedigree or Have A Heart About HiFi

October 29, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Is a piece of HiFi just a piece of HiFi? Can we reduce the value of a given thing down to those items listed in the accompanying spec sheet?

A Few (more) Weeks With Junior: Wavelength Audio Junior EL84 Integrated Amplifier

October 28, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

A few (more) weeks with Junior.

In Barn For Flashback-Fi: Audio Note DAC 4 Signature

October 27, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

The Audio Note DAC 4 Signature, c.2002, is a non-oversampling, digital filterless DAC using premium parts, more silver than a Liberace concert, a tube rectified choke filtered power supply, and a pair of E182CC / 7119 dual triodes in the Class A output stage. It […]

HiFi Bargains: Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary Bookshelf Speakers 50% Off

October 25, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

I’ve heard plenty of Wharfdale speakers, certainly enough to know their warm and rich house sound.

Movies That Don’t Suck: Starring Sterling Hayden

October 24, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Sterling Walter Hayden was born in Upper Montclair, NJ in 1916, about 6 miles from where I was born which is why we look so much alike.

Album of the Week: SPAZA | UPRIZE! (Music from the Original Motion Picture)

October 23, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

SPAZA is a loose collective of musicians based in Johannesburg, South Africa — the idea of SPAZA is to jam around a concept rather than to coalesce into a fully-fledged band.

Review: Line Magnetic Audio LM-845iA Integrated Amplifier

October 21, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

What does the 22 Watt per channel, point-to-point wired, pure Class A Line Magnetic Audio LM-845iA Integrated Amplifier sound like? Perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t sound like much of anything except pure power.

KEF LS50 Wireless II Speakers Now Support TIDAL Connect!

October 20, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Listening to music just got that much simpler. Plug, meet play.

PSB’s New Powered Alpha AM3 and Alpha AM5 Speakers

October 20, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

I love me a good pair of powered speakers because it makes hifi life so simple. I like simple, too.

In Barn for Flashback-Fi: Ensemble Solo B-50 “Tiger” Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

October 19, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

The Ensemble Solo B-50 Tiger Hybrid Integrated Amplifier comes to us from 1991, care of John DeVore of DeVore Fidelity.

In Barn for Flashback-Fi: California Audio Labs Alpha Tube Analog Processor (DAC)

October 18, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Vintage digital! The California Audio Labs Alpha DAC was the third digital device I owned from CAL, preceded by the Icon and Tercet MKIII CD players. So this Flaskback-Fi hits home.

Darko.Audio Podcast #21: Work Experience with Twittering Machines’ Michael Lavorgna

October 17, 2020 Michael Lavorgna

Darko and I shoot the breeze about “Work Experience” in his recently posted podcast where we cover taste, selflessness, judgement, ego, reviewing, comparisons, and more.

My Gretsch Jim Dandy: Why Guitars Are Like Lovers and HiFi