Author Archives: The Mighty Thunderer

About The Mighty Thunderer

We write about music, audio, and technology. Like the namesake of this blog, Ludwig van Beethoven, we are hammer of polite society. We will point out the absurd and educate on the sublime...

Analog redux

In a a previous post, I mused about the new age of digital sound reproduction and how amazingly good — no, scratch that: great — DSD and Blu-ray Audio sounds. In this listener’s opinion, digital sound has finally come of … Continue reading

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Quo vadis, ‘analog’? Or, how I learned I’m not spending thousands on a losing proposition

Next year, 2015, I will celebrate forty years as an audiophile. I didn’t know I was an “audiophile” back in 1975 when I purchased my first “stereo” for the amount of $500—a daunting sum for an eighteen year old mail … Continue reading

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The Furtwängler Conumdrum

The very talented young conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic  Orchestra, Gustavo Dudamel, is in a bit of hot water. His silence on the topic of the popular uprising against the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro in his home country … Continue reading

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The Mac is dead. Long live the Mac.

As I reported ten days ago my old iMac died after giving me six years, eleven months and ten days of service. Notwithstanding the two hard drive crashes, and a dead SuperDrive after two years, I think I eked out … Continue reading

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Of Macs and Men, part deux

Back in 2011 I experienced the second of two catastrophic hard drive crashes on my late 2006 vintage iMac. I was able to replace the hard drive and it worked until some time very early this morning after 2 AM … Continue reading

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The Perfectly Realized Illusion: why high-end audio matters

One day, in the late nineteen-seventies, I visited my local high-end audio salon, Sound Components, in search of my favorite classical record magazine Gramophone. As I walked in, I was stopped in my tracks by a piano recording that was … Continue reading

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A (very) short introduction to Cuban Music

Beginning with the settlers in Cuba who came in with the second wave of colonizers, the musical life in Cuba was always rich. Cuba, as the colonizers discovered, was populated by three Indian tribes—the Siboney, the Taino, and the Guanatabey. … Continue reading

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April 30, 1993

Steve Jobs created the computer that gave us the World Wide Web. CERN has given us many things in our day, most notable among them recent proof of the existence of the so-called ‘God particle’, the Higgs Boson… one of … Continue reading

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An anniversary that should make most of us feel really old

A couple of weeks ago, an auspicious anniversary passed very quietly; nary a mention of it in the press or on technical and music blogs. I sure as hell didn’t remember it — for reasons that will be made clear … Continue reading

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Van Cliburn dead at age 78

The very first classical music record I purchased, probably in 1972 or 1973, was “Chopin’s Greatest Hits,” played by Van Cliburn. I purchased it as much for mine, as for my mother the piano teacher’s, enjoyment. That little gem, containing … Continue reading

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