New music and technology: November 2021
Here's what's new in music and technology this month
Chord Electronics Anni Desktop Integrated Amplifier
$2495
If you spend most of your time staring into the screen of a computer or laptop and that’s where you do most of your music listening, then the new Anni desktop amp might be just what you need to make your monitors sing.
UK company Chord is rightly famed for its sometimes staggeringly pricey and uniquely designed DACs, but its first desktop amp, while hardly cheap, is easily justified by its sonic abilities.
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Chord’s diminutive Anni desktop integrated amp
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This wee beauty will happily drive headphones or desktop loudspeakers, and its snazzy error-correcting circuit topology is on board to make the most of high-resolution audio. With its CNC-machined high-grade aluminium casework and "polychromatic control spheres" to regulate power and gain controls, Chord’s Anni is a design statement, but more important is its flexibility.
Two different outputs allow for two simultaneous listeners. And while its 10 watts of power may sound small, this is unencumbered, pure power perfectly tuned to service headphones and small monitors with the sweetest of sounds. The Anni benefits from matching with other Chord products in the Qutest range but will also work wonders as a standalone device.
Apple Music Lossless/Spatial Audio
$14.99 monthly subscription
Regular readers of this page may remember me blabbing on a few months back about the high-res music streaming service Qobuz. While the French company is just the ticket for many audiophiles, I’ve found myself defecting to Apple Music, which recently announced that it, too, is going high-res—and for half the price of its competitors.
I’ve been testing it out and find it beautifully simple to navigate and its 70-million-plus song database more reliable for finding even rather obscure music choices than other music streaming services I’ve auditioned.
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Apple Music’s streaming service goes Lossless and introduces Spatial Audio
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Calling its new high-res catalogue Lossless, Apple Music says that something like 70% of its music is already at CD quality (or better) and claims that the figure will be near 100% by Christmas.
But it has another surprise up its sleeve as well. Those who listen on headphones can take advantage of a selection of tracks processed with Spatial Audio utilising Dolby Atmos, which effectively means you’re listening in surround sound.
It takes a little getting used to this "all-around sound" but my guess is that eventually, Spatial Audio may become the de facto listening experience. And if you want to jazz things up and add some style to the quality listening experience, then check out Apple’s AirPods Max wireless headphones ($999). But we’ll talk about those another time.
Fender x MoFi PrecisionDeck Turntable
$5995
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MoFi’s limited edition Fender x PrecisionDeck turntable |
Here’s some hot news for those vinyl enthusiasts who have a finely-tuned design sense and an appreciation of modern guitar history. The extremely limited-edition Fender x MoFi PrecisionDeck is a turntable collaboration with Fender that mimics the look of the iconic Fender Precision bass guitar.
Fender’s principal master builder Yuriy Shishkov designed the shape, which uses swamp ash that’s sourced, milled, and finished in the classic three-colour sunburst. With technology from the award-winning Mobile Fidelity’s Ultradeck turntable, the Fender x MoFi PrecisionDeck is pre-mounted with a high-quality MoFi MasterTracker pickup.
Hand-assembled in Ann Arbor, Michigan, each turntable is individually numbered. The downside? There are only 1000 of these turntables worldwide, with only a few making it down to New Zealand, and that means their resale value will inevitably soar. Get it while you can.
Buena Vista Social Club—Buena Vista Social Club (25th Anniversary Edition)
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Buena Vista Social Club classic gets a remake and remodel
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Even those who normally have little interest in world music found themselves entranced and won over by the utterly charming Buena Vista Social Club on its initial release back in 1996.
It was a curatorial coup for guitarist/producer Ry Cooder, who managed to corral a bunch of legendary elderly Cuban musicians to perform together, thereby introducing their music to the US, whose political sanctions had for many years deprived them of an audience in the West.
Inevitably, and justifiably, multiple Grammy awards followed. Sadly, some of their star performers—including vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer and pianist Ruben Gonzalez—have since died, but this carefully remastered and expanded 2LP/2CD-plus book edition gives fans a chance to expand their appreciation for one of the genuine landmark albums of the last quarter century.
Reb Fountain—Iris
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Reb Fountain’s second album is an elegant dance
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Our female singer-songwriters are sounding spectacularly self-assured these days, from the intelligent commercial pop of Lorde to the alternative folk stylings of Aldous Harding. Swaying elegantly somewhere between those two poles is Reb Fountain, whose self-titled debut album won last year’s Taite Music Prize and was nominated for five categories at the New Zealand Music Awards.
She’s back just over a year later with Iris—a selection of tunes that seems wracked with the struggle to reconcile her vision of love with its daunting, messy reality. Described as "noir folk-punk" by those odd souls who write press releases, all I can add is that she turns out beautiful, bewitching sounds on an album where creativity, passion, and musical invention all commingle to stunning effect. Just wow.
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