The Cutting Edge

Transcription

The Cutting Edge

IN THIS ISSUE
ISSUE 159 n FEBRUARY 2006
82
COVER STORY
Balanced Audio Technology VK-600M SE Monoblock
Power Amplifier
Can a massive solid-state power amplifier deliver the immediacy and
delicacy of a low-power, single-ended design?
40
2005 GOLDEN EAR AWARDS
Our editors and frequent contributors choose the gear that found a place
in their hearts.
141
90
EXOTICA
Audio Research Corporation Reference 3 Linestage
Preamplifier and Reference 210 Monoblock Power Amplifier
A longtime ARC buff, Jonathan Valin listens to the company’s latest
Reference products, designed by none other than ARC founder
William Zane Johnson.
EQUIPMENT REPORTS
20
Kuzma Stabi S Turntable with Outboard Power Supply
and Stogi S Tonearm
Chris Martens on a soul-satisfying turntable and arm combo from…Slovenia.
58
April Music Stello DP200 DAC/Preamplifier
Is there room for an upsampling DAC/preamp in today’s systems?
Neil Gader has the answer.
62
Echo Busters Decorative Acoustical Treatments
Sue Kraft rediscovers the most important audio accessory of all—
the listening room.
66
Dynaudio Focus 220 Loudspeaker
A Danish contender for affordable musicality, says Sallie Reynolds.
70
Moscode 401HR Tube Hybrid Stereo Amplifier
New contributor Jacob Heilbrunn reports on the rebirth of an audio classic.
75
Magnepan MG 20.1 Loudspeaker
Donald Saltzman takes a fresh look at a perennial audiophile favorite.
99
HP’S WORKSHOP
Golden Ear Awards, and a short think piece on Digital Domination.
75
2
THE ABSOLUTE SOUND n FEBRUARY 2006
VIEWPOINTS
8
Letters
113
Manufacturer Comments
COLUMNS
12
From The Editor
14
Industry News
16
Future TAS New Products on the Horizon
TAS JOURNAL
26
The Quest for Great Sound on a $2000 Budget, Part 2
Barry Willis finishes his report on seeking out a great budget system.
34
TAS Talks with Benjamin Zander
Jonathan Valin and Mark Lehman interview a conductor who’s recorded
some impressive Mahler symphonies on the Telarc label—and brilliantly
explained what they mean, to boot.
MUSIC
116 GOLDEN EAR MUSIC AWARDS
16
146
2005’s Top 10 Pop/Rock, Jazz, and Classical Albums
134
Recording of the Issue—Mozart: Sonatas for Piano and
Violin (Hahn)
133
Classical
The lowdown on Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets, Testament’s Juilliard
Quartet reissues, and a Sibelius SACD box set.
141
Jazz
Critiques of the latest albums from Jim McAuley, Robert Glasper, Andrew
Hill, Greg Osby, and Steve Lehman.
144
Rock Etc.
A roundup of new live records from Green Day, Patti Smith, The Mars
Volta, Iron Maiden, The Grateful Dead, plus reviews of the latest from
Neil Diamond, Lewis Taylor, and others.
160
TAS BACK PAGE
Audio Finds
Jonathan Valin reports on rarities from the recent Bighorn Sheep Audio
Fest in Boise.
34
4
founder; chairman, editorial advisory board
Harry Pearson
editor-in-chief Robert Harley
editor
associate editor
managing and
music editor
copy editor
acquisitions manager
and associate editor
news editor
equipment setup
editorial advisory board
advisor, cutting edge
Wayne Garcia
Jonathan Valin
Bob Gendron
Mark Lehman
Neil Gader
Barry Willis
Danny Gonzalez
Sallie Reynolds
Atul Kanagat
senior writers
John W. Cooledge, Anthony H. Cordesman,
Gary Giddins, Robert E. Greene, Fred Kaplan,
Greg Kot, Andrew Quint, Paul Seydor
reviewers and contributing writers
Soren Baker, Greg Cahill, Dan Davis, Andy Downing,
Jim Hannon, Stephan Harrell, Jacob Heilbrunn,
John Higgins, Sue Kraft, Mark Lehman, Ted Libbey,
David McGee, Derk Richardson, Don Saltzman, Dan
Schwartz, Aaron M. Shatzman, Alan Taffel,
Arnie Williams
design/production Design Farm, Inc.
publisher/editor, AVGuide Chris Martens
web producer Ari Koinuma
Absolute Multimedia, Inc.
chairman and ceo Thomas B. Martin, Jr.
vice president/publisher Mark Fisher
advertising reps Cheryl Smith
(512) 891-7775
Marvin Lewis,
MTM Sales
(718) 225-8803
subscriptions, renewals, changes of address
Phone (888) 732-1625 (US) or (815) 734-5833
(outside US), or write The Absolute Sound,
Subscription Services, PO Box 629, Mt Morris,
IL 61054.
Ten issues: in the US, $42; Canada $57 (GST
included); outside North America, $67 (includes
air mail). Payments must be by credit card
(VISA, MasterCard, American Express) or US funds
drawn on a US bank, with checks payable to
editorial matters
Address letters to: The Editor, The Absolute Sound,
P.O. Box 1768, Tijeras, New Mexico 87059, or
e-mail [email protected].
classified advertising
Please use form in back of issue.
newsstand distribution and local dealers
Contact: IPD, 27500 Riverview Center Blvd., Suite
400, Bonita Springs, Florida 34134, (239) 949-4450
publishing matters
Contact Mark Fisher at the address below or
e-mail [email protected].
Publications Mail Agreement 40600599
Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to
Station A / P.O. Box 54 / Windsor, ON N9A 6J5
E-mail: [email protected]
4544 S. Lamar, Bldg. G-300
Austin, Texas 78745
phone (512) 892-8682 · fax (512) 891-0375
e-mail [email protected]
www.theabsolutesound.com
© 2005 Absolute Multimedia, Inc., Issue 159, February 2006.
The Absolute Sound (ISSN #0097-1138) is published ten times per year,
$42 per year for US residents, Absolute Multimedia, Inc., 4544 S. Lamar,
Bldg G300, Austin, Texas 78745. Periodical Postage paid at Austin, Texas,
and additional mailing offices. Canadian publication mail account #1551566.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Absolute Sound, Subscription
Services, PO Box 629, Mt Morris, IL 61054. Printed in the USA.
8
L E T T E R S
Editors’ Choice—Too Limited?
I just finished reading the December 2005
issue of The Absolute Sound, and I found the
Recommended Products list lacking and a
bit askew. In the amplification section we
have seven (or eight, depending on how
you count the NL10.1 and NL12.1) Edge
products and none from Mark Levinson,
Boulder, Jeff Rowland, Gamut, or Pathos.
YBA and Naim have great amps and preamps (as well as CD players) beyond the
integrated you are stuck with. Same with
speakers—I would rather have some products on the list from well-known makers
like ProAc, Spendor, JMFocal, or Avalon
than have three models from Wilson or
Sonus Faber.
The point I am trying to make is that
you will have a much better
Recommended Product list in the same
space if you include more brands and
fewer models from the same company. I
do not need seven reviews of Edge to get
me interested. An excellent review of one
product might send me to the dealer
where I can audition the different models
and pick the one that fits my budget and
taste. On the other hand, the omission of
an important maker might make me
Haim Ronen
miss a very good product.
Wayne Garcia replies: Thanks for your
feedback, Mr. Ronen. While your basic
point is a good one, I think that you’re
overstating the case. Although you correctly point out that a few companies
(such as Edge and Wilson) may have
more products covered and recommended than some others, there are several
reasons for that. One is simply that the
most-frequently-covered manufacturers
(and your list might also have included
the likes of B&W, Magnepan, BAT,
Nordost, and Musical Fidelity) make a
wide range of outstanding products that
we believe are worthy of our readers’
attention. That’s not to say that others
don’t, but some manufacturers (such as
Rowland) don’t readily make their products available for review, while others
(such as Spectral) never supply review
samples. There are other reasons why we
may not cover a company’s wares during
a particular span of time. For instance,
some firms have experienced changes in
management and personnel (Levinson),
while others have their hands full supplying their dealers with current product and can’t free up samples for review
(Audio Research and MartinLogan).
Although we make no claims that our
Editors’ Choice covers everything, we
have tried to make our list as deep and as
wide-ranging as possible. That said, one
of the goals of switching from six to ten
issues per year is to ensure that we’re
able to cover many of the products that
we may have previously overlooked. By
the way, along those lines I’m happy to
report that we have reviews in the works
on Pathos, Focal, and Mark Levinson
components.
Confused by SACD
I am very confused by current developments in SACD replay. Some hardware
manufacturers use PCM output even for
SACD, like the Esoteric X01, whereas
Upcoming in TAS
MartinLogan’s Summit speaker
Pathos Classic One Mk 2 integrated amplifier
ESS AMT-450 Heil-driver speaker
Audience 72SE speaker
Magic Diamond cartridge
Rogue Audio Metis preamp
HP’s Workshop
L E T T E R S
other companies, like EMM Labs, maintain that DSD architecture is essential to
preserving the information in the signal.
There is a similar dichotomy of
views on the software side. Deutsche
Grammophon still uses PCM for its
SACDs, e.g. Kleiber/Mahler 5 and 7,
whereas Channel Classics, Mobile
Fidelity, Groove Note, Telarc, etc. use
DSD throughout.
I’d be grateful if you could throw
some light on this matter. An engineer
at Esoteric actually said that panel tests
revealed that there was a preference for
PCM over DSD, even with SACD. I
always thought that decimation of an
analog waveform resulted in a loss of
low-level information—compare analog
vinyl with digital vinyl.
I look forward to your response and
Dr. N. Kumar
guidance.
Robert Harley replies: As you note,
some SACD players convert the Direct
Stream Digital (DSD) bitstream from an
SACD into linear pulse-code modulation (PCM) before the conversion to analog. One of DSD’s advantages over PCM
is the lack of a need for a digital filter. In
fact, it is possible to turn the DSD bitstream into music with a single capacitor (DSD D/A converters are more complex in practice, but not much). On the
other hand, designers have a considerably wider range of choices in PCM digital-to-analog converters. Some believe
the degradation introduced by the digital filter is a worthwhile tradeoff for
access to high-quality PCM DACs.
More on Chesky and Apple’s iPod
May I get something off my chest? It concerns David Chesky’s surprising and truly
outrageous letter in Issue 156. I agree
completely with Robert Harley’s response,
but as a classically trained composer I have
a somewhat different perspective.
Chesky asserts that “music is just the
organization of sound.” Well, no, it isn’t. It
is the organization of sound for a particular
purpose: that of expressivity. To achieve that
goal—to make music that moves people—
composers have an array of tools at their disposal. These include form (which differentiates a song from a fugue from a sympho-
10
ny); melodic and rhythmic themes; the
use of repetition to imbue a sense of
familiarity, combined with equal parts
variety to create surprise and avoid predictability; and tension (generated by
various means) that is satisfied, leading
to repose. “Tonality,” as Chesky points
out, is certainly also one of the composer’s tools, but it is far from the only or
even the most important one. Bach is still
Bach even when, as we have seen over the
centuries, his work is transcribed to a very
different tone color. The music remains
timelessly powerful because, regardless of
the nature or quality of the instrument(s)
playing it, it embodies the above qualities
in such abundance and with exquisite craft.
If, as Chesky would have us believe,
“it is about the sound,” then a steady-state
gorgeous tone—say, a sustained note
played on a Stradivarius—would be compelling in some way. It isn’t. To the contrary, I can think of nothing more boring
or ultimately irritating. A painter chooses
his colors carefully, but knows that color
alone cannot create a work of art. There
are many other elements involved, and
color, like sound, is in their service. I suspect that Chesky, a composer whom I
respect, knows this well. But there is no
such evidence in his letter.
Sound plays two roles in our world. It
is, as discussed above, a compositional
tool used to shape the emotional makeup
of a piece of music. It is also the means by
which we perceive all music. Chesky is
right that we, as reviewers, focus more on
the latter role. The reason is that even if a
system does not get the “tonality” completely right, music can still be involving
and moving, so long as the other elements of expressivity are accessible. (RH
gave a splendid example of this in his
comment.) To render these elements
accessible, a system must possess only
reasonable fidelity and sufficiently low
distortion. An iPod in full compression
mode fails these basic requirements—distortion is high and dynamic range is so
limited that any tension and repose (to
use just one example) created through
changing dynamics is obliterated. But, as
RH points out, when used properly an
iPod is perfectly capable of delivering the
basic elements built into the music by the
composer. And that is why, despite tonal
restrictions, it and other sub-perfect systems can enjoin the listener to the music.
Where does this leave the high end?
Where it has always been. Superior systems are able to deliver more of the composer’s intent, more of the performer’s
interpretation, and, yes, more of the sound
we’d hear if we were listening to the same
performance live. But this last benefit
would mean little if it weren’t coupled
with the first two. Remarkably, David
Chesky seems to have forgotten that.
Thanks for letting me vent. I’ll go
back to work now!
Alan Taffel, TAS contributing writer
Mediaeval Philosopher?
At the risk of sounding like a mediaeval
philosopher, I would like to clarify the
discussion occasioned by Robert Harley’s
article “The Audiophile iPod” [Issue
155]. Or maybe I should, Socrates-like,
ask, which music, stupid? Of course I
realize that discussing essences, which is
what this letter is doing, starts one down
a slippery slope. Still, I believe that even
though both bicycles and airplanes are
vehicles, most people can tell the difference between them. It is to them that I
offer this letter.
Let us for the moment skip the question of Platonic essences and not ponder
what, say, Brahms’ First Symphony
sounded like in Brahms’ head. For our
purposes let us assume that the music is
the way the Berlin Philharmonic plays it
under the baton of one of our best conductors. When we reproduce it via the
world’s best sound system using SACD
(you put it together), we obtain a reasonable facsimile of the music, but not quite
the music. But for our discussion, let’s call
that the music. Let us now imagine that
we omit every second byte from the CD
(or compress it in another way—the
method doesn’t matter). It will, of course,
still sound like Brahms’ First, but someone with acute hearing would notice that
it lacks some overtones, some spatial
clues, some tonal clarity, some ambience,
some “continuousness.” The general public may barely notice that anything is
amiss. Let us now compress the CD even
more and listen to it via a portable radio.
L E T T E R S
Will we still be listening to the Brahms’
1st? I don’t think so; we will be listening
to a Brahms First, but not the Brahms
First. Is this still music? Of course, it is.
Can one enjoy it? Maybe so. But note that
the word “music” has undergone a subtle
change. I do not want to debate the merits of iPod and its accoutrements except to
point out that those who claim that they
are listening to the music have made a
clever switch from what in this letter I call
the music. Of course, if they like, they can
listen to it in airports, gyms, on the way
to work.
Although I know that no analogy is
perfect, allow me to give one. I am looking at a wonderful colored picture of
Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. If anyone
asked me what I am doing, I would say,
“I am looking at The Last Judgment.” But
I am not. I am looking at a picture of
The Last Judgment.
I cannot speak for Brahms, but I suspect that if he were listening to com-
WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM
pressed music via the best of iPod I
rather think he would say, “Very interesting. It has the outlines of my First.”
And if he were to use Stairmaster, I suspect he might prefer silence. Or maybe
Paul Hoffman
stop exercising.
More Addams Family Audio
Research
I really enjoyed your recent Back Page:
“Addams Family Audio Research.” As a fan
of that great TV show and of your magazine, here is a possible addendum to the list:
• The Lurch Mega Tower Speaker
(warm lower midrange if not a little
rolled-off at the high end).
• Gomez’s Antistatic Cigar Wand
(puts a big smile on any user’s face).
• The Cousin It Test CD (only decks
with the highest upsampling rates
can decipher it).
• Wednesday & Pugsley’s Torture Test
Record (see if your ’table-arm-cartridge combo is up to this direct-to-
disc-recording of multiple exploding
train wrecks).
Jon Pell
Keep up the good work.
Erratum
n last issue’s Editors’ Choice
Awards, we mistakenly printed a
photo of the Rega P5 turntable
under the capsule comment on
Roksan’s Radius 5 model. Here’s an
actual photo of the Roksan.
I
11
g
u
e
s
t
e
d
i
t
o
r
i
a
l
Blanked Generations
Bob Gendron, Music Editor
T
wo months ago, TAS Acquisitions
Manager Neil Gader contacted me
about a panel he’s moderating at the
2006 Consumer Electronics Show.
Among his topics: How can the high
end reach out to younger generations?
A good question—and one that
comes with tough answers likely to
raise the ire of industry professionals
and audio journalists.
As we move forward into an era
where, for many, the stereo system has
become an iPod, any maker of quality music-reproduction
equipment has reason to sweat. Expectedly, the move from hifi to porta-fi has led to a myriad of knee-jerk predictions of
artistic and intellectual collapse. Many blame short attention
spans and the current state of national affairs. Another reason
I’ve heard is that music isn’t what it once was, and still another is that younger people don’t buy music.
Yet these changes, and the erroneous belief that the quality
of music has plummeted, have more to do with perceptions
than facts. Never before in history has a wider array of music
been available. Sounds from around the world and free previews
of hundreds of thousands of albums are a mouse-click away.
People are listening. And buying. What’s often misunderstood
is that Recording Industry Association of America figures often
pertain to units physically shipped. With fewer traditional outlets, these numbers are down, while digital acquisitions surge.
Given these music-friendly developments, why does most of
the high end still act like it’s living in the ’70s?
Fundamentally, what’s happening in music is a continuation of a culture shift brought on by punk, intensified by hiphop, and exploded by indie-rock. Over the past few decades,
music has splintered off in manifold directions. A priceless creative transformation has occurred, but many listeners (and critics) have chosen not to follow or attempt to understand what’s
transpired, hunkering down instead under a safety blanket of
the music they already know (and believe to be unsurpassable)
and ignoring the rest—dismissing contemporary sounds without having heard a note of it.
Such people are not only laughably pathetic and maddeningly ignorant; they are also clinging to a lazy closed-minded
worldview that is detrimental to art and audio. The point isn’t
that everyone has to bob his head to hip-hop or move his feet
to glitchpop, but that deep-rooted generational biases are
widening a rift for which subgenres are frequently blamed.
What the high end is really facing is a generation gap that
the industry hasn’t yet bridged with a common language. Or,
12
to put it bluntly, it’s encountering listeners who can’t relate to
and/or currently don’t care about audiophile-speak. What needs
to be done to fix this problem begins at the root level—that is,
the industry must forge a connection to the music that people
are listening to today. We were reminded of this in the last
issue when a reader wrote in deriding audiophile publications
for constantly reviewing golden moldies.
That hasn’t been true for years in this magazine, where we
strive to inform readers in a timely way about noteworthy contemporary releases and select reissues. For examples of the former and our music writers’ passion for the best of what’s current, just look at this issue’s Golden Ear Music Awards.
However, the accusation is true when applied to equipment
reviews, where sonic examples primarily consist of albums
recorded before 1980. In most cases, no contemporary rock,
pop, blues, or R&B is cited. Hip-hop, metal, world, postmodern classical, and avant-jazz might as well not exist.
Yes, I’m aware of this magazine’s “unamplified music in
real space” credo. But I’m also aware that listeners (especially
those under 40) enjoy an assortment of musical styles and are
often left clueless about how a component sounds, unless they
audition somnambulistic easy-listening vocalists, carbon-dated
rock, or warhorse classical. To limit the appeal of the high end
to this minority ensures the slow death of the high end.
When asked why he continued to search out new music
well into his 60s, the legendary British deejay John Peel
replied, “I don’t read the same books I did when I was 20, I
don’t watch the same films I did when I was I was 20, why
would I listen to the same music?” I couldn’t agree more, and
neither would any true music lover, which is why, without
abandoning the past, the high end must speak to the present.
Otherwise the industry’s face will be that of an antiquated
group reminiscing ad nauseam about the same batch of 50year-old albums—a circular and cyclical debate that does a
disservice to music fans and the manufacturers hoping to
attract them.
Most audiophile labels have failed to realize this, which
may explain why few still exist. But there are those like Water
Lily’s Kavi Alexander, who in Issue 156 bashed reverse-minded
thinking that values sonics over music. He recognizes that only
so much repetition can be tolerated before former greats such as
Led Zeppelin and Leonard Bernstein become irredeemably dull
and dated.
Music isn’t dead—it’s more alive than ever—and listeners
are continually finding new places and ways to hear it. Millions
are waiting to discover how a great CD player or turntable can
improve their lives, but they’ll never experience either unless
the industry catches up and begins to speak their language. &
I N D U S T R Y
N E W S
NHT’s New Parent
Barry Willis
enicia, California-based
NHT has been acquired by
the Vinci Group of
Colorado, parent company
of Vinci Labs of Tampere,
Finland. The new ownership is the latest
in a string of mergers and acquisitions
that have benefited and hindered the
company throughout its 20-year history.
Founded by Chris Byrne and Ken
Kantor in the mid-1980s, NHT was
the first to make a powered subwoofer
for consumer use, in 1987. The company was sold to Jensen International
in the early 1990s, ostensibly to leverage the synergy that the NHT brand
could bring to Jensen’s lineup. Under
the Jensen umbrella, NHT developed
some excellent products, including the
“Super Zero” mini-monitor and the
high-performance full-range model
3.3 floorstander. NHT was then spun
off to Recoton, a corporation known
mainly for budget audio accessories.
The Recoton years were dark ones for
NHT, said managing director Chris
Byrne, when I visited the company’s
B
Northern California headquarters last
year. “Recoton basically didn’t know
what to do with us.” With little support from Recoton, Byrne and a handful of engineers and diehard loyalists
kept the NHT flame burning through
sheer dedication.
The company limped along until an
acquisition by Rockford Corporation in
late 2002 put it on solid footing once
again. Rockford’s full support for NHT’s
research and development efforts have
yielded such impressive products as the
“Evolution T6” loudspeaker system and
“Xd” active loudspeaker system. A combination of inspired engineering and superb
design, the beautiful, retro-styled Xd was
one of the best-sounding demos at the
2005 Consumer Electronics Show. It’s now
in full production, priced at $6000 for a
2.1-channel setup. The price is deceptively
low in that an Xd system includes all needed electronics and cabling, making it one of
the few high-end “plug-and-play” audio
systems available today.
Under its new banner, NHT should
continue pushing the audio envelope.
DRM Update
he music industry’s fight against piracy has moved from mass lawsuits to technological warfare. Sony/BMG has taken the copy-prevention fight to a new and especially nasty level for computer users. According to a flurry of reports in early November,
code imbedded in Sony/BMG compact discs could plant itself in computers, causing
potential system crashes and, if removed, inoperable CD drives. The invisible “root kit,”
which combines elements of worms, viruses, and spyware to thwart unauthorized copying and to report users’ IP addresses back to Sony/BMG, was discovered by Windows
expert Mark Russinovich, according to an Associated Press report. The news was
quickly relayed by CNET and other online sources.
Russinovich found the code had infected a computer he used to play a legally
purchased copy of Van Zandt’s Get Right With the Man. At the time he purchased the
disc, Sony/BMG reportedly had approximately two dozen titles encoded with the root
kit, with plans to include it in many more new releases. Russinovich later reported
that Sony’s patch for the root kit, a supposed “uninstaller,” would only make it visible in a file list. Removing the root kit without reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling your operating system is an ordeal, according to other outraged technology experts. Simple solution: If you play the latest Sony/BMG releases, don’t do so
on a computer.
T
14
The company will be incorporated in
Colorado, home of Flextronics Design
(renamed Vinci Labs in 2004). NHT’s
design and engineering team will remain
in Northern California, with dealer relationships handled by Vinci’s new Senior
Vice President of Sales and Marketing,
industry veteran Andy Regan. NHT
founder Ken Kantor is one of the few
members of the company’s core staff no
longer in Benicia. Kantor is now chief
technology officer with a Silicon Valley
startup, Tymphany Corporation.
“All of us at NHT are very excited
about our new partners,” Byrne said in
an October 19 announcement. “The
combined influences of dramatic market
change and the increasing palette of new
technologies to improve audio products
make it necessary for companies like
ours to go beyond passive loudspeaker
design. With the substantial resources
Vinci brings to NHT, we are in a great
&
position for growth.”
British Audio Shows
.K.-based and visiting audiophiles have three shows to look
forward to in 2006. Organized by
Chesterfield Communications, each
event will focus on high-end audio,
home cinema, custom installation,
and car audio.
U
NORTHERN SOUND & VISION
28–29 January 2006
Radisson SAS Manchester Airport
HEATHROW HIGH FIDELITY SHOW
1–2 April 2006
Park Inn
SCOTTISH SOUND & VISION
7–8 October 2006
Radisson SAS Glasgow
For more information:
phone—011 44 1829 740650
e-mail—[email protected]
Web—chestergroup.org
new products on the horizon
futureTAS
barry willis
Conrad-Johnson’s New Lineup
CT5/CT6 Preamplifiers
Leveraging technology developed from the ACT2 linestage preamp, Conrad-Johnson brings its state of the art to more
accessible price points. C-J’s new preamps feature “composite triode” circuitry and refined power-supply design. As implemented in the ACT2, each composite triode consists of “four paralleled sections of ultra-high-transconductance miniature
dual triodes,” according to the Fairfax, Virginia, company’s Web site. The CT5 boasts recently perfected Teflon CJD capacitors throughout the signal path. No electrolytic caps appear
in any audio circuit. A functional design element, the clear
Lucite tube guard allows easy access for tube swaps.
Prices: CT5, $7500; CT6, $4500
conradjohnson.com
MET1 Multichannel Linestage
Designed as the control center of a music lover’s multichannel system, the MET1 is a six-channel vacuum-tube analog preamplifier that accepts 5.1 analog outputs from any DVD, SACD, or universal
disc player, as well as providing a second set of multichannel inputs for use with a satellite receiver or
cable box. C-J claims that the MET1’s pure analog signal path avoids redundant A/D and D/A conversions and results in decidedly more musical reproduction
and better retrieval of nuances from movie soundtracks. Capable of two-channel performance, the
MET1 also offers 5.1-channel surround extracted from
an original stereo input. Installation and operation are
simple and intuitive, according to the manufacturer.
Price: $7500
LP140M and LP70S Vacuum-Tube Amplifiers
More siblings than cousins, Conrad-Johnson’s LP140M monoblock and LP70S stereo amplifiers share both looks and circuitry, including a single triode voltage-amplifier stage direct-coupled to a cathode-coupled phase inverter, an ultralinear
output stage, and Teflon CJD capacitors throughout the signal
path—their first appearance in tube amps, according to CJ. The 70-watt/channel LP70S uses one pair of matched
6550 output tubes per channel; the 140-watt LP140M
employs two pairs. Four-ohm output impedance is standard, but either amp can be ordered for use with 2-, 4-,
8-, or 16-ohm loads.
Prices: LP140M, $6500/each or
$13,000/pair; LP70S, $7000
16
futureTAS
Atlas Hyper Speaker Cables
Copper is universally known as a great conductor, and Teflon is a
superb dielectric, but mating one with the other is a painstaking
ordeal. UK-based Atlas Cables and its suppliers claim to have
overcome heat-induced problems with the application of Teflon
jacketing to copper cables, thereby maintaining processed copper’s oxygen-free state. The result is said to be signal transmission of exceptional “resolution and signal velocity.” Atlas’
“Hyper” speaker cables come in four different sizes: 1.5 sq. mm
(approx. 15AWG), 2.0 sq. mm (approx. 14AWG), and 3.0 sq.
mm (approx. 12AWG). A bi-wire configuration combines 2.0 sq. mm and 1.1 sq. mm lines for optimum low- and
high-frequency performance.
Prices: 1.5 sq. mm, $17/meter; 2.0 sq. mm, $26/meter; 3.0 sq. mm,
$34/meter; bi-wire, $43/meter hifi.org.uk
Classé CA-5100 Five-Channel
Power Amp
Montréal’s Classé Audio has expanded its highly regarded Delta
line with the CA-5100, a five-channel power amplifier rated at
100 watts minimum/channel with all channels driven. Ideal for use
with higher-sensitivity loudspeakers, the CA-5100 has a “massive
power supply, enormous current reserves, and substantial lowimpedance drive capability,” according to the maker. Circuit highlights include separate power supplies for internal controls and AC
monitoring, as well as infrared control and DC-triggering. Inputs
include balanced (XLR) and single-ended (RCA) for each channel,
selectable from the front panel or via the amplifier’s bi-directional
RS232 control, making the CA-5100 perfect for use in combined
purist-audio/automated-home-theater installations.
Price: $5000 classeaudio.com
Rotel Encyclopedia
Got audio questions? Rotel’s got answers—almost
300 pages of them in truly random-access format.
The Rotel Home Theater and Hi-Fi Encyclopedia covers everything from basic operating principles of
dynamic loudspeakers to deciphering acronyms
like J-FET, HDCD, HDMI, MOSFET, and SACD.
An ideal gift for
the audiophile
who has everything, the handy
soft-cover book
includes thousands
of entries on
home-entertainment technology,
many with fullcolor illustrations.
Price: $29.95
rotel.com
Sennheiser HD 201 and HD 215
Long known for its premium mikes and headphones, Germany’s Sennheiser has introduced
two models of the latter that promise sonic refinement at an affordable price. Both the
HD 201 and HD 215 are closed “over-the-ear” designs said to deliver “extended,
accurate response, impressive dynamic potential, and remarkable comfort,” while
closing out ambient noise. The HD 201’s specified frequency response is
21Hz–18kHz; the pro model HD 215 goes from 12Hz to 22kHz. The HD 215 features rotating earcups for one-eared listening—an occasional pro necessity. It also features a single-sided detachable/replaceable cable. Both models have 3.5mm stereo
plugs, and come supplied with .25" adaptors. Manufacturer’s warranty: two years.
Prices: HD 201, $24.95; HD 215, $149.95 sennheiserusa.com
18
a b s o l u t e
a n a l o g
Kuzma Stabi S Turntable with Outboard
Power Supply and Stogi S Tonearm
Chris Martens
A soul-satisfying turntable and arm from Slovenia’s Kuzma.
y dad, now retired, is a
mechanical engineer,
and from looking over
his shoulder throughout his career I learned
that the field could be a strange and
wonderful marriage of art and science.
Great designers have a flair for creating
solutions where practical mechanics and
pleasing aesthetics become one, and
where invention flows freely from a
seemingly endless river of fresh ideas.
Such is the case with the turntable and
tonearm designs of the Slovenian engineer Franc Kuzma. In fact, if you lined
up Kuzma’s products in a row they
would seem so different in concept and
execution that you might think each was
the brainchild of a different man.
Plainly, Kuzma is one of those rare individuals who can see and solve problems
from many different angles.
M
20
Interestingly, though, it is one of
Kuzma’s least costly and most deceptively simple designs that first catches
many enthusiasts’ eyes: the minimalist
Stabi S belt-drive turntable and Stogi S
hydraulically-damped unipivot tonearm. This elegant turntable and arm
turntables to be dead quiet, and yet veteran analog enthusiasts recognize that
there are subtle yet audible tonal-quality differences in the background
silences that various turntables produce.
About now, you might be wondering if
silences can even have tonal qualities,
The single quality that most defines the Stabi S
is its ability to produce deep, quiet, ever-soslightly-warm-sounding backgrounds.
look quite striking, but their appearance
gives only a hint of what’s in store when
listeners hear them in action.
The mission of any turntable is to
rotate records at precise and stable
speeds without introducing (or sustaining) noises or vibrations that could disrupt the playback process. We want
but I would argue they can and do.
(Picture in your mind the difference
between, say, the quiet of a church sanctuary at midnight and the interior of a
warehouse at that same hour, and you’ll
grasp my point.)
The single quality that most defines
the Stabi S is its ability to produce deep,
quiet, ever-so-slightly-warm-sounding
backgrounds that remind me of the profound hush you hear in a concert hall,
just before the music begins. While the
Stabi S may not be quite as quiet as toptier Kuzma models such as the Stabi
Reference or Stabi XL, it makes a highly
satisfying alternative, and at a price
point normal mortals can handle.
Performance is no doubt helped by the
outboard power-supply/speed-control
box supplied with the deluxe version of
the Stabi S that I tested. If the Stabi S’s
background silence were a color, I’d call
that color a “warm black.” By contrast,
most Clearaudio ’tables I’ve heard, and
many recent-generation VPIs as well,
seem to produce an equally deep but
colder silence that I would characterize
as an icy “blue-black” background
behind the music.
One could probably build a case for
either background color, but I prefer the
Stabi S’s rendition of silence for two
musically defensible reasons. Its warm
black backgrounds are strongly reminiscent of those you might hear in live
music venues. I find this quality helps
promote listening for the overall gestalt
of the music, which—in my book—is a
good thing. And this is really important:
I find that the way individual notes
emerge from and then decay back into
the Stabi S’s noise floor sounds much
more natural and continuous than does
the notes-stand-out-in-sharp-relief presentation of the colder-sounding ’tables.
Does this mean the Stabi swallows or
obscures transient information or fine
details? Certainly not. It’s just that the
Stabi S lets the information in the record
grooves unfold in a natural way, without
imparting even a hint of momentarily
exciting, but ultimately fatiguing transient zing. There are more “lively-sounding” ’tables than the Stabi S on the market, but in many cases I can’t reconcile
their sound with that of live music.
The Stogi S is a highly cost-effective,
hydraulically-damped unipivot tonearm
that has the ability to unleash the
strengths of top-tier cartridges such as
Shelter’s 90X—cartridges that cost many
22
The Stogi S is a highly cost-effective, hydraulicallydamped unipivot tonearm that has the ability to
unleash the strengths of top-tier cartridges.
times what the arm does. It enables cartridges to produce bass that is energetic,
deeply extended, and yet tightly focused.
For instance, near the opening of
“Overture—Cotton Avenue” from Joni
Mitchell’s Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
[Asylum], Jaco Pastorius strikes a subterranean, thunderclap-like note on an open
bass-guitar string, and the Stogi
S/Shelter combo captures everything that
note has to offer, including its fierce
attack, richly modulated envelope, and
long, slow decay that rings with sustained low-frequency energy. Other good
arm/cartridge pairs I’ve heard typically
can’t produce bass like this—bass that
hits with sledgehammer force, yet speaks
with vox humana expressiveness.
At midrange and treble frequencies,
the Stogi S facilitates the cartridge’s precise and invigorating retrieval of transient and harmonic details, while at the
same time fostering an overall sound
More on the Stogi
he Stogi S arm is a simple yet
effective unipivot design with
a downward-facing spike that
rests in a bearing cup whose pivot
point is located in the plane of the
record, minimizing warp-induced wow.
The bearing cup is positioned in the
center of a basin that gets partially
filled with silicone-oil damping fluid
upon which the understructure of the
arm “floats.” The arm features two
brass counterweights slung beneath
a small tail-shaft; users rotate one or
both of the eccentrically mounted
weights for basic azimuth adjustments, or adjust a weighted trimscrew for finer azimuth tuning. The
Stogi S provides a simple anti-skating mechanism that audibly improves
cartridge tracking.
CM
T
that is graceful and smooth. I attribute
this elusive combination of detail and
smoothness to the Stogi S’s damping system, and it is pure magic. For me, it was
a revelation to revisit classic CTI jazz
recordings from the 1970s, such as
Freddy Hubbard’s Red Clay or Jim Hall’s
Concierto, and the Stabi S/Stogi S pair
proved a perfect “time machine,”
unlocking incredibly fine timbral and
textural details in those old records in a
way no analog rig from the ’70s could
have done. Hubbard’s trumpet and
Hall’s guitar just sound so right through
the Stogi S/Shelter pair, with details
pouring forth as from a natural spring,
without any artificial edge enhancement
to mar the presentation.
Finally, we come to my personal
favorite of the Stogi S’s characteristics;
namely, it ability to help cartridges create rock-solid images and spectacularly
three-dimensional soundstages. Where
some otherwise good arm/cartridge
combos struggle to produce images that
stay focused or soundstages that break
free from the speakers or the dimensions of the listening room, the Stogi
S/Shelter pair makes both tasks look
easy. I almost fell off my couch when I
first heard the huge soundstages the
Stogi S produced, and then experienced
the illusion of the near-physical presence of instruments and performers
upon those stages.
This quality proved especially
gripping on the Quartetto Italiano performance of the Dvorák American String
Quartet in F, Op. 96 [Philips], where
the voices of the individual instruments
rang true, not just because timbres were
accurately reproduced, but also because
the sizes (and shapes) of the instruments were rendered with almost
sculptural precision. The sense of being
transported to the recording site was
compelling thanks to a myriad small
23
spatial cues that suggested I was in a
space whose acoustics differed from
those of my listening room. And the
performers sounded eerily present and
alive, in part because the arm/cartridge
caught subliminal details that captured
the players moving in their chairs as the
performance progressed. The point is
that the Stogi S helps cartridges do
many small things well, and that
together those small things add up to a
heightened sense of musical realism—a
greater willingness on the listener’s part
to suspend disbelief and simply get lost
in the music.
Where does the Stabi S/Stogi S fit
in the broader spectrum of available
’table/arm combos? At $3300, the
Kuzma slots in neatly between two
likely competitors, VPI’s $2500
Scoutmaster and $5500 Super
Scoutmaster. Because the Stabi S ’table
and Stogi S are minimalist designs it’s
easy to miss their underlying sophistication, but a side-by-side comparison
between the Scoutmaster and the
Kuzma pair proves revealing. The
Scoutmaster starts out with a price
advantage, but to get it to match up
evenly with the Kuzma rig you’d need
to add VPI’s $999 outboard SDS power
supply (the Kuzma comes with an outboard supply), an aftermarket “drop
counterweight” for the VPI arm (the
Kuzma has “drop counterweights”), a
dust cover (the Kuzma has one), and
interconnect cables to connect the VPI
to your phonostage (the Kuzma features generously long cables whose
“wires run in one uninterrupted piece
from the headshell to the RCA plugs”).
The closer you look the more value
you’ll see in the Kuzma combo. And
consider this: If you set aside the
$1900 you’d save by buying the Stabi
S/Stogi S instead of VPI’s brilliant but
costly Super Scoutmaster, you’d be well
on your way toward the price of a statement-class phono cartridge such as
Shelter’s 90X.
I thoroughly enjoyed the time I
spent with the Kuzma Stabi S/Stogi S,
and I’m not looking forward to the day
24
when it must be returned to its U.S. distributor. I’ll admit that I was skeptical of
the design at first (I kept look at the
’table and thinking, “Where’s the rest of
it?”), but the Kuzma’s quiet, clear, and
natural sound soon won me over, as did
its ability to tap the enormous performance potential of top-tier phono cartridges—something not all ’table/arm
combos in this price range can do. But
maybe the most telling observation of all
was that, when I started spinning LPs on
the Kuzma, I never wanted my listening
sessions to end, which is why I gave the
Stabi S/Stogi S a TAS Golden Ear Award
&
in this issue.
S P E C I F I C AT I O N S
Kuzma Deluxe Stabi S turntable
Description: Suspension-less belt-drive
turntable with outboard power supply
Speeds: 33.3 and 45rpm, electronically
controlled
Kuzma Stogi S tonearm
Description: 9" hydraulically-damped unipivot tonearm with adjustable VTA,
azimuth, and anti-skating mechanism
A S S O C I AT E D E Q U I P M E N T
Linn Sondek LV-12/Ittok LVII
turntable/arm; Shelter 90X and Benz
Micro ACE “L” phono cartridges; Musical
Surroundings Phonomena phonostage;
Supex SDT-722 cartridge step-up transformer; Musical Fidelity kW500 integrated
amplifier; Rogue Audio Metis preamplifier;
NuForce Reference 9 and Channel Islands
Audio D-200 monoblock power amplifiers;
Magnepan MG1.6 and Monitor Audio
Silver Series RS6 loudspeakers; Cardas
Neutral Reference and PNF Audio
Icon/Symphony interconnects and speaker cables; RGPC 1200S power conditioner
D I S T R I B U TO R I N F O R M AT I O N
THE MUSIC.COM
(800) 457-2577, Ext. 22
kuzma.si
themusic.com
Prices: Stabi S turntable, $2400;
Stogi S arm, $900
T
A
S
J
O
U
R
N
A
L
The Quest for Great Sound on a $2000 Budget, Part 2
Barry Willis
The second and final part of a report on the search
for a great-sounding budget system.
aving discovered that salespeople at massmarket retailers like Best Buy and Circuit
City show a dismaying lack of knowledge
about audio, I purchased three $2000 systems—from the West Coast electronics chain
Good Guys, the online/mail-order operation Crutchfield,
and the independent audio specialty shop Access to Music
in San Rafael, California. (See the previous installment for
details about the shopping experience.)
Stage Two of the experiment involved evaluating
the systems for ease of setup and operation, and sound
quality. As with the shopping, I tried to approach setup
and operation from a novice’s perspective; however, there were minor glitches with all three
systems that could have presented daunting
problems for beginners and that required me to
shift character to “system expert” to fix.
The listening experiment coincided with a
three-week visit by my friend Leonid
Korostyshevski—an engineer, lifelong and
very eclectic music fan, and audiophile of long
experience from Saratov, Russia. “Lenny”
helped me set up and evaluate all the systems
and repack the gear when we were done. I
printed up some score sheets, so that we could
methodically rank audio performance (treble,
midrange, bass, dynamics, imaging, pace),
ergonomics, appearance, ease of setup, and ease
of use. We used the same selection of recordings, played in generally the same order, to
maintain consistency—all of them commercial
CDs, save for one CD-R encoded with MP3s. A
medium-sized, fully carpeted room off my
kitchen served as the test area, with some of the
furniture moved out to make space for the audio
gear and for two listening chairs. All the electronics were plugged into an AudioPrism
Foundation III line filter.
H
26
The Crutchfield System
The Crutchfield system—a Denon AVR-2805 home-theater
receiver and DVM-1815 DVD/CD changer, Polk Monitor 60
tower loudspeakers, and Polk PSW12 subwoofer—was the first
one we tackled. In cherry veneer with silver accents and detachable black grilles, the Polks looked stylish, but felt insubstantial. The Denon AVR-2805 offers a lot of performance for the
money—in fact, it’s one I’ve recommended to folks wanting to
put together a budget home-theater system—but its back
panel is completely and dismayingly encrusted with connectors. Lenny and I both commented that the complex back panel
and perplexing operating options probably would have stymied
first-timers. Fortunately, the only connections needed were speaker wires (Monster XP2F HT15—ordinary16-gauge zipcord with gold-plated pin
plugs), one optical cable to the
disc player, and an RCA cable
to the subwoofer. Crutchfield
hadn’t supplied a cable for the
sub—points off for that—and
we made do with a two-meter
length of coax scavenged from
a box in my garage.
With the electronics
between them, the Monitor
60s stood about seven feet
apart and 18" out from the
back wall, with the subwoofer
on the inside of the left speaker. Aiming for the best bass
extension with the smoothest
transition to the primary
speakers, we set the sub’s
crossover point, polarity, and
level using Gregory Isaac’s
“Night Nurse,” a bass-heavy
Polk Audio Monitor 60
“DVD player SUXX,” Lenny noted on his score sheet.
reggae tune. We didn’t experiment with any of the receiver’s many synthetic soundfields or tonal-balance tweaks,
sticking, instead, to basic stereo playback with the tone
controls set to “flat.”
That seemed to be the best evaluation technique and
was the one we followed with the other two systems, as
well. In all three cases, we placed the amp or receiver on
top of the disc player to dampen vibration and to make
sure the heat-generating component would have adequate
ventilation. This counterintuitive setup, with a heavier
component on top of a lighter one, would probably not
occur to first-time users. CDs included rock, pop, jazz,
and classical, with some—like discs of Kathleen Battle,
Bernadette Peters, and Zemfira (the Suzanne Vega of Russia)—
chosen for vocal clarity.
Despite the simple hookup, the Denon electronics were
balky to use, a situation worsened by overly complicated
THE SYSTEMS
Crutchfield System
Denon AVR-2805 home-theater receiver
Denon DVM-1815 five-disc DVD/CD changer
Polk Audio PSW12 100-watt powered subwoofer
Polk Audio Monitor 60 loudspeakers
Monster XP2F HT-15 speaker cables
Monster ILS100 optical cable
TOTAL
$809.99
$269.99
$299.99
$499.98
$24.99
$39.99
$1944.93
Good Guys System
Yamaha AX-596 integrated amp
Yamaha CDC-685 CD changer
Energy C7 birch/silver loudspeakers
Monster Z1MT speaker cables with/bananas
Monster IL400 Mk II interconnects
Sales tax
TOTAL
$549.99
$299.99
$899.98
$74.99
$39.99
$139.11
$1934.05
Access to Music System
Rotel RA-1062 integrated amplifier
Marantz CC-4300 five-disc CD changer
Bowers & Wilkins DM-602S3 loudspeakers
Target FS50 20" metal speaker stands
AudioQuest Type 6 speaker cables
AudioQuest G-Snake interconnect
12 gold-plated banana plugs
Subtotal
Sales tax
TOTAL
28
$699.00
$249.00
$600.00
$99.00
$136.00
$25.00
$48.00
$1856.00
$143.84
$1999.84
Denon AVR-2805
remote controls—especially that of the disc player, which
seemed to cough and hiccup a bit with every disc change and
every move to a new track. Especially annoying was its lack of
direct-track-access buttons on the front panel. (“DVD player
SUXX,” Lenny noted on his score sheet.) Unlike the Yamaha
and Marantz players in the other two systems, it played MP3encoded CD-Rs, a benefit for music fans with eclectic collections of downloads. Unlike its hefty companion receiver, the
Denon disc changer felt flimsy. The Polk speaker system had
seemingly endless low-end potential but its high frequencies
were somewhat veiled, a characteristic that improved after
about 15 minutes of warm-up.
Both Lenny and I noted that even though the midrange
was prominent, the soundstage was shallow, appearing to
extend no further than the front baffles of the speakers.
Dynamics and pacing were good, however. We plowed
through many great recordings—cuts from the Scott
Hamilton Quintet’s In Concert disc, recorded live in Tokyo’s
Yamaha Hall in 1983; the Dire Straits classic On Every Street;
San Francisco jazz diva Kitty Margolis’ Left Coast Live; and violinist Viktoria Mullova’s passionate performance of Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons with Claudio Abbado conducting the Chamber
Orchestra of Europe. In every case we were happy to sit there
absorbed in the music without feeling in any way annoyed by
the performance—an indication that this system would probably serve quite well for non-critical listeners. We both pronounced it “not bad” at the end of the evening. That’s a backhanded compliment, of course. Averaging our numerical scores
(1–10 scale, with 1 equaling tolerable, 5 equaling good, and
10 equaling excellent), the Crutchfield system rated a 4.0. As
in figure skating and gymnastics, the Russian judge tended to
be less forgiving than the American.
The Good Guys System
Budgeted almost equally between loudspeakers and electronics,
this system mated a Yamaha CDC-685 CD changer and
I printed up some score sheets, so that we could
rank performance, ergonomics, appearance,
ease of setup, and ease of use.
Yamaha AX-596 integrated amp, both of them understated
black boxes in the traditional Yamaha style, with a pair of
Energy C7 loudspeakers in birch veneer with silver accents.
Salesman Gary Gordon supplied a one-meter pair of Monster
IL400 Mk II interconnects and a 10-foot pair of Monster Z1MT
speaker cables with gold-plated banana plugs.
After attaching the decorative feet on the speakers, we
placed the C7s in approximately the same spots in the room
where the Polk monitors had stood. Although a design similar to the Polks (two-woofer two-way with front port) and
only slightly taller, the C7s were much more robustly built,
and far heavier. (The banana plugs were a needless expense
because neither the Energy speakers nor the Yamaha amp
would accept them—stripped bare wire was perfect.) We put
the AX-596 in “pure direct” mode and had at it. Despite the
30
lack of subwoofer support, the C7s delivered a not-insignificant share of deep bass—not as much as the Polk PSW12, of
course, but bass of surprising depth and impact. It seemed
rich with bass-heavy pieces like “Night Nurse,” comparatively lean with some of Zemfira’s songs, and just right with Dire
Straits. Imaging was much better than with the Crutchfield
system—on most recordings, the soundstage seemed to lobe
fore and aft of the speakers. Dynamics were excellent, and
tonal balance remained consistent regardless of how hard we
pushed the system.
Lenny and I both noted softness in the treble and a lack of
clarity in the upper midrange, a characteristic that would get
the system eliminated from the Blue Ribbon round at the audiophile county fair, but one that made for easy listening for long
periods. The soft upper end—attributable either to the C7s or
to Yamaha’s “natural sound”—made music of
every genre enjoyable, but not compelling.
Lenny thought the overall presentation was
“boring,” but I thought most novice listeners
would probably find it extremely pleasant. It’s
the kind of system that could play background
music all day at fairly loud levels without
sounding intrusive or abrasive. Both the
Yamaha amp and disc changer were well made
and easy to use. The disc player, in particular,
was a huge improvement over the Denon—
quiet and responsive, with a tray that extended
all the way out so you could view all discs at once.
Curiously, the CDC-685 recognized our MP3 disc and
appeared to play it—the display’s counter indicated so—
but produced no sound. The Yamaha remotes were a joy
to use—slim and elegant, with the most important functions obvious and easy to reach. I thought most new hi-fi
fans would be overjoyed with this system and gave it a big
thumbs-up. Lenny expressed some dissatisfaction with the
soft upper octaves and marked it down accordingly.
Aggregate score: 5.5.
The Access to Music
System
Justifiably, we left this system until the end of
the test run, expecting that it would probably
outperform the others. It did, but not without
some effort on our part.
Salesman Patrick Pack had included a pair
of Target stands for the B&W 602S3 loudspeakers, front-ported designs with proprietary
“silver” tweeters and Kevlar woofers. I picked
up the stands fully assembled, the pillars filled
with sand and four spots of Blu-tack adhesive on the top
plates to secure the speakers. We placed the Rotel RA1062 integrated amplifier atop the Marantz CC-4300
five-disc CD changer, joined them with the short
AudioQuest G-Snake interconnect, plugged in the Type
6 speaker cables, and fired it up.
Our expectations of immediate gratification were
B&W DM-602S3
31
instantly shot down. The speakers
sounded way too boomy. The solution:
bringing them out farther into the room
and filling their ports with the foamrubber plugs supplied with the speakers
by B&W, a cure mentioned in the multilingual owner’s manual. Plugging the
ports eliminated the booming bass but
also altered the speakers’ overall bass
response, changing the 602’s from
rowdy rock ’n’ roll party animals to
polite recital performers. A series of
vocal and instrumental recordings led to
another revelation. The midrange was
inexplicably predominant, more so than
could be explained by room acoustics or
choice of recordings. “Something’s not
right here,” I grumbled.
Although it took us outside our selfimposed restrictions on approaching the
32
setup as much like beginners as possible,
we had no choice but to experiment with
the interconnect. Replacing the G-Snake
with the Monster IL400 Mk II from the
Yamaha/Energy system brought everything into focus: bass, mids, highs, depth,
width, impact, and detail. Imaging
improved substantially, and after some
careful tweaking of speaker placement,
the system really began to sing.
Once we got the system balanced—a
task that Patrick, to his credit, volunteered to do when I first made the purchase—it sounded wonderful, delivering
the essential soul of the music, and the
dimensionality of recordings, in a way
that the other two systems hadn’t. Vocals
and instrumentals alike had air around
them rather than being confined in the
space between two loudspeakers. While
not capable of creating a fully immersive
soundfield the way more elaborate systems can, the Marantz/Rotel/B&W setup
offered more than a taste of true high-end
audio. The fact that it could easily resolve
differences between interconnects is proof
of this. Prior to replacing the G-Snake,
Lenny actually rated this system worse
than either of the other two, and I had it
between them. We assumed that had
Patrick come out to the house and
tweaked the system, he would have experimented to find the right interconnect.
We felt that replacing it was within the
rules of the game, and gave the system a
revised aggregate score of 6.5.
Of course, once we had finished evaluating all three, we couldn’t resist doing
a little mixing ’n’ matching. The most
substantial improvement was simply
hooking up the Polk PSW12 subwoofer
to the Marantz/Rotel/B&W system. The
Rotel RA-1062 integrated amp doesn’t
have a subwoofer output, but it does
have preamp out, and we used a pair of
two-meter Nordost Quattro-fil interconnects to hook it up to the sub’s line-level
inputs. The irony of using interconnects
more expensive than the rest of the system combined wasn’t lost on us.
As has proven true every time I’ve
done it, the addition of low-frequency
reinforcement took the system to an
entirely new level of performance, with
better perceived dynamics, impact, pace,
and imaging. It was enough to convince
Lenny that a subwoofer should be his next
audio investment. As Sterling Trayle
explained to me when he was at Sumiko:
“A good sub doesn’t need to draw atten-
tion to itself. It should energize the room,
and establish an optimum acoustic environment for the main speakers.” The Polk
PSW12 is a great subwoofer for the
money: a $300 addition to a $2000 system elevated it from merely “good” to
darn near excellent. Stretching a budget
just a little bit can yield wonders.
Moral of the story: The best values
and best service are still to be found in
traditional brick-and-mortar specialty
audio stores. Helping customers select a
system, set it up, find the optimal interconnects, and install and tweak a subwoofer are the kinds of services you
should expect from a specialty audio
shop like Access to Music. They’re in
business to help people enjoy music.
Big retailers like Best Buy and Circuit
City are in the commodities business,
moving mass quantities of goods at
small margins, with little concern for
customer service. Mid-sized chains like
Good Guys are disappearing, and with
them salespeople and service techs with
decades of experience. In fact, between
the time the first installment of this feature went to press and the writing of
this follow-up (late October), Good
Guys’ corporate parent CompUSA
announced that the 30-year-old chain
would be shuttered by mid-December.
By the time this story sees daylight,
Good Guys will simply be one more
casualty of corporate mismanagement.
That’s all the more reason why music
lovers should patronize independent
shops in their own communities. As the
bumper sticker wisdom has it: Think
&
globally, act locally.
33
T
A
S
J
O
U
R
N
A
L
TAS Talks with
Benjamin Zander
Jonathan Valin and Mark Lehman
became his teacher and mentor for the next five years. He completed his
cello training at the State Academy in Cologne, traveling extensively
with Cassadó and performing recitals and chamber music.
In 1964 Benjamin Zander completed a degree at London
University, winning the University College Essay Prize and a
Harkness Commonwealth Fellowship for post-graduate work at
Harvard. Boston has been his home ever since.
In 1967 Mr. Zander joined the Faculty of the New England
Conservatory, where he teaches the Interpretation Class and conducts
the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and the conservatory orchestras. In
1979 he became the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.
In their twenty-six seasons together they have performed an extensive
repertoire, with an emphasis on late Romantic and early twentieth-century music, especially the symphonies of Gustav Mahler.
Zander also has a unique relationship with the Philharmonia
Orchestra of London. He is recording with them a series of Beethoven and
Mahler symphonies for the Telarc label. Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh
Symphonies, and Mahler’s Symphonies 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 have been
released thus far. Each of his recordings includes a full-length discussion
disc in which he explains the music. High Fidelity named his recording of Mahler 6th as the best classical recording of 2002. His recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 was awarded the 2004 Critic’s Choice
by the German Record Critic’s Award Association, and his recording of
Mahler’s 9th Symphony was nominated for a Grammy Award.
TAS: The occasion of this chat is your Mahler cycle on Telarc—
the wonderful performances and equally wonderful explications
of the music that you have included with the performances (on
separate CDs), which are the most lucid discussions of complex
symphonic music we’ve ever heard. Your interest in Mahler
must go back a long way.
C
onductor Benjamin Zander started his early musical
training in his native England, with cello and composition lessons under the guidance of his father. When he was
nine, Benjamin Britten, England’s leading composer, took
an interest in his development and invited the family to
spend three summers in Aldeburgh in Suffolk where he lived. This led to
a long association with Britten and lessons in theory and composition from
Britten’s close associate Imogen Holst, daughter of Gustav Holst.
Zander left school when he was fifteen, moving to Florence at the
invitation of the great Spanish cello virtuoso, Gaspar Cassadó, who
34
BENJAMIN ZANDER: Well, I started getting interested when I was
very young. But I didn’t really get deeply involved in his music
until I started becoming a conductor, which was quite comparatively late in life. I was 29 or so when I did my first Mahler performances—Kindertotenlieder and then the Fourth Symphony—
and it was in the process of conducting them that I came to the
realization that they were essentially chamber music.
I was trained as a cellist and my milieu was chamber music.
That’s how I came at conducting—with the idea that the
orchestra is just a very large chamber orchestra. And that’s how
Mahler wrote for it. He wrote for a chamber orchestra—on a
vast scale, but with the mentality of the chamber. By which I
mean, intricacy of texture but also freedom of timing, which is
something that is very hard to get from an orchestra.
I spend a lot of time in rehearsals recreating the atmosphere
and mood and attitude of chamber music playing. I always say,
“Find the freedom,” for the freedom is in the music and it’s our
job as musicians to find it. It’s not as if we invented it; it’s there
and we just have to allow ourselves to respond. But the thing is
that the only way you can respond is if you can trust that the other
musicians are listening so hard that when you decide to find the
freedom between two notes in a phrase and you suddenly want to
dwell over one of them, then the others will be with you.
TAS: What led you to include the commentary discs?
virtually no one to whom I couldn’t comfortably say: “Hey, listen to this and see what’s going on here, and how this relates to
your life.” To me, this is one of the most exciting developments
in the history of music—that we have this machinery now, this
capacity to speak to people, to those I call “the unsuspecting.”
When they find out what the music is about, when they get
into the story and find out what the composer was experiencing, they suddenly realize: “That’s just like I feel!” That’s the
secret to music, and that’s why Mahler’s so perfect, because he
is telling everything that he feels, everything that he experiences, and ordinary people can hear that.
On the Mahler Nine commentary disc, I tell the story
about Katrine, the five-year-old child, who listened to Mahler
Nine a hundred times. I don’t know if any of you have heard
that one, but it’s an amazing thing.
I had sent to all the members of the
orchestra a copy of a cassette of the Mahler
Ninth Symphony, because it was so complicated that I wanted them to get to know it
before rehearsals began. One of them, a
woman who leads the second violins, took it
on holiday to a little island off the coast of
Maine, where she was visiting her sister and
niece. She was playing this cassette, and the
niece, who was five, listened to the music
with her. After a while, the girl said, “What’s
this piece about?” So Anne, the violinist,
explained to her niece that it was about a
princess and a prince and the dragon—concocted this entirely fictitious, wonderfully
elaborate fairy story for the child. The girl listened to the whole
symphony—an hour and a half, you know? Then the next day
the child said, “Let’s listen to the story about the prince again.”
So they put the music on again and she started listening. On
the third day, she said, “Aunt Anne, what’s this music really
about?” [Chuckles] Isn’t that wonderful? So Anne explained,
“Well, it’s about this great composer called Mahler and his
childhood, about how he had eight brothers and sisters who
died, about how he had sat by the bed of his favorite brother,
and about the father and the mother and their struggles and all
the struggles in his life and also the joy and the uplift and the
incredible energy he had.” And the little girl said, “All of that
is in the music?” The next day, the little girl said, “Can we play
that piece about that man again?” It now had gone from being
a piece about a prince and a fairy story to being a piece about
“that man.”
They listened to it every day on holiday, and then Anne
gave her the tape before leaving. Her mother told me that she
listened to it over a hundred times, this child. Kept listening
to it, kept listening to it, and in the end, persuaded her parents—she was five, you’ve got to remember—to drive from
upper New York state to Boston to hear the Boston
Philharmonic play that piece. And in the end she wrote me this
letter. It was so adorable. She wrote “Ben Zander” at the top,
The purpose of
the commentaries
is to make this
very rich musical
experience available
to laymen.
BZ: The purpose of the commentaries is to
make this very difficult and very complex
and very rich musical experience available to
laymen—to people who’ve never given a single thought to classical music. The reason
these lectures work is because at the moment
an idea is put forward a music example illustrating it is immediately heard on the CD,
and of course anybody can then grasp it.
One of the beauties of my life at the
moment is that I have a double existence: a
life as a conductor, teacher, and musician, and
a life speaking about leadership to large
organizations. Last night I spoke to 450 basement clearers. They
go into the basements of houses that are completely rotted with
damp and restore those basements so they can be turned into
rooms and playrooms. So they’re pretty ordinary guys. There
were 450 of them in the room, and I proceeded to do what I
always do with these groups. I started telling them about classical music and taking them through a piece by Chopin, playing
it and explaining it and then playing it again until they were
actively engaged. At the end of it, the president of the company
said, “We should get them a recording.” So they’ve bought 450
copies of Mahler One! Now all these guys, when they go to their
jobs, are going to be listening through their iPods or their car
radios—first of all, to me explaining it, and then to the music.
TAS: Mahler’s symphonies, in particular his First Symphony, are
in many ways directed toward everyman.
BZ: Right, like Beethoven. These composers saw their experience as being that of everyman. But not every man has musical
training or concert-hall experience. Without the discussion
discs, the whole project would be unfair to the neophyte. I
mean, how could those basement workers, for example, possibly make head or tail of Mahler One? They wouldn’t know
what on earth it was about. With the discussion disc, there’s
36
with the R going in the wrong direction, you know, like “Toys
R Us” [chuckles], and then she wrote,” Thank you for Mahler
Ninth. I loved it. Signed, Katrina, age 5.”
So, you see, this music is available to literally everybody, if
we pay attention. I think Mahler himself would have been
incredibly touched by that idea. I mean, it would have moved
him to his core to think that a piece like that could have been
somehow, at some level, been grasped by a five-year-old. For
him, that would have been the ultimate joy, I think.
would agree. Have you given any thought to doing a series of
lectures like the ones you’ve included with the Mahler symphonies with other music?
BZ: Actually, I have. It’s something I’m a little wary
about talking about it because I don’t know quite how
it’s going to be received. I think I’d better say no more
at this point.
TAS: If and when this does come to pass, you have to let us know.
TAS: So now you’re doing for the rest of us what the aunt did for
her niece.
BZ: It’s thrilling that, through this method, we can increase the
audience so many fold. Whereas most people are in a state of
despair about classical music, thinking, you know, it’s all hopeless and people are moving away from it and the orchestras are
closing and all that, I think that’s so off the mark I can’t tell
you. I think we ain’t seen nothing yet.
TAS: Well, if everyone had your ability as a pedagogue, we
BZ: Yep, I will. You know there are so many pieces that could
use a little explanation. We just came back from tour—I was
just on tour in South America with my youth orchestra—and
we played an incredible program. We did the Rhapsodie
Espagnole of Ravel; we did Strauss’ Don Quixote, and The Rite of
Spring [laughs]. With the Don Quixote, we had the story up on
a screen above the stage, and everything that happened, every
scene that happened…there it was, up on a screen in Spanish
(and in Brazil, of course, in Portuguese), so everybody could
follow exactly.
37
TAS: SurCaps for orchestral music!
BZ: Yeah, and it was wonderful because the music is so specific
that you can provide an exact representation of the emotions
and the events in words. And, of course, who in the audience
can remember the entire story? Even we professionals forget
what’s happening in Petrouchka. I want to get all this stuff on
the Internet—with the explanations. And nowadays, with
modern technology, iPods and so on, we have means of distribution that have never been available before.
My assumption is if we can get people hooked on this stuff—
and it is like a drug; I mean, there’s no question about it, classical music is a drug—perhaps we can get them back into the concert hall. I’ve got an iPod now and I just love it. You put good
noise-blocking earphones on, and you can cut out all the other
sounds in the world. And once we get kids, people, to experience
this music, and then learn something about it—know what’s
going on—they’ll get involved. They’ll think “this classical
music is about my life,” and then of course they’ll want to hear
more; they’ll want to come to the concerts and come to the halls.
In addition we’ve got to transform the way we play music,
38
because we’re much too complacent in the classical music business. We play as if the meanings didn’t matter and that people
would get them anyway. But it’s like story telling: Unless you
put some effort into telling the story, why will the audience be
interested? That’s what I do as a teacher, and of course I have
hundreds of students that I’m training to transform their attitude towards playing. The way they’re trained to play is to be
careful—to put on a good showing and play in tune and time.
Nobody mentions the fact that they’re not expressing the music,
and the result is the audience is turned off. But if they play with
all their heart, they’ll play like Jackie du Pré [cellist Jacqueline
du Pré] used to play. She was passionate about the audience—
that’s what she was mainly passionate about. She wanted to give
it away. And that’s the secret. It’s like When Harry Met Sally, you
know? You want the audience to say, “Whatever they’re having,
I want that.” That’s the secret. And if we don’t look as though
we’re having a wonderful time and really pouring our heart and
soul into the music, the way that the pop musicians do on MTV,
how do you think we’re gonna get people to want to come to the
concerts? It’s not their fault; it’s ours if they’re not coming.
So that’s the message. Some people, of course, get it fantasti-
cally well. You go to Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road concert, and the audience goes completely crazy because the people on stage are having such a wonderful time. And that’s the secret. We’ve got to
train a new generation of people who are not scared of music or
performing, but who find it the most natural thing and the most
joyous expression. There’s a wonderful story of Jacqueline du Pré.
When she was five years old, she went in for a competition, and
she was seen running down the corridor carrying her cello in a
very exuberant kind of way with a big smile on her face, and one
of the mothers saw her and thought she must have just played
because she looked so relieved. She said, “Well, I can see you’ve
just played.” And Jackie said, “No, we’re just about to!”
That’s the secret, that’s the whole secret, and yet we’ve terrorized our young musicians so much with the competitions
and with the grading and, you know, just making them feel so
scared that they can’t take risks; they can’t be true musicians
because they’re so anxious. You can see it on their faces when
they play, and so the people in the audience look at them and
say, “Oh, well, it must be a miserable activity.”
I have two orchestras that I play with regularly. One is this
youth orchestra and the other is the Boston Philharmonic, and
you go into their concerts and you see people having the most
wonderful time you can have with their clothes on. I mean
they’re just having a great time. We were recently in Venezuela
and I don’t know if you know about the Venezuelan orchestras,
but those people look as though they’re in ecstasy when they’re
playing, and the reason is that they’ve been taken out of the
greatest poverty and deprivation, and given musical instruments, and taught how to play them, and made to feel that
there’s a life available to them through music, and they seem
always in a state of ecstatic joy when they’re playing. And so
we’ve got a long way to come back, but I don’t think we should
blame the audience. I think we should do everything possible
to transform ourselves, both by training and helping the audience, but also by the way we are. Am I explaining that right?
TAS: You’re explaining it just fine.
BZ: If we can transform ourselves, we classical musicians,
into joyous, living, breathing, life-giving forces for
music, then we’ll find people gather around; they’ll want
to be part of that.
&
39
The Absolute Sound’s 2OO5
Golden Ear Awards
elcome to the latest edition of The Absolute Sound’s Golden Ear Awards. Unlike last issue’s comprehensive Editors’ Choice list, Golden Ears is the place where our editors and most frequent contributors choose the components that, whether long-term or newfound favorites, have won a special
place in our hearts. The assignment came with no guidelines or restrictions, and, as you might
expect, the results are as wide-ranging and unpredictable as the high end itself. Note: Harry Pearson’s Golden
Ear winners may be found in HP’s Workshop, page 99.
W
SALLIE REYNOLDS
Musical Fidelity A5 CD player
$2500 (signalpathint.com)
Spendor S8e loudspeaker
$3000 (qsandd.com)
Prima Luna Prologue Three preamplifier and Five amplifier
$1295 each (upscaleaudio.com)
usical Fidelity’s A5 CD player is musical, exciting, clear, extended, and balanced. It produces an
extraordinarily broad, deep, and high soundstage,
when soundstaging information is on the CD. Its
highs are sweet and pure, its mids rich and natural, its bass extended and full, yet tight and precise. It
reveals the wonderfully rich layers of complex music in a
way that sounds natural—which, in my experience, is
unusual in reproduced sound at anywhere near this price—
and it does so without picking the fabric of the musical
whole to pieces. The A5 looks good, is easy to set up and
reliable, and plays beautifully in every system I have tried it
in, modest and not so. A nearly perfect component. (I
bought it.)
Every now and then, a component comes along that
M
40
clicks into place in your system and makes you very
happy with your music. The Spendor S8e loudspeaker (a
two-way floorstanding model), among the heirs to the BBC
monitors of yore, did this for me. Spendors have long been
known for their gorgeous midrange and treble. The S8e
has, in addition, clean, clear, dramatic bass—even low bass.
Without a subwoofer, it reproduces even full pipe organ
soul-satisfyingly. With a good sub, you will get clearer and
purer low lows, but even without, such is the balance and
purity of these drivers, you will love what you hear. The
S8es also recreate a wide, deep soundstage, one whose
height is especially good with singers. The stage is at its
best when the listener is in the sweet
spot, but you can really be anywhere in
the room and get a sense of being surrounded and enveloped in glorious music.
The transition from driver to driver is
beautifully inaudible. These speakers are
easy to set up. They do not require megabuck ancillary equipment, though the
finer the equipment you connect to them,
the better everything sounds. In a price
field that contains several lovely speakers,
there is still something mysteriously
wonderful about these, and I wouldn’t
want to be very long without them.
The PrimaLuna Prologue Three preamp and Five power
amp are at the top of my list for good sound, good value, and
simplicity. They are also good fun, if you like playing with
tubes (they are built to accept many types, including the EL34), but you don’t need to play with tubes. You can be a complete tube neophyte and enjoy these units. They fill the
room with exquisite sound, from the whisper of a stroked
cymbal or muted violin to the foundation thunder of a great
organ. That’s the key. The ProLogues make music; they
make it simply; they make it well.
They are also easy to set up, nearly indestructible, and play
excellently with a variety of speakers. If you like tubes, listen
to these. They will confirm your tastes. If you don’t like tubes,
listen to these. They will change your mind about tubes.
JONATHAN VALIN
MBL 101 E “Radialstrahler”
$46,900 (mbl.com)
MBL 6010 D linestage preamp
$18,920
MBL 9011 monoblock amplifier
$73,480
Audio Research Reference 3 linestage preamp
$10,000 (audioresearch.com)
Audio Research Reference 210 monoblock amplifier
$19,990
Edge NL Signature 1.1 linestage preamp
$10,900 (edgeamps.com)
Edge NL 12.1 stereo amplifier
$18,500
few years ago I recommended three
different systems
built around the
same exemplary
loudspeaker—the Maggie
1.6QR. For this year’s
Golden Ears, I’m going to
do the same thing: Award
my Ears to a single speaker
system and three different
sets of electronics. The
speaker is the MBL 101 E
“Radialstrahler,” the fabled
ominidirectional
loudspeaker from Wolfgang
Meletzky. Not only is the
101 E a stunning technological tour-de-force and
beautiful object, it is the
single most-lifelike transducer I’ve heard. I could go
on about the 101 E’s phenomenal low-level resolution, uncannily realistic
treble, “you-are-there” midrange, and extraordinary bass—
but what the 101 E really offers that no other loudspeaker
does to the same degree is excitement.
Like live music heard in a concert hall, recital room, or
rock club, the 101 Es will consistently raise the gooseflesh on
your arms, the hairs at the back of your neck, the muscles that
set your feet tapping and your baton arm swinging—as anyone who has auditioned these incredibly cool-looking things
at a CES or CEDIA can attest. They’re simply more alive than
the competition, even the horn-based competition.
A
42
My first 101 E system, and overall much the best of
the lot, is all-MBL, comprising the MBL 6010 D solid-state
linestage preamplifier and MBL 9011 solid-state monoblock
amplifiers. Whether your source is digital or analog, MBL’s
preamp and amp bring out more of the 101E’s many astonishing qualities better than its rivals—and in two particular
instances, much better. Nothing I’ve yet heard competes
with the resolution and sensational dynamic range of this
MBL gear. In combination with each other and the 101 Es,
the 6010 D and 9011 dig more deeply into pianissimos and
play fortissimos with greater ease and clarity than virtually
any hi-fi I’ve heard.
All this paradigm-shifting resolution and dynamic life
comes at a steep price, however. Which leads me to my second 101 E system, the tube-powered Audio Research
Reference 3 linestage preamp and Reference 210 monoblock
amplifiers. I’ve been talking about Audio Research preamps
since the first review I wrote for TAS, and I am pleased to say
that ARC’s latest is also its greatest—neutral, detailed,
focused, fast, “pure,” and grainless, with less resolution,
extension, and dynamic oomph but more lifelike timbres
and better staging than the MBL 6010. As good as it is on
its own, in combination
with the Reference 210
the Ref 3 becomes a
world-beater. The MBL
electronics had pushed
me over to the Dark
Side of solid-state, then
I heard the References.
Now…well, if the
music you listen to is
primarily acoustic and
if soundstaging is
important to you, this
ARC combo is a mustaudition.
My third 101 E system is the Edge NL
Signature 1.1 batterypowered linestage preamp and NL 12.1 stereo
amplifier. If MBL and
ARC (to a somewhat
lesser extent) give you a
microscopically
fine
view of the soundstage,
the Edge preamp and amp gives you an “exploded” view,
where certain instruments rich in upper midrange harmonics (like strings and piano) seemed to be reproduced
“closer-up.” Big, bloomy, airy, and beautiful-sounding,
the Edge doesn’t have the speed, detail, and bottomoctave clout of the MBL electronics nor the magical staging of the ARC combo, but is still so lifelike in the midband that the losses may not matter to you. They don’t
much to me. But then I could live happily with any of
these combos.
PAUL SEYDOR
SME Model 30/2 integrated turntable
$35,000 (sumikoaudio.net)
McIntosh MC275 Series IV amplifier
$3500 (mcintoshlabs.com)
Etymotic ER-4S headphones
$330 (etymotic.com)
f ever there
were a statement product, the SME Model 30/2 is it. As I
pointed out in my review (Issue 154), SME’s
Alastair Robertson-Aikman applies the principles of
high mass, tuned suspension, and judiciously applied damping more effectively than anyone else. Pair it with an appropriate pickup (medium-to-high mass and compliance) and
you have playback of vinyl sources that is virtually peerless,
especially in the areas of overall background-blackness,
dynamic range, and that elusive quality of liveness. It goes
without saying that it is also dead neutral, tonally accurate,
and wholly without personality as such. At $35,000 (including SME’s flagship arm), it is expensive beyond expensive
(though by no means the highest ticket out there); but
should you be fortunate enough to own one, I have no doubt
that if vinyl is still being played a hundred years from now
your heirs will be enjoying it on your Model 30.
I have never heard a better tube amplifier than
McIntosh’s reissued and updated MC275 Series IV, and few
better amplifiers period. If you think tubes must have a
sonic personality, the extraordinary neutrality and tonal
naturalness of this one may shake your prejudices to their
foundations. With enough power for all but very inefficient
speakers in very large rooms, the MC275 yields some of the
most musically persuasive and satisfying reproduction
you’re ever likely to hear. Consider this a recommendation
with highest possible enthusiasm.
If you use conventional headphones in a typical large,
urban gymnasium, with its Muzak blaring all the time,
and you play your CD portable or iPod loudly enough to
be heard over the ambient noise, then you are almost certainly damaging your ears. The same may be true for airline travel. Alarmist? Think again—hearing damage has
become so pervasive that in the past year alone both
I
44
major news magazines, Time and
Newsweek, have run
cover stories on the subject. Etymotic is not the
only company to make earphones that fit directly into the
ear canal, but it is arguably the
one with the solidest credentials.
For over 20 years this company has
been researching, designing, and manufacturing products
to measure, improve, and protect hearing (with 89
patents and a government grant for research).
The main reason why headphones such as this militate against hearing damage is that they block out ambient noise more effectively than conventional designs—
23dB with the ER-4S—thus allowing you to play the
music at a lower level, which you should be doing anyhow. The ER-4S is perhaps the most musically natural
headphone I’ve heard. They’re a little shy in the bass
(although bass response, as with all headphones, is greatly affected by how you fit them on, or in this case into,
your ears), but the highs are extended yet smooth and
sweet (rather tube-like, in fact), with none of the tippedup character of conventional headphones, even the best
of them. And the midrange is rich and detailed.
A lifelong runner, I passed the age of 55 and had to
admit that my hip joints no longer liked pounding the
pavement. So I’ve had to get my aerobic workouts in
gyms. The ER-4S came as such a revelation that I can’t
imagine life without them. Headroom’s Airhead portable
headphone amplifier is a logical companion, and will
blow away the tinny amplifier wannabes that come in
portable CD players and iPods. Highest possible recommendation, then, for both products: sonically and for the
health of your ears!
SUE KRAFT
B&W 800D loudspeaker
$20,000 (bwspakers.com)
McCormack DNA-500 amplifier
$6800 (mccormackaudio.com)
y first pick for Golden Ear honors this year goes
to the B&W 800D. This state-of-the-art loudspeaker will forever change the way you hear
recorded music. Our brain processes live
(unamplified) music as a whole entity because,
obviously, that’s the way we hear it. With the vast majority of multi-driver loudspeaker systems, the playback of
recorded music—whether we are consciously aware of it
or not—is processed in sections, because that’s also the
way it’s typically heard. The diamond-dome tweeter technology of the 800D so intricately weaves the high frequencies back into the fabric of the music, it’s as if the
wholeness of the live event has been recreated. This
wholeness results in spectacularly solid, seamless, and
lifelike images—the best I’ve heard to date. It’s almost a
bit eerie at times. The varying heights of performers on
stage, for example, are so clearly discernable I’ve been
tempted on occasion to jaunt up to the front of the room
and draw outlines around them. Although this breathtaking wholeness of imaging was initially what
captivated me, I found the performance of
the 800D to be equally stunning in
every other regard as well. The capability of this loudspeaker to compellingly recreate musical performances ranging from the delicate intricacies of a solo piano to
the brute force of a full orchestra
was nothing less than aweinspiring. Never mind the
drop-dead-gorgeous looks
of these 275-pound
beasts. This is the first
time in over 20 years
that non-audiophile visitors to my home have
actually wanted to hear
my system. B&W is a
technology-driven company that leaves no
aspect of a speaker’s
design to chance, and
the 800D is truly the
crowning jewel of that
philosophy.
My next Golden Ear
pick goes to the
McCormack DNA-500
(500 watts per channel)
M
46
solid-state power amplifier. If I were to make a list of the
components I’ve missed the most since (sadly) having to
send them packing after a review, the DNA-500 would
stand alone at the top. HP has long said it’s all about the
dynamics, and he couldn’t be more right. Have you ever
walked by the open door of a bar and immediately been
able to tell that the music coming from within was live?
Have you thought about the reasons why? Above all else,
it’s boundless energy and through-the-roof dynamics
that allow us to immediately identify a live performance. I can recall the words “buoyancy” and “bounce”
coming to mind every time I listened to the DNA-500,
and still I worried that my description of what I was
hearing would not do this amp justice. That’s the
toughest part of this job, trying to convey what I’m
hearing and feeling and attempting to relate the mental
images I experience as I’m listening. Sometimes words
and descriptions make no sense unless you’ve actually
heard the equipment for yourself. The word “liveliness” doesn’t begin to do this amp justice. It’s
simple to see why designer Steve
McCormack has garnered such a stellar
reputation and loyal customer following over the years. The DNA-500’s
exquisite balance between liquid
ease and raw power makes most
other solid-state amps sound
mechanical and sterile in comparison. It would be hard to
imagine any serious music
lover not being taken in
by the easygoing yet
authoritative nature of
this gentle giant. I
could easily recite a
laundry list of all the
other things the DNA500 does right, but
more than anything
else, it’s the buoyancy,
the
bounce—the
effortless energy and
spark of life from within—that touched my
soul and captured the
essence of live music
for me.
CHRIS MARTENS
Usher Dancer CP8571 MkII loudspeaker
$7735 (usheraudio.com)
NuForce Reference 9 monoblock amps
$2500 (nuforce.com)
Kuzma Stabi S turntable and Stogi S tonearm
$3300 (themusic.com)
he veteran audiophile played one reference recording after another through the Usher Dancer
CP8571 MkII floorstanding loudspeaker. He was
quiet, so I couldn’t tell whether his impressions
were favorable or not. Finally, the veteran—who was
no stranger to loudspeakers priced at five figures per pair—
turned and softly asked, “How much did you say these cost?”
“Around $7700 per pair,” I replied. My guest nodded slowly and then said, “You know, if you had told me these speakers cost $20,000 I’d have said, ‘That’s a good price for them,
considering their sound and build-quality.’ But at this
price….” The Taiwanese-made Dancer, a design shaped by
Dr. Joseph D’Appolito, is by no means inexpensive, but it is
so good that listeners invariably compare it to speakers several times its price. Here’s why. The Dancer offers essentially full-range sound, with highs produced by one of the
smoothest yet most articulate tweeters you could ever hope
to hear, an open-sounding midrange with explosive dynamics, punchy yet finely-textured bass, and the sort of overarching soundstage focus that is rare at any price. Factor in
Usher’s stunning woodwork and you have a loudspeaker that
pleases in many of the ways that Wilson Audio’s
WATT/Puppies do, but at a fraction of the price. For audiophiles who aspire to owning top-tier loudspeakers, but
whose ships have not yet come in, Usher’s Dancer offers serious sonic excellence and tremendous value.
When I was a child I loved the story of David and
T
48
Goliath, and there are many things about NuForce’s
Reference 9 monoblock power amps that remind me of that
story. These 160-watt Class D amps are small and affordable,
and look unassuming, but they open up a giant can of sonic
whoop-ass on most amps their price, and they sound better
than many that cost more. The Reference 9s are exceedingly
transparent yet not bright, and they offer potent and expressive dynamics, excellent soundstage width and depth, and
world-class bass. What’s not to like? Well, the amps generally don’t deliver the holographic, illuminated-from-within
midrange of the best tube amps, and they can at times
exhibit an accurate-to-a-fault, garbage-in/garbage-out quality. But once you hear the way the NuForces uncover previously unheard nuances in your favorite recordings, I think
you’ll be hooked. Will other modern Class D designs sound
as good as, or perhaps better than, the NuForces? Maybe,
but for now the Reference 9s establish a new benchmark for
affordable excellence in amplification.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of listening to the simple
but sophisticated Kuzma Stabi S turntable and Stogi S
unipivot tonearm from Slovenia, and the combination has
really won my heart and mind. As many analog lovers
know, the tonal quality of background silences varies
from turntable to turntable, and the Stabi S produces a
deep, warm, black background that reminds me of the
hush you might hear in a concert hall just before the
music begins. In turn, the Stogi S is a minimalist but
very effective design that can unleash the formidable performance potential of great moving coils such as the
Shelter 90X. In particular, the Stogi S promotes absolutely effortless and highly holographic soundstaging, letting
high-frequency details come through without edge
enhancement, while providing a wonderfully solid bass
foundation. But perhaps the truest indicator of the
Kuzma pair’s sonic goodness lies in the fact that whenever I start spinning favorite LPs on this rig, I just can’t
seem to stop. If that’s not analog magic, what is? (See full
review elsewhere in this issue.)
ROBERT E. GREENE
Gradient Revolution active loudspeaker
$7645 (mayaudio.com)
McIntosh XRT28 loudspeaker
$19,000 (mcintoshlabs.com)
TacT Audio RCS 2.2X/Allison 3/
Harbeth Monitor 40
corner woofer system
$3990 (tactaudio.com)
coustics is everything.” No doubt
we all admire the rococo variations of high-end audio electronics, but to my mind the really fundamental issues of audio are
speakers in rooms and, of course, recordings.
Experiments have shown that speakers, together with a good amplifier, can accomplish something remarkably like facsimile reproduction, if
you listen anechoically. Pick up the speaker output with a good microphone in an anechoic
chamber, and it’s hard to tell that pickup of the
amplifier-speaker combination from the original signal when you listen to it later on either
speakers or headphones. The direct arrival can,
in short, be almost perfect. But preserving this
perceived accuracy in actual listening rooms is
difficult indeed.
My three choices this year are all
attempts at solving that fundamental problem of audio—making a speaker that is unaffected by the listening room’s acoustics.
None is perfect, but all three are unusually
effective at letting you hear what is really on
the record—and nothing else.
In theory, one of the very best ways to
make a speaker that ignores the acoustics of
the listening room is to have dipole radiation
in the bass, but in the treble to have forward
radiation only in a uniform but relatively
narrow pattern. This theoretical dream was
realized some years ago by the Gradient
Revolution. With its dipole bass and cardioid forward radiation, it was and is a
remarkable success at ignoring its surroundings (and sounding neutral in nearly any
environment). The original model has been
recently supplemented by a new version with
a line-level electronic crossover. This design,
which requires bi-amplification, allows
crossover adjustment of the bass level to
fit room size and acoustics. If high bass
dynamic capability is desired and/or the
speaker is used in a large room, then
“A
50
the bass units can be doubled up—two (or
more) can be used per channel. The
Revolution, even with extra bass units, is
quite compact, but it is a giant in sound
quality.
With woofers on the floor and a highly
directional array of midranges and tweeters
above, the McIntosh XRT28 makes the
direct-arrival sound surprisingly dominant
over all subsequent reflections and reverberation. The speaker is not completely
smooth and flat in the top end, but that
quibble aside, it projects you into the
recording venue like few others. With a
good orchestral recording and in the right
(somewhat restricted) listening position, it
is closer to “being there” than you might
have thought possible. The listening room
around you is quite nearly gone, replaced
by the recorded venue.
Decades ago, Roy Allison pointed out
definitively to the audio world that
woofers belong in corners—not just subwoofers but woofers. Unfortunately, a
full-range speaker in a corner tends to
develop colorations from the wall loading and has imaging difficulties from
early reflections. Enter the TacT concept: Woofer in the corner, digitally
time-delayed main speaker out in the
room, the TacT RCS 2.2X doing the
crossover at 200Hz and DSP in-room
response correction of the whole thing.
The particular speakers used are not the
point, but it was a pleasure to realize
Allison’s vision with his own speaker.
The result is a completely coherent system that combines the imaging of outin-the-room speakers with the bass of
corner-loading, nearly eliminating the
effect of the listening room. Hearing
is believing.
NEIL GADER
Plinius 9200 integrated amplifier
$4095 (pliniusaudio.com)
ATC SM20-2 speaker
$5500 (atc.gb.net)
REL Britannia B3 subwoofer
$2195 (sumikoaudio.net)
Accuphase DP-57 CD player
$4900 (accuphase.com)
Plinius CD-101 CD player
$4495 (pliniusaudio.com)
linius electronics and ATC speakers are two companies that have figured strongly in my reference system, but the competition has been steadily closing in
and this venerable duo was lately looking a bit long
in the tooth. For this writer the last half of 2005 will
be remembered as the moment both responded to the challenge con brio. With the introduction of the Plinius 9200
integrated amplifier and the ATC SCM20-2 compact monitor speaker, liquidity and transparency were lovingly restored
as the rules of the day. At a conservatively rated 200Wpc the
Plinius 9200 is more settled in the mids and plainly quieter
(the noise floor has been lowered) than in either of its previous 8150/8200 iterations. Always a sprinter in terms of transients and dynamic responsiveness, the latest version has
removed the vestigial sting that sometimes crept into the treble on hard transients, without sacrificing perceived speed
and energy. At the other end of the frequency range, bass definition has been improved and now matches the class-leading
bass extension that the Plinius has always possessed. Still a
great value, especially in light of the newly improved
phonostage that is still standard equipment.
In another fit of evolution and true intelligent design,
British-based ATC has further refined the venerable
SCM20SL. The warmish coloration in the mid/upper bass
has been exorcised—non-parallel sidewalls and a stiffer composite cabinet are the main heroes here. The significantly
extended soft-dome tweeter is all new for this model, having
been adapted from ATC’s futuristic flagship, the SCM70SL.
The net result is an openness and honesty that trumps even
the substantial gifts of its forebear. Mind you, this is not a
full-range loudspeaker, but its excellent response into the
midbass makes it a prime contender for pairing with a
world-class subwoofer—anything less would undermine the
prodigious charms of this studio-caliber monitor.
That theoretical subwoofer would first and foremost
need to speak with the same voice as the SCM20-2, i.e., with
authority as well as speed and subtlety. The REL Britannia
B3 (the smallest of three models designed for both music
and movies) fills the ATC’s dance card like few pairings outside of Fred and Ginger. Optimizing the REL for the satel-
P
52
lite and room takes a bit of experimentation, but the
rewards are well worth the effort. The B3 doesn’t overlay its
own personality on the music. At times it doesn’t seem to be
doing much of anything. When there’s no deep bass, you’ll
want to check whether the B3 is plugged in. But when it
gets the call, the B3 unleashes the dogs with response that is
at once spectacular, naturalistic, and nearly limitless. Its
expansiveness almost redefines the scope and scale of the listening space. And it never becomes the center of attention
like lesser subwoofers—the music remains the central event.
As with all REL subs it doesn’t high-pass the main speakers,
so you’ll need to be certain they have the intrinsic oomph
and dynamism to run full-range.
Finally I would be remiss in not mentioning a pair of
CD players that sprinted across the finish line in a dead heat.
Both the Accuphase DP-57 and the Plinius CD-101 were
surpassingly musical performers with distinctive personalities. The former, soothingly warm, refined, and naturalistic,
sang like a rare acoustic instrument. The latter, rhythmically propulsive, was a bit cooler yet stunningly dynamic and
transparent. Both of these players left me in the same
quandary I often found myself in analog’s “olden days,”
when trying to choose between phono cartridges. LP junkies
always had at least a couple on hand. In a perfect world I’d
own both of these CD players, too.
WAYNE GARCIA
Redpoint Audio Model B turntable
$11,000 (redpoint-audio-design.com)
Artemis Labs LA-1 linestage and PL-1 phonostage
$2850 and $3350 (aydn.com)
Balanced Audio Technology VK-55 amplifier
$3995 (balanced.com)
Kharma Ceramique Reference Monitor 3.2 speaker
$21,500 (gttgroup.com)
hough it’s only a few years old, Redpoint Audio
seems destined for great things in analog. The company’s Model B, a 150-pound, 3-pod design, has
been my reference for the better part of the past year,
and it is easily the finest-sounding turntable I’ve
used. That’s not to say I’ve heard ’em all, or that a few of the
finest—such as the Rockport and Walker—might not be
“better.” But when paired with the Tri-Planar VII arm (and
I’m sure others, as well), the Model B delivers music against
a devilishly low noise floor, with a huge dynamic spectrum,
terrific weight, exceptional resolution, and magical spatial
qualities. Record after record has been not just a revelation,
but tremendously fun and satisfying.
Another relative newcomer, Artemis Labs was my surprise discovery of the year. The handmade LA-1 linestage and
PL-1 phonostage are tube-driven components, and they
sound distinctly so in the best sense of that phrase. Extremely
airy and holographic, this gear brings a great sense of physical shape and presence to instruments and voices. And while
these designs also excel at harmonic, textural, and dynamic
nuance, and have an effortless sense of dynamic projection,
what’s harder to describe is the sheer spine-tingling beauty
and aliveness the Artemis gear brings to music. The company’s first amp is in the works—stay tuned.
While Balanced Audio Technology makes many fine
T
54
components, and I’ve heard and reviewed my fair share of
them, the one that most recently captivated me is not one of
the company’s biggest or most expensive efforts, but the relatively small (50 pounds), relatively low-powered (55 watts),
and relatively affordable ($3995) VK-55. After more than
ten months of pretty constant use this sweet-honey of an
amp continues to impress with its inherent ease and musicality. While it doesn’t have the kind of “etched” detail some
audiophiles crave, and the bottom end doesn’t have ultimate
reach and impact, its warmth, natural textural and harmonic qualities, and open, airy presentation are very satisfying.
It’s got what I call “musical detail, ” in that everything
comes through in a way that serves the musical whole, allowing you to enjoy and become immersed in each performance.
I’m not sure if I have anything new to add to Jonathan
Valin’s Golden Ear comments about the Kharma 3.2 in Issue
139, or his full review in Issue 140. But I’m so smitten by
this small, two-way, floorstanding design, and it has been
such a great source of musical pleasure as well as an invaluable evaluation tool this past year, that for me to not give it
a Golden Ear for 2005 would be criminal. Granted, I have a
small room, but I’ve always preferred small-to-medium sized
speakers to behemoths. To these ears, most big speakers
(with the exception of Maggies and Sound Labs), sound like
big speakers. Despite their ability to create life-size images,
scale the largest dynamic peaks, plumb the deepest bass, and
move massive amounts of air, the big guys rarely sound like
real music to me. I’m too aware of driver discontinuities and
other electro-mechanical events at work. The thing that’s so
great about the 3.2 is that it has the kind of single-driver
coherence you get from a Quad, but it’ll play rock or anything else at lifelike levels, and has as good a 40Hz bass
response as anything going. In addition, the 3.2 creates a
remarkably large and deep soundstage (if not the height of a
larger speaker), is transparent to whatever is placed before it,
and capable of a dazzling array of instrumental layers, textures, and colors.
ROBERT HARLEY
Wilson Audio MAXX 2 loudspeaker
$45,000 (wilsonaudio.com)
Balanced Audio Technology VK-600M SE amplifiers
$7995 to $23,000 (balanced.com)
Naim Nait 5i integrated amplifier
$1350 (naimusa.com)
Shunyata AC power-conditioning system
Hydra-8: $1995; Hydra-2: $395: Power cords:
$1995 (shunyata.com)
fter hearing the MAXX 2 in five different systems and rooms, including my
own for the past eight months, I’m
convinced that this is one of the
world’s great loudspeakers. It has
never failed to sound anything less than
spectacular despite the wide number of
places and electronics with which it has
been partnered. More telling, perhaps, is
that after eight months of daily listening I continue to be amazed at what this
loudspeaker can do. Rather than revealing flaws that become increasingly
apparent, long-term familiarity
has, instead, deepened my appreciation of the MAXX 2’s
achievement.
It may seem ludicrous to call
a $45,000 loudspeaker a bargain.
But when compared with many
of the stratospherically priced
systems—including Wilson’s
own $135,000 X-2 Alexandria—
the MAXX 2 holds its own in
this world-class company, and at
a fraction of the price.
BAT’s VK-600M SE somehow manages to combine seemingly unlimited dynamic expression and center-of-the-earth bass
solidity with the midrange
immediacy and transparency of a
low-powered minimalist design.
I won’t belabor the sonic description since my full review appears
in this issue, but suffice to say that
the VK-600M SE is special indeed,
and when used with the MAXX 2,
brings out that loudspeaker’s bottom-end resolution and dynamic
potential.
A
56
We’ve long touted Naim’s integrated amplifiers in these
pages, but it’s impossible to heap too much praise on this
musical marvel. This Nait 5i’s musicality demands that we
shout its virtues from the rooftops. This is not just a staggeringly great amplifier; its $1350 price makes it, in my view,
the greatest bargain in hi-fi today.
The latest iteration in the long-running Nait series, the
5i delivers greater output power (50Wpc) and an even more
refined sound than its predecessors. The 50Wpc rating
should allow the 5i to drive a wider
range of loudspeakers, overcoming a
perceived shortcoming of the 5i’s lowpowered progenitors. (The Nait 2,
which I reviewed in 1989, delivered
just 18Wpc. But what an eighteen
watts it was.)
The Nait integrated amplifiers are
special because they sound like music,
not hi-fi. They have a gorgeous rendering of timbre, a relaxed and spacious
sound, and an engaging musicality that
instantly makes me forget I’m listening
through a playback system. Used within its power limitations, the Nait 5i is
as good as—and in some ways better
than—some five-figure separates.
Although I’ve only recently
installed the Shunyata products
in my system, their effect on
the sound is so dramatic that
I’ll award them a Golden Ear
in advance of my full review.
The products include the
Hydra-8 and Hydra-2 AC conditioners and Anaconda Helix
and Python Helix AC cords.
Used together, they elevated
my system to a new level of
transparency, resolution, spaciousness, and bass definition.
Removing the Shunyata products threw their effect into
sharp relief; with stock AC
cords and no conditioner the
sound became hard, flat, twodimensional, lacking bloom
around individual instruments
and sounding more like a collection of sounds than a musical expression.
I’ll have more to say in the
upcoming review, but be alerted: This is one serious, though
hideously expensive, AC-treatment system.
equipment report
April Music Stello DP200 DAC/Preamplifier
Maybe there’s room for an upsampling DAC/preamp in today’s
systems after all.
Neil Gader
nly a couple of years ago I
was convinced that a new
generation of high-resolution digital formats,
SACD and DVD-Audio,
was poised to grab the baton from flagging Red Book CD and run with it. At
that time I probably wouldn’t have considered reviewing an upsampling
DAC/preamplifier like the April Music
Stello DP200—so passé, so PC…M. Of
course, I never would have guessed that
both of the high-res formats would do a
swan dive into an empty pool, either.
Today, even with high-resolution multichannel audio waiting in the wings as
part of the new high-definition DVD
standard, a product like the Stello
DP200 becomes a lot more appealing.
Like they say—the only constant in life
is change.
April Music of South Korea produces
a full line of mid- and high-level electronics, the Stello and the Eximus respectively.1 April describes the solid-state
Stello DP200 as an “all-in-one Audio
Center for Digital and Analog
O
Convergence.” Equipped with multiple
digital inputs (and a pair of analog
inputs), it accepts the PCM signal of up
to four components—from a CD or DVD
transport to a television set-top box. Its
upsampling digital-to-analog converters
offer selectable sampling rates of 48kHz,
96kHz, and 24-bit/192kHz, available on
In terms of sonic
performance, sometimes
it’s what you don’t
hear that makes the
strongest impression.
the fly. Included is a pair of bypass inputs,
whereby a controller can take command
of the stereo left/right speakers in a multichannel setup. Stello also addresses the
archiving market with a brace of modular
options. There’s the P1 phono module
that is adjustable for moving-magnet or
moving-coil cartridges with six gain and
six impedance settings via internal DIPswitches. Add to that the ADC-1 analog-
to-digital converter with its 24bit/96kHz capability, and you can record
treasured LPs, radio broadcasts, or tapes
for digital safekeeping. Stello is rightfully proud of its first-rate headphone section, which taps into the Stello’s analog
amplifier circuitry, avoiding sounddegrading op-amps. It’s preternaturally
quiet and has a pleasantly warm sound,
and though the Stello can’t match the
velvety resolution and transparency of,
say, an EAR headphone amp, my AKG
K501 phones have rarely sounded better.
The Stello look is aerospace
smooth—the one-piece aluminum top
panel wrapping neatly beneath the unit.
Seven pushbuttons handle the most significant front-panel functions, which
include a 120-step digital volume control divided into 0.5dB steps. A brightly-lit sixteen-character display makes listening-chair adjustments a breeze.
Fortunately, the Stello memorizes the
last volume setting used for each input;
otherwise, the lack of a traditional volume control knob would be especially
discouraging. April Music completes the
1 Stello also offers the P200 preamp, the S200 200W stereo amp (the M200 is a mono version), the CDT200 transport, and the DA220 D/A convertor. Just released are the AI320
integrated ($2795) and CDA320 CD player ($1995).
58
equipment report
package with a metal-alloy remote control that’s heavy enough to exercise with,
but unremarkable for its ergonomics.
In terms of sonic performance, sometimes it’s what you don’t hear that makes
the strongest impression. The DP200 was
without doubt one of the quietest preamps I’ve encountered in some time.
Music emerged from the soundspace with
astonishing purity and detail, and no vestigial comet-trails of noise. Initially its
sonic character seemed sterile, but these
assessments were made with a cold unit
straight from the box. Within a few short
hours the Stello’s performance warmed
considerably. Through the analog or digital inputs the midrange had an almost
cushiony smoothness—a relaxed warmth
that set images back from the listener a
row or so. Female and male voices were
reproduced with equal excellence. Bass
was deep and boasted pitch definition that
might not rattle the likes of a Krell but
should shake up some of the competition
in the under-$2k market. Acoustic bass,
notoriously difficult to get right, sometimes got a bit wooly and ill-defined, but
this was by no means the case in every
instance. For example when Holly Cole
sings Tom Waits’ “Looking for the Heart
of Saturday Night” [Temptation, Alert],
the ripe acoustic bass sounded a little
over-stuffed and underdamped, yet on
Mary Stallings Live at the Village Vanguard
[MaxxJazz] the bass had a muchimproved balance of pitch and extension.
Although the treble range continued
to skew to the cooler, more clinical side
of the spectrum, even after break-in, it
was never less than highly listenable and
non-fatiguing. Occasionally on piano
transients there was a trace of smearing,
and the thinnest glaze seemed to overlay
high-speed upper-octave glissandos [One
On One, Clark Terry, Chesky]. The sibilance range of vocalists was neutral and
immediate, with the requisite transient
speed and no grating edginess. Macrodynamics were vivid, but micro-dynamic contrasts were more reserved—the
energy level less lively during a recording’s quieter moments. Thus resolution
of the most delicate inner voices was a
little less than transcendent. Even so,
60
transparency was very good at most levels, even revealing the occasional recording gaffe that astute listeners often
encounter (e.g., the studio door being
shut, or rather “slammed,” at the fourand-a-half minute mark of Kissin’s lovely piano rendition of Glinka’s The
Lark—it’s a surprisingly audible slam,
too, even though it’s way, way upstage).
Switching between upsampling rates
reinforced the truism that resolution cannot be added but only subtly enhanced.
Generally I preferred the increased openness of 96kHz or 192kHz upsampling,
but results for all sampling rates were
variable at best (sometimes indeterminable) and contingent on the quality of
the recording itself. The harmonic density
of classical music tended to favor the
higher sampling rates. At 192kHz,
Evgeny Kissin’s piano during Pictures at
An Exhibition [RCA] had a reduced sense
of constriction and a greater feeling of
bloom. Similarly there was an openness,
an expressiveness, that filled Fiona Apple’s
vocal on the title track to Extraordinary
Machine [Epic]. At lower sampling rates
her voice sounded as if some of the texture
and air had been tamped down.
The Stello DP200 is mildly subtractive in the areas of soundstaging and
imaging. It doesn’t fully conjure up a
thickly populated soundstage of musicians. Malcolm Arnold’s brassy Sussex
Overture [Reference Recordings] was
vividly rendered but lacked the depth of
a real stage—appreciably wide but not
especially dimensional. There was a
trace of image smearing, a depletion of
the air and distance among players. I
noted a similar effect during mezzosoprano Audra MacDonald’s version of
“Lay Down Your Head” [How Glory
Goes, Nonesuch]. She begins the song
singing gently a cappella and is later
joined by harp, cello, violin, and winds.
Virtually every sonic element falls
smoothly into place with the exception
of a general flattening of soundspace
that subtracts some of the luster and
liveliness of the performance. I’m not
entirely certain what is going on here,
but experience suggests that when the
finer gradations of dynamics are con-
strained, the perception of soundspace
and dimensionality is diminished.
Word to the wise: If you’re considering running a set-top box through one
of the digital inputs be careful you don’t
inadvertently tune to a Dolby Digital
broadcast. The DP200 is not a surroundsound decoder, and multichannel Dolby
Digital will send a cascade of digital
detritus chirping through the speakers.
In a marketplace where the ground
seems to be constantly shifting beneath
one’s feet, the April Music Stello DP200
makes for a standup and stylish package.
Its sonic performance is competitive
with many higher-profile rivals. But it’s
the flexibility of on-board digital upconversion and—when outfitted accordingly—vinyl playback and digital archival
capability that is the key to what I hope
&
will be its well-deserved success.
Inputs: Analog, one balanced, two RCA; digital, two coax, one balanced, one optical
Outputs: Analog, one balanced, one RCA; digital, one balanced, one coax, one optical
Dimensions: 17" x 4.25" x 13.5"
Weight: 19 lbs.
Sota Cosmos Series III turntable; SME V
pick-up arm; Shure V15VxMR cartridge;
Plinius CD-101 Simaudio Equinox; Plinius
9200 integrated amplifier; ATC SCM 202, Triangle Altea, PSB T55; Rel Britannia
B3 subwoofer; Nordost Blue Heaven
cabling, Kimber Kable BiFocal XL,
Wireworld Equinox III; Wireworld Silver
Electra & Kimber Palladian power cords;
Richard Gray line conditioners
M A N U FA C T U R E R I N F O R M AT I O N
APRIL DESIGNS, INC.
B1 Seorae Bldg, 773-1 Bangbae-Dong,
Seocho-Gu, Seoul 137-829
South Korea
+82 2 3446 5561
aprilmusic.com
Price: $1995 (Options: P1 phonostage,
$250; ADC-1 24-bit/96kHz A/D converter, $175)
equipment report
Echo Busters Decorative Acoustical Treatments
One reviewer’s reminder of the most important accessory of all—the
listening room.
Sue Kraft
t boggles the mind to consider how much of our hardearned cash is spent each year on ancillaries such as cables,
power cords, conditioners, racks, stands, and all manner
of tweaks and audio-related paraphernalia—without as
much as a second thought given to the room itself. Most
will acknowledge the importance of a properly tuned listening
environment, but few do much of anything about it. I’d hazard
a guess that, in some cases, room treatment alone could make a
bigger sonic impact than all the aforementioned accessories
combined. You can throw all the money you want at your system, but in a less than an optimum listening room—which the
vast majority of us, unfortunately, are stuck with—you’ll never
hear the full potential of any speaker.
My rude reminder of the dramatic and detrimental effect a
room can have on a stereo came when I finally got around to
setting up a second system in the spare bedroom. It was actually the exact same system that I had just used to review the
Coincident Super Eclipse III speakers in my 14' x 20' main listening room (Issue 157). The mid-sized Supers performed fabulously despite having to contend with three arched doorways,
I
62
five windows, and a fireplace—all the typical
aesthetically pleasing but acoustically challenging trappings of an early 1950s home in
the upper Midwest. Save for a pair of ASC
Tube Traps guarding the front corners and
1.5"-thick double-cell honeycomb shades
covering the windows, the main room is
essentially untreated. Considering the
implausibility of “trying out” the listening
room before you buy the house, I think I’ve
done fairly well—at least up until now.
While I didn’t expect the intended 12foot by 12-foot listening space to be an
acoustic walk in the park, it’s safe to say I
wasn’t prepared to hear the sonic equivalent
of chopped liver, either. Yet, with the system
set up diagonally and the Super’s twin eights
firing outwards, I barely recognized the
sound I had fawned over just days earlier.
(Could this be the reason some readers think
we’re all deaf?) The trademark bottom-end
tautness and articulation of the Coincident
speakers were all but gone, and the soundstage—well, all I can say is, what soundstage? As any other
hardcore audio enthusiast would do in a similar situation, I
panicked. Then I called Mike Kochmann of Echo Busters.
I had actually spoken with Mike about a year ago, when I
first moved into the new house. But due to laziness and the
fact that I wasn’t experiencing any serious room-related issues
Installation was an easy
one-woman, two Diet Pepsi job.
at the time, I never followed through on his kind offer to let
me audition one of his room-treatment packages. Mike was
elated to finally hear back from me, and shortly thereafter I
found five rather large cartons of assorted Echo Busters roomtreatment devices parked in the middle of my driveway—literally. (Can’t those delivery guys ever ring my doorbell to see
if I’m home before they dump and run?) My room-tuning
package included a pair of quarter-round Bass Busters for the
corners behind the system, as well as a pair of Phase 4 bass
equipment report
towers for the opposing corners. There were two 5' x 23"
absorption panels for each sidewall and a pair of smaller 4' x
12" Double Buster diffuser panels to place atop the Bass
Busters. Rounding out the acoustic treatment were four triangular Corner Busters for the ceiling corners of the room.
Although the large acoustic panels look heavy and cumbersome, they’re actually lightweight (six pounds or less, each)
and fairly simple to maneuver or to hang with supplied hardware, if desired. Installation was an easy one-woman, two Diet
Pepsi job. And when I was finished, the room and system had
taken on a whole new sonic personality.
With the full-monty Echo Busters treatment in place,
images immediately snapped back into focus and the glare that
had me grabbing for my sunglasses disappeared. The signature
bass control and definition of the Coincident Super Eclipse III
was back with a capital B, and a soundstage materialized out of
thin air. Since the speakers were positioned diagonally in the
room, the soundstage still wasn’t as spacious as what I’m accustomed to in the main room, but with a little tweaking of the
Bass/Double Busters as well as the Phase 4 bass towers, the
sound was surprising clear and three-dimensional.
However, even with all the remarkable improvements I
64
equipment report
had witnessed, it wasn’t until the following morning that the
significance of room acoustics finally sank in. Although I
couldn’t quite identify exactly what it was, I noted there was
still something amiss in the upper frequencies, so I figured I’d
do a little cable tweaking to smooth things out. (Old habits
obviously die hard.) As I was rummaging through a box of
interconnects, I noticed the four Corner Busters still stacked
out in the hallway—I had forgotten all about them. So I decided I’d quick-toss them up in the corners and then get back to
cable hunting. Well, my cable-hunting safari was cut short as
whatever was ailing the upper frequencies immediately vanished with the Corner Busters in place. I almost felt a bit
queasy in the stomach just thinking about all the money I’d
spent over the years trying to “fine-tune” my system when
maybe all it really needed was a $166 set of Corner Busters.
I’m not going to tell you the sound I’ve achieved with the
Echo Busters in the newly converted spare room is the same as
what I hear in my main listening room, but I’m enjoying it
just as much, if not more in some respects. The smaller room
size has a cozier, more intimate feel to it, and so does the
music. I know us reviewer types toss around the term “transformation” like it’s going out of style, but this truly was a
transformation. And the cool thing about Echo Busters, as well
as most other room treatment, is you don’t have to buy the
whole shebang at once. I’d recommend perhaps starting off
with a couple of Bass Busters or maybe just a set of Corner
Busters. The effect is cumulative, and you can add on as your
budget allows.
Instead of renewing your membership to the cable-of-themonth club this year, how about investing in what could turn
out to be the most important component in your system—the
&
room? You won’t be sorry.
ECHO BUSTERS
PO Box 721
Wheatley Heights, New York 11798
(631) 253-0001
echobusters.com
[email protected]
Prices: Corner Busters, $166/4; Bass Busters, $579/pair;
Phase 4 bass towers, $490/pair; 4' x 12" Double Buster,
$195/each; 5' x 23" Echo Buster, $265/each
65
equipment report
Dynaudio Focus 220 Loudspeaker
A Danish contender for an affordable and musical speaker.
Sallie Reynolds
t bears repeating: Today, we can
put together a high-performance,
highly musical system for a fraction of what that cost a decade ago.
And we have choices in each category to suit our musical tastes. The
Dynaudio Focus 220 joins my list of fine
reasonably priced loudspeakers.
The Focus 220 is a floor-standing
model, simple and handsome, from a
company that has been building speakers (in Denmark) since the late 1970s. It
matches in looks, and undoubtedly in
sound quality, the others in the Focus
Series—home-theater packages with
satellites, center channel, and subwoofer.
This could be a boon for those who want
to expand into multichannel sound.
I had the 220s out of their boxes and
hooked up in about 20 minutes. This is
a design that, unusually in my experience, not only doesn’t allow bi-wiring,
but doesn’t need it. This is also one in
which spikes matter and grille cloths do
not. Since I have dogs with dangerous
tails, I ended up with the grilles on, as I
heard no difference with and without.
And though I don’t have a carpet, the
spikes increased the perception of
soundstage air and light, and so
remained in use.
As the owner’s manual warns, the
220s need break-in. Out of the box, I
could hear the Dynaudio clarity, extension at both frequency extremes, and
richness in the midrange. But I also
heard a touch of graininess in the treble,
described by one listener as “whishiness”
on high percussion (which may be
whishy by nature), high strings, and
flute. This effect went away in about a
week, and the overall frequency balance
just kept getting better and better. I also
heard a slight forwardness in the upper
I
66
midrange, which lingered.
The bass is deep and clean. The overall sound of these speakers is powerful
and smooth—exciting when music is, as
calming as a deep clear voice when
music calls for that. And goosebumpily
thrilling when, again, the music is. All
this depends a great deal on that clear,
deep, beautiful bass.
And the 220 is “fast.” I usually avoid
this word like the very devil—never till
recently did I hear a comprehensible
explanation of it in audio terms. But in
a note sent to The Absolute Sound last
month on TAS founder Harry Pearson’s
latest system, designer Carl Marchisotto
wrote about an amplifier: “[It is] fast,
but not just in the normal ways…The
modulation of one instrument or voice
by another, which is common in reproduced music, seems to have been eliminated, and this adds greatly to the feeling of experiencing ‘live sound.’” This,
indeed, describes what I sense as “fast.”
And the description is quite true for the
Dynaudio. The “normal” way of system
speed I translate as transient information
so clean, clear, and crisp that it drives
the music with sparkle. This, too, the
Dynaudio accomplishes. And the
crossovers are so smooth and the drivers
so matched, you hear no seams in these
sensitive spots where seams appear, if
seams there be.
All these characteristics I assayed
with Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals,
the middle piece on a spectacular (old)
recording from EMI that also includes
Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (nearly
flawless) and Britten’s Young Person’s
Guide to the Orchestra. This Carnival is
deliciously
performed
by
the
Philharmonia Orchestra under Efrem
Kurtz, with Hephzibah Menuhin and
equipment report
Abbey Simon on pianos. The flute/piccolo parts—a passage that starts out on
flute and ends on piccolo—are a good
test for treble whishiness. There was,
after break-in, no whish.
Even two weeks in, though, I was
still hearing that small forward thrust in
the upper midrange, particularly when I
was listening slightly louder than normal (for me). On Patricia Barber’s Live in
Paris [EMI], at jazz-club volumes, she
you want to really hear and feel your
music, you need to be seated properly.
And, then, what a treat you’re in for.
This speaker, on good recordings, will
melt you into its loveliness. Less-thanwell-recorded CDs are revealed for what
they are, though. On the exquisitely
performed If You Love Me, with mezzo
Cecilia Bartoli [London], the audibly
dull recording robs these love arias of
that final drop of heaven.
I adjusted my listening height (down till the tweeter
was dead-on at ear level), and lo! the pesky
forwardness vanished, and the stage locked in.
was front and center and intimate, her
silvery voice delivering sentiments wry
and biting. This CD seemed to be well
recorded, but the band, which is excellent, was, oddly, at once loud and
recessed. The voice dominated in ways
not entirely normal.
Then I adjusted my listening height
(down till the tweeter was dead-on at ear
level), and lo! the pesky forwardness
vanished, and the stage locked in. The
overall sound was clear as a mountain
stream, and Barber’s musicians took on
the living quality that she had possessed
all along. I eased up in the seat—the
soundstage constricted around her voice,
which seemed to swell. Back down,
again—perfection. Sweet-spot magic.
After playing with this phenomenon
on many recordings, I have concluded
that in my room, not only do the 220s
need extra-careful positioning (here,
slightly toed in, about 30 inches from the
rear wall—I did not use the supplied
“bungs,” didn’t need them, as I also didn’t
need a subwoofer), but the listener
requires the same care. I measured, as suggested in the manual, the same distance
between the speakers as that from the
inside edge of each speaker to the listener’s
chair—an equilateral triangle, for me, at
70.5 inches. (And don’t forget the ears at
tweeter level, which you may be able to
achieve by adjusting the height of the
front spikes.) Off-axis, the effect on noncritical listening is not disturbing. But if
68
To see how much these characteristics
might owe to a synergy between speaker
and amplifier, I replaced the Musical
Fidelity kW500 integrated amplifier, a
hybrid design, with the all-tube Prima
Luna amplifier and preamp, which are a
hair “softer” in sound. The differences
were slight—yes, softer, but not too.
Then I put in the MF X-150 integrated,
less powerful than the kW500, and of a
price more in keeping with the speaker.
The quality of the sound was still gloriously clean and clear. The volume knob
just needed to go up a bit—no surprise.
So these speakers seem to get along nicely with a variety of good amplifiers.
The words that best describe the
220s for me are “powerful,” “clear,” and
“exciting.” Intimate groups come out
into the extensive soundspace with air
and light and force. Orchestras are satisfyingly spread out beyond, behind, and
above—and dynamic (a rarity, in my
experience, for smallish systems).
Featured instruments in good recordings
sparkle. The organ at St. Mary’s in San
Francisco [Reference Recordings] rattled
body and floor, yet individual timbres
remained precise. Chico Freeman’s miraculous saxophone on Saudades [Water Lily
Acoustics] was in turn reedy, breathy, and
sinuous—you feel as though you’re eavesdropping on a jam session, an intense
Brazilian body-jazz, a whirlwind tour of
heart and mind. The fellows were having
fun, so there is, o rara avis, not a single
boring cut on this CD. And the playing—ah, this playing is surely among the
best in the world, and deliciously reproduced through the Dynaudios.
You will be lucky as well if you treat
yourself to the Dynaudio Focus 220. At
$3000, it is a spectacular bargain.
Alongside my reference, the Spendor
S8e, also $3000, it holds its own. These
two splendid speakers are both clear and
rich in midrange and midbass. The
Dynaudio’s treble, though extended and
fine, is not as sweet and lovely as that of
the Spendors. And the Spendors are
more forgiving in placement. But the
Dynaudios go further down in the bass.
So maybe you are triply lucky: You
get to let your music make a difficult
choice easier. The Dynaudio will have
the edge over most of its competitors on
hard rock and on the full spectrum of
&
complex orchestral music.
Type: Two-and-a-half-way floor-standing
loudspeaker
Driver complement: Two mid/bass drivers; one tweeter
Sensitivity: 87dB
Power-handling: 250 watts
Impedance: 4 ohms
Frequency response: 32Hz–25kHz +/-3dB
Dimensions: 8" x 38.6" x 11.6"
Weight: 42 lbs.
Musical Fidelity C5 CD player, and kW500
and X-150 integrated amplifiers; Prima
Luna Three preamp and Five amp;
Nordost Blue Heaven cables; Monster
Cable HS3500 powerline conditioner
DYNAUDIO NORTH AMERICA
1144 Tower Lane
Bensenville, Illinois 60106
(630) 238-4200
dynaudiousa.com
Price: $3000
equipment report
Moscode 401HR Tube Hybrid Stereo Amplifier
An audio classic, revised and updated.
Jacob Heilbrunn
ne of the well-known
downsides to planar or
electrostatic speakers is
that they aren’t simply
hungry for current; they’re
ravenous for it. Almost any speaker can
benefit from gobs of power, but trying
to satisfy the appetites of dipoles can be
a particularly exasperating experience,
one that has led some audiophiles to
conclude that current-greedy speakers
can’t produce realistic dynamic levels or
are more trouble than they’re worth.
High-powered amps that can provide
O
prohibitively costly ones may simply falter, like an underpowered car struggling
up a steep hill, when pushed beyond
their limits. So it was with more than a
pinch of skepticism that I listened several months ago to designer George Kaye’s
confident assurances that his new tubehybrid Moscode HR401 stereo amplifier
would be able to drive Magnepan’s
famously power-hungry flagship 20.1
loudspeaker with aplomb.
Would I really discover that his reasonably priced, by audiophile standards,
amplifier, based, no less, on a classic
Sumptuous and dynamic, it conveys any type of
music, ranging from orchestral to rap, with
unusual authority and self-assurance.
slam and impact are, more often than
not, extremely expensive and, in some
cases, prone to producing an overly analytical or bleached-out sound, while less
70
design, differed from others that had
made a good initial impression but ultimately failed to deliver the musical
goods? Absolutely.
Almost immediately after powering
up the Moscode, I realized that it is not a
good amplifier. It is a superb one.
Sumptuous and dynamic, it conveys any
type of music, ranging from orchestral to
rap, with unusual authority and selfassurance. So fetching is the Moscode,
visually and sonically, that I found myself
eagerly lugging it to several friends’ systems, delighting in their stunned expressions as they discovered the smooth,
grainless presentation of the Moscode as
it powered their respective Thiel 1.6s and
Kharma Midi-Exquisites. The $70,000+
Midi-Exquisites powered by a $5000
amplifier? You bet. The combo sounded
ravishing. While the Moscode is not
without some sonic flaws—find me an
amp that isn’t, please—it can more than
hold its own with any loudspeaker,
regardless of cost. And there are few
speakers, apart from high-sensitivity
horns, that would not profit from the
Moscode’s abundant reserves of power.
equipment report
Right out of the box, there is no
mystery about the sonic signature of the
Moscode. If neutrality is what you’re
looking for in an amp, then look elsewhere. The Moscode may have a solidstate power supply and output stage, but
it errs emphatically on the side of a tubelike presentation. It is, you might say,
about the lush life. In fact, after being on
for a few hours, it becomes even more
relaxed and tuneful than upon startup,
erasing most traces of transistoritis,
which can often be a welcome thing.
Perhaps these qualities should come as
no surprise given the intellectual provenance of the amplifier, which is a tribute
piece to the late Dr. Harvey Rosenberg
(hence the HR in the amplifier’s logo), a
legendarily wacky and tube-obsessed
designer of amplifiers (the owner’s manual comes complete with an introduction by Rosenberg for the original version of the amplifier in which he recommends, among other things, wearing a
silk robe and indulging in a Shiatsu
massage before listening to the amp).
Nevertheless, this is clearly no fusty
museum piece from yesteryear, but a
thoroughly modern design that never
faltered or failed. Push the little button
in front, watch the beautifully lit blue
soft-start flash on and off as the tubes
gently power up, and you’re off and running. So meticulous is Kaye that there is
even a little dial in back to modulate the
glow. A switch in back lets you use one
amp in stereo or two in biamp mode. I
ran the amps both ways, but preferred
the added power of two. No matter
where or when I ran the amps, they
never failed to perform glitch-free. The
only no-no that I indulged in was to
flout the manual’s instructions and lift
the ground on the amp with a cheater
plug to banish a persistent hum.
One other thing: this amp is heaven
for tube-rollers. For the gain tubes,
Moscode gives you seven different
options. Some manufacturers like to
claim that they’ve voiced their equipment specifically to match certain tubes,
but I’ve always regarded this as blarney.
The advantage of using tubes is that you
can tailor the sound to your preferences or
change it if you want a change of pace. I
72
didn’t do a huge amount of tube-rolling,
but did learn that, in this case, the factory-supplied 6H30 sounded markedly
superior to my vintage Telefunken
12AX7s. The sound became more
refined, airier, and the bass tightened up
with the 6H30s, but I also had to turn up
the volume since the gain went down
substantially. Others might prefer the
more swollen sound of the 6DJ8 tube
(which I really don’t think should be used
in any audio applications even though it’s
convenient and easy for manufacturers to
source). Anyway, no matter what tubes
you use, I’m quite sure that the basic
sound of the amp will remain constant.
Consistent with my initial reservations about the amps’ power, I ran two of
them in biamp mode on the Magnepan
1.6s. Upon inserting them, I rather nonchalantly turned back toward the listening chair, but halfway there I almost suffered whiplash as I turned around,
There was simply a
feeling of drive and
dynamism, an emotional
connection that I had
never experienced
with the 1.6s.
mouth agape, at the gale-force sheets of
sound emanating from the speakers. I
had always enjoyed the highly touted
Parasound JC-1s on the 1.6s, but this
was sound of a different order. Cymbal
rim-shots exploded with ferocity, while
the saxophones took on a breathy and
palpable character they simply hadn’t
had before. The Moscodes revealed much
more clearly the propulsive dynamic
character of the Convergent Audio
Technology preamplifier, making the
JC-1s by contrast sound somewhat veiled
and demure in character, which was far
from what I had expected.
Did timbral accuracy suffer a little
bit? Certainly. But the Moscodes lowered
the noise floor and peered further into the
recesses of the soundstage than the JC-1s.
There was simply a feeling of drive and
dynamism, an emotional connection that
I had never experienced with the 1.6s.
The same characteristics were even more
amply displayed in running the Moscodes
full-range on the big 20.1s, whose far
more complex three-way crossover presents higher current demands than the
1.6s. On Wynton Marsalis’ new album
Live At the House of Tribes [Blue Note] his
trumpet leapt out of the speaker and
every microtone, as Marsalis half-keys his
trumpet to moan, slur, and soar through
glissandos, was captured with remarkable
fidelity and presence. The imaging of the
amps was quite good, but not stellar.
Once again, while the amp doesn’t commit the sin of blurring images, it focuses
more on presenting a larger picture rather
than spotlighting performers.
The power supply has clearly been
carefully regulated. This shows up not
only in the unconditional stability of the
amp, which never loses its composure no
matter how demanding the music, but
also in the low noise floor that is as
apparent on the 20.1s as it is on the 1.6s.
Indeed, the weight of the hall almost
comes through physically with the
Moscode; on one disc what I think must
have been the air-conditioning system
running came through loud and clear,
too, desired or not. And no matter how
hard I tried to drive the amp into overload, it only became warm, not hot, to
the touch. It’s hard to believe that it
couldn’t handle the most punishing
speaker load.
Despite its raw power, however, the
amplifier did display one weakness: deep
bass control. Ironically, since Kaye features a picture of himself playing the bass
on the first page of the manual and touts
the amplifier’s supposed grip on low frequencies, the Moscode’s performance here
is not as iron-fisted as it might be. It is,
in fact, overripe, tubby, and not, dare it
be said, the last word in extension, either.
On the Kharma Midi-Exquisites, which
are a mite polite in the bass, the
Moscode’s overly voluptuous low end was
not detectable and, if anything, fleshed
out the speaker. But on the Thiel 1.6s and
both sets of Magnepans, the bass did not
match the standard set by the midrange
and treble. The Parasound JC-1s and the
Classé Omega monoblocks both dis-
equipment report
played better tautness and resolution
down in the nether regions, which is
what one would expect from solid-state.
Did the Moscode amp surpass the
Classé Omega and Omicron monoblocks,
which cost at least four times as much? No,
it did not. The Moscode is not as pure and
detailed. But what it conveys, and what no
Power output: 200Wpc @ 8 ohms, 300Wpc @ 4 ohms
Frequency response: 10Hz–100kHz +/-.2db
Full power frequency response: 10Hz–20kHz +/-.2db
Input impedance: 100k ohms
Tubes supplied: 6H30Pi, 6GU7
Number and type of inputs: One stereo pair, line-level (RCA)
Dimensions: 17.5" x 6.5" x 15.5"
purely solid-state amplifier will perhaps
ever fully achieve, is the visceral excitement and palpability of a high-powered
hybrid or fully tubed unit. Maybe it was
the translucent blue light emanating from
the glass windows on the front of the amp,
but I found this diminutive amp rather
bewitching. If you’re considering an amp
around $5000 or even double that, you
would be remiss not to consider the
Moscode. You can spend a lot more for a
lot less than the Moscode. It will be awfully hard to break the spell it casts.
&
Weight: 52 lbs.
VPI HR-X turntable with JMW 12.6 tonearm, Dynavector XV-1S and Lyra Titan cartridges; Sony
777ES SACD player; EMM Labs CDSD transport and DCC2 preamp/DAC; Messenger preamplifier and phonostage; Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Mk. III preamplifier; Classé Omega
and Omicron monoblock amplifiers; Magnepan MG 1.6 and 20.1 loudspeakers; Jena Labs
Symphony and Hovland Music Groove 2 interconnects; Nordost Valhalla speaker cables; Jena
Labs Fundamental Power One Power Cords; Shunyata Hydra-8 line conditioner
74
MOSCODE
PO Box 322
Chatham, New York 12037
(877) 797-8823
[email protected]
moscode.com
equipment report
Magnepan MG 20.1
Loudspeaker
A fresh look at a perennial audiophile
favorite.
Donald Saltzman
ou’re probably asking yourself, “What can this guy tell me about
Magnepan speakers that I don’t already know?” After all, this magazine
has reviewed various Maggie loudspeakers over the years—raves all—
and the 20.1 is the basis of HP’s favorite surround-sound system.
Moreover, the $12,000 20.1 was The Absolute Sound’s Product of the Year
in 2003. So what can a guy like me add? Just this: Having lived with the MG 20
and now the 20.1 for a combined 13 years, I’m hoping I can provide some real-world
insight to anyone looking for a state-of-the-art loudspeaker at a fair price.
Y
The 20.1 is tall, thin, and sexy (my longed for,
but never attained, physical state).
Magnepan’s flagship, the 20.1 is tall, thin, and sexy (my longed for, but never
attained, physical state)—the audio equivalent of the plasma video screen. The speaker consists of three large drivers mounted vertically on a board, with no enclosure save
for a wooden frame. The ribbon tweeter occupies the space between one vertical end
piece of the frame and a vertical dividing strip, while the midrange/woofer panel
occupies the larger space between the dividing strip and the other vertical end piece
of the frame. This box-free design eliminates resonance and the colorations introduced by typical loudspeaker enclosures.1
The “diplanar” bass panel is the largest of the three drivers—some 786 squareinches in size. This low-mass Mylar diaphragm is infused with evenly spaced wires
(which carry the music signals) and suspended between magnets (which provide the
power). Unlike electrostatics, planar-magnetic designs do not require large transformers or a connection to an AC outlet to drive the panel. The 137 square-inch
“quasi-ribbon” planar-magnetic midrange, although physically attached to one side
of the bass panel, is of somewhat different construction and is driven separately from
the bass driver. Unlike previous versions of the MG 20, the midrange panels of the
20.1 incorporate a true push-pull magnet structure. The improvement in midrange
clarity and definition is the most salient difference between current and prior versions of the speaker.
The most addictive qualities of the 20.1 are its even top-to-bottom tonal
balance and realistic portrayal of the soundfield in which the recording was
made. Not only does the acoustic space sound lifelike, so do the sizes and place1 Many Maggie owners bemoan the fact that the speaker somewhat flexes on its feet when pushed from the top. I have seen and heard many attempted solutions to this so-called
“problem,” generally consisting of complete rebuilds of the entire frame, with mixed sonic results (generally very detailed but somewhat dry). I am looking forward to trying the much
simpler and modestly priced foot and bracing system manufactured by Mye Sound (myesound.com), which consists of metal feet that will accept spikes and metal brackets that attach
well up the back side panels of the speakers.
75
equipment report
ment of instruments on the stage. And unlike most speakers,
the space and performers sit at a realistic height relative to your
listening position—neither lower than stage height nor beaming down on you as if suspended from the rafters. While no
A few words are in order about
amplification. Simply put: the more
power, the better.
home sound system can truly convince you
orchestra is laid out before you, the 20.1s
come closer than most, and in this regard
compete with speakers at any price.
The Maggies are also full-range loudspeakers, slighting the upper frequencies
not at all and the lowest frequencies only
to a minor extent. The bass is full, quick,
and tuneful. It rocks on rock ’n’ roll and
moves large quantities of air when a symphony orchestra is playing full-tilt. And
because the Maggies have no box, there is
absolutely no sense of boxiness or cabinet
resonance at the lowest frequencies.
However, while the bass panels will play
satisfyingly loud on almost all types of
material, they can be overdriven by very
dynamic low-frequency notes played at
louder-than-life levels.
The midrange and high-frequency
reproduction of the 20.1 is, in my view,
state of the art. Whereas the midrange of
the older 20 was slightly opaque and did
not seamlessly blend with the ribbon
tweeter, the new midrange driver of the
20.1 cures those problems. The midrange is
transparent, open, and powerful. It seems
to be impervious to overload or strain. It
certainly isn’t lacking body, but because it
is a planar design you will not want to use
associated equipment on the thin side of
neutral. This is probably why I (and many
others) prefer tubes with these speakers.
The outstanding ribbon tweeter is delicate, crystal-clear, light, and powerful—all
at the same time. But it does have certain
operational limitations. While it will play
to a very satisfying volume level, it too can
be overdriven if some caution isn’t exercised. You can generally rock out to your
heart’s content, but if you also try to rock
your neighbors, you will often meet with
blown fuses or, worse, blown tweeters.
76
Fortunately, the tweeters are user-replaceable. To put this in context, the 20.1 will play louder, without breakup of any sort, than
any full-range electrostat I have heard.
The only other issue with the tweeter is that, depending on the
associated equipment, it may tend to some brightness or glare at
higher volume levels. If you encounter this problem it is easily
remedied by slightly padding down the tweeter with either the
supplied resistors or those of your choice. Depending on your room
acoustics, the tweeter should need anywhere from no padding to no
more than 1.5dB attenuation. The trick is to pad the tweeter down
just enough so it does not call attention to itself.
that a life-sized
CONTINUED ON PAGE 80
Design and Setup
he tweeter is a true ribbon and is undoubtedly the manufacturer’s crowning
achievement. Five feet tall, it is of such low mass that it is nearly featherweight. While not without problems if improperly driven, it is a driver of unsurpassed purity and detail. (I believe that HP has referred to it as possibly the best
tweeter in the world, and who am I to argue?)
This entire affair of ribbon, quasi-ribbon, and diplanar bass panels is driven
through two moderately complex crossovers. The first is internally mounted and
divides the signal between the midrange and tweeter at approximately 3kHz. The
second crossover is housed in two large metal boxes, one of which is typically
placed behind each speaker. These passive units allow the speakers to be run fullrange from a single amplifier, or bi-amplified using a stereo amplifier or two mono
amplifiers for each speaker. Because there is no gain adjustment on this crossover,
bi-amplification is best accomplished with identical amplifiers.
A few words are in order about amplification. Simply put: the more power, the better. The speaker is very low in sensitivity, with a factory rating of 85dB (and that
seems generous). While use of the active crossover seems to lessen the power
requirements, I don’t believe you will experience the full capabilities of the speakers
without at least 300 watts per channel into a 4-ohm load. You will certainly hear music
with a less powerful amplifier, but it won’t come to life in the same way. My VTL 450s
are up to the task, as are other higher-power tube and solid-state amplifiers.
Like all high-end loudspeakers, what you get out of the Maggies largely depends
on what you put into them. They are so revealing that it would be a mistake not to
use outstanding components and cables upstream. I’ve heard many great combinations of same, at various price points, that make the 20.1 sound magical, yet to me
tubes seem to produce the most magic, especially in the midrange. I have also
heard a number of solid-state components I could happily live with.
The speakers are large and require special care in placement because of their
dipole radiation pattern. In particular, to enjoy the most they have to offer, it is essential that they not be placed too close to the wall behind them. While some critics
grumble that the Maggies “don’t do depth,” they are sorely mistaken. My listening
room is approximately 25 feet long by 16 feet wide and the speakers reside about
6 feet out from one of the short walls. All of the walls are covered, from ceiling to
about three feet from the floor, with silk cloth over cotton batting. I generally get outstanding depth of soundstage, or so I thought until I visited a friend whose listening
room is much larger and who has at least 15 feet between his 20.1s and the rear
wall. In that setting not only is the depth of stage staggering, but the speakers, as
large as they are, truly disappear into the acoustic of the recording.
DS
T
equipment report
Trying the 20.1s with the Pass Active Crossover
he stock Magnepan crossover works well enough, but I have always
wanted to try an active crossover with the 20.1. Pass Laboratories
was kind enough to oblige by sending me its XVR1. This is a serious
piece of gear, consisting of two beautifully finished chassis (the crossover
network itself and a separate power supply). The crossover has only four controls on the front panel—separate volume pots for left and right high pass
and for left and right low pass. The back panel offers balanced and singleended inputs and balanced and single-ended outputs for high and low pass.
A great deal of thought went into the design of this $5000 crossover.
Depending on the internal settings chosen, between 6dB and about 17dB of
gain (single-ended Class A circuitry) is available in each channel. This should
let you match the gain of almost any amplifiers chosen for high- and low-frequency use. Internal jumpers allow the user to use an enormous number of
crossover frequencies. More interestingly, each high- and low-pass filter is
user-configurable at a 6-, 12-, 18-, or 24dB-per-octave slope, with the choice
of three independent Q (sharpness) controls for each filter. Thus, the XVR1
offers almost unlimited crossover flexibility. Additional XVR1s can be added
for tri-amp, quad-amp, or even more complex setups. The only things missing
for the intrepid speaker-builder is some type of equalizer.
When I initially installed the XVR1, I chose crossover settings almost identical to the Magnepan factory settings. (I subsequently experimented with
other settings but ended up preferring the factory ones.) High pass was set at
290Hz with a simple 6dB slope, while low pass was set at 110Hz with an
18dB slope. The Q setting was at “medium” for each. The VTL 450s were
used for high-pass amplification and a Sunfire Signature stereo amplifier was
used for low-pass duty. The volume controls on the Pass unit allowed precise
matching of volume for each amplifier, after a few hours of trial and error on
very familiar musical material. My goal was to set the bass level, relative to
the mid/highs, as close as possible to the stock Magnepan crossover.
The most immediate effect of the Pass was a greater sense of headroom
and dynamics. And while I was using a second amplifier of higher power, I don’t
think the results were due solely to the additional amp. Even the mids and
highs, driven by the VTLs, were more dynamic and alive than before, which
could be attributable to one or both of two factors: The VTLs no longer had to
reproduce bass frequencies, and they no longer had to drive the Magnepan
external crossover. Using an active crossover, you may well be able to drive the
mid- and high-frequency sections of the 20.1 with lesser power, and you could
also choose a less expensive but still-sufficient amp for the bass.
The Pass unit operated flawlessly and was dead silent. Though transparency through the XVR1 was excellent, I can’t really say that the sound was
more transparent than though the factory crossover.
So, what’s the best way to cross-over the Maggies? The overall sound
through the XVR1 was somewhat more open and dynamic than the stock
crossover, but I am not talking orders of magnitude. It was ever-so-slightly brighter than the stock unit, but never objectionably so. I also
seemed to gain an extra octave of low-frequency extension when using the XVR1, but this was probably a result of substituting the
Sunfire amp for the VTLs for bass reproduction. On the other hand, the sound through the factory crossover and the VTLs run full-range
was slightly more full-bodied and warm than the bi-amp setup, which is nothing to sneeze at. Overall, I would give a slight nod to the
active crossover, especially insofar as it allows you to use separate, and possibly less powerful, amplifiers in a bi-amp setup.
Yet the performance of the Maggies with the stock crossover is always satisfying, and once the cost of the Pass is factored in
(as well as the need for an extra set or two of interconnects), the stock setup is by far the most economical way of experiencing
DS
the 20.1 magic.
T
78
equipment report
The most addictive qualities of the 20.1 are its
even top-to-bottom tonal balance and realistic
portrayal of the soundfield in which the recording
was made.
All of the qualities of the 20.1 are
highlighted by recordings such as Mahler’s
Das Knaben Wunderhorn [EMI LP], a sensational Christopher Parker recording. The
stage is open, lush, and airy, and the walls
of your room will effectively disappear
(sonically speaking, of course). FischerDieskau’s powerful baritone is to the left
and somewhat back, while Schwarzkopf’s
voice floats ethereally from right center
stage. The bass drums are shockingly powerful and roll through the room, just as you
would experience them live.
Reproduction of strings, large-scale
and small, is one of the great strengths
80
of all Magnepan loudspeakers, which
beautifully capture the instruments’
tone, body, and rosiny bite. In the
Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 8 [Decca
LP], the brooding and ominous strings
of the Borodin Quartet completely
escape the confines of the speaker. In the
Beethoven Cello Sonata No. 1 [EMI
CD], Jacqueline du Pré’s cello is lyrical
and resonant, while Janos Starker’s driving performance of Brahms’ Cello Sonata
No. 1 [Mercury LP] is so alive it’s hard
to sit still in your chair, and Gyorgy
Sebok’s piano accompaniment is warmly
resonant and natural. Likewise, wood-
winds and horns are convincingly lifelike through the 20.1s.
And when you’re ready to rock, the
Maggie’s won’t disappoint. My wife’s old
Jethro Tull and Janis Joplin CDs had her
dancing all night. Even an all-out electronic assault like Massive Attack’s
Mezzanine [Virgin CD], so long as not
played at ear shattering-levels, delivers
(almost) subterranean bass and a strong
pulsating beat. Richard Thompson’s
voice and guitar on The Old Kit Bag
[Diverse Records, LP] are so palpable and
alive that if you close your eyes you might
think he and his guitar were in the room.
There’s not much that’s missing, but
as good overall as the 20.1s are they are
not perfect. As noted, they will play very
loud but won’t blow down the walls
without unduly stressing the drivers.
While the bass is fast, full, and welldefined without boxy colorations, it is
equipment report
Type: Three-way planar-magnetic speaker
Driver complement: Ribbon tweeter, quasiribbon midrange, planar-magnetic bass
Frequency Response: 25Hz–40kHz
Sensitivity: 85dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Recommended power: 100–300 watts
Dimensions: 29" x 79" x 2.06"
Weight: 90 lbs.
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Basis Gold Debut Turntable; Immedia
RPM-2 tonearm; Keotsu Rosewood
Platinum Signature and Onyx cartridges;
Aesthetix Io Signature phonostage;
Aesthetix Callisto Signature linestage;
Meitner CDSD transport and DCC2
DAC/preamp; VTL 450 power amps;
Sunfire Signature power amp; Transparent
Opus, Reference MM, and Reference
interconnects and speaker cables; Purist
Audio Dominus interconnects and speaker cables; Walker Audio Valid Points and
High Definition Links
not the equal of the largest dynamic
driver systems in terms of midbass slam
or subterranean extension. Instruments
and voices have great body but I have
heard some cone-and-dome speaker systems that infuse the instruments with a
slightly greater sense of reach-out-andtouch-it palpability. Similarly, while the
20.1s are wonderfully transparent and
pure, they may be edged out in these
regards by the best electrostatic models.
Likewise, imaging is far more than
satisfactory (and more precise than what
I actually hear live), but may not completely satisfy the needle-in-a-haystack
crowd. Finally, percussive sounds like
sharply struck piano, rim shots, and
woodblocks are ever-so-slightly softer
than the real thing.
But picking nits would miss the
point of the 20.1. Simply stated, its overall balance of musical virtues is almost
peerless. Factor in a relatively affordable
price, which is far less than the competition (such as the largest offerings from
Wilson, DALI, Rockport, Dynaudio, and
Avantgarde), and it must be considered
&
one of audio’s great bargains.
MAGNEPAN INCORPORATED
1645 Ninth Street
White Bear Lake, Minnesota 55110
(651) 426-1645
magnepan.com
Price: $12,000
PASS LABS
PO Box 219
Foresthill, California 95631
(530) 367-3690
passlabs.com
Price: $5000
81
E X P L O R I N G
T H E
A R T
A N D
T E C H N O L O G Y
The Cutting Edge
Balanced Audio Technology
VK-600M SE Monoblock Power Amplifier
Robert Harley
Can a massive solid-state power amplifier
deliver the immediacy and delicacy of a
low-power, single-ended design?
fundamental principle of high-end audio design holds that the signal path should
be as short and simple as possible, and the power supply as elaborate and massive
as practical. The VK-600M SE solid-state monoblock power amplifier from
Balanced Audio Technology (BAT) takes this idea to the extreme; this amplifier has
the signal-path simplicity of a low-power single-ended amp, coupled with a power
supply that looks as though it could light and heat a small city. (See the accompanying interview with designer Victor Khomenko for details.)
We tend to think of an amplifier’s power supply as outside the audio signal path. After all, its
job is merely to supply direct current to the tubes or transistors that actually do the work of amplifying
A
82
The Cutting Edge
the music signal. Looking at a schematic reinforces this view; we
The VK-600M SEs were in some ways revelatory, particufollow the audio signal from input to output, with the power suplarly when partnered with BAT’s top-of-the-line VK-51SE preply represented as an adjunct to the signal-amplifying electronics.
amp. For starters, these amplifiers exhibited iron-fisted control
A more accurate way of thinking of a power amplifier, howover the Wilson MAXX 2’s big woofers, without the slightest
ever, is of a device that pulls 120V/60Hz alternating current
hint of strain at any listening level. The VK-600M SEs didn’t
from your wall outlet through the amplifier’s power transformer,
just go low and play loudly; they produced a rock-solid, tight,
converts the AC into direct
and visceral bottom end that
current (DC), stores that
served as a strong tonal and
This way of thinking of a power
energy in large capacitors,
rhythmic foundation for the
and then allows the tiny
music. Their dynamic
amplifier leads to the realization
audio signal at the amplifier’s
impact, explosive transients,
input to modulate the stored
that an amplifier’s power supply is and effortlessness in the bass
energy as electrical current
were peerless, in my experiactually in the audio signal path. ence. I’ve never heard the
that is driven through the
loudspeakers by the power
dynamic envelope of kick
amplifier’s output transistors. This way of thinking of a power
drum or tympani reproduced with such depth and startling
amplifier leads to the realization that an amplifier’s power supimpact, coupled with equally sudden decay. For instance, the
ply is actually in the audio signal path. The current that ultispectacularly recorded bass and kick drum on Travis Larson
mately drives the cones in your loudspeakers back and forth
Band’s Suspension [Precision] were portrayed so vividly that this
high-energy power trio seemed to have much of the life and
comes from the wall outlet via the amplifier’s power supply.
drive it has in concerts. The VK-600M SEs (along with the
BAT’s emphasis on the supply’s importance is reflected both in
Wilson MAXX 2) even resolved the individual strokes of two
the standard VK-600’s substantial power supply and in the
bass drums played quickly, rather than turning the instruments
upgrade path BAT makes available. The amplifier’s basic configuinto an undifferentiated low-frequency blur. Taut, muscular,
ration is a stereo unit at $7995. Two levels of power-supply
and authoritative are how I’d describe the VK-600M SE’s bass.
upgrade are available: the BAT PAK at $995 and the SUPER PAK
(The MAXX 2 turned out to be an ideal match for the VKat $3000. Both are boards containing rows of capacitors that beef
600M SEs, since the Wilson’s superb bass took full advantage
up the power supply by adding additional energy storage. When
of the BAT’s bottom-end impact and resolution.) The musical
fitted with both upgrade options, the amplifier becomes the SE
result was a visceral, whole-body involvement in the music
version. (The SE is $11,500 when purchased initially, which saves
(some music, at least) that smaller-scale hi-fi systems just don’t
you $500 over starting with the basic amp and upgrading.)
deliver. Although I can greatly enjoy a well-chosen and set-up
The next step up is the VK-600M, a monoblock version
system of modest proportions, a playback system’s ability to
that combines the stereo amplifier’s two output channels into a
deliver the bottom two octaves with unfettered dynamic conmore powerful single channel. BAT PAK and SUPER PAK
trasts is an experience unlike any other.
upgrades are also available for the mono version. The ultimate
The VK-600M SEs weren’t just brawn with no finesse. The
realization is the fully loaded VK-600M SE reviewed here
bass was highly detailed and nuanced, a quality I appreciated
($23,000 per pair).
with acoustic bass playing. A good example is Eddie Gomez’
Power output is rated at 300W into 8 ohms, a figure that
masterful work on Steps Ahead’s eponymous first album
doubles as the load impedance is halved (600W into 4 ohms).
[Elektra Musician], particularly on the track “Pools.” The song
This suggests that the VK-600 can deliver power to currentstarts with the bass playing the melody, and then Gomez and
hungry loudspeakers that have low-impedance dips. The two
drummer Peter Erskine lock into an interesting rhythmic pulse
channels are completely separate (including transformers) with
that sets the foundation for the extended and inspired tenor and
each supplied by its own AC power cord. Inputs are balanced
vibraphone solos from Michael Brecker (in top form here) and
only, reflecting the amplifier’s architecture of fully-differential
Mike Manieri, respectively. The VK-600M SEs beautifully
circuitry from input to output. If you want to drive the VKexpressed the intricate dynamic and rhythmic nuances of these
600 with an unbalanced signal, you’ll need RCA-to-XLR adapgreat musicians.
tors, available from BAT.
The VK-600M’s bottom-end quickness extended to the
This amplifier is built like a tank, with a very nice, but not
rest of the spectrum; this amplifier is extremely “fast” soundoverly lavish, front panel. The money went into performance
ing, reproducing transients with lightning-quick attack. Many
rather than cosmetics.
83
The Cutting Edge
amplifiers with high resolution of transient detail sound exciting
for about five minutes, until the etch produces listening fatigue.
The VK-600MSEs had a unique combination of transient zip and
smoothness; the amplifier reproduced attacks without that little
spike of high-frequency edge on transients.
Now we get to a characteristic of the VK-600M SEs that
took me by surprise, minutes after connecting the amp for the
first time and long before it had warmed up or broken in: a
remarkable transparency and immediacy, particularly through
Victor Khomenko
Talks with Robert
Harley about
Founding Balanced
Audio Technology,
Designing Audio
Equipment, and the
VK-600
Robert Harley: Tell me about your
background in electronic design.
Victor Khomenko: My basic education was in electronics and physics
from the Polytechnical Institute in St.
Petersburg, Russia. I graduated in
1973 and worked in the Russian military industry before emigrating to
America in 1979.
I’ve been tinkering with electronics (especially audio) since I was
eight years old. My electronic education was simply icing on the cake
because by that point I was already
a fairly experienced home tinkerer.
I’d done a lot of do-it-yourself projects just for my own system. There
was no way to obtain common highend products in Russia at the time—
amplifiers, preamps, phonostages,
tape recorders, turntables. I had to
build them all myself.
I came to America in 1979 and
worked at Hewlett-Packard developing analog and digital instrumentation. At that time my audio interest
moved to the back burner, because
there were so many more serious
things to be addressed. It wasn’t
until the late ’80s that I came in
contact with American audiophiles,
and my first acquaintance in this
area was with my now-partner,
Steve Bednarski. We worked togeth-
84
the midband. Putting the amplifiers into my system rendered
an instant jump in the sense of palpability and directness.
Instruments and voices became more vivid and alive. This palpability stemmed from an overall impression that the VK600M SEs simply got out of the music’s way, imposing virtually no sound of their own. The VK-600M SEs had an almost
SET-like immediacy, but without the lush romanticism of the
300B tube. It was as though the recording and playback signal
paths were laid bare, the VK-600M SEs acting as a transparent
er at Hewlett-Packard and
he started talking about
his audio system. I made
comments about how the
products could have been
better designed. Steve
replied: “If you are so
smart that you know how it
could have been done
better, why don’t you try
it?” So I just had to try it. I
revisited my audio-design
hobby, built some products, and the results were
so good that we decided
it was worth doing commercially. We started
Balanced Audio
Technology in 1994. About a year
later we were joined by Geoffrey
Poor, our Director of Sales.
RH: And more than ten years later
you’re still going.
VK: We’re still going, yes. We just
passed our tenth anniversary, and
the company is doing fine. We started with one or two products in 1994,
and today we have, I believe, twenty models on our price list. Our product line is unusual because it presents a cross-section of technologies.
We don’t just make tubed or solidstate equipment—we use whatever
is right for the particular application.
RH: The VK-600 has three unusual
design elements: 1) no global feedback; 2) a single stage that serves
as both an input and driver stage;
and 3) the output transistors are all
N-channel MOSFETs rather the Nchannel and P-channel complementary pairs. Why did you choose
these approaches? [N-channel and
P-channel transistors are the FET
equivalents of PNP and NPN bi-polar
transistors. —RH]
VK: We started with the idea of simplicity of the audio circuit. When
people talk about why some small,
single-ended amplifiers sound so
good, they always mention simplicity
as one of the reasons. Well, if you
look at the schematic of the VK-600,
you can actually make the case
that it is even simpler than your typical seven-watt, single-ended amp,
because those amplifiers have output transformers and the VK-600
doesn’t.
The VK-600 essentially accomplishes everything that you need to
accomplish in a high-power, solidstate amplifier with just two gain
blocks. As you mentioned, the first
block is the input stage/buffer and
after that is just an output stage,
and that’s it. That was unheard of at
the time we first introduced this type
of product in the VK-500, because
most power amps at that time followed a multi-stage approach to
design. In a typical high-power solidstate amp, you see dozens of amplification devices. When you put a VK600 schematic next to one of those
amps, it’s almost as though there’s
The Cutting Edge
window on the electronics chain and, ultimately, on the musicians’ expressiveness.
This sense of transparent palpability was accompanied by
an overall presentation that was a bit on the forward and immediate side, with the soundstage projected just in front of the
loudspeaker plane rather than behind it, reducing the sense of
space between you and the music. These aren’t amplifiers that
envelope you in a huge soundstage. The layers and layers of
depth on Rutter’s Requiem [Reference Recordings], for example,
sounded a bit foreshortened, as though the acoustic had become
nothing in the VK-600.
You have to work hard at
achieving simplicity; it’s more difficult
to design a simple circuit than a
complex one. Our single gain stage
does everything, with low distortion
and large voltage swings, and it
drives the output stage without a
buffer and with no loss of bandwidth.
RH: Stravinsky said,“I compose with
the eraser.”
VK: [chuckles] Yes, that’s a very, very
good statement. As far as no global
feedback, we belong to the school
of thought that feedback should be
used only in moderation and only
when absolutely needed. The
designer’s job is to develop circuits
that don’t need feedback in the
first place, and then perhaps add a
little feedback as a final touch,
rather than rely on it to make the
circuit work. Because the VK-600 is a
zero-feedback design, it also allows
some very interesting possibilities
that other typical designs simply do
not have. For example, we can parallel any number of channels for
more power, without any problems
of stability or conflict. This is what
allows the stereo VK-600 to become
a monoblock, and it doesn’t
achieve this through conventional
bridging of channels.
RH: What about using a single-polarity device throughout the circuit—
the N-channel MOSFET?
VK: That’s an interesting question.
It’s been known for a long time that
P-channel MOSFETs are always inferior in terms of their bandwidth,
speed, and other characteristics. If
86
a little smaller. The voices didn’t quite float in air the way I’ve
heard from other top-notch amplifiers.
Partially as a result of the VK-600M SE’s immediacy and
quick reproduction of transient information, I heard a massive
amount of recorded detail. This statement could sound like a
warning, but I don’t mean it as such. Rather, the VK-600M SE
artfully resolves every last iota of information—inner textural
detail of instruments and voices, low-level instruments in the
back of the soundstage, micro-dynamic nuances—without
sounding overly analytical.
you design a circuit using complement-ary devices, you must use
those infinitely inferior P-channel
devices. By dispensing with the Pchannel devices, the circuit
opened up with wider bandwidth,
and that also made the circuits
much more stable.
RH: What else is interesting about
the design?
VK: You can start with power supply.
Each channel comes with its own
dedicated, massive power transformer. Good amplifier design always
begins with the power transformer
and power supply—it is the foundation of good sound. We use a 1kVA
toroidal transformer in each channel,
and the two channels are completely separate. We also use vast energy
storage in the power supply. The
power supply is in fact so big that
when you turn the amplifier on, each
channel powers-up sequentially so as
not to trip the circuit breaker in your
breaker panel.
You can further increase energy storage with the optional BAT
PAK. It triples the electrolytic
capacitor bank in the power supply. The increase in energy storage
is especially noticeable when the
amplifier is driving difficult speakers.
With some easy-to-drive speakers,
the effect may be smaller. There is
also another type of energy storage option—what we call the
SUPER PAK. You can see this as a
large circuit board filled with special top-quality paper-in-oil capacitors that are made for us in
Europe. With the SUPER-PAK you’ll
immediately notice additional liquidity to the sound; it becomes
more open, transparent, and far
more fluid. The SUPER PAK is largely
responsible for the amplifier’s
beautiful finesse.
RH: You mentioned earlier that the
VK-600’s two channels are converted to one channel in the
monoblock version without bridging.
VK: That is correct. When people talk
about converting a stereo unit into
a monoblock, they immediately use
the word “bridging.” Bridging is connecting two channels in series,
which is commonly done to achieve
higher power rating.
We decided to go with parallel
channels instead of bridging,
because although you get more
output power “on paper” with bridging, you sacrifice drive capability
due to an increase in the output
impedance. A bridged circuit also
doesn’t work as well driving the load
with two channels driven in series.
When you think about power,
you have to think about the difference between maximum power,
which is academic in many cases,
and the ability to drive and control
the speaker. Maximum output power
is akin to horsepower in a car; it’s
responsible for the maximum attainable speed. Drive is like torque,
which is much more meaningful to
what the driver feels in the seat of
the pants. By running the channels
in parallel, the amplifier feels substantially more powerful even
though on paper the maximum
output rating doesn’t go up as
much as if you had bridged the
channel. Very few architectures will
allow you to parallel channels as
we do in the VK-600.
The Cutting Edge
This amplifier is built like a tank,
with a very nice, but not overly
lavish, front panel. The money
went into the performance rather
than cosmetics.
Another remarkable characteristic was the VK-600M SEs’
ability to maintain their composure at any listening level and
through dense and complex musical passages. Orchestral climaxes were just as clean and resolved as low-level passages.
This allowed higher listening levels without fatigue or irritation. You can often hear an amplifier running out of power on
sustained loud passages as a congealing of individual instruments, both tonally and spatially. The VK-600M SEs were
completely unfazed by any volume level or any music. (It
should be noted that the Wilson MAXX 2 is a fairly challenging load for an amplifier.)
I was a little disappointed at first in the VK-600M SEs’
upper treble reproduction, which sounded as though it lacked
extension at the extreme top end. I’m not talking about a soft-
88
ness that affects musical timbres, but rather the feeling of air
and openness on which the music rides. Either the amplifier
broke in and opened up, or I became used to this sound.
Whatever the case, I came to appreciate the VK-600M SEs’
upper treble sweetness and lack of solid-state glaze. Part of my
initial perception could have been caused by the VK-600M
SEs’ extremely black background and lack of electronic haze.
As great as the VK-600M SEs are—and I believe they are in
many ways one of the world’s great solid-state amplifiers—they
won’t be the amplifier for all people. They lack the lush romanticism and slight sweetening of timbre that makes many tubed
amplifiers so seductive. They are also better at dynamics and resolution than at presenting a feeling of air around instruments
and a sense of bloom that expands with an instrument’s dynamic envelope. Lush, forgiving, expansive, and enveloping are not
adjectives that describe the VK-600M SEs. These amplifiers are
at the other end of a continuum that may have at one end, for
example, the Audio Research Reference 600s—amplifiers with
gorgeous rendering of timbre and a huge spatial presentation,
but lacking the bottom-end authority, control, dynamics, and
palpability of the VK-600M SEs. Finally, you should judge the
VK-600M SEs only after they have been warmed up for at least
one hour, preferably two. These amps take longer to warm up
and to sound their best than any others in recent memory.
Power output: 300W into 8 ohms, 600W into 4 ohms
Inputs: Balanced on XLR jacks
Dimensions: 19" x 9.5" x 23"
Weight: 110 lbs.
Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy 7 and MAXX 2 loudspeakers; Aesthetix
Calypso linestage and Rhea phonostage, BAT VK-51SE linestage,
Mark Levinson No.326S linestage; Mark Levinson No.432 power
The BAT VK-600M SEs delivers an astonishing combination of sheer brute-force power with the midrange immediacy
and palpability of low-powered single-ended amplifiers. They
have a stunning sense of transparency, among the best I’ve
heard from any amplifier, tubed or solid-state. They also possess great finesse and resolution, qualities not often associated
with high-power solid-state amplifiers that can also exert ironfisted control in the bottom end and express seemingly unlimited dynamic contrasts.
All these audiophile descriptors aside, what really counts is
how readily and deeply I become involved in the listening
experience. Judged by that criterion alone, the VK-600M SEs
are worthy of my highest recommendation.
&
amplifier; Clearaudio Maximum Solution turntable, Graham 2.2 tonearm, Clearaudio Wood cartridge; Theta Generation VIII digital
processor and Mark Levinson No.31.5 transport; Meitner DCC2 and
CD30 CD and two-channel SACD playback; Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD playback; MIT Z-System AC conditioner; Audience
Adept Response AC conditioner; MIT Oracle loudspeaker cable;
Nordost Valhalla interconnects; Acoustic Room Systems room; Billy
Bags equipment racks
BALANCED AUDIO TECHNOLOGY
1300 First State Blvd., Suite A
Wilmington, Delaware 19804
(302) 999-8855
www.balanced.com
Price: $7995 to $23,000 ($23,000 as reviewed)
89
The Cutting Edge
EXOTICA
Audio Research Corporation
Reference 3 Linestage Preamplifier and
Reference 210 Monoblock Power Amplifier
Jonathan Valin
he very first time I powered
up the new linestage preamp and monoblock power
amps from ARC, I knew
they were extraordinary.
As fate would have it, I was
listening to an EMI LP
[ASD 2709] of the Shostakovich Second
Piano Concerto, with John Ogdon the
soloist and Lawrence Foster conducting
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This
record sounds gorgeous on any decent
stereo, but through the MBL 101 E
loudspeakers driven by the Audio
Research Reference gear I immediately
heard something I’d seldom heard before
T
90
on any stereo system, though I hear it all
the time in live concerts and recitals.
I’d call it “decay”—and it is that—
only what audio reviewers usually call
decay is the sound of a note that has
intentionally been sustained by the performer and persists for a longer-thanusual time. A great example of this is
found at the close of the first movement
cadenza in the Montsalvatge Concerto
Breve [London CS 6990], where the
pianist Alicia de Larrocha sustains a
chord via finger and pedal for what
seems like an eternity, providing a little
primer on the way a piano note gradually dies away—tone colors flickering and
slowly going out one by one, until all
that is left is a single tiny persistent
enharmonic overtone that only ceases to
sound ever so faintly when de Larrocha
finally (and audibly) lets up on keyboard
and pedal. If your stereo is capable of
superior low-level resolution, the genuine silence—the moment of rest—that
follows the extinction of this barely
audible harmonic is as breathtaking as
the grandest crescendo.
Though the ARC Reference duo will
reproduce this sustained note almost as
clearly as the $19,000 MBL 6010 D preamp and $73,500 9011 monoblock
amps, sostenutos are not the kinds of
The Cutting Edge
decays I am thinking of. No, what I’ve
got in mind is the way the harmonics of
ordinary, unaccented notes briefly “hang”
in the air before they are “covered up”
by the attacks of subsequent notes. In
life, you hear this all the time—particularly with piano played solo, but also
with ensembles and orchestras. It is the
aural equivalent of the persistence of
vision—the way the eye/brain holds
onto a series of images to form a complete picture. The ear/brain does the
same with a series of sounds to form the
continuity of music.
What the Audio Research Reference
preamp and amp can do in combination—what they, in fact, did with John
Ogdon’s first few spare, heart-stopping
notes in the gorgeous second movement
Andante of the Shostakovich Second—is
preserve the way the colors of each of
those piano notes lingers just ahead of
the note that follows, hanging their harmonics in space like a faint aural afterimage between the dying off of one tone
and the utterance of another. Our Mr. P
likes to talk about “continuousness”; the
Audio Research components give the
word a new and, to my mind, essential
meaning. They “fill in the gaps” between
92
and among notes more realistically than
any other electronics I’ve heard.
If bringing a new and unparalleled
realism to the reproduction of the duration of notes were all that the ARC
Reference 3 and Reference 210 did, they
would qualify as some sort of hi-fi
breakthrough. But that is not all they
do. Not by half.
First there is Audio Research’s tonal
palette. If, in life and in audio, tone colors must perforce be projected against a
tinted backdrop, I’ll take ARC’s offwhite canvas over the raven blackness of
much solid-state, the toast-brown of certain other tube gear, and the chalk of certain examples of each topology (such as
Spectral and middle-vintage ARC). To
my ear, this “neutral” background interferes less with the purity of timbres—
doesn’t skew them as much toward the
darkness of bass or the brightness of treble. As a result, tonal balance in the
Reference gear is sensationally “right.” I
have not heard such meltingly beautiful,
true-to-life string, wind, and brass tone
nor such persuasively realistic reproduction of voices (try “All My Trials” on
PP&M’s In the Wind [Warner
WS1507]—a record that, for vocal real-
ism alone, belongs in the Baker’s Dozen
of HP’s SuperDisc Pop List) since I used
the late, lamented Tenor Wp75 OTLs as
my references, although the Tenors were
substantially brighter and edgier in the
upper-mids than the ARC amp and preamp and did not have their awesome
authority in the bass.
Speaking of the bottom octaves…
while nothing I’ve yet heard can outdo
the MBL 6010 D/9011 on dynamics,
extension, and resolution in the bass—at
least with the difficult-to-drive MBL
101 E loudspeakers—the ARC combo
comes closer than other amps I’ve tried,
including some solid-state. (This is surprising for usually-thick-in-the-bottomoctaves tube gear and bears upon another one of ARC’s successes—greatly
improved bandwidth and overall transient response.) On massed cellos and
doublebasses or timps or low brass and
winds, the ARC gear has massive “authority,” projecting bass-range crescendos
toward you like rolling thunder.
Here we start touching on something
I’ve mentioned so many times before that
I feel a little embarrassed talking about it
yet again: what I call “action.”
By this word, I mean the ways an
The Cutting Edge
instrument’s sound changes position and
size with the forcefulness with which it
is played and the register it is played in.
For example, in a recital hall a piano’s
upper registers typically seem to be projected above and slightly ahead of the
body of the instrument; its middle
octaves seem to be sounded closer to the
body itself; bass octaves puddle up
behind and below the instrument, to the
rear of the stage. However, the size and
position of any and all of these “staggered in space” registers can change
instantly with changes in dynamics.
Played sforzando, the middle octaves of
the piano “leap forward” from their
usual middle-ground spot—sounding
way out ahead of the body of the instrument and making a much larger sonic
image (and much more forceful sonic
impression on the listener). The contin-
uous,
register-and-dynamic-related
swell and subsidence of instrumental
voices from background to middle
ground to foreground (and back again) is
part and parcel of the live concert experience (and an essential of orchestration).
Typically, however, it is not as much a
part of the stereo experience.
In most hi-fi systems, particularly
solid-state ones, instrumental images
seemed to be “pegged” to a single plane.
If a solo flute, for instance, is sounded
fortissimo from the middle ground of
the soundstage, it may sound larger and
louder on a stereo, but it will not seem
to leap into the foreground—will not
change planes within the soundstage.
And yet, anyone who has ever attended a
classical concert can attest to the
remarkable way a solo flute or piccolo
played fortissimo can suddenly cut
through the densest orchestral textures
and seem to float above and to the front
of the entire ensemble, as if a sonic tractor-beam has been thrown on it.
All of this is a roundabout way of
saying that this ARC gear is the best
I’ve yet heard at reproducing instrumental action (or bloom)—particularly
in the bass and midrange. As in life
when big choirs of doublebasses and
cellos start up, they don’t just get louder at fixed spots to the far right and
right middle of the stage; through the
ARC Reference 3 and Reference 210,
they are projected at you, swelling with
weight and power and rolling toward
the front of the soundstage just as they
do in a concert hall. With a great
recording filled with massive crescendos, like the Szymanowski Violin
Concerto No. 2 [Philips 6500 421], the
A Great Leap Forward
he Reference 3 linestage preamp and Reference
210 (and Reference 610T) monoblock amplifiers are
ARC’s “statement” products—the latest designs of
fabled audio engineer William Zane Johnson and, in my
opinion, the best work he has ever done. (And that, folks,
is saying a mouthful.)
Though housed in ARC’s traditional chassis with
heavy aluminum rackmount faceplates and those perforated metal cases with a zillion screws in them, the Ref 3
preamp and 210 monoblocks are “ground-up” designs
that boast much stiffer, larger-capacitance power supplies and markedly wider-bandwidth, lower-distortion circuits than previous ARC gear. Both amp and preamp
come with remote controls that allow you, with the Ref 3,
to adjust volume, balance, mono/stereo operation, and
polarity, and, with the Ref 210, to monitor power output in
four different ranges, read bias for all six output tubes, and
check line voltage from your wall socket. Both amp and
preamp have large vacuum-fluorescent display windows
in their faceplates that read out data via numbers and
line graphs. However, both units sound substantially
smoother, sweeter, and more neutral when these displays
are turned completely off. (There is a button on the
remotes that lowers and raises display illumination levels.)
Turning out the lights does not prevent you from using the
displays, as they come back on momentarily, at the lowest level of illumination, whenever you push a button on
either remote or use the control knobs on the preamp.
The four circuit boards and two transformers of the
T
94
Reference 3 linestage are entirely new designs. The audio
circuit is fully balanced, zero-feedback, Class A, based on
four 6H30P twin triodes; the power supply is a tube/transistor
hybrid consisting of 6550C and 6H30P regulator tubes with
solid-state rectification.The power supply is claimed to have
double the energy storage of the Reference 2 MkII, which
may account, in part, for the huge improvement in transient
response.The increase in bandwidth,which has skyrocketed
from 60kHz to 200kHz, and the 12dB drop in noise undoubtedly also contribute to the Reference 3’s improved transients and astonishing resolution of tone colors.
The Reference 210, which replaces the discontinued
Reference 300 in the ARC line, is also an entirely new
design, using custom parts and circuitry pioneered in the
flagship Reference 610T. Like the 610T, the 210Wpc
Reference 210 is a fully balanced, push-pull, vacuumtube circuit, running three matched pairs of 6550C output tubes in partial-cathode-coupling mode. Two more
6550C are employed as driver tubes, each controlling
one bank of three output tubes. Direct-coupled JFETs are
used in the input stage, followed by a 6N1P vacuum-tube
amplifying stage. Power-supply energy storage is claimed
to be 787 joules—three-quarters the size of the threetimes-as-powerful Reference 610T and nearly twice the
size of the 300Wpc Reference 300 MKII! As with the Ref 3,
the Reference 210’s output transformer is an ultra-wide
bandwidth design, with a claimed frequency response of
0.5Hz to 240kHz (-3dB). Once again, these improvements
in energy storage and bandwidth are audible.
JV
The Cutting Edge
effect is awe-inspiring, because the
soundstage is so alive.
The Szymanowski LP brings me to
another salient ARC virtue. Together,
the Reference 3 and Reference 210
throw the widest, deepest, tallest stage
of any preamp and amp I’ve auditioned.
Even though the Szymanowski disc has
extraordinary staging on most stereos,
you’d have to hear the wall- and mindbending way that the References fill in
the back third of my listening room to
grasp the magnitude of the difference
they make. As the orchestra gets louder
and louder, it’s as if curtain after curtain
is lifted on a stage that grows progressively deeper and wider and taller. The
effect is astonishing.
Even on smaller-scale recordings,
the ARC duo does its inimitable soundstaging thing. For instance, on “Some
Day Soon” from Ian and Sylvia’s Northern
Journey [Cisco/Vanguard VSD-79154],
the guitar to Sylvia’s left (listener’s
right) is imaged at least three feet farther
to her left via the Reference 3 and
Reference 210 than it is with any other
electronics I’ve tried (and this is with
the Tara Labs Zero interconnect and
Omega cable that I thought, clearly mistakenly, were restricting stage width). In
fact, the guitar moves so far to the left
that it’s not in my room anymore—it’s
somewhere beyond the wall, out in the
alley. With the exception of the Zanden
phonostage, which also had a neat way of
injecting huge amounts of space
between and among instruments, I’ve
never heard anything like it.
As for the resolution of detail,
though the ARC Reference 3 and
Reference 210 resolve certain kinds of
low-level information, particularly duration-related information, better than
anything I’ve heard (harmonics and the
decays between notes, as noted) and are
at least an order-of-magnitude lower in
noise and grain than any previous ARC
gear I’ve auditioned, they are not as
adept as the MBL at resolving other
kinds of low-level details, particularly
transient-related ones.
ARC has beefed up the power supplies of both the linestage and the power
amp to a point where instrumental
attacks are much quicker, snappier, and
more powerful—much more solid-statelike—than other tube gear I’ve heard.
That said, transients still aren’t as fast
and clear as those of the MBL 6010
D/9011, not just in the bass and treble
but everywhere. Nor is the ARCs’ noise
floor as low as the MBLs’. Since certain
kinds of detail—like how forcefully an
instrument is being played, precisely
where on the stage it is being played,
and how many other instruments are
being played alongside it—are transient-dependent, the MBL has a large
edge in the reproduction of the clarity,
intensity, focus, and number of instruments. But then it has an edge in these
regards over everything else, tube or solidstate. The ARC has an edge in reproducing tone colors, action (or bloom),
soundstaging, and durations.1
You may have noticed that I haven’t
mentioned the treble yet. That isn’t
because I dislike it. With the MBL 101
Es, via the 4-ohm taps of the Reference
210, the high end is soft, sweet, airy, and
beguilingly beautiful, though rather
ingratiatingly “forgiving” beside the
remarkably realistic treble of the MBL
preamp and amp. Via the Reference
210’s 8-ohm taps (or when the Reference
3 is used with a solid-state amp), I found
that the treble was crisper and less
romantic, but still not the MBLs’ equal.
I’ll continue to comment on the
ARC Reference 3 and Reference 210 as
time goes by, and I get more experience
with each. For now, it is enough to say
they are genuine hi-fi masterworks.
They are also priced quite fairly for
&
state-of-the-art gear.
1 An informative comparison between the MBL and ARC gear can be had by listening to “Texas Rangers” on Ian and
Sylvia’s Northern Journey LP. As I mentioned in my Tara Labs review in the last issue, this cut has an echo on it that is
essential to the stark, lorn quality of the lyrics and the performance. The MBL gear reproduces the transient slap of the
duo’s voices as it bounces back toward the listener off the rear wall more distinctly than the ARC does—more distinctly than anything else I’ve tried. But the ARC combo reproduces the way their voices trail away toward the rear wall with
the same magical continuousness that it shows when reproducing the decays of notes. Both presentations are kind of
amazing. And which products you will prefer will depend, to some extent, on whether you value astonishing clarity and
transients or astonishing durations and tone colors.
96
Reference 3 preamp
Type: Vacuum-tube linestage preamplifier
with remote control
Number and type of inputs: One each CD,
tuner, video, phono, Aux 1, Aux 2, and
processor on XLR and RCA connectors
Type of outputs: Two main and one tape
on XLR and RCA connectors
Dimensions: 19" x 7" x 15.5"
Weight: 29.6 lbs.
Reference 210 power amplifier
Type: Monoblock vacuum-tube power
amplifier with remote control
Power output: 210Wpc
Number and type of audio inputs: One
XLR (balanced only)
Dimensions: 19" x 8.75" x 19.5"
Weight: 74 lbs. apiece
E X OT I C A R E F E R E N C E S Y S T E M
Analog front end: Walker Proscenium Gold
Reference turntable/tonearm
Cartridge: Clearaudio Titanium
Digital front end: To be determined
Loudspeakers: MBL 101 E, Kharma
Reference Monitor 3.2, SoundLab M-1
Linestage preamps: MBL 6010 D, Audio
Research Reference 3, Aesthetix Callisto
Signature MkII, Lamm L2 Reference, Edge
Signature 1.1
Phonostage preamps: Aesthetix Io
Signature MkII, Lamm LP2 Deluxe, Zanden
Power amplifiers: MBL 9010, ARC
Reference 210, Edge NL 12.1, Pass
Labs X350.5, Kharma MP150
Interconnects and cables: Tara Labs
“The Zero” and Omega, Nordost Valhalla,
Synergistics Research X2 Absolute
Reference
AUDIO RESEARCH CORPORATION
3900 Annapolis Lane North
Plymouth, Minnesota 55447
(763) 577-9700
audioresearch.com
Prices: Reference 3, $10,000;
Reference 210, $19,999 the pair
H P ’ S WO R K S H O P
Golden Ear Awards, and a
Short Think Piece on Digital Domination
Harry Pearson
Golden Ear Awards
Amplifiers
ASR Emitter II Series 2005 integrated (fanfareintl.com)
Wyetech Sapphire 300B single-ended triode (wyetechlabs.com)
$25,900
$6800
Integrated Turntable
VPI Super Scoutmaster Signature (vpindustries.com)
$5500
Moving-Coil Phonograph Cartridges
Dynavector XV-1S (dynavector.co.jp)
Benz Micro LP Ebony (musicalsurroudings.com)
$4250
$4700
Compact Disc Players
47/Lab PiTracer CD transport and Gemini converter (sakurasystems.com)
Jadis JD-1 player and JS-1 digital converter (pierregabriel.com)
Bluenote Stibbert (fanfareintl.com)
Accessories
Nordost Thor power-distribution system (nordost.com)
$3200
Multichannel Equipment
EMM Labs CD/SD SACD playback deck (onahighernote.com)
EMM Labs DAC-6e SACD digital-to-analog converter (onahighernote.com)
Edge Electronics G AV 55 modular amp (500-watt module version) (edgeamps.com)
AMPLIFIERS
ASR Emitter II Model 2005
his amplifier not only joins the rank of
the great classics of audio design, like,
say, the Audio Research D-150 and
Reference 600s, but also actually advances
the art in its fiendishly clever integration
of a battery-powered linestage into the
amp itself. It sounds as if there is no
linestage at all in the circuit.
The battery-powered linestage is, I
am sure, partly responsible for the vanishingly low noise floor of this high-
T
powered, solid-state component. If there
is a “new wave” in high-end sound, and
I maintain there is, it lies in those components—like the Dynavector XV-1S
moving coil, the VPI Scoutmaster
Signature, and ASR’s own battery-powered Basis phonostage—that have so
lowered the noise floor that we, the listeners, are able to hear much more
deeply into the recorded soundspace.
But it isn’t just the lowering of the
noise floor that accounts for some of this
amp’s magic; it is also the reduction of
what Lew Johnson (of connie-j) calls
$25,000 and $3500
$40,000
$4900
$7900
$11,500
$11,250
“the grunge.” You can decrease the noise
floor of a given component and still hear
above that its electronic or mechanical
signature. In the case of tubes, we have
called this “tube rush,” and in solid-state
gear we have heard it as a kind of subtle
electronic hash or fine-grained sandiness
or electronic glaze.
I came at this backwards when I
noted the way the Emitter allowed a listener to hear through both the compact
disc and the analog LP in a new way,
without their usual seemingly inherent
sonic signatures—the kinds of anom-
99
alies you just learn to listen around.
Their absence was startling in the case of
the best CDs—e.g., Mercury’s two-disc
set of The Composer and His Orchestra and
the XRCD transfer of The Planets from
the Decca/London original. The best discs
didn’t sound “digital” in the way we have
all come to dread. I just wish I knew,
technically, how the designer Freidrich
Schäfer accomplished this. Especially
since his amps contain two of the solidstate bad boys—op amps and no fewer
than 20 MOSFETs, in the past, sure indicators of rocks in the sonic belfry.
Since I wrote that review, I have gotten hold the of a second ASR (on loan,
naturally) and assigned it the task of
driving the bass towers of the Nola
Grand Reference, thus replacing the
Antique Sound Labs Hurricanes. The
200-watt Hurricane monoblocks were
more than an acceptable match with the
woofer system—four 12-inch ported
drivers per channel that operate below
40Hz—surprisingly so, and in contradistinction to the usual mythology
about tubes and deep bass. Once the second ASR was in place, the shortcomings, comparatively speaking, of the
Hurricanes became obvious: an overly
romantic mellowness in the 30-to-40Hz
range and just enough tube grunge to
create a slightly veiled masking effect.
With the ASR on the woofer towers,
not only was there an articulation and
purity in the bottom frequencies (well
down toward the lower 20Hz mark), but
we could now hear deeper into the stage,
getting even more ambient information
from the recording site and a much
clearer picture of the relative “size” of
instruments from bass drum to bassoon.
Some of the improvement was actually
audible in the harmonics well above the
woofers’ range—and I mean well above.
There was a richer field of harmonic
information past the middle frequencies.
The principal gain in ambience retrieval
came in two ways: (1) with an enhanced
sense of the actual depth and delineation
of real space from front to back, and (2)
in our ability to hear the sounds of the
acoustic shell surrounding players in a
real space, i.e., the walls of the stage
“sounding” as instruments are being
played. This furthers the sense that you
are in that space with the players instead
of listening to a replica of the original
sound. (I am assuming here that those of
you who are serious listeners will have
damped the sidewalls of your music
room to minimize their interplay with
the hall sounds.)
As we discussed originally, because
of the absence of a separate AC-powered
linestage we have been able to plug both
phonostages and CD players directly
into the ASR’s battery-operated input,
and, when it strikes our fancy, to compare both balanced and unbalanced outputs if the gear in question has balanced
outputs. This has given us a much clearer picture (see our notes on CD players
below) of the real capabilities of the new
generation of digital playback gear.
And, again, as noted, we found that
using the balanced inputs does make a
difference in further lowering the perceived noise floor of the playback gear
and, to our ears, in improving the tonal
balance of the sound, perhaps simply
because we can hear more deeply into
the soundspace. Oddly, methinks, the
top octaves become sweeter, more
dimensional, and seemingly better at
the rendition of dynamic contrasts.
The ASR does have a sonic “character,” and that is a “yin”-like darkening of
the original. It is certainly not as neutral
as say the best of the early Bill Johnsondesigned tubed amplifiers, nor is it as
Symphony Hall (Boston) golden in
sound as the best conrad-johnson work.
But it doesn’t sound like either “solidstate” or “tubes,” a distinction even the
audio neophyte can usually make
instantly—in this respect, the ASR is
essentially colorless. It has so much output power (greater, I would think, that
the nominal 275 watt-per-channel rating) that it has the ability to float effortlessly over the most intense fortissimos I
can throw at it (and don’t think for a
moment I am not expert at this). Put all
of this together and you, perhaps, can
see why I am wrung in the withers over
the yin of its character.
Mechanically, things are a bit more
complicated. And the ASR is a bit
kinky. It is best to turn it off if you aren’t
going to be around for extended periods
of time, and best, if you are going to be
around but not playing it, to let its batteries recharge (they are good for 100
hours of play) and to be careful not to
send transient pulses through it, lest you
shut it down. Also, it sounds best after it
has been in the operating position—that
is, at full power—for 30 or so minutes.
Oh, yes, we have begun to test its
abilities with other speaker systems.
From the field reports I hear, the ASR can
drive even a difficult and cantankerous
load, such as the big Wilson speakers.
(SEE FULL REVIEW, ISSUE 152, PP. 104–119)
Wyetech Sapphire 300B singleended- triode monoblock
amplifiers
f you do not insist on overtaxing this
unit with high playback levels on lowsensitivity speakers—those, say, with
less than 95 or so decibels of measured
sensitivity—you’ll be in for the same
surprise as I was. Up until the Sapphires,
SET amplifiers struck me as having a
similar sonic signature despite the
design differences of their individual circuits. That is to say, SET amplifiers had
a “soft” bottom octave, a somewhat protuberant and romantic midbass, a très
sweet midrange, and a vanishing top
octave. Perhaps in a narrow band of the
midrange, they sounded “purer,” more
“alive,” even a shade faster than they did
elsewhere in the frequency range.
Now it seems that the more recent
work with the better SET designs has
licked this characteristic commonality
and that SETs are finally coming into
their own, if we can find good-enough
high-sensitivity speaker systems to take
advantage of their strengths. (Some veterans of the audio wars may remember
how a five-watt amp could drive the
bejeezus out of the biggest and best
designs in the latter days of the mono
LP.) With a speaker system both flat and
highly sensitive and with a not-so-sensitive but highly neutral speaker from
Audio Physic, the Caldera, I have been
playing single-ended games.
I
101
The star performer so far, and one of
the best-sounding amplifier of any
tubed provenance, is the Wyetech,
which has a simply phenomenal bottom
end—taut, articulate, and dynamic
(even on low-sensitivity designs)—and
an airy, uncolored top octave that won’t
sound ugly even when you push it into
clipping, though it does exhibit a slight
sizzle and minor tearing at extremely
high levels on speakers it wasn’t meant
for (on the Caldera, for instance, the
range of reproduced dynamics really suffers, but the Sapphire’s bejeweled sonic
strengths still shine through).
If you must view these words as
anything, look at them as a sneak preview. I know how good this amplifier
is—but what I want to do before writing about it again is spend much more
time on the appropriate high-sensitivity
speaker systems.
If a high-powered amp (say 100
watts or more per channel) could be
made that was a sonic duplicate of this,
it would immediately become, in my
estimation, a reference standard in tube
design. (REVIEW TO COME)
INTEGRATED TURNTABLES
VPI Super Scoutmaster Signature
here are, I do not doubt, “better”sounding turntables to be found, or,
put rightly, turntables less resounding,
but I wonder if any are to be found any
that combine performance and cost to the
extent that the Scoutmaster Series does.
The Scoutmaster is Harry Weisfeld’s
“bargain” design that has evolved
through three separate incarnations,
each one more refined and better balanced than the last. I do not intend to
delineate the individual changes to each
model (you can do that yourself courtesy
of VPI’s Web site), but I think I should,
to give a context, mention some of what
is going on with the Signature.
Its arm is still the JMW 9-inch offspring of its 12-inch uni-pivoted brother. In the arm’s last two iterations,
Nordost interconnects (whose sonic
effects we described in an earlier assessment) were added, first to the arm itself
T
104
and, in the newest version, to its junction box. The result, which will surprise
no one familiar with what the Nordost
can do, is less veiling, and, obviously,
greater transparency, and, to these ears,
a more natural tonal balance. The
JMW-9, now raised to the Signature
level, finally has a real anti-skate
device instead of the awkward twistedwire arrangement of olde. The amount
of internal damping—again to reduce
resonance—has been increased and, for
the first time, there is external damping (in the form of the arm’s stainlesssteel tubing) as well as somewhat higher mass, thus allowing the use of
lighter cartridges. For the ’table itself,
there is a more refined motor drive
(same as in the HRX), a better belt
system (four black nitrates, replacing
the oft-unreliable beige-colored slider
of the previous version). There is also a
periphery ring that holds down the
outer lip of the disc—and it really
works without getting in the way of
the cartridge—and a center clamp. (I’d
also recommend the SDS speed control,
which adds $1000 to the arm/’table’s
modest $5500 cost.)
In and of themselves, these refinements may not seem, on paper, all that
impressive, but each contributes to the
audibly smoother and more neutral
sound we get from this combo (and, no,
guys, the arm’s improvements don’t
begin to put it in the same league as the
Kuzma air-bearing straight-line trackers). The new drive belts are not as prone
to slipping, and thus speed variations, as
those on the older versions of the ’table;
the periphery clamp minimizes the torsional distortion that occurs thanks to
the raised outside edges of most LPs,
while the center clamp holds down the
raised center of most LPs, and the added
damping supposedly makes the sound far
smoother. I don’t know how to quantify
each of the differences because I have not
heard them added to the basic design one
at a time. What I do know is that the
thing, as it has evolved, has become less
and less a creature with its own sonic signature and, thus, more and more transparent in the reference system. In many
aspects of its performance, it exceeds the
best sound in ’tables available a decade or
so ago. But not every last one.
What would you get for more
money? One hopes better isolation from
acoustic feedback—we first used ours on
Arcici racks, where it needed extra isolation to prevent acoustic breakthrough.
Then, of late, we have been playing with
a new toy from the designers of an electron-microscope suspension system that
just may be the last word in what the
Vibraplane designers started years ago.
We certainly could expect more precise
speed control, just maybe more sonic
solidity in the middle frequencies, and
perhaps the kind of awesome thunder in
the 30Hz region one gets from the better Clearaudio designs. But the
Signature has considerable dynamic
“jump” (as do all VPI designs), and a
solid if not perfectly articulated bottom
octave (below, say, 30Hz). It has a wonderfully musical authenticity and many
analog lovers probably aren’t going to
feel the need to spend more for diminishing sonic returns.
MOVING-COIL CARTRIDGES
Dynavector XV-1S
his is a five-star moving-coil design.
I have little else to say about it, since
it is the best of these babies I have
encountered—ever. I hear no serious
flaws. I hate to say this, but, in the here
and now and until I hear something
more lifelike and better, I can hear no
flaws at all. (One of HP’s Laws of High
End goes like this: You can’t imagine
sound better than the best in the here
and now until you encounter it.)
However, I have loaded the cartridge into a 47k ohm input, and prefer
that setting. I also have found, at that
setting, a tracking force between 2.6
and 2.8 grams to be optimum (depending on the arm you use). Otherwise,
before the cartridge actually mistracks,
it sounds stressed and compressed in
the top octaves on fortes. The importer
has waxed furious over this trackingpressure recommendation since he
believes that force should be what the
T
manufacturer/designer recommends,
which is in the 2.1-gram range.
Perhaps, as he suggests, this would
work if the cartridge were loaded way,
way down below 47k, as he also suggests. I wonder, though. I have never
found a correlation between input loading and tracking force, but I can see
how, if the top end is rolled off, which
usually happens with very low impedance inputs, you might not hear all the
effects of lowered tracking force.
(Perhaps to prove his point, the
importer has supplied a Dynavector
designed and approved moving-coil
step-up device, which I haven’t yet got
around to evaluating. There are an
upcoming cartridge survey and several
seemingly promising designs on hand,
most of which we haven’t extensively
tested yet.)
Benz Micro LP Ebony
he best-sounding transducer I’ve
heard from that company whose past
products have always left me wanting
more. This one, mated with the right
arm, is quintessentially musical.
T
ACCESSORIES
n turning to accessories, we have a
wealth of choices to nominate for a
Golden Ear. I could have discussed, as
I did before, the Cambre Core isolation
racks, which had—I think inexplicably
given their looks—a genuinely positive effect on the sound of the amps I
placed upon them, or the co-called
“Magic Sticks” (more accurately and
much more pompously, the State
Technology
Room
Collimating
Pillars), which I’ve feared writing
about since I cannot correlate their
performance with any known explanation of what they do (and believe me
what they do is revelatory, but why,
why, why?). Then again, we have the
small but significant Clearaudio test
device that helps you set the speed of
your turntable quite accurately and
with a minimum of fuss, courtesy of its
blue laser light. (It’s called the
Clearaudio Speedstrobe and consists of
I
106
a test disc and a small blue strobelight,
the combo priced, by the way, at
$150—way above what something
similar might set you back at a local
Radio Shack.)
Instead, I chose the Nordost Thor,
perhaps because it is one of the “new
wave” components that reduce both the
noise and grunge level of any audio system. It is called an audio-distribution
system, and it was developed in conjunction with Isotech, a British firm
expert in the design of such devices. The
Thor isolates each device you plug into
its eight inputs from any other device,
all of which remain “invisible” to each
other. (It also has surge protection and
is, happily, fused, and without, Nordost
says, ill sonic effects.)
There is also the matter of its topography—a silver-plated copper circuit
board, Nordost Valhalla “mains” leads,
and insulation from current conductors
to ensure, the company says, “maximum
power transfer.”
More mystically, at least in Nordost
president Joe Reynolds’ description of it,
it works a kind of quantum-level
“voodoo,” radiating a signal into the
powerlines and into all the devices fed
into the Thor. This, he says, lowers the
noise floor. He is loathe to say what is
supposed to be happening, since the
auteur behind the quantum treatment is
almost mum about what is going on,
but, supposedly the device produces “an
ordered spin on all the electrons transiting the circuitry.” It is treated,
Reynolds, said with a “proprietary electro/magnetic field.” “It works,”
Reynolds says, suggesting some of its
most striking effects will be seen on a
video image. That notion I haven’t put
to the test just yet.
So what is there to say about the
Thor? Well, pending a more detailed
examination, let’s just call it a grungeeater. It removes background noise, textures, and other common systemic
quirks that are easy to hear once
removed, but hard to define— perhaps
because our audio language is still evolving in this area—in conventional terms,
partly because they are so endemic.
MULTICHANNEL GEAR
EMM/Labs CD/SD playback deck
ithout a doubt, the state-of-the-art
turntable for SACD discs, and in
its sexy industrial look, close to art.
Also, simplicity itself to use.
W
(SEE SNEAK PREVIEW, ISSUE 152)
EMM/Labs DAC-6e
his is the latest revision of the Six
Series (just released this autumn), and
as expected, considering the author (wizardly designer Ed Meitner), an interesting refinement and improvement upon
the previous version. What is most
notably striking about the “e” version lies
in its tonal balance and reproduction of
harmonic overtones. Prior to this, the
DAC sounded noticeably “whitish” (too
much yang) up high and bleached out on
strings, without much in the way of
instrument dimensionality as one ascended unto the heights. With the “e,” the
overtones are much more complexly
delineated and, dare I say, enriched, with
the net result of a sound more suggestive
of the best things about good analog. The
potential of the high-definition digital
system, as incorporated in DSD encoding/decoding, stands nakedly revealed.
T
Edge Electronics G AV55 multichannel modular amp
ach module, in this version, is capable of
a 500-watt output, or so say the specs
(we did not measure). I believe it. Why?
Because, first off, we evaluated the 200-watt
version, which was not at all to my liking,
since it seemed to leave the power-hungry
Magneplanars (in the Super Maggie system)
wanting—that is, dynamically compressed
and prone to high-frequency distortion. No
such thing with the G Series 55, which handles the biggest moments (say, those in the
new RCA Verdi Requiem by Harnoncourt)
as if it were throwing rose petals to the listener. We have mostly been using Edge
Electronics with the multichannel system
in various combinations (Signatures, others
in the G series), but here we have both
the virtues of simplicity—in setup—
and an almost creamy sound, and that
from solid-state. (REVIEW TO COME)
E
Two Golden Ear Multichannel DSD
Recordings
Music for Organ, Brass, and Timpani. Anthony Newman (organ);
the Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble with Timpanist, Duncan
Patton. Steven Epstein (prod.); Richard King (eng). Sonoma
SAC 001.
ou need listen no further than the opening Richard Strauss
ditty re-scored for organ, timpani, and brass ensemble—
whose long-winded title, here translated from the German, is
“Solemn Entry of the Knights of the Order of St. John”—to
hear what a spectacular sonic thriller this recording is. The
miking is held to a minimum and the resultant sound is very
much as I heard it from the pews of St. Ignatius Loyola church
on Manhattan’s Upper East Side during the recording session.
If you have a system that goes all the way, and with plenty of
subwoofer power for the “.1” channel to capture the lowest
notes of the church’s justly famed organ, you can almost exactly replicate the performance and St. Ignatius’s glorious and
warm reverberant acoustic. It was designed to be a showcase
Y
108
for the best that DSD has to offer and it is essential for any
basic SACD collection.
Verdi: Messa da Requiem. Vienna Philharmonic, Nicholas
Harnoncourt (cond). Arnold Shoenberg Choir. Soloists. Recorded
live, Musikverein, Vienna. Friedemann Engelbrecht (prod); Michael
Brammann (eng). RCA Red Seal. 2 CDs.
p until now, I’ve always found Harnoncourt dull to the
U
point of extinction, but in the Verdi Requiem, he comes
alive with a vengeance. The Dies Irae is a blockbuster, pure
and simple, with a bass drum that will either bend the beams
in your walls or destroy your subwoofers. Or maybe both. Oh,
yes, the brass choir is placed at an admirable distance behind
you, making full use of the multichannel capabilities.
Thrilling sonically and, from an orchestral and choral standpoint, a wonder to be-hear. But, not all the soloists are, shall
we say, to the manor (or manner) born. If you are at all skeptical about the strengths of multichannel or of high-resolution DSD encoding, these two discs will go a long way toward
making you a believer.
Digital Domination:
Thoughts on Imported CD-playback Gear
t may have been symptomatic of
the current malaise in key parts of
the American high end that
designers from overseas have taken
the high ground in the uphill battles to make CDs really competitive with analog recordings.
Now, please note I did not say that
the best CDs bettered the best analog;
that day has yet to come. And possibly
won’t until we have a commercially
viable digital encoding system that surpasses the limitations of the 16/44
process. But from abroad, we have here
I
at hand a group of outstanding CD players. These show the medium to its
advantage; they play to digital’s inherent
strengths, which we now see far exceeded our initial, pessimistic expectations
and which, heard aright, can actually be
a source of much musical enjoyment.
One of the more interesting questions the enhanced sonics of these players pose is this: What will be the
American response?
The harbinger of this revolution in
player and decoder excellence came
about seven years ago with the
Burmester 969 player and 970 DAC.
These were set at a price and (viewed
then as now) as little short of the
hideous, namely, in excess of $60,000.
But they set the (sonic) stage for the offspring to come.
Then three years ago the Italian
company Lector set the cognoscenti of
the high end on their collective ear with
a simple two-piece player and tubed
1
DAC priced (at first) just above $2000.
That combo was quickly followed by
Lector’s more expensive, four-piece digidrive design, (currently at $7000+). The
1 That price has now soared in several jumps to $4300+, which genuinely annoys me since I smell a correlation between a positive review from yrs. truly and indiscreet price-inflation. Ditto, by the way, for the L’Art du Son CD cleaning fluid.
109
four-piece tubed unit was/is, in my estimation, twice the performer of the two
piece CD2-7TS: it got all that much
deeper into the music’s soundfield, with
the same darkish coloration, but without
the susceptibility to acoustic breakthrough that plagues all but the bestisolated units. A most romantic sound.
There was a problem, to be sure, and
that lay in Lector’s inability to keep up
with the ensuing demand once the word
got out. The American importer, one
Victor Goldstein, took matters into his
own hands and discovered the Bluenote
Company, another Italian firm that specialized in all sorts of high-end gear, from
LP playback systems to electronics. What
first attracted Goldstein’s attention there
was the Stibbert, Bluenote’s tubed CD
unit, competitively priced, we might
add, with the four-piece Lector. It does all
that the Lector does, and a bit more—
without the darkish coloration, coming
closer to the ideal of tonal neutrality.
The Bluenote Stibbert, reviewed in
Issue 156, turned out to be of greater
value than I knew. It also, we learned,
decodes 96/24-encoded two-channel
discs, such as the DADs once issued by
Classic Records (but not DVD-As). The
Stibbert, I hasten to add, needs to play
for a while (30 minutes or so) before it
sounds its best with CDs. You’ll hear
its strengths right out of the box, but
the topmost octaves will sound whitish
and thin. Once it settles in, that
“sound” disappears, leaving its spectacular bass and highly convincing
dynamic contrasts. However, if it’s
DADs or their like you’re going to play,
then I’ve found the warm-up time is
even longer, say, an hour or more. If it
sounds edgy on high-level fortissimos,
it needs more break-in. (I believe the
two best-sounding Classic 96/24 issues,
a collection of Ravel and Gershwin
recordings from Marc Aubort and
Joanna Nickrenz, are still available and
much worth having.) 2
About the same time the Bluenote
player arrived, the Jadis JD-1 Mk II and
JS-1 DAC (now being imported through
Pierre Gabriel, working out of Quebec)
showed up in Sea Cliff. As we were to
2 Oh, horrors, I am informed that three “improvements” have been made to the Stibbert—the newer version arrives four days after the final deadline for this issue.
110
learn, the units were the ones that
Gabriel had been using, and t’weren’t
long before the player’s mechanics went
ker-flooey and it had to be returned.
Thanks to problems with U.S. Customs,
among other things, we had to wait
until just before deadline to hear the
Jadis combo once again. If you’ve ever
heard any of Jadis’ tubed designs, you
won’t be surprised at its sound. Which is
big, expansive, and just plain gorgeous.
The price of $40,000 is a big leap forward, toward the peaks established by
Burmester, if not quite so stratospheric.
Jadis, now back in full swing after a few
years of great difficulty, has not lost its
touch. The sound is beautiful—uncolored, dynamic, and, like I said and Ed
Sullivan once did, really big. When I say
“uncolored” I mean without a sonic signature to either the yin or yang side of
just plain music, although in a way the
Jadis reminds me of the midrange sound
you get from a well-designed SET
amplifier, which is to say, romantic.
Most easy on the ears. It, like the
Stibbert, benefits from balanced operation. You won’t find any overt or noxious digital distortions, and I dare say if
the earlier Jadis digital gear had sounded like this, the era of feel-good digital
we are now beginning to enjoy would
have come years sooner.
47/Lab, which produced the Miyabi
moving-coil cartridge I quite admired
(and still do), has come out with a CD
player, the 47/Lab PiTracer, that despite
clunkiness in its mechanical operation
(the origins of which I still am unable to
pinpoint, and so I am not sure whether it
is somewhat unreliable or I am) is, just
maybe, the world-beater of digital play-
ers. I know of its excellences, but at this
point there is another contender in the
wings and I am going to have to, in short
order (in one of the next two issues), run
a survey pitting the best imports one
against the other. It is not as expensive as
the Jadis, nor does it have balanced outputs, nor do I have the room in this essay
to discuss the theory behind its operation, which is intriguing.
So why I am so impressed—sonically, so far? Let’s take one example. One
of my favored Mercurys of yore was the
LP entitled Winds in Hi-Fi, a Frederick
Fennell/Eastman disc, the first Mercury
stereo issue that had sweet, pure,
extended highs, particularly in the capturing of transients, like bells and the
overtone structure of winds and percussion, notably in the first and last cuts of
Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy and
111
the first and last movements of
Bernard Rogers’ knock-out Three
Japanese Dances. With the ASR in the
primary reference system (in Room
Three in Sea Cliff) this disc, along with
the Hanson Composer and His Orchestra,
showed me the strengths of the alternate digital universe. (It was Wilma
Cozart Fine, who oversaw the mastering of the Philips Mercury reissues,
who said, a decade or more ago, that
the CDs weren’t one whit inferior to
the analog LPs, that they just showed
alternate strengths—a notion I didn’t
buy until now.) But, for the first time,
with the 47/Lab PiT in play, the CD
has exactly the same balance, tonally,
as the LP I so cherish, down to the
exquisite high bells and high-frequency nuances that are just not audible
with the best of the other players. The
47/Lab sounds not only more precise,
112
in the sense of unstrained accuracy, but
more delicate when delicacy is
required, and more dynamically thunderous, especially in its taut articulation of the lows. This I did not expect.
With the 47/Lab, there is a sense of air
and freedom at the top that is unrivaled
in my experience with digital encoding,
which, to these ears, always fell short of
the kind of top-octave reality that
demarcates the “hi-fi” from the musical.
The player and its accompanying converter aren’t exactly a bargain—$28,500
for the combo, more if you must have
two of the extra power supplies for that
last word in refinement.
So, if it’s a final word you want
just now, sorry. I am setting up a comparative survey that will, in some
depth, compare, side by side, the
Jadis, the bargain-priced player from
Music Hall, the new Zanden from the
Pacific Rim, an improved Stibbert
Bluenote (yes, believe it or not, the
new one is said to sound even better),
and the 47/Lab, which we shall also
“better” with the addition of yet
another power supply.
Moreover, the American “response” has
just this day arrived, in the form of the….
Well, think that, for now, it’ll be my secret.
But it would be ironic, and perhaps even
fitting, if it turned out that it trumped all
those just given golden ears here.
I don’t think you are going to go
wrong, musically speaking, with any of
the top three I’ve discussed here (or with
the four-piece Lector, either). The cutting edge, in the metaphoric not the
sonic sense, is now a digital one—and
&
it’s about time.
HP would like to encourage you to write him
at [email protected]
Manufacturer Comments
Balanced Audio Technology VK600SE Power Amplifier
We would like to thank Robert Harley
for his thorough review of our reference
VK-600SE monoblock power amplifiers.
Robert commented on the “transparent
palpability” of the sound of the VK600SE and in this regard, it is interesting to note how Balanced Audio
Technology strives to achieve this transparency and palpability independent of
whether the devices employed are tube
or solid-state. Indeed, one can listen to
our
reference
VK-150SE
tube
monoblocks and upon immediately
switching to the VK-600SE, be surprised not by the difference in sound,
but by the remarkable similarity that has
been achieved across our solid-state and
tube designs. Simplicity of design contributes to this convergence in reproduced music and upholds the principle
that there is but one Absolute Sound. All
Balanced Audio Technology products
strive towards this ideal. For example,
our VK-250SE reviewed by Wayne
Garcia in Issue 156, uses the same circuit
topology as the venerable VK-600SE.
Finally, we couldn’t agree more with
what Robert writes in his conclusion.
Steve Bednarski, Victor Khomenko,
and Geoff Poor
Balanced Audio Technology
Moscode 401HR Tube Hybrid
Stereo Amplifier
This is a happy day for Moscode Corp,
for my partner Gage Rommel, and for
Dr. Gizmo, who I know is looking down
with a huge grin on his kisser.
Jacob Heilbrunn’s comprehensive
and beautifully written review put the
401HR right in the frame. Regarding
tube rolling, we made the amp both
obsolescence-proof and tunable by
accommodating a wide range of tubes
giving the user more control over the
sound. Tuning the amplifier is essential
at this price point since every system is
so different.
Mr. Heilbrunn is exactly right
about the bass. We’re always looking for
ways to improve the Moscode
Experience, and we found one in the output stage biasing circuit. The new bias
design extends the ultra low bass
response by a factor of two resulting in
improved bass definition and punch.
This improved bias circuit can be found
in every 401HR we sell.
Jacob Heilbrunn’s hi-fi party with
audiophile friends brings to mind our
Moscode Referral Program, which
rewards 401HR owners for spreading
the word. And don’t forget, the amplifier comes with a no-risk 33 1/3 day inhome audition period.
George Kaye, Designer
Moscode
113
2005 Golden Ear Music Awards
W
elcome to our annual Golden Ear Music Awards, with each writer choosing three of his favorite records
released in 2005, giving equal consideration to musical and sonic merits. The selections aren’t meant as
the reviewers’ definitive top three from 2005, but as three of the year’s best.
BOB GENDRON
Edith Frost: It’s A Game. Rian Murphy,
producer. Drag City 301 (LP; also available on CD).
Wonder Wonder, captures the full spectrum of sonic hues and detailed moods.
While the CD is very good-sounding, the
LP shines—the brushed percussion, vocal
ripples, upright bass plucks, studio
echoes, and faintly reverb’d guitars shimmering before gradually decaying, as
they would in a club.
its own, its inherently distorted and
plink-planking tonalities spanning
avant-rock, electronica, Kraut, and mbira.
Nile: Annihilation of the Wicked. Neil
Kernon, producer. Relapse 6630 (two
LPs; also available on CD).
Konono No.1: Congotronics. Vincent
Kenis, producer. Crammed 27 (CD; also
available on LP).
ver since quitting her job as an
Internet programmer, turning solo,
and contacting Drag City in the mid’90s, Edith Frost has put her name to a
string of remarkable records—understated treasures that have substance, intimacy, soul, and none of the wallpaper boredom and audiophile-perfect sonicstreusel that afflict many of her female
singer-songwriter contemporaries. While
all of the 41-year-old’s previous releases
display her shifting stylistic interests and
poignant lyrics, none have the degree of
emotional vulnerability, granular tonalities, and warm organ washes of It’s A
Game, on which the Texas native makes
heartbreak a transcendent experience.
Delicate and exposed, Frost’s tender
singing is a combination of Neko Case’s
breathless crooning, Billie Holiday’s
nuanced balladeering, and Kelly Hogan’s
bravura-rich phrasing. Rather than
become angry in the face of breakups and
disappointment, she remains reserved,
her timbre conveying stark resignation,
beaten-down melancholy, mixed-up confusion, and lonely desperation. The
biggest twist resides in Frost’s music,
where gorgeous melodies and genre-defying arrangements contrast the dour narratives. Chamber pop, small-combo jazz,
vocal blues, indie rock, and weeping
country surface on 13 songs, expertly
played by musicians in sync with Frost’s
restrained approach. Rian Murphy, who
produced Frost’s scintillating 2001
E
116
gyptology is a field pursued by academics, paleontologists, museum
curators—and Nile’s Karl Sanders. The
guitarist/vocalist incorporates the discipline into his lyrics and Middle Easternaccented death metal, and on
Annihilation of the Wicked, goes to the
extent of writing detailed annotations on
historical figures that inspire difficultly
titled songs like “User-Maat-Re.” The
approach might be laughable if not for
the quartet’s expert musicianship,
unorthodox time signatures, and visionary sequences. Fixated on the ancients,
Sanders growls about crocodile gods,
megalomaniac pharaohs, and Books of
the Dead over a morass of harrowing riffs,
pummeling percussion, ominous chants,
and gong-clanging marches. Available on
a striking gatefold double-LP, the album
has a near-subterranean low-end and
exotic sounds aplenty—acoustic Greek
Bouzouki phrasings, furious live drum
blasts that reach up to 256 beats per
minute, ceramic Pazuzu Bowls, and
Turkish ouds. Told from the perspective
of Osiris’ doomed enemies, “The Burning
Pits of the Duat” contains swift, brutal
patterns that initially left Sanders with
such excruciating wrist pain, he feared
his career was over. Extreme metal at its
finest, Nile’s earth-quaking rumble
aptly conjures up scenes of temples
being shaken to the ground and mummies rising from tombs.
E
he year’s best D.I.Y. record comes not
from a New York City basement or hip
London neighborhood but from Kinshasha, in the Republic of Congo. Formed over
30 years ago, Konono No.1 is just now
making its American and album debut,
though the 12-piece group first captured
producer Vincent Kenis’ attention in 1980
after he heard it on a French radio station.
Twenty years passed before he finally located the group in Kinshasha, though the
music that originally gripped him was still
the same. Recorded outdoors on an Apple
computer and mixed with band members
at Kenis’ hotel, Congotronics captures
Konono No.1’s dynamic art, idiosyncratic
instruments, and one-of-a-kind amplification system—whereby Bazombo trance
and traditional African drone are wrought
from a trio of electric ikembes (thumb
pianos) that are plugged into homemade
microphones constructed of car-alternator
magnets, carved wood, and scrap, and then
fed through conical speakers that in the
West qualify as megaphones. Laden with
shaking dance grooves, modulated pitches, percussive polyrhythms (played on
drums comprising pots, pans, and junk
metal), recurring choruses, and metronomic vocals, the music takes on a life of
T
DERK RICHARDSON
Scott Amendola Band: Believe.
Amendola and Jeff Gauthier, producers.
Cryptogramophone 123.
ments, electric mbira, and melodica, as
well as traps and percussion), and meditative balladry inform these nine texturally complicated pieces. But no element
or influence sounds gratuitous or random, and the cinematic sonic mix, providing both high definition and warm
coherence, gives more than enough
detailed evidence—from solid bass
through misty atmospherics, thick guitar and violin overtones to delicately
ticking cymbals—to make any new listener a believer.
John Vanderslice: Pixel Revolt.
Vanderslice and Scott Solter, producers.
Barsuk 44 (two 180-gram LPs; also
available on CD).
ince he moved to San Francisco 13
years ago, drummer Scott
Amendola’s reputation has grown to
the point where he must be recognized
as a major composer and bandleader on
the experimental tip of jazz. While
playing pivotal supporting roles behind
a tremendous variety of musicians
(including Madeleine Peyroux, Pat
Martino, Dave Liebman, John Zorn,
and Bill Frisell) and in such guitar-centric bands as T.J. Kirk, the Nels Cline
Singers, and L. Stinkbug (with Cline,
G.E. Stinson, and Steuart Liebig),
Amendola has gradually forged his
eclectic sensibilities into an ensemble
aesthetic that’s as emotionally thrilling
as it is musically complex. While he
featured Eric Crystal’s saxophones on
his eponymous 2000 debut and 2003’s
Cry, for Believe he brought in AACM
and Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker to join
Nels Cline (six- and 12-string guitars,
lap steel) and Jenny Scheinman (violin)
as the third front-line voice, while he
and bassist John Schifflet lock, load,
and explode on the rhythm section.
Retaining starkly individual personalities—manifested in timbres and phrasing—these players mesh with an ease
that you might take for granted until
you realize how much diverse and challenging material Amendola throws in
their paths. Quirky Monk, funky Miles,
grungy Neil Young, noirish Morricone,
border-bashing exotica, scratchy avantgarde electronica (Amendola is a wiz
with loops, live electronics, treat-
S
118
boardist, and affectingly sweet and vulnerable vocalist, Vanderslice understands
how even auteurs rely on collaboration.
For Pixel Revolt, John Darnielle of the
Mountain Goats helped with the lyrics,
David Berman of Silver Jews came up
with some titles, and avant-jazz cellist
Erik Friedlander did the string arrangements. Vanderslice’s musical alter-ego
Scott Solter took care of abundant miscellany—E-bowed guitar, tape manipulation, organ, vibraphone, hand drums,
Wurlitzer, church bells, “sky saw” guitar—that helps make Pixel Revolt feel as
classic as David Bowie’s Hunky Dory or
Eno and Fripp’s Another Green World,
while more than measuring up to hip
contemporary standards.
World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love’s a Real
Thing—The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West
Africa. Various producers. Luaka Bop 52.
ohn Vanderslice is an analog fanatic to
the point of 86ing the ProTools rig
from his old-school Tiny Telephone
recording studio in San Francisco, stockpiling tape in his apartment during the
Quantegy crisis, and beseeching his label
to issue this, his fifth and best album, on
180-gram vinyl (500 numbered, doublegatefold LPs sold out in six days). So you
can be sure Pixel Revolt sounds great, as
deep and detailed as any pop record in
recent memory. More importantly,
Vanderslice exploits technology for profoundly human ends: The obsessive placement of meticulously orchestrated sound
well serves brilliantly conceived and realized songs that explore left-field themes (a
star-struck stalker, a wounded soldier losing his sense of mission in Iraq, an
escaped pet bunny, a journalist’s
encounter with an Iraqi hooker, a detective who suspects his colleague is a serial
murderer, and more) in sometimes
metaphorical, sometimes literal language.
A film buff as well as guitarist, key-
J
he hallucinogenic aural qualities
created almost accidentally by bent
intonations in the horn sections and
swirling multiple guitar lines in ’60s
and ’70s African pop music are more
deliberately pursued by bands gathered here, whether in their Hendrixlike feedback emulations, James
Brown-inspired screams, or Sly Stoneish interpolations. These are the
Senegalese, Gambian, Nigerian,
Ghanaian, Malian, and Guinean successors to the Seeds and Standells, contemporaries of latter-day Temptations,
precursors to Antibalas and Outkast,
and though the sometimes muffled
and out-of-whack mixes are too
ingrained to be remedied, this is definitely a case where sound is more than
sonics. Spell it with a capital “S”—
that stands for soul.
T
WAYNE GARCIA
Tom Brosseau: What I Mean To Say Is
Goodbye. Sam Jones, producer. Loveless 021.
imple, down-to-earth, and yet riveting in its beauty, Tom Brosseau’s
What I Mean To Say is Goodbye is the
sleeper CD of the year. The sweetvoiced North Dakotan’s music has the
kind of timeless and slightly weird
Americana feeling one hears in the best
work of, say, Gillian Welch, Tom
Waits, or Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes.
But Brosseau sounds like none of them.
Okay, the opening track, “West of
Town,” may recall the very early Dylan,
as might Brosseau’s rhythmic acoustic
guitar playing and occasional harmonica solos, but before cursing him with
that comparison let me underline that
Brosseau is his own man and, at 28, a
fully mature artist. What I Mean To Say
Is Goodbye is an intimate, almost fragile
musical journey that one minute might
whisk you away in a gentle waltz
(“Unfamiliar Places”) and the next
might conjure a tune from Tin Pan
Alley (“That’s When Your Heartache
Begins”). Sonics are first-rate.
Produced by Sam Jones (who directed
the Wilco documentary I Am Trying To
Break Your Heart), there’s an easy clarity, lack of grain, and sweetness to the
sound that we don’t normally hear
from CD. Brosseau’s vocals are
extremely well captured, as are the
instruments, which include heartbreakingly beautiful fiddles, organ,
piano, and harmonium. Only a slight
touch of dynamic compression and the
lack of the last degree of air keep this
from earning a five-star sonic rating.
Musically, it’s right there.
Lightnin’ Hopkins: Goin’ Away. Ozzie
Cadena, producer. Analogue
Productions/Bluesville 1073 (two
45rpm 180-gram LPs).
Neil Young: Prairie Wind. Young and Ben
Keith producers. Reprise/Classic
Records 49593 (two 200-gram LPs;
also available on a Reprise CD).
hough there were many tempting
reissue titles to consider for this
year’s Golden Ear Awards, I’ve selected this 1963 recording by Texas
blues great Lightnin’ Hopkins.
Recorded in a single day by Rudy
Van Gelder on a two-track Ampex
300 deck running at 15ips, Goin’
Away’s sound is as direct as the
music it contains. With Leonard
Gaskin on bass and Herbie Lovelle
on drums, Hopkins (on acoustic guitar) delivers eight of his own unusually beautiful yet still-earthy takes
on the blues. This is classic stuff,
steeped in the old traditions yet
somehow made fresh and contemporaneous by Hopkins, whose lyrics
were reportedly improvised on the
spot. As a guitarist, Hopkins was
remarkably fluid and subtle, and his
deft soloing here is notably sophisticated for an acoustic blues album.
Part of Acoustic Sounds’ 45rpm
Fantasy Series, Goin’ Home sounds
staggeringly natural. The soundstage is wide open, with Hopkins
and friends set out before us in a very
holographic space; instrumental textures are warm and detailed, as is
Hopkins’ richly oiled leathery voice.
Van Gelder managed to capture a
particularly lifelike dynamic scale on
this date, and because Lovelle’s drum
work is mostly on a brushed snare,
most good systems will sound great
with this musical and sonic treasure.
p until 2003’s Greendale, Reprise had
released each of Neil Young’s recordings on LP as well as CD. With that
label now eschewing vinyl, Classic
Records has picked up the slack, and
magnificently so, releasing Greendale,
the recent Greatest Hits package, and last
year’s Prairie Wind on gorgeous-sounding slabs of 200-gram vinyl. A mostly
acoustic album recorded in Nashville,
Prairie Wind is a beautifully crafted yet
loosely structured record that balances
introspective fireside ballads with a few
rollicking numbers, such as “Far From
Home” with its honking Memphisstyle horns, and the tasty-fun Elvis tribute, “He Was the King.” Arguably not
as accessible as Young’s two other
acoustic sets, Harvest and Harvest Moon,
some of Prairie Wind’s arrangements,
which might include swelling strings
(the title track) or backup singers (“He
Was The King” and “When God Made
Me”), take a while to settle in. As they
do, Prairie Wind reveals itself as a beautiful and deeply affecting record that
grows richer with each listen. The CD
version sounds very good, but the vinyl
is magnificent—intensely immediate,
spacious, clear, and detailed, with freeranging dynamics and a bottom end
that is well-defined while at the same
time sounding as if it’s going to drill a
hole through your floor and straight to
middle earth. The many-layered instrumental timbres are warm and natural, as
are Young’s and the other vocals.
S
120
T
U
ANDREW QUINT
Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky—complete
film music. Marina Domaschenko,
mezzo-soprano; Ernst Senft Choir.
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Frank
Strobel, conductor. Maria Grüatzel and
Christian Schwalbe, producers. Capriccio
71014 (hybrid multichannel SACD).
ne of the finest-sounding releases of
the year also happens to be among
the most interesting. Prokofiev’s
seven-movement Alexander Nevsky
“Cantata” is quite familiar but, until
now, we’ve been unable to actually
hear the original film score from
which the composer created the concert work. The music track for Sergey
Eisenstein’s 1938 epic—which celebrated the defeat of invading German
warriors in 1242 by Russian tribesmen
unified by Nevsky—is primitively
dim, almost to the point of being
unlistenable. Only recently was Frank
Strobel given access to the original
score to recreate the movie’s 27 musical cues. The orchestration is subtly
leaner than that of the Cantata, and
there’s a good deal of material in the
55-minute score that will be unfamiliar, such as the saxophone accompaniment to the hymn heard in the invader’s camp. The Berlin radio orchestra
and choral group perform very well
and Marina Domaschenko’s soulful
mezzo is just right for “The Field of
the Dead.” Sonics are clear and open,
with excellent choral/orchestral balances. Bells in “Novgorod” and
“Return to Pskov” ring out with
exceptional immediacy. The surround
possibilities are nicely exploited, with
the menacing “Teutonic horns” of the
attackers placed in the rear channels to
heighten the sense of a battle in
progress. Prokofiev wanted an ugly
sound for those horns and here, with a
combination of flutter-tonguing and
perhaps some intentional distortion,
the musical point is tellingly made.
Music for Organ, Brass, and Timpani.
Anthony Newman, organist; Graham
Ashton Brass Ensemble. Steven Epstein,
producer. Sonoma SAC-001 (hybrid multichannel SACD).
achieves the seemingly impossible,
delivering the impact of the organ and
brasses, plus giving a marvelous sense
of the large space’s five- to six-second
reverberation time. There’s a feeling of
majesty and power, even when the
dynamic level isn’t loud. And when
the volume does increase, the effect is
always one of grandeur.
Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo
Violin. Julia Fischer, violin. Job Maarse,
producer. PentaTone 5186 072 (two
hybrid multichannel SACDs).
O
122
his audio spectacular—easily one of
the half-dozen best-engineered multichannel recordings I’ve heard—is the
first release from Sonoma Records, a
label started specifically to demonstrate
the potential of the SACD medium.
Producer Steven Epstein brought
together the distinguished keyboard
player Anthony Newman and a crack
brass ensemble led by trumpeter
Graham Ashton at New York City’s St.
Ignatius Loyola, home of a mighty
Mander pipe organ. The wonderful program offers effective arrangements by
Newman and Ashton of music from four
centuries, all played with style and
finesse. Highlights include the somber
and sonorous Solemn Entry of the Knights of
the Order of St. John by Richard Strauss and
a stately, ceremonial reading of Handel’s
Overture from Music for the Royal
Fireworks. There are also selections by
Gabrieli,
Bach,
Monteverdi,
Rachmaninoff, and a heart-stopping transcription of The Great Gate of Kiev from
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Engineer Richard King positioned the
brass and timpani in the organ loft, to
either side of the console. As promised in
the notes, the instruments emerge aurally,
from back to front. The recording
T
an music for one violin be as emotionally overwhelming as a Verdi
opera or Mahler symphony? Yes, if the
music is by J.S. Bach and the soloist is
Heifetz, Grumaiux—or Julia Fischer.
This 22-year-old’s career has taken off
on both sides of the Atlantic, and she
has both the transcendental technique
and deep insight needed for these six
profound works. Fast movements are
evenly and effortlessly played, the slow
ones poignantly shaped. The dances
dance. When there are multiple voices, Fischer makes the individual lines
as clearly defined as they would be by
an ensemble. Even with only a single
melody instrument, Bach’s underlying
harmonic structure is fully evident.
The great Chaconne from the D minor
Partita pulses and surges like a living
organism. The DSD encoding is tonally sumptuous; this recording could
easily demonstrate the possibilities of
multichannel to the unconvinced.
Listening first to the stereo and then
to the surround program reveals how
Fischer’s violin subtly gains in dimensionality and palpability, and the
nature of the venue, an Amsterdam
church, is more fully characterized.
C
ANDY DOWNING
Antony and the Johnsons: I Am A Bird
Now. Antony, producer. Secretly Canadian
105 (CD; also available on LP).
childhood idol George, the two soulsisters transforming the track’s simple sentiments into a touching
exchange that at a New York City
performance reduced the hardened
Reed to tears. It’s a record so fully
realized and expertly crafted that it’s
almost puzzling when, on “For Today
I Am A Boy,” Antony coos the line
“someday I’ll grow up and feel the
power in me.” With I Am A Bird, it’s
clear that he already has.
original “The Skin of My Yellow
Country Teeth,” it’s a reminder that a
major-label budget and years of studio
acumen can’t stand up to creativity
and the unchecked joy of youth. Feel
free to clap along.
Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy. Brian
Beattie and Okkervil River, producers.
Jagjaguwar 80 (CD; also available on LP).
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Clap Your
Hands Say Yeah. Adam Lasus and
CYHSY, producers. Self-released.
he cover of I Am a Bird Now, the
Mercury Prize-winning sophomore
album from Antony and the
Johnsons, features Peter Hujar’s
famous photograph of Candy Darling
on her deathbed. The black-andwhite shot of the cross-dressing Lou
Reed cohort, which at once captures
sadness, beauty, defiance, and sexuality, is the perfect depiction of
Antony’s music. His songs occupy
that middle ground between light
and dark, tackling everything from
gender confusion to loss to transformation. Over the course of the
album’s ten tracks, Antony wishes he
were a girl, a bird, and eventually, a
bird-girl. Despite the assistance of
nearly 30 musicians and guest
appearances from the likes of Lou
Reed and Boy George, the record
maintains an intensely personal feel,
the focus never straying from
Antony’s haunting voice, an instrument that calls to mind Billie
Holiday, Nina Simone, and Jeff
Buckley. While lively, the arrangements never revert to over-the-top
cabaret trappings. This marks a welcome change from Antony’s ambitious yet spotty self-titled debut, as
songs are now able to fully blossom
under his gentle hand. “Hope There’s
Someone” is one of the prettiest and
most moving tunes recorded this
year—a funeral torch song whose
beauty is heightened by the sparse
arrangement. “You Are My Sister”
finds Antony trading verses with his
T
124
aking its title from the Tim
Hardin song of the same name,
Black Sheep Boy is an elaborate songcycle that veers between bloodthirsty revenge (“Black”) and defeated acceptance (“Stone”). Okkervil
River, gelled by years of near-constant touring, imbue these tunes
with a down-home mix of lap steel,
pump organ, mandolin, and
Wurlitzer that belie the complexity
of singer/guitarist Will Sheff’s
wordy verses; few could sing the line
“He’s the thrill of the abecedarian”
and make it catchy. The production
qualities are exceptional, with a
wide soundstage and clear separation
between instruments. Special care is
given to the surprisingly elegant
string arrangements. Wisely, Sheff
remains the focal point, his voice
often riding into the red in barelytempered emotional outpourings.
Just listen to the eight-minute “So
Come Back I Am Waiting” where
Sheff, backed by the light strum of
an acoustic guitar, unravels into a
modern-day King Lear. It’s here
where his cry of “there are plenty of
ways to know you’re not dying”
nails down the concept behind Boy:
the singular act of feeling helps us
to know we are human.
T
ndie D.I.Y. at its best, the unfortunately named Clap Your Hands Say
Yeah managed to sell more than
20,000 copies of its debut album
without so much as a distributor. (The
band now has a distribution deal with
Warner Music, but no record label as
of yet.) As such, the production is
noticeably lo-fi, though the exuberance of these twenty-somethings more
than makes up for the lack of pop in
the drums. Plus, Alec Ounsworth’s
love-’em-or-hate-’em vocals always
sound as crisp as a pressed Oxford.
“Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away”
establishes the band’s funhouse
approach, guitars whirring and
buzzing like the spinning gears of a
tilt-a-whirl. On “Upon This Tidal
Wave of Young Blood,” Ounsworth
channels David Byrne with the accuracy of someone being fit for his own
Big Suit. Indeed, Clap Hands often
sound like a twitchier Talking Heads,
but the songs never come across as
derivative. And when the band strikes
out on its own, as on the refreshingly
I
DAN DAVIS
Mendelssohn: Complete String Quartets.
Pacifica Quartet. Judith Sherman, producer. Cedille 90000082 (three CDs).
Vivaldi: Bajazet. Soloists, Fabio Biondi,
conductor. Nicolas Barthelomée, producer. Virgin 45676.
Geza Anda: Troubadour of the Piano.
Various Works. DG Original Masters
4775289 (five CDs).
he Mendelssohn String Quartets
are getting more attention these
days. There are seven, plus an eighth
cobbled together from four separate
movements, and they’re among the
finest examples of post-Beethoven
string quartets of the nineteenth century. Recent sets by the Talich and the
Emerson Quartets seemed to make
any new one superfluous, but this collection by a less-well-known
American foursome is at least as good
as the Talich, while the Pacifica’s
warmer, more varied tonal resources
make it superior to the acclaimed
Emersons. First violinist Simin
Ganatra leads with verve, her stunning solos a perfect component of an
ensemble sound that gives inner and
lower voices their due. The Pacifica
adds to its timbral appeal an abundant
energy and the Old World virtue of
humane musicality. Listening to these
works, you feel the players love and
understand them, and they make you
do so, too. They’re also alive to the differences among the Quartets, so that
the earliest of the group, written when
Mendelssohn was 14, is appropriately
given Haydnesque proportions while the
larger-scaled works get the right blend
of gravity and drive. Scherzos zip along
with air-borne finesse; slow movements
are soulful without dragging. The sound
is first-class, well balanced with a transparency that reveals details in a natural
manner that contributes to the “you are
there” perspective. A wonderful threefor-two bargain.
his selection stands for one of the
great discoveries of the CD era, the
revival of Vivaldi’s operatic output,
pioneered by labels like Opus 111
and Virgin. The plot of Bajazet pits
the eponymous sultan against the
despot Tamerlane, and features a bevy
of complications and twists. This
opera is really about singing, one luscious aria following on the footsteps
of another, virtually all quality
examples of virtuoso Baroque
singing. Sample mezzo Viveca
Geneaux’s “Quel guerriero in campo
armato,” bristling with dazzling coloratura runs that leave you, but not
her, gasping for breath. The rest of
the cast is nothing less than fabulous. David Daniels, the Tamerlano,
made me forget my aversion to countertenors, and the other principals
are also terrific, affecting in the contemplative arias, brilliant in the
extroverted ones. Don’t be put off
because the opera is a pastiche;
Vivaldi cobbled it together using
arias from leading composers of the
day along with his own, a common
practice of the time. Kudos to Fabio
Biondi, who guided this project and
added a few other Vivaldi arias to fill
holes in the score. Biondi leads a
scintillating performance, and his
period instrument band, Europa
Galante, plays with a drive and burnished tone few such groups can
match. Add engineering as vibrant
as the performance, and you get an
experience that shouldn’t be missed.
nda was one of the top pianists of the
1950s and ’60s, renowned for his
Mozart, Schumann, and definitive
Bartók interpretations. The album’s
title comes from a Furtwängler description of Anda’s playing and is confirmed
by these discs, crammed with keyboard
artistry ranging from the noble, largescale Brahms Second Piano Concerto
with Fricsay to virtuoso turns in
Schumann, for whom Anda had an
affinity and whose music comprises
about a third of this five-disc budgetpriced set. The Schumann’s are superbly
done and include first-rate interpretations of masterpieces like the Fantasy,
Kreisleriana, and more, including a fine
Concerto with Kubelik and two versions, from 1943 and 1963, of the
Symphonic Etudes. There’s also a
Chopin disc with some nice moments,
along with excellent Liszt and Bartók.
But my favorite disc is shared by
Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, a very
personal reading that finds often overlooked details and humor, and
Schubert’s great last Sonata, a compelling interpretation different in shape
and detail from what we’re used to
hearing, with a flowing first movement, wide dynamic range, and flexible
tempos. Almost everything is in stereo,
the mono items from the war years eminently listenable—remarkably fresh in
the 1943 Schumann Symphonic
Etudes, beautifully played but cottonwrapped in Franck’s Symphonic
Variations. This is one of the best of
Universal’s Original Masters series.
T
126
T
A
DAVID MCGEE
Dan Penn: Moments From This Theatre:
Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham Live.
Neil Brockbank and Bobby Irwin, producers. Proper Records 002.
wo giants of southern soul are finally captured on disc, playing together—Penn on acoustic guitar, Oldham
on the Wurlitzer piano—live before
audiences in Ireland and the U.K.,
when in 1998 they were opening on
tour for Nick Lowe and performing a
set composed mostly of songs they
wrote together—well, not songs, but
monuments that are defining
moments in the music they helped
shape in Memphis and Muscle Shoals
during the ’60s and ’70s. Penn plays
basic, straightforward rhythms on
acoustic guitar, Oldham adds eloquent
filigree on the Wurlitzer, and Penn
gets the messages across with husky,
blues-tinged vocals that are mesmerizing in their plainspoken expressiveness—never imitative of the originals
but singular interpretations, righteous
and magnificent on their own terms.
Oldham steps into the vocal spotlight
once, for a sly, winking rendition of a
suggestive treat he co-wrote with
Freddie Weller, “Lonely Women Make
Good Lovers,” immortalized by Bob
Luman in 1975. Penn does some
amazing things, like digging into
“Dark End of the Street” and “It Tears
Me Up,” honoring James Carr and
Percy Sledge, respectively, with rich
gospel-inflected readings, as his rhythmic phrasing and the duo’s lively
rhythmic attack summon the buoyant
spirit of Otis Redding. With their
instruments and voices close-miked,
T
128
Penn and Oldham’s performances have
a dramatic immediacy made doubly
potent by the resonance of their songs.
A slow, deliberate version of James and
Bobby Purify’s “I’m Your Puppet” and
a gently swaying take on the Box Tops’
“Cry Like a Baby” reveal the heartache
that lay in the shadows of the hit versions’ upbeat arrangements. And
check out Penn’s voice morphing into
Sam Cooke’s on “I’m Living Good,”
particularly when he soars into those
“whoa-whoa” fills with the assurance
of the master himself (who, by the
way, did not record the song). All the
human emotions are in play, eloquently articulated, carefully explored, and
beautifully realized. An unexpected,
absolutely essential gem.
surgical precision to achieve a visceral impact further heightened by the
delicacy of the song’s shuffling,
acoustic-driven arrangement. Love
songs, topical songs, a calming cover
of Dylan’s “Shelter From the Storm”
(with Emmylou Harris), and a supporting cast equally at home in bruising rock ’n’ roll, folk, and contemporary country styles elevate Crowell and
The Outsider onto a plane where the air
is rarified, the message vital, and the
music timeless.
June Carter Cash: Church In the
Wildwood: A Treasure of Appalachian
Gospel. John Carter Cash, producer.
Dualtone 80302012192.
Rodney Crowell: The Outsider. Crowell
and Peter Coleman, producers.
Columbia 94470.
ith Johnny Cash being all the rage
this year, it’s tempting to list one
of the Man in Black’s excellent retrospectives here, but let’s all agree that
those discs would rank with any
year’s favorites, and focus instead on
the underappreciated work of June
Carter Cash as a solo artist. This second volume of a two-disc overview of
Carter’s late-life, John Carter Cashproduced sessions is, intentionally or
not, the story of the Carter Family
from its inception to the present day.
Most of the tunes are by one Carter or
another, and various Carter kin—
blood and honorary (such as Johnny’s
former son-in-law Marty Stuart)—
show up to make it happen in stirring
fashion. From an old-time gospel rendition of A.P. Carter’s “Anchored in
Love” (featuring A.P.’s offspring Joe
and Janette Carter) to June’s spare
rendering of “Will the Circle Be
Unbroken,” this collection speaks to
fundamental needs with the power of
mighty waters.
W
he artist who threatens to be the
champeen Texas alpha-male singersongwriter of his generation delivers
nothing less than his most fully realized
literary and musical work on The
Outsider. In ruminations alternately
scalding and plaintive, Crowell makes
the personal political and takes the
political very personally. Other writers
will have to go a ways to capture the
spiritual and emotional temper of the
times better than Crowell does in the
Irish-tinged howl “We Can’t Turn
Back,” the merciless, hard-driving
“Don’t Get Me Started,” and somber,
sober proverbs of “Ignorance Is the
Enemy.” By the same token, in the lilting, wistful reminiscences of “Glasgow
Girl” Crowell plumbs depths of yearning and longing in lyrics crafted with
T
FRED KAPLAN
Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra: Live at
the Jazz Standard—Days of Wine and
Roses. David Baker, producer.
ArtistShare.
label of 10 years, Enja, to join the artistowned consortium, ArtistShare. This
and all her other albums are available
only through artistshare.com and mariaschneider.com.
Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk
Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie
Hall. T.S. Monk and Michael Cuscuna, producers. Mosaic MQ1-231 (200-gram LP).
fessional engineers for the Voice of
America—though, for some reason, it
was never broadcast and soon after
forgotten. (I’ve never seen a reference
to the concert in seemingly comprehensive discographies.) The bass is a
bit veiled, dynamics are slightly constricted, and the tape is mono, but it
sounds good; the deficiencies don’t
get in the way. The album is commercially available as a CD on Blue
Note. Mosaic’s 200-gram LP sounds
warmer, airier, and more detailed.
Brad Mehldau Trio: Day Is Done.
Mehldau, producer. Nonesuch 79910.
aria Schneider is the big-band
composer of the moment.
Influenced less by Ellington or Basie
than by Gil Evans and Bob
Brookmeyer, her music is luscious,
dreamy, ripe with stacked harmonies,
and yet also propelled forward by clear
melodies and insistent rhythms. Her
2004 Grammy-winning album,
Concert in the Garden, was her most
impressionistic to date. This latest
CD, recorded in 2000 but not released
till late this year, is more tuneful—
four of the nine tracks are her arrangements of standards—but no less rich
and mysterious. It was recorded at the
Jazz Standard, one of New York City’s
most acoustically satisfying clubs, and
mixed, on the spot, live to two channels—a hair-raising task. Yet it’s
Schneider’s best-sounding album:
clear, dynamic, tonally true, perfectly
balanced. Manning the controls was
David Baker, a prominent studio engineer with audiophile leanings who
died last year. The album is a tribute
as much to him as to Schneider—a
model of how a live concert can be
captured without resort to electronic
sleight-of-hand or post-production
fixes. Schneider was booked in the
club for a week; the first two nights,
Baker worked on the balances, consulting with Schneider after the sets;
after that, they rolled for real and, after
the week was done, picked the best
takes. Two years ago, Schneider left her
M
130
his live recording of a November
1957 concert—the tapes for which
were believed long-gone until a routine archival search at the Library of
Congress turned them up—turns out
to be one of the greatest jazz albums
of all time. The quartet had been
playing at a club downtown nearly
every night for the previous four
months, and it rips and sails through
the knottiest Monk classics—
“Nutty,” “Epistrophy,” “Crepiscule
with Nellie,” “Monk’s Mod”—with
more freedom, discipline, lyricism,
and intensity than ever before, by this
or any other band. Drummer Shadow
Wilson and bassist Ahmed AbdulMalik are barely mentioned in most
accounts of this quartet, probably
because they play rather perfunctorily
on the band’s one studio album
(Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane,
recorded a few months earlier). Yet
here they reveal verve, authority, and
a creative flair. Check the concertalbum’s two versions of “Epistrophy.”
On the first, Wilson lays down a
Latin groove; on the second, he
weaves a complex, jagged rhythm; in
both, the band follows suit. On the
studio album, he just rat-a-tat taps
the basic beat. This is not some amateur bootleg. It was recorded by pro-
T
’ve long had mixed feelings about
Brad Mehldau, the wunderkind jazz
pianist of 10 years’ standing. He’s
clearly a virtuoso, but sometimes he’s
too eager to flaunt his genius, putting
the music in service of his filigree,
not the other way around. But this
CD is a gem. It consists mainly of
pop and show tunes, yet Mehldau
avoids the common trap of rock-jazz
“fusion,” respecting the spirit and
integrity of the songs but infusing
them with jazz idiom, as if they’ve
been jazz standards all along.
Mehldau has pulled off something of
a revival of what jazz masters routinely did in the ’40s and ’50s, though
he’s brought the practice up to date,
drawing on Radiohead, Nick Drake,
and The Beatles instead of Porter,
Gershwin, and Kern. Bassist Larry
Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard
play with, off, and against him. The
sound quality, overseen by veteran
engineer James Farber, is bracing,
and gets both the harmonic bloom
and percussive snap.
I
m u s i c
CLASSICAL
Classical Caps
Beethoven: Razumovsky Quartets, Op. 59,
Nos. 1–3. Tokyo String Quartet. Robina G.
Young, producer; Brad Michel, engineer.
Harmonia Mundi 807423-24.
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHHH
f you can
remember
when the Tokyo
String Quartet
consisted of four
string
players
from Tokyo—
including two guys named Harada, now
both gone—then you have been on the
scene for at least 25 years. The group
itself, reformed several times (most
recently in 2002, when Martin Beaver
joined as first violinist), has been around
since 1969 and still has its original violist,
Kazuhide Isomura, and a second violinist,
Kikuei Ikeda, who might as well be original, having taken his seat in 1974. But
while its “inner voices” have been the
same for the past three decades, the
group’s character, and its approach to
Beethoven, has changed dramatically—
and on balance, for the better. This recording marks the beginning of a new partnership with Harmonia Mundi (specifically its American wing and resident producer Robina Young), and holds out the
promise of marvelous things to come.
Starting with the Razumovsky
Quartets is itself a savvy move. They
remain Beethoven’s most popular essays
in the genre, symphonically grand in
scale (particularly the first of the set, in
F), intensely emotional, powerfully
argued, and full of exciting compositional and harmonic gambits. They are particularly notable for the way they push
the envelope of string-quartet “sound,”
and it is here that the Tokyo’s approach is
most evidently different when compared
with its 1989-90 traversal of the middle
quartets for RCA Red Seal. The old
Tokyo players were the epitome of rectitude and polish, with a sound close to
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14.
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14
(“Death and the Maiden”). Juilliard
String Quartet. Peter Dellheim,
original producer. Testament 1373.
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHH 1/2
I
Debussy: String Quartet. Ravel:
String Quartet. Webern: Five
Movements for String Quartet;
Six Bagatelles for String Quartet.
Juilliard String Quartet. Dellheim,
original producer. Testament
1375. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHH
Tokyo String Quartet
Mozartean. The new gang is much more
colorful and dramatic, its playing less
fine-grained and more robust. Indeed,
cellist Clive Greensmith, who joined the
group in 1999, verges on rough-hewn in
places. The readings, while similar in
terms of tempo, are more aggressive and
propulsive, asserting a much bigger
dynamic range and making more of local
dynamic emphases. The sound is still
well varnished, but you wouldn’t call it
Mozartean any more. All three works are
engagingly presented. The E minor quartet, Op. 59, No. 2, is especially well
done; its slow movement, the lengthiest
in the whole set, receives a performance
that is particularly heartfelt.
There is a superb immediacy to the
recorded sound—the foursome’s presence
in soft dynamics is uncannily real—and
balances are consistent across all 12
movements, an advantage that comes
with packing sessions into four consecutive days. The atmosphere is close to
ideal: on the dry side so that detail
emerges, but sufficiently live to create
TED LIBBEY
space around the group.
FURTHER LISTENING: Beethoven: Middle
Quartets (Tokyo); Beethoven: Early
Quartets (Tokyo)
ere at last are reissues of the Juilliard
Quartet’s long-neglected recordings
made for RCA in the late 1950s and early
1960s during the relatively brief hiatus
that interrupted its years with Columbia.
Although the quartet made its mark with
20th Century music, especially Bartók and
Schoenberg, the Juilliard’s lean, clean, and
energetic playing style was as salutary in
its performances of the Viennese classics.
The ensemble need fear no comparisons in
the Beethoven, where its accuracy and
rhythmic command produce an exciting
performance. In the mighty Andante
movement, the musicians make the big
theme sing, expertly master the transitions
between the variations, and fully convey
Beethoven’s gruff, off-beat humor as well
as the darker moments. The Juilliard’s
Presto movement is downright funny, and
will bring a smile to your face with its perfectly timed stops and starts, as well as awe
at the accuracy of the fugal playing in the
Finale. The Schubert is on the same
H
133
m u s i c
classical
level—vigorously dramatic, as deathobsessed as the composer wished it to be,
and brilliantly virtuosic.
The Debussy-Ravel pairing has had
many fine recordings, including one
made 30 years later for Sony by the
Julliard, whose members still included
founder Robert Mann at first violin. That
later digital recording is somewhat more
expansive, “impressionistic,” and its
sound more diffuse. I may be among the
minority that prefers these earlier
Juilliard versions, with their greater
transparency and directness that benefits
both works as well as the gnomic Webern
pieces that complete the program.
The sound on both of these reissues
is upfront and vivid, almost too much
so in the Ravel, where the violin
approaches shrillness in its higher
reaches. The busy pizzicato movements
of the Debussy and Ravel feature complexities well-realized by the unnamed
original engineers, and the Debussy
ends with a plucked cello note that
hangs in the air before slowly fading
away. In the Beethoven-Schubert, the
inner voices come through loud and
clear, without undue exaggeration, a
product of both players and engineers.
Best of all, more Juilliard Victors are on
the way from Testament. DAN DAVIS
FURTHER LISTENING: Beethoven:
Complete String Quartets (Quartetto
Italiano)
RECORDING OF THE ISSUE
Mozart: Sonatas for Piano and Violin.
Hilary Hahn, violin; Natalie Zhu, piano.
Thomas Frost, producer; Stephan Flock,
engineer. Deutsche Grammophon 04771.
Music: HHHH 1/2 Sonics: HHHH
bout a decade
ago, when she
was just starting
to make a splash
in the music
world, I stuck my
neck out (in
front of several million NPR listeners)
A
134
and enthused mightily over the playing of Hilary Hahn. The last time I
had done something similar for a 16year-old violinist had been in 1980,
for Anne-Sophie Mutter. I never
regretted going ape for Anne-Sophie,
and see no reason to pull my neck in
now on account of Ms. Hahn, who will
have turned 26 by the time this review
sees print. Without question she is one
of the finest, most capable, and most
sensitive violinists on the concert
stage today.
But do note the title that goes with
the works heard on this disc—the
sonatas in F, K. 376, in G, K. 301, in E
minor, K. 304, and in A, K. 526. They
are sonatas “for piano and violin,” and
the accomplishment here is shared by
Natalie Zhu, who has partnered Hahn
in recital for exactly half of Hahn’s life,
since the two were students at the
Curtis Institute. In a prefatory note to
the recording that is as remarkable for
the quality of its thought as for the
skill shown in the writing, Hahn points
out that this sally into Mozart’s sonatas
was not occasioned by the arrival this
year of the 250th anniversary of the
composer’s birth, but was the result of
her having “wanted to record these
sonatas for a long while, for various personal reasons.” What she doesn’t say,
but is clear enough from what happens
when the disc goes into the drawer, is
that, young as they are, she and Zhu
have known and played this music for a
long while, too.
The trick with these pieces is to let
them speak for themselves, and these
accounts do just that. They are lyrical,
beautifully phrased, rhythmically alert,
and in a word, articulate. Where a flamboyant treatment of a run is called for,
it’s there. But the temptation to get
flashy is avoided, and Hahn repeatedly
and tastefully defers to Zhu when the
piano has the important thing to say.
The two play as one. Mozart would have
asked for just that.
The recording is deliciously close. It
puts you in the page-turner’s seat, close
enough to hear everything. The piano’s
bass notes are extraordinarily firm (you
feel them in your chest) and its tone in
the middle and upper range soft and
bell-like. Hahn’s violin sounds wonderfully rich, but not oversized. Like oil,
TL
Mozart would have said.
FURTHER LISTENING: Elgar: Violin
Concerto (Previn); Mozart: Sonatas
(Grumiaux and Klien)
SACD
Sibelius: The Symphonies. Gothenburg
Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, conductor. Sid McLauchlan and Lennart
Dehn, producers; Michael Bergek, engineer. Four hybrid multichannel SACDs.
Deutsche Grammophon 289 477 5688.
Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHH
eeme Järvi
recorded the
seven
Sibelius
symphonies over
twenty years ago
for BIS, with this
same orchestra,
in early digital sound that even now
holds up surprisingly well. So why do
it again, other than to exploit the notinconsequential improvements in
audio technology of the past two
decades? Because Järvi surely has a special affinity for this music. These performances are very much of a piece, yet
demonstrate extremely well the
progress of the composer’s symphonic
conception over the span of a quarter
century. The first two works, “nationalistic” in spirit, really belong to the
Romantic era while the remaining five
are manifestly “modern” and stylistically progressive. Like Mahler’s, every
one of Sibelius’ symphonies creates a
different world and Järvi captures the
unique character of each.
Not that the conductor’s ideas about
the music haven’t changed over time.
The new recording of Symphony No.
2—the composer’s best-known—is considerably more expansive than the 1983
version, and almost five minutes longer.
Some of the craggy, Scandinavian grittiness is missing, as in the more turbulent
N
m u s i c
sections of the second movement which
lack the electricity that others (including Järvi previously) have brought to the
material. But other performances are
hard to beat. The dark, brooding, atmospheric rendition of the Fourth—again,
longer than many; six minutes beyond
Ashkenazy’s, for instance—is enormously effective, and the opening movement
of the Fifth is brilliantly paced, with the
tricky tempo transitions nicely negotiated. The crystalline textures of No. 6, the
composer’s response to the natural world
outside his home in the Finnish countryside, are beautifully rendered—brac-
ing, like cold, clear mountain water.
Järvi brings off the concise yet substantial Seventh as, to quote the notes
accompanying this set, a “profound
meditation on sonic process.”
The
Gothenburg
Symphony
Orchestra, an ensemble Sibelius himself
conducted many times, has improved
upon its already high level of accomplishment; it’s truly a world-class institution. The performances of Nos. 1 and
2 derive from live concerts, though
you’d never know it. The recording was
a 48kHz 24-bit PCM encoding. While
the sound is non-fatiguing, with loads
classical
of “air” and dynamic nuance, massed
string sound isn’t as convincing as highresolution techniques can deliver—this
despite a top end that’s actually a little
soft. Solo instruments are gorgeously
portrayed, as with the lone clarinet that
begins the First Symphony. The 5.0
multichannel presents outstanding
front-to-back soundstaging: strings,
then winds, then brass and percussion
are right where they should be.
ANDREW QUINT
FURTHER LISTENING: Sibelius: Complete
Symphonies (Davis); Tubin: Complete
Symphonies (Järvi)
MUSIC EDITOR BOB GENDRON’S SYSTEM BAT VK-300x integrated amplifier; Gallo Nucleus Reference3 loudspeakers; Rotel RSX-1065 receiver; Sony SCD-CE775 SACD player; Panasonic DVD-RP91 DVD-A player; Clearaudio
Champion turntable; Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridge; Bright Star Audio IsoRock GR3 speaker supports;
Synergistic Research, MIT, Monster Cable, and Audioquest cables and interconnects; SolidSteel 5.5 rack
137
m u s i c
JAZZ
Jazz Caps
Jim McAuley: Gongfarmer 18. Scott
Fraser, recording. Nine Winds 236.
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHHH
or a musician
whose name is
likely to be recognized by less than
one percent of
even jazz cognoscenti, Jim McAuley is capable of bringing pleasure to
the ears of a large number of guitar fans—
at least those listeners who share the same
passion for the instrument’s expressive possibilities manifest in the music of Nels
Cline, Fred Frith, John Fahey, Derek
Bailey, and, at times, Pat Metheny.
McAuley has appeared on one previous
CD, the hard-to-find Jim McAuley Acoustic
Guitar Trio (on Bailey’s Incus label), with
fellow southern Californians Cline and Rod
Poole. What he lacks in public profile (and,
one gathers, career ambition), McAuley
more than makes up for in fretboard savvy,
digital dexterity, and musical imagination.
On the cryptically titled Gongfarmer 18, he
plays a variety of nylon- and steel-string
acoustic guitars—a Ramirez classical, a
Collings six-string, a Guild12-string, and a
prepared Marquette parlor. Under his
touch, each responds the way canvas and
paint did to Jackson Pollack, yielding textures, colors, and patterns that reflect the
mysterious, frightening, and beautiful
logic of a singularly creative mind.
But one McAuley style or sound is not
readily identifiable in his pieces—bearing
such evocative titles as “Dark Blooming,”
“Stately Chords,” “Eyelids of Buddha,”
“Kneebounce,” and “Before Thought”—
the way the distinctive guitaristics of
Fahey, Leo Kottke, or Alex DeGrassi
might be. His eclecticism embraces everything from Spanish classical music to
20th century minimalism, blues and folk,
Indonesian gamelan, and pure improvisation, while his technical prowess allows
him to seamlessly blend idioms.
F
Robert Glasper
The recording puts the guitars
vividly at center stage, allowing the timbres of individual strings to ring
through, capturing the dense textures
and lush overtones of the 12-string, and
permitting a sharp focus on McCauley’s
delicate melodies, layered (not overdubbed) arpeggios and harmonies, rubbery bends, and sonic-shrapnel blasts.
DERK RICHARDSON
FURTHER LISTENING: Various Artists: 156
Strings; Various Artists: Imaginational
Anthem
Robert Glasper: Canvas. Eli Wolf, producer. Blue Note 77130. Music: HHH 1/2
Sonics: HHH
aking a name
in both jazz
and hip-hop circles, pianist Robert Glasper has
worked
with
everyone from
M
Terence Blanchard to Mos Def, Roy
Hargrove to Q-Tip. But on Canvas, his
new piano-trio recording, he paints with
a decidedly straight-ahead jazz palette.
His pairing with bassist Vincente Archer
and drummer Damion Reid, with guest
appearances by tenor Mark Turner and
vocalist Bilal, has drawn rave reviews and
favorable comparisons to Brad Mehldau
and Jason Moran. Yet Glasper has a
warmer, more lyrical touch and carefree
bounce that sets him apart from his more
self-consciously heady counterparts.
Here, he offers nine originals and a
cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Riot,” a nod
to an artist who has exerted an obvious
influence. On the title track, clocking in
at nearly 10 minutes, Glasper shows his
ability to interestingly build on simple
ideas. Indeed, as the Houston native’s
follow-up to his 2004 debut Mood,
Canvas reveals a sensitive bandleader,
composer, and player (piano, Fender
Rhodes, kalimba) deeply grounded in
the melodicism of such 1960s greats as
Vince Guaraldi and early Bill Evans, but
141
m u s i c
jazz
also displaying a touch of Art Tatum’s
speed and swing on the appropriately
titled opener, “Rise and Shine.”
There is often a reflective quality to
these tunes, especially the ethereal “Portrait
of an Angel,” syncopated “Chant” (which
utilizes slight splashes of processed vocalizations), and flowing “I Remember.” The
latter, which closes the album, is built
upon an uplifting chromatic progression
that epitomizes everything Glasper’s
artistry is about—an almost angelic lyricism connected to the warmth of nineteenth-century Impressionist painters
rather than to the cold angular minimalism
of many of his contemporaries. While his
compositions can sometimes stray too close
to his influences, Glasper has remarkable
promise and is at this early juncture a
refreshing new talent.
Sonically, the acoustic piano is uncannily lifelike, the lower register tight and
punchy. The recording features a full aural
spectrum, though the soundstage is crowded on the propulsive numbers. GREG CAHILL
FURTHER LISTENING: Robert Glasper:
Mood; Geri Allen: Etudes
Andrew Hill: Time Lines. Michael Cuscuna,
producer; Dae Bennett & Brian Dozoretz,
engineers. Blue Note 35170.
Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHH 1/2
ndrew Hill is a deeply idiosyncratic
pianist-composer whose angularity
makes Thelonious Monk smooth-sailing
by comparison. He’s a sort of de
Kooning to Monk’s Mondrian or Cecil
Taylor’s Jackson Pollack, dabbing and
slashing strange lines and colors that,
after you gaze on them for a while, begin
to make a still stranger sense, indisputably logical and in their own way
lovely. It’s been almost 40 years since
Hill recorded for Blue Note, turning out
some of the most vital jazz albums of the
era. Since then, he’s taught on the West
Coast, made a spattering of records for
small fly-by-nights, returned to the
New York area, and launched a connoisseur’s comeback on Palmetto. Now he’s
back at Blue Note, and hat’s off to corporate boldness. Most big labels would
A
142
Andrew Hill
have used Norah Jones’ profits to recruit
more Norah Joneses; Blue Note has done
some of that too, but it’s also kept the
likes of Jason Moran, Don Byron, and
Hill, nearly 70 and as singular as ever.
Time Lines features a quintet, a smaller ensemble than usual these days, and
it’s a tauter, starker sound. Hill’s music
struts forward in fragments that at first
seem almost random. As a pianist, he
sometimes lays down extended melodies,
sometimes taps a single note, sometimes
plucks a chord or cluster; but listen
closely, a few times, and the pattern takes
shape. Hill has a mathematical mind
when it comes to harmony; in this sense
he’s much like Monk, and he learned a
bit from Hindemith, whom he met in
his youth. The album’s title refers to
Hill’s penchant for odd time-signatures,
but this music also has a timeless feel: at
once spacey and rigid, free-form yet
sternly geometric. It’s not purely cerebral; Hill coaxes a heady passion from
those bars, but immersion requires some
focus. It’s music at a simmer, not a boil.
Only rarely, more rarely than usual—in
the opener, “Malachi,” and a stirring ballad, “For Emilio”—does he stoke the
flames in a sustained way.
My biggest problem with this
album is some of the band members.
Greg Tardy, who’s played in Hill’s larger
ensembles, is a fine saxophonist and clarinetist, with a gorgeous tone and a keen
rhythmic sense. But this music seems a
stretch, especially in such an exposed a
setting. In too many solos, he gets stuck,
repeating phrases when he should be
shooting for the stars. It would be inter-
esting to hear what Greg Osby or Marty
Ehrlich, two other Hill reedmen, would
do with this material.
Otherwise, this is invigorating stuff, and
the engineers are fairly up to the task. The
bass is a bit ripe and the drums a bit compressed, but the horns sound 3-D. Hill’s
piano is particularly lush; you hear—practically see—the frame, the hammers, the
dynamics, and the overtones. FRED KAPLAN
FURTHER LISTENING: Andrew Hill: Passing
Ships; Greg Osby: Invisible Hand
Greg Osby: Channel Three. Osby, producer.
Blue Note 60671. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHHH
t. Louis-born
alto and soprano saxophonist
Greg Osby burst
upon the jazz
scene in the 1980s
as a member of the
vibrant M-Base Collective that spawned
Geri Allen, Steve Coleman, Cassandra
Wilson, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Gary
Thomas, and others. A bandleader since
1987, the talented Osby has staked out
his own territory among the hungry jazz
lions, becoming known for fearless experimental projects that incorporate hip-hop,
funk, and even a string quartet. Critics
haven’t always been kind toward these
eclectic offerings.
Osby’s 17th album is a straightforward, primarily acoustic affair. Channel
Three bears such TV-themed song titles as
“Vertical Hold” and “Test Pattern.” It
S
m u s i c
finds the 45-year-old reedman in a lean,
mean, pianoless trio along with bassist
Matt Brewer and longtime collaborator
Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums. These often
restless, sometimes groove-laden arrangements are sparse, stripped of all instrumental excess and frivolous excursions;
this is blues-tinged jazz distilled to its
essential ingredients and played with confidence by a maturing jazzman who never
has to rely on flash to get his point across.
Whether skipping across the top of a
roiling rhythm track (“Viewer
Discretion”) or traversing plaintive passages as filled with empty space as they
are with sound (“Diode Emissions”),
Osby transports the listener through
vividly imaginative soundscapes. On the
title track, with its fretless electric bass,
edgy soprano, and moody vocalizations,
Osby is at times reminiscent of Weather
Report-era Wayne Shorter, all assured
tone and flitting musical patterns that
burn with blue-hot intensity.
The soundstage is wide and deep,
with good separation and clarity. Osby’s
saxophones jog from the center while
Watt’s drum kit spans the sonic spectrum,
his brassy ride cymbal clanging from the
left channel and his high hat clattering
from the right. The acoustic bass is full
and punchy, but be prepared for sub-sonic
GC
levels on the electrified title track.
FURTHER LISTENING: Greg Osby: Art Forum;
Steve Coleman: On the Rising of the 64 Paths
Steve Lehman: Demian as Posthuman.
Lehman and Scott Harding, producers. Pi
Recordings 17. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHHH 1/2
Dingman, saxophonist Mark Shim,
bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Eric
McPherson were real-time interactions
that reflected his tutelage under
Anthony Braxton, Jackie McLean,
Oliver Lake, and Michele Rosewoman.
Here, for a brief 36 minutes, he shifts
his experimental intentions into the
realm of sequencing and programming. Three tracks—the opening
“Vapors,” the mid-CD “Logic—
Meshell,” and the concluding
“Community”—feature funky bandlike configurations that include Vjay
Iyer on piano, Jahi Lake on turntable
and electronics, Meshell Ndegeocello
on electric bass, and Eric McPherson
on drums. But for the remaining nine,
Demian as Posthuman is essentially a
solo affair for the alto saxophonist
(doubling on sopranino), with drummer Tyshawn Sorey underscoring and
accenting his experiments.
Three pieces—“Damage Mobility,”
“Cognition,” and “Logic”—are presented
jazz
in multiple guises, emphasizing the differing points of view that Lehman brings to
each version, the connective tissue supplied
by the full-bodied but tartly tinged sound
of his alto, with timbres occasionally echoing those of Braxton and Henry Threadgill.
Sometimes Lehman’s angular leaping horn
is heard solo, sometimes in harmonized
multitracks, sometimes against other “real”
instruments, and sometimes in relief
against beds of synthetic sound.
The sonics, at least partly the
domain of mixer Scott Harding (aka
Scotty Hard), emphasize this last, artificial quality, so while there’s a ripe, sensual tone to the reeds, there’s also a waxy luster—and slight emotional distancing—to
the overall sound. Spaciousness and precision are not sacrificed, and the electronic
effects have a pulsating Eno-like plasticity, while the subtle aural fog that permeates the soundstage has a pleasing, rather
DR
than off-putting, effect.
FURTHER LISTENING: Fieldwork:
Simulated Progress; Matthew Shipp: Nu Bop
third horizontal
1/3
AVGUIDE
TAS 158
P159
nly in his
mid-20s, saxophonist Steve
Lehman already
blows at the forefront of a new
generation of jazz
innovators coming up behind Marty
Ehrlich and Dave Douglas. The native
New Yorker’s 2003 recording with
bassist Mark Dresser and drummer
Pheeroan akLaff (Camouflage Trio), and his
denser date with vibraphonist Chris
O
143
m u s i c
POPULAR
Rock, Etc.
Neil Diamond: 12 Songs. Rick Rubin,
producer. Columbia 94776. Music: HHH
Sonics: HHH 1/2
y his own
admission,
the
original
“Solitary Man”
hadn’t played
guitar on an
album in nearly
a generation. At 64 and a grandfather,
Neil Diamond rode out the emotional
peaks and valleys of Top 40 radio
decades ago. Though he continued to
sell out arenas with his glitzy schtick
and loyal, Geritol crowd clamoring for
hits like “Cherry, Cherry” and “Song
Sung Blue,” no new recordings were in
the offing. Diamond was restless.
Enter hip-hop/rock producer Rick
Rubin and the beginning of a lengthy
courtship. Rubin’s track record was
already the stuff of legend. Not only had
he produced the Beastie Boys, Red Hot
Chili Peppers, and Jay-Z, but in one of
history’s unlikeliest collaborations,
Rubin’s recordings with country icon
Johnny Cash became spun gold, touching listeners with a haunting poignancy
illuminated by Cash’s failing health. If,
as has been reported, Diamond didn’t
immediately take to the idea of cutting
an acoustic album of original material
and playing guitar, he wasn’t the first
artist to underestimate the powers of
persuasion lurking behind the mask of
Rubin’s Zen-like serenity.
The result of the Diamond-Rubin
collaboration is 12 Songs, an intimate collection of the wistful, the bittersweet, and
the nostalgic—all underscored by
Diamond’s Brill Building soul, melodic
vibrancy, and optimism. Does artistic
lightning strike twice? Yes and no. On
the one hand Diamond’s voice remains
one of the great pop instruments of the
last 30 years, a baritone with weight, grit,
and surprising tenderness. The songs are
Preston, and percussionist
Lenny Castro, the spare guitar- and keyboard-oriented
arrangements are tastefully
accented with an occasional
filigree of horns and strings.
Diamond’s vocals are well forward, where every nuance
can be appreciated. And as
with most Rubin recordings, there’s a very good
sense of dimensionality and
NEIL GADER
dynamics.
B
144
FURTHER LISTENING: Bob
Dylan: As Good As I’ve Been
To You; Barbra Streisand:
Memories
Lewis Taylor: Stoned. David
Gorman, Michael Nieves, et
al., producers. HackTone/
Shout Factory 37422. Music:
HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHH 1/2
Neil Diamond
instantly and recognizably his. The theatrical “Hell Yeah” is Diamond as triumphant survivor in full Sinatra-esque
“My Way” mode. The talk-sung “I’m On
To You” conjures up the sly seductiveness
of Leonard Cohen, while “Save Me A
Saturday Night” is a charming slow
dance. And the retro-romping “Delirious
Love” is reminiscent of the pop-revivalist
fervor that kept stadiums swaying during
Diamond’s Beautiful Noise period.
But the second half of the album
grows maudlin, losing the quiet insight
and personalized focus that the first half
established. On 12 Songs, Diamond
doesn’t fully shed his showman
instincts. It’s a brave but controlled
effort by a man who only sporadically
seems fully at ease.
Accompanied by gold-standard sidemen like Mike Campbell and Benmont
Tench (both of Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers fame), keyboardist Billy
nlike most
soul albums,
Stoned
doesn’t
open with buttery horns or
come-hither
string sections.
Instead, the album kicks off with the
robotic buzz/hum of lab equipment,
sounding more Isaac Asimov than Isaac
Hayes. That’s not to say the album
sounds clinical, because it’s anything
but. Lewis Taylor has merely added his
own twist to a genre that has long been
in need of fresh ideas.
Already something of a cult figure
in the U.K., Taylor released his debut
album in 1996 and counts Elton John,
David Bowie, and D’Angelo among his
fans. Now, nearly a decade later, Taylor
makes his stateside debut with Stoned—
a re-sequenced version of his 2002
release, Stoned Pt. 1.
Taylor, a pasty Brit whose complex-
U
m u s i c
ion belies his soulful voice, spins elements of psychedelia, rock, and R&B
into a shimmering hybrid. Unlike
Jamiroquai, who treads some of the same
territory, Taylor never falls back on the
easy hook. The tunes are so nuanced and
effortless that the level of craftsmanship
isn’t readily visible. A song like
“Lovelight” builds to such an instantly
hummable chorus that the layered track,
which piles on acoustic guitar, keyboards, drum machines, bass, and “oohing” and “ahh-ing” backup singers,
sounds practically Spartan.
The album’s stellar production aids
this feel. The recording ensures that
instruments pop from the mix (check the
guitar line that kicks off “Shame,” streaming like molten metal). Vocals are handled
especially well, Taylor’s smooth singing
evoking soul luminaries like Stevie
Wonder, Don Isley, and Marvin Gaye.
Only on “Back Together,” a pedestrian attempt to score make-up sex, does
Taylor veer into predictability. Better is
the carnal come-on of “Lovin U More,”
where he struts with Shaft-like confidence as the tune builds into a funky
house party that would put Kid N Play
to shame. And anyone who can write a
track as beautiful as “Lewis IV” deserves
to be heard in the States. The only
shame is that it’s taken this long.
ANDY DOWNING
FURTHER LISTENING: Donny Hathaway:
Everything Is Everything; Jamiroquai:
Traveling Without Moving
Either/Orchestra: Live in Addis:
Éthiopiques 20. Francis Falceto and Russ
Gershon, producers. Buda Musique
860121 (two CDs). Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHH
greatest “world music” series features a
jazz ensemble from Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Since its inception in 1998, the
Éthiopiques franchise has been a consistent source of musical revelation. Series
producer Francis Falceto actually began
reissuing vintage ’60s and ’70s soul- and
funk-infused pop from the East African
nation in 1994, and that’s when
Either/Orchestra leader, saxophonist,
and arranger Russ Gershon first felt it
infiltrate his consciousness. After introducing Ethiopian songs into its repertoire, Either/Orchestra garnered an invitation to the 2004 Ethiopian Music
Festival in Addis Ababa. Already energetically on a par with such dynamic
jazz units as the Mingus Big Band, the
ten-piece orchestra alternately roars and
wafts through a dozen tunes familiar to
the appreciative audience.
E/O members—including Gershon
on tenor and soprano, alto saxist Jeremy
Udden, baritone saxophonist Henry
popular
Cook, trumpeters Colin Fisher and Tom
Halter, and trombonist Joel Yennior—
dominate the instrumental solos in fine
style, but, with a rhythm section bolstered by guest percussionist Mulatu
Astatqé, the emphasis is on collective
momentum and drive. As if authenticity were a question when we’re dealing
with music whose transatlantic crossbreeding is long-lived and ongoing,
singers Bahta Gèbrè-Heywèt, Tsèdènia
Gèbrè-Marqos, and Michael Bèlaynèh
add eloquence and ebullience. And on
the second disc’s final two tracks, tenor
saxophonist Gétatchèw Mèkurya (featured on Négus of Ethiopan Sax:
Ethiopiques 14) tears up the proceedings
with raw tones.
The production catches the live
excitement and places the instruments
in a realistic, almost three-dimensional
aural space. But the impression of
“being there” also includes sonic imbalances—piano and percussion at a distance from the clear frontline horns, and
third horizontal
2/3
AVGUIDE
TAS 158
P161
o Brazilians,
Cubans, and
Indonesians, pop
sounds emanating from the
United
States
could rightly be
considered “world” music. So there’s an
especially sweet irony to the fact that the
20th installment of one of the all-time
T
145
m u s i c
popular
2005’s Best Rock, Jazz, and Classical Albums
Rock—Bob Gendron
Jazz—Derk Richardson
Classical—Andrew Quint
1
The National: Alligator.
Beggars Banquet (TAS 154)
Vijay Iyer: Reimagining. Savoy
Jazz (TAS 156)
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde.
Domingo. EMI (TAS 158)
2
Tom Brosseau: What I Mean
to Say Is Goodbye. Loveless
(TAS 156)
William Parker Quartet: Sound
Unity. Aum Fidelity
Mendelssohn:
Quartets/Octet. Emerson. DG
(TAS 153)
Common: Be. Geffen
(TAS 155)
Dave Douglas & Nomad: Mountain Passages. Koch (TAS 153)
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto.
Bell. Sony/BMG (TAS 157)
Edith Frost: It’s A Game.
Drag City (TAS 159)
Marty Ehrlich: News on the
Trail. Palmetto (TAS 158)
Albéniz: Iberia. Hamelin.
Hyperion (TAS 156)
The Hold Steady: Separation
Sunday. French Kiss
Derek Bailey: Carpal Tunnel.
Tzadik (TAS 158)
Mahler: Symphony No. 9. Tilson
Thomas. SFS Media
LCD Soundsystem: LCD
Soundsystem. DFA/Astralwerks
(TAS 153)
Scott Amendola Band:
Believe. Cryptogramophone
(TAS 159)
Bach: Partitas and Sonatas.
Fischer. PentaTone
(TAS 159)
Kanye West: Late Registration.
Rock-a-Fella
Jane Ira Bloom: Like Silver, Like
Song. Artists Share
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra.
Eschenbach. Ondine
Sleater-Kinney: The Woods.
Sub Pop
The Vandermark 5: The Color
of Memory. Atavistic
Scottish Fantasies. Pine.
Cedille (TAS 156)
High on Fire: Blessed Black
Wings. Relapse (TAS 154)
Charlie Haden Liberation
Music Orchestra: Not in Our
Name. Verve
Rósza: Choral Suites. Kunzel.
Telarc (TAS 154)
Carla Bley: The Lost Chords.
Watt
Weill: Symphonies 1 & 2.
Alsop. Naxos (TAS 158)
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
146
The White Stripes: Get Behind
Me Satan. Third Man/V2
(TAS 155)
m u s i c
popular
bass lines loping with ripe presence but
less-than-exact definition—none of
which, however, radically detracts from
the scintillating rave-ups.
DERK RICHARDSON
FURTHER LISTENING: Either/Orchestra:
More Beautiful Than Death; Mahmoud
Akhmed: Ere Mela Mela: Ethiopiques 7
The Living Blue: Fire, Blood, Water. Adam
Schmitt and the Living Blue, producers.
Minty Fresh 63. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHH
ith
the
Strokes
readying a comeback after Room
on Fire barely
caused a spark
and the White
Stripes skimping on guitars in favor of
bone-rattling marimbas and Elton Johnworthy piano ballads, it appears as if the
back-to-basics rock revival may be waning. The Living Blue, a quartet of
Champaign, Illinois twentysomethings,
pay no mind to these current trends,
attacking Fire, Blood, Water with the
brute force of a Jerome Bettis touchdown stampede.
Referencing everyone from the
Replacements to Led Zeppelin to the
Modern Lovers, The Living Blue avoids
sounding like a rock retread by cranking
the guitars and delivering an endless
stream of irresistible hooks. Stephen
Ucherek sings with an obvious sneer, his
lyrics touching on lying girls/governments (“Tell Me Leza”), the danger of
complacency (“One Beat”), and, quite
possibly, his failures as a gardener
(“Greenthumb”). Ucherek is ably
backed by a swinging rhythm section
and the revelatory playing of guitarist
Joe Prokop, who can make his six-string
roar like a jungle cat and still dial it
back to play a chunky blues riff when
needed—vide, the take-no-prisoners
stomp of “Conquistador.”
This comfort level with one another,
developing since the group formed in the
late ’90s, reveals itself as the band plows
through the staccato pluck of “Serrated
W
Either/Orchestra
Friend” and gnarled overgrowth of
“Secrets.” Even when Ucherek attempts
to rein it in, as he does briefly on “She
Bleeds Pink,” the propulsive drum beat
and stabs of guitar prod him to pick up
the pace. The production is more than
competent, though the drums could have
been recorded with more punch. Guitars
rightfully dominate the mix, cutting
through tracks like buzz saws and giving
the tunes a necessary swagger.
With Fire, Blood, Water, The Living
Blue has delivered its rock ’n’ roll manifesto—a throwback to a time when guitars were for shredding and ballads were
left to Broadway shows. It’s an impressive mix of musical chops, intensity, and
songs that bodes well for the band’s
AD
long-term prospects.
FURTHER LISTENING: The Replacements:
Pleased To Meet Me; Idlewild: 100 Broken
Windows
third horizontal
3/3
AVGUIDE
TAS 158
P163
147
m u s i c
POPULAR
Got Live If You Want It: New Live Releases
Bob Gendron
Green Day: Bullet In A Bible. Rob Cavallo and Green Day, producers. Reprise 49466 (one CD, one DVD). Music: HHH
Sonics: HH 1/2
reen Day raised the bar for rock
operas with 2004’s American Idiot,
distilling youthful alienation, frustration, disenchantment, and heartbreak—
and how the emotions intertwine with
politics, economics, and expectations—
into a pertinent 13-song cycle that’s as
immediately catchy as it is conceptually diverse. Bullet In A
Bible is the trio’s victory lap, a souvenir of the pop-punk act’s
brisk show and arena acumen. Singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s frequent call-and-response banter with the crowd and the group’s
slickness deter from the otherwise sharp songwriting, neck-bobbing arrangements, and whirlwind pace, though the five-part
“Jesus of Suburbia” suite, sizzling “Holiday,” and rubber-ribbed
“St. Jimmy” feverishly pounce and act as set-up devices for the
closing kiss-off ballad “Good Riddance.” Sonics are Turtle
Waxed for home-theater enjoyment. Audience screams artificially ebb and flow, resulting in a multimedia set that could’ve
been great but settles for being a cut above average.
G
Patti Smith: Horses/Horses (Legacy Edition). John Cale, original
producer; Bruce Dickinson, reissue producer.
Arista/Columbia/Legacy 71198 (two CDs). Music: HHHHH
Sonics: HHH 1/2
riginally released the same year as
Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run,
Patti Smith’s Horses/Horses is every bit as
seminal. While the former may have
saved rock ’n’ roll, Smith’s incendiary
debut kicked it in the ass, overthrowing
traditional cultural definitions of identity, speech, and expression. Defiantly announcing her arrival via
one of the most attention-grabbing introductory lines ever
sneered, punk’s godmother turned upside-down the insides of
the garage-rock standard “Gloria,” shook out the sexual and religious chaos, and stood the song back up as a swaggering symbol
for rock’s secret handshake with beat poetry, symbolism, feminism, and social change. Smith needs just eight tracks to trans-
O
148
form America’s consciousness and shock its system, whether by
dreaming about stolen dollar bills on the surging “Free Money,”
moving with elegiac tides on the reggae-tinged “Redondo
Beach,” or smashing heads against a locker on the epic “Land,”
a fever dream complete with a nerve-rattling rape scene that
leads into a sea of possibilities—a theme Smith persistently
revisits.
Updated and remastered, the 30th anniversary edition
includes a second disc documenting Smith’s performance of
the entire Horses/Horses in England on June 25, 2005. Along
with original guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee
Daugherty, Smith pairs with former Television six-string
maven Tom Verlaine and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea,
giving a reading that does justice to the life-altering work’s
skin-burning passion and adrenaline-rush escapism. Smith’s
biting vocals are darker, her lyrical phrasing and vowel-bending techniques more hypnotic, and she rails against rampant
consumerism and technological gluttony without missing a
beat. The band is up to task, Flea’s funky curlicue bends
punctuating Kaye’s hard-driving rhythmic sentences. The
affair concludes with a bloodletting cover of “My
Generation,” Smith exhaling three decades worth of angst,
anger, aggression, and antipathy in six minutes, her fist-shaking shouts raising Cain with not just toxic politicians but her
own contemporaries. “My generation, my generation/We had
dreams, we had dreams man, and we [expletive] created
George Bush,” she cries. “New generations rise up! Rise
up!/Take the streets/Make change/The world is yours/Change
it! Change it!” You go, girl.
Grateful Dead: Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings.
David Lemieux and Jeffrey Norman, producers. Grateful Dead 291
(10 CDs). Music: HHHHH Sonics: HHHH
n late February and early March 1969,
the Grateful Dead performed four consecutive shows at Fillmore West, a stint
that has since become one of the most
renowned stands in history. Some of the
results were released on Live/Dead, a
unanimously praised live album that
gave the public its first inkling of the interstellar communication and electrifying mind-frying sequences the Dead were
I
m u s i c
popular
then executing in concert. Deadheads have long coveted tapes
from the run, considered the beginning of the group’s peak period, a time when psychedelic excursions simultaneously flowered
beside and flowed along with jug-band grooves, lightning-strike
guitar fills, folk thunder, wailing feedback, and jazz fusion. Most
significantly, the stand cemented the permanence of two of the
Dead’s enduring trademarks—the launching-pad dimensional
experimentalism afforded by the elliptical tone poem “Dark Star”
and the invocation of desolate blues, the latter irrepressibly
moaned with carnal desire and gritty mischievousness by Ron
“Pigpen” McKernan, an organist/pianist/harmonicat whose
throaty wails, spicy come-ons, and devilish coos made the Dead
perhaps the finest white blues band to ever grace a stage.
The evidence is laid out on Fillmore West 1969: The Complete
Recordings, which, as the title implies, contains every note the
septet produced some 36-plus years ago. On the same artistic
plane as Miles Davis’ The Complete Plugged Nickel Sessions and The
Stooges’ Complete Fun House Sessions sets, the box solidifies
McKernan’s position as an unsurpassed belter and Tom
Constanten’s role as an incomparable foil who decorated Jerry
Garcia’s spider-web designs and Phil Lesh’s steamrolling bass
lines with subtly ornate, push-pull keyboard clusters. The
rollercoaster momentum and feather-ruffling dialogue demonstrated on the multiple renditions of “Turn on Your Lovelight,”
along with the telepathic synthesis and risk-taking progressive
leaps of the “Dark Star,” “The Eleven,” and “St. Stephen”
sequences, trace back to a beaker mixture of unsullied confidence, ghostly spirituality, and train-jumping-the-tracks abandon that takes the mainly great with the purely bad (“Hey
Jude”), the Dead aurally creating the LSD illusions, pinwheel
colors, and join-the-circus adventure racing in their heads.
Limited to 10,000 numbered copies and already sold-out,
the box is commanding upwards of $300, though the curious can
settle for Rhino’s finely packaged, abridged Fillmore West 1969
triple-disc edition. In addition to being presented in HDCD, the
release holds another audiophile draw—the tapes’ claim to fame
as the first-ever live 16-track masters. While a few artifacts are
discernible, the sound is such that one feels transported back in
time, the vibes evoking a lost, long-desired-for hallucination.
The Mars Volta: Scabdates. Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez, producer.
GSL/Universal 0249886788. Music: HH 1/2 Sonics: HH
ecorded between 2003 and 2005, but
including nothing from the group’s
recent Frances the Mute album (review, TAS
154), The Mars Volta’s Scabdates is the
kind of live album that offers royal payoffs
at the cost of having to wade through a
morass of overgrown weeds. Those who
haven’t experienced the Volta’s orgy of sound and light in person
may be struck by just how bizarre and self-indulgent this multiheaded beast can get. But for every random scream, meandering
passage, and out-of-order freak-out there is a nutzoid puzzle such as
“Cicatriz” that the ensemble pieces together with improvisational
wit and virtuosic technicality, the beat skittishly moving no matter
what the pace dictates. At 74 minutes, the record is messy and perplexing, and probably too much hard-rock-cum-Latin-rock-cumsqualling-fusion-cum-prog-dust-cum-electronica-cum-fracturedblues maelstrom for the average listener to handle. But seldom has
anything so exhilarating come from opting for the easy road, and
while the Volta’s pathway can be excruciatingly long, the ride is
unforgettably scenic. Caveat emptor: The production isn’t horrid
but is uneven, no shock given the degree of instrumentation, addedon field recordings, and shrieking noises hanging in the balance.
R
Iron Maiden: Death on the Road. Kevin Shirley, producer.
Sanctuary 96429 (two CDs). Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HH 1/2
he most underreported music story
of 2005 happened during the 10th
annual Ozzfest tour, on which Iron
Maiden was dangled as bait to get concertgoers into the sheds. As Judas Priest
did a year earlier, Maiden played second
fiddle only to headliner Ozzy Osbourne
T
150
m u s i c
and emerged with a storied comeback, attracting older and
new generations eager to hear the once-parodied but nowvaunted British group cited by countless contemporaries as a
vital influence.
But unlike 2004, when the Prince of Darkness managed
to counter Priest’s potency by fronting a reinvigorated Black
Sabbath, health problems got in the way of Osbourne’s
anniversary plans. He begged off a handful of shows, and
asked Maiden to close the festivities with extended sets.
When Sabbath did perform, the magic was clearly gone.
Maiden was lapping its fellow Brits on a nightly basis and
being guided by silver-tongued vocalist Bruce Dickinson,
who also happened to insult the Osbournes for partaking in
the false world of reality television.
These developments did not sit well with Ozzfest headmaster Sharon Osbourne, who exacted revenge by sabotaging Maiden’s final gig, cutting its P.A. system and pelting
band members with eggs in front of 45,000 fans. Mrs.
Osbourne’s prank subsequently caused further damage to
her husband’s declining reputation, and did nothing but
popular
bolster what many already knew—Maiden reigned supreme
and was the main reason why the summer concert staple
remained appealing.
Death on the Road was recorded live in Germany on
November 24, 2003, well before Maiden’s participation in
Ozzfest. The two-disc set doesn’t quite have charging attack
of the band’s most recent jaunt, but approximates the sextet’s
revived vigor. The English group has been on the up since
Dickinson came back onboard in 1999, a reunion that’s so far
yielded two solid studio albums from which complexly
orchestrated epics (“Dance of Death”) and hoof-pounding
marches (“No More Lies”) here integrate with classics such as
the nerve-rippling “Fear of the Dark” and musket-jabbing
“The Trooper.” All of the group’s hallmarks—fluid arpeggios, soaring melodies, fantasy-adventure theatricality, galloping tempos, slashing solos—bow their heads, as do
swelling “whoa-oa-oa” crowd chants, which are blended into
a slightly muddled, bowl-echo production that heralds if not
the triumphant return then at least the fiery persistence of
the NWOBHM pioneers.
&
151
C
L
A
S
S
F O R
I
F
I
E
D
S
S A L E
usedcable.com
We buy used cables. We sell used cables. Good advice.
WWW.AUDIOCONNECT.COM
New Jersey’s Best Selection at:
Audio Connection
615 Bloomfield Ave
Verona, NJ 07044
(973) 239.1799
*Just Bring In Your Music
W A N T E D
Hi Fi Stereo Gear, old/new, amps, preamps, turntables,
speakers, tuners, tubes, parts. Quality Brands considered,
working or not. 850 314 0321, Cell 850 543 7025, [email protected]
C L A S S I F I E D
A D
O R D E R
F O R M
rates: Our new rates are as follows: Private Parties, $1.50 per word (no minimum); Commercial, $4.15 per word, $175 minimum.
A word is one or more characters with a space, dash, slash or other punctuation on either side. (Telephone numbers, e-mail addresses
and Web addresses count as one word.) Advertisements will run in the magazine and also on our website, www.theabsolutesound.com.
pay m e nt: All ads must be prepaid with order. Credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, or American Express) and checks are accepted.
s end ads to: Absolute Multimedia Inc., 4544 S. Lamar, Bldg G300, Austin, Texas 78745. Fax to 512-891-0375.
(Faxed ads are credit card only.) Or place ads via our website: www.AVguide.com
deadlines: Ads are due three months prior to the issue's cover date. (For example, ads for the March 2006 issue are due with payment
by December 21, 2006.) Ads that reach us after the due date will appear in the next available issue.
name
co m pa ny
add r ess
city, st a t e, zi p
ph one ___________________________________________________ fa x
co py (please type or print; attach separate sheet if necessary)
Please run my ad in the following issues: q 160 (March 2006)
q 161 (April/May 2006)
q 162 (June/July 2006)
co st: $ ________________(Count the words in your ad. Multiply by the number of issues, then by the rate – personal or commercial.)
q Enclosed is my check, payable to Absolute Multimedia Inc.
q I prefer to pay by credit card
car d num ber: ____________________________________________________________ e x p i ra ti on d a te ________________________
s ig n a t ur e (credit card users)
157
W h e r e To B u y
The Absolute Sound is available throughout North America at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Tower Records
ARIZONA
Virgin Megastore
Tempe
Arizona Hi-Fi
Tempe
CALIFORNIA
Evolution Audio Video
Agoura Hills
Audio Chamber
Berkeley
DB Audio
Berkeley
Audio Haven
Brea
Virgin Megastore
Burbank
Future Sound
Burlingame
Deetes Sound Room
Carmichael
Audio Basics
Claremont
Virgin Megastore
Costa Mesa
Music by Design
Cupertino
Sound Factor West
Encino
Virgin Megastore
Los Angeles
Ambrosia Audio
Los Angeles
Brooks Berdan Ltd
Monrovia
Pro Homes Systems
Oakland
Virgin Megastore
Ontario
GNP Stereo
Pasadena
Dimple Records
Roseville
Paradyme Inc.
Sacramento
Stereo Design Inc
San Diego
Stereo Unlimited
San Diego
Virgin Megastore
San Francisco
Ultimate Sound
San Francisco
Bay Area Audio
San Jose
Audio Ecstasy
San Luis Obispo
Mission Audio
Santa Barbara
Shelleys Stereo
Santa Monica
Audio Video Today
Westminster
Laser D Entertainment
Yorba Linda
COLORADO
Analogue Audio
Boulder
Moondance Sound & Cinema
Denver
Northstar Leading The Way
Durango
CONNECTICUT
Carston Stereo Video
Danbury
Take 5 Audio
New Haven
Roberts Audio and Video
New London
Subjective Audio
Canton
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Olsson's
Georgetown
FLORIDA
Sound Components
Coral Gables
House of Stereo
Jacksonville
Virgin Megastore
Lake Buena Vista
Good Sounds Inc.
Margate
Audio Artisan
Miami
Parlatek SA
Miami
Advanced Hi-Fi 95
Miami
GEORGIA
Audio Atlanta
Marietta
Stereo Shop
Martinez
Home Run Video
Savannah
HAWAII
Audio Direction
Honolulu
ILLINOIS
Van L Speakerworks
Chicago
Superior Audio Systems
Chicago
Crow’s Nest
Crest Hill
INDIANA
Tracks
Bloomington
Sound Pro
Carmel
Audio Solutions
Indianapolis
KANSAS
Hollywood At Home Inc.
Overland Park
158
LOUISIANA
Wilson Audio
New Orleans
MAINE
A L Audio
Saco
MARYLAND
Soundscape
Baltimore
Silver Screen & Sound
Towson
MASSACHUSETTS
Audio Studio
Brookline
Looney Tunes
Boston
Newbury Comics
Cambridge
Natural Sound
Framingham
Sound II
N. Dartmouth
MICHIGAN
Acutronics
Ann Arbor
Imagery
Ferndale
Stereo Showcase
Grand Rapids
Audio Dimensions
Royal Oak
MISSISSIPPI
Uncle Bucks Records
Oxford
MISSOURI
Flips Stereo Place
St. Louis
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Camera Shop of Hanover
Hanover
NEW JERSEY
Stereo Dynamics
Middleton
Princeton Record Exchange
Princeton
Audio Connection
Verona
Woodbridge Stereo
W. Caldwell
Woodbridge Stereo
Woodbridge
NEW MEXICO
Hudson Audio Center
Albuquerque
Candyman
Santa Fe
NEW YORK
Altair Audio
Albany
Down to Earth Natural FDS
Amsterdam
J S G Audio Video
Binghamton
T.D. Electronics
Cambia
Ultra Hi Fi
Flushing
Longplayer Stereo Center
Goshen
Audio Excellence
Liverpool
American Audiophile
Lynbrook
Stereo Exchange
New York
Aarlington Audio Video
New York
Virgin Megastore
New York
Lyric Hi-Fi
New York
Sound By Singer
New York
New Platz Audio
New Platz
Sound Mill
Mt Kisco
Burello Sound
Peekskill
Rowe Audio
Rochester
The Sound Concept
Rochester
Le Sounde Audio & Video Saratoga Springs
Mom’s Stereo (PRK Inc.)
Schenectady
Audio Classics Ltd.
Vestal
Analog Shop
Victor
For Your Entertainment
Victor
Audio Visions
West Babylon
Toys From The Attic
White Plains
NEVADA
Virgin Megastore
Las Vegas
NORTH CAROLINA
Advanced Audio
Cary
Audio Advice
Raleigh
OHIO
New Image Electronics
Brooklyn
Progressive Audio
Columbus
Play It Again Sam
Lakewood
OREGON
Classical Millenium
Portland
PENNSYLVANIA
Sound and Vision II, Inc
Bethlehem
David Lewis Audio
Philadelphia
Third Street Jazz & Rock
Philadelphia
Audio Gallery
Pittsburgh
Audio Options
Pittsburgh
Stereo Shoppe
Selinsgrove
Audio Images Stereo
Whitehall
Soundex
Willow Grove
TENNESSEE
Underground Sound
Memphis
TEXAS
ABCD S
Austin
Tower Records
Austin
Krystal Clear Audio
Dallas
Virgin Megastore
Grapevine
UTAH
Audio Design
Salt Lake City
VIRGINIA
Alpine Audio
Abingdon
Gifted Listener Audio
Centerville
Sound Images
Falls Church
Hightech Services Exchange
Falls Church
Deja Vu Audio, Ltd
McLean
Planet Music
Virginia Beach
WASHINGTON
Quicksilver Audio
Kennewick
Café Rivista
Silverdale
WEST VIRGINIA
Absolute Sound WV
Charleston
Full Moon Rising
Marlington
WISCONSIN
Hi-Fi Heaven
Green Bay
University Audio Shop
Madison
I N T E R N AT I O N A L L O C AT I O N S
CANADA
Primetime
Toronto
Virgin Megastore
Vancouver
AUSTRALIA
Caxton Audio
Queensland
CROATIA
Media Audio
Split
GERMANY
Audio International
Frankfurt
Eclectic Audio Geisenheim-Stephanhausen
HONG KONG
YK Audio
Hong Kong
Fook Yue Asia
Hong Kong
ISRAEL
AL Audio
Herzliya Pituach
PHILIPPINES
Upscale Audio
Quezon City
PUERTO RICO
Parlatek
Puerto Rico
SPAIN
Audio Crisel
Madrid
SWITZERLAND
Portier Hi-Fi
Geneva
TURKEY
Lotus Electonics
Istanbul
UNITED KINGDOM
Moth Group
Bedford
Ind e x t o A d v er ti s er s
Acoustic Science Corporation (ASC) ............152
www.asc-hifi.com
Acoustic Sounds ................................114, 115
www.acousticsounds.com
Acoustics First Corp ....................................139
www.acousticsfirst.com
Archive Audio ..............................................153
www.archiveaudio.biz
Art Audio ......................................................74
www.artaudio.com
Atma-Sphere Music Systems ........................88
www.atma-sphere.com
Audio by Van Alstine......................................87
www.avahifi.com
Audio Classics ............................................146
www.audioclassics.com
Audio Connection ........................................151
www.audioconnect.com
Audio Consultants ......................................154
www.audioconsultants.com
Audio Limits ..............................................152
www.audiolimits.com
Audio Plus Services ..............................Cover III
www.audioplusservices.com
Elite AV Distribution ....................................152
www.eliteavdist.com
Per Madsen Design ....................................139
www.rackittm.com
Elusive Disc................................................127
www.elusivedisc.com
Pierre Gabriel Acoustic Inc. ............................39
www.pierregabriel.com
Enjoy the Music ..................................154, 157
www.enjoythemusic.com
Portal Audio..................................................23
www.portalaudio.com
Gallo Acoustics ............................................29
www.agaspeaker.com
PSB ............................................................35
www.psbspeakers.com
Gershman Acoustics ..................................100
www.gershmanacoustics.com
Purist Audio Design ......................................81
www.puristaudiodesign.com
Goodwin's High End ....................................132
www.goodwinshighend.com
Q-USA ........................................................154
www.q-usa.com
GTT Audio and Video ..................................117
www.gttgroup.com
Reference 3A................................................64
www.reference3A.com
Hansen Audio ..............................................91
www.hansenaudio.com
Reno HiFi ..................................................150
www.renohifi.com
Harmonix......................................................32
www.mayaudio.com
Revel............................................................63
www.revelspeakers.com
HSU Research ............................................153
www.hsuresearch.com
Revelation Audio Labs ................................139
www.revelationaudiolabs.com
Hyperion Sound Design, Inc. ........................138
www.hyperionsound.com
Rhapsody Music & Cinema ..........................131
www.rhapsodynyc.com
Kimber Kable................................................30
www.kimber.com
Rotel ............................................................53
www.rotel.com
Krell ............................................................57
www.krellonline.com
Sanus Systems ..........................................119
www.sanus.com
L&M Custom Home Entertainment ..............129
www.lmche.com
Shunyata Research ......................................71
www.shunyata.com
Landing Distributors ....................................105
Siltech ........................................................77
www.siltechcables.com
Audio Revelation ........................................134
www.audiorevelation.com
Linn Incorporated ..........................................41
www.linninc.com
Audio Turntable Ltd. ....................................153
www.audioturntable.com
Magico ........................................................33
www.magico.net
Audio Unlimited ..........................................125
www.audiounlimiteddenver.com
Manley Laboratories, Inc. ............................138
www.manleylabs.com
AudioQuest ..........................................Cover IV
www.audioquest.com
Mark Levinson ..............................................51
www.marklevinson.com
AVguide Monthly..................143, 145, 147, 149
www.avguide.com
MBL of America ............................................24
www.mbl-hifi.com
Aydn ..........................................................109
www.aydn.com
Meridian ......................................................55
www.meridian-audio.com
Ayre Acoustics ..............................................67
www.ayre.com
Messenger ................................................154
www.acousticimage.com/MessengerPreamp.shtml
B&W Loudspeakers ......................................19
www.bwspeakers.com
Montana Loudspeakers ................................73
www.montanaloudspeakers.com
Balanced Audio Technology ..........................6, 7
www.balanced.com
Murata ........................................................11
www.murata.com/speaker
Billy Bags ..................................................139
www.billybags.com
Music Direct ................61, 110, 111, 112, 113
www.musicdirect.com
Cable Company ..........................................121
www.fatwyre.com
Music Interface Technologies ........................17
www.mitcables.com
Cable Pro ..................................................155
www.thecablepro.com
Musical Sounds ..........................................155
www.musicalsounds.us
Cardas Audio, Ltd. ..........................................9
www.cardas.com
Musical Surroundings....................................98
www.musicalsurroundings.com
Classe Audio ................................................25
www.classeaudio.com
NAD ............................................................21
www.NADelectronics.com
Coincident Speaker Technology ....................155
www.coincidentspeaker.com
Nola Loudspeakers ......................................38
www.nolaspeakers.com
Conrad Johnson ............................................31
www.conradjohnson.com
Nordost Corp. ..............................................79
www.nordost.com
Crystal Cables ..............................................93
www.crystalcable-usa.com
Nuforce ........................................................22
www.nuforce.com
Dali Loudspeakers ........................................59
www.dali-usa.com
Overture Audio Video ..................................123
overtureav.com
Definitive Technology ..................Cover II, page 1
www.definitivetech.com
Paradigm ......................................................15
www.paradigm.com
Edge Electronics ..........................................65
www.edgeamp.com
Pass Laboratories ........................................37
www.passlabs.com
Simaudio Ltd ................................................69
www.simaudio.com
Sound Fusion................................................49
www.soundfusion.ca
Sumiko ....................................................3, 27
www.sumikoaudio.net
Synergistic Research ....................................43
www.synergisticresearch.com
Tara Labs ....................................................47
www.taralabs.com
Todd the Vinyl Junkie ..................................137
www.toddthevinyljunkie.com
Tonian Labs ................................................152
www.tonianlabs.com
Totem Acoustic ............................................45
www.totemacoustic.com
Transparent Cable ........................................85
www.transparentcable.com
Upscale Audio ....................102, 103, 136, 140
www.upscaleaudio.com
Vandersteen Audio ........................................80
www.vandersteen.com
Venture ........................................................22
www.ventureaudio.com
Vibrapod Co. ..............................................138
www.vibrapod.com
Virtual Dynamics ..........................................97
www.virtualdynamics.ca
Von Schweikert Audio ....................................95
www.vonschweikert.com
Walker Audio ..............................................107
www.walkeraudio.com
WBT ............................................................89
www.wbtusa.com
Wilson Audio ............................................5, 13
www.wilsonaudio.com
Wireworld ..................................................155
www.wireworldaudio.com
Wright's Reprints ........................................154
159
Audio Finds
Associate Editor Jonathan Valin reports on a few audio rarities
from the recent Bighorn Sheep Audio Fest in Boise.
Antiquarian Sound “Eternal Care”
Tube Amplifier
he $1500 150Wpc AS “Eternal Care” tube amp is guaranteed to sound great. We mean it. Of course, nothing’s perfect—not even an amp built of the finest North Korean components and designed from a time-tested schematic published
in the Fall 1928 edition of Wireless World. If little problems
should crop up—like, oh, flames bursting from the tube sockets or capacitors going off like Roman candles—AS has you covered! The company guarantees to replace that burned-out amp
in perpetuity. Just, for God’s sake, wrap the smoking chassis in
fireproof packaging before mailing it back to AS’s ultra-modern
facilities in P’yongyang. In about two-to-nine months, a brandnew amp will begin wending its way to your door via Canada,
Mexico, or St. Kitts. There is no limit on replacement amps,
and the AS “Eternal Care” Tube Amp warranty is transferable to
a second party for a small fee ($1500). Note: All warranties
voided when the AS is used with a TAXTile Boom-Remover
One or Bernadette of Lourdes CD Purifier.
T
TAXTile Boom-Remover One Digital
Signal Processor
veryone knows that, short of a shallow closet or windowseat,
a tight corner is the best place to park your subwoofer. So
what if it generates enough boom to register 7.8 on the seismograph in Cholame, California? Theoretically, it’s in the right spot.
All you need is a TAXTile Boom-Remover One Digital Signal
Processor to level the little hills and dales of corner-woofer placement. Capable of ±175dB cuts and boosts in 1Hz increments at
225dB/octave slopes, the TAXTile BR-1 can flatten that +58dB
bump at 40Hz, while simultaneously filling in that -80dB dip at
39Hz! In the digital realm, anything is possible, and because it’s
digital you won’t even know the BR-1 is in the circuit! Honest.
All you’ll get is pure clean undistorted bass. Bass like you’ve
never heard before; bass like grandma used to make.
E
TAXTile “Widowmaker” Two Power Amp
dding 80dB of boost at 39Hz may “tax” a conventional
amp’s power supply. Enter the TAXTile “Widowmaker”
Two Los Angeles Class power amplifier. Using recently declassified military technology, the WM-2 employs an unconventional, multi-stage, water-cooled power supply that gives it vir-
A
160
tually limitless current for those big dynamic swings. The WM2 comes with everything you need to keep your TAXTile BoomRemover One Digital Signal Processor running flawlessly for
decades, including special Widowmaker-2 “Playsuit” with windowed hood for the occasional amp inspection and a complimentary tin of TAXT-tassium Iodide-licious lozenges for an
after-inspection treat. Note: Some assembly required.
Bernadette of Lourdes CD Purifier
mported all the way from France, Bernadette of Lourdes CD
Purifier will bring out nuances you’ve never heard before on
your silver discs. Just immerse the CD in this “magical” liquid, wipe with special “prayer cloth,” repeat six times, then
rinse the disc off with a strong lye soap and distilled water.
Dry for about ten minutes in a microwave oven set to “Thaw.”
You will not believe the results! Note: Under no circumstances should Bernadette of Lourdes CD Purifier be used anywhere near an Antiquarian Sound “Eternal Care” Tube
Amplifier. The fires that result have proved nearly impossible
to extinguish, spreading rapidly and burning for days. Also,
avoid contact with skin.
I
Dusty Goes Busty [Classy Reissues]
ecorded just before the fabled songstress went into rehab, this
hard-to-find album from Dusty Chestcold (The Look of Dusty,
Dusty Ain’t Fussy, Dusty Gets Lusty), has been lovingly remastered
from the original mastertapes and reissued by Classy in a twelvedisc, 78rpm box set on 600-gram Silencio!™ shellac. Featuring
Dusty’s legendary renditions of “I’ll Do Anything for Another Hit
on that Pipe,” “Can I Sink Any Lower?” and “I Wish I Were
Dead,” Dusty Goes Busty is torch-singing at its finest.
R
Sunray Disc Flattener and Waffle Iron
inyl is great, but oh those warps! Now you don’t have to live
with anything less than a perfectly flat LP. Just put the offending record in the Sunray Disc Flattener tray, close the hinged lid,
set the temperature to “Flatten,” wait exactly two minutes and,
voilà, an LP that’s flat as a pancake. And speaking of pancakes…
load up the tray with your favorite batter, set the temperature to
“Cook,” and the versatile Sunray will deliver the perfect breakfast
in just a few seconds. You can even fry your bacon in the Sunray.
Man, that’s good eatin’—and great sound, too!
V

The Cutting Edge

Transcription

Similar documents

Bticino 334202 (5 Wire)

High Performance Home Theater. With Style.

Step # 13 Open up TMPGEnc 4.0 Express and click on “Start a new

27V530T - TriStar Distributing

loudspeaker

Cleveland Institute of Music

SB-GM-C7CP1/10TW3

Summer-Newsletter2014

Saenger Theater - SoundCom Systems

tx-8030 stereo receiver