TURNTABLES AND MORE

Transcription

TURNTABLES AND MORE

No. 73
$6.49
TURNTABLES AND MORE: Tables from
Goldring and Roksan, plus a chat with the
creator of one of them. And four phono
preamps, including a tube unit you can
build yourself
OTHER REVIEWS: Audiomat and Exposure
amplifiers, the fabulous Reimyo CD player,
ASW Genius 400 speakers
PLUS: Why not all LPs are created equal,
how video may go hi-res and low-res at
the same time, all about the Montreal
show, and much, much more!
ISSN 0847-1851
Canadian Publication Sales
Product Agreement
No. 40065638
RETURN LABELS ONLY
OF UNDELIVERED COPIES TO:
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ASW Speakers
QED
Target
Vandersteen
McCormack
Goldring GR2
Harmonix
“Hard to fault in any area.
This has to be the budget turntable of the year.”
Hi-Fi World, April 2005
JUSTI
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]
CE
AU
DIO
WBT
Gamut
Apollo
GutWire
FIM Accessories
Goldring
ASW Genius
400
Milty
“It has all the volume you could
ever want, its bottom end goes
down to bedrock, and its top end is
delightfully smooth.”
Gradient Speakers
UHF No. 73
Perfect Sound
Nitty Gritty
LAST record care
WATTGate
Audiophile CDs
AY
JUST M
AUD
IO
Just May Audio
9251-8 Yonge St., Suite 218
Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9T3
Tel. : (905) 780-0079 • Fax : (905) 780-0443
Audiophile LPs
DVD and SACD
The Listening Room
Issue No. 73
The Making of an LP
by Paul Bergman
Some vinyl albums sound glorious, others sound
gritty and dull. Is it just the quality of vinyl used?
Rendezvous
The Making of a Turntable
UHF chats with Touraj Moghaddam, designer of
the Roksan turntables and arms.
31
Goldring GR2 Turntable
Yes, of course it’s a Rega, but which one?
33
Four Phono Stages
Preamps from CEC, Goldring and Marchand,
including a tube unit you can build yourself.
35
Harmonix Reimyo CDP-777 Player
40
Reimyo means “miracle” in Japanese, and the name
is not as off-the-wall as you might think.
Cover story: Side by side are the Reimyo CDP-77 player
and the Audiomat Récital integrated tube amplifier, both
of which are among the products reviewed in this issue.
In the background are the waters of the Lac des DeuxMontagnes, off the western tip of the island of Montréal.
NUTS&BOLTS
Roksan Radius 5 Turntable
Not expensive, but with a spectacular side. Did
someone say “transparency”?
Audiomat Récital Amplifier
And we thought Audiomat couldn’t ever do better
than its Opéra integrated amplifier!
43
Audiomat Maestro D-to-A converter
The perfect complement to the Récital?
46
Exposure 2010S
Most integrated amplifiers in this price range…
well, you know!
47
ASW Genius 400 Speakers
Big, beautiful German speakers, but they don’t
sound like it…or cost like it either.
49
The Sonneteer BardOne
Getting sound from here to way over there
52
Cinema
18
The Compression Blues
You see video compression each time you view a
DVD. But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
53
Software
22
FEATURES
Montreal 2005: Smaller, but Still Potent
by Gerard Rejskind
UHF tours what is still one of North America’s
biggest hi-fi shows for consumers.
26
Two Future Audiophiles
by Albert Simon
What beginning audiophiles thought of the show
27
The Accordion by Reine Lessard
It’s an instrument that gets no respect. And yet…
57
Software Reviews
by Reine Lessard, Albert Simon and Gerard Rejskind
63
Departments
Editorial
Feedback
Free Advice
Classified Ads
Gossip & News
State of the Art
2
5
7
56
70
72
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine UHF Magazine No. 73 was published in September, 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.
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PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Reine Lessard
EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Reine Lessard, Albert Simon
PHOTOGRAPHY: Albert Simon
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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
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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
Editorial
Manufacturers’ comments
Some magazines offer manufacturers space after an equipment review for
a comment. We don’t, and some readers wonder why.
Read the manufacturers’ comments in other magazines, and you’ll have
your answer.
For instance: “We at Acme Acoustics want to congratulate your entire staff
on its brilliance and perspicacity in recognizing that our Heffalump speaker
is one of the very best values on the market…”
Or possibly: “We are honored that you have chosen to include the Alfabet
Hexwhyzee fluid-coupled amplifier in this issue of your esteemed publication.
We note that you praised it for several qualities, thus giving us the encouragement to continue, though we are convinced you would have liked it even more
if you had paired it with…”
Or, more entertainingly: “All of us at DeadEnd Electronics are shocked and
disappointed at the ‘shortcomings’ that you believe you found in our product.
We don’t understand how you can have come to this conclusion when JM at
HiFi Universe rated it CD Player of the Week, and it won last year’s prestigious
Editorial Gofer award from MonoWorld. Cancel all our ads, if we have any.”
What do you think? I suspect none of this would help you decide what you
should buy for your own system. And lest we forget, that is UHF’s mission.
Is digital the future?
I’ve been hearing the claim since the first days of the Compact Disc. If
you don’t remember those days, you have been spared a lot of pain. The first
players suffered from massive phase shift through the audible range, and the
crude operational amplifiers used in the analog stages made the sound bright
and unnatural, yet thin at the same time.
But that was a long time ago. Digital is everywhere now, including in every
step in the creation of this magazine (indeed, this is our first-ever edition
produced entirely digitally, with no “analog” films). For more and more music
lovers, the music source is neither a turntable nor a CD player but a computer.
The tendency is not about to be reversed.
But I can’t say I deplore it. The key to being an audiophile is not so much
what technology you use but how you use it. The iPod, the way most people
use it, is the antithesis of the search for high fidelity. You don’t get closer to
the music by throwing away four fifths of the already incomplete information.
But the good news is that you don’t have to. Computers and portable players,
used with musical pleasure in mind, really can be a music lover’s best friend.
Which is why we havenow added an Apple iPod to our reference systems.
That will allow us to test relevant accessories and let you know what they can
for you. We can review alternatives to the iPod (we hear rumors there are
some). We can tell you how to put together a digital-based system that will
be literally music to your ears.
But of course that is not all that we will do. You’ll already have noticed that
this issue contains reviews of two turntables and cartridges and four phono
preamplifiers. The message of analog has been told often, but possibly not
often enough.
WHADDYA MEAN, DOG-EARED?
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It makes sense if you think about it. Where do copies sit
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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!
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Feedback
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
[email protected]
going after hi-fi ear first, ways of bringing hi-fi utopias, step by sure-footed
step, back into real lives.
Tim Bisha
LONDON, ON
I just finished your article The Plot to
Kill Hi-Fi. It got me thinking about my
experience. I was indoctrinated into the high end
in Winnipeg, where there are only a few
high end dealers. My first exposure was
at a mass-market dealer who sold low and
mid-fi on the main floor along with the
telephones, and had a “secret” high end
room downstairs. I was still quite young
then, and it was obvious that I didn’t have
a lot of money. Once the salesman found
this out he ignored me. The whole focus
was on selling, and if you weren’t buying
they weren’t interested in you.
Over time I ended up at a true highend dealer. They were happy to audition
equipment for you, but there was still
more emphasis on selling than anything
else. The listening rooms were overcrowded with equipment and not ideal,
but it was better than the box dealer.
Over the course of a year or so I purchased some products from them, until
I found out about after-sales service.
I tried to return a power conditioner
that sounded good at first but was less
good after a few weeks. They absolutely
refused to take it back, and I ended up
having to trade it in and use the money
toward speaker cables. That was the last
time they saw me.
I finally found a small store that
sold and fixed audio gear. The owner
was the only person in the store. It had
two good listening rooms. The owner
was happy to talk to me about high end
equipment, even though I told him right
at the beginning that I couldn’t afford
to upgrade. I never would have believed
that over the next three years I would
spend tens of thousands of dollars at his
I’d just like to thank you for your
magazine and for the Free Advice section.
Both have been very helpful in allowing
me to get the most out of my system.
I especially love Gerard’s article,
The Plot to Kill Hi-Fi, in which I recognized myself in his description of the
enthusiasm of the early hi-fi proprietors,
and hope to one day put it to use in the
service of this wonderful hobby.
Perry Howell
THORNHILL, ON
Why is it that so many audio magazines never do reviews on B&O products?
Are they overpriced products that don’t
deliver the goods? Is it reverse snobbery
on behalf of the audio press that you’re
not buying a true hi-fi system but buying
into a lifestyle? Their catalogue certainly
looks like it is! I would be interested in
knowing your views on this subject, as I
plan to buy a B&O 9000 CD player and
match it up with a Roksan Caspian amp
and my existing Bose speakers.
Nick Thompson
Interestingly enough, Nick, our very first
issue in 1982 had an article on technology
developed by B&O, namely the Dolby HX
Pro headroom extension system that is
still used on some cassette decks. At that
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Feedback
I was raised in a musical family, but
alone among family members did not
learn an instrument professionally. In
something like counterpoint, I went
toward hi-fi instead, and could soon
tell you about components, brands, the
tube sound, and so on. A bit further on I
learned that hi-fi enthusiasm isn’t about
naming or reciting stats, but listening
purely and simply. I was well on the
way toward the kind of hi-fi-dom your
magazine is about.
Then, somewhere bet ween life
choices, the rise of digital mania and the
exigencies of real life on a shoestring, I
started losing that way. Still true to it
in principle, I started making compromises, settling for “the meantime” until
doing so was the routine. Finally, hi-fi
had become a utopian dream, something
always across another horizon, a tale of
another lifetime. This one, like it or
not, is about scraping rent, putting off
that dental appointment for yet another
month, and plugging a pair of portable
earphones into an aging laptop running
Windows Media Player.
Then I happened across your reprint
of Gerard Rejskind’s elegant 1992 article
The Plot to Kill Hi-Fi (UHF No. 72), and
was reminded in one pass why it all mattered to me then, and why it still matters
now. If hi-fi is a costly pursuit, there is no
better time than tight times for hearing
that hi-fi is an idea, not a product, and
that ideas worth believing in are also
worth fighting for; only fair-weather
pursuits are actually reserved for the
rich.
On a practical note, I would stress
that hi-fi joy is open to modest incomes,
thanks first to the wide range of products
on the market, and second to the componential nature of hi-fi; one can buy into
it in modest pieces and thus plan for the
more costly among them, and you enjoy
new levels of sound with every upgrade.
This flexibility creates abundant ways of
store and develop a great friendship in
the process. It turned out that this little
store made their own high end amplifiers.
The owner had me bring in my speakers
(luckily they were Totem model 1’s) and
do a comparison between his cheapest
amp and some others that were many
times more expensive and had received
glowing reviews in popular magazines.
I couldn’t believe how obvious the difference was! I eventually purchased one
of their amplifiers, and later traded it in
for an amp that he custom built for me.
The owner, Wayne Stefanko, spent
hours with me, teaching me to use my
ears to judge the quality of a product.
His love of audio is obvious and infectious. I didn’t go into his store that day
to buy anything, and he didn’t care. He
was happy to educate me, and to just talk
about high-end audio with someone who
loves to listen to music.
Ray Semadeni
VICTORIA, BC
time, B&O made a phono cartridge that
was widely reviewed as outstanding. Since
then the company has shifted to — as you
say — lifestyle products, with emphasis on
features and design rather than musical
fidelity. B&O does this sort of product perhaps better than anyone else in the world,
but it’s not quite our thing.
Advice
Feedback
Free
UHF on your desktop
anywhere in the world!
!
-
' :EE
www.magzee.com
gone back to this configuration myself
and recently I tested Steve Nugent’s
assertion that a 1.5-metre digital interconnect sounds better on most gear.
I wired up a 1-metre and a 1.5-metre
75-ohm Apogee Wyde Eye using Canare
RCAs and silver solder from you. My
pal Vaqar and I then had a careful listen
using your guidelines, first on my TEAC
T1/Apogee DA-1000E pair, then on his
Theta Universal/Kora Hermes.
You might like to try this test yourself.
It’s an interesting one because the results
run counter to conventional wisdom,
i.e. shorter is better with cables. The
soundstage is bigger, instruments more
clearly defined, confusion is reduced.
Steve Nugent is behind Empirical
Audio, as you likely know, and was once
an engineer for Intel. He now mods
audio gear and specializes in digital.
Although IMHO he treads very close
to posting limits for self-promoters, his
advice turned out to be perfectly correct
in this case.
Toby Earp
MONTREAL, QC
What is music high end reproduction
these days? Two, five, seven channels,
and now I hear that nine channels
are being introduced. Is digital music
streaming replacing disc playback?
A re all of my two-channel qualit y
components obsolete now, like a slow
We were intrigued by this admittedly
computer?
counterintuitive theory, and after reading
I see that you have included an iPod your letter we ordered a 1.5 m version of the
in your second reference system. Is that Atlas Compass digital cable, to give a listen.
the way of the future…compressed digi- It appears to be true: the 1.5 m version did
tal files synthetically expanded to sound sound considerably better. At the same time,
like music through some electronic by the way, we tried the Atlas Opus cable,
playback system? If anyone can reason- OCC wire and connectors, $335. We judged
ct and no
xt inta
ably predict the future of high end home it the equal
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ROCKY MOUNT, VA
I would love to see a review of this
Well, quality music playback has always new Qinpu integrated from Charisma
been a niche market, and we don’t expect Audio. I would be very interested in its
that to change. It’s true that channels seem sound quality compared to the Simaudio
to be proliferating like rabbits (James Bond’s I-5 and Vecteur integrated.
Aston Martin Vanquish in Die Another And I heard a new Moon I-7 inteDay had a 12.1 channel system), but most grated is coming out this year — well out
serious music systems still mostly have two of my price range I’m sure. Not only is
channels. As for our iPod, we are not loading the Qinpu beautiful to gaze upon, but it
it with music containing lossy compres- looks as if it would make beautiful tunes.
sion. Our message is that using convenient But looks can be deceiving.
technology does not mean throwing away
Lloyd Smith
the music.
MALAGASH, NS
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Yes, there
I’m writing because you’re planning
to test a transport/DAC pair. I have
The Qinpu A-8000 MkII will be reviewed
in our next issue, Lloyd.
Free Advice
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
[email protected]
I have what I think is the top model
Musical Fidelity preamp (a 2002 model)
and the Celeste 4150 amp. Since the signal
is so small from a preamp, would I notice a
difference in cables? I don’t mean to sound
stupid here, I’m not talking about going
from house wire to the Atlas Navigator, but
from a fairly good quality cable (Luscombe
silver audio cable which you’ve probably
never heard of as they are made at a home
near Brantford, Ontario). I would like to
get all the music I can from my new Totem
Mani-2’s which I dearly like.
Do you think the Celeste is a proper
amplifier for the Mani-2’s? What would
you suggest?
David Ebertt
DRAYTON, ON
My amplifiers are Meridian 557’s (I have
two of the 557’s and use them in both bridged
and vertical biamping hookups, depending on
my “mood”).
I want to maintain HDCD capability
in the CD player, and the two other players I’ve considered are the Linn Ikemi and
Arcam FMJ CD23. Which would you
recommend, if you would, and what type(s)
of improvement(s) should I expect with
either?
Paul Kittinger
HILLIARD, OH
an Alphason Delta arm and Sumiko Blue
Point Special cartridge. I’ll be changing the
subchassis, which is warped (Oracle is sending
me a new one this week).
Can the Alexandria take a better arm
than the Delta? I’m thinking about an
Alphason Xenon MCS or HR-100, or a
Linn Akito, Ittok or Ekos. Do you have other
suggestions?
As you can guess, I’m looking primarily
at the used market.
Marc-André St-Onge
ST-PASCAL, QC
It’s a great way to save, Marc-André.
Of course you know how fond we are of
Alphason tone arms, since we still use
the HR-100S that can be seen on the
cover of issue No. 11 of our magazine.
Too bad the company has practically disappeared...we say “practically” because
it’s still around, making equipment
tables. Sigh!
The Delta was a rather basic arm.
Paul, we stand by our recommenda- The Xenon was a lot more interesting,
tion of the Linn Genki as one of the best and might be a good match if you can
players in its price range, one of a hand- actually find one at a decent price. On
ful we can count among our favorites. If the Linn side, the Ittok would be an
you want to maintain HDCD capability, interesting choice, and since it uses the
We also like the Mani-2’s, David. the only sensible upgrade we can see is same mountou
as your
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the former), and the difference of Verity Parsifal Encore speakers. I want
the tabeen
told off the record that the combination shows up on a number of recordings, SACD capability so I am considering
can work fine if you don’t overdrive the especially ones with complex orchestra- selling the 5103, buying a Unidisk SC,
speakers…which means keeping the tion. The Genki, for all its many quali- and plugging the Ikemi into the SC (because
guests away from the volume control ties, sometimes exhibits strange artifacts I think the Ikemi does a better job with CDs
at the New Year’s Eve party. Since the on some recordings, and you’ll notice than the SC does). I can’t afford the full boat
4150 is the ancestor of the W-3, the same them if you do a direct comparison with Kisto/1.1 combo or even the 2.1, but I’m a
would be true of it, we would think, and the Ikemi. With the discontinuation of bit nervous that I’m trading down in the
we would expect it to sound very good the Linn CD12, the Ikemi is possibly the preamp department if I swap the 5103 for
an SC. Your thoughts? with the Mani-2’s.
world’s best HDCD player.
Eric Parker
By the way, when we first tested the But did we remember to mention
WESTON, MA
Mani-2’s years ago, we had received no that the Genki is one of the best playwarnings about amplifiers, and we broke ers in its price range? Before stepping
them in using a 60-watt per channel up to a player that will cost you double We have yet to hear the Unidisk SC
Robertson 4010 (the subsequent test was the Genki’s original price, you may be with either CD or SACD, Eric, though
done with a YBA One, however). The ready for a preamplifier upgrade. Since we have sat through a couple of demos
combination sounded wonderful and your Genki is so compact, it may be of movies with that unit. We rather
presented no problems.
to your advantage to take it with you share your concern, and you may not
to your favorite dealer and do some want to make that move unless you can
I currently have a Linn Genki CD player comparisons.
hear your 5103 alongside a Unidisk SC,
and am contemplating upgrading it. My
and confirm that Linn has shoehorned
preamp is a Linn Wakonda with switching I need your help once again. I have an in a multi-channel preamp without
power supply and built-in Kudos FM tuner. Oracle Alexandria MkIII turntable with compromises.
ny ad…
a
,
d
a
n
a
Click on
Advice
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Free
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Rega
ProAc
Neat
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic”
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
hi fi fo fum
!
The
Odds
Are
Good
Ringmat
Royd
Advice
Feedback
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But what impressed us about the SC
is how easily it lets you set up a home
theatre system, a process that has been
linked to a worldwide epidemic of ulcers.
You don’t mention home theatre, how-
Visonik
ATC
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Toronto 416-421-7552
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ever. May we infer that it is not in your
plans? If not, your choice of SACD players widens, and it may not be desirable
to sell your 5103. You may still want to
keep your Linn Ikemi player, however.
I’ve been flipping through past issues of
UHF. For a budget of C$2,200 or less, and
a 17’ x 12’ x 8’ room, I only see the following options: Castle Stirling 3, Reference 3a
Dulcet, Vecteur Espace, ProAc Response 1sc
or Tablette Reference 8 (aftermarket), Totem
Rainmaker.
What would be a good choice? Any other
makes/models that you would suggest?
Alan Chan
VANCOUVER, BC
Oh, we probably could, Alan, but
you’ve already rounded up some likely
suspects. The weakest choices on your
list are the Tablette and the Vecteur. The
strongest, in roughly this order, are the
Dulcet, the ProAc Response, the Castle
Stirling, and finally the Rainmaker.
You can see that the Dulcet is right
on budget, but neither it nor the other
“bookshelf” speakers will sound anywhere near their best without first class
stands. If the stands need to fit into your
budget as well, you might be better off
going down to the Rainmakers, and
matching them to really good stands.
Thanks for your hard work in producing
this fine magazine!
I can’t believe I managed to destroy my
Goldring Elite MC cartridge, but I did.
In my research of a replacement cartridge
(I ended up with the same one, also recommended by my dealer), I discovered that
there are such beasts as “mono” cartridges!
Since approximately a third of our 1,000
records are mono, it begs the question whether
spending the money on a new mono-specific
cartridge is worthwhile. These older records
are mostly good quality classical music
recordings, sound very good even using the
stereo cartridge, and are played frequently.
At least stereo cartridges are backwards
compatible, unlike most new technologies!
Ortofon may make one and Lyra has two
(the Helikon Mono, at $1500) but they’re
not exactly commonplace and not cheap. To
add to the expense, I would feel it necessary
to purchase a second unipivot arm to make
changeovers fast and reduce the risks of damaging expensive cartridges by Mr. Klutz.
Sean Leighland
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, England
We don’t recommend this, Sean.
There is an argument for a special car-
tridge for 78 rpm recordings, since they
require a special stylus anyway. A mono
cartridge offers no particular advantage
except for certain turntables afflicted
with large amounts of vertical rumble,
to which mono cartridges are insensitive but which affect stereo cartridges.
What’s more, we would guess that a
mono cartridge will be of older design,
and will probably not perform as well as
your Goldring.
There is, by the way, an inexpensive
way to “force” mono sound, using an
interconnect with the two channels connected together, something a technician
can make up easily. Put it between tape in
and tape out on your amp or preamp, and
flip the tape/source switch to put sound
through it. That will cancel any vertical
noise your cartridge picks up. That can
also be used to cancel out the dreadful
reverb added to those old LPs that were
“rechannelled for stereo.”
Ian, we know it’s sometimes difficult
to recall the details of a technical explanation from a (possibly) busy technician,
but you say someone at the store told you
that the cartridge was “generating an
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electrical field?” Wow!
Technically, of course, phono cartridges do generate electrical fields, but
they are so miniscule that a turntable
motor wouldn’t be able to find it without
a microscope. What can happen is that
the coils in the cartridge will pick up
hum from the motor’s electrical field.
As the arm swings toward the centre
of the record, the cartridge gets closer
to the motor. We have never tried the
Rega Bias (we have reviewed what was
then Rega’s top cartridge, the Exact, in
UHF No. 65). However we think Rega’s
engineers are much too experienced to
put out a cartridge that wouldn’t work
with their own turntable. Our guess
is that a ground wire from the arm to
somewhere on the underside of the
turntable is busted. This is an easy fix
once it’s found.
I am shopping for a CD player, but lately
some doubts emerge.
I wanted to get a new CD player because
my Micromega Stage 1 is getting quite old,
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Advice
Feedback
Free
I have a question about choosing a cartridge for my Rega Planar 3. The turntable
was purchased used from a neighbourhood
record shop, but I could tell by the Empire
cartridge that it was getting on in years. So
I ambled on down to the best hi-fi “salon” in
Vancouver to purchase a replacement.
Well, it was a dreadful experience. I
chose the Rega Bias, since it was the entry
level model, took it home and found there
was no tip on the end of the stylus, just bare
metal! Back I went for another one, which
the retailer exchanged with no trouble. I get
home, put it on the Rega and all seems well,
until I notice a strange hum.
Convinced I had a bum deck, I took it to
a highly-respected repair shop, where I was
told that the new cartridge was generating
an electrical field that was interfering with
the one produced by the Rega’s motor. As the
tone arm moved to the center of the LP, the
hum increased. He put on a Stanton 890,
and there was no hum at all.
I would like a good cartridge. Could you
recommend one that will give good results?
Ian Pickering
VANCOUVER, BC
Up to *320% more conductivity
than the RCA or Banana plug
you presently use.
Advice
Feedback
Free
as a high dollar cord?
2b) Is there any requirement or phenomenon evident in the length of wire
between the outlet and your amp that would
benefit from the use of, say, multistranded
silver conductor for this length, when the
remainder of the wire between your outlet
and the breaker box is regular thick copper
Home Hardware-style wire? (I’m not being
facetious…if there is such a phenomenon I
would like to know about it and will buy
accordingly.)
3) At some point I plan on taking electronics courses and joining the ranks of the
hi-fi constructors, but as a segue into that
world I have become very intrigued by the
Audionote Signature PQ kit 1. Have you
had the opportunity to hear this kit?
4) If I do build this kit, I will need highefficiency speakers, and I am wondering
if you’ve heard the Audionote AN/E (the
one based on the old Snell speakers) The
philosophy behind this speaker design is to let
the cabinet resonate at a certain frequency,
which, in their words, allows it to act as a
third driver and creates a warm sound in the
same way as a guitar body fills out the sound
of the guitar.
Something doesn’t sit right with me
about that.
Perry Howell
THORNHILL, ON
and sometimes it does not detect the CDs I am such as the Milty (avoid the ones from
feeding it. It gets annoying. My local reseller the dollar stores). Put it into the player
says my laser beam is probably getting very and follow the instructions. You may
weak, and that on a Philips transport it can need more than one treatment.
Nor with us, Perry, but we’ll take the
That said, the Stage 1 was not the power cord question first.
hardly be fixed. Should I believe him?
Since I bought the Micromega ST1, I smoothest player on the market even in Critics of high end tweaks often make
moved from a small carpeted apartment its day, and it may indeed be time for a sardonic remarks concerning the fact we
to a huge loft with concrete structure and new one. The choice has expanded enor- favor high end shielded power cords, but
vast windows. The sound of the ST1 in that mously over the past decade. Perhaps the that the much longer in-wall wiring is
environment always seemed thin, and the harshness you hear is not entirely due to cheap, and is usually not shielded, except
music lacks some warmth and depth, and the acoustics.
for BX cable. This is true of course, but
the image is quite narrow. I thought that I
the reality is that the in-wall wiring is
should look for something less analytic, like I am in the process of constructing my much farther away from the equipment
e power cords
a Myryad or a Rega Planet.
own power bar, and have a few questions:
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before giving you that advice, we would down.
Incidentally, the shielding also adds a bit
say he is probably right. If he didn’t, 2) Is it possible to make a decent power of capacitance to the cable, letting it act
he may have been hoping to steer you cord for hi-fi equipment using the same in- like a mild filter against noise…some of
toward the shelves where the new players wall home wiring you recommended for the which may actually be generated in the
are kept.
power bar? I understand that this must be upstream cables. Every little bit helps.
If your player is a decade old and has shielded, but are there any other electrical Some other features of expensive
never been cleaned, we are surprised it constraints that would keep a power cord power cables may not add much of
works at all. Get a good cleaning disc, made from such material from being as good anything. There really are silver power
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http://w w w.uhfm
10 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
I would like to thank you for including the
article on audio recording in UHF No. 72.
If nothing else, it pointed me towards the
Audacity software, which has many features
that I appreciate (data editing with the draw
tool, for example). I have intended, for some
time now, to transfer some of my vinyl collection to digital for archiving and to allow
me to play it in locations where I don’t have
access to a turntable.
Since I began reading your publication,
I have been amused by many of your comments in the Feedback, Free Advice, and
State of the Art columns. Your comment
on waterfall diagrams a couple of months
ago was particularly relevant, as I have been
using (and occasionally writing software for)
such applications for over 20 years. I tend to
skim over waterfall diagrams in consumer
audio publications, as I am never sure what
they are trying to tell me or how they have
calculated the results. These can change quite
remarkably given slightly different analysis
parameters. Waterfall diagrams are wonderful for analyzing patterns in data, but
the format in which they are presented often
limits the ability one has to resolve amplitude
details.
A good example of their use in pattern
analysis is identifying different species of
birds by analyzing their songs (the sonograph,
a.k.a. the short-time Fourier transform).
Unfortunately, I employ tools such as these
for less romantic purposes, such as identifying
wear in railway track.
I also enjoy your advice — that’s what
I buy audio magazines for. I am starting
the process of assembling a secondary audio
system for use in my home office. I already
have two systems: one that I use for serious
listening and the other a mid-fi home theatre
system.
My primary system consists of a Clear
audio turntable, cartridge, and power supply,
a modified Rega tonearm, a Primare phono
preamp, a Musical Fidelity CD, a Linn
tuner, an Anthem preamp, a Bryston amp,
ProAc speakers, and a Linn subwoofer.
I am quite pleased with this equipment
and have enjoyed many a good moment with
it. I find it somewhat sad to observe just
how many recordings out there are just not
executed very well. It makes the real gems
that much more enjoyable. Given the quality
of the recording equipment available today
and the volume of quality technical information, poor or even indifferent quality sound
is just not acceptable.
My A/V system is less elegant and has
been assembled for films. Most of the video
side is from Sony, but I have found their
recent offerings to be lower in quality — your
Gossip & News column on Sony is very
much on my mind. However, going upmarket on the video side will have to wait.
My Beta VCR hasn’t fallen to pieces yet!
On the audio side, I have obtained
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 11 Advice
Feedback
Free
cables, and silver is certainly a better
conductor than copper, but in most
cases the resistance of the connections
is higher than that of the wire.
We’re sorry to say that we haven’t
heard the Audionote kit. The speaker
whose cabinet resonance acts as a third
driver made us smile, however, because
the same phenomenon is present in
a lot of speakers with inadequatelydamped cabinets, including all mid-fi
speakers. But speakers are not musical
instruments, and we’re not crazy about
components that add stuff to the music,
even if the manufacturer characterizes
it as “warmth.”
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ES105 105 kHz
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good results by using two pairs of bookshelf
speakers to handle the left, right and centre
channels. The centre channel uses two speakers, separated slightly and oriented vertically.
This avoids the lobing problems encountered
with many of the horizontally-oriented
D’Appolito designs and creates a pleasant
soundfield. I employ dipoles on the surround
channels to improve the ambience. Not a
great system for listening to music through,
but that’s what my main audio system is
for.
All of these ramblings bring me back
to the audio system I am planning for my
office. It will provide background music
while I work, but I would like it to be a
“listening quality” system for those moments
when I want more than background sound.
I would like a tube amp, preferably based on
the EL-34. I am planning to use bookshelf
speakers. They will have to be situated close
to the wall, because of the confined space and
the planned usage, so rear-ported speakers
cannot be used.
Because the room is quite small, I believe
that I can use a modestly-powered amplifier — 25 watts or less. I would prefer an
integrated amp over separate components. I
have limited experience in matching speaker
sensitivity to amplifier power and room
size, but I believe that if the speakers have a
sensitivity of 90 dB or better I should obtain
acceptable results. Of course, I am dependent
on the reliability of published sensitivity figures. I do not want to spend more than $2000
for the amp and speakers — a tightish budget
that eliminates exotic flea-powered SET
amps. Do you have any recommendations?
John Nicks
OTTAWA, ON
Choosing the amplifier looks easy,
John. We would look at the Chinese
company Antique Sound Labs, whose
AQ-1003 is just exactly what you’re
looking for: EL-34 tubes, 30 watts per
channel, and a price tag that will leave
budget room for reasonable speakers.
Speakers are slightly tougher. By
their very nature small speakers have
lower sensitivity than larger speakers,
and many of them do have rear-facing
ref lex ports, precluding placement
against a wall. Even Linn and Rega, who
long favored placement near a wall, now
make small speakers with rear ports.
This is going to be a problem if the
speakers need to be right against the
wall, much less of a problem if you can
place them at least a few centimeters out
from the wall.
We note that you have doubts about
the veracity of published speaker sensitivity figures. We share your doubts, if only
because there is no officially-sanctioned
method for measuring sensitivity, but
there is little choice other than using the
figure as a guide. Some of our favorite
small speakers have sensitivity ratings
of 87 dB or 85 dB (the Linn Katan for
instance), neither of which seems to indicate symbiosis with a 30 watt amplifier.
There are exceptions, happily. The Rega
R-1 has a sensitivity of 90 dB, and the
Visonik David 89 dB. We would expect
reasonable performance either near a
wall (15 cm away, say), or attached to an
off-wall support.
Can you give me a brief opinion on the
Bryston 4B SST amp combined with the
Bryston BP25 preamp. Are these very good
in your opinion? Do you think they would
be significantly better than my Rotel RB-
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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
1090 and RC-1090 amp/preamp, which
are Stereophile Class B rated? I could get
the Bryston combo for C$3800.
Yvon Husereau
ST-JOSEPH-DU-LAC, QC
The new NAD does not have a phono
preamp, and I do not want to lose my phono
capabilities. My current table is a mid 80’s
Dual CS515 with a Grado Green cartridge.
Is this analog front end good enough to
warrant the Rega Fono? For a third of the
Advice
Feedback
Free
Rotel is known for offering good
value at relatively moderate cost, Yvon.
So is Bryston, well up the quality ladder.
You will get an improvement, we would
expect, but at a considerable cost: $3800
minus whatever they give you, or you can
get, for the Rotels. We would see about
getting a bigger bang for that money.
By the way, do you have a good reason
to continue with a separate amplifier
and preamplifier rather than one of the
growing number of first class integrated
amplifiers available now?
and the fact I needed a tuner and headphone
jack. The NAD also has an excellent learning remote that can control all of my other
equipment, including my Rega Planet. As
well, my TV has only one video input, and I
use the NAD for video switching.
First I would like to say thank you for
publishing a great magazine, and very useful
website. I like the recent monthly specials and
the current garage sale. Very tempting.
My old Technics receiver — with built in
phono preamp — recently went belly up, and
has since been replaced with a NAD T743.
I chose a receiver mainly for budget reasons,
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price, I can get a NAD PP-2. Are there any
other phono stages in the $200 range that
are worth listening to (Rotel, Creek), that
would be a good match to my player?
My main source is the Planet, and I
only occasionally listen to my records. But
when I do, I don’t want screech and excessive
sibilance. Whatever outboard phono stage I
select, I assume it will be better than the one
I had in my previous Technics receiver.
Tim Leeney
GEORGETOWN, ON
We have heard a lot of phono preamps, Tim, at widely differing prices,
and they fall mostly into three categories. The cheap and cheerful, from $15
to $150, are screechy and opaque. Ones
in the second category, perhaps $200
to $500, are better, though not quite
good enough for the best turntables.
Preamps in the top category, from $900
to $30,000 (yes!) may work magic.
We haven’t heard the NAD, though
we have listened to others at lower prices,
such as the Creek and the Musical Fidelity. What surprised us about the Rega
was that it costs like the middle category,
but sounds like the upper one. There
are also several other phono preamps
reviewed in this issue.
Some months ago I sent you an e-mail
saying that at long last I could burn my CDs
with a Windows computer, with the use of a
“Nero” burner.
My jubilation did not last long. I found
that, if the original CD has over 70 minutes
of music, clicks and plops started thereafter
regardless of the speed used, even at the slow
200x. The safe bet is 65 minutes maximum
from the original contents. Can you tell me
why?
Joseph Choa
CALGARY, AB
“Slow 200x” speed? We presume you
mean “20x,” and even so that may be too
fast for some blank CD-R discs. You
might try burning at really low speed to
see whether that fixes the problem. If it
does, and if you can’t envisage burning
a 70 minute disc in 70 minutes, it may
help to look for a better brand of disc.
At one time, you may recall, blank
CDs were rated for 650 Mb of data.
When some supposedly longer “700 Mb”
discs appeared, we avoided them because
they had poor compatibility with some
players. Today, of course, there’s no
choice. Some recent burners, by the way,
have the possibility of pausing in midburn to avoid running out of data. But
your CD-burning software must be able
to use this feature, and it must be turned
on: it will have a nice intuitive name such
as “buffer underrun protection.” Note
that it does impose a performance hit
when it activates, which means you’ll get
best results if your computer isn’t being
distracted by other tasks.
I’ve been debating an upgrade to my
source. I have a NAD 541i (one year old)
hooked up to a Simaudio I-5080. I was curious about your thoughts on better but older
CD players versus newer cheaper ones.
The player in question is a Copland 266
with upgraded K-DAC’s. It’s a 1998 model
versus a year old NAD unit. Has technology been improved to a point where cheaper
newer players such as the NAD are equal to
higher end six-year old players?
The other alternative is to wait a little
bit longer and get a used Simaudio, or Classé
player. I’m curious on your thoughts about
the possibilities of buying older but better.
Paul Bawcutt
AJAX, ON
Saw your excellent article on passive preamps on the Internet. I’ve just put together
a 4-way JBL system with alternating
Marchand P41 passive preamp and venerable Marantz 7C. Which is better?
In the comments you made in evaluating
the two amps I would suggest that messing
with cables or other details would likely make
You’re certainly right that tweaking
a good system can potentially make
it sound great, Mike. What we warn
against, however, is the notion that
tweaks can fix a fundamental problem.
Our approach is to make the system
sound good, and then tweak it, using
cables, anti-vibration pods, or magic
spells. It may be a systems game, but only
once you have the basics right.
Good as our reference systems are,
we’re aware that we could take some
measures to improve them further.
However we need to keep our systems as
versatile as possible, so that we can drop
any other component to be reviewed into
one of them, and have it work.
By the way, we’re Canadian rather
than British, though we do like to think
of ourselves as citizens of the world!
I have always been listening to mostly
CDs and I wonder if I am missing something
by not including analog to my playback
system. My equipment for the moment
consists of all Balanced Audio Technology
products: VK 60 amp, VK 5i preamp, VK
5D HDCD CD player, Monitor Audio Gold
Reference 20, Alpha-Core Sapphire interconnects, Transparent Super biwire cables,
Tara Labs and Soundstring AC cables, all
connected to a 20 amp dedicated outlet, and
myriad tweaks.
I am acquiring a Linn Sondek LP12
and a Musical Fidelity X-LPS V3 phono
preamp. My question is: why do some purist
still claim the superiority of analog compared
to digital? Analog does not come cheap either.
By the time you add the total of your turntable, tone arm, cartridge, cleaning tools,
preamp, interconnects, etc. (LPs aren’t cheap
either), you can get an excellent universal
player for the same price.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 15 Advice
Feedback
Free
That’s often a good strategy, Paul,
especially with highly-developed technologies that are advancing slowly if at
all. That’s not always the case with CD
players, however. Remember when, years
ago, we raved about the Quad 67 player,
calling it the first affordable audiophilegrade player? We stand by that, but you
sure wouldn’t want to buy one today.
Our guess is, however, that the
upgraded Copland will beat the NAD.
either sound “better.” Or worse. What I
learned is that at this level it’s purely a systems game, finding the synergy that creates
the illusion you happen to prefer. The cable
thing caught me totally by surprise since I
hadn’t upgraded my system for two decades!
I was astonished.
Enjoyed your article. The Brits always
have some unique, enjoyable insights — they
obviously love their music!
Mike Manner
DETROIT, MI
Am I foolish in pursuing this, or is it
worth every penny I am investing for my
musical enjoyment? Illuminate me, O wise
ones! Nelson Borje
SURREY, BC
I’m short of ideas for a new preamp and
amplifier.
I have B&W 805 Nautilus speakers,
Kimber speaker cables biwired, Linn Ikemi
CD player, AudioQuest Viper interconnect
cables (CD to amp), Passion I-11 tube amp,
and Rotel RLC-900 line conditioner.
UHF has commented on a few pieces
Looking
for a
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EXCLUSIVE
where
you can
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both?
23rd
ANNIVERSARY
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UDI
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which I have acquired and I put a lot of trust
in your wonderful magazine. I would like
to stay with tube equipment or a mixture of
tube and solid state, but I would like a few
more watts.
Reg Gagnon
MONTRÉAL, QC
Advice
Feedback
Free
Nelson, we rather imagine that you’ll
find the difference to be well worthwhile.
It’s true that a top-grade analog system
can be costly, but so is a top-grade digital
system. We wish it weren’t so, but it is. When digital came out in the early
80’s, its inferiority to analog was evident
to anyone who loved music. The sound
was hard and harsh, with glaring highs,
thin lows, and a stereo sound stage like
a crack in the wall. True, CD was convenient and noise-free, but absence of
noise also meant absence of what makes
good music so exciting. But time has not stood still. Half a
decade after the launch of the CD, it had
so improved we thought we had reached
the limits of the medium. Fortunately
we were wrong about that, and we kept
on being wrong, as new improvements
continued to surprise us.
But analog hasn’t been standing still
either. Your Linn LP12 will be considerably superior to one you would have
bought at the dawn of digital. There are
many ways of expressing the advantages
of analog. Our own Albert Simon says
that, with analog, you need make less of
an effort to convince yourself you are
hearing real musicians, and that is why
the experience is less stressful.
By the way, though new upscale LP
pressings are indeed expensive, the
market is full of used LPs selling at
times for pennies. The stylus on a good
modern cartridge can play parts of the
groove that had never been touched
before. That’s the well-kept secret of
analog. We love SACDs too, but we have
yet to see one at a garage sale.
You’re in for a treat. Enjoy!
Come and
Totem
and
hear them!
Reference
3a
BACKED
Reg, your Passion I-11 was actually
built by Antique Sound Lab, and under
its own name ASL has a plethora of tube
amplifiers way more powerful than the
I-11.The Monsoon is one you might consider, or — for even more power — the
Hurricane monoblocks. Of course you’ll
also need a preamp, and if tubes are okay
there too you might look at the one we
use, the Copland CTA-305.
We note, though, that you have,
in most respects, high-level gear, and
you may be ready for something truly
upscale. The Audiomat Récital, reviewed
in this issue, might be just the ticket.
Even the smaller Audiomat Opéra (UHF
No. 69) might surprise you. Jadis and
VTL also have some exceptional tube
amplifiers.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 17 some blanks are two-sided, the best ones,
intended for professional production, are
one-sided.
Blank lacquers do not all sound the
same, and at one time there was much
discussion as to which brand sounded
best. Today there is less choice. Economy
brands, once used by radio stations to put
commercials on disc, have long vanished,
leaving only the premium versions.
The Making of an LP
Feedback
Nuts&Bolts
A
t one time one could say that
any competent audio engineer
would be familiar with at least
the basics of vinyl recording
production. This was true because, for
nearly all recordings, the LP was the end
user’s medium.
It has not been true for some years,
for reasons I need hardly detail. Today’s
engineers feel a much more urgent
need to study 5.1 channel surround
techniques than to learn the black art of
putting music into vinyl. It is also true,
however, that even in the golden days
of the LP many an engineer didn’t truly
understand how the task could be best
carried out.
I propose to pass through the details
of the creation of an LP, and then to look
at some of the reasons that, while some
may sound excellent, others do not.
The long playing record was born
in 1948. Though the 33⅓ rpm speed
had been used before, notably by Bell
Laboratories, it was CBS (Columbia)
which first introduced this speed in a
commercial product. At the same time,
the material used was changed from
breakable shellac to “unbreakable”
vinyl.
The reason for the change, and
for the universal adoption of the LP
(originally a CBS trademark) was not
initially sound quality. The 235% drop
in speed made it difficult to preserve
high frequencies, especially in the inner
grooves. Nor was the new LP especially
quiet, since vinyl, unlike shellac, could
hold a static electrical charge, and
would therefore pull dust from the air.
It did have obvious advantages, namely
compactness (the LP could hold over 40
minutes of music, nearly triple that of a
78), and resistance to breakage.
Fortunately, continuing research
brought major enhancements to the new
LP, and one could argue that it continues
to improve today, well past its putative
twilight.
The blank LP
Though shellac as a distribution
medium died with the 78, another hard
material, nitrocelullose, was ideal for
actually cutting an LP. The hardness
allows clean grooves to be cut. Because
the blank disc must be absolutely flat,
blanks are actually made from aluminum, precision-rolled, and covered by
a mirrorlike layer of lacquer. Though
by Paul Bergman
The machinery
The turntable used to make the
recording is not belt-driven as some
audiophiles might suppose, nor even
idler-driven as earlier turntables were.
The drag from the cutting stylus is
considerable, and to maintain speed a
gear-drive system is generally employed.
A cutting turntable is less sensitive to
vibration than a playback turntable,
fortunately. The cutter head is not
mounted in a pivoted arm, since it must
create a groove rather than following
one. Instead, it is mounted in a lathe,
which at the start of the age of the LP,
was moved across the blank disc by a
“lead screw,” a precision threaded rod.
There was, however, a great deal of
development to be done before perfecting the LP.
In order to be able to claim “high
fidelity,” which was becoming a buzz
word in the early 50’s not long after
the launch of the LP, it was necessary
to extend the frequency range of the
medium. A method discovered early on
was the heating of the cutting stylus,
so that it would very slightly soften the
lacquer, that smaller nuances might be
cut. At first the technique was applied
by individual mastering engineers, who
would wind a few turns of fine magnet
wire around the shank of the stylus, and
connect the wire to a small transformer
in order to heat the wire. Shortly after,
the heating feature was designed right
into the lathes.
The commercial version worked
much better, because it allowed precise
control of the stylus temperature. That,
it turned out, was critical to making a
good sounding LP. If the stylus is too
cool the resulting LP will sound dull
and lifeless. If it is too hot, the LP will
suffer from ticks and pops that cannot
be eliminated by cleaning.
Professional quality record lathes
have long come with microscopes, to
allow the mastering engineer to look
carefully at a test groove (cut onto a spare
lacquer kept around for the purpose)
There is a vacuum cleaning apparatus
that sucks up the chip of lacquer lifted
by the cutting stylus, lest it ball up in
the stylus’s path. That thread is highly
inflammable, and on some lathes it is
immediately immersed in water.
This head commands
the pitch control
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Variable pitch
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This head feeds
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Adjusting the cut
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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 19 Feedback
Nuts&Bolts
Equalization
If the music signal were recorded
with flat frequency response, the low frequencies would overwhelm the system,
whereas the highs would be lost in the
surface noise. This second point perhaps
requires a little explanation.
The noise problem can be expressed
in the following fashion. A musical
octave is a two-to-one frequency interval. This means the interval from 100 Hz
to 200 Hz is an octave, and the interval
from 7 kHz to 14 kHz is also an octave.
These intervals are musically equivalent,
but the upper octave, it is clear, contains
far more discrete frequencies, and will
therefore contain more noise.
We now sitch to Latin, and we wish
we could say it’s real Latin, but it’s fake.
Of course the printed edition has this
article complete, as does the electronic
edition (the address is case sensitive, so
watch the capital letters): :www.uhfmag.
com/ElectronicEdition.html.
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Feedback
Nuts&Bolts
15°
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The stereophonic LP
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Inner groove distortion
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In the end, it was at the playback end
that the inner groove distortion problem
was largely solved. Modern cartridges,
especially those with radically modified
stylus shapes, have little problem with
inner groove distortion.
Half Speed Mastering
Direct metal mastering
Making the LP
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Nuts&Bolts
Digital delay
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Feedback
Rendezvous
T
Rendezvous
ouraj Moghaddam is the cofounder of Roksan, which made
its reputation with a turntable
two decades ago, though it now
makes a full range of products. Born in
Iran (his company’s name is derived from
Roksana, a Persian princess of Antiquity)
and educated in London, Moghaddam has
angered competitors by taking positions
radically different from their own. At the
same time, he has drawn an enthusiastic
following.
We sit down with
the designer of the
Roksan turntables,
and discuss the
black art of making a
quality record player.
UHF: Is there a way to sum up Roksan’s
philosophy on turntables…or perhaps your
philosophy on turntables?
Moghaddam: Absolutely, yes. Right
from the beginning, when I wanted to
design a turntable, it took a while to
know what its function was. I’m a very
simple-minded engineer, and if I don’t
know what it is I’m supposed to do, I
don’t really know how to go about it.
So the first thing I want to do is define
the problem. Then I know how to find
the solution to it.
UHF: That sounds fair enough. So what is
the problem?
Moghaddam: A record player’s job is
to measure the groove with respect to
time. I actually put that in the leaflet
that went out with our first Roksan
Xerxes table in 1985. I had spoken to
loads of manufacturers and designers
to ask them, for my own benefit, what
is the job of a turntable. Nobody gave
me an answer.
And it was pure coincidence that I
came across an answer that had nothing
to do with turntables. At the time I was
involved with an electrical engineering project, though I’m a mechanical
engineer. They had a project for a
horizontal axis wind turbine, to generate electricity. About five years later we
had nearly finished, built the thing, put
strain gauges on it, run some tests, and
I wrote a simulation program. But a few
measurements didn’t quite tally up. So
what we were measuring and what we
had expected from the program were
different.
I went to my thesis supervisor, and
said, maybe my equations are wrong, I’ve
made a mistake. And he said no, I think
everything you’ve done is right, but you
should check to see whether you are
really measuring what you think you are
measuring.
Then I got a book on metrology, and
right at the beginning, in the preface, it
said that you can’t measure the circularity of something using calipers, because
calipers define just two points. Calipers
can measure the diameter of an object,
but can’t tell you if the object is circular.
So if you take a multi-sided coin, like
our 50p coin, or the Canadian dollar, it
has constant diameter, but it isn’t round.
Calipers will tell you it’s circular, but it’s
not. A circle is defined by three points,
not by two.
UHF: So how do you measure circularity?
Moghaddam: You put the object in
something like a V-block. You have a
bock in there. You rotate the object and
watch the bock. If it goes up and down,
the object’s not a circle.
And I was reading this, and I looked
over at my turntable, which was playing, and I thought…bloody hell! It’s a
measuring machine! It’s just measuring
the groove with respect to time.
Now the problem is that, if I want
to measure something, I need to know
where it is. When the record is turning,
I don’t know where the groove is, so I
can’t measure it. But I have a couple of
advantages. One is that I am turning this
thing, and by building the bearing, support assembly and drive, I can define the
axis about which the record rotates. The
second advantage is that, unlike with a
CD, the stylus needs to be in contact
with the groove. That stylus tip knows
exactly where the groove is.
The philosophy behind the Xerxes,
my first turntable, was to index everything on the machine, and any motions
induced in the machine, to be in sympathy with these two points: the stylus
tip and the axis of rotation.
UHF: Now this requires an extraordinary
level of machining accuracy.
Moghaddam: In t he bearing yes,
because if the bearing wobbles there’s
a problem.
But you know, many people confuse rigidity with immobility — they think
if something is rigid it doesn’t move.
Rigidity is in fact just a measure of movement. What is important is how much it
moves, and at what frequency. If you’ve
got a turntable moving at maybe a tenth
of a Hertz, who cares?
The function of a tone arm is to support the cartridge and accommodate
the record. Accommodating the record
means moving from the outside to the
inside, and moving up and down with
any warp, and back and forth with any
eccentricity. The arm itself doesn’t know
where the groove is, it’s merely told that
by the stylus, so it needs to make the job
of the stylus as easy as possible.
Of course there will always be a differential between where the cantilever
wants the body of the cartridge to be
and where the body of the cartridge
actually is. It’s always working with a
little bit of a lag. What we need to do is
reduce the amount of energy required,
and to place the frequency of the movement somewhere that is not harmful to
what we are trying to measure. So you
stay away from 8 Hz, which is the warp
frequency, or 0.5 Hz, which is that of
the record eccentricity, otherwise the
arm will start bobbing backwards and
forward. So you work above or below
those frequencies, or between them.
That’s the principle of our Intelligent
Counterweight, which moves right in
between those two frequencies.
UHF: What about the motor?
Moghaddam: You go back to the basic
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are from internally-induced motion rather
than external.
UHF: Do external vibrations matter?
Moghaddam: If that was what mattered, you could put the turntable next
door, and it should sound amazing. It
doesn’t.
No mechanical system can be perfect, but what you do must not contradict
your original statement of goal. Some
people will decide to use an inverted
bearing, for instance, and I ask why an
inverted bearing. “Because the platter is
more stable,” they’ll say. Well yes, if you
support something at its centre of gravity
it’s stable…if it doesn’t rotate. As soon as it
rotates, it becomes a gyroscope, and then
it’s least stable. Now, with a gyroscope, if
you hold it far from its centre of gravity
and you try to move it, it will oppose the
motion.
You have to ask whether something
helps or hinders your philosophy. I
generally look for solutions that solve a
lot of problems.
UHF: The Xerxes motor for instance?
Rendezvous
questions: what is the function of the
motor, what is the motor supposed to
do? If you don’t know that, how can you
design it?
The function of the motor is to
supply a sufficient amount of energy at a
frequency such that the platter’s inertia
will dictate its speed, without it slowing
down over time. It’s like a big tank of
water: you fill your cup from the bottom,
and at the top you put two limits: the
motor must always pump in “water”
within a range, never above that, never
below this.
When the Xerxes came out, people
would say, what is this, it’s such a small
motor, you’ll have dynamics problems.
But have you ever calculated the amount
of energy the stylus is actually taking?
What do you need, a diesel generator?
I mean, what is the efficiency of the
system? Even if you say it’s 20% efficient,
10% efficient, how much energy do
you need? It’s not a lot. And if you let
the motor dictate the speed, you’ve got
a problem. The motor should be the
slave of the platter, not the other way
around.
UHF: What about speed variations, then?
Moghaddam: Yes, the platter will be
slowing down and speeding up, but at
what frequency? It will be at a fraction
of a Hertz.
UHF: So it doesn’t matter?
Moghaddam: Well, compare that to
a suspended turntable, where the frequency of the subchassis is 4 or 5 Hz.
That turntable doesn’t know anything
below 4 or 5 Hz.
UHF: Let’s pick up that point. You’ve never
agreed with using a suspended subchassis.
Moghaddam: Oh you can use it, but
then you limit the ability of the turntable… If your measuring mechanism
can move at 5 Hz, it can’t know what
is happening below that, because it is
moving itself.
On the Xerxes, I tried to make the
mass “seen” by the arm and the platter as
small as possible, by placing a cutout in
the top of the plinth. But the rotational
inertia that it sees is that of the entire
plate, which is 25 mm MDF with a density of some 730 kg per cubic metre. It’s
too stiff to be distorted, but at the same
time it doesn’t store too much energy.
The biggest problems of turntables
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.72: Music from data: We look at ways
you can make your own audiophile CDs with
equipment you may already have, and we
test a DAC that can give you hi-fi from your
computer or iPod. We also review the new
Audio Reference speakers, the updated
Connnoisseur single-ended tube amp, a set
of upscale Actinote cables, and Gershman’s
Acoustic Art panels. We tell you how to tune
up your system for an inexpensive performance
boost. And much more.
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, the muRata super tweeters, plus the
Simaudio I-3 amp and Equinox CD player. Paul
Bergman reveals 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.
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.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.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.53: Loudspeakers:Reference 3a Intégrale,
Energy Veritas v2.8, Epos ES30, Totem
Shaman, Mirage 390is, Castle Eden. Plus: Paul
Bergman on understanding biamping, biwiring,
balanced lines, and more.
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.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.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.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.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.
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
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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. Some recent back issues may be available electronically at www.magzee.com.
ion…
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Rendezvous
Moghaddam: Yes, it’s on a bearing, frequency response, punch, dynamics,
that lets the motor body rotate back realism, the differences among instruand forth. That keeps the motor always ments…all the things you like about
synchronous. It never approaches stall- good music, if not quite at the same level
ing, and at the same time the belt ten- as some other designs.
sion is kept constant. If anything wants So we have a single platter, and a
to change the speed of the motor, the 110 volt motor that just locks onto the
body of the motor gives, rather than mains frequency. We do have to make
the belt stretching and contracting. At two different pulleys for 60 Hz current
the same time it lets you stop and start and 50 Hz current, but we don’t need
the turntable quicker. And the motor a DC regulated supply. But we saved
can transmit most of its noise down to perhaps £150 on the tone arm and £200
the plinth.
on the record player, and another £100
UHF: Now let’s talk about the Radius 5 on the power supply.
turntable. You began with a totally different Of course it benefits from the develdesign.
opment and tooling costs of our more
Moghaddam: This is where I had to expensive products.
depart a little bit. I’d get told I could UHF: Let’s talk about materials. The transuse such and such material, or such and parent acrylic used in the most spectacular
such technique. But I said that if I did version of the Radius 5 looks great, but does
use them, I wouldn’t do it on my best it offer other advantages?
turntable, but on a cheaper one, because Moghaddam: Acrylic has two advantages and a couple of disadvantages. One
it would be cheaper to make.
I hit a problem with the original disadvantage is that it’s a bastard to get it
Radius, whose design was very much perfect. Acrylic panels come with their
based on that of the Xerxes. It needed an top and bottom covered with paper to
inner platter, an outer platter, a 24-pole protect them. We buy the highest grade
synchronous motor driven from a gener- so it doesn’t have too many bubbles, and
ated power supply, and a rigid-bearing then we machine it. Once it’s machined,
tone arm.
it’s only then we remove the paper, and turers and asked what companies they
The Tabriz tone arm is a lot more if there’s something in there we have to supplied these machines to.
expensive to manufacture than the scrap it. Another disadvantage is that But you have to pick a company
that does a lot of this work, because
Nema, which is a unipivot arm. The it’s not cheap.
inner and outer platters on the original But one advantage is that, once you’ve otherwise they have no reason to keep
Radius cost more to make than the machined it and polished the edge, you
it h their machines up to date. But these
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acrylic platter we use on the Radius 5. don’t have to do anything
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for
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adapter, it didn’t have an expensive motor, als for us. One of them does very high love it.
but everything got more expensive as we grade bearings for satellites, and they do UHF: Have you converted any of them to
went. I went back to the drawing board some of our spindles. We’ve worked with the audiophile mentality?
and came up with something not based these companies nearly 20 years. We’ve Moghaddam: Sure. Quite a few of
on the Xerxes. You may not have the got our own tool room in their place.
them are actually using our systems. In
same resolution, but the compromises Originally, I researched which fact one of the partners of one of these
we made will give the end user the machines could do the precision work I companies is a musician himself, and he’s
enjoyment of the music, and sufficient needed, and I contacted their manufac- using a Xerxes in his system.
Montreal 2005: Smaller, Potent!
Feature
Feedback
F
or years, now, the
Montreal show has
been getting bigger
and bigger, eclipsing all but large trade shows,
such as CES. This year it
shrank. Oh, not enough to
keep it from being the biggest and — in the view of a
lot of exhibitors and attendees — the best.
Of course we were back in
our usual room at the Delta,
with the lineup you see at
right: our Copland CTA305 tube preamp, a Van den
Hul Array S-1 power amplifier, and the ASW Genius
400 speakers reviewed in
t his issue. Interconnects
were Pierre Gabriel, and the
speakers were biwired with
Atlas Ichor speaker cable.
The CD player on top is the Harmonix Reimyo, also reviewed in this
issue, but we played it only on the last
day, when it had extra break-in time. We
did most of our listening with our Linn
Unidisk 1.1, just below it. I must say we
enjoyed our own sound, and several visitors told us it was our best sound in years.
Reine Lessard (shown below), who also
got to hear it a lot, enjoyed it as well.
Our busy room notwithstanding, I
did get time to tour much of the show.
I was happy to get to see (and briefly yo
hear) the new Simaudio W-8 power amp
I had missed in Vegas, with matching
preamp and Andromeda player. You
mean our W-5LE is obsolete?
I spent some t ime listening to
the Aurum system. This Newfoundland-based company has an integrated
speaker/amplification system, using a
distinct amplifier for each driver of its
three-way speakers. The CD player is its
own design too. You can see the setup
on the next page. The sound? Some of
the very best of the show.
I love unusual speakers, and there
were several. The huge Odaiko, shown
on the next page, were driven by tube
amplifiers, plus Marchand electronic
crossovers, with a pretty good source…a
Linn LP12. It sounded astonishingly
good for such a large speaker (size is not
always a plus).
Robert Lamarre of RL Acoustique
was showing a version of its single-driver
horn speaker with an optional speaker
cone from hemp. Perfect for listening to
60’s music? I much prefer the non-hemp
version, though.
One of the hits of the show was the
Austrian WLM speakers: there was
both a floorstander and a bookshelf
in the room next door. The prices are
in five-digits, and if you look for an
explanation for the high price, such
as exotic technology or materials, you
won’t find it. But the WLM’s weren’t a
by Gerard Rejskind
hit for nothing. The sound was
stunning. We’ll have to find out
more about them!
And my attention was caught
by a new series of speakers from
ELAC. Their distinguishing
characteristic: Heil t weeters, like those on the Oskar
speakers.
Perhaps the most dynamic
speaker at the show was the new
Black Swan from Gershman
Acoustics. It needs to be seen
to be believed, actually. The
main part “docks” with the
subwoofer, but without actually
touching. It was being played
very loud, but without loss in
clarity. Interesting.
I ran across Luke Manley,
who doesn’t usually attend the
Montreal show. He had brought
his wonderful Siegfried tube amplifiers
to a huge room booked by a new Montreal store, Coup de Foudre. Along with
Avalon Diamond speakers, they sounded
fabulous, as always.
The show featured another CD player
from Shanling, a tube unit of course, but
there were two more gorgeous lines of
tube gear from China. The brand names
are Raysonic, which sounds occidental,
and Qinpu, which doesn’t. We expect to
review both of these amplifiers in our
next issue.
Perhaps it was just me, but there
seemed to be fewer home theatre rooms
this year. One of the most interesting
was that of a Canadian company called
Goo, which makes a two-stage paint
that can be used to make a video screen
from any flat surface. (The inevitable
slogan: “all systems are Goo.”) On the
evidence it works admirably. The least
interesting room was showing a “3-D
Sound Generator” to make five channels
from mono. That would violate the laws
of physics if it worked, and of course it
didn’t, but the room was one of the most
awful I can remember, and a total waste
of what I assume are scarce resources.
Over to you, Albert, along with your
two guests.
I
Two Future Audiophiles
by Albert Simon
room, where a large stage was flanked by
a pair of Nova Utopia Berillium speakers. Linked to YBA components such
as the YBA Passion 1000 power amps,
the YBA Passion 600 passive preamp
and the X01 Esoteric CD/SACD player,
Photos:
Below left: the Odaiko speaker system.
Below right: the Aurum Acoustics tube
amplifier, electronic crossover and CD
player.
they played music with a rare sense of
authority. I wanted to hear my CD of the
Safri Duo of percussion playing with the
Slovak Piano Duo. There is a piece
on this Chandos recording called
America Fantasy written in 1994 for
the Safri Duo, and another piano
duo by composer Kim Helweg. The
finale consists of variations on the
song America from Bernstein’s West
Side Story and starts with four sets
of hands clapping, changing to two
pianos and culminating in a frenzy
of piano and percussion. How did
it sound? Riveting, and the packed
room burst into spontaneous
applause at the end.
Michel wanted to hear excerpts
from Mahler’s Third Symphony
(Kent Nagano conducting on the
Elatus label) a CD he had brought
along after attending a concert
the night prior, featuring that
symphony with Nagano conducting
the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
“What thunderous impact!” said Gaetan
and Michel. “The space is immense,”
they added, “and we could literally feel
the weight of the music.” Michel noticed
how the tympani’s timbre was changed
from his live experience the evening
prior, attributing it to the recording
methods. By the way, if you like Mahler’s
Third, this version is a must, and the
recording quality is astounding.
We entered another room, and we
were in the presence of a combined
Simaudio and Dynaudio system featuring the new Simaudio designs such as the
Andromeda CD player and power supply,
the P-8 controller, the P-8 preamp and
the impressive Moon W-8 power amp.
We couldn’t get our eyes off the superb
designs including the black piano finish
of the large Confidence C-4 speakers.
They were playing a blues tune; our
attention was so focused on the singer’s
remarkable 3-D presence that I forgot to
ask for the name of the CD.
The wonder continued in another
room with the large, superbly-finished
Sonus Faber speakers (a Stradivari
Homage), playing Sting’s composition
Mad About You from the The Living
Sea soundtrack. After a while I heard
Michael singing along. “I’m going to
Feature
Feedback
t was a fascinating experience to
share impressions with the same
companions who had been along
last year. Fascinating to see how
people evolve over a year, how their level
of confidence in appreciating musical
reproduction has increased. No longer
intimidated by complex or imposing
systems, they went straight for the
music — and checked names and prices
later. Their memories of last year’s show
were sharp, their expectations high.
Michael and Gaetan (at right) were
ready and eager as we mingled with a
large crowd of silent audiophiles drifting
from room to room. Adopting the habit
of seasoned visitors, glances became
our natural way of communication. We
talked in the hallways and only when
necessary, which means only when my
guests liked what they heard, and only
when they wanted to — most of the time
they said little. Gaetan had invited his
friend Michel to join us. (Michel is a
professor of music literature and was a
great addition to our discussions).
Naim was playing Big Daddy Kinsey
Blues through its Series 5 system, including the CD5X player, with its innovative
curved drawer and Ariva speakers. The
reproduction was simple and intimate,
and one word immediately came to mind: elegant. Quite a contrast
however with the next
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 27 Feature
Feedback
check these speakers,” he said. They
were appropriately linked to Ayre’s CD
player, preamp and power amp.
On our way out we witnessed a fascinating demonstration on a TV screen of
a 3-D noise reduction system by Algolith
named Mosquito. Ver y convincing
improvement in sharpness, smoothness
and added image realism.
My companions remembered quite
vividly the ocean-blue trade mark of
Chord components they had heard last
year, and admired the CD transport
(aptly called Blu), the DAC64 and the
imposing pair of Chord SPM 6000
mono amps. Conrad Johnson’s new
Act 2 preamp controlled everything, and
Neat MF7 speakers gave the system its
voice. “Superb definition,” they
said. And suddenly, in another
wide open space, we all stopped
and stood still. Under less than
favorable conditions, to say
the least, we watched excerpts
of two films on a large screen,
with a very natural and smooth
image provided by the Epson
Powerlite Cinema 200 projector. Lots of glances and smiles
among my companions.
B a c k t o m u s i c a n d
Beethoven’s Violin Sonata (the
Kreutzer), an excellent version
by Anne-Sophie Mutter that
was proposed by Michel. It was a real
treat. Starting with McCormack electronics (UDP-1 Universal Disc Player,
RLD-1 preamp, DNA 225 power amp)
and ending with ASW speakers, with
Wow, what a difference! “It’s as if a veil
has been lifted,” said Michael. We then
tried the same procedure on Mahler’s
Third and again we gasped. “Listen to
the bass,” said Michel. “And the strings
are so well separated,” added Gaetan.
We don’t know how to explain it but we
all heard it, along with everyone else in
the room.
This last CD was immediately tried
on the next system we approached, a
beautiful combination of a Quad CD
player, Quad II Forty tube amps, and
Photos:
large Wharfedale Opus 3 speakers.
Above: t he Totem room, w it h it s Michel wanted to hear the powerful crestretched-skin video screen.
scendo that concludes the symphony, and
Below: Ofra and Ely Gershman with their he suddenly remarked how the muffled
newly-patented Black Swan speaker.
sound of tympani he had complained
about earlier was now open and airy. We
agreed but couldn’t tell if it was due to
the needful presence of GutWire cables a different system or the “magic chip”
and NotePads, this system then handled, treatment. No matter. We decided to
with utmost ease, the tremendous try it again in the next room, as soon as
impact of the Japanese taiko drum group we saw the new and imposing
Gershman
site:
ur main premiered at this
ospeakers,
Ondekoza, a new release on JVC (xrcd) Black
Swan
m
o
r
f
ilable
titled Dotou Banri. Noow
one
orts,aavashow. Linked to Linar’s preamp and
repsaid
h
s
e
onlinshook, and socks power amp, the Mahler CD was placed in
word asisthe
s ourfloor
on’t m about
Dloosened
m
o
a McCormack UDP-1 Universal player.
hf mag.c our ankles.
w w w.u
A n astonishing experiment What we heard was superb. Gaetan was
awaited us in another room, featur- struck by the definition, especially the
ing the 3A MM De Capo speakers delicate separation of the sounds of the
driven by a pair of Antique Sound massed strings — and there are tons of
Lab Monsoon tube monoblocks and massed strings on this recording.
controlled by the Flora preamp, also We spent a good deal of time in
by Antique Sound Lab. When we another room featuring Neat Elite
walked in, Ry Cooder’s soundtrack speakers, a UK based LFD Audio Design
from Paris, Texas was being wonder- integrated amp and a Naim CD player.
fully played on a emmLabs CDSD Michael was thrilled with the precision
multiplayer transport (based on Ed of Louis Babin’s trumpet, and Gaetan
Meitner’s innovative work). Michael asked to listen to his CD of Bartok’s
then asked to listen to his CD titled Concerto for Orchestra (a live recording
Mananara, featuring Louis Babin on with Boulez conducting). “The sound
the trumpet. He really liked what has something like a human quality,”
he heard, but what happened next he said. “You can almost feel the heat
was quite unexpected. He agreed to in the hall. It was reportedly very hot in
have that CD treated with a “magic New-York city, the day of that concert,”
chip” from JSMR, and it was played he added with a chuckle.
again. We all looked at each other. He then pulled out a CD called
epor
r
w
o
h
s
More
ts…
Photos:
Above left: Tri-Cell’s Vince Scalzitti
with the new ELAC 310 Classic speaker
(C$2100), with its Heil tweeter.
Above right: the upgraded Verity Parsifal
Ovation speaker.
Below left: the Nagra PMA monoblock
Below right: the Linn room, with the new
Komponent speakers.
mezzo Catherine Robbin singing an
excerpt of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and it
was indeed fabulous. We then listened to
Jessye Norman singing a lied by Richard
Strauss and the last track of Michael’s
Gladiator soundtrack, the hauntingly
b e aut i f u l c lo s ing t heme sung
by Lisa Gerrard.
“Just there…you
can hear the beaut if u l har mony,"
said Michael. We
left, reluctantly.
We l i s t e ne d
once more to
t h at l a s t p ie c e
in another room
with a different yet
fascinating sound
quality, featur-
ing Musical Fidelity’s A-5 CD player,
KW preamp,
KW750 power amp
and power supply
linked to Monitor Audio’s GR60
speakers and FB212
subwoofer. Power
cords were by RCA
and speaker cables
were the flat Valkyrja by Nordost.
Aurum Acoustics
was introducing its
latest design, the
Integris CDP preamplifier-player at
this show, and we
wanted to hear what
music sounded like
through it and the Integris 300B active speakers,
a combination of tubes and solid state
power amp technology. Louis Babin’s
trumpet was tried. Michael listened
quietly, nodding approvingly. Gaetan
said “It sounds like a new piece every
time we listen to it.” I suggested that
layers seemed to have disappeared and
all that was left was…simplicity. “Music,”
corrected Gaetan. How true.
Nagra tube components glowed in
the next room with their unique blend
of sophisticated technology and ruggedness. They played the finely-recorded
Fidelio label CDs and SACDs through
Verity Audio Sarastro speakers. We liked
so much what we heard from the Nagra
PLP preamp and 4 Nagra VPA power
amps, that Gaetan wanted to listen to
his clavichord CD. We were grateful for
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 29 Feature
Feedback
Swedish Clavichords (a series of improvisations on that rare instrument), and
after listening intently he found the
reproduction close to live. “This instrument allows a direct contact with the
strings and is very difficult to reproduce
accurately,” he said. He ought to know,
because his wife plays the clavichord. I
then wanted to hear Butterfly’s Day Out,
a lovely composition by Mark O’Connor
from the Appalachia Waltz CD (where he
plays violin and mandolin with Edgar
Meyer, bass, and Yo-Yo Ma, cello). I
knew how the different instruments add
their voices one at a time, in a slow twirl,
and they did it clearly here. “They really
know how to weave,” said Michel with a
smile.
A big surprise was the Highland
spea kers we saw a nd heard nex t.
Designed in France and assembled in
Asia, the Aingel and Oran appeared to
be remarkable values. “Guess how much
these speakers are,” Michael exclaimed
in a hissing whisper, as we listened to
Gershwin’s Someone To Watch Over Me,
sung beautifully by Susannah McCorkle.
“Under $1000,” he revealed. Driven by
a Cambridge integrated amp, the
Highland
Oran 4301 speakers were helped by
the Azur 640C CD player, also from
Cambridge.
Another room, another league, I
thought, as we settled in front of an
array of lights that looked like a city seen
from the air, at night, when your plane
approaches the runway. Audio Aero’s
best, the Prestige universal player and
the Prestige monoblocks, spread their
warm glowing tubes between Austrianmade WLM Lara speakers, including
the Duo Twelve subwoofer. Mahler’s
Third finale was transformed. “The bass
register (and there is bass in this recording) is so clear and so well defined,”
started Michel, “there is a better sense
of space and better balance overall.”
“Listen to the fine detail in the brass,”
said Michael, “The sound is loud, but
never aggressive,” he added. We looked
at each other as the tympani were struck
with precision. “Fabulous,” concluded
Gaetan. I wanted to hear Canadian
when it was recorded. I know, I was
there.”
We saw Gerard on our visit to
Fab Audio. We all stood in a long
room far from the large speakers
paired with a set of Murata super
tweeters and, discreetly hiding near
the back curtains, a mighty custombuilt subwoofer. And, boy, could those
speakers dig deep! The source was a
Teac Audio Upgrades CD player. The
the splendid rendition.
KVP10 preamp, and the Renaissance
The next visit brought us to a spacious 2K power amp were both from Korato.
room featuring the top of the Accentus Impressive sense of power, great ease of
speakers line, the A-101, standing away reproduction.
from the walls, over 20 feet apart. Linked I also want to mention a very interto a Chapter Audio preamp and power esting encounter I had with the Revelaamp and the Fusion CD-64 player by tion Audio Mistral speakers. I heard Gio
Tube Technology, these speakers were Aria singing Vangelis’ Like a Dream on
stunning. Seeing the vast space they the S-6 speaker and I really liked what
were in made me want to try the opening I heard from the Naim CDX player,
track of Christy Live at the Point, called the Exposure preamp and the Odyssey
Welcome to the Cabaret. The ambiance Stratos X2 power amp. However,
at the
site:
our main
m
was electrifying, the presence of the
o
r
f
le
availab
musicians and the crowd incredibly
eports,
w rreal.
o
h
s
e
n
nli last track of Photos:
Michael followed
our othe
s with
on’t mis
D
m
o
.c
Gladiator, and
I could
ag see him making Above left: the Antique Sound Lab Flora
w w.uhf m
approvalw signs, absorbed in the music. passive preamp, with its resistor-less
“They’re on my top five list,” announced volume control.
Gaetan, “I really like them”.
Lower left: The RL speaker with its
I then tried a Puccini aria sung by hemp cone
soprano Manon Feubel, and it floated Above right: a prototype subwoofer
sweetly then rose from Fab Audio, and the Qinpu tube
into the air in a integrated amp, C$1900
large crescendo. Below: the newest tube digital player
The melancholic from Shanling.
jazz of the Todd Lower right: one of the astonishing
Gustavsen Trio WLM speakers, and a hit at the show.
(t he C ha ng i ng
Places CD) followed, a nd we end of the piece, I was told that a major
liked everything: element was missing, The Sub 5 pair of
the music itself, subwoofers, purchased on the spot by a
the timbres of the Toronto visitor. We understand.
instruments and Our final stop was at a room with
t he image a nd the new Verity Parsifal Ovation speakthe space created er s , l i n k e d
right in front of to a pair of
us. A fellow visitor asked to listen
to the organ on
his Fidelio CD
Les Sept Paroles du
Christ, and then
he said casually,
“That’s how the
organ sounded
Feature
Feedback
orts…
p
e
r
show
e
r
o
M
pyramidshaped
Nagra PMA
power amps and a Nagra preamp, the
music originating from the Verdi/
Elgar/Purcell CD and SACD player.
We sat down and relaxed to the smooth
interpretation of Fever. “The music is
very discreet,” said Gaetan, “the speakers
just disappear,
and they don’t
attract attention
to t hems e l v e s ”.
He was
right, the
sound just
appeared in
space.
I pulled
out my
own CD of
Gianmaria
Te s t a’s
Lampo, and
we f i n ished ou r
listening marathon with an i nt i m at e
performance by that wonderful Italian
singer, songwriter and composer, singing his unique surreal piece Comete,
accompanied by a small group
of magnificent musicians, who
lingered long after the end of the
song, and after the spotlights had
dimmed.
Roksan Radius 5
T
ing system, because the weight actually
touches the plinth when the arm is in rest
position. It gets picked up when you’re
actually playing a recording, of course,
but we wish better thinking had gone
into this detail.
When you switch on one of Roksan’s
other tables, you see the motor rotate
back and forth while the platter gets to
full speed. On the Radius 5, instead of
rotating, it actually pivots left and right.
This results in a noisy and disconcerting
little jerk when you switch the motor
on, and the first time you figure you’ve
done something horribly wrong. You
haven’t.
You change speeds by selecting different steps on the motor pulley. There
are four steps, two of which are for
countries with 50 Hz line frequency.
Because the belt is exposed you might
assume it must be easy to install, but in
fact we found it finicky. It is a round belt,
not flat, and it tends to slip off the platter
when you’re putting it on. Indeed, it then
looks as though it will drop off when you
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 31 Room
Feedback
Listening
he first thing we’ll tell you
is that having the plinth and
subchassis transparent is an
option. You don’t need to have
a turntable that looks this cool. But we’re
told that four out of five buyers order
the Radius 5 exactly like the one you see
above, and that news did not cause us to
fall out of our chairs.
As is usual with Roksan, the subchassis is not suspended on springs (see
our Rendezvous with designer Touraj
Moghaddam in this issue for the details
of the design decisions). Pretty much the
whole turntable is made from transparent acrylic, including the platter and the
non-detachable headshell on the Nima
tone arm.
The tone arm is a unipivot design,
which means it has a single needle bearing rather than distinct horizontal and
vertical bearings. Simplicity aside, this
has built-in advantages, such as the fact
that the axis of movement in all planes
is the same. A unipivot arm is inherently
wobbly, however, and you adjust the azimuth (so that the cartridge leans neither
left nor right) by turning the eccentric
counterweight. Getting both azimuth
and stylus pressure is a little fiddly. And
nudging the pickup over to the cut you
want to play is fiddly too, because the
whole arm rocks back and forth. Roksan
supplies a fingerhold that is held by the
same screws as the cartridge, but that’s
a compromise, and we didn’t install it.
Particularly awkward is the anti-skat-
turn the motor on, though fortunately
that isn’t the case. Even so, initially we
were disconcerted to find that the speed
was decidedly wavery. The reason: we
had inadvertently made a half twist in
the belt. We removed it and reinstalled
it, and all was well.
By the way, before installing the belt
we treated it with Rubber Renue, which
improves performance of new belts as
well as old.
Our Radius 5 was supplied with the
Corus Black cartridge (C$450), shown
below. It is a moving magnet cartridge,
but unlike other cartridges of this price
it has a line contact stylus, the Gyger II,
which can dramatically reduce both
distortion and surface noise.
We began the listening session with
76 Trombones from the Dallas Wind
Ensemble’s Beachcomber LP (Reference
Recordings RR-62). We didn’t get past
the first few measures before figuring
out that…
Oh well, as you know we can’t give
away the whole issue and stay in business,
but the whole article is available in our
print and electronic editions.
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Summing it up…
Brand/model: Roksan Radius 5
Price: C$1800, plus $395 for Corus
cartridge
Dimensions: 43 x 37 x 10 cm
Most liked: Terrific looks, terrific
sound
Least liked: Finicky drive belt, scary
startup sound
Verdict: Shrewd compromises leading
to a big payoff
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Room
Feedback
Listening
CROSSTALK
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corperos aci bla augait veliquis nostio erat- dolore digna feu feugiam, sum eugiamet, nulla cortie te diam dolore molum zzril
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—Reine Lessard
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Goldring GR2
A
of the Corus cartridge in the previous
test is identical.
Like other Rega tables, this one has a
simple construction. The solid plinth is
MDF, with large, soft rubber feet. The
platter is also MDF, covered by a felt
mat, and the small subplatter is fibreglass. The motor uses power directly
from the power line, and the only control
is an on-off switch
Like the P3, the GR2 has no user
adjustments beyond that for st ylus
pressure. To switch speeds, you lift off
the platter and change the drive belt to
a different pulley step. The cartridge
is already mounted (accurately, we’re
happy to say). You may want to ignore
Goldring’s suggestion of keeping the
cover closed while a record is playing!
It’s actually a Rega,
sure, but a Rega
what?
Feedback
Listening
surprising number of music
lovers are snapping up very
expensive turntables (including us, with our new Linn
LP12), but there is just as obviously a
market for less expensive turntables.
There are people with small LP collections that won’t be growing, and there
is another phenomenon too. Younger
music lovers are discovering the joys of
analog, and are actually leaping from the
iPod all the way to the record player.
That was why we were happy to see
Goldring bring out the GR1 (UHF
No. 70), essentially an economy version
of the Rega P2, only cheaper. Now comes
the GR2, which looks rather like a P3,
but with an appealing price tag. It even
comes with a Goldring 1012 cartridge,
which would sell for $350 separately.
We had a Goldring cartridge of the
same series on the cover of UHF No. 29
many years ago, but there have clearly
been improvements. The 1012 comes
with a Gyger I stylus, a simplified line
contact stylus that can be expected to
reduce problems from both groove
damage and surface noise. Like all
moving magnet pickups, the 1012 has
relatively high inductance, at 570 mH.
A quick calculation indicates that the
inductance will roll off the high frequencies, with the -3 dB point at just over
13 kHz. Anything over that is “brought
up” by an internal resonance, as is usual
in all but a handful of expensive MM
cartridges (see MM versus MC on the
next page). Incidentally, the inductance
Indeed, we wish the GR2 were available
with no cover for maybe $10 less.
We placed the GR2 on our Target
wall-mounted table of our Omega
system, and proceeded to listen to the
same three recordings we had used
with the Radius 5 table, starting with
76 Trombones.
What was immediately evident was
that the GR2, despite some superficial
resemblance to the cheaper GR1, is in a
totally different category. Far from being
a slightly improved entry level table, it
could be the definitive choice of many
an audiophile. But let’s not get ahead of
ourselves.
This recording of the Dallas Wind
Symphony is loaded with horsepower,
and a lot of that horsepower poured out
of our speakers. Oh, not all of it, else
what’s a Heaven for? Still, there was
impact on the percussion, and the cymbals sounded like cymbals and not like
something a synthetizer would dream
up. The piccolo, which can easily sound
like a penny whistle with the wrong
gear, did sound about right, with some
nuances. It certainly held our interest.
It was by no means perfect. Gerard
complained that the highs were a little
“zippy,” more “hi-fi” than natural,
though not unpleasantly so. And the
rhythm seemed to get confused toward
the end of the piece.
Eric Bibb’s Gospel Blues piece Needed
Time was attractive. Reine and Gerard
found Bibbs’ voice entirely natural,
though Albert would have liked a touch
more lower midrange. The guitars were
very good, the detail excellent, and this
time the rhythm was strong all the way
through.
“But I’d like smoother highs,” said
Gerard. As in the first piece, the music
sometimes seemed just a little too loud,
not because it was really loud, but because
of a minor problem in the highs.” He
wondered whether the vertical tracking
might be set too high. It didn’t look that
way, however, and anyway the height
of a Rega arm is not adjustable without
disassembly.
Our third and final recording, Take
the ‘A’ Train, would be a tough test for
the GR2’s ability to dig out extreme bass.
Not only does Ray Brown’s huge acoustic
bass move a lot of air, but in several cases
MM versus MC
Are moving coil pickups really superior to moving magnet pickups? Many
audiophiles believe they are.
In any magnet cartridge, the signal current is generated by movement of a coil
in a magnetic field. This works whether you move a magnet next to a coil, or a
coil next to a magnet. But the results are not the same. To keep moving mass to a
minimum, whichever of the two elements does the moving will be made smaller.
If the coil moves, and it is small, it will have low impedance, and therefore a small
output voltage. To match a preamp, it will need either extra amplification or a
transformer. If the magnet moves, and is therefore made small, it is the coil that will
be large. In that case, its inductance will act like a filter, rolling off the highs. The
usual workaround is to let the cantilever-stylus structure resonate at a high point
in the audible range, perhaps around 15 kHz. A resonance seems to “bring up” the
response by storing energy. Not ideal, but that’s how it’s frequently done.
Room
Feedback
Listening
it carries the tune. If the bass is wrong,
the piece ceases to make sense.
The turntable managed to make
perfect sense of the music. The weight
of the bass was not what it was with our
Linn LP12, but it wasn’t thin either. If
Brown’s bass work was less lyrical, we
lost none of the artist’s virtuosity. Gene
Harris’s piano had plausible timbre
through much of its range, though not
at the top of the scale. We suspect that
the cartridge was having trouble with
those higher frequencies.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Goldring GR2
Price: C$1095, including cartridge
Dimensions: 44.3 x 35.5 x 7.3 cm (not
counting removable cover)
Most liked: Good balance, exceptional energy
Least liked: occasional hardness at
the top end.
Verdict: For twice the price, a lot
more than twice the sound
We finished up with the technical
evaluation. The Goldring 1012 cartridge
and Rega-built arm worked quite well
together, with a combined resonance of
8 Hz, the very bottom of the acceptable
range. The 1012 tracked perfectly all but
three tracks on our Image Hifi test disc.
A very slight audible buzz accompanied
the 80 micron groove, growing much
more insistent on the 90 micron groove.
The final 100 micron groove threw
the cartridge right into the next track
(we suspect few real-life cartridges can
negotiate this track).
The 1012 did fairly well on the M&K
organ recording. The 16 Hz pipe added a
noticeable tremolo to the melody, albeit
less severe than with the Roksan Corus.
We judge that the cartridge in this arm
would track most normal recordings
without problem.
Don’t let the occasional reservations
we’ve expressed take precedence over
our feelings about this turntable: way,
way more than the GR1, the Goldring
GR2 can catapult you into the magical
world of analog. It is, truth to tell, an
amazing value, a barely altered version
of a famous turntable and tone arm. The
most noticeable alteration: a pretty good
cartridge for free.
In its price range, the GR2 scores a
big win.
CROSSTALK
This turntable has talent! Its numerous qualities can bring its owner years of
pleasure. I noted excellent spaciousness
and good depth, and plenty of fine detail.
I especially liked the warm voice it can reproduce, not to mention the nostalgic harmonica and shining brass. It’s got impact,
flawless rhythm and healthy energy.
All these qualities overshadow the
slightly unfocused image and a minor deficiency at the bottom end, which affects the
otherwise lyrical bass. The GR2 deserves
consideration for its fine behavior and its
affordable price.
—Reine Lessard
surprised at the refinement of details found
on your LPs through this turntable. You’ll
be struck by the energy that surges from
lively-played pieces and amazed at the pinpoint imaging that appears between and
around your speakers.
Yes, I did find sometimes that the highs
wanted to create fire as they sparkled, and
it occurred to me that bass notes didn’t dig
as deep as I expected. But those impressions
didn’t last long. I remained involved in
the listening, constantly noticing a wealth
of finely-etched sounds amid the layered
musical lines.
—Albert Simon
It feels so nice to listen to an affordable product and be enthusiastic about it. If
you’re used to the sound of CDs, you’ll be
This is a long way from the top turntables, but its an equally long way from even
the better entry-level turntables, such as its
GR1 brandmate. At this level, you start forgetting the hardware, and you concentrate
on something far more important: the exciting musicality that is in the grooves of
your LPs.
The highs are not quite right with this
turntable, to be sure. That’s why at times
I thought the music was just a little too
loud…while at the same time, paradoxically, I would have liked it louder, meaning
more energetic. I would have liked an extra
half octave at the bottom too.
But don’t suppose for a moment that
this turntable sounds shrill, or thin, or laid
back either. Frankly, what I heard from the
first 60 seconds of the first recording was a
most pleasant surprise. And it just kept on
getting better.
—Gerard Rejskind
Four Phono Stages
A
task that defeated the best efforts of
audio engineers for decades.
Even more daunting is the fact that
phono cartridges, unlike the typical
CD player output circuit, behave quite
differently with different circuit input
configurations. For years, phono inputs
that would perform admirably with
instruments would sound horrible with
certain real-life phono cartridges, and
no one knew why.
Those problems have of course been
solved…or at least we hope they have.
These four phono preamps were
tested in our Omega system using our
Linn LP12 turntable, with our Audiomat
Phono-1.5 as a comparison.
The CEC PH53
This silver box will look familiar to
you if you have our last issue, because
the similar-looking DA53 converter was
on the cover. There is a series of components in CEC’s “53” series, including
a headphone amplifier.
The PA53 is the only one of the four
preamps here tested to accommodate
a moving coil cartridge, with its low
impedance, and therefore its low output
voltage. You select the cartridge type by
flipping tiny switches on the underside
of the unit. If you have an MC cartridge,
you can also choose the load resistance
and capacitance that will best match your
cartridge.
There is a front-panel button to allow
you to choose higher or lower gain. Also
selectable from the front is a “subsonic”
filter, which can be set for a slight or a
more radical cutoff of very low frequencies. Perhaps it rates explanation.
Though we would like to maintain
frequency response down to zero Hertz,
that can be dangerous with a turntable.
At one time, preamplifiers came with
what was billed as a “rumble filter,” a lowfrequency cutoff that could be used to
rescue a turntable with an audibly-noisy
motor or mechanism. Such turntables
vanished into garage sales a decade ago,
of course. The main problem today is
record warp. If an LP is not perfectly
flat, as few are, it will generate a very
low-pitched signal as it goes around,
typically at 8 Hz or lower. The signal
won’t be directly audible, but it can cause
the cone of a small woofer to flap back
and forth, adding an unpleasant tremolo
to the music. The “subsonic” filter cuts
this spurious signal right out.
By the way, the reason we put the
word “subsonic” in quotes is that we
Feedback
Listening
t one time we didn’t need to
explain what a phono preamp
does for a living and what it
eats in winter, but we know
some audiophiles are somewhat alienated
from analog, so here goes.
Nearly all audio source components
(CD and DVD players, cassette decks,
tuners, satellite boxes) have quite high
output, peaking at 2 volts or more, and
with all frequencies at the same level (we
wish!). That is not true of a turntable
cartridge. The volume level is much
lower, perhaps 2 millivolts or sometimes
as little as 4 microvolts. What’s more, the
LP is not recorded with all frequencies
anywhere near equal. High frequencies
are greatly boosted so that they override
the noise (there’s more noise in the highs
than in the lows) whereas low frequencies
are attenuated (see The RIAA Curve on
page 39). The phono preamp, connected
between the turntables and any one of
the inputs on your preamp or integrated
amp, must boost the signal by some 1000
times or even 10,000 times. It must also
reverse the recording equalization so
that all the frequencies emerge in their
correct proportions.
Either of those tasks is difficult, but
doing them both at once is a daunting
Room
Feedback
Listening
think CEC actually meant infrasonic,
meaning below the range of human
audibility. “Subsonic” means “travelling
below the speed of sound.” We can,
however, certify that the PH53 stayed
well below that speed during the entire
listening session.
We b eg a n t he se s sion w it h a
powerhouse piece for wind band, 76
Trombones, from the Reference Recordings Beachcomber double LP (RR-62).
The huge impact of the music was considerably reduced, and after a first listen
we decided to try it again louder. “Not
bad,” conceded Reine, “and after a while
you stop thinking about what it sounded
like with our reference. Which is a good
thing, because there’s a big difference.”
The difference extended to nearly every
aspect of this remarkable recording,
which had lost some of its excellent depth
and its remarkable clarity.
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essi.
Goldring PA-100
There’s less to the Goldring than
there is to the CEC, and you need only
a glance to confirm it. It is a very small
box that takes no significant shelf space.
The power supply is a “wall wart.” Of
course the price is appropriately low, at
C$240. There are no settings, since this
is strictly a moving magnet preamp. To
adapt it to our Goldring Excel pickup,
we added our Bryston TF-1 step-up
transformer (long discontinued, alas).
The Goldring is dead quiet, which
was the first of several pleasant surprises.
The next one came when we listened
again to the 76 Trombones piece.
Well, what had we expected, really?
After the session with the much more
expensive PH53, we had prepared
ourselves for rather limp performance,
with weak dynamics and a thin bottom
end. We might even get shrill transients,
wh ich t he
G o l d r i n g ’s
minimalist packaging seemed to
threaten.
But Goldring knows
about upscale per formance…you’ll have noted
that its best phono pickup is actually
our reference! As the brass and percussion of the Dallas Wind Symphony
marched toward us, we glanced at each
other with delighted surprise. This little
box was producing sound that certainly
couldn’t be described as laid back! The
music had life, and there was plenty of
impact too. There was no overemphasis
of the highs — indeed the difficult piccolo could have been a bit brighter. The
bottom end was deep, the transients
energetic. If this is economy phono
performance, bring it on!
Not that the PA-100 will drive our
Audiomat reference preamp off the
market. The numerous instruments
blended together somewhat, and the
trombones were a little confused. “I
think there’s some compression in the
lows, too,” said Gerard, “but I really
don’t care.”
On the Needed Time Gospel piece, we
did notice some reduction in the lows.
Not that this is a showpiece for subwoofers or anything, but Eric Bibb’s voice
normally has considerable body, and
the guitars (especially the bottleneck),
plucked bass and percussion do wander
into the lower octaves. There was just
a little less of all these things. Still, we
don’t want to suggest that this preamp
sounds thin. “There’s some reduction
of lows,” said Albert, “but it’s not great
enough to upset the tonal balance.”
Indeed, that natural tonal balance
made the recording highly enjoyable. So
did the digging out of fine detail, even
from the very soft passages that are some
of this recording’s greatest assets.
We were a little afraid of what would
happen to Ray Brown’s bass in Soular
Energy, but once more we were in for
a pleasant surprise. The instrument
seemed full size, and it still had excellent impact. Its timbre was altered a
little, revealing more of the “woody”
resonance at the expense of the deepest
notes. Still, it was solid and expressive,
as well as tuneful. The piano was bright
without getting unpleasantly tinkly, and
there was never a trace of confusion.
Reine would have liked a little more
lower midbass to bridge a gap between
the piano and the bass, but we were
unanimous that this relatively inexpensive phono preamp was tough to beat.
where record warp can cause problems.
Note that, as with the CEC, the word
“subsonic” is used in a sense that no test
pilot would understand.
Since this is strictly an MM unit,
we added our step-up transformer and
connected it between our Linn LP12
and our Copland preamplifier. We began
with 76 Trombones.
Well, this is certainly a lively preamp,
more so than the CEC, and even more
than the Goldring. “I was ready to join
the parade!” cried Reine enthusiastically.
The large wind band delivers a lot of
impact, especially in this LP version, and the LN106
delivered
m o r e
r a w
energy than either of the previous phono
preamps. It also delivered a good stereo
image and at least a passable amount of
depth.
It also delivered something we would
rather not have had, namely brightness.
The highs weren’t exactly aggressive,
but they were a lot more “in your face”
than anything we had heard so far. The
piccolo was bright too. “The trombones
are confused,” said Gerard, “and the
cymbal doesn’t sound like any cymbal
I’ve ever heard.”
Feedback
Listening
Marchand Electronics LN106
Marchand (marchandelec.com) is a
manufacturer of electronics products
that sells directly through its catalog
and of course the Internet. Its products
have a somewhat geeky bent, eschewing
glitzy cosmetics in favor of low prices
and a somewhat tech-oriented lineup
that includes such esoterica as electronic
crossover networks. We’re pushovers for
stuff like this.
But there’s more. Marchand is also
one of the few remaining purveyors of
do-it-yourself kits. Both this preamp
and the one that follows are available
assembled or, optionally, as kits. Indeed,
there are two different kits: a fairly
simple one for people who know how
to use a screwdriver and a basic soldering iron, and a more complex one that
requires such spine-chilling techniques
as soldering components to fragile
circuit boards. Some assembly manuals
are downloadable, though neither phono
preamp manual is listed.
Does building your own save you
money? It certainly can. The LN106
costs US$295 ready to plug and play, but
the simple kit is $245, and the complex
one is just $180.
The circuit is built into what looks
like a standard diecast accessory box
(below), with jacks at either end. The
top plate bears an illustration of the
RIAA frequency response curve, with
drooping response at the very bottom,
Room
Feedback
Listening
However some
recordings are easier
to reproduce than
others, and the LN106
did very well with Eric Bibb’s Needed
Time. The tonal balance was very good,
despite a hint of leanness at the bottom
end. Bibb’s voice was superbly clear, the
two guitars attractive, the plucked bass
satisfyingly weighty. The rhythm was
sure. “There’s really no problem with
this recording,” said Gerard.
The LN106 sur v ived t he t hird
recording, Soular Energy with considerable ease. In particular Ray Brown’s
bass was appropriately thunderous, with
superb rhythm and plenty of impact. We could practically “see” his fingers
snapping back those thick strings. That
alone gave the LN106 a passing mark.
But it didn’t get an A, because once
again there was a problem in the highs.
Though Gene Harris’s piano sounded
plausible enough, and its timbre was
attractive through much of its range,
it got altogether too forward when it
moved up the scale. We might have
taken that for granted in a CD player,
but analog shouldn’t be like that.
In the end we weren’t unanimous.
The LN106, for a bit more money than
the Goldring PA-100, has more energy,
but it is also more forward, with a more
frequent incidence of unmusical artifacts. It gives a little more of what you’re
looking for…but that’s accompanied by
a little more of what you don’t.
Marchand LN108
It looks like a slightly larger version
of the LN106, with a bigger power brick.
The jacks are on the side rather than the
ends, for reasons that become evident
when
y o u
lift the
t wirl the four screws and
lid.
And there you see them: three 12AX7
twin triodes. Most of the power supply is
inboard with the tubes, complementing
the outboard brick.
Our photo shows it with the lid off,
but you might be alarmed to note that,
once you close it up, there are no slots
allowing air to circulate. And after a
couple of hours of operation the box
gets…ah, warm! Not scary warm, but
disconcerting all the same.
This tube phono preamp is, like all
but the CEC, for MM only. It costs $495
fully assembled, with the price dropping
to $395 or even $295 if you order a kit.
For the benefit of Canadians, we should
add that Marchand, unlike many US
vendors, is willing to ship by air parcel
post. You’ll need to pay sales taxes and a
$5 charge when the package arrives, but
you won’t get whammed by astronomical brokerage fees like those charged by
FedEx and UPS.
Would the LN108’s tube circuit be
as quiet as the other phono preamps
had been? It was. We connected it, of
course adding our step-up transformer,
and proceeded to listen. And we quickly
reached an inevitable conclusion: we
were going to have more fun than at
any time since we had left behind our
reference phono stage.
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Some conclusions
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The RIAA Curve
If music were recorded “flat” on an LP, the grooves containing low frequencies
would plough right into their neighbors, whereas the highs would drown in the
noise. The solution: boost the highs so they rise above the noise, and then reduce
the lows.
The problem: the phono preamp needs to “re-equalize” the signal, as per the
curve shown here, with nearly 40 dB (10,000 times) between the two extremes.
It’s a tough task, which is one reason not all phono preamps are equal. By the way,
few preamps maintain the curve all the way to 20 Hz, as shown above.
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Two of these units grabbed my attention for the right reasons (and two for the
wrong reasons, but let’s put that aside). The
Marchand LN108 has the dynamics and
the sheer musicality to challenge some better-known names. Add it to your turntable,
and you’ll know you’re right to have vinyl in
your life.
My other favorite is the Goldring. It may
not have the liveliness of the others, including the Marchand LN106, but it doesn’t do
anything annoying, which means it’s listenable with any disc. What’s more, it’s cheap
enough to introduce a lot of new music lovers to the joys of analog.
—Gerard Rejskind
Say you recently upgraded your preamp
and now you start looking in the direction
of LPs, wanting to discover what all the fuss
is about. You peek at the back of that won-
derful unit to connect a turntable to it, and
you remember the words you heard at the
store: nobody uses that any more.
What you need is an inexpensive way
to discover the world of analog recording,
and sense all its raw energy and wide open
stage.
The Goldring PA-100 phono preamp
would be my first choice if I were in your
situation. It would leave me some cash to invest in a better turntable or more LPs. After
a while, however, you may decide to explore
the full potential of analog, thinking of upgrading your turntable. I’d start with a trial
of the Marchand Electronics LN108 tube
phono preamp. You might just be stunned
by the superb highs and the depth you
would get with your current source. The
midrange will sound richer, the bass will
carry music all the way down — and you’ll
have a mission in life, looking through used
LP bins in every town you visit.
—Albert Simon
Interesting, this opportunity to listen
to four components that do the same thing.
All four of these phono preamps have what
it takes to please an audiophile, but we need
to pick a favorite. Easy…like picking Miss
Universe! Right!
Yes, of course you’ll need to evaluate
the various choices, to see which ones move
you…a little or a lot. For me, one stands out
in particular: the Marchand LN108 tube
preamp.
What makes it stand out, I think, is that
little extra that turns mere reproduction
into fidelity, talent into genius, energy into
power, sentimentality into emotion, clarity
into transparency, virtuosity into mastery,
and beauty into splendor.
—Reine Lessard
Feedback
Listening
CROSSTALK
Harmonix Reimyo CDP-777
Room
Feedback
Listening
I
s there life left in the Red Book
CD standard in the face of highres formats on one side (SACD,
DVD-A, and possibly Blu-Ray),
and downloadable compressed music on
the other? We've long heard about this
player as a phenomenon: music lovers
listen to a couple of CDs on it, and they
reach for their platinum cards.
And you do need a platinum card
to afford this machine, perhaps even
a uranium card. Its price places it well
beyond the range most people would
call affordable, or even luxurious. Your
budget is none of our affair, however.
Our assignment was to find out whether
the performance lives up to the price
tag.
You might well conclude that it is
grossly overpriced if your dealer is so
imprudent as to play it for you when it is
too new. That was the way we first heard
it at the Montreal show (see the report
elsewhere in this issue), where we had
borrowed the player for our room. It
needed well over a 100 hours before we
heard something we liked. Another 200
hours in, the Reimyo was totally transformed, and we began to understand
what the fuss was about.
Harmonix is the brand name of
Combak Corporation, known among
other things for vibration control accessories, and also for the inexpensive AC
filter long sold in our own Audiophile
Store. The company’s anti-vibe devices
are in fact used in the Reimyo, and the
beautifully-crafted aluminum box is
from Combak as well. The top-loading
transport is from JVC…but don’t think
about the JVC products found at Sears.
Rather, think of the K2 system JVC
developed for its upscale xrcd recording
system. The third partner was Kyodo
Denshi, known for its precision measuring instruments, which did the basic
Reimyo is Japanese
for “miracle.” And it’s
not as off-the-wall as
you might think.
design and handled the actual manufacturing. Come to think of it, what is a CD
player but a high precision measuring
instrument?
It’s an attractive package, as the best
Japanese products can be. The front
panel is not really distinctive, but it is
well laid out. We wish the fluorescent
readout were larger, but its brightness
makes it easy to read from across the
room (you can dim it or turn it off if
you don’t share our hunger for constant
feedback). The player sits on some of
Combak’s antivibration feet, and not on
the cheap OEM plastic feet used on most
players. The top panel on our player was
misadjusted, making opening the drawer
a two-hand job, though we’re told that’s
easy to fix. The brushed black chassis
cover is gorgeous, at least until you get
fingermarks on it. The jacks at the rear
are of good quality, and XLR balanced
connectors are included.
What is not included is a power cord.
The reason is that the usual molded
cord would chip a lot of quality off the
sound, whereas a premium cord would
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Feedback
Listening
make this expensive player
even harder to budget for. You
won’t be surprised to hear that
Combak recommends its own
cord, “available separately,”
as they say at Toys’R’us. We
reviewed the player with a
GutWire G-Clef cord.
There is, by the way, a
digital output at the rear of the
Reimyo, and you might wonder
who would spend this kind of
loot on a player only to turn
it into an upscale transport.
Harmonix figures some people
will, since it also makes the
DAP-777 (US$5195), which
is — you guessed it — a matching converter.
We set the player up next
to our reference Linn Unidisk,
and did some comparisons,
starting with Norman Dello
Joio’s Fantasies on a Theme by
Haydn (Klavier K11138). The
wind band suite opens with an
impressive tympani solo which
has the sort of impact you don’t
often hear from a CD. You do
with the Unidisk.
We hope you’ll want to read the rest
of our review of this fascinating player.
It’s available in our printed issue, of
course, and in our electronic edition as
well.
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Summing it up…
Brand/model: Harmonix Reimyo
CDP-777
Price: US$15,495
Dimensions: 43 x 38.5 x 12.7 cm
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Room
Feedback
Listening
CROSSTALK
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—Reine Lessard
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Audiomat Récital
I
notable for being more than half a metre
deep! It sits on three machined cones…a
warning not to lean on one of its rear
corners when you’re connecting a cable.
Like the much smaller Arpège amplifier,
it has a front panel that is partly translucent, letting you see the glow of the
tubes if you listen in the dark. The two
large knobs are for volume and source
selection respectively. In the centre are
switches for power and for muting.
Muting can also be accomplished
from the remote control, which adds
no fewer than four volume buttons, for
rough and fine tuning. Unfortunately
the remote didn’t work for us, because
the infrared photocell is inserted so far
back in the panel that it won’t “see” the
commands unless you are within 15° of
straight on. Audiomat has been made
aware of the problem, and a solution is
in the works.
The rear panel is straightforward,
with good input jacks and highly sat-
It turns out the
superb Opéra was
not the end of the
road after all
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Listening
t was Reine who threw down the
gauntlet. We had just ended our
listening session with the Audiomat
Opéra, then the company’s top
amplifier (it’s on the cover of UHF
No. 69). “How are they going to top
this?” she asked. She probably meant it
as a rhetorical question, but the answer
wasn’t long in coming: Audiomat’s own
Récital is billed as offering three times
the sound of the Opéra for twice the
price.
Of course the Récital was not really
born of Reine’s challenge, because it is
in fact the product of a good decade of
development. Audiomat is not the sort of
company that lets itself be influenced by
marketing deadlines. Or that lets itself
be rushed, either.
Though Class A tube amplifiers
mostly have low power, the Récital has
four 6550 output tubes on each channel,
and should be able to drive nearly anything. The tubes are self-biasing, though
there are potentiometers for fine-tuning
after a tube change. This means opening
the unit and poking voltmeter probes
inside, and non-techies may want to turn
to their dealers for this adjustment.
There is a family look to the Récital,
with a flawless brushed aluminum case
we have seen before, which is however
isfactory output binding posts. Indeed,
there are two sets of binding posts to
accommodate biwiring. As with other
Audiomat amplifiers, there is an output
for taping, but no tape loop.
The binding posts provide access to
both the 8 ohm and 4 ohm taps on the
output transformers. As we’ve explained
before, some audiophiles with 4 ohm
speakers prefer to use the 8 ohm tap,
because the signal goes through only
half as much of the wire in the output
transformer’s secondary winding. By
curiosity, we did a quick listen using both
outputs, and the results astonished us.
The 8 ohm output sounded dramatically
better, and we decided to do our listening
that way.
The amplifier’s imposing dimensions and weight prompted us to make
a change in our Omega system. Instead
of the glass-shelved Target table we have
been using for secondary components
(such as our cassette deck), we brought
in a second Vecteur table like the one our
major components sit on. Even so, we
were warned that putting the amplifier
on its top shelf could compromise lowbass performance. Still, there was little
choice, short of simply putting it on the
floor.
We began the session with one of our
favorite CD selections, one of Dvorak’s
Romantic Pieces (Analekta FL 2 3191),
with its flawless emotional rendition by
violinist James Ehnes. We all noted the
great smoothness of Ehnes’ violin, whose
notes flowed like a mountain stream,
with the notes from Eduard Laurel’s
piano falling like shiny pearls. Ehnes’
total mastery of his Stradivarius came
through wonderfully well, as did the
expressiveness of his playing.
Was the sound different from that of
our reference? Yes, and we situated the
difference in the very lowest frequencies.
Gerard thought the violin had a more
“resinous” sound, and Albert expressed
it a different way: the violin sounded less
“woody.” Was it because of the table?
That would be confirmed later.
We continued with another favorite,
which can be celestial or infernal depending on what you play it through: Now the
Green Blade Riseth (Proprius PRCD9093).
With the Récital, the reproduction was
tilted all the way over to celestial. The
Room
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Listening
spaciousne s s of t h i s
choral recording,
always vast, seemed
even larger, the illusion of
space more convincing. The
voices of the singers were smooth
and lovely, well-detached from each
other, though — Albert noted — less
weight to the male voices. When all the
singers came in together, balance was
perfect, with both wonderful togetherness and lifelike separation of individual
voices. The final crescendo, sometimes
shrill even on better gear, was so smooth
Gerard didn’t realize the piece was over.
“It seemed so short,” he said.
We must report that we can’t tell
you a lot about the third recording,
because none of us felt much like writing. It was Pauline Viardot-Garcia’s song
Plainte d’amour, sung by — or perhaps
we should say recreated by — soprano
Isabel Bayrakdarian. This song, on a
mazurka by Chopin, does not invite
mind-wandering at the worst of times.
With the Récital, Bayrakdarian’s velvety
and expressive voice attained a sublime
plane. “She is here with us,” remarked
Gerard, “disturbingly so.”
We continued with another female
voice, Esther Ofarim’s La Vezina Catina.
We knew this electrifying song back
when we used the original LP, titled
Esther. This time we played it from a
new FIM SACD sampler, Audiophile
Reference IV. In this case the singer
was not in the room with us, rather we
were projected into her world. “It’s so
beautiful it almost hurts,” commented
Gerard.
Indeed, Esther’s voice was at once
smooth and clear, with the final syllables
being particularly luminous. The flawless rhythm and the almost scary dynamics wowed us, as did the sheer warmth of
t he
middle
voice tones.
The image was
except ional. “For
s o m e r e a s o n ,” s a i d
Albert, “the orchestra sounds
louder than it did with our own
amplifier, and that makes it seem a
little harder, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t
the amplifier’s fault.”
We were getting the idea that, despite
the Récital’s highly satisfying dynamic
headroom, it would be in reproduction
of very fine details that it would truly
demonstrate of what it was capable. Perhaps our favorite harp selection would
be particularly revealing. It’s Carlos
Salzedo’s delicate and magnificent
Variations sur un thème ancien, played by
Susann McDonald on Caprice (Klavier
K11133).
We were right. Though McDonald’s
harp virtually glows with our reference
amplifier, it grew incandescent with the
Récital. “How can it reproduce notes so
soft without hiding anything?” asked
Reine. The clarity of the playing and
the precision and transparency added
another layer of magic to a recording
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Audiomat Récital
Price: C$14,900/US$12,200
Dimensions: 43 x 19.5 x 51 cm
Published power: 85 to 90 watts/
channel, pure class A
Number of inputs: 5
Most liked: Musicality that invites
few comparisons
Least liked: Nearly unusable remote
control (but see text)
Verdict: Now how will Audiomat top
this?
that is no stranger to sorcery. In this
music the harp dips to lower notes than
you’d expect, and the resonance of the
instrument was at once delicate and
satisfying.
We pulled out another SACD, the
overture to Rossini’s Barber of Seville
(Pentatone 5186 106). “This is Rossini
at his best,” said Reine approvingly.
The overall orchestral sound was bright,
but in a natural fashion, with the brass
instruments especially lovely. The
strings were energetic yet silky, and their
pizzicato passage had some extra snap.
The entire orchestra sounded refined.
We ended the listening session with
the Ray Brown trio’s Take the ‘A’ Train.
We sometimes use the LP version of
this exceptional recording, though in
this case we selected the high-resolution DVD (Hi-Res HRM2011). This is
a two-sided disc, with a 24-bit/96 kHz
DVD version on one side, and a DVDAudio 24/192 version on the other side.
Since our Linn Unidisk is a universal
player we selected the latter, firing up
our little 7-inch black-and-white TV
so we could hack our way through the
DVD-A menus.
Would Brown’s prodigious plucked
bass have the ponderous impact it does
with our own amplifier? Not quite,
though its tone was magnificent. The
Récital through into stark relief the
complex timbre of the huge instrument,
and it did the same with Gene Harris’
piano. There was another change that is
more difficult to put into words, though
both Reine and Albert referred to it as
intimacy. We were there, in the night
club, and with the sort of table you have
to tip the maitre d’ a couple of twenties
to get.
We wondered whether the slight
lightness in the bottom end really could
be due to the amplifier being perched
on the third shelf of a stand, even a
supremely good one. We listened again
to the Ray Brown recording, and then
put the Récital right on the floor (it took
two of us to get it there without breaking
anything). Yes, we could now hear more
extension in Brown’s bass, and more
impact, though in every other way the
music sounded the same. Big amplifiers
like this one really do need to be closer
to the planet.
We ended our listening sessions just
as summertime made a large tube amp
impractical in the absence of central air
conditioning, but we took the time for
technical readings. We hooked up our
large 8 ohm dummy load resistors to
the Récital, and did some measurements,
after warming it up for 30 minutes at one
third of its 90-watt per channel rated
power.
At a frequency of 1 kHz, the Récital
had little difficulty meeting its promised power, with 91.8 watts before it
clipped. It should be noted that welldesigned tube amplifiers don’t run
out of steam suddenly. They begin to
distort, but typically they will clip off
the top of the signal wave 10 or 20 watts
further up. The Récital maintained
low distortion to just below clipping.
That wasn’t quite the case at the
frequency extremes. At 20 kHz, clipping came at just over 92.5 watts, but
some distortion of the waveform was
visible beyond 77 watts (though of course
harmonics of 20 kHz are inaudible). At
20 Hz, noticeable distortion began at
70.2 watts, with clipping at 80.7 watts.
Of course at such low frequencies the
amount of iron in the output transformer
is a limiting factor. The results with the
Récital indicate that attention has been
paid to the transformer quality.
Low-level performance (at just over
a thousandth of a watt) was flawless, but
then the contrary would have astonished
us.
Crosstalk between adjacent inputs
was so low we had difficulty measuring
it. Even at 20 kHz it was a superlative
-79 dB, and that was actually the worst
reading we saw!
The Récital is not about power and
distortion, however, but about music.
The very best amplifiers and preamplifiers seem to exist beyond earthly confines
and open a window onto the wonders of
a musical performance. That a single
box like this one can do this helps put its
price into perspective. We can say that
its competitors are few.
CROSSTALK
I find all large tube amplifiers scary, for
their size, for their price, and also for the
blazing heat they give off. What’s scarier
is that not that many of them reward you
adequately for giving them the sort of surroundings in which they (and you) will be
comfortable.
The Récital does, and it’s all but perfect at it. It has all the power and headroom
you are likely to need in anything short of a
château. It is always smooth and reassuring.
And it gets the sound of pretty much any
instrument exactly right. Compare with
live music, and you’ll hear for yourself.
This last is more of a trick than it
sounds. If we were to play our little pack of
recordings through a number of competing
amplifiers, most would make us wince more
than once. The Récital never came close to
doing that. My guess is it never would.
But that is really only part of the story.
The Audiomat Récital is a true music lover’s
amplifier, and it scarcely matters what kind
of music you like. When you finally tire of
what this amplifier gives you, you will know
you have become weary of life itself.
—Gerard Rejskind
You need confidence to go up against
the high-performance components that
make up our Omega reference system. But
then I did launch the challenge when we reviewed the Audiomat Opéra, and it looks as
though the challenge was picked up. I can
see them now. We’ll show her we haven’t yet
reached the end of our efforts to attain our ideal
of excellence.
I came out of the extraordinary event
that was this session head over heels in love
with the Récital. How time flew! How often
I put aside my notes to bask in the intoxication of the moment! For when music is
distilled with such art, it becomes the finest vintage you will choose not to resist. So
come on, Reine, strip off your armor, and
confess…by the time you got to the fourth
piece, you put aside your pen to abandon
yourself to the magic of the moment.
Let’s look together at the virtues which
make the Récital unique among audio components.
There is the image, which spreads generously into every dimension, to let through
an abundance of effects and ornamental
notes. There are the exceptional dynamics.
There are the enchanting timbres. There
are voices of often troubling beauty which
attain the sublime. There are mixed choirs
with harmonies and counterpoints that are
wonderfully reproduced, with words that
remain clear even in pianissimo passages.
There is impact, verve, energy, life!
You will no doubt protest that the same
virtues can be found in amplifiers from
other designers, and you will be right. Yet
the Récital adds that little intangible je ne
sais quoi marking the frontier where mere
excellence becomes transcendence. I rejoice
not only for the audiophiles who will enjoy
this amplifier but also for the artists who
will be so well served by it, for it is capable
of reconstituting their musical mastery and
their emotions with so much ardor and precision, and without cheating.
There come moments in life when one
must make costly decisions, and choose
among diverse temptations. Why not select
one that can give you years of happiness?
After all, we have one life to live, and then
that’s it!
—Reine Lessard
Feedback
Listening
Here, we are in a different league,
people, perhaps even a club so selective it
may have just one member. The sheer size
of this unit shows it means business for any
type of music, in any type of setting. And
after you hear how it transforms your music, you might wonder how such a giant can
uncover so much, with such utter beauty,
and raise the performance level of the rest
of the system.
So is it perfect?
“Have no fear of perfection,” said Dali,
“you’ll never reach it.” Thus a component
may be sublime, as the Audiomat Récital
assuredly is, yet I may wish for still more,
especially because it is so good. More? You’d
probably say so too if you had listened to
it. More weight in double basses and organ,
more wood resonance in string instruments
(but read the full text) — and yet I loved the
smooth, silky transparent sound that transported me to the actual performance, a few
feet away from the musicians.
I don’t know how it can achieve that and
still maintain the level of clarity and freeflowing natural sound I experienced during
this session. Actually, all Audiomat products I have listened to have always gone way
beyond my expectations. This one proves
again the unending source of the Audiomat
team’s superb talent.
—Albert Simon
Audiomat Maestro
Room
Feedback
Listening
I
t is not precisely a surprise that
the Audiomat Récital amplifier
reviewed in the preceding pages
would turn out to be a handful. Nor
that it would push our concept of what
a boxful of electronic parts can do for
the musical experience. But Audiomat’s
distributor (and North American manufacturer), Mutine, told us that if we really
wanted to hear everything it could do,
we should listen to it with the company’s
best digital-to-analog converter, the
Maestro. Mutine recommends using it
with a CEC belt-driven transport, which
we just happen to own. After the session
with the Récital was over, we plugged in
the CEC/Maestro combo, with an Actinote cable linking them, and listened
again to three of the test recordings that
are actual Red Book CDs.
We began with the Dvorak violin
piece. Once again, James Ehnes’ violin
sounded silky and realistic, much as it
does in real life (we did in fact have a
chance to hear him a few days after the
listening session). The timbres of both
the violin and Eduard Laurel’s accompanying piano were superb, and the balance
between them was excellent.
But which version was better? All
three of us wrote that question in our
notes. Albert was the only one to provide
an answer, thinking that our reference
might have the edge. The other two
panelists reserved judgement. This was,
nonetheless, a good beginning.
We continued with the harp recording, which really did sound different with
the CEC/Audiomat combination. Was
it better? Reine thought so, giving the
Maestro extra points for the subtlety of
both instrumental timbre and the actual
playing. “McDonald’s hands seem to be
playing more together,” she said. She
found the sound richer than with our
reference player, with the powerful low
notes more “woody.” She also found the
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Audiomat Maestro
Price: C$8,590/US$6,990
Dimensions: 44.5 x 13.5 x 35.5 cm
Most liked: Coherence, delicacy of
timbres
Least liked: What…you want us to
make something up? All right, the
blue lights aren’t the same hue as other
Audiomat lights. Happy?
Verdict: Can something of this price
actually be a bargain?
sound brighter, not in the usual digital
sense, but as though the harp were playing a quarter tone higher.
Gerard agreed, noting the great
coherence of the complex passages, the
ones that sound as though two musicians
are at work, and he praised the overall
finesse of the sound. “It’s in the near
silences that you can really judge this
converter,” he said. Albert found the
result magnificent, but wasn’t sure which
version he preferred.
We ended with our challenging
choral disc, Now the Green Blade Riseth.
Reine chose to put her pen down and
listen. Was the final crescendo in the
opening piece slightly harder than with
our reference? Gerard thought it might
be, if only a little. “It nearly always does
harden up at the end,” he said, “but
the Récital made it sound so smooth
till the end.” Albert praised the tonal
beauty of the rendition, and especially
appreciated the clarity and transparence, which allowed glorious separation
of the choral voices. He would have
liked more substance to the organ in
the final crescendo, though he found
nothing to criticize in other aspects of
the crescendo.
We did our usual readings on the test
bench. The top trace shown at left is of
a 100 Hz square wave. There is minor
ringing that is quickly damped. On the
other hand the tilted top indicates that
Audiomat has not gone for maximum
top end extension. The lower trace is of
a 1 kHz sine wave recorded 60 decibels
below full level. It is close to perfect.
Jitter was low.
There is a lot to like in this admirable
converter. Not many audiophiles will
consider it truly affordable, but in an
odd way it offers tremendous value. The
recommended CEC TL51X transport is
a mere C$1590, or US$1290, a fraction
of what most upscale transports cost.
Put one together with the Maestro plus
a decent digital cable, and you have a
player that can challenge the state of the
art. Do the math.
If you want to hear everything that
the wonderful Récital can do, you won’t
want a source less capable than this one.
So can you get one for less money?
As the Magic 8-Ball used to say,
“signs point to no.”
Exposure 2010S
R
amplifier, you can easily upgrade your
system by simply biamplifying.
We installed the 2010S in our Alpha
system, where they drove our highly
efficient Living Voice Avatar OBX-R
speakers. We connected our Linn
Unidisk player and pulled out a set of
four SACDs plus one final CD.
The first was the new SACD version of our favorite choral recording,
Now the Green Blade Riseth (Proprius
PRSACD9093). This is, we can tell you
right off, the best-sounding recording
we have ever heard in this format…and
it sure isn’t because the CD is too
shabby!
Oh, you guessed it…this is one of
the incomplete articles, available only
in the print and electronic editions.
We now turn things over to our Latin
non-scholar.
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Feedback
Listening
emember the old generation
Exposures? Exposure and
Naim had a common origin,
and therefore a similar concept
of how an amplifier should sound. One
difference, however, was that Exposure
products came in black project boxes
that looked oddly home-made, and — in
North America at least — they then cost
more than the market would bear.
But that’s the distant past. Present-day Exposure gear looks modern
and attractive, with occasional gusts to
flashy. The products are still made in
the UK, but the super high prices are a
thing of the past.
The 2010S is an affordable integrated
amplifier, though it is not the bottom
of the Exposure line. The basic 2010 is
rated at 50 watts per channel, and the
“S” version (the letter stands for “Super
Power”) at 75 watts. Its layout is simple
and functional, with two front-panel
knobs for volume and input selection,
plus the on-standby button. The panel
itself is aluminum, as is the entire case,
available either in black or, as in our
sample, in “Exposure Titanium” (a note
to the folks at the agency: titanium is
grey in color). The “tape” position is
integrated with the other inputs. The
panel’s clean lines are broken only by
the large window for the remote control
sensor.
The jacks at the rear are the quality
you expect on products of this price.
There are no binding posts, only sets
of flush jacks for bananas (which we
prefer anyway). They are doubled up to
facilitate biwiring or the connection of a
subwoofer. We noted with approval the
presence of a preamplifier output. Since
the 2010S series also includes a power
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Summing it up…
Brand/model: Exposure 2010S
Price: C$1495
Dimensions: 44 x 30 x 9 cm
Rated power: 75 watts per channel
Number of inputs: 5 plus tape loop
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Room
Feedback
Listening
CROSSTALK
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utpat at estrud delestrud.
—Reine Lessard
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—Albert Simon
ASW Genius 400
I
f you’re like us, you expect German
speakers to be unreasonably expensive. Heck, a German cup of coffee
is unreasonably expensive by the
standards even of other European
countries. There is no shortage of hightech German speakers, but affordable
ones…that’s another matter.
Not that everyone considers nearly
C$5000 to be affordable, but as we
shall see, these are good value. And
the Genius 400 is only one of a whole
family of models, though it is the most
expensive.
The speaker is tall and slim, a lot
deeper than it is wide. The narrow
profile allows a better projection of the
stereo image, and the depth gives room
for a 25 cm side-mounted woofer, ported
at the rear. ASW says the woofers should
Feedback
Listening
face inward (we double-checked, because
we had our doubts), which means that, if
you install equipment between them, it
will get plenty rattled. We wouldn’t want
to position them too close to a turntable,
or even a TV set! We should add that
the Genius 400 may actually be used in
some home theatre systems, since ASW
also makes a centre channel speaker.
This is a three-way speaker. The
chromed panel at the front holds two
12 cm carbon fibre midrange speakers
and a textile dome tweeter. An oval grille
is supplied. The usual advice is not to use
grilles unless you have young children,
because the performance hit is always
considerable. Accordingly, we set them
up sans grilles in our Omega system.
We quickly had second thoughts. We
then recalled that, when we had used
the ASW’s at the Montreal show, we had
left the grilles on. Why was that? This is
not a small tweak. With the grilles, the
tonality is wonderfully lifelike. Take
them off and the spectral balance goes
way off in what we consider to be the
wrong direction.
The base of the speaker is bolted on,
and there are nicely machined screwin cones. They have no locking nuts,
though, which means that if you unscrew
one in order to level the speaker, it will
be free to wobble. The four gold-plated
binding posts (shown below), like the
front drivers, are mounted in a heavy
chromed plate. Those binding posts
aren’t as good as they look, however,
Room
Feedback
Listening
and they won’t hold either spades or
bare wires tight. We recommend using
bananas with these binding posts, or else
getting better posts installed (the second
choice is the better one). Our speakers
were finished in a flawless piano gloss,
which adds a premium to the price of
the natural wood finishes.
Once we had figured out the thing
about the grilles, we set up the speakers, initially in the same position as our
Reference 3a Suprema speakers. After a
first listen we pushed them back slightly,
but not too close to the wall, having due
regard for that large port in the rear. To
make the Genius 400’s sound like our
speakers, we dropped the volume by just
over 1 dB. That’s in line with ASW’s
sensitivity rating for these speakers
which, at 93 dB, is 2 dB higher than that
of ours.
We used five of our favorite LPs for
this session, and…we may as well tell you
right off that we had a great time. And
we invite you to order either the print
edition or the inexpensive electronic
edition, to see for yourself.
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conum inim dipisci eros ad tat, consectem iureraessi et, voluptatem nit alis
at. Duipit la core ver ad tet lutpat. Vullute magna faccum zzrit utat. Lumsan
ute minim et ilit wisl dolore consequ
isismodion henismodit enim irit dolore
dolore et lorem venit, quipit atue magna
atisl ulput volore etum alit auguerostrud
eugait nullaoreet nulla feuis nostrud
dolorem exer suscil ut utat alit venibh
eugait at. Duismoluptat praessi bla
commy nis am, conullamet, quis do dit
ip ex et, quat dolessit velenisi.
Ustisi blaore molore tisl ipisit praesse
volortin henim augue min utate consenim quipisim zzriusto consed eugait
non volor iuscilis amconsequat. Ut
illandre min hent laor summy nim iuscil
iril irit lortio exer sit nullutpat.
Em adip elenim in et iurem nulputet
nim venibh ex et aute commy num vel
ing eu facipis ex esto core facil dit veliqui
essequis dolenim esequam consequam
init wis alis nullum doloborem dolenim
zzriustismod tionsed el ulla acilis am erat
nit dolut illandiat. Ut auguera estinci
liquat. El eros accum ipit venibh etum
veraese feuguero consenibh enis dit
nosto odolore facipit in ullandit volor se
tie doluptat, quate tie volor sit, consendigna feugiamcommy niam volor sis nos
eugue tat augait vullaor ercidunt adit in
velessectet nulla cor si.
Lutat. Ut alit, quate consequ iscilisl
utpate duis dio od estisse quatetuer ipisse
tio dolorpe rostrud dunt delestie tio od
er iriureros nisl iriliquat.
Molorpe raessenim et pration veliqui
estio conum enisis autpat, sim et ent
atummol umsandre elit loboreet, sim
velit nonse dolorperit velissim eummod
molent aliquat. Pis adiate magnit praestis
doloreet vulla core dunt autat accum
zzriureetum zzriusto conse dignibh
ero od er atum etumsan elit nonullam
quat iniam, venit lutpat dolortis nis
nismodiat dio dolobor sequipit veniat.
Ectem nulland ionulla mcortie modit
lutem el dipiscidunt aliquat uerostrud
dolutet, sequat lum quat. Wis accum
vullamc ommodolorero consecte tie
modoleniatem iusciduis dolorper sequi
te dolorem ilisi.
Um veliqui te magna commodo
odiatetuer sed diamet laorper adit num
ex eugue ming exercil iquipissi.
At ute min henim nos nulla feum
dignisl dipit esequamcor in exer inis et,
consenim doloboreet lut utem ex elit
nisi.
Andre min ut alissed tat, velessis ent
ad tatum alisl utpat nullan volummo
digniamet inci te facil eniamet alit laore
tem vel utem ipsummy nulla facincidunt
volobor eetuercilis nisl doluptat wis eu
feu faccum in heniat wissisc illuptatem
dolutpat.
Min vullums andiam, conullut autat,
sim delit irit erat atum nisl ulputpa tueratuer suscipsusto ea feugue dipsummolor
il ut lutat dipsuscipis nim ad molumsan
endrem volum doluptat. Xer sissi blandrem amet in ulla commod tie modolor
ip ent wisl endrer inciduisi.
Accum init alisl dunt prat aut ip
euis adipit lutpat et iriureet velenim aut
aliquamet del in vulluptat.
Pute faccum quat vendion senibh esto
od magna ad magnibh esenim
velit nostrud elesequipit dolesse
quatie et, si.
Rat, quate consequat iusto
exeros eriurer at. Dui er sequisi.
Non volor irit, quat, quam quam
ea consequisit ad dolesequis alit
aliquisim nulpute mod molore
faccumsandre feugait nim inci
tem delit essi.
Iriustrud do et iustrud enim
irilit num nisl erat alit nonsectem
zzrit alit ad do consed estrud ming
exercin cipsum zzrilit, cortisl dolor si
blam zzrit dolorem zzrit wisl delit alis
Summing it up…
Brand/model: ASW Genius 400
Price: C$4900 in most finishes
Dimensions: 17 x 42 x 116.5 cm
Sensitivity: 93 dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Most liked: Xer sissi blandrem amet
in ulla commod tie modolor ip ent wisl
endrer inciduisi
Least liked: Sismodo lenit, consequipsum zzril ullaor
Verdict: Ut illandre min hent
dit exercipit velessisim nulputat. Sismodo
lenit, consequipsum zzril ullaore del ut
luptat, consecte commy num nismod
minciduipsum zzrillan velissed magnit,
venim dignibh endio eum zzriliquis do
commolore del exercing exerate eum
quat volor ad modolore modo eugait
dolore feum alis exeros alis nit, quis alit
ut wis aliscip eum in ex endio dipsust
ionsecte commy nit pratue velit pratuer
sequi er iusto dolore modolessenit nis
ametuero od ercipit laorem velit aliquis
nullan venim vercilit ad tationsent
utatie minibh euguerc ilissit wismodio
del ullum et, vel delessed eugait nonsequissit nibh eui ea alisit ut nis dolore
dolese vulla facilit ipsumsan essenibh et
iriustrud molorero.
CROSSTALK
eugue elit, si.
—Gerard Rejskind
Unt la conulla facipit ipit alis aut autet il
ut dignisi etum vulla augait ipsuscipit, quat,
volum acipisit ut landre velenis augait luptat
lut ing ent alis nis nonsectem iuscidui tis
nim zzrilit nullut nosto diametum dolorero
conum ing eraestis aliquam, corem dui
blaore feugiam, vendit ipsuscillaor ing endrer
sim zzriustisl eliquat illumsandit aut lummy
num nim ea augue magna ad dipit, conum
zzriliquisl irilit acil dolor sum dolore digna
feu feugiam, sum eugiamet, quisim zzrillam
velisci llummodigna feu feui tat nim alis
augiate core dunt velismod ea am, sequipis
nosto consenit lor sim diam, quametum
zzriliqui blam dolore do commy nim quiscilisit autet wisi etummy nim iuscil dipit
lobortie modiam iusciliquat voloborperit
lore consequ issequat, corpera estrud te tie
tinisim vullut nullan vendrem zzrit vullaore
exerius cilluptat prat volum zzrit lum quissit
adipit augait vulla facipsummy nostrud tem
alit ullut veros autem nos nullaor ip eummod
delesectem et ad dunt luptat. Agnibh ero ero
dipisl ip etumsan henim venim dunt wis nulla
Ilissi. Putpat, velessim zzriure riureet ad
miniam, vel dolortie.
—Reine Lessard
Feedback
Listening
iliquat ate consendipit, venim nosto consequam nulla cortie te diam dolore molum
zzril exeros nullutpatue cortis augueriurem
eraessectet, susto od modolut velismod
molobore enibh ex euguerit lore tem niscili
smodiatum eum vullut nonsequisl eu feu
faccum nim nibh er sustrud min ut lor sum
nim ipit nostie feu feum nulput ulla at ulput
ulla conulput nibh eniat.
amcon ut irit luptatisi te verostio commolo
rtinismodio dunt enim vel dolore tetuer
augait deliquisl utat.
—Albert Simon
Sonneteer BardOne
Room
Feedback
Listening
W
hat are those two little
UFOs with the suspicious eyes? They are
magic boxes…able to
get your sound from here to way over
there.
There’s nothing unusual about that,
of course. Countless devices can take
music from your computer or your
iPod and broadcast it over to your audio
system. The difference is that all those
other devices transmit signals that are
already digital. The BardOne does the
same thing with analog signals.
So what is it for?
Sonneteer is a British company
known for its digital amplifiers. The
BardOne modules have two projected
uses. One is a setup of a multiroom music
distribution system. This is usually done
with cables in the walls, but landlords
have been known to frown on heavy
drilling through their real estate. You
can install a transmitter module at your
main system, feeding it from the tape
out jacks of your amp or preamp, and a
receiver module in each room where you
want music. You will of course need an
amplifier and speakers in each of those
rooms too. The units operate on eight
different channels, selected by internal
switches. That lets you operate more
than one BardOne system…or vacate the
channel being used by the neighbors!
Another application is home theatre.
A surround system requires wires running to the back of the room, but what
if you have doorways on each side of
the room? Just connect the transmitter
module to the rear channel outputs on
your processor, and set up the receiver
and a stereo amplifier at the back of the
room.
These little devices are not cheap,
though unfortunately they look it. The
plastic shells are light and not at all
luxurious. The power supplies are small
bricks. The jacks are the sort used on
economy products. And the two units
are distinguishable only by the presence
of a colored dot like the ones you get in
a stationery store. Not impressive.
That said, what other product does
what this one does? The units contain
not only a radio transmitter and a
receiver, but also an ADC (analogto-digital converter) and a DAC. If
the sound quality is good enough, we
thought, these units might solve a serious
problem. We connected the transmitter
to our Linn Unidisk reference player,
and the receiver to a high-level input on
our Copland CTA-305 preamplifier. We
should no doubt add that the cables we
used for the hookup cost way more than
the BardOne units!
We used two CDs, listening first
directly to our Omega system, and
then through the BardOnes. Of course
there would be a performance hit, as
there must be with even the best digital
converters, but how much of a hit?
We began with the Normal Dello
Joio CD we had used with the Reimyo
player session. We had mixed reactions.
Reine was disappointed, finding that the
characteristic timbres of the different
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Soneteer BardOne
Price: C$499 per module
Dimensions: 12 cm diameter, 2.5 cm
thick
Most liked: Gets the sound where it
needs to go with minimum damage
Least liked: One-trick pony with a
heavy price tag
Verdict: But if you need it, you need it
wind instruments were largely lost. “It’s
essential to this music,” she said. Albert
and Gerard, on the other hand, were
pleasantly surprised by how much of
the music survived. “Everything is more
distant,” conceded Albert, “and there’s
a loss of both presence and detail, but I
was expecting a lot worse.”
We wanted to include a female voice
in the test to see what would happen
to the often troublesome “S” sounds.
We selected the wonderful jazz singer
Margie Gibson, singing Soft Lights and
Sweet Music from her Say It With Music
CD. The song survived amazingly well,
and this time we were unanimous. Yes,
the sibilance was rather too noticeable,
but we have heard far worse just from the
wrong choice of cables. The piano hardened up somewhat, and the stereo image,
which is normally pinpoint-precise,
was rather diffused and indistinct.
Still, Gibson’s voice remained clear and
detailed.
During this session, the two modules
were not more than a few centimeters
apart, and we wondered what sort of
range they could offer. Like some cordless phones, they use the 2.5 GHz band,
and could be expected to get similar
coverage. They did. We connected the
transmitter to a CD player in our Alpha
room, and the receiver to the preamp
of our Omega system. The two are in
the same building, but two floors apart.
Performance was flawless. We should
add that, unlike analog transmission
systems, this digital link is inherently
noise-free. You either have a connection
or you don’t. We did.
So what did we think? Compare the
BardOne system to even a cheap cable,
and it doesn’t shine, but that’s not the
point. It’s for use where you can’t use a
cable. Seen that way, the system works
pretty well. In a multi-room system, the
remote amps and speakers are mostly not
of a grade that requires more than the
BardOnes can deliver. And in all but the
most expensive home theatre systems,
they are plenty adequate for the rear
channels.
We kept thinking there must be a
competing product that is more affordable, but if there is we haven’t found it.
Sonneteer has identified a niche and
filled it. And pretty well too.
Cinema
The Compression Blues
F
Compressing an image
Imagine a video image of an outdoor
scene, with a vast expanse of blue sky.
As the video camera scans the blue, it
assigns a value to each pixel of the image.
Even if a lot of pixels have exactly the
same color value, the color information
gets repeated. Clearly that is redundant,
and the information could be stored in
more compact form.
It’s easy to see how this could work.
If you have 300 pixels in a row that are
blue, it takes less data to say “300-Blue”
than to say “Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue…” It
Digital compression
on video? You see it
every time you pop a
DVD into your player.
But you ain’t seen
nothin’ yet…
seems evident that this process can be
lossless, since the original blue pixels
can be reconstituted exactly.
But how exact is “exactly”?
The boundary between lossless and lossy compression may
not be intuitively obvious. The
300 pixels may all be blue, but that
doesn’t mean they have precisely the same
color and luminance value. Getting too
discriminating about small differences
can greatly increase the amount of data
necessary for perfect decompression.
Let’s say that, around the middle of the
pixel string, there is one pixel that is a
slightly different blue or a slightly different brightness.
Now instead of “300-Blue,” we have
perhaps “145-Blue, 1-OtherBlue, 154Blue.” This takes more space in the
pipeline, or on the storage medium, and
if the capacity is at a premium, you may
want to avoid unnecessary shifts like
this.
But what does unnecessary mean?
It’s obvious that the very video process imposes its own compression on
an image, because even the best professional video camera cannot discriminate
between color and luminance values that
are below its own resolution limits. But
perhaps we will judge that the human eye
itself has its own resolution limits, and
of course so do intermediate elements,
such as a TV set. Why use bandwidth
recording and transmitting details that
will be lost?
And so a compression system will
include a threshold, below which a change
in color and/or luminosity will not be
taken into consideration. If the difference between “Blue” and “OtherBlue”
pixels is below the chosen threshold, we
will simply go with the “300-Blue” data,
and the small difference will disappear.
How do we know what threshold to
select? The higher the threshold before
we consider two adjacent pixels to be
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 53 Cinema
Feedback
or many consumers, “data
compression” began with
the “zip” protocol for sending files through modem
connections, (or the “sit” format more
commonly used by Mac owners). And
more recently, we’ve all become aware
of MP3 (a contraction of “MPEG
Layer 3”), the ubiquitous compression
method for music files.
Video is also compressed, however.
When you watch a DVD, you are not
seeing exactly the original data from the
digitized film. Of course you know that
the DVD medium has limited resolution, that of your TV set. The vertical
resolution is 480 lines. But it may not be
as obvious that within that resolution more
compression has been done. And it is
only the beginning. A great deal of work
has been done with “codecs” (compressors-decompressors), in order to push
more and more data through a narrow
pipeline. The research is prompted by
two developments. One is the emergence
of high definition video for the home.
The other is the growing popularity of
video coming through the very narrow
pipeline of the Internet.
There are two types of compression,
lossless and lossy.
The early zip and sit protocols were
lossless, which is to say that all of the
data was preserved and could be reconstituted. This was necessary because
computer programs don’t tolerate loss of
data. There are lossless codecs for audio
and video too, but the ones in most use
are lossy: some, and indeed most of the
data is discarded. What to discard is the
heart of the codec design. It is a given
that the human eye or ear will not see
or hear all of a signal. If just that part of
the signal is discarded, there will be no
perceptible damage.
That’s the theory. Need we add
that real-life codecs don’t meet that
standard?
different, the less room the data will take
up. If the threshold is no higher than the
inherent resolution limits of the capture
and transmission system, the compression can be considered to be lossless. If
the threshold is set higher than the limits
of the system, the compression is lossy.
Video artifacts
In the picture used on the previous
page, the sky is remarkably uniform.
This is not always so. Let’s pick another
scene with an almost uniform sky.
This is the range the
human eye can see
This is what a
typical monitor
can show
Cinema
Feedback
Do you see what’s up in the sky,
barely noticeable at first glance? Take a
closer look.
The MPEG systems
nibh eniat.
The DTS system
sustrud min ut lor sum nim ipit nostie
feu feum nulput ulla at.
MPEG-4
nibh eniat.
Windows Media and the future
nibh eniat.
Unt la conulla.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 55 Cinema
Feedback
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]
MBOX FOR RECORDING
Use your laptop to make your own audiophile
recordings, with a Digidesign MBox, the same
one that is on the cover of UHF 72. Plug it into
the USB port of a Windows PC or a Mac, and
you can record digitally. Includes two FocusRite
microphone preamps with phantom power, line
and digital inputs, and headphone monitoring. Mint
condition, with CD, manuals and box. Purchased
in 2003 for C$639, for $299 plus shipping. Contact
UHF during business hours, (450)651-5720, or
[email protected].
MUSEATEX REPAIRS
Museatex/MeitnerAudio factory service and
updates. Please check our web-site at www.
museatex.com. E-mail me at [email protected]
or phone (403)284-0723. (Aug.29/05)
You can have it all
in Kamloops...
BeyerDynamic
Creek
Cyrus
DNM
Epos
Eichmann
Ringmat
Soundcare
Visonik
But only at....
Spinners Sound Centre
324 Victoria Street
Kamloops, BC V2C 2A5
Tel: 250-372-5248
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
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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.
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.
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, e-mail [email protected],
or phone (519)485-6137.
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.
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INTERCONNECTS
Tired of paying high-end price for interconnects?!
LOOKING FOR KLIPSCHORNS
Wanted to buy: Klipschorns. Please state age,
condition, finish and price. Contact Keith at huck@
cogeco.ca in Niagara Falls.
ESPRIT CABLES
Esprit Structura 2 interconnects, $650 ( Haute
Fidélité ‘reference’), and speaker cables, $650
(8’). Perfect condition, also have the original box.
(450)467-1561, [email protected].
The sound source of the accordion
is the free reed, a metal strip anchored at
only one end and thus free to oscillate
on both sides. A free reed vibrates to
produce sound when air from the bellows
flows past it.
The Accordion
C
by Reine Lessard
Guarneri and Stradivari, the accordion
has been transformed numerous times.
It has adopted many faces in its travels
through Germany, Austria, France, Italy,
Switzerland and elsewhere. So much has
been written about the accordion that
none can truly claim its invention. The
accordion, in short, is the child of all.
This member of the great family
of wind instruments is held by straps
against the lower chest of the musician,
who uses his arms to support it, with the
possible aid of his chin and lap. In the
words of the great accordionist Fancelli,
he observes it with his eye and his ear, and
he hears it with his heart.
The button accordion can be diatonic (one button producing two notes
depending on whether the bellows is
pushed or drawn, or it can be chromatic
(each button produces one note). An
accordion with a piano keyboard is
always chromatic.
Its morphology
These few pages cannot do the
accordion justice, and for a good reason.
Unlike the violin, which remains almost
unchanged since the days of Amati,
It has many names.
Squeezebox. Musette.
Irresistible.
Software
Feedback
ompact, portable, of modest
appearance or richly ornamented, it needed only a few
chords to cross all borders and
spread, in a dreamlike promenade, a succession of atmospheres from everywhere, each
with its own accent. In a single evening it
could transport you, as the musician wishes,
to such varied places as the Orient, Europe,
to the Islands, and across the Americas.
Despite all, alas, it was snubbed by the more
musically-oriented musicians and it received
the cold shoulder from unconditional fans of
Great Music. Yet, thanks to the musicians
who have chosen it as their favorite means of
expression, it has several times transmogrified. It is now an instrument for all musical
styles. Since the mid 20th Century, it even
exists in a concert version, able to play without embarrassment in the most select halls.
Its harmonies emerge from CD players and
turntables, and there is a rich treasury of
works written specially for it by remarkable
contemporary composers.
The bellows is truly the lung of the
accordion. The dynamics depend on
it, as do the musical phrasing and the
performance itself. The accordion can
be compared to the human voice, which
also depends on three elements: a flow
of air (aspiration), an air reservoir (the
lungs), and a source of sound (the vocal
cords).
It’s easy enough to peek inside an
accordion. To open one up for us, Claudio Cavallo (shown in the picture on the
next page) needed only to remove the
cleats holding the bellows to the wood
frame.
Inside the accordion the reeds are
mounted on metal plates, which are
themselves mounted on reedblocks,
which are usually of wood, though they
may be metal, as in the Russian Bayan
accordion. On the reedblocks are a series
of plates, each holding two identical
reeds, held in place by either nails or wax.
The French prefer nails, which make
the system stiffer and favor the intense
high-frequency harmonics of the musette
sound.
Unused reeds are kept from vibrating
by plastic or leather strips. Under each
reed is a slot. The reed-plate-cell system
is called a voice.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 57 to sound two different notes
per slot, tuning it diatonically
to what will become known as
Richter tuning. The extraordinary sounds the instruments
can produce make it a phenomenal success, and its popularity
spreads far and wide. It becomes
the link bet ween the older
family of reed instruments and
the accordion.
There are, however, two
sides to a coin. You can’t play
the harmonica and sing at the
same time. Simultaneously,
then, several inventors search
for ways of making a portable
instrument that allows a singer
to accompany himself. The new
instrument must be melodic,
poly phonic and expressive,
capable of adding panache to
any festivities. In 1829, only a
month apart, two inventors file
for a patent.
The f irst is f iled by an
Austrian of Armenian descent,
Cyrille Demian, who along with
his two sons is an organ and
piano maker. His Akkordion is a
small box inside which there is
seem to be “in the air,” so that an inven- a series of metal reeds and a bellows. Its
tion will be claimed by almost simultane- five keys can produce two chords each,
ous discoverers. That was the case for the whence the name, depending on whether
organ, the harmonica and the accordion. the bellows is pushed in or drawn out
There is certainly a similarity between (this diatonic, “two tone” system is
Minor causes, major effects
the sheng and the harmonica, the latter sometimes called bisonic). The new
Some 30 centuries ago someone instrument playing a major role in the instrument is light and mobile, and easy
in China was developing a sort of development of the accordion.
to play. In an age before radio and TV,
mouth organ called a sheng, and came The tiny mouth organ is invented when singing and reciting are common
thisinstrument is a boon
e on
up with the idea of the free reed. (A in 1821 by a German adolescent named
new
end a dimthe
sppastimes,
to
on
as
re
ly
on
the
article on
copy of the Sheng can be found in the Christian
Friedrich
who
It will quickly evolve
ink that’sBuschmann,
major lovers.
e amusic
we th
udto
,
cl
se
in
ur
e
in
co
az
of
ag
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m
the
At U H in names isit wthe
esItofcontains
su
accordion museum of Castelfidardo
aura.
some
15
into
the
familiar
diatonic accordion of
is
hy
ch
f. W hi
nc y st uf
Italy.) In Europe in the early fa
1800’s,
as reeds
and
slots
into
which
a
musician
today.
Manufactured
in Austria, France
e.
on
is
music. Like th
the Romantic revolution is gathering
can blow to make the reeds vibrate. It and Italy from 1860 onward it will spread
momentum, there is a search for new looks like a toy at first glance. The same across the world.
musical instruments. The inventors of year, two German clockmakers work to A little more than a month after
the day are very much interested in the improve it, and subsequently a Bohe- Demian’s patent filing, an English physifree reed. Research on its use is carried mian violin maker, Paddy Richter, adds cist, Charles Wheatstone, files his own
on in St. Petersburg by a physicist named aspired notes, allowing the instrument patent request for his symphonium, a belKratzenstein, the inventor of an automalows-driven instrument which becomes
ton that can simulate human vowel Illustrations:
the concertina (not to be confused with
sounds. It is said that he showed a sheng Above: Claudio Cavallo of the Montreal the German Konzertina of 1856, ancesto an organ maker named Kirschnik, store Accordéon Excellence hefts a Beltuna tor of the Bandonion of tango fame.)
who found a way to incorporate the free accordion.
Wheatstone’s concertina has a hexagonal
reed in his instruments.
Facing page: Mario Bruneau plays a musette shape and has two independent key I’ve always thought that certain ideas tune in his home near Dunham, QC
boards but no predetermined chords.
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The reeds in each block are
tuned to an individual note, with
the slot fashioned so as to resonate at the appropriate frequency.
The reedblocks themselves have
little effect on the sound. If wood
is often favored, it is because it is
easy to work.
The sound board has the
reedblocks on its side facing
the inside of the bellows, with
the valves and register stops
on the outside. The chromatic
accordion is equipped with three
rows of valves, and its case is
therefore deeper than that of a
piano accordion, which has only
two rows.
In 1929 in Stradella, Mariano
Dallapé invented the cassotto,
a tone chamber inside the bellows. It gives extra amplitude
to lower middle tones, thus
making the instrument’s sound
warmer and mellower. Its effect
has been compared to that of
the mute on a trumpet, though
in fact the effect of the mute is
somewhat different, reducing
the resonance chamber of the
trumpet, thus favoring higher
frequencies. The cassotto is much used
in jazz, though not in musette, which
requires a brighter sound.
But let us go back to the beginning.
rtant?
o
p
m
i
l
l
i
t
s
Is music
Other innovations are to come.
In 1850, F. Walter places t wo
identical reeds in the same voice,
an idea picked up 47 years later by
Soprani. In 1852 Matthäus Bauer
builds the first accordion with a
piano keyboard for the melody. On
the left side, buttons are still used
to play chords.
In 1898, in Roubaix, France, the
Fanfare des accordéonistes roubaisiens
is created. Incorporated by the
local prefect two years later, it is
the envy of other towns, which
hasten to form similar bands. The
enthusiasm of ordinary people for
the accordion is formidable. Yet
even if Tchaikovsky incorporates
an accordion in his Suite No. 2 in C
Major, the music academies remain
cool.
varié très brillant.
Without truly leaving the world of
Parisian salons, the accordion spreads to
the countryside, becoming immensely
popular at country dances, bistros, weddings and even Church holidays. It is
everywhere. It is affordable and easy to
learn, with one hand playing the melody
and t he ot her supply ing complete
chords. It will become an important folk
instrument around the world.
Ironically it is its very ease of play
that will long keep it out of music schools
and conservatories. It will ultimately
triumph over the reticence of “serious”
musicians, thanks to continued development by both musicians and accordion
makers. French accordion maker Léon
Doucet patents his accordéon harmonieux,
ancestor of the chromatic accordion.
Equipped with two bellows, it can sound
the same note whether the bellows are
drawn or compressed. French accordion
making is underway.
The neverending story
The tale of the accordion is a
novel with countless marvelous
chapters.
Once upon a time, in Italy, in a
lush valley through which flowed
the Musone river, there was a
farmhouse. In that farmhouse
lived Antonio and Lucia Soprani
and their three children, Paolo,
Pasquale and Nicola. On a day of
1863 that had begun like any other, a
pilgrim carrying a small nondescript
box knocked at the door and asked for
shelter. The farm family, as affable as
it was generous, hastened to welcome
the stranger. Once he had dined, the
Austrian visitor sat by the fire and drew
intriguing sounds from his mysterious
box. Now it so happened that Paolo,
then 19, had little enthusiasm for farming but was fascinated by the music
produced by the strange engine (which
would turn out to be a copy of Demian’s
accordion).
Paolo had but one idea: learning to
use it and making one for himself. Did
he buy the instrument, or did the traveler
offer it to the family in thanks for their
hospitality? However it happened, he
opened it up, studied its workings, and
modified them in often revolutionary
fashion. Thus was born the Italian
accordion.
Paolo quickly became an excellent
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Each note sounds the same
whether the bellows is drawn
or compressed. This precursor
of the concert accordion draws a
great deal of interest, including
that of no less a luminary than
Hector Berlioz.
At first it is Demian’s Akkordion that becomes popular, in
an age when — in music as in
literature and art — emotional
effect is deemed more important than performance details.
Brought to France by immigrants, Demian’s instrument is
quickly adopted by the French,
some of whom dismantle it
to see how it works. Seeking
the advice of musicians, they
rework its innards. Two years
after its initial invention, there
is a French accordion method
named after Pichenot, who
equips his instrument with a
valve switch to evacuate air
from the bellows. In Paris and
all around France, accordion
classes are organized, and the
most daring musicians play even
Mozart and Rossini, arranging
their music to suit the possibilities of the little instrument.
Painters and craftsmen vie
with each other to add visual embellishments to this romantic instrument, using
inlaid wood and ivory, keys of sculpted
mother of pearl, and colorful bellows,
all decorated with pearls and spangles.
The instrument becomes a work of art
in its own right. In its formal wear, it is
welcomed into the salons of the nobility
and the haute bourgeoisie, especially
once King Louis-Philippe acquires one
for himself. In Paris society it is à la mode
to own one.
In 1832 in Paris, professor and accordion maker A. Reisner opens a workshop dedicated to the development of
Demian’s invention. He adds a melodic
keyboard, in which each key produces
just one sound. His romantic accordion
can be heard in the salons of the highest
society. The very first accordion concert
takes place on April 10, 1836 at Paris
City Hall. Reisner’s daughter Louise
introduces the accordion to the world of
“serious” music, playing her own Thème
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accordionist, and with the help of
his brothers and some hired help,
in 1864 he opened his own factory.
His curiosity, his imagination and
what today we would call his spirit
of entrepreneurship allowed him
to spread his commerce to the
neighboring town of Loreto, a
cosmopolitan crossroads through
which passed a steady stream of pilgrims, traveling salesmen, gypsies,
tradesmen and beggars.
This tale, which might have
been hatched by A ndersen or
Hoffmann, sets up the ingredients
of a success story. In 1872 Paolo opens
a second factory in Castelfidardo, for
orders are pouring in from France and
as far away as the Americas, where the
accordion has been popularized by
homesick Italian immigrants.
By 1890 accordion fever has spread
across Italy, and there is an explosion
of prestigious factories destined to
leave their mark on music history, but
it is in Loreto that is planted the seed
of a worldwide movement. Continuing
his string of innovations, Paolo adopts
F. Walter’s notion of placing two identical reeds in a voice, and in 1897 he patents a revolutionary new state of the art
instrument, the chromatic accordion.
Today, Paolo Soprani’s heirs continue
their research to make accordions of
unequalled quality, and their company
is surely the world’s best-known accordion maker. Most of its instruments,
however, are destined for the export
market. Hundreds of thousands of their
accordions are sold each year throughout
the world.
Now back to France.
In Brive, on a Sunday in
1885, a young carpenter from
Limousin goes fishing with a
friend, who brings along his
accordion. Won over by the
sound of the instrument the
carpenter, François Dedenis,
saves his money to buy a lowcost accordion of his own. His
new acquisition doesn’t stay
in tune for long, prompting
him to open it up and repair it.
Flushed with this first success,
he launches his own accordion
factory, whose instruments will
be be celebrated throughout France and
across Europe.
As his commerce grows, François
hires apprentices and organizes events
to get his instruments known. In 1906,
on a church holiday, La maison Dedenis
sponsors a contest for accordions, vielles
and cabrettes, with a Dedenis accordion
as the first prize. It is won by piano tuner
Jean Maugein. Recognizing his talent
and intelligence, Dedenis hires him.
Maugein learns accordion repair and
then manufacturing. So excellent is he
that a jealous Dedenis fires him…only
to find in him a competitor. We are in
1919. This event is one more proof that
a setback can carry the seeds of future
success.
Back to Italy, then France again.
In 1904 in the plains of Piedmont,
Illustrations:
Above: A cajun accordion
Below: An Excelsior accordion in festive
dress
Domenico Cavagnolo determines
to use his experience working for
several local accordion makers to
launch his own plant. He is but 20,
and it is amusing to imagine his
first “factory.” It consists of a large
wooden tray placed upon the only
table of the household, upon which
are laid out the tools of his trade,
and where he and his wife Angèle
fashion the first instruments of
the future brand. At mealtimes the
“factory” is tucked underneath the
conjugal bed.
Despite these austere beginnings, it is here that is born the celebrated Cavagnolo grille, with its intricate
arabesques and its logo showing two
dragons and two birds. The Cavagnolo
accordions are of great quality, and they
are marked by certain innovations, such
as the ball-bearing valve that can be
quickly disassembled, considered the
best device for avoiding air loss through
the keyboard.
The factor y will not remain in
Piedmont, however. In 1923 Domenico
travels to France to see what is done
there, and he is so stunned by what he
finds that he concludes that the future
of the accordion is French. His destiny is
sealed. Packing up his family and his baggage, he sets up house at Villeurbanne,
which will become a place of pilgrimage
for accordionists everywhere.
In 1937 Domenico dies at the age of
53. World War II slows the company’s
growth, but after the war his sons take
the helm. Ermano handles commercial
development while Pietro works to
develop the accordion we know
today.
The year 1965 is notable
for the death of Pietro, but also
for the creation of the Majorvox, the very first electronic
accordion.
It is no coincidence that
the arrival of the Italians —
Piermaria, Crosio, Cavagnolo — allow Paris to regain
the pre-eminence in the accordion world that it had before
1900. It is also thanks to these
Italians that Parisians create
the basis of what will become
the accordéon musette æsthetic.
(1870-1944), and we still speak today of
the “Montmarquette sound.”
In the mid-sixties the chromatic
bass accordion becomes recognized in
Canada. The most celebrated virtuoso of
this instrument is without a doubt Joseph
Macerollo, who premieres his Concerto
for Accordion and Strings at Expo 67. He
sets up the very first accordion classes
within a first rank Canadian music
institution. To him we owe the study
program in chromatic bass accordion
at Queen’s University (1970) and at the
University of Toronto (1972).
A century before, in 1870, a man
named Beloborodoff designs the first
Russian chromatic accordion. He founds
an accordion ensemble and publishes
a self-teaching manual titled Bayann.
His instrument will be adopted by all
accordionists.
At the turn of the century the diatonic accordion yields to the chromatic
accordion. Though most accordions are
now Italian, several major accordion
makers choose Paris, and that is where
occurs, from 1900 to 1924, the craze
for accordéon musette. Suddenly every
accordionist wants to come to Paris, and
the instrument reaches its peak of popularity. From about 1904, the Hohner
company of Trossigen in Germany
begins building diatonic accordions.
In 1908, the master craftsman Sterlogov and the celebrated accordionist
Orlansky-Titarenko create the Russian
concert accordion, a chromatic instrument they call the bayan. The name is
that of a Russian poet of the 16th Century, though it might actually be that of
a Russian singer-storyteller of similar
name.
The first concert accordion
The accordion reaches its apogee at
the start of the 1950’s. The first year of
the decade Italy exports nearly 200 thousand instruments, and the number will
grow to nearly a million a year before
the decade is up.
Yet the accordion remains banned as
a serious instrument in the conservatories, for the astonishing reason that it is
too easy to play, because it can produce
a four-note chord by pressing a single
button. This judgement will not stand
forever.
Even earlier in the century, there
had been modifications to the left-hand
keyboard with the very goal of making
the accordion a “serious” instrument.
Around 1950, the Parisian musician,
music historian and professor of accordion Pierre Monichon creates the harmonéum. (he is shown above with Mario
Bruneau, left, who holds an 1830 Demian
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Rapid expansion
Accordion factories spring up in
Germany, Russia, throughout Eastern
Europe, Brazil, China, Korea and
elsewhere. In the United States too,
the accordion gains rapid popularity,
brought to the New World by a wave
of immigrants from Italy. Americans
are especially attracted to the piano
accordion, which arrives in 1909, and
accordion sales soon eclipse those of the
piano. There too, artisans learn to make
the instruments. The Excelsior Company, founded in 1924 by Barbatti and
Pancoti, is enormously successful, and
in 1950 opens a factory in Castelfidardo
back in Italy.
It is however to the Cajuns that
Americans owe much of the popularity
of the accordion. Deported from Acadia,
in present-day Nova Scotia, by force of
arms to such places as Louisiana, they
have little choice but to cultivate the
talents they brought with them, and
they become expert in a number of areas.
Their love of music leads them to perfect
the making of musical instruments, and
their violins and accordions will gain
worldwide fame.
In Canada, a congregation of Ursuline nuns in Quebec City receives news
of Demian’s Akkordion and are impatient to obtain one. The Ursulines are a
teaching order which gives a major place
to music and the arts in the education of
young girls. In the congregation’s books
for November 1843, just 14 years after
the first Akkordion, we find an amount
for the purchase of one of the instruments. Orders for seven or eight more
instruments will follow.
It takes little time for Canadians to
adopt the new instrument, and to set
up their own accordion factories. The
first one was probably that of Roch
Lyonnais from 1865 to 1880. However
it is for the quality of its accordionists
that Canada will be noted. The button
accordion will share the stage with the
violin and the harmonica for the playing
of reels, gigues and other folk dances.
Canadians are excellent accompanists,
but they also excel as soloists in the
classical repertoire. The 20th Century
sees several commercial recordings by
Canadian accordionists. The greatest of
these is no doubt Alfred Montmarquette
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accordion, and his wife, singer Marie
Cardinal, right). Monichon replaces
the chord buttons for the left hand with
a melodic keyboard just like the one
for the right hand. It quickly becomes
known simply as the concert accordion.
Monichon’s brilliant student, Alain
Abbott, is the first to play a concert
accordion at the Conservatoire national
supérieur de Paris. He later founds
France’s first concert accordion school,
and he and his fellow composers give
the instrument its first original French
concert repertoire.
On a technical level, the concert
accordion is a chromatic bass instrument with identical keyboards for each
hand. It is the left-hand keyboard that
distinguishes it from the chromatic
accordion, in which the left hand serves
only for accompaniment. This instrument, the product of years of research
and experimentation, finally meets the
standards of certain musical domains
long closed to the accordion.
Yet it is at this very period, when
the accordion is in its golden years,
that the hurricane of rock’n’roll begins
to blow. The effect on the accordion is
catastrophic, for from one day to the
next it comes to symbolize music of a
bygone era. For a rising generation, the
accordion that has been the joy of so
many balls and celebrations is obsolete.
In its place is the guitar…and especially
the electric guitar.
from the British College of Accordionists, followed by other degrees and a
fellowship recognizing his research
on the accordion in education. He was
the first to win the quadruple crown of
competitions organized by the National
Accordion Organization. The list of his
successes goes on.
The accordion in jazz
In the first half of the 20th Century
the accordéon musette takes on jazz tones,
under the influence of Gypsy guitarists, including the immortal Django
Reinhardt. Yet, though accordionists
have long drawn on the inspiration
of Afro-American rhythms, the jazz
world pays little attention. The earliest
reference to the accordion in American
jazz can be found in the memoirs of
pianist Jelly Roll Morton. He mentions
an accordion orchestra conducted by
New Orleans drummer Ben Peyton at
despite obligatory pieces adapted from the end of the 19th Century. There are
the piano. Most warmly applauded are accordionists who play ragtime, such as
musicians under the age of 14, who are the Italian-American Pietro Deiro and
praised for playing airs from two popular his son Guido. This last, a virtuoso musioperas. The competition becomes an cian, composer and professor, was one
annual event, at least until the war cuts of the first stars of the piano-accordion.
it short.
Musicians like him will make careers
Yet after the Liberation the accordion as studio musicians, and even play with
regains its place of honor in all the cafés such bandleaders as Duke Ellington and
and brasseries of the town. And in 1956, Jimmy Dorsey.
faced with the tidal wave of rock, Rou- Yet none left his mark on jazz before
baix offers its biggest competition ever: 1940. That year the jazz accordion finds
300 competitors in seven categories, a serious representative in the person of
who must follow a demanding program, Art Van Damme, who astonishes all by
The accordion for all
including sight reading and the play- his new jazzy sound and his incompa The instrument is easy enough to ing of works full of difficulties. Little rable virtuosity. He will even form his
on a backed by the vibraphone,
at ionquintet,
learn. A beginner who aspires to play by little, initiatives such as this attain
informown
t
e
g
of t he
o
t
t
mos bass
way
k
n
popular music can easily learn to play their goal, bringing
the
accordion
back
guitar,
and drums.
o
ic
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k
c
q
li
a
e. C
ex t r
of f to
azinmusical
ked1944,
agthe
isIn
ere’s an position
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h
by ear. If reading a score is beyond him,d t htoat at hprivileged
in
after the arrival of Allied
w
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e
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ot icof
and youmost liberation armies, there is a new love
’ve nsort
n),world’s
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he can still manage ifhhe
has
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1968,
the
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Per
dvert famous
elect roprize,
lf.
u see acomauditory memory. Todlearn
Prix de affair between jazz and the accordion.
urseGrand
yomore
e f ull music
for yothe
e
e
pro uct edit ion (or in t h
s
d
n
a
it
plex music, he will hang
around
more
Rome,
is
given
to
composer
and
professor
Major musicians, such as Galliano and
y
r
is
h
T
t
.
e
in
ads
Web sit Alain Abbott, whom I have already men- the deathless accordionist and bandeer’s teach
iscan
experienced musicians
who
t
r
e
v
d
a
t he
him the basics: the key of G for the right tioned. He is of course an accordionist. onist Astor Piazzola, begin to marry jazz
hand, the key of F for the left. There Britain had accordion clubs from rhythms to, respectively, musette and
are therefore two distinct movements: 1930 on, and accordion bands as well. the tango. Richard Galliano will invent
popular music and “learned” music. The In 1935 was founded the British College the New Musette, a hybrid of musette,
number of accordionists who wish to of Accordionists, offering diplomas in jazz and the java, and Piazzola will create
take on the classics grows apace.
teaching and interpretation. There are the tango Nuevo. The astonishing love
In Roubaix, in France, in 1936 takes other major schools teaching accordion, affair will continue.
place the first international accordion including the Royal Academy of Music.
competition, with an initial subsidy I want to mention at least one Great The apogee
from the city fathers. Connoisseurs are Britain’s great accordionists, Ray Bodell. The promotion of the accordion by
surprised to hear extraordinary playing, At the age of 17 he earned a diploma virtuosos and orchestra conductors pays
nks!
Li v e li
unexpected dividends. The greats of the
musical world, condescending at first,
grow to admire this instrument which
now inspires “serious” composers. The
instrument is everywhere: the media,
the street, the subway, the concert hall,
even the symphony orchestra. This new
century has seen an increasing number
of chamber music ensembles with at least
one accordion.
The accordions most often seen and
heard are the diatonic, the chromatic
associated with the musette style, the
bayan, a chromatic accordion favored
in Russia, the piano-accordion popular
in the Americas, and the concert accordion used for the classics. We should
also mention the bandonion, a direct
descendant of the concertina, known for
its role in the tango.
Musette-cabrette-guinguette
The words evoke countless images
and emotions. Shady characters, girls of
the street, freedom, joie de vivre, poetry,
nostalgia, free-flowing wine.
The muset te of Pa r is a nd t he
guinguettes surrounding the city can
justify their own chapter. The story I
want to tell you is a robust one from
the start, marked by fights between
the Auvergnats and their cabrettes or
musettes, a sort of improved bagpipe, and
the Italians and their accordions on the
other side, all vying for the favor of the
public.
The musette, or cabrette, existed long
before the accordion. It was equipped
with a bag or air reservoir, made of goat
skin or cabri. Yet in the beginning there
were two distinct instruments. The
highly-decorated chabrette of Limousin
is played by blowing, whereas the cabrette
of Auvergne is equipped with a bellows,
placed under the right arm so that it can
be pumped with a rapid arm movement.
In Auvergne they held bals musette in the
13th Century!
In those days cities were enclosed
within walls to repel invaders, but the
walls also served to increase a city’s
finances. To enter the walled city to do
business, you paid a tax.
And so the Auvergnats, who trade in
coal but also have a knack for business,
set up cafés-charbon outside the walls of
Paris. They sell coffee there, of course,
but also wood and coal, making these
the first duty-free shops. Since the
merchandise is not taxed, they also offer
wine from grapes that proliferate just
outside the city, white wine of dubious
quality called guinguet. The wine lends
its name to the balls organized in the
back rooms of these cafés, still called
guinguettes today, and as popular as ever
with tourists.
From 1880 to 1900 there is a battle
without quarter in the Bals musette of
the 11th arrondissement. On one side are
the Auvergnats with their musette or
cabrette, and on the other side the Italians with their accordions. The vendetta
ends with a Romeo-and-Juliet wedding
between the daughter of the celebrated
cabrettiste Bouscatel and the daughter of
an Italian accordionist.
We know, of course, that the accordion came out the eventual winner, but
the musette left us its name to describe
a musical style that is quintessentially
French.
“Urban folk music is a rarity,” says
Mario Bruneau, an accordionist who
promotes musette through his multimedia conferences, and graciously
served as an important source for this
article. “Folk music is traditionally rural,
because it is associated with peasants and
the popular village celebrations. Along
with the tango of Buenos Aires and the
Bossa Nova of Bahia, the musette of
Paris is one of the rare forms of urban
folk music to have survived the test of
time. It is a world legacy, and it seems
to me it is important to preserve it.”
The accordion today
The accordion is no longer the poor
man’s piano. It is of imposing size, and
unlike the piano it is eminently portable.
It suits all repertoires from folk music
through the classics, not to mention jazz,
pop, rock and Gypsy music. For those
who wish to explore the instrument’s
popularit y, there are major events,
such as the annual Carrefour mondial
de l’accordéon de Montmagny in Canada,
and the Rencontre internationale de
l’accordéon de Chartres and the Printemps
de l’accordéon, both in France. Tens of
thousands of musicians and music lovers
converge on these events, which are
accompanied by international courses
in music and traditional dance.
Indeed, there are accordion competitions the world over, an excellent
springboard for young artists looking
for to further their studies.
The accordion today has the keys to
universities and conservatories. Master
classes and workshops at all levels are
legion. There is an increasing number
of accordionists invited to play with
symphony orchestras, for more and
more composers include the accordion
in concertos and other works.
When you travel by Métro in Montreal, Washington or in Paris, listen! You
may hear a sublime accordionist playing
just for you.
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A concertina is shown above. Such a
lovely object! It could be a jewel case, or
even a hat box. When I saw one I wanted
to hold it in my hands, and indeed many
collectors buy one for its appearance
even if they don’t play.
Then there is the electronic accordion, whose sounds are generated artificially. The bellows no longer supplies
the air flow, and is used only to control
volume. A modern electronic accordion
is mated to a control box that can select
sampled sounds, and its MIDI connector
can plug right into a computer. With
such an instrument, an accordionist
becomes truly a one-man band, able to
simulate an orchestra of 30 to 40 musi-
cians. It is lighter too, weighing some
6 kg rather than the usual 13 kg or more
of an acoustical instrument.
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by Reine Lessard,
Albert Simon and
Gerard Rejskind
Brahms Lieder
Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Analekta AN 2 9906
Lessard: What can one add to all that
has been said of Brahms? This deeply
Romantic composer was a contemporary
of Wagner, Mahler and Schoenberg
without truly being influenced by them.
From a modest background, he was one
day befriended by Robert Schumann,
who was dazzled by his talent as a composer and launched him into the music
world. He developed, under dramatic
circumstances, a friendship with Clara
Schumann, one of the great pianists of
her day and wife of Robert.
If there is a part of his repertoire
which can acquaint us with his profound
sensitivity, albeit in quite classical form,
it is in these folk-tinged song cycles.
Some of them may even have autobio64 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
graphical roots, though how can we be
sure?
The disc begins with the Opus 86
c ycle, wh ich i nclude s si x song s ,
including t wo that are considered
the peak of Romantic lieder: Therese
and Feldeinsamkeit. It is an emotional
moment, enchanting from the first
notes. The set is followed by a ninesong cycle, Opus 69, and the two-song
Opus 91. This superb recording ends
with nothing less than the Opus 121 Vier
ernste Gesange. Brahms wrote it in 1896,
drawing on Martin Luther’s translation
of the Bible, treating of the destiny of
man and beast, of death and love.
The divine mezzo-contralto MarieNicole Lemieux, who possesses one
of Canada’s finest voices, puts into her
performance of these songs a contagious
emotion, deploying a wide range of
nuances and modulations that touch
you to the quick. She is accompanied
by two seasoned musicians. Pianist
Michael McMahon shows off his technical excellence, all the while embracing
the singer’s sensitivity. Violist Nicolò
Eugelmi, in much demand as both chamber musician and accompanist, adds his
velvety sounds.
I can say only good things about this
recording, done at the excellent salle
Pierre-Mercure in Montreal.
English Fancy
Masques
Analekta AN 2 9905
Lessard: Masques is a Montreal-based
theatrical group that is in much demand
after ten years of existence. Its five
talented performers, ably led by Olivier
Fortin, include one singer, and specializes in vocal and instrumental music of
the 17th and 18th Centuries.
This recording is a superb anthology
of music by Henry Purcell, Thomas
Campion and John Jenkins, English
composers who have left their mark
and even become icons. In the Baroque
period theatrical performances were
given at courts throughout Europe,
acting as vehicles for lyric poetry. These
“court masques” were inspired by the
commedia dell'arte. Performing in these
masques was a variety of artists: actors,
poets, singers, musicians, composers,
jugglers and acrobats. They generally wore masks, and often the spectators did
too. The tradition of the masque began
in Italy, where troupes would tour public
squares and castle courtyards, and spread
throughout Europe, reaching England
under Henry VIII.
From the first measures, the rich and
ample voice of Shannon Mercer pinned
me to my chair. I thought that with such
an opening surely the entire album
would be a delight, and I wasn’t wrong.
The songs are inserted among several
masterfully-performed instrumental
pieces.
Ensembles that suit their name in
that they truly play together are not as
common as one would think. Masques
is, and does.
English Fancy deserves recommendation not only because of the music
itself but also for its sonic quality. It was
recorded with great care at the SaintAugustin church in Mirabel, north of
Montreal, which has seen a number of
first rate Analekta recordings.
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Barbarossa
Les jongleurs de la Mandragore
Fidelio FACD015
Simon: It was a sunny afternoon. I
closed the drapes and, in the dim light a
door opened between my speakers and
I entered the 12th Century. Much more
effectively than images, sound can bring
memories back to life and carry us to
faraway times.
Barbarossa refers to the time of
Friedrich I of Germany who ruled over
a kingdom reaching from the North Sea
to the Mediterranean until his death
in 1190. Several of the pieces are from
the original Carmina Burana German
manuscript, there is an Icelandic traditional piece, and an excerpt of the Laon
Manuscript dating from the France of
around 930.
None of these, however, prepares
you for the presence of the multitalented group called Les Jongleurs de la
Mandragore (“the Mandrake jugglers”).
Infused with an uncanny energy and joy,
they recreate the atmosphere of medieval
times, blending superb voices and instruments, giving life to dusty and brittle
texts. Interestingly, an Oud (rhymes
with food), the direct ancestor of the
European lute, is used by Andrew WellsOberegger, and his playing is refined and
expressive. The midrange sound of the
instrument (mostly midrange) is richly
modulated. François Taillefer is a wizard
with percussion instruments, especially
the large duff and smaller darbuka. All
those instruments, of Persian or Turkish
origin, were introduced to Europe by the
Moors through Spain, and brought back
with the return of the Crusaders.
ral sound of voices and instruments are
sweetly reproduced using the XtractHD
process, avoiding most computer manipulation. They even designed their own
wood sphere microphone system and
installed it in a binaural configuration,
as you’ll see on the CD back cover photo.
(For more photos of the recording session, see
www.fidelioaudio.com.)
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It becomes fascinating to hear the
flavor of those Eastern sounds combined
with those of the Taverso (wooden
flute), the Cittern and Hurdy-Gurdy
(also known as the Wheel Fiddle). Don’t
miss the great duff solo on track 2 and
the lovely composition by Hildegarde
Von Bingen on track 3; watch for the
intricate harmonies of the flute with
Ingried Boussaroque’s warm soprano,
and see how her voice rises, pure as a
flame, floating away at the end.
On track 4, the traditional Icelandic instrumental piece sounds almost
modern with its oud and duff duo. Listen
carefully as the percussion builds and
rises to a frenzy, and later, on track 8, a
composition by Adam de la Halle. You’ll
be surprised by the bass impact, just
before the male voices appear in 3-D.
Suddenly, much too soon it seems, with
what sounds like a distant bell in the fog,
the music stops. I slowly walked over and
opened the drapes again.
René Laflamme of Fidelio has done
a magnificent recording job with this
ensemble. The high, deep space of the
church where it took place and the natu66 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
Blues for the Saxophone Club
Monteiro, Young, Holt
J-J-Jazz 26-1084-78-2
Rejskind: Jeremy Monteiro is a jazz pianist from Singapore who has played with
virtually everyone who is anyone in US
jazz circles. In this Singapore recording
put together between 1988 and 1990, he
plays alongside legendary saxophonist
Ernie Watts on two selections. And those
aren’t even the best tracks!
Monteiro is known as “the king of
swing” back home, and you can hear
why. His piano sets up irresistible
rhythm, backing impressive solos by
Monteiro himself and by bassist Eldee
Young. This isn’t laid back swing. These
musicians go at it with energy!
The recording adds to the energy.
The sound is clear and almost explosively
dynamic, yet without the edginess you
find on some recordings. This is an
HDCD-encoded recording, though
there is no trace of the logo in either
booklet or disc.
Energy aside, Monteiro has an ear for
a tune. In Falling in Love With Love there
are those robust solos, but Monteiro
always returns to the famous melody,
and clearly loves it. Not that it is alone
in carrying tunes. In My Foolish Heart it’s
Ernie Watts’ saxophone, and in Surrey
With the Fringe on Top it’s the bass and
O’Donel Levy’s guitar.
There’s a surprise on the final track,
which is the Louis Armstrong classic
What a Wonderful World. The melody
is carried by Eldee Young’s bass, with
strong backup from Monteiro, but
Young also sings the lyrics. It’s a bit
jarring because it’s unexpected after five long instrumental tracks, but it worked
for me.
A fine recording, this, with good
music, fine playing, and a recording that
is hauntingly realistic.
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sound of his instrument, and that love is
contagious.
The recording is intimate, as is
appropriate with just two musicians.
We are sitting close, so that we can hear
every chiff of air from the sax, much as
Fishman would have heard it himself.
The HDCD sound is detailed and
dynamic, without strain or edginess.
Bergsten & Nordahl play Lars Gullin
Gunnar Bergsten/Peter Nordahl
Proprius PRCD2001
Lessard: If you like jazz, if piano music
makes you happy, and if the rich, deep
and often sensual sound of the saxophone
gives you chills, you’ll love this recording
of baritone sax and piano.
Lars Victor Gullin (1928-1976) was
one of Sweden’s greatest jazz and bebop
musicians. His reputation was international, and he was widely regarded
as a genius. Saxophonist Bergsten and
pianist Nordahl play his music with
such eloquence that Gullin was surely
their idol. Some of the pieces are on the
lyrical side, speaking to the emotions,
whereas others challenge the virtuosity
of the two musicians.
Proprius maintains its reputation for
excellence, as much for what happens in
the control room as for the music created in the studio. Like other Proprius
productions, this one has what it takes
to delight the demanding audiophile.
As for me, I listened to it with delight,
throughout these 10 tracks, all hits in
their day and still hits today. So turn the
lights down low, and unplug the phone.
You won’t be wasting your time!
Feedback
Only Trust Your Heart
Monteiro/Fishman
Jazznote 170702-03-2
Rejskind: Here’s Monteiro again, 15
years later, playing in Long Beach,
California, on a different label (with
the HDCD logo explicitly featured this
time), in a much smaller ensemble: just
him and saxophonist Greg Fishman.
Fishman is from Chicago, and has
several albums behind him, as well
as concerts with some of the greatest
musicians of his day, and several books
on theory. He is especially drawn to Brazilian music, but when he met Monteiro
on an Asian concert tour that took him
to Singapore, he found someone who
was on his own wavelength. Hence this
recording.
This is very much Fishman’s CD,
with his sax leading improvisations of
such standards as I can’t Get Started, These
Foolish Things and My Funny Valentine.
Monteiro is the accompanist, and he
follows Fishman’s complex improvs
with ease and dexterity. The emphasis
is not so much on the famous tunes as
on the tonal interplay between sax and
piano. Fishman is clearly in love with the
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customers call it “the magic fuse.”
and the Night and the Music. And yet he
takes astonishing liberties with that last
one, surrounding the melody from the
start with trills and rhythmic variations
you’ve never heard before.
The performance was recorded a
dozen years ago , and as was pretty much
usual for Concord Jazz, the sound is
exemplary. Highly recommended.
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John Campbell at Maybeck
John Campbell
Concord Jazz CCD-4581
Rejskind: Start the first track and John
Campbell begins to work magic on the
piano keys. It’s hard to keep your body
still when you listen to this! No drums,
no bass, just Campbell and a Yamaha
grand piano on the stage of the Maybeck
Recital Hall in Berkeley. Oh, and an
audience, but those people sure are quiet
while Campbell is playing! Are they
holding their breath, or what?
This is one of a long series of Concord Jazz albums of solo pianists at
Maybeck: Dick Hyman on disc 3 and
Marian McPartland on disc 9. Some are
familiar to connoisseurs: Gerry Wiggins, or Gene Harris. And Campbell
too. He played extensively with singer
Stereo Passion (Ottawa)
Signature Audio (Vancouver)
Tel: 416-818-4242
Fax: 416-850-5217
Mel Torme, he was the pianist of the
Terry Gibbs-Buddy DeFranco quintet, Candido & Graciela: Inolvidable
and he also played with Stan Getz, but C. Camero/G. Grille Pérez
Chesky JD249
who is he really?
On this CD’s tracks is proof after Lessard: They’re bold, those Cheskys,
proof that Campbell has a command of and their boldness sometimes leads them
his instrument and of the melodies that to sensational finds. Thanks to them we
he plays. He attacks his variations in the can hear these two superstars of a period
most natural and unself-conscious way that is unfortunately far behind us.
possible. In short, he makes it sound as It was in the 40’s that was born a
though each of these tunes was written fascinating blend of two styles, Afrothe way he plays it. And oh, how he plays! Cuban music and jazz. Some marriage!
The starting key of each song is just that: What a success the artists of the day
a starting point. It’s the same thing with had throughout the world! But these
rhythm. It’s infectious in this album, but artists were forgotten after the Cuban
he shifts again and again, with accelera- revolution, when their homeland became
tion and syncopation, and he makes it all isolated, and they could meet neither at
sound right.
home nor abroad to perform or record.
He gives himself plenty of room for In 1999 the film The Buena Vista
development. After the short and catchy Social Club, featuring these old-time
Just Friends that opens the CD, he goes singers and musicians, many of them
into long-form variations on Invitation, now in their 80’s or even their 90’s,
which runs nine minutes, and Emily, arrived like a bombshell. Filming was
which is almost as long. Neither is too done in Havana, and at concerts elselong, and the familiar Darn That Dream where, from New York to Amsterdam.
is even longer.
That’s as much explanation as I intend
The length and the complexity of to give in order to invite you to listen to
You needcan
this!
www.uhfmag.com/Analog.html
the variations
mean
that the original this sublime couple, who have lived in
melody is submerged, never to be found New York for decades. Percussionist
again, but Campbell doesn’t let that Candido Camero is 82 now, and singer
happen. On Darn That Dream, even Graciela Grille Pérez is not far from 90.
his heavily syncopated passages remain I can tell you right off that they have lost
amazingly lyrical. It’s the same story not one iota of their ardor of yesteryear.
with such melodic standards as Easy to Surrounded by a sensational band, they
Love, The Touch of Your Lips, and You give an extraordinary performance. I can
Got a belt-drive turntable?
echo what David Chesky says of Graciela, that many a young singer “would
kill to have such a voice.” You need to
hear this voice, with no trace of tremor
or hoarseness, with clarity and a dynamic
range that leaves one astonished.
One succumbs to both the rhythms
and the emotion of this album, which
opens with Tu Supieras, a song about
the pain of love, sung with exemplary
expressiveness. The tracks that follow
lead you into moods that vary from
languorous to sensuous to rhythmic
to danceable. Candido’s congas are
omnipresent, but there is plenty of room
for other, flawless, percussion as well as
violin and flute. It is spellbinding.
Unforgettable. Inolvidable. The title
couldn’t fit better.
The sound on this co-production of
David Chesky and Nelson Gonzales, is
beyond reproach.
more appealing licks than most of the
runners up in that “world’s best band”
race. Martin’s voice is appealing, with
exceptional flexibility. The production
is slick. So why don’t I like it more?
Perhaps the slickness itself is the reason.
There’s a lot of sound on this CD, but it
is carefully channeled away from the frequency extremes, with tonal balance that
is almost but not quite right, as though
it had been equalized to sound okay on
a poorly-chosen monitor. Instruments
and synth effects are switched in more
than panned in. After a while I felt kind
of jerked around.
The exception is Till Kingdom Come,
a hidden track that is less slick than anything else on the album, and seems a lot
more real. It even sounds more lifelike.
The only way the booklet could be
more of a wastes of trees would be if
it had more pages. The band pictures
can barely be deciphered, and most
X&Y
of the pages are covered with colored
Coldplay
rectangles, which are apparently binary
EMI 09463 11280 2 8
code spelling out the “X&Y” title. The
Rejskind: No booklet picture here, print is virtually unreadable, including
because the front is plain black. X&Y EMI’s warning against unauthorized
is destined to be known as “The Black copying — the company may be playAlbum,” just as the Beatles’ blank-sleeved ing with fire here. Looking for more
LP is still called “The White Album.”
information? Go to the Coldplay Web
The color isn’t the only Beatle influ- site, and discover that you’ll need to part
ence. Coldplay is billed in some quarters with personal information before you
as “the world’s best band,” and you don’t can find out much. And don’t expect lyrics
need to be a music historian to know or anything like that!
rces. Some
various sou
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so
If ubegins, it sounds as though it could he wound up leaving the CD on the
turn into a remake of Lennon’s Imagine, counter and walking away. He shouldn’t
though actually it’s a love song. The have, because this has “class action suit”
ending is also middle period Beatles. A written all over it. I Googled “Coldplay”
Message gave me the same impression. and “copy protected,” and I got 325,000
The title song could have come from links!
Yellow Submarine. And so it goes.
“Protecting” music in this way is
For what it’s worth, by the way, sev- brain dead. By the way, on a PC you
eral other reviewers I’ve read hear more hold down Shift while opening the CD;
influences from U2 than the Beatles, on a Mac, iTunes ripped the disc to my
though I should add that this claim raises iPod without even that. The entire CD
the blood pressure of some U2 fans to is available through BitTorrent and other
emergency room readings.
P2P services despite the protection. My
On a non-emotional level I can think guess is that the guy who left his CD on
of a lot of reasons to praise this album. the counter went to get the music on the
Martin and his colleagues really are Net. Memo to EMI: is this really what
pretty good songwriters, turning out you’re after?
Discover your
“Inner Spirit”
a new
bookshelf
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from
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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 69 Gossip&News
Feedback
Gossip&News
Satellite Radio
for Canada?
Canada has long had its own satellite
TV service — two of them in actual
fact —and they were late in coming.
While the CRTC (the government
agency that regulates broadcasting and
other communications) was dithering,
several hundred thousand Canadians had
used dummy US addresses to connect up
their grey market American dishes.
Much the same has happened with
satellite radio. Canadian over-the-air
stations operate under a system of
regulations that maintain a certain
percentage of Canadian music on the
airwaves, and — in the case of stations
with French-language licenses — francophone artists. Satellite radio would
face similar regulations.
In the meantime, thousands of Canadians have been installing XM or Sirius
receivers in their cars, using a US address
to register and receive radio from the
sky. Percentage of Cancon: zero, other
than whatever was popular in the US.
There was pressure on the CRTC
to act. Standard Broadcasting and XM
had applied for a license. So had Sirius
and the CBC. A nd just to confuse
things a little, a third group offered a
satellite-like service that would actually
use terrestrial transmitters, at least until
satellite space could be found. Which
would the CRTC favor?
The agency stunned the broadcasting community by saying yes to all
three. They could all proceed, under
of course certain conditions. Each
would need to have a minimum of eight
Canadian-produced channels, and it
could broadcast only nine foreign (i.e.
American) channels for each Canadian
channel. At least 2.5% of channels must
be francophone. Is everybody happy?
Well, no in fact.
In the US, both Sirius and XM have
been bleeding money, and indeed that
is why they were eager to pick up more
subscribers by expanding into Canada.
But if the competition gets the same
privileges, the advantage is less evident.
As for the terrestrial group, it hadn’t
anticipated competing with two “real”
satellite services, and is thinking of
dropping out.
Oh, and the regular broadcasters,
other than Standard Broadcasting, are
screaming too, because they are still
stuck with more stringent Cancon regulations. And ADISQ, which represents
Quebec record labels, is unhappy about
that 2.5% francophone figure.
For all of those reasons, the interest of all these companies seems to be
waning. So is ours. Lest we forget, all
these services use lossy compression!
RR is Back!!!
Reference Recordings has long
been one of our favorite record labels.
The audio and artistic qualities are the
main reason, and the fact the people at
RR were so nice didn’t hurt. The bad
news of 2003 is that RR was bought
by Dorian, another legendary record
company whose inept management
had pretty much crippled it. The worse
news of 2004 was that Dorian filed for
bankruptcy. RR was also gone, needless
to say.
But hold on! Dorian had neglected a
detail, namely paying for the company it
had “bought.” The former owners went
to court and got the company back.
So Marcia Martin is back at the helm,
seconded by Janice Mancuso and (we
assume) Keith O. Johnson.
We’re looking forward to the next
releases.
Radio Shack
Becomes…
Radio Shack (or RadioShack as they
now spell it) has been a familiar brand
in Canada since the 70’s. Now that’s
changed…for now at least.
The Canadian licensee of Radio
Shack was a company called InterTAN.
Last year, InterTAN was bought by a US
chain, Circuit City, which at home is a
Radio Shack competitor. Radio Shack
responded by pulling the rights to the
Radio Shack brand by InterTAN.
The result is that, since June, Canadian Radio Shack stores have been called
something else, namely “The Source by
Circuit City.”
Say what? We figure the focus group
must have been drunk!
At one time, Radio Shack carried
only its own brands: Realistic, Archer,
Micronta, etc. For years, though, its
store shelves have been filled with gear
from other companies, from Sony to
Panasonic. That’s still the case, though
the house brands are now NexxTech and
Centrios.
In the meantime, the Radio Shack
parent company doesn’t want its brand
to die out, and says it will open its own
stores in Canada. The name of its new
Canadian Web site, radioshackisback.
ca, says that July 1st was “a great day for
RadioShack.” We figure that if going
from 900 stores to zero makes the day
great, the charge of the Light Brigade
was a great success.
But of course the company has plans,
intending to open company stores and
attempt to lure The Source franchisees
back to the original banner. In the
meantime the two parent companies are
suing each other.
Here’s one bit of good news. We
always liked the fact that Radio Shack
had a little section for electronic parts,
so you could scoop up a pilot light or a
condenser if you needed. The Source has
kept the section.
MP3 to “Analog”?
We’re used to outrageous audio
claims from computer gurus, because
these people mostly have passions other
than music. Now comes such a claim
from two hitherto respected audio men.
It’s enough to make one cry.
The two men are Richard Burwen
and Mark Levinson. In conjunction
with a certain Daniel Hertz (predestined
name?), they’ve brought out a product
called the Burwen Bobcat. The claim for
it is the sort of thing we expect to read
in one of those spams that asks for help
in transferring millions from Nigeria:
“Burwen Bobcat makes CD, DV D,
and MP3 sound equal to or better than
analog and SACD.”
Though Hertz’s Web site shows the
Bobcat as a box, it is in fact a plug-in for
Windows Media Player 10. The plug-in
must be used with Hertz’s own Model
One USB DAC, which “has been carefully engineered and tuned by ear to give
you the full benefit of Burwen Bobcat.”
Yes, right. Now if you’ll excuse us, we
have to e-mail our bank account number
to this former government official in
Lagos…
“CD Quality”
Radio?
Been wondering why radio sounds
so crappy? We spotted a clue in a press
release from the Canadian Association
of Broadcasters.
The CAB urges the government to
hurry up with revisions to copyright law,
to allow them an exemption from paying
fees to record companies for transferring
music from one format to another.
What’s this about? Well, nearly all
stations now run music from computer
hard drives…but, according to the CAB,
as much as 75% of new music this year
is being sent to the stations not on CD,
but in MP3 format.
We’ve heard a rumor radio is dying.
If it is, it’s from a series of self-inflicted
wounds.
Sold and
Finding HDCD
Sold
Applause Audio. . . . . . . . . . . 13
Artech Electronics . . . . . . . 10, 37
ASW . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2, 64
Audio Dream Distribution. . Cover 3
Audiomat . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Audiophileboutique.com. . . Cover 3
Audiyo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
BC Acoustique. . . . . . . . Cover 3
Bluebird Music . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Blue Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Charisma Audio. . . . . . . . . . . 8
CPUsed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Diamond Groove. . . . . . . . . . 65
Divergent Technologies. . . . . . 11
Eichmann. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Entre’acte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Europroducts Internat.. . . . 9, 23, 56
Everest Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Fab Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Furutech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Goldring . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Harmonic Marketing. . . . . . . . 14
Hi Fi Fo Fum. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Home Theater Cruise. . . . . . . 16
The House of Sounds . . . . . . . 66
Isoclean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Justice Audio. . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Just May Audio . . . . . . . . Cover 2
MagZee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Marchand Electronics. . . . . . . 25
Michell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Mosscade . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
muRata. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Mutine . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Natural Frequency Audio . . . . . 66
Orelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Oz Enterprises. . . . . . . . . . . 69
Quinceton Corporation . . . . . . 68
Raysonic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Reference 3a . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Shanling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Simaudio . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Signature Audio. . . . . . . . . . .65
Soundstage. . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Spendor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Totem Acoustic. . . . . . . . Cover 4
UHF Back Issues. . . . . . . . . . 24
UHF Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Unity Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Vertigo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Gossip&News
The future of this famous British
brand Mission has long been uncertain.
Its founding company morphed into
NXT, inventor and builder of those
flat panel speakers that are used for
everything from background music
to computer sound. It now has a new
home.
The buyer is Chinese, the International Audio Group. IAG has been
collecting British audio brands: Wharfe
dale, Quad, Leak, Audiolab, etc. The
company says it will keep the product
lineup the same, but there may be shortages while…etc.
In the meantime, the one-time US
high end speaker brand, Boston Acoustics, has been snapped up by D&M
Holdings, the parent company of Denon
and Marantz, as well as McIntosh Labs,
ReplayTV and Rio.
If you own a digital player with
HDCD decoding, you no doubt know
that mainstream record companies are
less than conscientious about adding the
HDCD logo to their discs. Of course,
you can always get a listing from the
horse’s mouth: www.hdcd.com.
Or at least you could. Microsoft
bought the HDCD process five years
ago, and has clearly lost interest. The site
is still up, but no recordings are listed.
There is a workaround, however: the
“Wayback Machine,” which archives the
Web. Go to http://web.archive.org, and
enter the hdcd.com address in the field.
You’ll be offered numerous dates you can
choose. Pick the last one, November 27,
2004, and you’ll see an operable version
of the site, with working links.
For a more up-to-date listing, albeit
a less complete one, Thomas Bergman
has put up his own in Sweden, at www.
hdcd.se. Good hunting!
ADVERTISERS
S
State of the Art
ometimes I get to thinking that
high end audio is just an obscure
niche, cut off from normal life.
And especially normal economic
life, considering the prices. And then I
glance at the business pages, and guess
what! The problems faced by high end
audio people are much like those faced
elsewhere.
Take beer for instance.
Here’s the story that jumped out
at me. Last year there was a merger of
two large breweries, one Canadian and
the other American. The two breweries
used to be called Molson and Coors, and
are now (inevitably) known as Molson
Coors. Far be it from me to pour cold
water (or beer) on either the merger or
the business sense of the new management team, but it is my duty to report
that, in Canada, at least, I’ve often heard
its products referred to as “mid-fi” beer.
We have the beginning of a link here.
Let’s explore the link further. In
the months following the merger, the
beer analysts (who knew there were
such things, and what courses do you
have to take to become one?) brought
out dark predictions on the future of
beer in general and Molson Coors in
particular. The reason? It seems beer
sales have gone flat (sorry, but these word
plays are all over the business columns).
And the reason they’ve gone flat is that
the populations of the affluent countries
are getting older, and it’s mainly younger
people who put away a lot of the beer sold
each year.
Sound familiar? What we have here
is the greying of the beer market, which
has a definite resemblance to what is
alleged to be the greying of the audiophile community. In both cases, the fans
are getting older and are (presumably)
not getting replaced. Perhaps there
are some lessons to be learned here.
And as we shall see, the links get more
interesting.
So here’s this new huge Molson
Coors brewery, having trouble expanding its market, its share prices tanking
because of bad-mouthing by the analysts, and what does it do? It goes shop72 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
by Gerard Rejskind
ping, buying another company. Does it
choose a company in some other line of
business, so it can diversify and not keep
all its eggs in an unsteady basket? No,
that would make too much sense. It buys
another brewery.
But this isn’t quite like the merger of
the two “mid-fi” breweries. The target
of Molson Coor’s acquisitive eye is
Creemore, an upscale microbrewery in
Ontario. It could be a hint of what could
happen in hi-fi.
Here’s what seems to be the company’s vision. All right, fine, the chuga-luggers are older now, and they are
no longer making the automatic link
between the fact that there are 24 beer
in a case and 24 hours in a day. Some
of them have graduated to merlot, or
to port, but others are simply buying
better beers. They’ve got a little more
money, and they’ve noticed that not all
beers taste the same (presumably all that
college training paid off).
So what are they drinking? Well,
over the past half decade, while the big
breweries were trying to kill each other
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.
off with economy beers that tasted like
the colored water in apothecary windows, they lost market share to the small
independent breweries. Molson Coors
has tried to make this up by distributing famous international brands, such
as Heineken and Stella Artois, but a lot
of its money then flows right out of the
country. Why not make gourmet beer
right here: if you can’t lick ’em, buy ’em
out!
The mid-fi audio and video companies are suffering from the same
syndrome as Molson Coors. A beer
price war is a mere skirmish alongside
that waged by makers of DVD players
and loudspeakers. Even if you can actually snatch some market share from a
competitor — which these days is not
easy — the dropping prices mean that
you’re selling more and more but earning
less than less. Last Spring, the analysts
have been every bit as rough on Sony as
they have on Molson Coors.
The high end audio and video companies are of course the microbrewers of
the home entertainment world. Companies like Linn and Jadis and Audiomat
and Simaudio are selling to people who
used to own Sony and Panasonic and
NAD when they were in their 20’s. What
happened as their hair was turning grey
is that they got into a higher tax bracket,
and developed what is no longer a beer
taste.
Of course the comparisons between
beer and audio-video are not perfect.
You’re not seeing Samsung buying out
Rega, or Kenwood grabbing Roksan.
The reality is, however, that real growth
will be found in upscale products, not
in the increasingly commoditized midfi products and their dropping profit
margins.
That should cheer up the worry
warts at the high end companies. Like
the microbreweries they’re not really
getting rich, because there are so many
of them, and the wealth has to be shared.
On the other hand, they’re sitting
squarely where the growth is. Here’s
to them…with something better than
mid-fi beer.
Broadcast Canada
publisher of UHF
invites you to its online boutique
that offers luxury audio electronics of unique value
at unique prices.
The legendary Van den Hul amplifiers and preamps
The international versionof an acclaimed headphone
amplifier. And more. www.audiophileboutique.com
INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED
AUSTRALIA • BELGIUM • CANADA • CHINA • FINLAND • FRANCE • GERMANY • GREECE • HOLLAND
HONG KONG • HUNGARY • INDONESIA • ITALY • JAPAN • LATVIA • MALAYSIA • NORWAY • POLAND
RUSSIA • SOUTH KOREA • SWEDEN • SWITZERLAND • TAIWAN • THAILAND • UKRAINE • UNITED KINGDOM • U.S.A.
877-980-2400

TURNTABLES AND MORE

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