MUSIC FROM DATA: We look at the ways you can

Transcription

No. 72
ISSN 0847-1851
Canadian Publication Sales
Product Agreement
No. 40065638
$6.49
MUSIC FROM DATA: We look at the ways
you can make your own audiophile
recordings from gear you may already
have, and we show you how to score
genuine hi-fi from your computer or iPod!
REVIEWS: A speaker with its own
subwoofer, an updated single-ended tube
amp, and acoustic panels that actually
look good
PLUS: Fine-tuning your system, what’s
wrong with too many audio retailers, music
and the mind…and lots more!
RETURN LABELS ONLY
OF UNDELIVERED COPIES TO:
Box 65085, Place Longueuil,
Longueuil, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4
Printed in Canada
ASW Speakers
QED
Target
Vandersteen
Goldring GR2
“Hard to fault in any area.
This has to be the budget turntable of the year.”
Hi-Fi World, April 2005
JUSTI
CE
Just May Audio
9251-8 Yonge St., Suite 218
Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9T3
Tel. : (905) 780-0079 • Fax : (905) 780-0443
AU
DIO
McCormack
Harmonix
WBT
Gamut
Apollo
GutWire
FIM Accessories
Goldring
Milty
Perfect Sound
Nitty Gritty
Gradient Speakers
McCormack UDP-1
“No matter what recordings you’re collecting, this could be
your next player. And you might have it a long time.”
Gerard Rejskind, UHF No. 71
AY
JUST M
AUD
IO
Justice Audio
9251-8 Yonge St., Suite 218
Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9T3
Tel. : (905) 780-0079 • Fax : (905) 780-0443
www.justiceaudio.com
[email protected]
LAST record care
WATTGate
Audiophile CDs
Audiophile LPs
DVD and SACD
Connoisseur SE-2 Updated
33
We thought this single-ended tube amp sounded
nice when we tried it in issue No. 68. Now it sounds
even better.
Actinote Audio Cables
35
We got a whole big box of these enigmatic Belgian
cables. You know what? We’re going to keep one of
them.
Issue No. 72
Our Linn LP12
38
When one of our two reference turntables died, we
turned to a known quantity. Conclusion: did we
ever make the right choice!
Rolling Your Own CDs
40
We plug in one of Digidesign’s nice outboard
converter boxes, and we make some recordings
with software on our Mac and PC, including one
program with a price tag of…$0! Here’s a guide for
doing the same thing.
CEC DA53 Converter
This nice little DAC is affordable and it sounds
pretty good. But if you own an iPod or you keep
music on hard disc, it has a surprise for you!
Cover story: The Digidesign MBox is flanked by a
CEC DA53 converter and an Apple iBook computer
running Audacity recording software. An EarthWorks
QTC1 microphone hovers above.
NUTS&BOLTS
Tuning Up Your System
19
Sure, a new amp or speakers would rejuvenate your
music system. Here are some improvements to try
first.
FEATURES
The Plot to Kill Hi-Fi
22
by Gerard Rejskind
This article from over a decade ago was to become
UHF’s most famous ever. It turns out to be as
pertinent as ever. We’ve barely changed a word.
Shows 2005
What’s new in this season of shows.
26
The Listening Room
Audio Reference Model Two
31
A large Canadian floorstanding speaker that comes
in two parts.
46
Gershman Acoustic Panels
50
We’ve had these panels around for a while. A
listening test confirms they’re just what we’ve been
looking for.
Cinema
The Battle for the Next DVD
It’s Blu-Ray versus DVD-HD, versus… Question:
have we seen this movie before?
52
Software
Music and the Mind 56
by Reine Lessard
Is music universal? It seems to be, and there may be
good reasons for it. We look for clues in history and
deep inside the brain.
Software Reviews
by Reine Lessard and Gerard Rejskind
63
Departments
Editorial
Feedback
Free Advice
Classified Ads
Gossip & News
State of the Art
2
5
7
49
70
72
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine UHF Magazine No. 72 was published in May, 2005. All
contents are copyright 2005 by Broadcast Canada. They
may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publisher.
EDITORIAL & SUBSCRIPTION OFFICE:
Broadcast Canada
Box 65085, Place Longueuil
LONGUEUIL, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383
E-mail: [email protected]
World Wide Web: www.uhfmag.com
PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Reine Lessard
EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Reine Lessard, Albert Simon
PHOTOGRAPHY: Albert Simon
ADVERTISING SALES:
Québec: Reine Lessard (450) 651-5720
Alberta & BC: Derek Coates (604) 522-6168
Other: Gerard Rejskind (450) 651-5720
NATIONAL NEWSSTAND DISTRIBUTION:
Stonehouse Publications
85 Chambers Drive, Unit 2, AJAX, Ont. L1Z 1E2
Tel.: (905) 428-7541 or (800) 461-1640
SINGLE COPY PRICE: $6.49 in Canada, $6.49 (US) in the
United States, $10.75 (CAN) elsewhere, including air mail.
In Canada sales taxes are extra.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
CANADA:
USA:
ELSEWHERE (air mail):
$62.50 for 13 issues*
US$62.50 for 13 issues
CAN$118 for 13 issues
*Applicable taxes extra
PRE-PRESS SERVICES: Multi-Média
PRINTING: Interglobe-Beauce
FILED WITH The National Library of Canada and
La Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec.
ISSN 0847-1851
Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product No. 0611387
Ultra High Fidelity Magazine invites contributions. Though
all reasonable care will be taken of materials submitted, we
cannot be responsible for their damage or loss, however
caused. Materials will be returned only if a stamped selfaddressed envelope is provided. Because our needs are
specialized, it is advisable to query before submitting.
Ultra High Fidelity Magazine is completely independent of
all companies in the electronics industry, as are all of its
contributors, unless explcitly specified otherwise.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
Editorial
The price rises
It had been 10 long years since the last substantive boost in the cover price
of the magazine (I’m not counting the change from $4.95 to $4.99, which was
done for technical reasons involving newsstand distribution). As the price of
paper and mailing anything has soared, there was little choice.
How I (almost) covered the Consumer Electronics Show
It's been a tradition for nearly two decades: in January I head for Las Vegas
and CES. And the past couple of years I’ve brought along stuff to out together
daily reports on our Web site. Not that there’s a paucity of journalists attending CES, but our readers say they like our particular viewpoint, for what we
presume to be the same reasons they read UHF. The five reports (for the
four show days plus the press day) were formatted in advance, awaiting their
content. We had a fresh battery for the portable iBook computer, and a new
Pentax digital camera that could capture images for both the Web site and
this print issue report. I was ready.
I thought…
On Sunday, January 2nd, at precisely 3 pm, I swung my car into the longterm parking lot at Montreal’s Pierre-Elliott Trudeau Airport, and stopped
as directed in a space in aisle 3. Bad choice! Aisle 3 had not been cleared, and
could have been used as a skating rink. As I lifted the black bag containing
the computer, my legs went out from under me, and I crashed onto hard ice
on my back. Minutes went by before I could get up or even accept aid. The
pain from my right shoulder was too intense.
When I finally got to my feet, I had a quick decision to make. My injury
might be serious, or it might not, but if I left the airport to seek medical aid
the trip was scrubbed. Perhaps it was no more than a bad sprain, and I could
be fixed up in Vegas. It was the worst flight I’ve ever been on, and I was grateful it was direct. In Vegas, I picked up my rental car and got it to the hotel,
though that meant putting the transmission into Drive with my left hand.
By the next morning my shoulder was swollen like the Fuji Film dirigible
(in the same colors too), and I was pretty sure coming had been the wrong
choice. I headed for a large Las Vegas clinic, where the X-rays told the tale:
my shoulder was broken. I would require emergency surgery, but with the
short US waiting lists that could be fixed. I could check into hospital by 9:30
Tuesday morning and be operated on before noon. All I needed was my pack
of VISA and MasterCards.
Instead I called Air Canada and got an emergency flight back (for a mere
$1600!). By Wednesday morning I was at the hospital emergency ward near
home, where the only card I needed to flash was my provincial health insurance card.
True, I spent a whopping eight hours in the waiting room rather than the
20 minutes at the Vegas clinic. The good news is that the generalist and the
orthopedic surgeon who saw me disagreed sharply with the US diagnosis,
did not recommend surgery, removed my cast, and told me that the proposed
treatment of the Vegas doctors might well have left me with a permanent
handicap.
The prognosis, I’m pleased to say, is for a complete recovery.
DOG-EARS ARE FOR DOGS!
Some audiophiles snap up every single issue of UHF, yet they
hesitate to subscribe. Why? What they tell us is that they’re
afraid of getting copies that are dog-eared or torn.
So here’s a strange fact: dog-eared copies may be
awaiting them at the local newsstand.
It makes sense if you think about it. Where do copies
sit around unprotected? On the newsstand. Where do
other people leaf through them before you arrive? At
the newsstand. Where do they stick on little labels you
can’t even peel off? Well…
Surprise! At a lot of newsstands, they do exactly that!
We know that what you want is a perfect copy. And the perfect copy is the one
in your mailbox. No tears or bends, because each issue is protected by a sealed
plastic envelope. With the address label on the envelope, not on the magazine.
Of course, you’ll have to make a certain sacrifice.
Are you willing to pay, oh, maybe 23% less for the privilege of having a perfect
copy?
And are you willing to qualify for a discount on one or both of our original books
on hi-fi (see the offer on the other side of this page)?
You are? Then perhaps the time has come.
JUST SUBSCRIBE
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, LONGUEUIL, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4
Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383 VIA THE INTERNET: http://www.uhfmag.com/Subscription.html
FOR 13 ISSUES: $62.50 (Canada), $62.50 US (USA), CAN$118 (elsewhere, including air mail costs). For six issues, it’s $31.25 (Canada), US$31.25
(USA), $59 (elsewhere). In Canada, add applicable sales tax (15.03% in QC, 15% in NF, NB, NS, 7% in other Provinces).
You may pay by VISA or MasterCard: include card number, expiry date and signature. You must include your correct postal or zip code. You may
order on a plain sheet of paper, provided you include all the information. Choose to begin with the current issue or the issue after that. Back issues
are available separately. Choose your options:
13 issues
6 issues
start with issue 72 (this one), or
issue 73 (the next one)
VISA/MC NO ______________________________________ EXP. DATE__________________
SIGNATURE ___________________________________
NAME__________________________________ADDRESS______________________________________________APT__________
CITY_____________________PROV/STATE________COUNTRY__________________POSTAL CODE___________________
The books that explain…
The UHF Guide to
Ultra High Fidelity
The World of High Fidelity
This long-running best seller includes these topics: The basics of
amplifiers, preamplifiers, CD players, turntables and loudspeakers.
How they work, how to choose, what to expect. The history of hifi. How to compare equipment that’s not in the same store. What
accessories work, and which ones are scams. How to tell a good
connector from a rotten one. How to set up a home theatre system
that will also play music (hint: don’t do any of the things the other
magazines advise). How to plan for your dream system even if your
accountant says you can’t afford it. A precious volume with 224 pages
of essential information for the beginning or advanced audiophile!
This is our original book, which has been read
by thousands of audiophiles, both beginners and
advanced. It’s still relevant to much of what you want to
accomplish.
It’s a practical manual for the discovery and exploration
of high fidelity, which will make reading other
books easier. Includes in-depth coverage of how
the hardware works, including tubes, “alternative”
loudspeakers, subwoofers, crossover networks,
biamplification. It explains why, not just how. It has full
instructions for aligning a tone arm, and a gauge is
included. A complete audio lexicon makes this book
indispensable. And it costs as little as $9.95 in the US
and Canada (see the coupon).
Five dollars off each of these two books if you subscribe or renew at the same time
The UHF Guide costs $14.95 (Canada) plus 7% GST (15% in NB, NS, NF), US$19.95 (USA) CAN$25 (elsewhere).
The World of High Fidelity costs $21.95 (Canada) plus 7% GST (15%HST in NB, NS, NF), US$21.95 (USA) or CAN$30 (elsewhere).
See ordering information on the previous page.
A $5 discount applies on either book, or each, when the order is placed at the same time as a subscription, a subscription renewal, or a subscription
extension (if you subscribe, use the form on the other side of this page. No need to fill in the information a second time).
PLUS:
At last, all of Gerard Rejskind’s State
of the Art columns from the first 60
issues of UHF. With a new introduction
to each column, 258 pages in all. Check
below to get your copy!
YES! Send me a copy of State of the Art .
It costs just $18.95 (Canada) plus 7% GST (15% in NB, NS, NF), US$18.95 (USA)
CAN$32 (elsewhere, including air mail)
Feedback
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
[email protected]
Thank you for letting me play my
Amadeus Quartet/ Emil Gilels rendition
of the Trout Quintet as well as the Carlos
Kleiber performance of the Beethoven
Sixth, as well as the Fauré Requiem with
Kathleen Battle, and the Cyprien Katsaris performance of the Sixth on piano
(at the Montreal Festival). Most of these early 80’s recordings
can sound bright on other systems but
the music that flowed from your system
was not matched by anyone…and I mean
anyone. When I took the Schubert Trout
recording to a room with an $11,000 CD
player and $30,000 speakers, the sound
was not enjoyable. The dealer said this
was not a very good recording. I told
him go downstairs to the UHF room
and have a listen. He went silent.
Nick Lakoumentas
MONTRÉAL, QC
I would like to see a few turntable
reviews of new and interesting design,
such as the Nottingham Analogue tables,
or perhaps a state of the art design like
the SME, etc. Please, no more Linn or
Rega turntable reviews — these designs
get enough press.
In addition, a major cartridge review
is well overdue. I am aware this is a
seriously annoying undertaking, but
there hasn’t been a full fledged comparison of phono cartridges since issue
No. 29, which was ages ago. There are
numerous new and exciting cartridges
on the market such as the Shelter line,
the Dynavectors, and the ZYX’s, that
I’m sure many audiophiles would like
to know your opinion of. It is virtually
impossible for audiophiles to compare
cartridges.
I’m willing to put my money where
my mouth is. If I buy a new cartridge
as planned within the next few months,
I will offer to loan it to you to review
Tyrone, we included the Superspikes in the
platform article because there would have
been no article without them. You could use
conventional cones for the same purpose, but
not without inflicting considerable damage
to the TV. And besides, our store sells cones
too. If you know of some other way to make
a speaker platform that will not mangle
dynamics and timbres, then you know
something we don’t.
As for your analog question, there is
in fact a Linn review in this issue, simply
because we now have one, and we could hardly
not discuss it. The next issue will have two
more turntables, from Goldring and Roksan,
and we have a Nottingham pencilled in
tentatively for later this year.
Cartridges are another matter. An
amplifier or speaker can be resold by the
distributor if it has been lent to us for review,
but a phono cartridge probably cannot. Most
expensive cartridges are now made in tiny
quantities, which is the very reason they’re
so expensive. Lending us one means writing
off a significant percentage of production,
in the hope of making a small number of
sales. You can understand why it is difficult
for us to get samples. Your offer to lend us
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Feedback
I received Issue 71 today in the mail.
When I read Jan Petter Egidius’ comments in the Feedback section. I rose from
my bed and turned on my computer.
His comments “I find your magazine
simply not good enough by any standard,” and that you should “just read
Robert Harley’s editorial in the latest
issue of TAS,” to my mind is laughable.
Almost every single magazine I read is on
the fence about something, and I credit
UHF for sometimes taking an unpopular
route. Your notorious preachings about
source first was a great insight, and different from other magazines.
As for your recommendations of
products, I applaud it. To think that
other magazines don’t recommend
products is rather short sighted. REG
has recommended more than his share
of speakers. Heck, I’ve never seen a UHF
year end review where you rank the
“editors choice” awards like every other
single mag in publication.
Paul Bawcutt
AJAX, ON
I enjoyed your article on SACD in
Issue 70, How SACD Won the War. However, I continue to be perplexed by the
behavior of some companies (like Sony,
one of the inventors of DSD/SACD) who
refuse to make SACD equipment available. Have you walked into a Sony Store
lately? A year or two ago you could see
several models of DVD/SACD players at
what were starting to become attractive
prices. These days there are no SACD
players to be found, and Sony ES gear
is also practically non-existent. Finding
an SACD player in Toronto, even in an
audio specialty store, involves a quest on
par with the search for the Holy Grail.
What a strange way to launch a new
product! One day business schools will
be teaching case studies on how not to
launch a new product and they’ll use
DVD-Audio and SACD as some of the
examples.
Michael Parenteau
before installing it on my own turntable.
I am sure many others would do the
same to help their fellow audiophiles.
If you taped the output using your
VHS machine as in the last test, you
could even borrow the cartridges over
a series of months to reduce the stress
factor. Basically, people need your help
and since you work for us still (unlike
many other magazines), I’m hoping this
request will be given serious thought.
The next item is something that has
been bothering me for a while. Remember when you built the DIY speaker stand
for the top of your TV (UHF No. 67)?
Why did you have to recommend using
Soundcare Superspikes, which you also
sell? The article was in the DIY spirit,
then you go and recommend using four
expensive feet that jacked the price of the
home-built stand to about ten times the
initial price of the pieces of wood. I’m not
denying that the Superspikes are good,
but the article (and your credibility) was
damaged by the quasi-advertisement for
the Superspikes. I hope you will refrain
from such crass moves in the future.
Tyrone Edge
What’s happening at UHF?
years. I’ve often had somebody ask me
for advice, and I usually have to comb
through the Back Issues page to give me
an indication where I can find what I’m
looking for. Maybe a section for reviewed
products (sub-sectioned by product
t y pe), a Paul Bergman Nuts&Bolts
topics section, Software Reviews, Reine
Lessard’s excellent articles, Gossip, etc.
How ’bout it?
Andy Laing
SCARBOROUGH, ON
Good suggestion. We wish we had done it
years ago, when it would have been less work.
We can see that a nice online database would
be most useful.
During my exploration of high end
audio, I frequently encounter the problem of evaluating cables that take a long
time to break in. However, using the
one is generous, and we may take you up on truthful, and trustworthy opinions, existing equipment for cable break-in
it, but we’re not expecting a flood of similar philosophy of hi-fi and strong editorial purposes will shorten its life, especially
offers.
stances, Gerard Rejskind’s column, the laser mechanism of CD players.
triple perspectives contained in every Cable cookers are very expensive and
I thoroughly enjoyed your recent review, consistent expression of UHF most audiophiles will not purchase
article on the Requiem (UHF No. 71). core values, outstanding and stable one.
Fascinating subject, and coincidental, reference systems, minimal influence Over the Internet, I’ve met a lot of
since I’m searching for the “best of from external advertising corporations, audiophiles who have old equipment that
breed,” preferably on vinyl. It occurred choice selections from The Audiophile they cannot sell. So here comes the idea
to me that you might offer your opinions Store, free UHF Hi-Fi Course, and UHF of assembling an old, cheap audio system
on valued recordings, either old or new Hi-Fi books.
that you don’t listen to anymore solely
releases. For example, with little research
Welly Wu for breaking in cables. You can leave it on
I have acquired some great recordings
7/24lin
and
ks.have a nicely cooked set within
w feature, namely hy per
now has a ne
ue wondering
. want a “silent cooker,” it is
is sampleIiss
that are considered to be some of the
was
if you ever
consida
week.
If you
icle
Thbest
art
the
to
ht
rig
tents, and go
con
le
tab
the
in
e
titl
a
site speakers with dummy
on
eb
(the 1964 vinyl recording of theClVerdi
ered keeping a reference system
of more easy
W the
ick
r’s swap
iseto
will take you to the advert
er
ws
bro
r
you
d
an
ad,
Requiem by Giulini was last
weekend’s
modestly priced equipment, say $5000- ones. Just get a biwire speaker binding
on an
Click
nugget).
6000 for the entire system including post panel at Radio Shack, solder on two
What about throwing out your views cables and stands? The less expensive 8 ohm resistors across the tweeter and
on key performances? I realize this may gear you review does not really stand a woofer terminals respectively.
KC Ho
not be one of the objectives of UHF chance against your reference.
Magazine (you can’t do it all!).
VANCOUVER, BC
Comparing the Reference 3a de Capo
I believe good music is tougher than to the Dulcet at The Gramophone in
ever to find. The result is that huge Edmonton got me thinking about this.
Interesting you should mention this now,
chunks of the music-buying public just
Steve Sadownik because our Parasound reference CD transwander aimlessly through the Matrixport died earlier this year just as it was doing
like worlds of HMV/Virgin megastores
We’ve often been asked this, but if there exactly what you’re talking about: breaking
and reach for something off the charts, were a way we could get an absolutely per- in a whole set of cables. Actually we do most
or, worse, give up listening to music.
fect system, that’s what we would use. Any of our break-in work with a 1986 Teac CD
Sean Leighland imperfections would therefore be caused by player, which seems to have its heart set
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UK the product under test.
on playing forever. Of course, a tuner will
work too.
I have been reading your online I was wondering if there has ever We do use 8 ohm resistors for silent
magazine for a while and I am most been any thought as to publishing some break-in of speaker cables, but we should add
impressed by these outstanding char- kind of master index to all the articles that they are large power resistors, and they
acteristics: quality of writing, honest, and reviews you’ve produced over the weren’t cheap.
www.uhfmag.com
Feedback
Have you noticed…
Free Advice
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
is large, and it’s possible you’re running the song louder than the M3’s can
handle…not that this speaker is normally
shy or retiring.
You refer to just one of your speakers
having developed a resonance. We would
suggest confirming that by swapping
the speaker cables around. If the same
channel still gives you the problem,
then it’s not the individual speaker. If
the problem switches channels, then it
would be a good idea to contact Mirage
about new woofers.
By the way, if the speakers are sitting
on a wooden floor, you may want to put
them up on cones (such as Tenderfeet)
rather than the supplied spikes. It’s possible that the loose bass you’re hearing
is actually energy coming back up from
the floor. The Mirage M series speakers
are infamous for that.
A couple of other comments: we’re
aware that Bryston has never recommended power filters, but our experience
is at variance with theirs. And if your
Oracle turntable really is the original
version, look no further for your next
upgrade. Oracle can bump it up to
Series V specs.
astonished at how the music has come alive
emotionally. I also experienced this when
I replaced my aging Mission PCM 2 CD
player with the Naim CD5.
The rest of my system is as follows: Oracle
Delphi turntable (original version, I think)
with Lurné 2 arm and Sumiko Blue Point
Special pickup. What do you think of the
synergy of this analog front end? The amp
is a Bryston 4B NRB, and the speakers are
Mirage M3’s. I use no power conditioner at
this time, as Bryston does not recommend
running their amp through one.
My listening room is quite large, approximately 15’ wide, 24’ long and 8’ high, with
my system set up at one end. The speakers
are set about 4’ from side walls and the rear
wall, and 8’ apart. The music is quite spacious and detailed, and with the addition of
the Copland has improved immensely.
However one of my speakers has developed I’m having a really strange but persistent
a woofer resonance at very low frequencies, problem I was hoping you could help me
such as occurs in certain passages of Jennifer with.
Warnes song Way Down Deep, from her I recently was
given an Adcom preamp
course, this is only
mat. Of
for
in PDF
e,
We wouldn’t point the finger at your y itCD
The
Hunter.
These
speakers
are
circa
and
a
Parasound
power
amplifier. I hooked
lin
on
F
UH
d
rea
to
is
eas
d moving into
sh an
ticed how are
e noAmphions
in Engli
u’vthe
rting both
stosta
icle
speakers, Jerome.Yo
Yes,
1991,
and
maybe
it
is
time
replace
these
up
to
the
audio
outs
of
my NAD DVD/
art
d
an
,
up
d
ere
cov
wit h parts
sion, much
ple verhave
samwon’t
sion at:
l vercould
fulbass
quite good, and ayou
bass
drivers.
I
always
felt
the
be
a
CD
player,
and
they
sounded
great. But if I
the
to
ibe
scr
sub
lly
ua
t you can act
Latin. Bu
fau xTotems,
ect ronic.htm
/elrecommend?
trouble selling your
which are htt
little
you
I l connect any video (S-Video or composite) I
ag.com
.uhfmwould
//w wwWhat
ps:tighter.
in good demand, but we’d be tempted to do have a pair of Castle Chesters which I love get a tone coming out of my speakers. (There
add a good subwoofer instead.
and occasionally substitute for the M3, but is no video connector at the preamp…I hook
Of course, if you know us you’ll my wife likes them for the background the video up to either the TV directly or
realize that in our lexicon “good” means listening system in our living room. I know through a video switch). I’ve changed all
subtle, a word some designers couldn’t how much you loved the Chesters and the the cables and have tried a different DVD
pronounce if you put a gun to their Winchesters when you tested them both. I am player and got the same results. Here is a list
heads. Set the subwoofer to roll off the currently looking for Winchesters, as I think of what I have tried:
Model Ones around 100 Hz. That will they would be wonderful with my system.
1) Grounding the power amp, 2) changlighten the load on them, and of course I hope I was not too long-winded, but ing the cables, 3) checking the setup on the
the subwoofer, if it is properly-designed, hey, I may not write to you again for another DVD player to see if I could change the
will reproduce frequencies that the 10-12 years or so
output…couldn’t find anything that would
main speakers cannot. Or at least it will
Frank Weber apply, 4) connecting a different DV D
reproduce them louder.
ABBOTSFORD, BC player.
Do you have any idea what I should do
I must thank you from the bottom of In that case, Frank, we’ll try extra next?
my musical heart for introducing me to the hard not to steer you wrong!
Scott Gordon
Copland CTA-305 preamp, which I bought We k now t he Jennifer Warnes
CHICAGO, IL
to replace my .5B Bryston, which I had recording very well, and Way Down Deep
happily used for many years. I am absolutely is a challenge for any speaker. Your room Yes we probably do Scott. We would
Excellent work on your magazine. I
find it more interesting to read that those
American high end magazines. You really
stick to the basics with honest and straight
forward analysis and advice.
Speaking of advice, I’m looking for some
right now. I am thinking o f upgrading
my current speakers. My budget is around
$5-6K for loudspeakers with more bass. I
currently own a pair of Totem Model One
Signature. I listen primarily to jazz and pop
music, but I’m starting to play some New
Wave music, thus the need for more bass. I
read that the Amphion Xenons are good. Do
you think that my speaker is the weakest link
at this current set-up? My system: Marantz SA8620 SACD/
CD player, Musical Fidelity A3 integrated
amp, Odyssey Audio dual mono power amp.
I’m currently running a bi-amp setup with
the Musical Fidelity and Odyssey Audio.
Jerome Chionglo
MARKHAM, ON
ctronic version
le
e
n
a
w
o
n
is
e
r
e
Th
Free Advice
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Affordable, Remarkable High Performance
Stereo Components that Honour Music
Ambience ribbons
Straight Wire
Meadowlark Audio
Roksan
JPS Labs
Castle Acoustics
Monarchy Audio
Moray James Cable
Cambridge
I.S.D. Speakers
StraightWire
Shanling
QED
Atoll
Audio Refinement
Black Diamond Racing
Blue Circle
Antique Sound Lab
MSB Technologies
Mordaunt-Short
and much more!
[email protected]
1347 - 12th Ave. S. W.
CALGARY, ALBERTA T3C 0P6
Free Advice
You can have
the best
in Ottawa...
BeyerDynamic
Creek
Epos
Eichmann
Ringmat
But only at....
Vertigo Records & Hi-Fi
193 Rideau Street
Ottawa, ON K1N 6X8
Tel: 613-241-1011
www.vertigorecordsandhifi.com
Oskar
Antique Sound Lab
Ruark
Synthesis
YBA
Chord Cable
Reference 3a
Monster Cable
Harmonic Cable
XLO Cable
Notthingham TT
Tel: (403) 228-1103
Ikemi CD player, YBA Intégré, and Castle
Winchester speakers. The interconnect is the
one supplied with the Ikemi, and speaker
cables are Van den Hul, the yellow ones.
The first thing I plan to do is purchase
a line filter, most likely the Inouye. I figure
starting with the filter, since the source is
important, and to me that’s kind of a source.
The next upgrade I am not sure of. I would
like to upgrade my cables, starting with the
speakers and later the interconnect, even if
the store I bought my Ikemi from told me I
had the best cable for my player.
I see two options. I could go with the
Atlantis speaker cable, and Atlas Navigator All-Cu interconnects, and have enough
money left to upgrade the YBA to a DT
version, or go for the Atlas Ichor speaker cable
and upgrade the YBA probably the following
year.
Do any of these upgrades make any
sense?
André Avon
SAINT-JEAN SUR RICHELIEU, QC
Your speaker cable, probably one
Fax: (403) 245-8198 of the Van den Hul hybrids, is not
start by phoning our cable company
to tell them that their local loop is no
longer properly grounded, and is feeding
noise into your system. You can confirm
easily that the cable is to blame: unplug
the cable from the TV or cable box, and
we’ll bet the noise goes away.
This sort of noise is common, often
caused by corrosion of the ground connection at a nearby cable amplifier. If
the cable company can’t or won’t solve
the problem (but we’re sure they will,
because everyone tells us how helpful
their cable people are!), you can isolate
the cable ground from your own electrical ground. There are commercial
products that do this, but there is also
a simple do-it-yourself solution. Take a
pair of TV 75-to-300 ohm transformers,
available from dollar stores and even
pharmacies, and solder their 300 ohm
twin-leads together. Connect the cable
at one end, and your TV or cable box at
the other.
I am budgeting for about $3000 of
upgrades for next year, and I very much trust
your opinion. My system consists of the Linn
bad, André, and we would leave that
improvement for the very last. You’ll get
the biggest improvement from the filter
first, then the interconnect, and then the
upgrade to your YBA amplifier.
The YBA upgrade to the dual transformer version will still leave you with a
rated power of just 50 watts per channel.
However the amplifier will then actually
meet its power specification (the North
American single transformer version
does not), and the extra current will
make the sound less strained and more
natural. You may well have improved
bass response too.
I’m intrigued by the Shanling SCDT200 reviewed in issue No. 70. It seems like
a good fit for my future SACD ambitions.
I have a two channel (I guess we still call
that “stereo”) system that I intend to keep
as a two-channel system, so the Shanling,
not being multi-channel, seems almost like
a bonus. I can’t just run out and buy it on a
whim but I can at least think about affording
it.
To date I have carefully avoided buying
any hybrid SACD/CD discs to avoid the
temptation to buy an SACD player prematurely, so my collection of discs is 100%
CDs. (I also have vinyl albums and thought
I would have been thinking about a better
turntable to get the best out of them before
considering the new digital formats, but
here I am side-tracked). So the big question
is: are either of the Shanling SACD players
good enough CD players to equal or better
what I currently have? Is it worth seeking
out an opportunity to go and listen to the
Shanlings or should I wait longer to think
about SACD?
From Yellowknife it’s a bit difficult to
just pop over the local dealer and listen to
something new, so free advice is very helpful
to short-list those opportunities. I currently
have a Copland CDA-266, and when it
comes time to part with it, it will seem
like parting with an old and dear friend.
In between the Copland and my ears are a
YBA Intégré DT and Magnepan MG12
speakers.
While I’m typing, I wonder if you would
ever consider an article that features, or even
just lists, what equipment you all listen with
at home. I know you publish what you use as
a reference as just that, a “reference,” and
that what other equipment you have isn’t
particularly helpful for the listening sessions,
but it’s always interesting to hear about other
people’s systems.
Kevin Bolstad
YELLOWKNIFE, NWT
I am thinking of getting back into the
vinyl format but am wondering what would
be the best direction on components. I currently run a Harman/Kardon AVR8000
with Polk LSi15 speakers and a Denon 2200
multi-disc player in my home theatre, but
Bullet
o
Plug alsle
b
a
il
a
av
in Pure
Silver
These connectors from Eichmann Technologies
use high conductive Tellurium Copper contact
pins in revolutionary designs that improve the
sound quality of ALL cables.
The weakest link in your system is likely to be the connectors.
Even the best cables are compromised by poor conductive (gold
plated) brass connectors.
Introducing the Bullet Plug® RCA connector – and the new
Bayonet Plug™ Banana connector. A breakthrough in connector
technology – and the closest approach to no plugs at all.
The Sound Room, Vancouver,
Signature Audio, Vancouver
Commercial Electronics, Vancouver
General Audio, Calgary
Audio 5.1, Edmonton
The Gramophone, Edmonton
Boyz On A Wire, Winnipeg
Audio Two, Windsor
Hi Fi Fo Fum, Toronto
Take Five Audio, Palmerston Ontario
Radio St. Hubert, Montreal
Brooklyn Audio, Dartmouth
604-736-7771
604-873-6682
604-669-5525
403-228-9130
780-432-3232
780-428-2356
204-256-0462
519-979-7101
416-421-7552
519-343-4451
514-276-1413
902-463-8773
Exclusive Canadian Distributor
Europroducts Marketing, Ltd.
Tel: 604-522-6168 Fax: 604-677-6263
www.europroducts-canada.com
reviews
“The Bullet Plug has,
overnight, leapfrogged
the performance available
from existing phono plugs,
and disappeared over
the horizon. The benefits
are huge, HUGE! They
transform the performance
of affordable cables, and I
can't wait to hear them on
serious leads.”
Roy Gregory - Editor Hi-Fi +
Issue 12 July/August 2001
“There was a cleanness to
the sound that reminded
me of hard-wiring.”
Jimmy Hughes - Hi-Fi
Choice December 2001
“The effect (of the Bayonet
Plug) absolutely amazed
me – with such tightness,
super fast and strickingly
real unrestrained dynamics
I have never experienced
before.”
Hi Fi & Records –
Germany December 2003
*Brass is 28% IACS conductivity (International Annealed Copper Standard) where copper is 100% IACS.
want to make the turntable setup independent of it so I could enjoy them in a separate
area if the kids are watching movies.
I have an older system in my living
room, a Sony AV720 (with phono stage), a
newer Pioneer Elite DVD player and older
Polk Audio 5JR bookshelf style speakers. I
was looking to spend about $3000 to get set
up with a turntable that would not require
upgrading. The local hi-fi shop told me the
VPI Scout with the Benz Ace cartridge is the
way to go. Will this sound good or should I
also upgrade my phono? The shop owner told
me to go with the Pro-ject Tube Box.
My concern is that I am spending money
around an antiquated amp and speakers.
Will I really notice an improvement, or
should I look at upgrading the amp and
speakers too? My wife and I love the sound
of the Polks but are willing to listen to your
advice.
F. Harris
CALGARY, AB
Building around “antiquated” components is not necessarily a bad thing.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Free Advice
We did like the Shanling SCD-T200,
as you saw, Kevin, but it is not totally
without weaknesses, as players of that
price generally are not. Your old friend,
the Copland, should stay. Though you
may want to adopt SACD eventually, a
good turntable will do more in the short
term to expand your choice of goodsounding recordings.
About your last question: Reine and
Gerard do most of their listening with
the Omega system. Albert’s own system
includes a Linn LP12, a Cambridge
DiscMagic and S-700 DAC, a Copland
CTA-305 preamp, a Simaudio Moon
W-5LE power amplifier, Oskar Kithara
speakers, and Wireworld cables.
Up to *320% more conductivity
than the RCA or Banana plug
you presently use.
Come and
5PUFNBOE
hear them!
3FGFSFODFB
BACKED
-PPLJOHGPSB
BY OUR
TUPSF
EXCLUSIVE
XIFSFZPVDBO
TRADE-UP
PROGRAM.
IFBSUIFN
CPUI
%28-59)7392(0%&%6'%1%9(-36)*-2)1)28
&)00¨3++)88-'%1&6-(+)%9(-3'%6(%7
'326%(.3,2732'340%2(('7(6)%1:-7-32
)%()0%2)2)6+=*392(%8-326)7)%6',+6%(3
+6%+%170)),3:0%2(.10%&0)<-'3203:%2
1%+291(=2%0%&1%68-203+%2
197-'%0*-()0-8=2,832/=3463.)'8
6)*)6)2')%6)+%692'373297*%&)6
7)22,)-7)678);%68*-017'6))27,)08)6
838)1:%2()2,90=&%
Free Advice
)06345IVSTEBZBOE'SJEBZ
.POEBZ8FEOFTEBZ4BUVSEBZ
Certain audio products can give good
performance for years, even decades.
And much as we like to think of research
bringing us technology that is better and
better each year, there is an opposing
force: commoditization. Mass market
products may actually become worse each
year, as their designers struggle to get
costs down and compete in an increasingly ferocious global market.
We can’t really comment on current
Polk products, but it hasn’t escaped our
notice that over the past decade the
company has been working to reposition
itself downmarket. Fair enough if you
ask us, but it means you may not want
to feel embarrassed about using older
speakers.
But now to the turntable. We’ve
stated before that a good turntable (or
CD player for that matter) will sound
better through a boombox than a poor
one through the best amplifiers and
speakers. That said, the weakest part
of your Sony will be its phono stage,
because building a good phono stage,
with its equalization and high gain cir10 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
SE
"//*7&34"3:
&TU
*0
FTU
"6% OUIF#
&
*/
UP
JT
'
JOT
BMMZ
VGJO
OZP
XIF
59 REGINA ST. N.
WATERLOO, ONTARIO N2J 3A6
(519) 885-4750
cuitry, is a bigger challenge than making
a power amp. That suggests the wisdom
of spending some of the money on a
phono stage as well as the turntable itself,
as your dealer is suggesting. The VPI is
certainly an interesting choice. Pro-Ject
also has some interesting turntables,
a fact we mention because your dealer
carries Pro-Ject. We note that the Tube
Box phono preamp has a high sensitivity
MC input. That gives you the chance
to opt for the low impedance version of
the Benz Ace cartridge, which can be
expected to sound better than the high
output version. Pick up some decent
interconnects while you’re at it.
I have subscribed to UHF for many years
and always look forward to getting my copy
in the mail. I find the articles interesting and
very helpful, especially as I live in a small
town.
My system consists of a Copland CTA301 preamp, Antique Sound Lab KMP60FOXDT mono amps, and Roksan Caspian
CD player. The interconnects are Wireworld
Equinox between CD player and preamp and
a long run of Atlantis between preamp and
amps. I have Polaris bi-wire from the amps
to the Vandersteen 2ci speakers.
I have been thinking of upgrading the
CD player to the Linn Ikemi. In your
opinion, would this be a big enough upgrade
to improve the sound significantly? I would
like to be able to bring the Ikemi home to
audition it in my system, but the nearest big
city, Winnipeg, is 225 km away and most
dealers are not that trusting.
Peter Boulton
KENORA, ON
Your existing system is a pretty
good one, Peter, and that goes for your
Roksan Caspian CD player, one of the
generation of “breakthrough” players
that brought true high end sound to the
affordable price range. Well…affordable if you have deep pockets or great
financial discipline.
That said, the Linn Ikemi is one
of the world’s great CD players, and
does indeed qualify as a substantial
upgrade even from the Roksan (which,
of course, should have good resale value).
As a bonus, it has onboard decoding of
HDCD.
What it doesn’t do, of course, is read
SACD. Is that the future? We’re hoping
that, as audiophiles, a decade from now,
we will be listening to SACD rather than
MP3.
My system consists of: an Arcam Alpha
8 SE, Roksan Caspian integrated amplifier,
and B&W CM4 speakers (biwired).
I’ve been with this configuration three
years and I’m thinking of upgrading my
system. What I have in mind is purchasing
two Caspian monoblocks for each of my
speakers’ low frequency drivers, and using
the power output of my current Caspian
to drive the tweeters. Do you think this
arrangement will work well, or do you have
a better solution?
Petrus Rudyanto
JAKARTA, Indonesia
This arrangement will definitely
work well. Even by itself, the Roksan
Caspian ranks as a premium quality integrated amplifier. Biamplifying will give
this already strong amplifier superior
headroom and lower intermodulation
distortion. This last point will reduce
rear projectors. The Samsung, which
was first on the market with DLP rear
projection, is very good.
If you do go for a DLP, though,
make sure all your family members get
a look at one in the showroom. A tiny
but not insignificant number of people
suffer from low peripheral persistence of
vision, and report that domestic DLPs produce rainbow flashes that drive them
around the bend.
A friend of mine suggested I e-mail you
guys for some advice. I am in the midst of
shopping for a new TV set, and I’m torn
between size and picture quality.
I am torn between a few sets, primarily
the 42 inch Sony Grand Wega KF42WE620,
the 34” widescreen Sony Wega HiScan and
the Panasonic CT34WX54. The picture on
the tube television is great (as is the price,
which is more in my ballpark), but the size
of the 42 inch Grand Wega is a factor as
well. I am leaning towards the 34 inch Sony
widescreen but I’m afraid that I will regret
not getting something bigger.
I have been reading that the Grand
Wega had a problem last year with the bulb
burning out very quickly. Have they fixed the
problem in the newer model as they claim? The salesperson at Sony claimed that the
bulb can now last 6000 hours, a little hard
to believe.
Tommy Athanasios
MONTRÉAL, QC
I regard your magazine as a reference of
neutrality when it comes to real hi-fi, and
that is why I am asking for your advice on
the best upgrade I can make to my present
system.
I have a Bryston .4B preamp using MIT
Terminator Proline balanced interconnects to
a Bryston 4BST power amp. This connects to
a pair of Paradigm Studio 100 V2 speakers
via MIT Terminator 6 (single-ended) cables.
The source is a Rotel RCD971 CD/HDCD
player, and it connects to the preamp by MIT
Terminator 6 RCA interconnects. I also use
the 4BST as part of a home theatre circuit
through the RCA inputs. To listen to music
I use a small switch in the back to select the
balanced inputs, and select the RCA inputs
for when I use it for HT.
I bough the Rotel four or five years ago
and found it very revealing, giving me
room-filling sound with a decent low end
and a very satisfying soundstage. I did not
have the Bryston preamp at that time, nor
the balanced circuit, it was simply being fed
through a Marantz AV-550. When I added
the Bryston preamp and Bryston XLR cables,
I was astonished and started re-auditioning
my CD collection.
Some CDs, like Mile Davis’ Kind of
Blue, were really a treat, and I was hearing
all kinds of nuances I had never heard before.
But some other CDs, like the Cheskys, Holy
Cole’s Don’t Smoke in Bed, Barber, Krall
and Gilmore, became very edgy, revealing a
mid-high aggressiveness that made the whole
experience a love/hate one. Love the detail
and soundstage…hate the high volume levels.
HDCDs are much better but only represent
1% of my favorite artists.
Paul Dion
MONTRÉAL, QC
Tommy, the Sony did indeed have
an annoying bulb problem, apparently
caused by assembly problems rather than
the bulb itself. We’re told the problem’s
been solved, but there are other reasons
for us not to recommend the Grand
Wega. The LCD panel used in this
rear projection TV has bright gorgeous
colors, but it’s not so good on subtle tonal
shifts. Nor is it especially sharp.
The cathode ray tube used on the
Panasonic is way better, as you have
already noticed, but it is also some 35%
smaller in area. If the size is all right, and
if you don’t mind a TV that weighs like
a small village, it’s a good choice.
If not, we would suggest a rear projection set using cathode ray tubes (we use
a Hitachi 43” in our own home theatre
reference system), or, better yet, one of
the new and rather more expensive DLP
highs. High frequencies are difficult to
reproduce correctly, and even so there is
a gulf between “not really natural,” and
“I’m outa here.” It’s the latter that you’re
getting. There can be many causes, and
chances are there is more than one.
Flaws add up, and what they all too often
add up to is the kind of headache your
pharmacist loves to hear about.
We wondered whether your clever
trick of hooking up both balanced and
unbalanced inputs to your Bryston
Free Advice
the muddiness of some complex musical passages and let you hear “into” the
music the way you can at a live concert.
But before you do, you might look at
possible new sources. Your Arcam Alpha
player was probably a good choice originally, but at this point it has become the
weak point of your system. A number of
newer players, either CD-only or SACD,
will give you a bigger improvement than
you can get any other way.
Paul, this probably won’t make you
feel any better, but there isn’t an audio
problem more widespread than edgy
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 11 Spherical Super Tweeter
• Fast transient response
• Wide dispersion (+/- 45°)
Enjoy the deep and wide sound stage, while retrieving
the lost inner detail throughout the audio range
with muRata Super Tweeters.
ES105
ES103A
ES103B
Visit: www.murata.com/speaker/
Contact: [email protected]
Audio Note UK
Audio Reference USA
Bruce Moore Audio Design
Connoisseur Canada
Niagara Audio USA
Tube Technology UK
Free Advice
Specifications
SPL: 90dB/w/m nom.
Frequency Response 15 kHz-100 kHz
Resonant frequency: ES103A/B 103 kHz
ES105 105 kHz
Nominal impedance: 8 ohms
Dimensions (mm): ES103A/B 65 W x 110 L
ES105 90 W x 118 L x 65 H
Weight: (1.1 kg (2.4lbs)
(Specifications may change without notice. See catalog or website for details)
Audio Enterprise Inc.
Tube Tech. CD64
Connoisseur SE-2 II
Audio Reference
Model Two
Canada Office
U.S. Office
Unit 9,89 Thormount Dr.
Scarborough, ON M1B 5V4
Tel.: (416)299-1022
2150 Liberty Dr. Unit 7A
Niagara Falls, NY 14304
Tel.: 1-(888)898-8813
www.audioenterprises.com
12 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
50% of 90 mm
Actual Size
amplifier might be adding to your problems, but a look at the 4BST’s schematic
diagram reveals that this is fine: when
you switch in one input, the other is not
connected at all. It is of course possible
that some digital noise is riding into your
electronics through a ground circuit and
causing havoc, but there are easier places
to look for trouble.
But where? Your Paradigm speakers are probably not helping, and even
your CD player may not be reproducing higher frequencies quite correctly.
What is puzzling, however, is that the
problem became much worse when you
purchased the Bryston preamplifier.
Yet the Bryston should have no trouble
keeping up with your previous preamp.
Let’s look at what else may have changed
at the same time.
We presume you added the Bryston
balanced cable at the same time you
got the preamp. Unlike some other
manufacturers Bryston does balancing
correctly, but let’s make a little comparison. Temporarily connect your amp
and preamp via a good quality unbalanced cable, and listen to some of those
problem recordings again. We can pretty
www.fabaudio.com 416-269-4911
“High effiency loudspeakers”
fast, efficient, musical and coherent
Canadian
distributors
of muRata
spherical
super tweeters
Dealer inquiries welcome
Warning: the muRata super
tweeter effect is addictive
and can positively become
habit forming.
Dick Olsher
enjoythemusic.com
Brat
Stonehenge
M1
The speaker is one of the best pieces of high-end equipment to grace my living room.
Anthony Kershaw, audiophilia.com on the Fab Audio M1
I have heard that SACD players can
improve playback of conventional CD. I want
to take advantage of this improvement, so I
am asking if you may be able to recommend a
few other two-channel SACD players besides
the Shanling. Large number of my CDs are
music from the 60’s ,70’s and 80’s and can
sound very harsh and may never be released
on SACD.
My stereo system is of early 1990’s
manufacture. Front end is all-tube Sonic
Frontiers, (plus an extra Simaudio P-5
preamp for fun), power amps are two
Simaudio W-5’s for the bottom end and
two Rogue tube amps for the top end. The
crossover is a Bryston 10B and cables are
Wireworld Polaris and Eclipse. My speakers
are Magnepan MG 20’s
I enjoy the music from this combo so much
that it may be the only reason for a divorce
from my wife.
Terry Khan
MIAMI, FL
Over the weekend I acquired an older
LP12 and, among other things, an Audiomat
phono stage. I love the way it sounds. I was
just wondering about keeping it powered up
all the time. I don’t see that it has an on-off
switch, so is it intended to be left on all the
time? What do you do with yours?
John Lord
SALISBURY, NB
As you’ve noted, John, the only way
to turn off the Audiomat is to bend down
and unplug it. But we would leave it
turned on anyway, because most equipment sounds best when it has warmed
We won’t tell her if you won’t, Terry. up for a while. “A while” can mean 20
We reviewed the McCormack UDP-1 minutes, or it can mean an hour or more.
universal player in UHF No. 70. It is Audiomat deliberately left off the power
very good even with conventional CDs, switch, of course.
and you may want to have a look at it. We Our Copland tube preamplifier is
note that some audiophiles are finding built to the opposite philosophy: it actubargains on the McCormack.
ally turns itself off after six hours or so.
We will be looking for more high We prefer the Audiomat method.
quality players that can handle SACD
as well as other silvery discs. There I recently had my Unison Research Unico
are lots of them out there at all sorts of modified with the Level-1 modification by
prices, and we wish they were all good. the Parts ConneXion. It really improved the
amp. Better resolution, better, sweeter freBut alas…
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 13 Free Advice
much guarantee they will now sound
different, but are they better or worse?
There’s one more possibilit y. A
speaker cable that is not absolutely tight
at either the amplifier or speaker end
will turn into a factory for the mass
production of extra harmonics. Those
harmonics will of course affect the highs,
perhaps dramatically.
If anyone doubts this, do a little
experiment. Loosen the connection
at either end of your speaker cable, so
that it is touching the binding post but
only just. Listen to what happens to the
highs. Just don’t listen too long, because
the harmonic and intermodulation distortion so produced can burn up your
tweeters!
Free Advice
to quadrupling the power output of the
amplifier!
On the other hand, you don’t exactly
live in a dance hall, and it’s possible
one of the larger Audiomats would give
you the extra dynamic headroom your
Unico can but the Arpège cannot. Then
again, putting, say, an Audiomat Opéra
together with the inexpensive Castle
Eden might not make a lot of sense.
The bad news is that it is distressingly
easy to spend a lot more than the price
of the Edens and not find the magic you
have now. The good news is that if you
decide to advertise your Edens for what
you paid for them, you’ll have to beat off
buyers with a stick.
I returned to my vinyl collection last year
and have been adding on a weekly basis from
an excellent used store in town. Now that my
system (Rega P3 + Elys, Denon integrated
quency extension and much more authority. The Unico is capable of the micro- PMA2000ivR, Sony CDP x77 ES, Athena
I also bought the Castle Eden speakers you dynamics and has that rhythmic authority, FS2’s and Mirage sub, UltraLink cables
raved about a while ago and love them. My but it doesn’t do that ultimate seduction and wires, Premier silica sand-filled stand,
room is fairly small, about 12’x14’x11’(h).
that I heard with the Arpège. When I asked Monster power conditioner and dedicated
Meanwhile, I had an opportunity to Chris Johnson about this, he surmised that line) has settled in, I’m noticing some really
borrow a friend’s original French-made the modded Unico will do seven out of nine interesting differences in LPs that I would
Audiomat Arpège to see what the hubbub was things better than a tube amp, while a tube like an explanation for, if possible.
all about. On balladic, lyrical-type material amp will do two out of nine things better than I am a classically trained ex-musician
it sounded gorgeous with the Castles. Abso- a modded Unico. You would have to spend a (tuba) who studied with Dennis Miller of the
lutely melting. Instrumentalists and vocalists lot more to get it all. Montreal Symphony, and had a few lessons
were holographically real. I remember play- The Arpège I listened to was not the with his teacher, Arnold Jacobs, the tuba
ing a wonderful live Carmen McRae LP Arpège Référence, and I’m also aware of the player in the Chicago Symphony in 1975. I
entitled Live and Mellow (on Concord). Prélude Référence and Opéra. Since you are mention this because I have multiple copies of
At one point, one of the band members takes such a proponent of their products, I would the same pieces from different labels with the
a solo and Carmen utters something to egg like to know what you get for the dough as you same orchestra, playing pieces I have heard
him on. I had to look up! My brain, which go up in their line of amplifiers. And since them play live within months of the recordhad kind of gone into some dreamlike state, you know the Castles (though you may have ing. I also have a number of “audiophile”
suddenly wondered if somebody was in the never matched them up with the Audiomats), pressings, and while they show off a system
room. I could “see” the stage. Micro-dynam- can you surmise if any of them would be a nicely, they do not offer the artists or music
ics, the part of the music that really pulls you good match, given that the Castles have a I mainly listen to. Hearing Wagner live in
in, were there in spades. sensitivity of 87 dB? w feature, namely hyOrchestra
perlinks. Hall in Chicago with the band
w has a ne
no
ue
iss
ple
sam
. was a moving experience. I
is
icle70’s
Th
Unfortunately, with regard to the upJeff Bellin
fromartthe
ht to the
table contents, and go rig
the
in
e
titl
a
on
eb
W
ick
r’s
Cl
ise
tempo material, the Arpège just couldn’t
SALEM, MA
also have somesite
one-off recordings from the
advert
wser will take you to the
bro
r
you
d
an
ad,
an
on
ick
swing with the Castles the way
brass section that are truly amazing.
Cl the Unico
can. I remember getting back the Unico from There in fact is theitio
problem, Jeff. The
es
London FFRR recordings sound the fulle featur
ctronic ed n has the sam
ele
w
ne
F’s
UH
Chris Johnson, and the front-end impact of Castle Eden’s sensitivity
was
considered
est,
with great soundstaging and imaging
at
Pick it up
ml no static. Deutsche Grammoht
sticks hitting a drum, or the finger snapping about middle of the road
a
decade
ago,
and
virtually
ic.
on
tr
lec
/e
m
.co
ag
fm
uh
w.
w
/w
s:/
tp
ht
a string was startling. The absolute control but fashions move on, and an 87 dB phon, however, have lots of static (one pulled
and authority of the bottom end that I have rating is so 20th Century! The fully jus- the mat off when I lifted the record!!) and
with the modded Unico just wasn’t there tified popularity of amplifiers like those sounds flat with a very shallow soundstage.
with the Arpège. It’s not that the Arpège of Audiomat is based on the assumption Older Columbias (60’s) sound almost as good
made the bass “loosy-goosy,” but the bass was that speaker manufacturers have gotten as London. I have some other old labels that
more or less merely just there, as opposed to with the program. To put this into are up there too. By the way, I am referring
the rhythmic grabbing capabilities of the perspective, switching to a speaker with to originals, not re-issues or the lower levels
Unico. a 93 dB sensitivity would be equivalent from these labels. I just compared Mahler’s
n e v e r…
a
h
t
r
e
t
t
e
b
s
t’
a
h
t
A sample issue
Rega
ProAc
Neat
Naim
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic”
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
hi fi fo fum
!
The
Odds
Are
Good
935 Mount Pleasant Road
Toronto 416-421-7552
Royd
With my Rega 9 turntable, YBA 2
Visonik
• Analogue Productions
• Audio Fidelity
• Cisco Music
• Classic Records
• Mosaic Records
• Simply Vinyl
• Speakers Corner
• Sundazed
Many other non-audiophile labels
Over 1,200 new vinyl titles in stock
www.diamondgroove.com
1-877-DGROOVE
[email protected]
the whole sound of vinyl
for Canada and the world
even on individual instruments. Musicians who were present could tell you a
lot more.
Pressings are another matter, and
some countries were better served than
others. Vinyl mix is one factor. The best
virgin vinyl was expensive and hard to
come by, and some plants actually used
recycled vinyl. An antistatic product
mixed with the vinyl will keep the noise
down if there’s enough of it, but will
increase the noise if there’s too much.
Paul tells us that cutting the original
master at the wrong chisel angle will
result in a noisy disc that will crackle
and pop no matter what vinyl you press
it with.
He adds that you can tell visually
whether an LP is any good. A good one
is totally black (unless it’s been made
some other color of course), with a very
bright, contrasty shine from the grooves.
A poor one will look grey, and you’ll see
the individual grooves rather than the
light they reflect. You can spot this from
across the room.
Epos
The Goods
Are
Odd,
But
Ringmat
Crimson
Eichmann
Isoblue
Creek
Ecosse
We’d go a step beyond that, Dean.
The late Paul Klipsch used to say no
system could reproduce the dynamics of
his wife’s grand piano (he would add that
his Klipschorn speaker came closer than
most). He was right…and so are you.
It occurs to us that it might be apropos for us to suggest that Paul Bergman
work up an article on LP quality, and
the reasons for the variations (you’d
be surprised how many story ideas
we get from readers of the Free Advice
column). Without anticipating what he
might write, we can say that certainly
the original recording is an important
part of the difference you hear. London
(British Decca) did many of its stereo
recordings with just two microphones,
using the “mid-side” method: a cardioid
microphone facing forward and a bidirectional microphone turned 90 degrees.
Mercury, before it was swallowed by the
Polygram empire, used three spaced
microphones feeding a three-channel
recorder. Deutsche Grammophon, on
the other hand, did a number of recordings with separate microphones on every
section of the orchestra, and sometimes
Arcam
Cyrus
First with Reiner, Abbado and Solti, all on
different labels. The DG pressing was flat
and two-dimensional. Why?
Is it a difference in the types and/or
weights of vinyl? The way they are cut
and pressed? The way they were initially
recorded? Oh, I also A/B’d a CD re-issue
of one of the LP’s. No doubt the vinyl from
30 years ago sounded better, and that’s based
on a performance I heard live. I believe that
vinyl captures and replays the fundamentals
and overtones better than digital. I’m no
engineer, but that’s what I hear.
One last comment if I may. I get a kick
out of many magazines and their (and their
readers’) pursuit of “audio perfection”. Go
hear live music and pick a system that can
convey it, but don’t look for replication,
because it can’t happen! Trust me, a Mirafone “C”, never mind a BBb Hirshbrunner,
cannot be replicated in a living room by a
$120,000 set of speakers or any amount of
electronics. As a matter of fact, an orchestral
tuba in full flight in a living room probably
shouldn’t be replicated, because that’s not its
natural home!!
Dean Monterey
NANAIMO, BC
Free Advice
CD player (not upgraded), YBA 1 preamp,
ProAc 2 speakers, Target stands, Chang
conditioner, YBA and Cardas interconnects
and speaker cables and appropriate isolation
platforms and cones, I am thinking of adding
a subwoofer or two.
Is it a good idea to add the subs, or should
I upgrade the speakers? My local audio store
has Acoustic Reference and Mordaunt-Short
subs. Have you heard either of these? How
much power would you recommend?
My other problem is with the amp’s power
cord. The original was quite sloppy going into
the amp, and my new Foundation Research
LC2 is not any different. Is there any way
to tighten the connections?
Ken Alsop
GUELPH, ON
It often happens that large IEC connectors are a poor fit for the IEC jacks in
high end gear, Ken. One reason is that
there is a size mismatch, despite the fact
that these connectors are supposed to
be standard. Often the cord connector
is a little too large for the jack, but it’s
generally possible to force it in and get
a very firm connection. Too loose is not
so good, and if that’s the case you should
enlist the aid of Foundation Research,
the maker of your filter. One of the connectors may be out of spec.
We haven’t heard either of the
subwoofers you mention, and indeed
there are several subs using the “acoustic
reference” name. The biggest of the
Mordaunt-Short subwoofers, which
would be the 309, may have considerable
virtues, but we’re not sure it can add a lot
to your ProAcs. You may want to look a
little further upscale.
Note that amplifier power doesn’t
mean much in a powered subwoofer,
since the speaker efficiency is not stated,
and one simply assumes that the amplifier will be adequate for the size speaker
provided. As for frequency response, our
(admittedly cynical) rule of thumb is that
a subwoofer will provide one less octave
of clean bass than the manufacturer
claims. And with the proliferation of
subwoofers meant to fill the demand of
home theatre owners, even that can turn
out to be optimistic.
If in any case you intended to buy
headphones, Pascal, there’s no reason to
hang back. Even if your tastes in music
wouldn’t make you a soul mate of the
Witches of Salem, you don’t necessarily
want to share your music at all times, and
more specifically at all hours!
When it comes to using headphones
to evaluate a CD player or amplifier,
however, things get more complicated.
Most amplifiers are not optimized
for headphone listening. Specifically,
because headphones are so sensitive
(being stuck right on your ears) you’re
going to hear a lot more noise. That’s
why serious headphone fans prefer to
use an amplifier specifically designed
for phones. By the way, these amps are
usually small enough to be carried to a
store along with your phones.
As for evaluating a CD player, it’s
important to get thoroughly familiar
with the sound of your headphones, and
to understand the differences between
phones and speakers. With headphones
you’re going to hear enormously more
detail than with speakers. That’s an
obvious advantage, but you have to know
that the added detail can distract you
from elements that could, in the long
term, be important. Also, the frequency
balance is necessarily different from
the way it would be with speakers. For
instance, if a player has an anomaly in
the way it reproduces extreme highs,
Electronic Crossovers
Tube
Solid State
Line Level Passive Crossovers
using high quality inductors and
capacitors
Custom Solutions
We can customize our
crossovers to your specific
needs. We can add
notch filters, baffle step
compensation, etc....
All available as kit also
Free Catalog:
Marchand Electronics Inc.
PO Box 18099
Rochester, NY 14618
Phone (585) 423 0462
FAX (585) 423 9375
[email protected]
www.marchandelec.com
My father and I plan to set up our first
hi-fi system a piece at a time. We have visited
several stores and heard different systems.
We are especially looking at CD players, to
follow your advice to start with the source.
Are good headphones a valid way to
evaluate CD players? My reasoning is as
follows. With headphones you can eliminate
speakers and a few cables, so if you’re not
happy with what you hear the guilty party
has to be the player, the cables or the amplifier. Also, the use of headphones reduces the
number of connections and disconnections
that must be made. You connect to one amp,
you try a few players, and now and again you
change amplifiers. You’re less dependent on
the salesman, because you can listen longer
without disturbing him.
I must admit I like to listen to rather
strange music, and far be it from me to chase
other paying customers away. I don’t want
to end my days burned at the stake.
Pascal Lalonde
SAINT-LAZARE, QC
Get UHF on your desktop
anywhere in the world!
!
-
' :EE
Free Advice
www.magzee.com
that anomaly can be exaggerated. Or,
depending on the phones, it can be
hidden altogether.
Of course, if you’ll be doing all
your listening with headphones, that’s
another matter.
I have a system that consists of a Roksan
Caspian integrated amplifier, a Linn Genki
CD player, a Sansui TU-D99X digital
tuner and Acoustic Research AR-102 bookshelf speakers.
I have been offered a pair of B&W
DM330 speakers and a set of Bose 901
Series VI speakers. In your opinion which
speakers are the better candidates for my
setup? I am filling a large open space about
20’ X 50’, so I would suspect that the 901’s
would have an easier time with the room, but
I am concerned about the active equalization. I have heard the DMs but not with my
system. I will audition them before finally
deciding but I don’t want to waste my time or
my wife’s patience if there is a clear leader.
Also, I am considering the upgrade to the
Caspian that is offered by Rosksan. Are these
upgrades worth the price and bother?
Mark VanBunderen
LONDON, ON
Mark, we have always liked the Caspian amplifier, reviewed in UHF No. 56.
We don’t know what’s in the upgrade,
but unless its a minimal low-cost refit we
would go for Roksan’s real upgrade: add a
Caspian power amplifier, and biamplify.
Your Caspian integrated has a preamp
output intended for exactly that.
It has been many, many years since
we last reviewed a Bose 901, but we well
remember both its strengths and its
weaknesses. Its clever trick of bouncing
nearly 90% of the sound off the walls
and other room boundaries is effective
at delivering the illusion of space, but of
course this simulation is different from
reproducing the actual acoustic space the
original recording was made in. The 901
does come with an active equalizer, but
in our Alpha room it increased audible
distortion rather than perceived bottom
end. We should add that this is pretty
much in line with what we hear from
other bass equalizers, not just the Bose.
For all those reasons, the 901 is not our
thing.
The now discontinued B&W DM330
loudspeakers would probably have
trouble with a room the size of yours.
So would a lot of speakers when it comes
to that. If we were you we would keep
looking.
I have a Sansui RX711 integrated stereo
amp fixed to a pair of Paradigm Monitor
9 FS speakers. Since I also have a pair of
Infinity Renaissance 80 speakers and an
AR powered subwoofer, I am planning to set
up a separate 5.1 system after buying an AV
receiver and a centre speaker. If I do the setup for the 5.1 as the already
existing Paradigm speakers to be front L/R
and the Infinity to be the rear L/R, will there
be any problems in signal interference, sound
muddying or anything that might lead to a
blowout as a result of sharing two speakers
by two amps? I have thought of getting a speaker switch,
but since I am in Kuwait I do not know the
availability. But with this option, one or the
other amp would have to be switched off every
time. Merwyn Machado
KUWAIT
If we understand you right, Merwyn,
your speakers will all have their own
amplifier channels, and there is no
need for a speaker switch. A 5.1 channel
receiver will have five distinct power
amplifiers, plus an output for a powered
subwoofer. At that point, the Sansui
amplifier will no longer be needed. We
don’t recommend sharing of speakers.
If you get a receiver that includes
only three channels of power amplification — they’re rare but they still
exist — then you can use the Sansui as a
power amplifier by connecting to one of
its inputs and turning its volume control
to some appropriate level.
Tuning Up Your System
W
e’ve been read i ng
recently about all the
people whose computers
get so messed up with
viruses and spyware that they despair
of ever getting them working right,
and so they go shopping for new
ones. And it got us thinking.
How many audiophiles g row
dissatisfied with the sound from their
music systems, and decide that the
solution is to draw a few thousand dollars from the bank and buy something
new?
Don’t get us wrong, we’re not against
upgrading home music systems. Indeed,
our celebrated Free Advice section is
dedicated to the very task of helping
audiophiles do that effectively. But we’re
aware that, without maintenance, your
existing system, regardless of its cost,
will gradually go downhill. And if the
installation wasn’t truly optimized in the
first place, the passage of a few months
or years isn’t going to be helpful.
Fortunately, there are a few measures
you can take to get your system sounding
its best. Some are one-shot solutions.
Others are like washing: if you don’t do
them regularly, your life will suffer.
We’re not talking big
money here…but we
might be talking big
results
Making interconnects connect
Ommy nibh essenia mconulputat am
quat augait, vel essequam augiamet, con
utem vel iril ulla feum vulla cortionulla
consequis dolobortie minit, sequam
aciliquis nim quis eui blam, consequisi
eratie tie te dolorper ing ea feugait num
incin hendiamcon ex ercilit ad dipit
iriustie dolesto odo odipit la adignibh
ea feu facip et augue min eumsan ulla
aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do odolobo
rtisim iriure veraesting erillan essectem
dignim velismod dip eugiate eugait la
at, con ulla feugue facipis et alismodolor
si.
Gait, sumsan utet, ver sustrud
minim vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet
la facing esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit
lore delissequat. Ut at nonsectem
velenit alis ametuero dolor senis nos
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 19 Nuts&Bolts
Cleaning the source
si.
eugiamcommy nullut vel diat vero core
et alisl dolore te consent nonummo
lobore min henim erit, siscili quisi.
Lit auguer iustionum dolorem
dolortisl ulput vent velis nulput ip elisis
ad tat. Ut endre etue velit, vel doluptate
verillametue faci blan utate te dio
coreet ad tisl et aciliqu ationsent velit
ad dunt ut niate et la conse dolore velis
nibh eraesequis augiam eugiam amet,
commy nullut aliquat autpat. Et, vent
praestrud dolortisit nonsed magnim
quatet lobore vel irit, quat.
Nullaortie dolorpe rostis nim numsan
utem er ad tie deliquipit eumsan eu feu
feummy nis nulla consequat, quam
am quis aliquatummy nisl etum iril er
sustrud et ad enis dolutet nonsequat. Dui
ea corem aci te facin heniscil ullaor ipit
aliquam, volummolor iure magnis nisim
dolor sectem iure tat ipis nosto consed tat
augue dolobor sumsan henibh ex euisi.
ea feu facip et augue min eumsan
ulla aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do
odolobo rtisim iriure veraesting erillan
essectem dignim velismod dip eugiate
eugait la at, con ulla feugue facipis et
alismodolor si.
velenit alis ametuero dolor senis
nos eugiamcommy nullut vel diat
vero core et alisl dolore te consent
nonummo lobore min henim erit,
siscili quisi.
si.
Those speaker connections
Ommy nibh essenia mconulputat am feummy nis nulla consequat, quam
quat augait, vel essequam augiamet, con am quis aliquatummy nisl etum iril er
utem vel iril ulla feum vulla cortionulla sustrud et ad enis dolutet nonsequat. Dui
consequis dolobortie minit, sequam ea corem aci te facin heniscil ullaor ipit
aciliquis nim quis eui blam, consequisi aliquam, volummolor iure magnis nisim
eratie tie te dolorper ing ea feugait num dolor sectem iure tat ipis nosto consed tat
incin hendiamcon ex ercilit ad dipit augue dolobor sumsan henibh ex euisi.
iriustie dolesto odo odipit la adignibh Ommy nibh essenia mconulputat am
ea feu facip et augue min eumsan ulla quat augait, vel essequam augiamet, con
ness. So,
feumin
vulla
aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do odolobo utem vel iril ulla
busicortionulla
e free and stay
in
az
ag
m
but
e
th
ay
at
rtisim iriure veraesting
erillan
consequis dolobortie
minit,
aw
e L in,sequam
veessectem
to what look s lik
e can’t really gi
in
w
f
,
of
se
il
ur
ta
co
f
rs
O
he
dignim velismod dipmeugiate
eugait la aciliquis nim quis eui blam, consequisi
co plete, and ot
es arefacipis
ticlfeugue
me ar
socon
at,
ulla
et alismodolor eratie tie te dolorper ing ea feugait num
si.isn’t.
Gait, sumsan utet, ver sustrud iriustie dolesto odo odipit la adignibh
minim vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet ea feu facip et augue min eumsan ulla
la facing esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do odolobo
lore delissequat. Ut at nonsectem rtisim iriure veraesting erillan essectem
velenit alis ametuero dolor senis nos dignim velismod dip eugiate eugait la at,
eugiamcommy nullut vel diat vero core con ulla feugue facipis et alismodolor
Nuts&Bolts
feummy nis nulla consequat, quam am
quis aliquatummy nisl etum iril er sustrud et ad enis dolutet nonsequat. Dui
Against vibrations
si.
On our own tube preamplifiers, we
replaced the existing feet with Soundcare Superspikes, if only because they’re
so unobtrusive. You remove the existing
(useless) plastic feet…
Use the same screw to hold the shell
of the Superspike, which is then inserted
into the shell.
t in
Not real La
The UHF Reference Systems
All equipment reviews are done on at least
one of UHF’s reference systems, selected as
working tools. They are changed infrequently, and only after long consideration.
The Alpha system
Our original reference is in a room
with extraordinary acoustics, originally
designed as a recording studio. It allows us
to hear what we couldn’t hear elsewhere,
but there’s a down side. Not only is the
room too small for large speakers, but it is
also at the top of a particularly unaccommodating stairwell.
(power amp), Inouye SPLC.
The Omega system
It serves for reviews of gear that cannot
easily fit into the Alpha system, with its
small room. We didn’t set out to make an
“A” (best system) and a “B” (economy)
system, and we didn’t want to imply that
one of the two systems is somehow better
than the other. Hence the names, which
don’t invite comparisons. Unless you’re
Greek of course.
si.
Nullaortie dolorpe rostis nim
numsan utem er ad tie deliquipit
eumsan eu feu feummy nis nulla
consequat, quam am quis aliquatummy
nisl etum iril er sustrud et ad enis
dolutet nonsequat. Dui ea corem aci
te facin heniscil ullaor ipit aliquam,
volummolor iure magnis nisim dolor
sectem iure tat ipis nosto consed tat
HDTV monitor: Hitachi
43UWX10B CRT-based rear projector
DVD player: Simaudio Moon Stellar
with Faroudja Stingray video processor
Preamplifier/processor: Simaudio
Moon Attraction, 5.1 channel version
Power amplifiers: Simaudio Moon
W-3 (main speakers), Celeste 4070se
(centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear)
Main speakers: Energy Reference
Connoisseur
Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1, on
UHF’s own TV-top platform
Rear speakers: Elipson 1400
Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics
Cables: Van den Hul, MIT, GutWire,
Wireworld
Line filter: Inouye SPLC
All three systems have dedicated power
lines, with Hubbell hospital grade outlets.
Extensions and power bars are equipped
with hospital-grade connectors.
Agnim erat adigna autatum zzrilit
wisl eugueriure dolenibh exerilit
ipsum eugue feummolore doloborem
vullam dolummy nim quismodit iliquat
ueraestrud dignisit, sumsan henisi.
Im dolum dionse dignit nons.
Adigniam incil utpat vullandigna
consectem voleniam ipit prat in ut
landit ad del incin vulputet augait am,
conulput prat lor sim augait, susto el
iure te molore
Gait, sumsan utet, ver sustrud minim
vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet la
facing esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit
eugiamcommy nullut.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 21 Nuts&Bolts
Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1
Secondary CD player: CEC TL-51X
belt-driven transport, Counterpoint
DA-10A converter with HDCD card.
Turntable: Audiomeca J-1
Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5
Pickup: Goldring Excel
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5
Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305
Power amplifier: YBA One HC
Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar
OBX-R
Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1,
Atlas Voyager All-Cu
Loudspeaker cables: Actinote LB/
Eclipse III
Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld
AC filters: Foundation Research LC-2
Digital players: shared with the Alpha
system
Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II
Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS
Pickup: Goldring Excel
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5
Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon
W-5LE
Loudspeakers: Reference 3a
Suprema II
Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1,
Atlas Navigator All-Cu
Loudspeaker cables: Pierre
Gabriel ML-1 for most of the range,
Wireworld Polaris for the twin
subwoofers.
Power cords: Wireworld Aurora
AC filters: Foundation Research LC-1
Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art
The Kappa system
This is our home theatre system. As
with the original Alpha system, we had
limited space, and that pretty much ruled
out huge projectors and two-metre screens.
We did, however, finally come up with a
system whose performance gladdens both
eye and ear, with the needed resolution for
reviews.
I
The Plot to Kill Hi-Fi
t’s like the weather: everyone talks
about it, but (aside from buying SUVs)
no one does anything about it. A
well-observed fact is that first-class
audio dealers are rarer than you would
imagine. The good ones are prized beyond
riches. The poor ones are the despair of
manufacturers and distributors.
Not that bad dealers enjoy being bad
dealers. With few exceptions, they dread the
end of the month, any one of which could be
their final month.
This article first appeared in UHF
No. 34. Four companies, none of them
Canadian, asked for reprint rights, figuring their dealers needed to read it. For years
after, Gerard Rejskind would be greeted as
“the author of The Plot to Kill Hi-Fi.”
The economic context has shifted over
the past 13 years, from one of severe recession to one of boom, albeit with considerable
commercial dislocation. Yet, when we looked
over this ancient article, it became obvious
that scarcely a word needed to be changed.
And our guess is that people need to read
it again…and not just dealers.
Feature
T
he year is 1960. I’m a student,
with a need for money for
books, fees and a place to
sleep. And I have a job that is
perfectly in line with both my interests
and my eventual livelihood.
I sell hi-fi equipment.
If you could travel back in time and
walk into my store, you’d find much of
it strangely familiar. Clearly it is what
would later be called a mid-fi store,
with a listening room that is little more
than an alcove, lined with cables and
loudspeakers, all connected to a large
comparator box. There is nowhere to
sit, a clear indication that the customer
is expected to get a quick listen and then
move along to the cash register. The
sources are all turntables, since stereo
FM is only a dream, and to a modern
eye they mostly don’t cut it. The prime
model is the Garrard, which incorporates
a number of obvious design blunders,
including an inaccurate two-pole motor,
a ribbed record mat, and a tone arm
with a plastic headshell. Even so, it looks
by Gerard Rejskind
pretty good alongside the original Dual,
whose entire tone arm is made of resonant plastic, and whose cartridge cannot
be adjusted for tracking angle. The rest
of the store doesn’t feature VCR’s and
microwave ovens, items which are still
spotlighted at world’s fairs, but cameras.
Despite appearances, however, this is a
hi-fi store, the best one you’ll find within
several thousand kilometers…er, miles.
As the bloodied bruiser said as he
staggered back into the bar after a brawl
in the alley, “You should see the other
guy.”
You see, no one talks about “hi-fi”
and “mid-fi.” Rather the distinction
is between consoles and component
stereo. Most people shop for consoles,
This celebrated
article was first
published in 1992
and widely reprinted.
Amazingly, 13 years
later, it barely needs
a word changed!
everywhere from department stores to
hardware stores. The typical console
contains a record changer, a radio, two
or four cheap speakers in a simple baffle
with a Masonite back, and an amplifier
rated at as much as 100 watts per channel.* Alongside that, the plastic tone
arms I sell look pretty good.
And if you look carefully on my
shelves, you’ll see signs of what even
you would call real hi-fi. My amplifiers
include the Dynaco Mk III, a large
monoblock tube amp that would still be
valued many years later. They’re hooked
up to a pair of AR-1's, the original
sealed “acoustic suspension” speakers.
In a drawer are plans that, for $5, will
let you build your own Klipschorns
or Karlson enclosures. And although
the Linn Sondek is still a dozen years
away, I can do a demonstration with
a Stromberg Carlson turntable which
sounds amazingly good. It is my only
belt-driven turntable, and it uses a pair
of synchronous motors to drive it (unfortunately, momentary speed differences
between the motors cause longitudinal
vibrations along the belt). The arm is
relatively light, and it is all metal. The
mat is smooth, as it should be. The
spring suspension has a compliance that
is unique for the time. Using that gear, I
can give you a pretty good demo.
Or at least I could, were it not that
the room is acoustically terrible. There
is no door, so the music mixes with the
sound of clicking shutters from outside.
There’s too much gear present. And
everything goes through the comparator
box, including — believe it or not — the
fragile signal from the turntable. So I
have the potential to make the music
come to life, but the store is wrong for it.
I can let you hear more than a hundred
different component combinations,
but all of them will sound noisy and
distorted.
Though I didn’t know it then, that
*There are as yet no laws regulating power
ratings. The Clairtone console boasts
125 watts, but actually put out no more than
5 watts, and even so at 10% distortion.
was to be a major reason for the hi-fi
revolution.
one thing this stuff could d o that the
f lashy new generation of equipment
couldn’t do: it could play music so that
it was enjoyable. Now and then I would
hear some of this stuff, and I wished I
were selling it.
A few “hi-fi” salesmen did more than
wish. They quit their jobs and rented
inexpensive storefront properties. And
so was born the true high fidelity store.
A different way of doing things
The new store owners were driven
by one thing: love of good sound.
They were evangelists for true high
fidelity, and their new stores were their
temples.
Naturally, the new stores couldn’t
resemble traditional stores, whose
displays placed the accent on visual
presentation. Most of the equipment
they offered didn’t stand up well to close
scrutiny. No backlit meters on the amplifier. No silky smooth controls on the
preamp. No exotic paints. No chrome
rings on the speakers. No neon-lit strobe
bands on the turntable. A lot of the stuff
looked home-built, and some of it actually was. Its prices were easily double
those of more cosmetically-advantaged
equipment. Why would anyone buy
it? Because when you turned it on, the
music that came out was glorious.
But you couldn’t prove that in a
traditional store.
You could in the new stores. The
listening rooms looked like conventional
living rooms, not electronics warehouses.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 23 Feature
Comes the revolution
The other reason was inflation.
Though 1960’s inf lation was low
compared to what was coming, prices
were nonetheless rising, and that was
working against hi-fi. People who had
wanted a “good little system” for $400
still wanted to spend only $400, even
though the same system would now
cost $550. In my store in 1960, you may
notice, in passing, a strangely-styled
little amplifier with instructions in
unreadable English. The name on the
panel says Pioneer.
So the Japanese are already here.
They are proving their engineering
skills with transistor radios, before
hitting us with their marketing skills
as well. Through the magic of solid
state engineering and mass production,
consumers really could get more and
more for less and less money. As inflation revved its motor, the major Japanese
companies began stealing market share
from the traditional (i.e. American)
companies. They even began swallowing
American companies.
In some ways, the new breed of
equipment really was better. The sloppy
assembly work that plagued many garage
enterprises was replaced by competent
production techniques. Buttons felt
nicer, and there were more of them.
Quality did not improve, of course, and
it even became worse, but what did that
matter? Most consumers were buying
with their eyes rather than with their
ears, and most of those who did not
believed published technical specifications.
But hi-fi was not quite dead.
Here and there, worldwide, a few
companies kept the faith and didn’t
follow the hot new trend. They made
design decisions the old way: by actually
listening to what they built. Of course,
building equipment to the old standard
cost a good deal of money, and consumers
often wondered why. Why pay so much
for an amplifier whose paint sagged, with
screwdriver scratches on the top panel,
whose switches felt as though they would
break when you touched them?
But a few people knew about the
The doors closed and there were
comfortable chairs. There was
no comparator box. Speakers
were placed on proper stands,
not on shelves or — worse — on
other speakers. The salesman,
who was often the owner, knew
and loved the equipment. He
wasn’t rushing to close the sale,
because he wasn’t working on the
warehouse’s paper-thin profit,
and also because he knew that
only by prolonged listening could
a potential customer discover
why this ugly stuff could possibly
be worth twice the money. Best
of all, he had a burning zeal.
When friends dropped by his
home he tried to show them how
great true hi-fi could be. And he did the
same with anyone who stepped through
the door of his store, including deliverymen and people actually looking for the
millinery next door.
Of course, the movement fed on
itself. The more stores there were, the
greater the market for small manufacturers of genuine high fidelity products.
They proliferated like a hamster colony
on aphrodisiacs. Some of them didn’t
know what they were doing, inevitably,
and their products would sometimes
burn down the customer’s house, but
the burgeoning field drew in a surprising number of talented designers. Truly
great equipment was born… in England,
in the US, in Canada, in France…everywhere
And the designers fed on each other.
When a new great turntable came out,
its excellence revealed the flaws in a
preamplifier that had hitherto seemed
perfect. So it was improved. Now the
speaker didn’t seem as good. And the new
generation of speakers showed the flaws
in the turntable, so…
It kept going thanks to the zeal of
the people who had built the stores,
and despite the fact that prices rose
sharply. That happened partly because
of the small quantities in which many
of these units were built, but as long
as their advantages could be clearly
demonstrated in the listening room of a
good store, it sold. And everyone lived
happily ever after.
Almost.
Feature
The counterrevolution
Time has passed. The revolution was
a success, surpassing even the somewhat
utopian dreams of a generation ago. A
lot of people jumped aboard the audio
bandwagon, particularly the gadget
lovers who didn’t yet have VCR’s and
computers to keep their fingers busy.
That couldn’t last, but unfortunately in
many a case it gave both manufacturers and store owners a taste for the big
time. Store owners told themselves that
enthusiasm was all very well, but what
the hi-fi business needed was people
with hard noses and an eye for (that most
loathsome expression of the eighties) the
bottom line. Suddenly, it was chic to have
a college diploma, and that didn’t mean
an engineering degree, but an MBA.
All of this made perfect sense, of
course. Why not increase production and
sales and therefore make the equipment
less expensive? Why not market through
larger stores with solid advertising budgets and pulling power? Why not pay for
rapidly rising rents by selling not only
true hi-fi but also mass-market mid-fi,
as well as VCR’s and cordless phones?
Wasn’t that just smart business? Of
course it was.
But in the early nineties we entered
what was widely billed as the worst
depression of the century, and what made
sense before looked shortsighted now.
The hotshot MBA’s got nervous as they
saw the red ink pop up on their ledgers.
They fiddled with their spreadsheets,
trying one “what if ” scenario after
another. What if we put in a really big
screen video demo room? Or a corner
with some car audio? More Walkmans
too — can we pick up some grey market
Sony stuff?
It’s not working.
And a lot of hi-fi stores are facing a
serious problem: they’re not really hi-fi
stores anymore.
What is a hi-fi store?
At the risk of belaboring the obvious,
I’ll define it as a place where you can hear
and buy high fidelity. But a good high
fidelity store is this: a place where, if
you visit once, you will want to buy high
fidelity. Now, even someone whose idea
of fun is checking out pork belly futures
on the Chicago exchange can hook up
a modern hi-fi system correctly. But
the good hi-fi store is the kind that is
disappearing. If you own one, you should
really think about giving courses.
I don’t sell hi-fi anymore, obviously.
But in a sense I do: I may not sell hi-fi
components, but I sell hi-fi as an idea.
And any store whose owners hasn’t got a
death wish had better be doing the same
thing.
I keep running across a strange misconception: that hi-fi is attractive only
to people with some sort of trained ear.
At UHF, we occasionally bring in people
from “outside,” people without any ear
training (whatever that might mean),
who have had no contact with high
fidelity. They are, of course, astonished
at the difference between our reference
system and what passes for hi-fi in the
stores they have visited in the past. And
then they get excited about the possibilities. They imagine having such a system
themselves. This is unanimous! We see
it in everyone we give demos to. The
phenomenon cuts across lines of age, sex,
experience and musical sophistication.
Such is the power of music, when it is
reproduced with its musical values intact,
that no one remains immune to it.
Some stores know that, because they
too give a gee-whiz demo to anyone who
isn’t armed and dangerous. And some
others will try to sell walk-in customers
a ghetto blaster because that’s what they
first ask about.
Evangelizing
At one of the last of the Chicago CES
shows, one well-known distributor was
looking for help with his booth during
the day and a half that was to be open
to the public. And so he called the 32
dealers he had in the greater Chicago
area.
Well, he didn’t get a single salesman.
They were blunt why they didn’t want
to come and help: they didn’t want to
mingle with the public.
Salesmen who don’t want to see
customers! You would think they would
seize the opportunity, running off reams
of publicity for their own stores. They
don’t want to mingle with the public?
They should have become morticians
or camel drivers. Why sales? And why
hi-fi?
Some ideas
Yes, I know — audio retailing has
changed since 1960. That’s the very
reason not to return to 1960 practices.
The new way is far from obvious, but I’ve
distilled some principles, which seem
evident.
(1) Hi-fi doesn’t come in a box. This idea
seems to be losing force as the MBA’s
crowd out the visionaries. If it did come
in a box, your very large competitors
would drive you right out of business,
because if it’s one thing they’re good at,
it’s selling boxes. What they’re not good
at is doing the sort of demonstration I
was talking about
(2) Anyone is a potential customer for
anything. People first walk into a store
looking for something precise, in most
cases. That doesn’t mean they can’t possibly be interested in something else, but
they certainly won’t be if they never find
out it exists. About the worst mistake a
salesperson can make is to assume that
someone cannot or will not pay for a
given product. Give them a reason to
want to pay for it, and watch what happens.
(3) Anyone can sell somebody something
once. The reason mass market video
stores always seem to be teetering on
the edge of bankruptcy is that purchasers of TV sets and DVD players are for
the most part not frequent buyers. Hi-fi
buyers are repeat buyers, because hi-fi is
a direction, not a product. People who
get involved in it work constantly to
improve their sound. Which is exactly
the reason for the enduring popularity
of our Free Advice section. A good working relationship leads to increased sales,
which is something even an MBA can
*I realize I’ve now made three references to
people with Masters in Business Administration degrees. I hasten to add that I am not
criticizing all MBAs…only those who don’t
have a sense of humor.
We're blushing again!
“There’s not much to add when a speaker such as the M5 excels in the
areas of midrange naturalness, detailed and delicate highs, perfectly
reproduced transients, uncolored midbass, and a high-level dynamic
presentation. To my ears, Mike Creek has designed a winner in the
M5, and Epos has established a new benchmark.”
Robert J. Reina. Stereophile Magazine, April 2005.
Canadian distributor of world famous European audio products
Beyerdynamic, Creek, Cyrus, DNM, Eichmann
Epos, Isoblue, Ringmat, Soundcare, Visonik
Feature
comprehend.* In the words of the old
travelling salesman’s motto, “It is ten
times easier to keep an old customer than
to find a new one.”
(4) Nobody ever bought a product he
didn’t see. In hi-fi, you might want to
substitute “hear” for “see.” How many
good products are hidden away? How
many are not hooked up until someone
asks to hear them? But come to think of
it, why would anyone ask to hear them?
(5) If you’re looking for a model for
your store, don’t choose General Motors,
choose a fundamentalist church. Conventional corporations are out to sell
products. Churches want to convert
people. Between the two approaches,
you’ll find all the difference between
hi-fi stores that are surviving, and those
who feel the need to move to another
economic sector, such as ghetto blasters
and kitchen appliances. The owners of
real hi-fi stores are evangelists for high
fidelity. They themselves were converted
on the road to Damascus, and they can
hardly wait to show what they know with
others.
(6) Your store must have a philosophy.
Point 5 will give you a hint as to what
that philosophy could be, but every
decision you make should be in harmony
with that philosophy.
(7) Your store is only as good as its worse
salesman. For some people who walk in,
that salesman is your store. If you hire
sales help, you’ll need someone who
shares your faith. Can’t find them? Then
you’ll need to put into use the leadership
qualities you always thought you had.
Perhaps it helps if you were once an
evangelist (see point 5).
(8) Do you still listen to music? Not
everybody gets burned out by being
exposed to a hobby professionally, but it
happens. If you find you don’t get a kick
from playing music at home anymore,
you shouldn’t wonder why your customers nod off during demonstrations, and
then wander off never to be seen again.
And if you find you’d rather spend time
on your Harley than in front of your
www.europroducts-canada.com
speakers, perhaps you should consider
starting a motorcycle dealership.
(9) Just because people have stopped
buying your stuff doesn’t mean they’re
not buying. I get such mixed messages
from the many store owners I talk to. A
lot tell me that high end hi-fi is slowly
dropping away, month by month, year
by year. Others tell me that high-end
hi-fi is the only thing still working. Our
contacts with audiophiles (and we have
lots) tell me this: people are still buying,
but they’re buying a lot more carefully.
Impulse buying is all but dead. People
are shopping on the criterion of value. In
some cases, by the way, this means they
will actually buy something better than
they otherwise would, on the assumption
that they’ll be happy with it longer. This
is perfect for you, since you have long
tried to convince your customers to do
exactly that.
What’s that you say? You haven’t
been working to convince customers to
buy better equipment? Well, there’s your
problem.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 25 From the Shows
No, there isn’t an actual Vegas show report
in this issue…see the Editorial on page 2 for
the reason. But that doesn’t mean we don’t
know what’s going on. Nor that we don’t
want to share it with you.
F
and the new CEO Mel Karmazin was
definitely not sounding as though he
were resigned to be the eternal number
two in a two-company race. Last year
his predecessor was talking about how
many of the Sirius channels were now
commercial-free (translation: we tried
to sell ads, Lord knows we tried). This
year Karmazin was talking about shock
jock Howard Stern, who will leave “real”
radio for Sirius next year (one blog claims
he mentioned Stern 30 times). By the
way, Karmazin used to be at Viacom,
which syndicates Stern’s show.
Feature
or years the annual Consumer
Electronics Show had been getting bigger and bigger, to score
125,000 attendees in the year
2001. Then, in September of that year,
there was a little event that shrank the
show. And pretty much all international
shows and conventions.
But CES seems to have rebounded,
because…well, look at the crowd just off
the central hall of the Las Vegas Convention Centre on Day One. And CES
claims that CES 2005 was the biggest
ever, with 140,000 attendees.
Of course the LVCC is not where the
high end hi-fi crowd mostly hung out, but
that doesn’t mean there
weren’t things to see,
and consider. The TV
and home theatre crowd
was there for instance,
and we’ll get to that in a
moment.
Oddly enough, radio
(remember radio?) caught
a lot of attention too. Of
course that was because
of satellite radio, not your
local FM chat outlet. Sirius, one of the two satellite services,
had its usual inflatable dog, roughly two
storeys tall. The dog has a couple of historical link to Sirius, which is named for
Sirius the “dog” star, as every amateur
astronomer knows. The other link is that
the original CEO of Sirius had come
over from RCA, whose mascot…
But Sirius has a new boss now,
The competition, XM, is looking at
delivery rather than content. Nearly all
satellite radio listeners are behind the
wheel. XM has signed deals with Boston
Acoustics, Denon, Harman/Kardon, LF
Electronics, Onkyo, Polk and Pioneer
to include XM receivers in their gear.
Rumors are, meanwhile, that Karmazin
talked to Steve Jobs about including
a Sirius chip in the iPod. Jobs clearly
doesn’t see satellite radio as a winner.
Neither do the analysts. CES was barely
over when Karmazin had to fend off
persistent rumors that Sirius and XM
The foundation of a revolution since 1884
Withour resorting to “industrial”
or “hospital” grade components, we have developed
a high end audio quality product line.
RWL-1
Audio Reference III
FURUTECH....a unique sound transfer system
Non-magnetic aterials of unequalled purity
Cases enclosed in treated plastics
A special high level technological process
Power Reference
FI-25R
HIGH END IEC CONNECTOR
HDMI
Audio Shop (Montreal)
Tel : (514) 871-0091
Acoustic Technologies (Montreal)
Tel : (514) 387-4944
Solen Inc (St-Hubert)
Tel : (450) 656-2759
Oz Enterprises (Ottawa)
Tel : (613) 222-2685
Signature Audio (Vancouver)
Tel : (604) 873-6682
Karmond (national sales)
Tel : (416) 938-6633
DEALER INQUIRIES WELCOME
Distributeur canadien exclusif
Audiyo Inc.
96 Leyburn Avenue
Richmond Hill, Ontario
Tel : (416) 414-2558
[email protected]
www.audiyo.com
Furutech CO., LTD.
2-8-7 Higashi Gotanda Sinagawa-Ku
Tokyo 141-0022, Japan
Tel : +81-3-5449-7701
Fax : +81-3-5449-0670
[email protected]
www.furutech.com
CES people really must have liked
her…unlike her board of directors, who
had a pink slip sitting in her inbox when
she got back from Vegas.
Below right is the very large booth
of Samsung, the Korean company that,
a couple of years ago, muscled a number
FURUKAWA PCOCC wire, cable and materials
FURUKAWA (mjur) wire conductors and materials
of competitors aside when it moved from
cheap commodity electronics to high
end TV monitors. Its innovation then
was DLP…it was the first company to
include the Texas Instrument Digital
Light Processor chip in a rear projector.
This year, its thesis was that…well, size
Feature
were headed for the marriage bed.
Speaking of speeches…one of the
keynote speeches at CES is always given
by Bill Gates. The CES press centre
this year circulated just two picture
of Bill doing his annual speech. But it
had five of another keynote speaker,
Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina. The
FURUTECH
Wire and accessories (AlphaMD)
Cables and audio accessories
Auto audio
CD demagnetizer
AC cable distribution and line filters
Acoustic panels and devices
Audio furniture
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 27 Feature
does matter. One reason its show space
was so large was that it was demonstrating a 103-inch plasma set: that’s a
diagonal size of 262 cm! We suggest you
measure your doorway before you order
one!
The other South Korean electronics
superpower, LG, was boasting of its size
too, with a 55-inch (140 cm) LCD monitor. Impressive, no doubt, though it fits
in with Dr. Johnson’s dog, the one who
walked upright (“It wasn’t well done, but
one is surprised to see it done at all.”)
incin hendiamcon ex ercilit ad dipit iriustie dolesto odo odipit la adignibh ea
feu facip et augue min eumsan ulla aut
utpat ip ent volore elesto do odolobo
at, con ulla feugue facipis et alismodolor si.
Gait, sumsan utet, ver sustrud minim vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet la
lore delissequat. Ut at nonsectem velenit alis ametuero dolor senis nos eugiamcommy nullut vel diat vero core et
alisl dolore te consent nonummo lobore
min henim erit, siscili quisi.
Lit auguer iustionum dolorem dolortisl ulput vent velis nulput ip elisis
ad tat. Ut endre etue velit, vel doluptate verillametue faci blan utate te dio
iure te molore
Laor sustrud tincin ulput wisl dolor
incip et do cor init ut adip el do et vullumm odigna consequis esse feugait wis
dolum dolore feu feuis dolum zzriuscidunt lore dolorting eugait ex enis aut
num dio odiam, conulluptat. Lor iriure
core con volortisit in er si blaore do dio
commod digna feugue exercip sustrud
ea augait dolum nis dolum nos at, quat
la feugait nim at praessim dolorper alisl
dolenissi bla facip eumsandipit lan esequipit ilit dolese ming eu feu facing
ea amcommolut dit landrerostie tatue
dolore te vel et ex et la am vent vel utat
ad duipit niscil ut vulla con hendreet
veriliquatum deliquipit lobore tationse
feum dit adiat atum volore et utatie
dunt atum del in volor auguerat, vel ut
ercipismod dolore doloreet la facilit,
commy nullandrem num vulla faccum
zzrit ad tem zzriusc iliquis sectet aliquatetum nullutpat. Os dolute mod et
lorerostrud mincilit dit prat accummod
tis eugue faccumsandre mod dit prat
nummolo rercipit lore faccummy nismolese consed enibh et pratet eliquat.
Wisit veliquisi.
iure te molore.
iure te molore
Back Issues
THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION:
Issues No.7-19 (except 11, 15, 17 and 18, out of
print): nine issues available for the price of five
(see below). A piece of audio history. Available
separately at the regular price.
No.71: Three small speaker: Reference 3a
Dulcet, Totem Rainmaker, and a very low cost
but surprising speaker from France. We do a
complex blind cable test: five cables from Atlas,
and one Wireworld cable with different connectors (Eichmann, WBT nextgen, and Wireworld).
We test the McCormack UDP-1 universal
player (CD, DVD-A, SACD, etc.), the muRata
super tweeters, plus the Simaudio I-3 amp
and Equinox CD player. Paul Bergman reveals
the truth about the philosophical differences
behind two-channel stereo and multichannel.
Plus two interviews, and much more.
No.70: How SACD won the war…or how
DVD-A blew it. Reviews: Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal player and Shanling SCD-T200 player.
Speakers: Reference 3a Royal Virtuoso,
Equation 25, Wilson Benesch Curve, preview
of muRata super tweeters. Other reviews:
Simaudio W-5LE amp, the iPod as an audiophile source. Plus: future video screens, the
eternal music of George Gershwin, and two
reports from Montréal 2004.
No.69: Tube Electronics: Audiomat Opéra ,
Connoisseur SE-2 and Copland CSA29 integrated amps, and Shanling SP-80 monoblocks.
Also: Audiomat's Phono-1.5, Creek CD50, as
well as a great new remote control, GutWire's
NotePad antivibration device, and a musicrelated computer game that had us laughing
out loud. And there’s more: Paul Bergman on
the return of the vacuum tube, the Vegas 2004
report, and the story of how music critics did
their best to kill the world’s greatest music.
No.68: Loudspeakers: Thiel CS2.4, Focus
Audio FS688, Iliad B1. Electronics:Vecteur
I-6.2 and Audiomat Arpège integrated amplifiers, Copland 306 multichannel tube preamp,
Rega Fono MC. Also: Audio Note and Copland
CD players, GutWire MaxCon power filter. And
there’s more: all about power supplies, what’s
coming beyond DVD, and a chat with YBA’s
Yves-Bernard André.
No.67: Loudspeakers: A new, improved
Reference 3a MM de Capo, and the awesome
Living Voice Avatar OBX-R. Centre speakers
for surround from Castle, JMLab, ProAc, Thiel,
Totem and Vandersteen. One of them joins
our Kappa system. Two multichannel amps
from Copland and Vecteur. Plus: plans for a
DIY platform for placing a centre speaker atop
any TV set, Paul Bergman on the elements of
acoustics, and women in country music.
No.66: Reviews: the Jadis DA-30 amplifier, the
Copland 305 tube preamp and 520 solid state
amp. Plus: the amazing Shanling CD player,
Castle Stirling speakers, and a remote control
that tells you what to watch. Also: Bergman on
biwiring and biamplification, singer Janis Ian’s
alternative take on music downloading, and a
chat with Opus 3’s Jan-Eric Persson.
No.65: Back to Vinyl: setting up an analog
system, reviews of Rega P9 turntable, and
phono preamps from Rega, Musical Fidelity
and Lehmann. The Kappa reference system
for home theatre: how we selected our HDTV
monitor, plus a review of the Moon Stellar DVD
player. Anti-vibration: Atacama, Symposium,
Golden Sound, Solid-Tech, Audioprism,
Tenderfeet. Plus an interview with Rega’s
turntable designer, and a look back at what
UHF was like 20 years ago.
No.64: Speakers: Totem M1 Signature and
Hawk, Visonik E352. YBA Passion Intégré
amp, Cambridge IsoMagic (followup), better
batteries for audio-to-go. Plus: the truth about
upsampling, an improvement to our LP cleaning machine, an interview with Ray Kimber.
.
No.63: Tube amps: ASL Leyla & Passion
A11. Vecteur Espace speakers, 2 interconnects (Harmonic Technology Eichmann),
5 speaker cables (Pierre Gabriel, vdH ,
Harmonic Technology, Eichmann), 4 power
cords (Wireworld, Harmonic Technology,
Eichmann, ESP). Plus: Paul Bergman on
soundproofing, how to compare components
in the store, big-screen TV’s to stay away
from, a look back at the Beatles revolution.
Bergman on understanding biamping, biwiring,
balanced lines, and more.
No.62: Amplifiers: Vecteur I- 4, Musical
Fidelity Nu-Vista M3, Antique Sound Lab
MG-S11DT. Passive preamps from Creek and
Antique Sound Lab. Vecteur L-4 CD player.
Interconnects: VdH Integration and Wireworld
Soltice. Plus: the right to copy music, and how
it may be vanishing. Choosing a DVD player by
features. And all about music for the movies.
No.50: CD: Cambridge DiscMagic/DACMagic,
Primare D-20, Dynaco CDV Pro. Analog: Rega
Planar 9, Linn LP12 after 25 years. Also:
Moon preamp, Linn Linto phono stage, Ergo
and Grado headphones. Speaker cables:
Linn K-400, Sheffield, MIT 750 Also: 15 years
of UHF.
No.61: Digital: Audiomat Tempo and Cambridge
Isomagic DACs, Vecteur D-2 transport.
Speakers: Osborn Mini Tower and Mirage OM9. Soundcare Superspikes. And: new surround
formats, dezoning DVD players.
No.60: Speakers: Monitor Audio Silver 9,
Reference 3a MM De Capo, Klipsch RB-5,
Coincident Triumph Signature. Plus: a Mirage
subwoofer and the Audiomat Solfège amp. Paul
Bergman on reproducing extreme lows.
No.59: CD players: Moon Eclipse, Linn Ikemi
and Genki, Rega Jupiter/Io, Cambridge D500.
Plus: Oskar Kithara speaker, with Heil tweeter.
And: transferring LP to CD, the truth on digital
radio, digital cinema vs MaxiVision 48.
No.58: Amplifiers: ASL AQ1003, Passion I10
& I11, Rogue 88, Jadis Orchestra Reference,
Linar 250. Headphone amps: Creek, Antique
Sound Lab, NVA, Audio Valve. Plus: Foundation
Research LC-2 line filter, Gutwire power cord,
Pierre Gabriel ML-1 2000 cable. And: building
your own machine to clean LP’s.
No.57: Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3,
Gershman X-1/SW-1, Coincident Super
Triumph Signature, Castle Inversion 15,
Oskar Aulos. PLUS: KR 18 tube amp. Music
Revolution: the next 5 years. Give your Hi-Fi
a Fall Tune-Up.
No.56: Integrated amps: Simaudio I-5, Roksan
Caspian, Myryad MI120, Vecteur Club 10, NVA
AP10 Also: Cambridge T500 tuner, Totem
Forest. Phono stages: Creek, Lehmann,
Audiomat. Interconnects: Actinote, Van den
Hul, Pierre Gabriel. Plus: Paul Bergman on
power and current…why you need both
No.55: CD players: Linn CD12, Copland
CDA-289, Roksan Caspian, AMC CD8a. Other
reviews: Enigma Oremus speaker, Magenta
ADE-24 black box. Plus: the DSD challenge for
the next audio disc, pirate music on the Net, the
explosion of off-air video choices.
No.52: CD players: A lchemist Nexus,
Cambridge CD6, YBA Intégré, Musical Fidelity
X-DAC, Assemblage DAC-2. Subwoofers:
Energy ES-8 and NHT PS-8. Plus: Paul
Bergman on reproducing deep bass, Vegas
report, and the story behind digital television.
No.51: Integrated amps: YBA Intégré DT,
Alchemist Forseti, Primare A-20, NVA AP50
Cambridge A1. CD players: Adcom GCD-750,
Rega Planet. An economy system to recommend to friends, ATI 1505 5-channel amp,
Bergman on impedance, why connectors
matter, making your own power bars.
No.49: Power amps: Simaudio Moon, Bryston
3B ST, N.E.W. DCA-33, plus the Alchemist
Forseti amp and preamp, and the McCormack
Micro components. Also: our new Reference
3a Suprema II reference speakers, and a
followup on the Copland 277 CD player. Plus:
how HDCD really works.
No.48: Loudspeakers: JMLabs Daline 3.1,
Vandersteen 3a, Totem Tabù, Royd Minstrel.
CD: Cambridge CD4, Copland CDA-277. Also:
An interview with the founder of a Canadian
audiophile record label.
No.47: FM tuners: Magnum Dynalab MD-108,
Audiolab 8000T, Fanfare FT-1. Speaker cables:
QED Qudos, Wireworld Equinox and Eclipse,
MIT MH-750. Parasound C/BD-2000 transport
and D/AC-2000 converter. And: Upgrading
your system for next to nothing.
No.46: Electronics: Simaudio 4070SE amp &
P-4002 preamp, Copland CTA-301 & CTA-505,
N.E.W. P-3 preamp. Digital cables: Wireworld,
Audiostream, MIT, XLO, Audioprism, and
Wireworld’s box for comparing interconnects.
Also: YBA CD-1 and Spécial CD players. YvesBernard André talks about about his blue diode
CD improvement.
No.45: Integrated amps: Copland CTA-401,
Simaudio 4070i, Sugden Optima 140. CD:
Adcom GDA-700 HDCD DAC, Sonic Frontiers
SFD-1 MkII. Interconnects: Straight Wire
Maestro, 3 versions of Wireworld Equinox.
Plus: Yamamura Q15 CD oil, and “Hi-Fi for the
Financially Challenged”.
No.4 4: CD players: Rotel RCD970BX,
Counterpoint DA-10A DAC. Speakers:
Apogee Ribbon Monitor, Totem Mite, more
on the Gershman Avant Garde. Also: LaserLink cable, “The Solution” CD treatment,
AudioQuest sorbothane feet, Tenderfeet,
Isobearings. Plus: Inside Subwoofers, and
the castrati, the singers who gave their all
for music.
No.54: Electronics: Creek A52se, Simaudio
W-3 and W-5 amps. Copland CSA-303, Sima
P-400 and F.T. Audio preamps (the latter two
passive). Musical Fidelity X-DAC revisited,
Ergo AMT phones, 4 line filters, 2 interconnects. Plus: Making your own CD’s.
No.43: The first HDCD converter: the EAD
DSP-1000 MkII. Speakers: Gershman Avant
Garde, Totem Mani-2 and Rokk, Quad ESL63 with Gradient subwoofer. Plus: Keith O.
Johnson explains the road to HDCD, and our
editor joins those of other magazines to discuss
what’s hot in audio.
No.53: Loudspeakers:Reference 3a Intégrale,
Energy Veritas v2.8, Epos ES30, Totem
Shaman, Mirage 390is, Castle Eden. Plus: Paul
No.42: Electronics: Spectral DMC-12 and
Celeste P-4001 preamplifiers, amps and
preamps from Duson. Also: Sonic Frontiers
SFD-1 converter, power line filters from
Audioprism, Chang, and YBA. Plus: Inside
the preamplifier, and how the tango became
the first “dirty” dance.
No.41: Digital: Roksan DA-2, EAD DSP-7000,
McCormack DAC-1, QED Ref. Digit. Cables:
Straight Wire LSI Encore & Virtuoso, Wireworld
Equinox, van den Hul The 2nd & Revelation,
Cardas Cross & Hexlink Golden, Transparent
Music-Link Super & Music-Wave Super. Plus:
Bergman on recording stereo.
No.40: Integrated amps: YBA Intégré, Rotel
960, Sugden A-25B, Sima PW-3000, Linn
Majik, Naim NAIT 3, AMC CVT3030, Duson
PA-75. Stereo: what it is, how it works, why
it’s disappearing from records.
No. 39: Speakers: KEF Q50, Martin-Logan
Aerius, Castle Howard, NEAR 40M, Klipsch
Kg4.2. Plus: QED passive preamps, followup
on the Linn Mimik CD player.
No. 38: CD players: Roksan Attessa, Naim
CDS, Linn Mimik, Quad 67, Rotel 945,
Micromega Model “T”. Plus: How the record
industry will wipe out hi-fi, and why women
have been erased from music history.
No.37: Electronics: Celeste 4070 and McIntosh
7150 amps, Linn Kairn and Klout. Plus:
RoomTunes acoustic treatment, why all
amps don’t sound alike, and how Pro Logic
really works.
No.36: CD players: YBA CD-2, Linn Karik/
Numerik, Sugden SDT-1, Mission DAD5 and
DAC5, Audiolab 8000DAC, QED Digit, Nitty
Gritty LP cleaner, Plus: an interview with
Linn’s Ivor Tiefenbrun, and part 7 of Bergman
on acoustics: building your own acoustical
panels.
No.35: Speakers: Castle Chester, Mirage M7si, Totem Model 1, Tannoy 6.1, NHT 2.3, 3a
Micro Monitor, Rogers LS2a/2. Plus: Tests of
high end video recorders, hi-fi stereo recordings of piano performances of 75 years ago.
Acoustics part 6: Conceiving the room.
No.34: Cables: MIT ZapChord & PC2, Monster
PowerLine 2+, M1, M2 Sigma, Reference 2,
Interlink 400 & MSK2, Straight Wire Maestro,
Isoda HA- 08 -PSR, Audioquest Ruby &
Emerald, AudioStream Twinax, FMS Gold
& Black, NBS Mini Serpent. Acoustics 5:
Diffusing sound. “The Plot to Kill Hi-Fi,” the
much-reprinted article on audio retailing.
No.33: CD players: Spectral SDR-1000SL,
Esoteric P-2/D-2, Micromega Duo.BS, Proceed
PDT2/PDP2 and PCD2, MSB Silver, Esoteric
CD-Z5000, Carver SD/A-490t. The future of
audio, according to Linn’s Ivor Tiefenbrun.
Acoustics part 4: Absorbing low frequencies.
No.32: The Audio Dream Book: Our 152-page
guide to what’s out there. Acoustics part 3:
Taming reverberation.
No.31: Amplifiers: Counterpoint SA-100 and
SA-1000, Audio Research Classic 30, QED
C300 and P300, Sugden Au-41, Audiolab
8000P, Carver C-19, Arcam Delta 110 and 120.
Why balanced lines? Buying audio by mail.
Acoustics part 2: Predicting standing waves.
No.30: Speakers: Castle Winchester, Energy
22.2, P-E Léon Trilogue,NHT 1.3, Celef CF1,
Polk RM3000, Response II by Clements.
Acoustics part 1: Room size and acoustics.
To see a list of older issues:
http://www.uhfmag.com/Individualissue.html
EACH ISSUE costs $6.49 (in Canada) plus tax (15.03% in Québec, 15% in NB, NS and NF, 7% in other Provinces), US$6.49 in the USA, CAN$10.75 elsewhere (air mail
included). THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION (issues 7-19 except 11, 15, 17 and 18) includes 9 issues but costs like 5. For VISA or MasterCard, include your number,
expiry date and signature. UHF Magazine, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, Longueuil, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4. Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383. Order on line at
www.uhfmag.com
Feature
dolor sectem iure tat ipis nosto consed
tat augue dolobor sumsan henibh ex
euisi.
verillametue faci blan utate te dio coreet
ad tisl et aciliqu ationsent velit ad dunt
ut niate.
lobore min henim erit.
T
his Canadian speaker has
been in gestation for a while.
We’ve act ually heard no
fewer than four incarnations,
hand-delivered to us. We waited, figuring it would be best to have a definite
version in stores before actually reviewing them. Even so, it continues to evolve,
as we shall see.
The format is one that is familiar
to us, since the speakers in our Omega
reference system are similar: a two-
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 31 Listening Room
Audio Reference
Model Two
way speaker that sits atop a woofer, or
possibly a subwoofer. The cables from
the amplifier are connected to the
subwoofer, and from there a pair of
(supplied) Cardas cables runs to the top
speaker. The binding posts are, alas, not
in keeping with a speaker of this price.
In the original version, the two halves
of the speaker were fastened with a potting compound that resembled a black
version of Audio-Tak. Just before we did
the actual review, the company added
two layers of marble, put together with
Lepages Fun-Tak (ugh!). That’s what you
see in our picture, and it looks less than
luxurious. Since then the plates have
been replaced by much more attractive
ones, with cones on the bottom end and
the same Fun-Tak atop. The visual effect
is much more acceptable.
We installed the speakers in our
Omega system and trotted out some
recent SACDs, beginning with Eric
Bibb’s Needed Time (Opus 3 19411). Some
speakers have difficulty filling the large
space of this room, or at least filling it as
convincingly as our Suprema speakers.
The Audio Reference…
Read the complete version in our
print or electronic issue. We now return
to our faux Latin filler.
Nullaortie dolorpe rostis nim numsan utem er ad tie deliquipit eumsan eu
feu feummy nis nulla consequat, quam
sustrud et ad enis dolutet nonsequat.
Dui ea corem aci te facin heniscil ullaor ipit aliquam, volummolor iure
magnis nisim dolor sectem iure tat ipis
nosto consed tat augue dolobor sumsan
henibh ex euisi.
wisl eugueriure dolenibh exerilit ipsum
eugue feummolore doloborem vullam
dolummy nim quismodit iliquat ueraestrud dignisit, sumsan henisi.
Im dolum dionse dignit nonsenim
dionsed et numsan henibh ea at lametuer
init at nullaore dip enis dolute volut do
eugiamet vulla autatio commod te facidunt ad magnisim venissi tat ipsusci tis
atet volore cor sim enim et lorper ip enit
venisci ncilit autpatue consequate facing ea facipis nulput nit adiat autpatuer
sum niat aliquat. Dunt dolorem in henit
nos autem at alit irilit laore commy nim
zzriure mod tie dolendreet, vel ing et.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Audio Reference
Model Two
Price: C$4950
Dimensions: 117 x 24.5 x 25 cm
Sensitivity: 90 dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Most liked: Laor sustrud tincin
Least liked: Laor sustrud tincin ulput
wisl dolor incip et do cor init ut adip el
do et vullumm odigna
Verdict: Agnim erat adigna autatum
zzrilit wisl ipsum eugue
incip et do cor init ut adip el do et vullumm odigna consequis esse feugait wis
dolum dolore feu feuis dolum zzriuscidunt lore dolorting eugait ex enis aut
num dio odiam, conulluptat. Lor iriure
core con volortisit in er si blaore do dio
commod digna feugue exercip sustrud
ea augait dolum nis dolum nos at, quat
la feugait nim at praessim dolorper alisl
dolenissi bla facip eumsandipit lan esequipit ilit dolese ming eu feu facing
veriliquatum deliquipit lobore tationse
feum dit adiat atum volore et utatie dunt
atum del in volor auguerat, vel ut ercipismod dolore doloreet la facilit, commy
nullandrem num vulla faccum zzrit ad
tem zzriusc iliquis sectet aliquatetum
nullutpat.
Listening Room
CROSSTALK
quat augait, vel essequam augiamet, con utem
vel iril ulla feum vulla cortionulla consequis
dolobortie minit, sequam aciliquis nim quis
eui blam, consequisi eratie tie te dolorper
ing ea feugait num incin hendiamcon ex
ercilit ad dipit iriustie dolesto odo odipit la
adignibh ea feu facip et augue min eumsan
ulla aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do odolobo
dignim velismod dip eugiate eugait la at,
con ulla feugue facipis et alismodolor si.
vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet la facing
esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit lore
delissequat. Ut at nonsectem velenit alis
ametuero dolor senis nos eugiamcommy
nullut.
—Albert Simon
Umsan hent aute magna conulla oreet,
quisl ero od dolenibh eu faccummy nulla
augait am vel eugait, velis nisit wis nissecte
dolore delessisl irilis esed dolore vel exero
eum doluptat.
incip et do cor init ut adip el do et vullumm
odigna consequis esse feugait wis dolum
dolore feu feuis dolum zzriuscidunt lore
dolorting eugait ex enis aut num dio odiam,
conulluptat. Lor iriure core con volortisit
in er si blaore do dio commod digna feugue
exercip sustrud ea augait dolum nis dolum
nos at, quat la feugait nim at praessim
dolorper alisl dolenissi bla facip eumsandipit
lan esequipit ilit dolese ming eu feu facing ea
amcommolut dit landrerostie tatue dolore te
vel et ex et la am vent vel utat ad duipit niscil
ut vulla con hendreet veriliquatum deliquipit
lobore tationse feum.
—Reine Lessard
incip et do cor init ut adip el do et vullumm
odigna consequis esse feugait wis dolum
dolore feu feuis dolum zzriuscidunt lore
dolorting eugait ex enis aut num dio odiam,
conulluptat. Lor iriure core con volortisit
in er si blaore do dio commod digna feugue
exercip sustrud ea augait dolum nis dolum
nos at, quat la feugait nim at praessim
dolorper alisl dolenissi bla facip eumsandipit
lan esequipit ilit dolese ming eu feu facing ea
amcommolut dit landrerostie tatue dolore
te vel et ex et la am vent vel utat ad duipit
niscil ut vulla con hendreet veriliquatum
deliquipit lobore tationse feum dit adiat
atum volore et utatie dunt atum del in volor
auguerat, vel ut ercipismod dolore doloreet
la facilit, commy nullandrem num vulla
faccum zzrit ad tem zzriusc iliquis sectet
aliquatetum nullutpat. Os dolute mod et
lorerostrud mincilit dit prat accummod tis
eugue faccumsandre mod dit prat nummolo
rercipit lore.
Adig n iam i ncil ut pat v u lla ndig na
consectem voleniam ipit prat in ut landit ad
del incin vulputet augait am.
—Gerard Rejskind
Connoisseur
SE-2 Updated
T
330B output tubes (one for each channel,
of course) are driven by 6SN7 tubes.
Though nearly all modern tube amplifiers use solid state rectifiers in the power
supply, Connoisseur has stuck with a
5AR4 rectifier tube.
We connected the new SE-2 to the
Living Voice Avatar OBX-R speakers in
our Alpha system. We’ve noted before
that we don’t alter any of our systems
unless and until our backs are against the
wall, but the fact is that, after more than
a dozen years, we had in fact changed
reference speakers. The old 3a MS5’s we
listened to this amplifier with last time
were considerably less efficient than the
Living Voice (88 dB rather than
92 dB). That alone would give
the SE-2 an advantage. Can’t be
helped.
And whether for that reason
or not, it seemed clear from the
very first recording that the
SE-2 was not about to do anything that would telegraph its
moves. It sounded as though
it had far more power than it
does by even the most optimistic reading. Good sign?
That first recording was
a Romantic Piece by Dvorak
(Analekta FL 2 3191), which
his single-ended tube amplifier is from the same company
that makes the speaker in the
previous review. An earlier
version was in UHF No. 68, where we
greeted it warmly…except for one thing.
We didn’t think 9 watts per channel was
exactly a lot of power even by singleended amp standards, and according to
our instruments it didn’t come close to
meeting that rating.
Since then this Toronto company
has done considerable work on it. The
outside is still based on a Chinese
design, the Opera 3500, but the inside
now has a lot of point-to-point wiring,
as you can see in the picture below. The
two remaining printed circuit boards
hold parts related to the power supply.
Superior parts (Allen-Bradley, Mallory,
Rubicon) parts are substituted for the
usual anonymous brands. The motorized
volume potentiometer can be remotecontrolled.
We were also told that the amplifier
would now meet its already modest
power claim. We put off the technical
tests until the listening session was
over.
The configuration is unchanged. A
pair of ubiquitous 12AX7 twin triodes
are used for the preamplifier. The two
we like because James Ehnes’ Stradivarius sound so much like…what it is.
A two-instrument CD like this doesn’t
have the sheer volume to wring out an
amp, but we knew that if the amplifier
were to get too close to its limits, we
would notice it.
And in fact we didn’t notice it. We
know that single-ended amplifiers not
only can’t play all that loud, but that
they suffer from plenty of harmonic
distortion when they try. The fine violin
sound was…oh, not quite the way it is
with our YBA amplifier, but excellent
all the same. Gerard praised the SE-2
for the way it sounded on the very soft,
emotional passages of this Dvorak piece.
Another good sign.
We would push the dynamic limits
of the SE-2 a little later. First we
pulled out another recording which
has more finesse than sheer volume.
It’s soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian’s CD
of the songs of Pauline Viardot-Garcia
(A nalekta A N 2 9903). We selected
Plainte d’amour, which Viardot wrote to
music by Chopin.
It too was lovely, Bayrakdarian’s
voice sounding natural and yet with an
otherworldly sound that is in the nature
of this artist. Serouj Kradjian’s piano was
natural, with excellent resonance even
on notes from the left hand side of the
keyboard. No sign of overload here. No
brightness or loss of detail either. The
stereo image was superb.
But the time had come to make the
SE-2 sweat a little. Om my n ibh
essenia mconulputat am quat augait, vel
essequam augiamet, con utem vel iril ulla
feum vulla cortionulla consequis dolo-
bortie minit, sequam aciliquis nim quis
ing ea feugait num incin hendiamcon
ex ercilit ad dipit iriustie dolesto odo
odipit la adignibh ea feu facip et augue
min eumsan ulla aut utpat ip ent volore
elesto do odolobo rtisim iriure veraesting erillan essectem dignim velismod
dip eugiate eugait la at, con ulla feugue
facipis et alismodolor si.
Nullaortie dolorpe rostis nim num-
san utem er ad tie deliquipit eumsan eu
henibh ex euisi.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Connoisseur SE-2
Price: C$3899 (equivalent to
US$3120), extra for lacquered wood
sides
Dimensions: 45 x 40 x 21 cm
Claimed power (8Ω): 9 W/channel
Most liked: Plenty of finesse, surprising body
Least liked: Limited power (duh!)
Verdict: Power isn’t just a matter of
watts
zzriure mod tie dolendreet, vel ing et,
consed ero do consed et ea faciduipis
nit ipsuscilit adionsenibh er autat, sim
acilis eniatum ilis do eum iustio eugiat
nos ad dolore diat praesecte tat.
Re modolore min utat nulputpat.
Duis ea facipit incidunt ad ea augait nim
ipisi tismole stinim aute dolore vullut
velis augue te faccum zzrilis molorem
nisl iuscilisi.
Umsan hent aute magna conulla
oreet, quisl ero od dolenibh eu faccummy nulla augait am vel eugait, velis nisit
wis nissecte dolore delessisl irilis esed
dolore vel exero eum doluptat.
vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet la facing esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit lore
delissequat.
Listening Room
CROSSTALK
Say you like your music soft and airy,
full of delicate and fine details and that
you have very efficient speakers that might
twitch at the slightest cough in the room,
then you’ve found an amplifier for your
needs.
If, however, you musical tastes have
a wider range, and your speakers tend to
doze off unless a brass band shows up, then
I expect you might best be served by an alternative power amp. You just won’t be able
to notice the subtleties that this amp offers,
from the smoothness of the musical lines,
the softness of the musician’s touch and the
roundness and warmth of a well trained
voice.
—Albert Simon
behind the compromise of push-pull output
tubes (or transistors for that matter) really
does pay off.
But the earlier one didn’t sound so good
at louder levels, when the music really got
going. This one is far, far better at it. The
improvements that needed to be made
clearly have been.
Even so, it will sound best with speakers of very high efficiency. Fortunately,
such speakers, with sensitivities of 93 dB or
more, are much more common than they
were. With such speakers, you won’t often
take the Connoisseur to its power limits.
I think you may well love what it does at
lower levels.
—Gerard Rejskind
Was this amplifier improved from the
last version we listened to four issues back?
Definitely. The earlier amplifier had a
number of the virtues I expect from a singleended amplifier, starting with the main
one: an amazing transparency at very low
volume levels. This one has it too. Leaving
A pleasant activity that has nothing
routine about it…this session with a highly
satisfying tube integrated, which gave some
most pleasant musical moments.
It projects an illusion of space that is
hospitable, not only laterally and front-toback, but also in height, and that illusion
lets through an abundance of subtleties.
The piano, both detailed and powerful, is
unconstrained. Its sound is as accurate as it
is pleasant, the attacks of the left hand solid
and clear, prolonging its vibrations to the
floor under my feet, yet not hiding the violins, which are silky, caressing, full of emotion. The human voice is of incomparable
beauty in a highly demanding vocal work
that includes impressive flights and passages of overwhelming sensitivity.
In orchestral music, wind instruments
express themselves with communicative
verve. The soprano sax did somewhat surprise me by sounding just a little shrill,
though I must add that I found it that way
with our reference electronics too.
However this small shortcoming is amply compensated by the amplifier’s many
qualities, including the faithful reproduction of the sensitivity and virtuosity of the
musicians, rendering of an infinite variety
of inflections and modulations, and a generous dynamic palette.
—Reine Lessard
Cables From Actinote
Q
Alpha room, and began adding the Actinotes, one set at a time. Since a digital
cable was included in the set, we did the
listening with our two-box CD player:
a CEC transport and a Counterpoint
DA-10A converter.
The MN digital cable
Shown below, it looks much like
Actinote’s analog cables, with a box
near one end, a tube near the other, and
WBT locking connectors at each end.
There is no obvious directional arrow.
However the dot on the “i” of “Actinote”
is shaped like an arrow. What’s that you
say? An instruction leaflet to point this
out? Wouldn’t that make it too easy?
In the past we haven’t heard radical
changes in tonal balance from different
digital cables. However we have heard
differences in coherence of complex pas-
sages, in reproduction of rhythm, and in
handling of transients. To compare the
MN with our Wireworld Gold Starlight,
we selected Normal Dello Joio’s Fantasy
on a Theme by Haydn (Klavier K 11138),
with its rich dissonant brass and its
heart-stopping percussion.
Did the two cables sound different?
On first listen Reine thought the Actinote had a markedly different personality
from the Gold Starlight, but changed her
mind when we played the CD a second
time. The differences were not all that
clear. Certainly the music had energy
and verve, with a broad, deep image. The
transients on the tympani were excellent.
Gerard did find the two cables at least a
little different, with a bit more emphasis
than expected on the actual contact of
mallet and membrane.
We judged the MN very close to
our reference cable, but at C$390, or
US$330, it is significantly cheaper.
The MB interconnect cable
These cables look much like
the MN, with a box at one end and a
tube at the other. It comes with WBT
locking connectors. You can see it at
the top of the next page.
Since two pairs had been supplied, we now disconnected our
uick now, how many companies worldwide make audio
cables? Ten? Twent y? A
hundred? Not even close,
though we can’t even guess at the real
number.
Every manufacturer has a secret formula, a (supposedly) exclusive ingredient
that makes its cables sound right, whereas
others, well… Some of those explanations seem to make sense, whereas others
sound like Professor Snakeyes’ Magic
Reptile Oil. To its credit, possibly, the
Belgian manufacturer Actinote doesn’t
go into extravagant claims. No, not even
for the little boxes on the cables. Do they
contain “termination networks” like
those on MIT or Transparent cables?
No, just some sort of electrical damping device with the enigmatic name of
“bis-actif” to reduce resonances. Want
to k now more? Go do your own
research!
We had previously heard lowerpriced cables from Actinote, and we
had never been moved to go further.
At least not till now, when we received
a large box with a full set of Actinote’s
top cables.
This time our impression was radically different.
We brought the box up to our
Listening Room
be. You may need to provide some sort
of support for them.
Nice cables, these. At C$750/US$630,
they are strictly for luxury systems, but
they are not priced beyond their capabilities. We liked them.
Pierre Gabriel ML-1 silver cables from
both the CD player and the preamplifier,
and substituted the Actinotes. We should
add that, for reasons of practicality,
our own cables are longer than most:
2 meters and 1.5 meters respectively.
The Actinotes were just 1 meter long.
We used three recordings for the
comparison, starting with the lovely but
fragile choral CD Now the Green Blade
Riseth (Proprius PRCD9093). It was in
no way diminished by the presence of
the Actinote cables. The women’s voices
were smooth and gorgeous, the men’s
voices deep and resonant. The choral
structure held together even on that
difficult final crescendo, with layer upon
layer of detailed sound. The accompanying instruments — bass, organ and
flute — were natural, never blending into
the landscape.
But was the sound better than it had
been with the Pierre Gabriels? None of
us was prepared to say so, though we did
think it may have seemed subjectively
louder.
On the second recording ( Je n’aime
pas from Bïa’s Carmin CD, Audiogram
ADCD10163) the sound was noticeably
louder, though our preamp’s volume setting was unaltered. We did in fact prefer
the sound the Actinotes gave us. The
large drums sounded with more impact
and authority, and the lyrics were clearer.
Rhythm was superb, and the trombone
solo at the end delightful.
“Extreme frisson,” said Reine.
We ended the comparison with the
Gospel Blues Ain’t No Grave from Doug
McLeod’s Come to Find (Audioquest
AQCD1027). Once again the music
seemed louder, but there were no accompanying artifacts. McLeod’s voice was
especially clear, the plucked bass gratifyingly solid. His guitar had a different
sound, and whether it was more accurate
or not, we liked it. The musicians were
more convincingly present, and played
with satisfying resonance (“in the good
sense,” added Albert). The very strong
rhythm in this piece was perfectly preserved. The accompanying female voices
were clear, with fine harmony. The hand
claps were startlingly natural.
Like our Pierre Gabriel cables, the
Actinotes won’t take well to sharp bends.
What’s more, the long connector plus
the box can exert downward leverage on
the jacks of your audio units. That may
not matter if the jacks are first class, but
that is unfortunately rarer than it should
The LB speaker cables
These cables, shown below, have two
boxes, one near each end. They are fitted
with WBT-0644 locking bananas, one
of our favorites.
We expected the addition of these
cables to make the most difference, for
a very good reason. Our existing cable,
which we have used for many years, is
a Wireworld Eclipse II, very different
from the excellent Eclipse III, and not
nearly as good. Note that we do use the
vastly superior Eclipse III between our
Living Voice Avatar OBX-R speakers
and their outboard crossover networks.
Indeed the substitution of the LB
speaker cables made an audible difference, pretty much entirely in the right
direction.
We began with Now the Green Blade
Riseth once again. Good as it had sounded
before, it was better now, with the choral
voices easier to separate. Despite this
degree of separation, the ensemble sound
hung together remarkably well, and the
final crescendo was formidable in its raw
energy. The accompanying instruments
came through clear and strong. That
included the organ, which appears only
at the end of the opening piece…if it
appears at all!
Gerard found the Actinote’s tonal
balance a little cooler than with our
Eclipse cable, and a little less mellow as
well, though he suspected it might be
closer to neutral.
It was on the second selection, from
Bïa’s Carmin, that we began to suspect
we might have found a replacement for
our aging Eclipse speaker cable.
There wasn’t an element of this
wonderfully sly and mischievous song
that wasn’t improved by the presence of
the Actinote LB. The opening percussion had greater impact, though without
the loss of an iota of naturalness. The
trombone at the finale was exactly as it
must have sounded in the studio, and we
laughed out loud. As for Bïa herself, her
voice fairly glowed, each syllable easy to
hear. Minor instruments hung in space,
never covered up. The depth was most
satisfying.
Much the same could be said of
Ain’t No Grave. The detail recovered
from this superb CD was breathtaking.
McLeod’s voice was clearer, though at
the same time he seemed a little hoarser.
The stereo image and the depth were
increased. The rhythm, always a strong
element in McLeod’s songs, made it
impossible to sit still.
The 3 meter version of the LB costs
C$1690, or US$1420. This is about half
the price of the reference cables on our
other (Omega) system, which is definitely good news. For our own system,
however, we ordered the 5 meter pair,
which runs to $2360. Ouch!
Then again it could have been
worse.
The CS power cords
Oh yes, the power cords.
In our box were three of
t hem, to f it our digital
transport, our Counterpoint converter, and our
Copland tube preamplifier.
We left behind our GutWire cables and substituted
the CS cords.
Like the audio cables,
these cords sport a box near
one end and a tube near
the other. The connectors
are familiar ones, with the
IEC plug seeming to be a
Schurter. The cable is shielded, as an
audiophile power cable should always
be.
Could we actually hear a difference?
We had to listen twice to be sure. Was
there a more spacious sound with these
cords? There might have been, or at
least it was filled in slightly better. The
background was a bit cleaner and quieter,
letting us hear such details as the timbres
of individual hand claps near the end of
the piece.
The price of these cables is well above
average, at C$490 or US$410. There
wasn’t a noticeable gain in musicality,
though. These are, in short, good cords,
but not as convincing a value as their
brandmates.
Conclusion
We must reiterate that it is difficult to
identify a cable as “the best.” At the same
time, we don’t believe in choosing cables
to behave as some sort of tone control, to
correct something wrong with the rest of
the system. Design errors don’t cancel,
they always add.
Among all the would-be magicians
peddling cables that promise to cure
all your ills, there is a handful whose
designers know what they’re doing,
and who don’t try to milk your savings
for dubious nostrums. Count Actinote
among them.
It may seem odd to apply the word
“value” to cables of these prices. It is,
however, entirely appropriate.
What were those other Actinote cables
I had heard before? I can’t remember. It
seemed to me they were neither good nor
bad…in short, they were like a lot of other
cables that are always choking our mailbox.
New cables are even more common than
new speakers!
These are something else. For one thing
they’re all good. And all of them (except
perhaps the power cables) are great value,
meaning they are not outlandishly priced
considering their prodigious performance.
Yes, prodigious. The speaker cable is especially good, or perhaps it seems that way
because our own was ripe for change. And
we’ve found the cable to change it for.
—Gerard Rejskind
There was something very special about
these cables and the way they worked to-
gether, something that is difficult to explain. It’s easy to hear it, though.
When used together, linking the different components from source to speakers,
they do a thorough cleanup job. No residues, no lingering dust, no smearing, just a
gleaming surface, like a well-polished floor
that reveals all the depth and beauty of the
wood.
When used individually, I’d be ready
to bet a whole dollar that you’ll notice a
striking contrast to whatever you already
have. And chances are your present cables
may then appear to act as filters by comparison (no offence intended, this is only a
bet which I’ll be glad to lose in your favor if
you’re fully satisfied with what you already
have). Give them try and see for yourself. If
you lose, you win.
—Albert Simon
What an exciting experience, this test,
with the review cables replacing our magnificent reference cables. Dipping our toes
into the waters gingerly (sorry, Gerard, but
that’s how I saw the process), we began with
the digital cable and heard an improvement.
Then came the interconnects, with results
that were more than satisfying. Thus emboldened, we switched the speaker cables,
which brought us to the peak of this joyous
and astonishing adventure.
Oh yes, you want to know what I really
think? Fine, then, the Actinotes are my first
choice. Too bad for the other cables we have
much loved, and which certainly haven’t
lost their qualities. I can say only that these
are the best cables I’ve heard yet.
A conclusion that hints at a change in
our system? We’ll see…
—Reine Lessard
CROSSTALK
Our Linn LP12
Listening Room
F
or many years our Omega
system was equipped with an
Alphason Sonata turntable…
even before it truly was a reference system. Late last year, the Sonata’s
motor decided it had turned all it was
ever going to turn. Now what?
Well, we knew of several quality
turntables, any one of which might conceivably serve as a replacement. However
we formulated a couple of conditions.
Although there are some very good
turntables without suspended subchassis, we didn’t want to choose one as a
working tool. Nor did we want to pick a
turntable we had never reviewed. If we
had had more time to choose it might
be different, but we weren’t going to fly
blind. Or deaf.
That cut down the field somewhat.
One of the turntables remaining was
the Linn LP12. We have reviewed this
famous table a number of times in its
many incarnations, in UHF No. 50.
Yes, we know that seems a lot, but then
the LP12 is very much a moving target.
The last test was of a full-blown modern
Linn, essentially similar to the one you
get today if you visit your Linn dealer,
open your wallet, and say, “Here, take
what you want.”
We knew this was going to cost
us, of course, though we saw a way to
minimize the damages. Our Alphason
Fate forces us to look
for a new reference
titanium tone arm, which we have owned
since about the mid-eighties, could be
mounted on a Linn…especially easy
since Alphason used a Linn-compatible
arm mount. And we would also keep our
(unfortunately discontinued) Goldring
Excel pickup. Indeed, this would make
comparisons easier, since our other reference table, the Audiomeca J-1, is also
fitted with an Excel.
Buying an LP12 is not an option for
everyone, because it comes in pieces,
without so much as an instruction leaflet.
It is assumed that your local Linn dealer
will assemble it and set it up for you. Not
only must you have a local dealer, but it
must be an older one, with the equipment
and the knowledge to deal with that box
full of little parts. Ours was installed by
Gilles Gagnon of Aldburn Electronics, Linn’s Canadian importer.
Gilles can be seen on this page
with the turntable on its side so that
he can install the assembly that will
enable it to work with the Lingo power
supply. With that done, the LP12 was
placed on Linn’s special jig, shown on the
next page. The jig enables the installer to
work under the turntable. Ill-equipped
technicians are left out in the cold.
The LP12 story has often been told,
and has pretty much entered the realm
of legend. Several companies grew out of
the early discoveries, but Linn is the one
that has survived. The original LP12 had
a sprung subchassis for the platter and
tone arm, unusual for the time though
not truly unique. More innovative
was the bearing, designed to produce
minimum noise and vibration. Until the
Linn came along, it was believed that
the major source of vibration was the
motor.
It is often assumed that the modern
Linn is exactly the same as the original,
because it looks nearly identical, but in
fact there have been numerous changes
over the years. The arm board is now
a multilayered laminate. The famous
bearing has changed shape, and is at the
end of a shorter post, less prone to wobbling. It is held in place by two bushings
of a hard Teflon-like material, ventilated
to allow air to escape when the subplatter
is lowered into the bearing well. And in
the all-out version, the electricity for the
24-pole synchronous motor comes from
a large outboard power supply called the
Lingo (“it’s what makes the Linn go”).
Some elements remain unchanged.
Unlike in most modern tables, the motor
is not mounted on rubber bushings.
It is in fact firmly fastened to the top
stainless steel plate, which is more like
a leaf spring than a flat slab. The plate
conducts the vibrations to the plinth,
where they are dissipated.
Some familiar aspects live on. The
motor still runs at 70% of rated voltage,
dionsed et numsan henibh ea at
lametuer init at nullaore dip enis dolute
volut do eugiamet vulla autatio commod
te facidunt ad magnisim venissi tat
ipsusci tis atet volore cor sim enim et
lorper ip enit venisci ncilit autpatue
consequate facing ea facipis nulput nit
adiat autpatuer sum niat aliquat. Dunt
dolorem in henit nos autem at alit
irilit laore commy nim zzriure mod
tie dolendreet, vel ing et, consed ero
do consed et ea faciduipis nit ipsuscilit
adionsenibh er autat, sim acilis eniatum
ilis do eum iustio eugiat nos ad dolore
diat praesecte tat.
oreet, quisl ero od dolenibh eu faccummy
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Linn Sondek LP12
Price: C$5670 (as tested), not including arm or cartridge, equivalent to
US$4593
Dimensions: 44.5 x 35 x 14.8 cm
(Lingo power supply is outboard)
Most liked: Adigniam inci
Least liked: Laor sustrud tincin
Verdict: Re modolore min utat
nulputpat. Duis ea facipit
to reduce cogging and vibration, but it
gets full voltage in the first few seconds,
for fast acceleration.
It didn’t take many hours of operation
for us to figure out that this was a more
than worthy successor to the Alphason,
but we wanted to do the usual formal
listening session. The point of comparison was of course our other reference
turntable, the Audiomeca J-1, which is in
our Alpha system. We brought the Linn
over to the Alpha room, and set it up so
that it was dead level.
The floor in the Alpha room were…
how shall we say? A little bouncy? And
it probably was when it was installed
some 160 years ago. Our Audiomeca is
on a Target wall stand, which isolates it
perfectly. There is a second wall stand
next to it, but it is a little too far from the
preamplifier to be practical. We placed
the Linn on the top shelf of a Target
floor stand, and quickly realized the
problems of isolating a turntable with
a suspension. Walking across the room
caused the LP12’s suspension to bounce
alarmingly. We should add that Linn
offers an alternative base evocatively
called the Trampoline, for C$70 more
than the normal solid base. However the
wall stand is by far the better solution.
We have an identical one in our Omega
system as well.
The Audiomeca is fitted with the
SL-5 straight line tone arm, and the
same Goldring Excel moving coil pickup
that is on our LP12. For the comparison,
we selected three LPs whose sound and
music we particularly appreciate.
The first is an arrangement from
the musical A Chorus Line, found on the
Dallas Wind Symphony’s Beachcomber
album (Reference Recordings RR-62).
The Audiomeca did well with it, as it
usually does. The Linn?
si.
nulla augait am vel eugait, velis nisit
incip et do cor init ut adip el do et
vullumm odigna consequis esse feugait
wis dolum dolore feu feuis dolum
zzriuscidunt lore dolorting eugait ex
enis aut num dio odiam, conulluptat.
Lor iriure core con volortisit in er si
blaore do dio commod digna feugue
exercip sustrud ea augait dolum nis
dolum nos at, quat la feugait nim at
praessim dolorper alisl dolenissi bla facip
eumsandipit lan esequipit ilit dolese
ming eu feu facing ea amcommolut
dit landrerostie tatue dolore te vel et
ex et la am vent vel utat ad duipit niscil
ut vulla con hendreet veriliquatum
atum volore et utatie dunt atum del in
volor auguerat, vel ut ercipismod dolore
doloreet la facilit, commy nullandrem
num vulla faccum zzrit ad tem zzriusc
iliquis sectet aliquatetum nullutpat. Os
dolute mod et lorerostrud mincilit dit
prat accummod tis eugue faccumsandre
mod dit prat nummolo rercipit lore
faccummy nismolese consed enibh et
pratet eliquat. Wisit veliquisi.
consectem voleniam ipit prat in ut landit
ad del incin.
Listening Room
CROSSTALK
esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit lore delissequat. Ut at nonsectem velenit alis ametuero
dolor senis nos eugiamcommy nullut vel
diat vero core et alisl dolore te consent nonummo lobore min henim erit, siscili quisi.
—Albert Simon
Agnim erat adigna autatum zzrilit wisl
eugueriure dolenibh exerilit ipsum eugue
feummolore doloborem vullam dolummy
nim quismodit iliquat ueraestrud dignisit,
sumsan henisi.
eugiamet vulla autatio commod te facidunt
ad magnisim venissi tat ipsusci tis atet
volore cor sim enim et lorper ip enit venisci
ncilit autpatue consequate facing ea facipis
nulput nit adiat autpatuer sum niat aliquat.
Dunt dolorem in henit nos autem at alit
irilit laore commy nim zzriure mod tie
dolendreet, vel ing et, consed ero do consed
et ea faciduipis nit ipsuscilit adionsenibh er
autat, sim acilis eniatum ilis do eum iustio
eugiat nos ad dolore diat praesecte tat.
Re modolore min utat nulputpat. Duis
ea facipit incidunt ad ea augait nim ipisi
tismole stinim aute dolore vullut velis augue
te faccum zzrilis molorem nisl iuscilisi.
Umsan hent aute magna conulla oreet, quisl
ero od dolenibh eu faccummy nulla augait
am vel eugait, velis nisit wis nissecte dolore
delessisl irilis esed dolore vel exero eum
doluptat.
—Reine Lessard
Lit auguer iustionum dolorem dolortisl
ulput vent velis nulput ip elisis ad tat. Ut
endre etue velit, vel doluptate verillametue
faci blan utate te dio coreet ad tisl et aciliqu
ationsent velit ad dunt ut niate et la conse
dolore velis nibh eraesequis augiam eugiam
amet, commy nullut aliquat autpat. Et, vent
praestrud dolortisit nonsed magnim quatet
lobore vel irit, quat.
feummy nis nulla consequat, quam am quis
aliquatummy nisl etum iril er sustrud et
ad enis dolutet nonsequat. Dui ea corem
aci te facin heniscil ullaor ipit aliquam,
volummolor iure magnis.
—Gerard Rejskind
Nothing beats the Living Voice
for Real Music
™
“Surprise! This is one of the
world's great speakers.”
– UHF Magazine
“Anyone who harbors any
doubts about what a musical
speaker ought to sound like
should give the OBX-R a careful
audition.”
– Enjoy the Music.com
“Well worth going out of one's
way to hear.”
– Stereophile
“The most effortless and natural
sounding music you can imagine.”
Authorized Dealers
Montreal – Audioville
514-861-8050
Toronto – Audio Gallery
416-782-6497
Oakville – House of
Sounds 905-849-4999
Edmonton – Sarah Audio
780-485-9770
Vancouver – Signature
Audio 604-873-6682
New York – In Living
Stereo
212-979-1273
– Hi-Fi Choice 2003/04 Product of the Year!
Atlanta – Audio Essence
770-529-5656
“A standout for both price and
performance.”
Oregon – Hi-Fi Logic
541-390-4981
– The Absolute Sound, Golden Ear Winner
California – Audio High
650-964-4000
Visit www.bluebirdmusic.com
or call 416-638-8207
Distributors of Exceptional
Audio Equipment
A
Rolling Your Own CDs
Listening Room
nalog tape machines? We’re
sad to say they’re gone from
all but a few recording studios
and radio stations. Or perhaps
one is kept around for playing back
legacy material. Recording today means,
in most cases, hooking some gear up to
a computer, as shown above.
You may mourn analog, as we do. But
then again, the development of inexpensive computer recording equipment may
have given you an idea. Why not tell the
big recording companies to shove it, and
make your own CDs? You can, using in
many cases gear you already own.
The basics
The list of what you absolutely, positively must have is short. Here it is:
1) A good pair of microphones, with
stands to put them on.
2) A device to turn the analog signal
from the microphones into a digital
signal a computer can handle. This
used to mean a sound card for a desktop
computer, but there are better choices.
Analog signals should not get anywhere
near the inside of a computer. The
modern alternative is a junction box with
two or more analog inputs and a cable to
connect to a computer, either FireWire
(strongly recommended) or USB.
3) Software for recording and editing. Pro software can cost hundreds of
dollars, though some — like that shown
on the computer above — is free.
4) Software for authoring and burning the final CD. It’s possible a basic
package actually came with your computer, and it might be all you need. You
can also use iTunes, which comes
free with Mac OS X, and is a free
download for Windows computers.
Getting the signal in
Microphones
Being the sort of magazine we are, we
will assume that what you would really
like to record is music, not conference
speakers reading off the screens of their
PowerPoint presentations. That means
using good quality microphones…duh!
Choosing microphones could be the
subject of a book, but let us cover some
major points. The first, which may be
far from obvious, is that stereo recording
requires two microphones, not just one.
Yes, we’ve also seen countless photos of
million-seller stars singing into a single
microphone. Real stereo requires two,
and they should be identical. If they’re
selected as a matched set, so much the
better.
A lot of sound pros prefer dynamic
microphones, which work like loudspeakers, only backwards. Dynamics
are more rugged than condenser microphones, which means they’ll more tolerant of being dropped…or screamed into
at short range. Higher quality recording
is probably better served by condenser
microphones.
What all condenser microphones
have in common is the need for a polarizing voltage, without which they won’t
work, and amplification right in the
microphone body. Some inexpensive
condenser microphones are electrets,
which have a permanent polarizing
charge applied to them (perhaps we
should have placed the word permanent
in quotes). Even so, a battery is needed to
run the on-board amplifier, which turns
the very high impedance signal of the
capsule into a lower-impedance signal
that can drive a preamplifier. Most professional condenser microphones require
both a polarizing voltage and power for
the amplifier. Some microphones, by the
way, have tube amplifiers, though those
will run you into serious money.
In most recording installations,
the condenser microphone will run
from what is known as phantom power, a
40 volt current from the console or
microphone preamplifier.
Unidirectional microphones are
popular, to the point where even those
cheap mikes sold in dollar stores claim
to be unidirectional. Truth is, the ability
of a “cardioid” mike to reject rear signals
is limited at best, and if the recording
venue has any reverberation it becomes
nil. On the other hand cardioids have
increased distortion and anomalies in
frequency response. And they overemphasize bass if you get close to them.
An omnidirectional microphone,
like the Earthworks QTC-1 shown
above (and on the cover) can have low
distortion and extremely wide and flat
response. A pair can be used for stereo if
they are spaced out. If you want to record
stereo the way Alan Blumlein recommended, you’ll need a pair of bidirectional, or “figure-eight” microphones,
placed as close as possible together,
angled 90 degrees from each other.
There is one more difference among
microphones. Professional microphones
are balanced, and connect using threepin XLR plugs. For anything but playing
around, that’s the way to go.
si.
delissequat.
dit landrerostie tatue dolore te vel et The software
ex et la am vent vel utat ad duipit niscil Ommy nibh essenia mconulputat am irilit laore commy nim zzriure mod
ut vulla con hendreet veriliquatum quat augait, vel essequam augiamet, con tie dolendreet, vel ing et, consed ero
deliquipit lobore tationse feum dit adiat utem vel iril ulla feum vulla cortionulla do consed et ea faciduipis nit ipsuscilit
atum volore et utatie dunt atum del in consequis dolobortie minit, sequam adionsenibh er autat, sim acilis eniatum
volor auguerat, vel ut ercipismod dolore aciliquis nim quis eui blam, consequisi ilis do eum iustio eugiat nos ad dolore
doloreet la facilit, commy nullandrem eratie tie te dolorper ing ea feugait num diat praesecte tat.
num vulla faccum zzrit ad tem zzriusc incin hendiamcon ex ercilit ad dipit Re modolore min utat nulputpat.
iliquis sectet aliquatetum nullutpat. Os iriustie dolesto odo odipit la adignibh Duis ea facipit incidunt ad ea augait nim
dolute mod et lorerostrud mincilit dit ea feu facip et augue min eumsan ulla ipisi tismole stinim aute dolore vullut
prat accummod tis eugue faccumsandre aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do odolobo velis augue te faccum zzrilis molorem
mod dit prat nummolo rercipit lore rtisim iriure veraesting erillan essectem nisl iuscilisi.
faccummy nismolese consed enibh et dignim velismod dip eugiate eugait la Umsan hent aute magna conulla
at, con ulla feugue facipis et alismodolor oreet, quisl ero od dolenibh eu faccummy
Re modolore min utat nulputpat. Duis si.
ea facipit incidunt ad ea augait nim ipisi Gait, sumsan utet, ver sustrud wis nissecte dolore delessisl irilis esed
tismole stinim aute dolore vullut velis minim vercilla facilisci tet aliqui blamet dolore vel exero eum doluptat.
augue te faccum zzrilis molorem nisl la facing esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit Laor sustrud
tincin ulput wisl dolor
humanart icleetin do
n have this incip
itio
ed
iuscilisi.
lore
delissequat.
Ut
at
nonsectem
cor
init ut adip el do et
ic
on
ctr
ele
w
ne
r
ou
and
print issuevelenit
th our conulla
Umsan hent aute Bo
magna
alis
ametuero
dolor
senis
nos
vullumm
odigna
consequis
esse feugait
e.
lin
on
it
Order
language. eugiamcommy
reada
oreet, quisl ero od dolenibh
euble
faccummy
nullut vel diat vero core wis dolum dolore feu feuis dolum
nulla augait am vel eugait, velis nisit et alisl dolore te consent nonummo zzriuscidunt lore dolorting eugait ex
wis nissecte dolore delessisl irilis esed lobore min henim erit, siscili quisi.
Lit auguer iustionum dolorem Lor iriure core con volortisit in er si
Laor sustrud tincin ulput wisl dolor dolortisl ulput vent velis nulput ip elisis blaore do dio commod digna feugue
incip et do cor init ut adip el do et ad tat. Ut endre etue velit, vel doluptate exercip sustrud ea augait dolum nis
vullumm odigna consequis esse feugait verillametue faci blan utate te dio dolum nos at, quat la feugait nim at
wis dolum dolore feu feuis dolum coreet ad tisl et aciliqu ationsent velit praessim dolorper alisl dolenissi bla facip
zzriuscidunt lore dolorting eugait ex ad dunt ut niate et la conse dolore velis eumsandipit lan esequipit ilit dolese
enis aut num dio odiam, conulluptat. nibh eraesequis augiam eugiam amet, ming eu feu facing ea amcommolut
Lor iriure core con volortisit in er si commy nullut aliquat autpat. Et, vent dit landrerostie tatue dolore te vel et
Listening Room
conulput prat lor sim augait, susto el iure
te molore
Yes, of course…
te molore
diat praesecte tat.
nisl iuscilisi.
Laor sustrud tincin.
Listening
si.
Hi-Fi From
Your Computer
Listening Room
T
he CEC brand isn’t exactly
new to us, because we have
long owned one of the Japanese company’s famed beltdriven transports. The badge on our
transport said Parasound rather than
CEC, but we knew its origin, and its performance was every bit as good as that of
any other transport we had heard.
As fate would have it, our transport
finally crumbled about the time this
converter arrived, its laser fading to
black after countless tens of thousands
of hours. For this review, therefore, we
borrowed a CEC TL51XZ player, whose
transport is just like our old one. We
have since replaced it permanently with
a TL51X transport.
But now to the DA53 converter.
It is deceptively small, looking more
like an accessory than the high end
component it is. Get a look at the back
and you may be in for a surprise. The
small rear panel is surprisingly full,
including not only coaxial but also balanced outputs. As for inputs, there are
no fewer than four: coaxial, AES/EBU
balanced, TOSLINK optical, and…oh
yes, a strangely familiar connector we
will get to in a moment.
The DA53 includes a lot of optional
settings you are unlikely to figure out
without the manual, since they are set
by alternatively pushing in the rightmost
knob (to select the option set) and then
turning it (to select the desired option).
You can choose oversampling rates from
32x to 128x (32x offers lowest distortion),
either “flat” or “soft” digital filtering,
and optional dithering. By the way, the
internal circuits operate at 195 kHz…no,
not 192 kHz. CEC says it wanted to
avoid intermodulation with incoming
data.
The front panel has a couple of other
features too. There’s a headphone jack,
though the output volume is not controllable. Oddest of all is the microphone
input, which does have a volume control.
CEC says it’s for use with a computer, in
applications such as Internet telephony.
The obvious conclusion is that the little
box has not only the digital-analog
converter you meant to buy, but also an
analog-digital converter. Don’t expect
me-too products from a company that
makes belt-driven digital transports!
We began the session using it as a
conventional DAC, connected to our
transport (it can also be plugged into
the digital output of a one-box player).
We compared its performance to that
of our Counterpoint DA-10A converter.
The settings we chose were those CEC
recommends: 32x oversampling and soft
filtering.
Our first selection was the Fantasy
on a Theme by Haydn from the Normal
Dello Joio collection of wind band music
(Klavier K11138). This CD just overflows
It could be just
another DAC…except
for the presence of
one tiny connector
with energy, from the powerful tympani
solo at the opening to the mesmerizing
brass and woodwind passages that alternate with such vigor. Our first observation: this converter certainly doesn’t lack
for potency. Like our own converter, the
DA53 pushed us back into our seats from
the very start.
We wish we could let you read the
entire article for free, but of course what
we would really like you to do is pick
up the printed issue of the magazine,
or at least the electronic edition. The
rest…well, even if you know Latin it
won’t help much.
si.
si.
diat praesecte tat.
nisl iuscilisi.
The fourth connector
si.
iure te molore.
si.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: CEC DA53
Price: C$1150/US$950
Dimensions: 21.5 x 5.8 x 29 cm
Most liked: Good value, unique
talents
Least liked: Strange interface
Verdict: Adigniam incil utpat vullandigna consectem
ueraestrud dignisit.
Listening Room
CROSSTALK
blaore do dio commod digna feugue exercip
sustrud ea augait dolum nis dolum nos at,
quat la feugait nim at praessim dolorper
alisl dolenissi bla facip eumsandipit lan
esequipit ilit dolese ming eu feu facing ea
amcommolut dit landrerostie tatue dolore
te vel et ex et la am vent vel utat ad duipit
niscil ut vulla con hendreet veriliquatum
doloreet la facilit, commy nullandrem.igna
consectem voleniam ipit prat in ut landit ad
del incin vulputet augait am, conulput prat
lor sim augait, susto el iure te molore
—Gerard Rejskind
eugiamet vulla autatio commod te facidunt
ad magnisim venissi tat ipsusci tis atet
volore cor sim enim et lorper ip enit venisci
ncilit autpatue consequate facing ea facipis
nulput nit adiat autpatuer sum niat aliquat.
Dunt dolorem in henit nos autem at alit
irilit laore commy nim zzriure mod tie
dolendreet, vel ing et, consed ero do consed
et ea faciduipis nit ipsuscilit adionsenibh er
autat, sim acilis eniatum ilis do eum iustio
eugiat nos ad dolore diat praesecte tat.
tismole stinim aute dolore vullut velis augue
augait am vel eugait, velis nisit wis nissecte
dolore delessisl irilis esed dolore vel exero
eum doluptat.
—Albert Simon
delissequat. Ut at nonsectem velenit alis
ametuero dolor senis nos eugiamcommy
nullut vel diat vero core et alisl dolore te
consent nonummo lobore min henim erit,
siscili quisi.
praestrud dolortis.
—Reine Lessard
THE UHF CLASSIFIEDS
Run your own ad in the print issue, and on our World Wide Web site for two months
NON-COMMERCIAL: $12 per slice of 40 words or less. COMMERCIAL: $24 per slice of 40 words or less.
TAXES: In most of Canada, add 7% GST. NS, NB, NF, add 15% HST. In Québec, add another 7.5% TVQ. No taxes for advertisers outside Canada.
Payment may be made by cheque, money order, or VISA or MasterCard (include number, expiry date and signature). NOTE: Because classified ad prices
are kept so low, we cannot engage in correspondence concerning ads. Fee must be paid a second time if a correction is required, unless the fault is ours.
Prices shown in Canadian dollars. THE UHF CLASSIFIEDS, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, LONGUEUIL, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4
PHONE: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383. E-MAIL: [email protected]
QUAD RESTORATION
QUAD, full restoration. Good old technology
with new high end parts. The best of both
worlds for your FM-3, 33, 303, 405, etc...
High quality interconnects DIN to DIN and
DIN to RCA also available. BIS AUDIO. Tel.:
(450)663-6137.
VECTEUR IN VANCOUVER
Cambridge Audio, TEAC, Parasound Halo,
Angstrom, James Loudspeakers, Audio
Art custom-built actively tri-amplified
loudspeakers, Richard Gray AC, cables,
stands, accessories. Custom installation
and home theater. David Elderton Audio
Video Consultant, (604)808-7394, evenings
(604)988-6666.
AUDIOMAT, VECTEUR
Creekside Audio for all your stereo/theatre
needs. Audiomat, Vecteur, Atlantis
Acoustique, Gershman and lots more!
Discover the magic in music with our fine
products. (250)-878-6252, Kelowna, BC.
www.creeksideaudio.net.
INTERCONNECTS
Tired of paying high-end price for
interconnects?! Amazing high quality trouble
free interconnects. OXYGEN FREE COPPER
OR SILVER WIRE. Best quality gold plugs or
NEW REVOLUTIONARY BULLET PLUGS.
RCA-to-RCA or RCA-to-DIN (for Quad, Naim,
etc). No more adapters. Silver soldering.
Exceptional workmanship. Standard or
custom orders. BIS AUDIO, (450)663-6137.
MUSEATEX REPAIRS
Museatex/MeitnerAudio factory service and
updates. Please check our web-site at www.
museatex.com. E-mail me at john@museatex.
com or phone (403)284-0723.
QUAD 99 PREAMP
Quad preamplifier, model 99, new in January
2002. Made in England. With remote control,
$800. (514)484-1602.
AUDIOMAT PHONO
Audiomat Phono-1 and Garrard 301 with
original arm and Shure MM cartridge. $750
for phono preamp and $400 for Garrard,
arm and cartridge. Shipping extra. Steve,
(450)671-4572.
EXPOSURE, NITTY GRITTY
Exposure 2010 CD Player, $750 (new =
$1,750 + tax); Nitty Gritty record cleaning
machine, $75. Shipping extra. In Waterloo,
Ontario, after 6:00 P.M. 519-725-7914.
CUSTOM BUILT TUBE POWER AMPS
High quality “Custom Built” vacuum tube
power amplifiers by Ideal Innovations.
Please visit our website at http://www.
idealinnovations.ca for more information, email [email protected], or phone
(519)485-6137.
W-5LE
See the review of this remarkable UHF
reference amplifier in UHF No. 70. Enough
said about the amp. But it begs the question:
why? Easy. I am investing in the Simaudio
Moon W-10 for my large, current-hungry
electrostatic panels. I am offering this “new” (1
month, not fully broken-in) W-5LE at less than
you’d pay for a standard W-5. $6300. Phone
(514)942-3789, or [email protected].
NORDOST, KIMBER, MISSION
Nordost: Blue Heaven Rev. 2 biwire speaker
cables, 6 metre pair, excellent condition,
$830; Solar Wind 0.6 m RCA interconnect,
new with original box, $60. Cardas: Golden
Reference 1m RCA interconnects, good
condition, $600. Mission: V60 2-way
bookshelf speakers, biwirable, cherry finish,
mint, original packaging, $300. Call (604)7102207, e-mail [email protected].
COPLAND, SIMAUDIO
Own your own UHF reference! Copland
CTA-305 (phono and remote), as new and
less than a year old: $2000 firm. Moon W5, purchased in 2000, black chassis, silver
faceplate: $2800 firm. Celeste 4070, mint:
$700. (905)297-0364 or burekp@mcmaster.
ca.
YBA AMPLIFIER
For sale YBA 2HCDT (Alpha, Blue) Amp,
excellent condition, have original box and
manual. Bought as demo unit (15/12/2000),
coNverted it to DT Dec 2003. Please
e-mail me if you want some pictures.
Worth new $6695. Selling for $2850.00.
[email protected] (613) 446-6988.
SANSUI, YAMAHA, SAE, ETC.
Several pieces for sale, including-Sansui
BA5000 amplifier, Yamaha P2250 amplifier,
SAE 310 amplifier, SAE 2800 parametric
EQ, DBX 503 dynamic range expander, DBX
200 & 200x route selector, TEAC C-2 tape
deck with DBX 222 noise reduction, JVC
KD-95 tape deck w/ANRS, Bryston preamp,
Hammond 19” rack (5’0), pair of Infinity RS3a
speakers. All in good condition, may require
tune-up. Make offer. Chris, phone (905)6251506. email [email protected].
3a MM WANTED
A pair of older 3A MM speakers. (416)8796667.
LINN SUBWOOFER
Linn Afekt subwoofer. Original owner, 13
months old. Colour is black. Quarter inch
dent on top corner. Photos can be e-mailed.
Selling for $875 Cdn. plus shipping. Contact
Mark: [email protected].
Gershman
Acoustic Panels
Listening Room
T
h i s i s n’t t he f i r st t i me
G er s h m a n A c ou s t ic s —
known for its large and often
impressive speakers — has
offered acoustic materials. Its previous
effort consisted of a sculpted 3-D foam
piece that reminded us of Sonex, that
adhesive foam tile that garage studios
buy when they’re ready to move up from
fibre egg cartons. Such tiles can certainly
be useful, but they need to be used with
the most extreme care. Any acoustical
absorber is designed to work at a particular band of frequencies. Use a lot of it,
and you get a tremendous suckout in that
band, but no absorption at all at other
frequencies. Rooms with large amounts
of such treatment will exhibit an odd
“filtered” sound, and they can even ring
like an empty oil barrel.
Nor is that the only problem, though
it is bad enough. You’ve heard of the
dreaded Wife Acceptance Factor? Most
acoustic devices have a WFA of well
below zero not even counting wind
chill. To add to the bleakness, a number
of these things don’t actually work, but
hey what do you expect for the mere
thousand dollars a set of these wretched
things can cost?
Enter the Gershman Acoustic Art
panels. Their first innovation is that they
don’t look out of place in a normal living
room. They wouldn’t be mistaken for
paintings, but we’ve seen products that
looks like them in the sort of furniture
stores that hire interior decorators with
European accents. The face cloths are
attractive, with several versions available. Indeed, you can send along your
own cloth if none of Gershman’s appeal
to you.
The one shown above with tigers,
giraffes and pronghorns (animals which
live on three different continents, by the
way) is clearly made for horizontal use,
and it includes a little loop for hanging it
that way. The abstract panel has a picture
hook for vertical hanging. We think it
Does making your
listening room sound
better mean making
it look worse?
Perhaps not…
would make more sense to include hooks
or loops for both orientations. We should
add that, in most installations, vertical
orientation makes more sense. And that
is the way we used them.
You no doubt already know that
careful placement of loudspeakers can
make a huge difference to the sound they
produce, and it will come as no surprise
that careful placing of these panels is
every bit as important. Initially we had
placed them behind the speakers of our
Omega system, resting on the floor.
They were too low that way, and they
performed well below their potential.
With a little experimentation we found
they gave far better results when we
raised them up about 40 cm, so they
stuck up slightly above our Reference 3a
Suprema speakers, which are 126 cm tall.
In your own room a different placement
may be indicated, and we recommend
you experiment.
It may be useful to explain why we
placed them behind the speakers.
What is most important in improving
room acoustics is reducing early reflections, meaning those that originate from
surfaces close to the speakers themselves.
That is because the reflection from a
nearby hard surface can be nearly as
loud as the direct sound. Not only does
this mess up directionality (your ear will
identify the source as being part way
between speaker and reflecting surface),
but the reflected sound will arrive at
your ear slightly later. This is of little
consequence with the long wavelengths
of low frequencies, but it is disastrous
in the highs. A common result is that
some of the bounced sound will augment
the intensity of the direct sound, and
some will cancel it. Since this effect is
frequency-dependent, you wind up with
a frequency response curve that looks
like the teeth of a comb.
The floor is one obvious source of
early reflections, which is why a heavy
carpet in front of the speaker (not necessarily under it) can help. The other key
surfaces are the back wall, especially
if the speakers are not pulled very far
into the room, and the side walls if they
are close to the speakers. In our case
the speakers are angled into the room,
with no side walls nearby. The place for
the panels was clearly the back wall. In
Nullaortie dolorpe rostis nim numsan utem er ad tie deliquipit eumsan eu
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Gershman Acoustic
Art panels
Price: C$245 (equiv. US$198)
Dimensions: 91 x 61 x 11 cm
Most liked: Attractive and effective
Least liked: Nullaortie dolorpe rostis
Verdict: Dui ea corem aci te facin
heniscil ullaor ipit aliquam, volummolor iure magnis nisim.
henibh ex euisi.
zzriure mod tie dolendreet, vel ing et,
consed ero do consed et ea faciduipis
nit ipsuscilit adionsenibh er autat, sim
acilis eniatum ilis do eum iustio eugiat
nos ad dolore diat praesecte tat.
nisl iuscilisi.
CROSSTALK
utem vel iril ulla feum vulla cortionulla consequis dolobortie minit, sequam aciliquis
nim quis eui blam, consequisi eratie tie te
dolorper ing ea feugait num incin hendiamcon ex ercilit ad dipit iriustie dolesto odo
odipit la adignibh ea feu facip et augue min
eumsan ulla aut utpat ip ent volore elesto do
odolobo rtisim iriure veraesting erillan essectem dignim velismod dip eugiate eugait
la at, con ulla feugue facipis et alismodolor
si. Os dolute mod et lorerostrud mincilit
dit prat accummod tis eugue faccumsandre
mod dit prat nummolo rercipit lore faccummy nismolese consed enibh.
esent vel irit et atem dio ercilit lore delissequat. Ut at nonsectem velenit alis ametuero
dolor senis nos eugiamcommy nullut vel
diat vero core et alisl dolore te consent nonummo lobore min henim erit, siscili quisi.
—Albert Simon
praestrud dolortisit nonsed magnim quatet
lobore vel irit, quat.
feummy nis nulla consequat, quam am quis
aliquatummy nisl.
—Gerard Rejskind
ea facipit incidunt ad ea augait nim ipisi tismole stinim aute dolore vullut velis augue
augait am vel eugait.
—Reine Lessard
some installations four panels will be
called for. It’s not wise to use more than
three or four, for the reasons already
mentioned.
We should add that there is no point
at all in putting them behind the listening position, unless of course you are
running surround sound. You could put
glass tiles back there for all it matters,
and unless your living room is the size
of Notre Dame Cathedral you won’t hear
the difference.
The panels aren’t heavy, and so it
was easy to install and uninstall them
so we could make quick comparisons.
We selected two recordings, one LP,
one SACD, figuring we would need to
go back and forth more than once. We
were right.
The Battle for
the Next DVD
Listening Room
Y
ou’ve owned a DVD player
since…oh, maybe 1999 (before
that players were “shipping,”
but Heaven only k nows
where they were shipping to). Over
the past six years you’ve bought a
second, perhaps a third, player and
you’ve picked up between 100 and
600 DVDs. You’re set for many
years of movie enjoyment, or are
you?
Well, no. If you have a real home
theatre system you’ve picked up a
widescreen HDTV monitor, and it
sure makes films look great, but you’re
aware that a DVD has a quarter, or
perhaps a sixth, of the resolution your
expensive set can reproduce. The digital
cassette (D-VHS) may have whetted
your appetite, but you’ve long known
that there would be a high-res movie
format with the same form factor as the
original CD and the DVD itself.
And if you follow the digital debates,
you have also known that the familiar red
laser that powers digital players would
give way to a blue laser. The blue laser
would give us sharper movies, and also
better digital audio. Mission accomplished…but not so fast!
Blu-Ray and the blue laser
Why is blue better? Very simply, blue
light has a shorter wavelength than red
light. The shorter its wavelength, the
finer the details it can illuminate and that
we can therefore see. Wavelength is an
important physical limit. For instance,
viruses cannot be seen under the most
powerful optical microscope because
they are smaller than the wavelength of
visible light. We can photograph them
only by illuminating them with a stream
of electrons.
Making a blue laser has been an
extraordinarily difficult task. Early
prototypes could function only when
cooled to a temperature approaching
absolute zero (-273°C)! Only recently
has it been possible to make a blue
(actually blue-violet) laser that operates
under real-world conditions. That laser
is at the heart of the Blu-Ray disc, but
also its main competitor.
Infrared laser (CD) 780 nm
Red laser (DVD) 650 nm
Blue-violet laser (Blu-Ray/HD-DVD) 405 nm
The diagram above shows the wavelengths (expressed in nanometers, or
billionths of a meter) of the various
digital formats. Note that the laser used
for Compact Discs is actually infrared,
Will it be Beta or
VHS? No, sorry, we
mean…
with a wavelength longer than that of
visible light, and not red.
The blue laser is about as good as it
will be practical to get. Beyond violet
lies ultraviolet. You know what UV
can do to your skin and to your eyes,
and it would do the same to the disc.
Even the blue laser imposes major
technical requirements on the
hardware and the disc itself. The
Blu-Ray player requires a double
lens to make the aperture small
enough to resolve the very fine detail
the disc contains. As for the disc itself,
it will be difficult to manufacture, which
suggests a high reject rate and therefore a
high price. And it will be fragile, its very
fine information easily obscured by even
minor scuffing.
Do we have your interest? The complete text can be found in our print and
electronic editions.
si.
w isl eug uer iu re dolen ibh exer il it
utem er ad tie deliquipit eumsan eu
Dui ea corem aci te facin heniscil
ullaor ipit aliquam, volummolor iure
henibh ex euisi.
diat praesecte tat.
nisl iuscilisi.
High Definition DVD
si.
quatet lobore vel irit,
quat.
te molore.
si.
dolortisl ulput vent velis nulput ip
elisis ad tat. Ut endre etue velit, vel
doluptate verillametue faci blan utate
te dio coreet ad tisl et aciliqu ationsent
velit ad dunt ut niate et la conse dolore
diat praesecte tat.
It’s no secret that “content providers” (the big producers of recordings and nisl iuscilisi.
movies) are a little touchy about giving us so much as a peek at their creations Umsan hent aute magna conulla
unless we reach into our wallets first. When Sony launched its Betamax recorder oreet, quisl ero od dolenibh eu faccummy
all those years ago, Hollywood went to court to kill it, arguing its purpose was nulla augait am vel eugait, velis nisit
copyright violation. If the suit had succeeded, some of those studios would today wis nissecte dolore delessisl irilis esed
be out of business. So what has Hollywood learned?
To be sure, videocassettes were and are copy-protected with a Macrovision Laor sustrud tincin ulput wisl dolor
system that makes images roll unsteadily in copies. But if often fails to work, and incip et do cor init ut adip el do et
in any case the inexpensive “video stabilizers” sold for many years will filter out vullumm odigna consequis esse feugait
the protection.
The industry went for a more robust system with DVD. The Content Scrambling zzriuscidunt lore dolorting eugait ex
System (CSS) allows the data to be recorded out of sequence, to be put back into enis aut num dio odiam, conulluptat.
sequence through the use of a software “key.” The key is provided to manufac- Lor iriure core con volortisit in er si
turers of DVD players, and also — this would turn out to be important — to the blaore do dio commod digna feugue
programmers of software that let DVDs be played on computers.
Trouble is, there are some 400 companies that have keys. Imagine you had a dolum nos at.
big lock on your house, but you had to make hundreds of copies for people who
needed access. How long would it be before a key was misplaced and your home Copy protection
got cleaned out?
Legend has it that a Norwegian teenager named Jon Johansen was trying to write Duis ea facipit incidunt ad ea augait nim
a software player for his Linux-based computer. He examined a Windows player to ipisi tismole stinim aute dolore vullut
see how it worked, and discovered that the programmer had forgotten to encrypt velis augue te faccum zzrilis molorem
the key. “DVD Jon,” as he is known today, was arrested, tried, and acquitted. In nisl iuscilisi.
fact he did not do the work alone, and may not even have been the first to spot the Umsan hent aute magna conulla
weakness in CSS. The result, however, was an open source program called DeCSS. oreet, quisl ero od dolenibh eu faccummy
Hollywood for a while was suing the operators of any Web site carrying DeCSS, or nulla augait am vel eugait, velis nisit
even sites mentioning where it could be obtained. Today, at least 20 DVD cloning wis nissecte dolore delessisl irilis esed
programs are available, a number of them free.
Though Johansen and his collaborators really may have found a key that had Laor sustrud tincin ulput wisl dolor
been left in plain sight, DVD Jon himself points out that CSS was never as robust incip et do cor init ut adip el do et
as the industry claimed. The famous keys are only five bytes long. And at least one vullumm odigna consequis esse feugait
of the versions of a program to crack CSS was so short its author was able to write wis dolum dolore feu feuis dolum
it on a Post-It note.
velis nibh eraesequis augiam eugiam ipsum eugue feummolore doloborem Lor iriure core con volortisit in er si
amet, commy nullut aliquat autpat. vullam dolummy nim quismodit iliquat blaore do dio commod digna feugue
Et, vent praestrud dolortisit nonsed ueraestrud dignisit, sumsan henisi.
magnim quatet lobore vel irit, quat.
Im dolum dionse dignit nonsenim dolum nos at, quat la feugait nim at
Nullaortie dolorpe rostis nim dionsed et numsan henibh ea at praessim dolorper alisl dolenissi bla facip
numsan utem er ad tie deliquipit lametuer init at nullaore dip enis dolute eumsandipit lan esequipit ilit dolese
eumsan eu feu feummy nis nulla volut do eugiamet vulla autatio commod ming eu feu facing ea amcommolut
consequat, quam am quis aliquatummy te facidunt ad magnisim venissi tat dit landrerostie tatue dolore te vel et
nisl etum iril er sustrud et ad enis ipsusci tis atet volore cor sim enim et ex et la am vent vel utat ad duipit niscil
dolutet nonsequat. Dui ea corem aci lorper ip enit venisci ncilit autpatue ut vulla con hendreet veriliquatum
te facin heniscil ullaor ipit aliquam, consequate facing ea facipis nulput nit deliquipit lobore tationse feum dit adiat
volummolor iure magnis nisim dolor adiat autpatuer sum niat aliquat. Dunt atum volore et utatie dunt atum del in
sectem iure tat ipis nosto consed tat dolorem in henit nos autem at alit volor auguerat, vel ut ercipismod dolore
augue dolobor sumsan henibh ex euisi. irilit laore commy nim zzriure mod doloreet la facilit, commy nullandrem
Agnim erat adigna autatum zzrilit tie dolendreet, vel ing et, consed ero num vulla faccum zzrit ad tem zzriusc
wisl eugueriure dolenibh exerilit do consed et ea faciduipis nit ipsuscilit iliquis sectet aliquatetum nullutpat. Os
Copy Protection:
Listening Room
How Hollywood Lost the Keys
te molore.
tismole stinim aute dolore vullut velis
augue te faccum zzrilis molorem nisl
iuscilisi.
enis aut num dio odiam, conulluptat. Lor
iriure core con volortisit in er si blaore
do dio commod digna feugue exercip
sustrud ea augait dolum nis dolum nos at,
quat la feugait nim at praessim dolorper
alisl dolenissi bla facip eumsandipit lan
esequipit ilit dolese ming eu feu facing
veriliquatum deliquipit lobo.
Desiderata
It mea ns “t hat wh ich is to be
desired.”
si.
numsan utem er ad tie deliquipit eumsan
eu feu feummy nis nulla consequat,
quam.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 55 Cinema
A possible compromise?
diat praesecte tat.
nisl iuscilisi.
Agnim erat adigna autatum zzrilit wisl
eugueriure dolenibh exerilit ipsum
dolummy nim quismodit iliquat
diat praesecte tat.
Software
Music and the mind
E
ver l isten to a record i ng
and feel your throat getting
tight, your eyes getting moist?
Ever feel moved to your very
innards, feeling chills up and down your
spine, or the hairs rising on your arms,
your heartbeat accelerating? Ever get
caught up by a wave of joy, and feel the
urge to move, to dance?
Did you ever wonder how simple
vibrations of the air can produce psychological, physiological, emotional and
æsthetic effects so troubling in their
intensity? But what is musical perception? Is there a scientific explanation for
what often seems like nothing less than
a miracle?
Since Antiquity, great minds have
continued tirelessly to ask these questions, and modern scientists continue an
intensive search for answers. The brain
being the seat of the emotions as much
as that of all activity, we seek to know the
role that it and the ear itself play in the
fabulous adventure that is enjoyment of
music. What paths does the language of
music follow to arouse our imagination,
communicate images, retrieve memories, make us nostalgic, stimulate us to
prayer, provoke reflexes, set off agitation,
intensify feelings of revolt, accentuate
loneliness, calm anguish, give us rest,
drive us to expressions of affection or
love?
While we await definitive answers, I
shall attempt to lift at least a corner of
the veil.
The biological function
Music is universal. It is found in all
societies without regard to sociological,
religious or cultural differences. All
religions have recognized the power of
music on the mind, and their leaders
by Reine Lessard
have had the wisdom to use that power
to draw in the greatest possible number
of followers.
The exceptions are few. It seems
that only the Taliban of Afghanistan
actually banned all music for a time.
As in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, where the
Khmer Rouge planned and executed
the destruction of all culture, including
music, the Taliban undertook the forced
Islamisation of society by banning not
only theatre, movies and television, but
also musical instruments and recordings. Over a decade Afghans all but
forgot their musical roots, and only a
few surviving artists, such as classical
singer Najibullah, remained to keep
the tradition alive. And yet, a few musicians did continue, even without their
instruments, to continue their musical
pusuits.
In the West, music has long been
classed as a form of entertainment, and
as a cultural vocation, the fruit of long
training. We now know that it is more:
it is a biological imperative. From birth
and even before, human beings respond
to music as they do to affection. Our
brains have zones dedicated to specific
forms of activity, including the perception of music. More than that, there is
a neurological network directly tied to
emotions arising from music. But in
rare exceptions, the elements that are
the basis of the very understanding of
music are innate. They can only be
developed.
Indeed, even those who have never
studied music are able to listen to it and
recognize certain characteristics, to be
more or less moved by it, to learn melodies and rhythms, and to choose one or
more preferred styles. For example, we
may have known people who fell in love
with opera because in their childhood
they were exposed to and fascinated
by operatic music. How many, without
musical preparation, have become fans
of New Age music, with its invitation to
introspection, meditation and oneness
with nature? How many have adopted
the Blues after hearing one evening
this music, which can be so joyous or
tremendously sad, but which always
reaches to the most vulnerable depths
of our being?
Of course even elementary music
An asset of infinite value
It is common to associate feelings
with the heart. “I was heartbroken,” one
will say, hand placed over the organ in
question, or “the show was so wonderful
it did my heart good.” The image is an
attractive one, but despite the subjective
impression that the heart is the physical
seat of our emotions, in fact it is to the
brain that we must look. This double
organ, with its two hemispheres playing different roles, is the true home of
not only what we think, but also what
we feel. This rather unattractive ovoid
mass, often referred to with a point of
irony as “grey matter,” is composed of
billions of cells. The best-known of these
specialized cells are the neurons, with
their almost incredible million billion
interconnections. A single neuron can
connect 50,000 different ways!
The brain’s need for energy and
oxygen is prodigious, for is it not our
most vascular organ, with the greatest
density of blood vessels? It is also the
most complex. It has not given up all its
secrets, despite the mad progress of science over the past two decades. However,
through spectacular advances in medical
imagery (PET Scan, Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance, etc.) researchers have been
able to map certain functions to given
sections of the brain. One researcher has
compared the brain to a busy building
seen at night. You see windows light up
and go dark, for longer and shorter periods of time, separately or in harmony,
and you try to guess what the residents
are up to. You become a voyeur, watching a mysterious but fascinating process,
gazing into a “building” that is opaque
to the view of most.
The brain works day and night, even
when we sleep, and neurons that are not
kept constantly busy can shut down. If
we are always busy with the same activi-
ties, we use probably no more than
30% to 40% of our neurons. What
happens to the others? They go to
sleep.
It is, thus, up to us to keep them
active by varying our occupations. Interestingly enough,
different parts of our brain are
used whether we read silently
or aloud, or we exercise physically, or we perform mathematical operations, or we
occupy ourselves with art, or
talk, or listen to instrumental
music or songs.
And here’s something else interesting. Our emotional response
to music does not depend on
the same part of the brain as the
cognition of music. The perception of
music is said to depend on the right
hemisphere of our brain (the
emotional side), whereas the
musical analysis depends on
the left brain (rational).
I should add that some
neurologists find the
left brain-right brain
analysis simplistic.
More surprisingly,
our musical preferences affect parts of
the brain which are also affected by
pleasure, sadness, or even fear.
Music without sound
The brain does not depend on actual
sound waves to perceive music. You can,
of course, sing to yourself silently. I’ve
read the touching case of an adolescent who became deaf overnight. He had had
some lessons, enough at least to be able
to read music. Plunged into this world
of silence, he discovered in a bookstore
a collection of popular songs. He found
himself singing them within his mind,
and it was like a miracle. It was then he
realized the power of music, and how
indispensable it is to life.
Though there is much we still don’t
know about the relation between hearing
and the musical brain, we have made
interesting discoveries. When you hum a
tune you activate a distinct section of the
auditory cortex. If you play a recording
of the same tune, you activate the same
portion of your brain. But if you have
forgotten the melody and you search
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 57 Software
lessons bring advantages. It is established, for instance, that children who
study music develop better memory
for all things. A French researcher,
Daniel Pressnitzer, says that some
parts of our brains work harder
when we listen to music, though for
the moment we don’t know why.
“There are theories,” he says,
“according to which the part
of the brain which processes
speech can have a direct relation
to music. For example, we took
part in an experiment in which
someone played very simple notes.
By imaging the brain with a PET
scan, which enabled us to see which
parts of the brain were functioning,
we noted that there were well-defined
places which reacted to musical intensity,
which are related to the parts of the brain
which also process words. One can
thus consider that there is common
ground between the sounds of
the environment and ‘musical’ noises. All is mixed in
the brain, and functions
in a very interconnected
way.”
In short, there is such
an infinity of elements connected to
hearing that much more research will
be needed to arrive at final conclusions.
But let us leave the research behind, and
consider the relations among brain, ear
and music, and also between music and
our emotions.
Software
your memory for it, you use a different
part of your brain. In the first two cases,
you are using the paralymbic system,
associated with the emotions. Note that
you use the same part of your brain to
listen to or to imagine a melody. Truly, the
mind doesn’t depend on sound waves to
“hear” sounds.
Illuminating examples can be found
in the lives of certain musicians.
The great Czech composer Bedrich
Smetana (1824-1884) had long planned
to create an ambitious symphonic cycle
to be titled Ma Vlast, or “My Country.”
He was always putting off its creation,
busy as he was with his numerous posts,
including that of director of the Prague
National Theatre.
And then, like the adolescent in my
earlier example, he became deaf nearly
from one day to the next. He was just
30. His tragedy was accentuated by
the treason of his “friends,” who took
advantage of his sudden infirmity to get
him dismissed from all of his posts, to
their own advantage of course. Angry
and dejected, Smetana prepared to throw
himself into the Moldau river. It was at
this critical moment that he remembered
his planned masterpiece, and, fortunately for us, turned once again toward
life.
During this difficult period, he created not only this symphonic cycle of
imperishable beauty, but also a quartet
and some operas, some of which are still
produced today. And I must underline
again: he was stone deaf.
Well before him came Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827), who wrote several of his finest symphonies after he had
suffered the same infirmity. He would
perceive melodies in his mind, and in
order to sense their rhythm he cut short
the legs of his piano and sat on the floor,
resting his head against it as he played.
His last words, according to historians, were, “In Heaven, I shall hear
again.”
The human ear
What distinguishes music from all
other sounds depends on the characteristics of human hearing. So here we are: it
is in the ear that vibrations in the form of
changes in air pressure are transformed
into nerve impulses. This organ of hearing, like the brain itself, is as complex as
it is fragile. Its great sensitivity allows
it to process an incredible palette of
sound vibrations. At the same time it
must be protected against sounds that
can damage it, and particularly excessive
sound pressure levels.
Can music exist without the ear? Of
course it can, as we’ve just established
by examining the cases of Beethoven
and Smetana. If a tree falls in the forest
where there is no one to hear it…yes, it
does make a sound. But making a sound
is one thing, hearing it is another. If it is
not perceived, it cannot move us.
When it comes to emotions resulting
from exterior stimuli, the ear is even
more important than the eye. But, you
may ask, can’t we be as moved by what
we see as by what we hear? I don’t think
so. We may be horrified by images, for
instance, of concentration victims, or
of those in Sierra Leone who had limbs
sliced off with a machete. Now imagine
hearing their cries!
Where I live, in Quebec, in 1998
there was a catastrophic ice storm. The
long icicles were horrifying to see, and
were the subject of more than one book,
but more impressive than the books and
the pictures, I thought, was a recording
I heard of tree branches crashing down,
one after the other.
Indeed, try watching a film with the
sound turned off, and you’ll see that the
image alone is not enough to engage
you. This is so evident that, in the age
of silent movies, it was common to hire
one or more musicians to play along
with the film and buttress the impact
of the image. In our own day, any filmmaker will turn to a favorite composer
to produce a musical score that can, in
one fashion or another, touch the spectators.
Film music is especially effective,
since it can communicate in mere seconds what cannot be told otherwise.
Music can announce tragedy, it can highlight the frenzy of a chase, it can plunge
you into the depths of anguish — check
out Alfred Hitchcock’s best films — it
can pump up emotion, which it to say it
makes the big screen seem larger, and it
replaces the words that are unspoken.
If you’ve seen Michael Moore’s
Fahrenheit 9/11, you’ll no doubt recall his
depiction of the September 11th tragedy:
the screen is dark, and you hear only the
sounds of the plans zooming overhead,
the explosions as they strike the World
Trade Centre, and the cries of horror.
No depiction of the event has ever
seemed so striking and hideous.
Of course a silence, by its very contrast, can also carry emotion.
During a film’s closing credits, it is
the music that can reconcile you with
the most troubling scenes, and even help
you absorb and inhabit the most tragic
elements. In Kenneth Branagh’s version
of Henry V, during the credits we see
the king’s soldiers realize that victory
is theirs in the battle of Agincourt. One
of the soldiers begins singing the Te
Deum, and it is gradually picked up by
the others, in counterpoint, letting the
spectator share the victors’ gratitude and
their irrepressible joy in the triumph. We
are with them.
Music and emotion
Speaking of emotion, Shakespeare,
in The Merchant of Venice, warns:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet
sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted
One shouldn’t jump to the opposite
conclusion, that, as says the proverb,
music soothes the savage breast, nor that
it necessarily makes us better human
beings. Dictators, tyrants, torturers
and criminals are as apt as anyone else
to melt before a Chopin Nocturne, or
to relax with Mozart after a hard day
at the concentration camp. I still recall
one evening a pair of “music lovers”
outraged by a handicapped concertgoer
who dared inconvenience them with his
wheelchair!
Emotion plays an immense role in
our lives. Our emotional state can and
does influence the decisions we take. Not
without reason do we now speak not only
of IQ but also of AQ, which stands for
Affective Quotient.
It is the composer’s role to give his
music the characteristics that will provoke well-defined emotional reactions.
The intentions are often stated in words
at the top of a score.
There is, first of all, the key in which
the music is principally to be played or
sung. In modern Occidental practice,
music is in one of two modes: the major
or “hard” mode (the key of C) and the
minor or “soft” mode (the key of A).
The key selected will place the listener
in a particular atmosphere, which may
be joyous or sad. For example, nearly all
of Chopin’s music was written in minor
mode, which explains the subtle but
irresistible melancholy that characterizes
it. He did of course use major keys as
well. Listen to the Mazurka op.68 No. 1
in C Major, the first Impromptu op.29 in
A Flat Major, and his Grande Polonaise in
E Flat Major.
But then you may be surprised to
A new line
of cables and
loudspeakers
Made in Canada
Dealer inquiries
invited
Distributed by
OZ Enterprises
[email protected]
613-222-2685
hear the major and minor modes used
in the same work. Beethoven’s Symphony
No. 5, which opens in C Minor, bursts
out, in the fourth movement, into a C
Major finale for trumpets, percussion
and orchestra, evoking the triumph
of humanity over adversity. I can also
recommend his Sonata No. 24 op.78 as
well as the Sonata No. 27, which begin
in a minor key but end in the major
mode. Listen also to the Trio in G Major
op.9 No. 1, or to the overture to Egmont,
which opens in F Minor but ends in
major mode. Mozart often alternated
between the two modes. His Sonata in
G Major-Minor K379 is an example.
Countless composers, among the
most admired, have used what is known
as a modulation from one key to the other
within a work. Within a piece written
in a major key, a simple minor note
sprinkled here and there is enough to be
momentarily troubling. You don’t need
to be an expert to spot it.
Rhythm is an important ingredient
of music, and some listeners are drawn
to rhythm sometimes to the exclusion
of melody. Rhythms are often borrowed
Music and the child
There’s a stunning discovery that
has emerged from recent research in
neuropsychology: it is believed that there
is, in the brain of a newborn, a pre-programmed neural network dedicated to the
hearing of music. Which brings us to a
discussion of the unborn foetus. Can the
foetus hear sounds, voices, and musical
notes?
It is of course by hearing and not by
vision that the unborn child makes its
first contact with the outside world. The
ear begins to form around the 10th week
of gestation. From the fourth month, he
can perceive his mother’s breathing and
heartbeat. When his mother speaks or
sings he perceives the lower frequencies,
though the highs are absorbed. By then,
the foetus can already react to a musical
stimulus from the world beyond, and his
musical combination has begun.
During the first years of her life, the
child will need contact with her parents.
Holding a baby in one’s arms, rocking
her, walking with her and talking, or
crooning a melody, these are all recommended ways to give her a favorable
loving climate. Remembering the sounds
she heard as a foetus, she will respond by
gurgling or chirping if she hears a tune
she recognizes. One shouldn’t be afraid
of exposing a baby to music, especially
music that is calming rather than aggressive.
I know a choral director who, in the
first months of life, would fall asleep to
the sound of music by Bach, Beethoven
and Mozart. Once she could express a
preference she opted for Mozart. Many
years later, as part of a doctoral entrance
exam she was asked to conduct a movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. She
was able to do it without a score!
Mozart may well be preferred by
young children over Stravinsky, say, or
Vivaldi. Still, one shouldn’t underestimate the importance of children’s songs
and lullabies, all of which carry their own
emotion.
Software
from diverse cultures, and may be syncopated, agitated or fluid, each producing
its own irresistible effect.
Music and therapy
Across thousands of years in all
historical eras, music has demonstrated
not only its power of attraction but
also its power of healing. Its role can
be found in legend. Think of Orfeo,
the eponymous hero of the opera of
Monteverdi (1567-1643), whose lyre
bewitches the trees and stones, and so
moves the wild beasts that they follow
him. And who has not heard the story
of Saul who, suffering from acute stress,
was calmed by the sound of David’s lute?
Or that of the prince who would ask his
court musician to play soothing music
to help him sleep? Then there were the
musicians of ancient Greece who would
seek melodies to change the moods of
those who heard them. They were the
first musicotherapists.
However it took centuries, to the
time of the First World War, for musicotherapy to appear in the West. Music
was then used to bring psychiatric aid to
soldiers returning from the front, often
grievously wounded in body and spirit.
It is now generally accepted that
music and the human body are inseparably linked, and scientists have more and
more to say about the influence of music
on the mind and on behavior, and also
on music’s curative properties. Musicians
know it too. In a recent interview, Sting
talked about what happens when you
listen to music you like: your brain is
influenced chemically, and the chemical
change alters your behavior, and makes
you feel happy. And cellist Yo Yo Ma,
discussing the power of music in therapy,
expressed the opinion that healing is
the very sense of music. At a Montreal
convention on palliative care last year,
music was proposed as a precious tool
of communication for both the patient
and those caring for him, as well as a
distraction from suffering.
Music is a formidable psychiatric
tool, allowing a patient to escape for a
while from cares and worries, and from
the unpleasantness of the environment.
Listening to music has an instantaneous
effect on breathing and heartbeat. It can
help forgotten traumas to re-emerge and
be reexamined in a new light, offering a
better hope for healing than drugs can.
Gerontologists employ music to help
the aged who suffer from poor memory
and concentration, and more recently in
the hope of aiding those suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease. The first experiments are encouraging. If music is not a
cure, it may be able to slow deterioration,
and at the very least to reduce the isolation of sufferers.
Music and sound are now used in
pre-anesthesia, or to help those who have
reactions to certain types of anesthesia.
Expectant women are exposed to music
to prepare them for delivery, especially
in the case of natural childbirth.
Music can improve the socio-affective behavior of the autistic, and build
their confidence in themselves.
Who can be a musicotherapist?
She will have a good basic knowledge
of musical theory, be able to play an
instrument, have broad musical experience and a sense of rhythm, as well as
a certain knowledge of medicine and
curative pedagogy. The patient, on the
Software
other hand, needs no special musical
containing Romeo’s poignantly lyrical
knowledge to benefit from the therapy,
song without words to his beloved, and
and can even be completely ignorant
her passionate response. Then there
of music. That no doubt explains the
are the boozy and libertine scenes in
popularity of music as a tool by not only
Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, evoking
psychotherapists but also physiotheranights of love finer than daylight, on
pists. Many hospitals have departments
a melody of consummate sensuality.
in which music is used for its curative
I end with Orff’s Carmina Burana (see
power, often in conjunction with
Software Reviews in this issue). Its third
other techniques.
section includes poems of irresistible
And I wouldn’t want to forget the
eroticism exacerbated by the accompaproliferation of clinics using music in
nying music, with titles such as Si puer
therapy based on mastery of the body,
cum puellula… “If a boy with a girl…”
including breathing and internal ten In the middle of the last century,
sion. These clinics produce boatloads
sexuality found a powerful vehicle in
of CDs offering relaxation techniques,
rock’n’roll. It can be said to have begun
energetic healing, guided meditation and
with Chuck Berry, one of Rhythm
more. This new vogue may be helpful,
& Blues’ best-known composers and
since the effect of music on one’s emoperformers, who holds the prize for
tions is entirely personal. Sublime music
his daring. Following in his steps,
may fill your heart, other music may calm
the first white singer whose music
pain or anxiety, yet other music may
was so boldly erotic was of
stimulate contact with your inner self,
course Elvis. The suggestive
or encourage prayer, or extroversion, or
lyrics, the incisive rhythms
singing and dancing, or erotic activity.
and provocative hip gyrations
Music gets soldiers marching. And we But is it true that it is the music that moved popular music into frankly sexual
have all had the experience of feeling fans the flames of eroticism or violence, territory. It took little time for the Elvis
lightened, more serene, refreshed, after or on the contrary is such music selected Presley revolution to circle the globe. It
hearing music we especially like.
by those who tendencies already run to continues today.
There seems to be a consensus on sex or to violence? Are you more likely to Of course other names have joined
the effects of certain music. For many, pick up a weapon after hearing gangsta those of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley.
the music of Bach elevates the spirit, rap, or to troll the singles bars after a diet The sexy David Bowie offered music that
was therapeutic for those marginalized
promoting balance, comfort and love. of love songs?
Many choose Mozart for the seeming It seems doubtful that the music by their life choices. There were the
simplicity of his music, which conceals itself is a cause of violence, but certain flamboyant Boy George, the hypergreat depth. Chopin would seem the rhythms can perhaps increase aggressiv- erotic Madonna, the exuberant Prince,
perfect partner for certain moods. You ity, as can certain lyrics. The words of a the king of pop Michael Jackson, “the
may be delighted by music set to poetry song won’t have the same effect if they voice” Janis Joplin, Donna Summer,
that particularly touches you. A nd are shouted rather than crooned. And Samantha Fox, and the explicitly steamy
there is music to suit special occasions: violence and hate are common themes Brittany Spears. They were and are
birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and in much hip hop.
among the artists whose music is so
other holidays.
As for erotic music, it has long been connected with hedonism. For some
We now have an electronic edition,
costing
much
less than
the full would
printed version,
and it
comes to
with
us. The
ancient
troubadours
fans, sexual
fantasies
areyou
closely linked
faster.
Order
it
at
Music, violence and hedonism
tour, from castle to town square, to sing to their music.
https://www.uhfmag.com/electronic.html
Considering the immense seductive
their tales designed to enflame passions. But then it has long been known that
power of orchestral, vocal or rhythmic Certain madrigals fairly drip with amo- certain airs, rhythms or arrangements
music, it is inevitable that it should be rous desire, such as Monteverdi’s Lettera have the power to liberate unsuspected
closely tied to sensuality. Bawdy dances amorosa from the Lamento della Ninfa. forces and uncontrollable passions,
have always existed, including in the Paolo and his illicit lover Francesca are whatever they may be.
traditional societies of the Orient, the characters from Dante’s Inferno who Music is life. For some it is the other
Middle East, Africa and the Americas, inspired Tchaikovsky to compose his way around: life is music, for life without
but the modern commercialization of symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini. music would be long and wearisome. In
music has played a role in sexual eman- The two lovers rise to a paroxysm of our technological age, the music just
cipation. Taboos have fallen, and com- passion, before being thrown into the right for one’s state of mind can be at
posers, artists, critics and music lovers Lake of Fire in a particularly terrifying hand.
themselves are aware of music’s sexual conclusion. Tchaikovsky also wrote an Members of the iPod generation, take
power. Violent power too, of course.
overture-fantasy on Romeo and Juliet, note!
Yes, this issue can be read complete on line
Software Reviews
Beethoven: Symph. 5 & 6
Bruno Weil & Tafelmusik
Analekta AN 2 9891
he works regularly at a Baroque summer
festival in Bavaria.
I must admit to being an admirer of
Tafelmusik, which in all its recordings
shows an exemplary togetherness and a sure musical sense. Those qualities
are much in evidence in this surprising
recording. Tafelmusik’s 42 musicians
cannot offer the fullness and volume of
the much larger orchestras that usually
do this repertoire, but it is difficult not
to admire the precision of their playing.
Listening to the firmness of the attacks
in the Tempest section of the Pastorale
(the Symphony No. 6) I marveled at the
perfect togetherness, and at the firmness too. The soft woodwind passages
in this symphony are a delight. Indeed,
there isn’t a weak section in an orchestra
that seems to be more than the sum of
its excellent parts. Weil conducts at a
deliberate but not excessively fast pace,
with a fine feeling for the majesty and
the rhythm of these great symphonies.
The quality of the recordings is
helpful too. The Sixth sounds especially
superb, with solos sounding pure and
clean, and with a delightful airiness
that is too often absent from symphonic
recordings. The Fifth is sonically more
conventional, with the attacks more
diffused, and the strings, in particular,
softer in complex passages. This is the
louder of the two works, and it sounds
as though the microphones were placed
differently, with less happy results.
But I criticize this recording with the
greatest reluctance. These are among
the greatest symphonies ever composed,
conducted by someone with a real feeling
for them, and executed by musicians who
are as good as you will ever hear. Those
are all elements for a memorable recording.
Bach: Sonatas for violin & Harpsichord, vol. 1
James Ehnes/Luc Beauséjour
Analekta AN 2 9829
Lessard: Emotion so close to the surface… When James Ehnes’ bow brings
together the power and tenderness to
make Bach sing, and when Beauséjour
draws from his harpsichord a multitude
of notes of surprising clarity, when the
artists are in perfect osmosis, when the
sonics are excellent, I can affirm that the
table is set for a joyous auditory feast.
This first volume of a promised series
was recorded at the Domaine Forget
in Saint-Irénée, Québec, whose hall
has been compared to the legendary
Arsenal de Metz in Lorraine, France.
It includes four of Bach’s trio sonatas,
BWV1014 through 1017. The sonata a tre
is very much at the heart of the Baroque
instrumental style. It was created by the
Italians, who chose the violin family over
that of the viol. As the name suggests, the
genre was created for three instruments,
but the systematic inclusion of a bass
continuo ultimately made the middle
voice redundant. The uniquely ingenious and innovative Johann Sebastian
Bach transformed the trio sonata into
a two-instrument piece that could be
played by a single soloist and a keyboard
accompanist.
At the time these sonatas were written, Bach was composing mainly music
for the court, much of it for violin, hence
these works. The two melodic lines are
played in a canon by the violinist and
the harpsichordist’s right hand, while
the continuo is played by the left hand.
The result is formidable.
The CD begins with an Adagio,
opening with a few measures from the
Rejskind: It’s probably difficult for a
classical music lover to have avoided
Toronto’s Tafelmusik orchestra all these
years. When this period music ensemble
did its famous Reference Recordings session a couple of decades back, that wasn’t
even its first recording. Since then it has
done some 70 CDs. Of late Tafelmusik
has become virtually the house orchestra
of the Analekta label. This is its ninth
recording for the Canadian label.
And it is the most unusual, because
this time Tafelmusik steps way out of its
usual repertoire. This is, remember, a
group that plays period instruments, and
the period in question is the Baroque.
Its best-known recordings are of Bach,
Handel, Telemann and other 18th Century figures. Here it tackles two of
the monuments of the early Romantic
period, Beethoven’s most recognizable
symphonies. There are, I should add,
some superb renditions available from
other orchestras, which makes the challenge all the greater.
Period instruments aside, this is a
somewhat smaller orchestra than you
usually hear play any of the symphonies
from the Eroica forward. This is also the
first Tafelmusik recording I’ve had the
opportunity to hear that is not conducted
by the ensemble’s superb music director,
Jeanne Lamon. On the podium this time
is German conductor Bruno Weil, who
made several recordings with Tafelmusik
in its pre-Analekta days, and with which
by Reine Lessard,
and Gerard Rejskind
INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED
AUSTRALIA
•
AUSTRIA
•
BELGIUM
•
CANADA
•
CHINA
•
CROATIA
•
FRANCE
•
GREECE • HOLLAND • HONG KONG • ITALY • INDONESIA • LATVIA • LUXEMBOURG • NORWAY
SWEDEN
•
SWITZERLAND
•
TAIWAN
•
THAILAND
•
UKRAINE
•
UNITED
KINGDOM
GERMANY
• RUSSIA
•
USA
Software
harpsichord, which Beauséjour renders
with plenty of expression when the music
lends itself to it. That was a surprise,
since I don’t think of the harpsichord as
inherently expressive. The violin then
comes in, all fullness and roundness,
in what I can only call the Ehnes sound.
We are then carried off by the two performers into a lively and joyous Allegro
followed by a poignant Andante with
the violin in the starring role, to end
with an energetic and gay final Allegro.
It is in these sequences that one can
truly appreciate the virtuosity of these
musicians and their brilliant playing.
Superb!
I’ll pass over the other sonatas, except
to say that, without exception, they
will move and please you. These two
musicians have such total command of
their instruments that they need pay no
attention to technical details in order to
put all of their hearts and souls into the
music. What listener can resist?
Do yourself a favor. It’s Spring after
all!
Mozart: Auernhammer Sonatas for
Piano and Violin, vol. 2
J.-F. Rivest/D. Breitman
Analekta AN 2 9823-4
Carmina Burana
N. Texas Wind Sy mph. & Grand
Chorus
Klavier K 11136
Lessard: From the German composer
Carl Orff (1895-1982), this secular
scenic cantata — or oratorio according
to some — has been drawing music
lovers since its first production at the
Frankfurt opera in 1937. The story bears
retelling.
Orff one day was given an anthology
of medieval poems published in the 19th
Century by Johannn Andreas Schmeller
under the title Carmina Burana. This
means literally “Songs of Beuren,” a reference to the Benediktenbeuren convent
in the Bavarian Alps, where the poems
and songs — anonymous for the most
part, dating from the 12th and 13th Centuries — were found. The collection was
the largest source of Latin secular poetry
from the Middle Ages. It included more
than 225 texts in low Latin, German, and
archaic French. The poems constitute a
biting satire of the human condition. The
subjects include politics and religion and
the corruption they engender, Christian
piety tainted by hypocrisy concerning
the abuses of the Church and the clergy
and Pagan hedonism. The topics are
startlingly modern. The songs alternate
among bubbly, libertine, irreverent and
romantic, exalting rebelliousness, and
glorifying Springtime, youth, and the
awakening of love.
It is said that so impressed was Orff
by the musicality and rhythm of the
poems that he began straightaway to
write original music to them. Much can
be said of this music, revolutionary for
its time. I was delighted by this version
by the North Texas Wind Symphony
and a huge choir. English and French
translations of the texts are included in
the booklet.
The collection begins and ends with
an ode to the Goddess of Destiny, O
Fortuna, performed in grandiose fashion
by a monumental choir stimulated by
fearsome percussion. The huge dynamic
range, from very soft to the loudest
crescendos, is astonishing, and the work
moves between those extremes throughout. I was captivated by the rhythmic
variations, the energetic t y mpani,
sudden changes of volume and rhythm,
dazzling cymbals, a vigorous bass drum,
blazing brass and wonderful singers.
The texts treat of three major themes:
Springtime, the tavern, and love. In the
first section the sublime poetry sings of
the awakening of nature and the sentiments of gayety and romance it evokes.
The second section, In Taberna (in the
tavern), lauds intemperance in the pleasures of both bed and dining table. La
cour d’amour (the court of love) offers
enchanting musical segments expressing
the amorous complaint of a frustrated
lover. In trutina (“in the wavering balance of my feelings”), the hesitation
of a young girl between virtue and the
pleasures of the flesh are expressed by a
marvelous soprano. Her solo is followed
Lessard: I can recommend this double
CD for the quality of the musicians and
the flawless recording, not to mention
the music by a composer of which one
never tires, Mozart.
Mozart’s sonatas for violin and piano
were well received in Vienna. He wrote
the ones on the first disc, K376 through
379, during his first year in the Austrian
capital (1781), and dedicated them to
piano student Joseph Auernhammer.
It’s become a tiresome cliché to claim
Mozart was taking dictation directly
from God, but considering the sheer
beauty of these pieces I repeat it without
hesitation.
The first sonata opens on a joyous
Allegro. Considering the series of disappointments the composer was then
facing, the joie de vivre of his music seems
surprising, but it was in Mozart’s nature
to create idyllic music even at times of
intense moral suffering. The two musicians are sensational, their instruments
constantly weaving past each other in a
ceaseless dialog. The delirious gayety gives way briefly to a melancholic theme
in the Andante, its mood expressed by
Jean-François Rivest’s moving violin,
then we are plunged once more into
rapid rhythms that distill joviality and
feverishness. The final Rondo is a gracious and elegant minuet.
We are invited to live a thousand
emotions right through track 10 and the
Sonata in G Major. It’s my favorite, for
its exquisite melody and its alternation
between major and minor modes. The
Adagio will delight you, with divine
arpeggio passages on the piano and solo
sections played with communicative
sensitivity and the troubling accents of
the violin, which does justice to all the
nuances of the music.
The sonatas on the second disc were
composed some six years later. The brilliant Sonata in A Major K526 begins with a joyous Molto Allegro that is as ardent
as you could wish, but don’t be fooled.
Mozart being Mozart, he sprinkled this
tumultuous joy with a tender elegance
that will move you in the Andante
that follows. It’s followed by a Presto
movement that offers our two artists a
challenge to which they rise admirably.
This entire set of sonatas is technically
demanding, and they leave you little
respite, for each brings new elements
that compete in their enchantment. You
may be struck by the grace and elegance,
but also a zest of melancholy, or by the
beauty of the captivating melodies. At
other times you will be pushed back
into your chair by the brio of the two
protagonists. Mozart has made them
equal partners, and rightly so.
by the entreaty of the choir for her to
abandon herself finally to the joys of love.
She opposes no more resistance, closing
the tableau with the Dulcissime (“sweet
one, I give myself to you totally”).
There have been many versions of
this work, but this one has been adapted
for brass and choir. The wind symphony
is conducted by Eugene M igliano
Corporon and the huge choir by Jerry
McCoy. The result is masterful. The
forces brought together for this recording include more than 30 brass instruments, seven woodwinds, percussion,
a harp, a piano, a celesta, two double
basses, 58 sopranos, 55 altos, 45 tenors,
49 bass baritones, three soloists, the
Texas Boys’ Choir, plus six more choirs,
each with its own music director.
This is an audiophile production of
great quality.
Software
Pauline Viardot-Garcia
Isabel Bayrakdarian
Analekta AN 2 9903
Lessard: Of Spanish origin, Pauline
Viardot (1821-1910), née Garcia, was
the sister of the celebrated singer Maria
Garcia, known as La Malibran (from
her husband’s name). Pauline studied
voice with her mother, composition with
Anton Reicha, and piano with Franz
Liszt. She was just 17 when she was cast
as Desdemona in Rossini’s opera Otello.
Her career was a remarkable one. She
sang throughout Europe, including,
during two seasons, in St. Petersburg.
She was fluent in six languages — French,
English, Spanish, Italian, German and
Russian. She left the stage at the age of
42, to dedicate herself some years later
to teaching and composition.
It is shocking to note that she has
been all but erased from the history
of 19th Century music. Yet this admirable artist gravitated about the greatest
names of literature, art and music of her
age, and she was herself a remarkable
author and composer. She wrote two
books of melodies on Russian poems,
an opera (Cinderella), a series of operettas on librettos by Turgenev (Too Many
Women, The Ogre, The Last Sorcerer) and
numerous others. She also set words to
mazurkas by Chopin, whose music she
helped popularize.
This recording brings her to life once
again, through the talents of two artists
of exceptional gift.
Pauline Viardot’s era was one of
romanticism, when men did not fear
being called precious because they
enjoyed tender poetry. A nd tender
these songs are, but for a few on graver
subjects, such as Les grands oiseaux blancs
and a few others treating of thwarted
love and death.
The Canadian soprano of Armenian
origin, Isabel Bayrakdarian, has been
pursuing a fabulous international career.
She has been heard in numerous operas,
at the Met and elsewhere, and even sang
in the second film of Lord of the Rings.
Her timbre, at once opulent and warm,
is perfectly suited to the fervor she
adds to these songs celebrating all of
the rhythms of love. Bonjour mon cæur
is ravishing. The Havanaise will haunt
your memory despite your best efforts
to displace it. Is it because of the tender
and elegant melody, or the extraordinary
way Bayrakdarian sings it? Hard to
say. In this absolutely seductive piece,
you can appreciate even more the great
sensitivity and the suppleness of her
voice, with modulations and inflections
of incomparable beauty.
The recording includes four of the
Chopin mazurkas to which she wrote
words. Plainte d’amour is performed in
sublime fashion.
This is an excellent audiophile-grade
production.
Rejskind: I listened to this exceptional
recording several times, and with each
session my enthusiasm grew. I realized
I had heard of Pauline Viardot…how
else could some of the melodies (other
than Chopin’s) be so familiar? But she
deserves to be more widely known,
and this CD is the perfect vehicle to
popularize her.
I must confess that after a while Viardot and Bayrakdarian began to blend
together in my imagination. No, of course
I wasn’t actually listening to Viardot,
who has been dead for a century, but
so convincing is Bayrakdarian in her
role that I had to remind myself that
I was hearing a modern singer merely
interpreting the music Viardot wrote a
couple of centuries back.
It’s rare you hear a recording of this
perfection. Bayrakdarian frequently has
you hanging on a measure, a word, a syllable. She knows how to add ever so slight
a pause, to create a poignant twist. Her
voice floats in space, in perfect harmony
with the inspired accompaniment of
pianist Serouj Kradjian. The magnificent
sound is part of it, I suppose. It is so good
it opens a window to a distant past, and it
completes the illusion of actually hearing
Pauline Viardot herself on the stage.
It doesn’t get any better than this.
Josh Groban
Josh Groban
Warner Bros CDW 48154
Rejskind: Perhaps you know the story
behind the meteoric rise of Josh Groban
at the end of his teen years. Groban
has been singing since early childhood,
which doesn’t quite explain how producer/songwriter David Foster discovered him when he was just 17 and asked
him to sing at the inauguration of the
Governor of California (not the Governator, but a predecessor). Foster was
impressed enough to give him an even
bigger chance. At the 1999 Grammies
he needed a singer to fill in for ailing
Andrea Bocelli. Groban got the job,
singing alongside Céline Dion — perhaps you’ve heard of her? After that
came the closing ceremonies of the 2002
Winter Olympics, and…
And this eponymous début recording,
in which he sings in Italian and English
for the most part (the booklet says he
had a coach for the Italian, though I’m
not sure that was enough). Why Italian?
That produces a vague illusion that he
is singing opera, or at least Neapolitan
songs, but in fact these are pop songs.
Though Groban fans like to praise his
talent for the classics, there is only a
single real classic on this first CD, Bach’s
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. He includes
a song adapted from the film Cinema
Paradiso and even from the Cirque du
Soleil’s Quidam. His song from the
Olympics, The Prayer, is here too. He
sings it alongside that other youthful
wunderkind Charlotte Church, and a
section of it is, for inexplicable reasons,
translated into Italian.
How do you classify a recording like
this? It probably belongs next to your
copy of Time to Say Goodbye by Sarah
Brightman and Andrea Bocelli. If you
didn’t rush out to buy that one, it’s not
certain you’ll like Groban’s disc either.
Peder af Ugglas
Peder af Ugglas
Opus 3 CD22042
Mississippi Magic
Terry Evans
Audioquest AQ-SACD1057
Rejskind: This is one of several albums
Evans has done for Audioquest, but he’s
been singing and playing for decades
now. He likes to say his parents wouldn’t
let him sing rock’n’roll, only Gospel,
but of course the links between those
two genres is well established. He did
of course play rock music eventually,
becoming a member of The Coasters,
and later a singer with Ry Cooder’s band.
In recent years he has been recording
with his own band, and he hasn’t exactly
turned his back on Gospel, which he
mixes expertly with Blues, Soul and —
yes — rock. Have a listen to Mellow
Down Easy. Not rock’n’roll exactly, but
it’s where rock’n’roll came from. And
where Terry Evans came from.
Evans’ voice has lost none of its power
over the years. Just listen to his a cappella
introduction to Don’t Let the Green Grass
Fool You, shared with backup singers Ray
Williams and Willie Green Jr. Or check
out his Blues number, You Better Get Your
Shit Together.
The eight musicians and two vocalists
surrounding Evans include guitarists
Jesse Samsel and Jorge Calderon and
saxophonist David Woodford. Their
enthusiasm for this music, like that of
Evans himself, is evident on every tune.
Audioquest engineer Mike Ross has
given this SACD the energy that suits
the music.
Master and Commander: the Far Side
of the World
Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany
Universal/Miramax
Rejskind: This remarkable film was
awaited with considerable apprehension
by fans of the Patrick O’Brian novels,
one of which is the basis for this film.
By and large they’ve acclaimed it. I’m
not familiar with O’Brian’s books, but I
am not surprised.
Master and Commander is a superb
film, not merely the high seas swashbuckler it could easily have turned into,
but a time machine that takes you aboard
a British warship in the age of Nelson
and Napoleon, and a finely crafted
character sketch. Australian director
Peter Weir, who was responsible for
Rejskind: This new SACD has several
elements you might not expect. It features an electric guitar despite the label’s
long tradition of sticking with acoustic
instruments. And at the centre is a Swedish guitarist whose jazz renderings are
clearly influenced by American Blues
and…country music!
Don’t believe the part about the
country music? Check out Harvest Song,
the very first cut on the disc. Ugglas’
beguiling slide guitar draws you in, with
Bo Nordenfelt’s upright bass successfully
evoking the classic country rhythm,
suggesting a leisurely ride on horseback.
Surprising, and frankly delightful. Far
Away has a similar rhythm, and Last Call
has a distinct Bluegrass flavor.
There are other influences too. Wino’s
Dance is Chicago Blues, with Ugglas on
guitar, electric organ and piano, with a
wicked trombone solo by Lars Höbinger,
backed by a Fender Rhodes, bass and
percussion. Or there’s Passion, on which
Ugglas plays not only the acoustic and
slide guitars but also a bowed saw. It
gives this atmospheric piece an eerie
tone, and at first I thought it came from
a sound effects generator, since one of
those is used on three other pieces.
The eeriest of the pieces is the final
one, titled A Hymn, with Ugglas’ slide
guitar recorded in a large church. In
the background is the organ, played by
Mattias Wager, the organist from Organ
Treasures (CD22031).
Is this truly an audiophile album?
Yes, in the broadest sense, with sound
that is beguiling, and occasionally
enthralling. However we are a long
way from Jan-Eric Persson’s strict twomicrophone technique. Seven different
microphones are listed, three of them
stereo microphones, and some of the
instruments are simply plugged into the
console. All of that is folded into the five
channels of this SACD.
Peder af Ugglas is worth discovering.
He is a master of several instruments,
of course, but he has also heard and
mastered a number of musical styles. He
likes ’em all, and you can tell.
Discover the Classics…at $4 per CD!
Complete works, not mere excerpts: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi,
Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin…a complete classical library on 50 CDs. And these are gold
discs, with good, often top-grade, artists. And natural sound! See the complete list of
contents, and listen to on-line excerpts:
Software
www.uhfmag.com/discreviews/Classics.html
such previous hits as Green Card and the
abysmal Dead Poets Society, has produced
what may be considered his masterpiece.
So far anyway. It’s likely he’ll be asked
to do more of the O’Brian novels.
The story line itself is a simple one,
and note that it takes great liberties with
the novel. The British warship HMS
Surprise, sailing off South America,
is unexpectedly attacked by a French
privateer, the Acheron. That ship is
larger and faster, with cannons that can
shoot a lot farther, and not surprisingly
the Surprise is the one that comes out
of the first battle surprised. And with
fewer crew members. The captain, Jack
Aubrey (Russell Crowe) will oversee the
ship’s repairs, and will then use strategy
to outfox the Acheron in a final battle.
The other major character in the film
is the ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin
(Paul Bettany), who fixes up the collateral damage with whatever he can find:
for instance a coin to patch a skull after
brain surgery. Aubrey and Maturin are
old friends, but have a different outlook
on life. Aubrey is a man of war, whereas
Maturin is a naturalist, who would
rather find new species on the Galapagos
islands, where Darwin would later do his
seminal work. The friendship and the
tension between them are even more exciting than the two sea battles.
But I want to discuss the sound on
this DVD, surely the best use of surround sound I have yet heard. The film
in fact won an Oscar for sound editing
(though the actual Oscar for sound was
scooped up by the third film of Lord of
the Rings). Whereas most sound editors
will pan an occasional sound to the rear,
or use the surround channels to sweeten
the ambience, sound designer Lee Smith
has crafted a sonic architecture that is
consistent throughout the film, and puts
you aboard the ship. It is especially true if
you select the DTS sound track. I should
add that this DVD is unlikely to please
the Home-Theatre-in-a-Box crowd. If
they set the volume to avoid distortion
on the battle, they’ll need subtitles to
follow the dialog.
One of the sonic elements in this
film is the ship itself. Large wooden
ships creak, of course, and the surround
sound places you aboard. The sea is
also an important element, and when
a wave splashes aboard you’ll be looking for a towel. Then there are the sea
battles, especially the first one, when
the Acheron fires one of its powerful
cannons from a fog bank, there is a cry
for everyone to get down, and the shot
goes through you.
This technique has been used before,
of course, notably in Saving Private
Ryan, but I need hardly add that there
is a difference between a machine gun
bullet, or even a mortar round, and a
cannonball!
By any standard, this is a fine film,
and it has been brought to DVD with
rare perfection.
Star Wars: a New Hope
Hamill/Fisher/
20th Century Fox
Rejskind: We’ve been waiting an inordinately long time for these three films to
make their way to DVD. George Lucas
said he didn’t think anyone would be
interested, a statement so incredible it
is difficult to take it at face value. In the
meantime he spent time (wasted time,
would say some critics) producing three
preposterous prequels.
The word preposterous possibly
requires some explanation. The new
films are an elaborate development
of the back story to the Star Wars
mythology, but the attraction of the
original films — arguably one very long
film cut into three parts — was never the mythos. Star Wars was in fact an
extended homage to the movies, and
Lucas cannot do otherwise than realize
this. The early critics who dismissed
Star Wars as bad science fiction missed
the point. In fact it and its two sequels
were a sendup of the great movies of our
childhood if we’re old enough, of the
Late Show if we’re not.
Consider R2-D2 and C-3PO. They
are clearly modeled on Laurel and
Hardy, albeit with their roles reversed
(Oliver Hardy was the short stout one
who was always complaining about
“a fine mess you’ve gotten us into”).
Chewbacca is of course from Planet of the
Apes. Han Solo is from a Western, the theatre seat between 1977 and 1983. Not pull more detail from the dark corners
hot-blooded kid with more bravado than only have the images been cleaned up, than I recall seeing even in the theatre.
discipline, who’s in it for the money, but as you would expect, but some special This has been done without introducing
can be counted on when the showdown effects have been redone, Lucas figuring noticeable video artifacts.
on the main street arrives (notice the that today’s computer-based CGI effects Less admirable are additions that
way he wears his blaster in its holster). will beat the analog matting of three have angered hardcore fans: the pointless
Darth Vader is obviously the Black decades ago. This is no surprise, since disco number added to the sequence in
Knight, familiar from a host of medieval the VHS set of 1997 already included Jabba the Hutt’s lair in the third film,
epics. Not for nothing do Jedis fight with updated effects. This has enraged the and the matting in of Anakin Skywalker
sabers, a weapon that would be of little hardcore fans, though I consider it a and other prequel characters at the Ewok
practical value in the age of blasters. Obi small price to pay for being able to view victory party. I find these modifications
Wan Kenobi is a round-eyed version of a these films other than through dimming to be only minor irritants.
Japanese martial arts master, as is Yoda memory… or aging VHS, which may be Oddly, the sound has been redone
too, with some sound effects clearly
(minus the round eyes). In the escape worse.
from the Death Star halfway through But a lot more than the special effects rerecorded and not simply remixed for
5.1 channel surround. Though plenty of
the first film,
did you
the have
been redone. What
Lucas’
magiOf course
younotice
know that
that UHF’s
Audiophile
Store has been
offering
top-grade
directional effects have been added — for
front bay of
the
Millennium
Falcon
is
cians
have
done
is
design
a
new
tonal
recordings since the 1980’s. Of course, we review many recordings (and movies)
sound of spacecraft zooma dead ringer
for
that
of
a
Lancaster
profile
for
every
scene.
Tonal
profiles
that we don’t offer. But hop on over to the store, and you can get a numberinstance the
of
bomber? The
complex
plan
to
exploit
will
be
familiar
to
anyone
who
has
ing
from
corner
to corner — the ambithese recordings nice and fast. Just click on:
the weakness of the Death Star is clearly tweaked a photo with the curves palette ent soundfield is actually less effective.
inspired by The Dam Busters and possibly in Photoshop. The best TV monitor On the VHS version of the first films,
The Bridge at Remagen. It’s no wonder has a much narrower range of tones and for example, when Luke, Han and Leia
that the text introduction to all of the colors than does real life, or even film. By invade the Death Star, you can hear the
films begins with the words “a long time playing with the profile, you can shape hum of the machinery all about you. The
ago…”
the relation between original tones and discrete surround sound should do this
It is these influences, a few more of final output tones so that the parts of the even better than Dolby ProLogic, right?
which you discover with each viewing, image that are deemed important get a Well, no in fact. As for the hum of the
which make the original films such a maximum amount of the medium’s avail- light saber, it has lost some of its extreme
treasure. And despite some shortcom- able tonal range. This is used to startling frequencies, and sound less scary than
ings, I can only recommend you buy effect in the first film, when the two the original.
this DVD set. Of course if you’re a fan robots are pulled into the rolling home But the odds of Lucas ever releasing
you picked it up the day of the release of the Jawas in nearly total darkness. the unaltered films on DVD are vanishanyway.
Likewise, in the saloon scene (familiar ingly low. The original Star Wars films
What you get on this set is not pre- from any Western where there’s a reason are cultural icons. Get them and enjoy
cisely what you would have seen in your to get a posse together), the new images them again.
Buying recordings on line
www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html
Gossip&News
Sony Seeks to Recover
Gossip&News
Sony had the wind in its sails for
a long time. It is co-inventor of the
Compact Disc. Its ubiquitous Walkman
served up music to two generations of
young and less young music lovers. Its
Trinitron picture tube came to symbolize high end television. A few years
ago, a US study showed that on average
consumers would pay up to 15% more
for a Sony electronic product than for a
substantially identical product of some
other brand.
That has changed.
With the huge boom in portable
music players, Sony's familiar Walkman
brand should have been bigger than
ever. However the company suffered
from an internal conflict, with its music
subsidiary, Sony Music, condemning
the MP3 format as a tool for thieves.
The company watched Apple’s iPod take
off while it had not begun to taxi to the
runway. When it did finally push its players, they used a codec no one else did,
ATRAC3, as well as expensive Memory
Stick cards.
(To be fair, Apple’s iTunes music
store also uses a proprietary codec,
called AAC, but the iPod itself takes
most common compression systems,
or no compression at all. Oh…except
ATRAC3.)
As for TV sets, the patent finally
ran out on the Trinitron (Mitsubishi’s
Diamondtron is similar), and besides
cathode ray tubes are on their way out
in high end sets. Sony chose the LCD
as the basis of its new age TV sets…the
wrong choice in our view. Low-cost
sets from Korea are outperforming and
underpricing them. That 15% advantage
seems to be a thing of the past.
In March Sony chose, for the first
time, a non-Japanese CEO. Welsh-born
Howard Stringer entered Sony from
CBS television, where he produced the
network’s flagship news show. He has
been heading up Sony’s (very important)
American division.
A foreigner at the head of a Japanese
company? There are precedents. Nissan
is headed by Carlos Ghosn, who came
from Renault in France. Ghosn slashed
production costs and invested the money
in engineering. Some observers believe
that’s exactly what Sony needs to do.
24/96
Or Not!
We get a lot of questions concerning
what computer sound card is best for
high definition audio, meaning 24 bits
and 96 kHz. Our usual answer: a sound
card is probably not the best choice.
But does anyone take our advice? The
Singapore company Creative Labs, best
known for Sound Blaster products and
Zen Micro portable players, has been
offering 24/96 cards for some time under
the Audigy and Extigy names. It said
right there on the product box that they
could handle 24/96.
Only problem was they couldn’t, or
at least not under most circumstances.
Affected were the Audigy ES, Platinum,
Platinum eX, Gamer, MP3+ and the
original Extigy USB sound module.
Creative Labs won’t be giving you
an actual refund if you were taken in.
Rather, according to the agreement, they
will give you a discount if you agree to
trust them a second time.
Is it just us, or is there something
strange about this?
Issue 72 is available on line
At Your Own Risk
No Copies
Yes, the whole issue, with no obstacles blocking your view, and with no imitation Latin keeping
you from reading every word. Click this link:
https://www.uhfmag.com/electronic.html
Is copying CDs and DVDs legal?
We noted an interesting little warning on
the Web site of Linn Products. You may recall
that, in UHF No. 70, we wrote off DVD-A
in part because it is not backward compatible
with CD players. The DVD Forum has
taken note of the problem, but…
Recently, several titles have been
released on the new “DualDisc” format.
This is a disc format with DVD content
on one side and “CD” on the other (see
www.dualdisc.com for details).
The DVD side comprises DVDVideo and/or DV D-Audio content.
The “CD” side is designed to play on
CD players but is not in fact a CD as it
is not compliant with the Compact Disc
Digital Audio Specification (the industry
“Red Book” CD standard). These discs
are also thicker than standard CDs or
DVDs. As these discs are not compliant with current industry standard,
Linn cannot guarantee that they will
play on our range of disc players and
audio servers. Nor can we guarantee
that the thickness of DualDiscs will
not cause problems for these Linn products — possibly damage to the product
and/or the disc — if played. Any damage
resulting from the playing of DualDiscs
will not be covered by the Linn warranty, so using these discs with a Linn
disc player or audio server is entirely at
the user’s risk.
Not in the United States, the world’s
largest market for both. Copying is legal
in Canada, and in Europe. So say the
courts.
But laws change, and the Canadian
government has served notice it will
change the statutes to outlaw uploading
to file sharing services such as KaZaa.
There’s more. Circumventing copyprotection, currently legal, will become
a crime, and Internet service providers
will be required to keep tabs on file traders, in case a judge asks.
The measures already have all-party
approval.
Farewell Dorian
Not Dorian Grey, but the Dorian
Group, the once admired classical record
label from Troy, NY. Making classical
recordings keeps you scrambling, and
Dorian had an odd plan for survival: if
one label isn’t making money, just buy
up more labels until you somehow find
yourself in the black. You’d have to call
it a risky strategy.
A year and a half ago, Dorian gobbled
up one of the audiophile world’s most
prominent labels, Reference Recordings.
It then proceeded to make marketing
mistakes that a first year economics
student would have avoided. The result,
at the start of this year, is that the Dorian
Group filed for bankruptcy. So did
cofounder Craig Dory according to one
published report.
What went wrong?
Since we are a record retailer as well
as a magazine (through our Audiophile
Store), we had a grandstand view of
this train wreck. Our store used to be
a Dorian dealer, and until recently it
was a Reference Recordings dealer too.
We loved many of the recordings, but
Dorian would not supply them. The
last time we talked with Dorian we were
rudely brushed off, and referred to a
supposed distributor that in fact handled
neither label. Not that we would have
been interested, because by then Dorian
was offering its CDs on the Internet at
what were clearly fire sale prices. What
happened next didn’t surprise us much.
But it certainly saddened us. We are
hoping for the eventual return of Reference Recordings, though. It seems that
Dorian “bought” the company but didn’t
actually pay for it. What we would love
to see is for Reference to relaunch itself
as a distinct company, and perhaps buy
up the Dorian back catalog too.
Where do we sign up to be a dealer
again?
Upgrade that CD?
gone in for either cassettes or 8-track!
But note that you never own the music
(try sharing it and see). You have a license
for private enjoyment, and you pay for
the medium (CD, DVD, etc.), which
hardly costs anything.
When you buy Photoshop, though,
Adobe doesn’t make you pay the whole
shot all over again. You pay the big bill
once, and then a much lower upgrade
price. Isn’t it time entertainment companies adopted the same system?
No Business
like…
“The music business is a cruel and
shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and
good men lie like dogs. There is also a
negative side.”
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
1937-2005
Aldburn Electronics. . . . . . . Cover 4
Almarro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Applause Audio. . . . . . . . . . Couv. 3
Artech Electronics . . . . . . . . . 26, 64
Audio Dream Distribution. . . . . . . 18
Audio Enterprise. . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Audiomat . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Audiophileboutique.com. . . . . . . . 58
Audio Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Audio Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Audiyo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Bel Canto. . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Bluebird Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Blue Circle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Charisma Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Connoisseur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
CPUsed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Diamond Groove. . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Divergent Technologies. . . . . . . . . 16
Eichmann. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Entracte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Europroducts Internat.. . . . . . . 8, 9, 25
Everest Audio. . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Fab Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Furutech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Goldring . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Gryphon . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Harmonic Marketing. . . . . . . . . . 30
Hi Fi Fo Fum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Home Theater Cruise. . . . . . . . . . 61
The House of Sound. . . . . . . . . . 41
Jadis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Justice Audio. . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Just May Audio. . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Linn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Living Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
McCormack. . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
MagZee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Marchand Electronics . . . . . . . . . 17
Michell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
muRata. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Mutine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Natural Frequency Audio . . . . . . . . 41
Orelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Oz Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Pierre Gabriel. . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Raysonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Reference 3a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Shanling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Simaudio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Signature Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Soundstage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Speaker Direct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Spendor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
StudioLab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Totem Acoustic. . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
UHF Back Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . 29
UHF Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Unity Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Vertigo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 71 Gossip&News
Have you noticed how many times
entertainment companies have tried to
sell you the same recording?
Let’s assume you’ve been buying
movies for a while. You bought Casablanca when it first came out on Beta,
and then of course picked up the VHS
version. You also bought the anniversary
videocassette because it had hi-fi tracks
instead of those hissy linear tracks. Of
course when you got your first Laserdisc
players one of the first films you picked
up was Casablanca. Your player is busted,
though, and nowadays you get your fix
from the DVD. It’s such a good film
you’ll want a high-resolution version on
Blu-Ray or whatever. It will be the sixth
version of the film you buy.
The same applies to music recordings, of course. We can think of recordings we’ve owned on original LP, then
180 gram half-speed mastered LP, then
CD, then premium CD, either xrcd
or HDCD, and now SACD. Five purchases…and it’s a good thing we’ve never
ADVERTISERS
F
State of the Art
rom the start we’ve argued
for the priority that must be
given to the musical source,
the component which produces
the musical signal. This is usually a CD
player or a turntable. If it adds distortion, an amp or speaker can’t remove it;
if it loses detail, nothing can put it back.
Hence, the source must be at least a little
better than everything else.
So what does this mean in an age
when nearly everyone is quite content
to let the quality of the source slide?
And I’m not pointing just to plastic
turntables and trashy digital players. I
mean the emerging victory of signals that
contain hardly any of the original music.
The poster boy for the new phenomenon
is MP3, the “compression” system used
for everything from illegal file sharing
to portable music players. I’ve placed the
word compression in quotes because the
signal is not compressed at all. Actually,
more than 90% is trashed!
Sony launched the trend years ago
with a codec (compressor-decompressor,
a cynical misnomer, since no decompression is actually done) called ATRAC.
The system was supposed to fuel Sony’s
MiniDisc format. Sony is now on
ATRAC3Plus, and seemingly figures its
dead horse can still win the derby if it is
flogged hard enough. Dolby followed
with AC-3, which became the Dolby
Digital format for 5.1 channel surround
sound. All these systems are lossy. As
it says on the T-shirt, “jst sy no to lssy
cmpresn.”
Easier said than done.
The hot music sales phenomenon of
the decade is the iTunes store, companion to Apple’s iPod. Its house format?
A AC, or "Advanced Audio Coding,”
which “compresses” down to 128 kbps.
(By the way, it was developed by Dolby,
not by Apple as most people think.) Then
there’s Microsoft’s Windows Media,
with even lossier compression, despite
a claim that it sounds better than MP3
and the others. Canadian and European
digital radio uses the Musicam codec.
Least avoidable are Dolby Digital and
DTS, if you want DVD.
by Gerard Rejskind
Then there’s HDTV. There are
now amateur camcorders that capture
high definition video, and at least
one computer editing package (Apple
iMovie-HD) lets you make your own
HDTV features. What you are not told
is that this miracle is accomplished only
by “compressing” the data…thus both
increasing and decreasing definition at
the same time. You gotta love it!
However my point is not to tell you
we should never touch codecs with a
barge pole (whatever that is). DVD
movie sound is pretty good for most
material, if less so on music. MP3 lets
you explore music you would never hear
otherwise, either through shared files,
which are not always illegal, or Internet
radio. Indeed, if you do any casual listening, at least some codecs can serve you
reasonably well.
However casual listening is not the
favorite pastime of most of us. What we
want is to reproduce not only the sound
but the emotion of a live concert. This
requires something better than massmarket gear built to a price, and above all
STATE OF THE ART:
THE BOOK
Get the 258-page book
containing the State of the Art
columns from the first 60 issues
of UHF, with all-new introductions.
See page 4.
it requires a source…one that is at least a
little better than the stuff downstream.
For the moment there’s not much
problem. We don’t have to buy music
from the iTunes store or Napster-to-Go,
or any other store that wants to sell you
8% of the music for 80% of the money.
Indeed, you can lean the other way and
go with a higher-density audio format,
such as SACD. Or you can spend your
time listening to vinyl, as some of our
readers do, and as we do as well. How
do I love thee? Let me count the bits.
What about the future?
Back in issue No. 38, UHF predicted
that the CD was doomed, destined to be
replaced by “music on line.” Then the
article said: “…the Global Record Store
will use a ‘compression’ system known
generically as bit reduction: deliberate
discarding of ‘unnecessary’ information.”
Not bad for 1994, before MP3, and
before the word Internet was known
outside academic and industrial circles.
Of course, the fact that most consumers listen to dreck, thinking it’s music,
need not concern us, if we have access
to better. But here’s the nightmare
scenario. Imagine the CD does go away.,
and SACD fails, as DV D-A prett y
much already has. Imagine we are left
discussing whether AAC sounds better
than WMA, or whether Ogg Vorbis
preserves timbres better than MP3. Will
it still make sense to buy amplifiers and
speakers better than the ones built to
attach to computers, with “subwoofers”
the size of lunchboxes?
It’s no good fighting the digital
revolution, even if we could rally enough
troops to go over the top. But we need
to get the message out — to record
companies, equipment manufacturers
and music lovers — that using a digital
music source need not mean struggling to
reconstruct music from what amounts to
a pencil sketch. That we won’t pay money
for mere demo-quality music files. That
we expect and insist on a musical source
that can work with tomorrow’s home
music systems to reproduce the emotion
of a live concert.

MUSIC FROM DATA: We look at the ways you can

Transcription

Similar documents

Notes on African plants

PDF - cruciblecreative.com

CD PLAYERS - UHF Magazine

PDF version - UHF Magazine

Chit-Chat - The Wykeham Collegiate

A PA R T FROM THAT

Visibility and Communications for EU

Student Handbook - Kuk Sool Won of Clear Lake

The Book of Soyga.

Advantys STB - Schneider Electric

A Season of World-Class Exhibitions

Letters 401 through 500