Designed in Canada but built in China, the

Transcription

No. 83
CAN $6.49 / US $7.69
DIGITAL PLAYERS: Designed in Canada but
built in China, the Raysonic CD128, plus a
DVD player that decodes HDCD for just $80!
WE ALSO REVIEW: The Moon LP5.3 phono
preamp, the new Castle Richmond 7i
speaker, a power filter from Audioprism,
and two terrific upscale cables
PLUS: The problem of contrast in video
images, the acoustics of speaker placement,
and full coverage of the two Vegas shows
ISSN 0847-1851
Canadian Publication Sales
Product Agreement
No. 40065638
RETURN LABELS ONLY
OF UNDELIVERED COPIES TO:
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Come see us at Salon 5
Roksan Kandy LIII
“The Kandy has always been good.
It just got a whole lot better.
Nothing can match the Kandy MKIII's
transparent midrange performance”
What Hi-Fi?, Five-star rating
Audioprism
is back!
The Power Foundation III is now available!
Audioprism, you’ve been away too long.
JUSTI
CE
AU
DIO
Justice Audio
111 Zenway Blvd., Unit 9
WOODBRIDGE, ON L4H 3H9
Tel. : (905) 265-8675 • Fax : (905) 265-8595
www.justiceaudio.com
[email protected]
ASW Speakers
Atlas
Audioprism
Sonneteer
Bard Audio
QED
Target
Vandersteen
McCormack
Harmonix
Jaton
Operetta
WBT
Reimyo
Apollo
GutWire
FIM Accessories
Goldring
Milty
Discwasher
Perfect Sound
Nitty Gritty
Xindak
Gradient Speakers
LAST record care
WATTGate
Audiophile CDs
Audiophile LPs
DVD and SACD
Feature
Two Shows in a Vegas in Transition
by Gerard Rejskind
CES and T.H.E. Show in words and pictures
26
Rendezvous
Issue No. 83
The Electrostat Man
UHF talks with a pioneer in the development of
electrostatic loudspeakers, Roger Sanders
38
The Listening Room
The Raysonic CD128
40
Designed in Canada, assembled in China, this hunk
of brushed metal and blue light delivers
The VisionQuest Vision
Can you believe this? A reasonable movie player,
plus an audio player that decodes HDCD, and all
for under $80!
44
The Castle Richmond 7i Speaker
46
It’s been a couple of years since a UK bank changed
the locks at the Castle plant. But the marque is
back, from a different continent.
Moon Phono LP 5.3
50
As the vinyl disc picks up unexpected steam against
the shrinking CD, Simaudio offers an upscale link
from phono cartridge to preamp
Cover story: The Raysonic CD128 player, reviewed
in this issue. Behind it: Enceladus, one of Saturn’s
smaller moons, which however may have water,
making it a possible market for the audio industry.
Or not.
Acoustics
The Acoustics of Speaker Placement
18
by Paul Bergman
What really happens when you move your speakers
over a bit
Cinema
Image contrast
22
How do you get maximum contrast in your home
theatre image? It turns out that “contrast” has two
different meanings.
The Audioprism Power Foundation III
In our last issue we found this filter to be pretty
good. Now we unlock all its goodness.
53
Two Upscale Cables from Atlas
Atlas challenges the state of the art. and convinces
us to make another change to our reference
55
Software
Placido Domingo by Reine Lessard
A third of The Three Tenors, but so much more!
65
Software Reviews
by Reine Lessard and Gerard Rejskind
72
Departments
Editorial
Feedback
Free Advice
Gossip & News
State of the Art
4
7
10
77
82
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine    3    
UHF Magazine No. 83 was published in March, 2008. All
contents are copyright 2008 by Broadcast Canada. They
may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publisher.
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PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Reine Lessard
EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Reine Lessard, Albert Simon
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ISSN 0847-1851
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4   ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
Editorial
The next show
In this issue you’ll see a dozen pages dedicated to coverage of the two Las
Vegas shows, CES and T.H.E.Show. As every year, our daily on-line coverage
of these two shows drew crowds, some 86 thousand distinct visitors in January,
an average of more than 18,000 hits a day.
Now we’re preparing for the Montreal show, and it’s coming soon. For consumers it runs April 4th to 6th, with an extra trade-only day on the 3rd. We’ll
be covering the show wall to wall, with more of those daily on-line reports
in words and pictures, and a more extended summary in UHF No. 84.
See you there, perhaps.
All color…finally
Yes, our pages have been all-color for a while. Even the Audiophile Store
insert, which used to be printed on cheaper paper in black and white, is now
in full color. The last holdouts were certain ads, which remained black and
white. Until now.
Black and white ads were cheaper, as they are (or used to be) at other magazines. Or to put it another way, color ads used to cost more, because printing
a page in four colors is more expensive than printing it in just one color. But
that was then. When we pay for all of our pages to be printed in four colors,
it makes no sense to subsidize advertisers to stay with black ink.
Besides, color has more impact, and represents a better return on investment. It was time we normalized the situation, and put black and white where
it belongs…in the past.
There is, we should add, one more expense connected with four-color
printing. It has raised our mailing costs. We would have thought that paper
accounts for nearly all of the weight of a magazine, but it turns out the ink
has weight too. Does an all-color magazine cost more to mail?
Our postal bill confirms it. Those extra cyans, magentas and yellows don’t
travel free!
New stuff at The Audiophile Store
It’s well known that it is the store that makes it possible for us to have
the independent editorial policy we have, or in other words to tell you the
truth.
The store has picked up several new products. The London Reference
phono cartridge that was added in the last issue has company: the far less
expensive Goldring Elite pickup. While you’re at it, you can upgrade your
tone arm cable easily with the Atlas Phono Box. And there are some new
cables, some affordable, some bargains. One of them is the Mavros…it was
so good we actually adopted it for one of our reference systems. The other,
the Quadstar, wowed us in a blind test in our last issue, and the store now
offers it as an easy-to-assemble kit, at an affordable price.
Oh yes, and then there are the wall stands, from Target. They’re great for
putting a turntable on (that’s what we use them for), but they’re wonderful
for getting whatever you’ve got off the floor, and away from vibration.
MAGAZINE DOG-EARED? TO THE RESCUE!
We hate them too… “ dogeared” magazines. Don’t you
detest those folded-down corners
on the magazine you just bought?
The way to avoid dog-eared pages
is not what most people think. It’s the
expensive copy that’s likely to be tattered,
torn, and… yes, dog-eared. We mean the
newsstand copy.
Where do copies sit around unprotected?
At the newsstand. Where do other people leaf through them before
you arrive,
with remains of lunch on their fingers? At the newsstand. Where do they stick on
little labels you can’t even peel off? Why do they do that?
Our subscribers, on the other hand, get pristine copies, protected in plastic,
with the label on the plastic itself, not the cover.
We know you want a perfect copy, even if it means paying a little less.
As if that weren’t enough, there’s the fact that with a subscription you qualify
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Feedback
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
[email protected]
Congratulations, UHF, on your 25th
Anniversary! Twenty-five years in a business is always a significant achievement,
especially something as turbulent as the
audio industry. As a long time UHF reader and subscriber, and owner of one of the Shelter
cartridges, I must take issue with your
assertion that this cartridge has a “conical stylus.” (page 15 of UHF No. 82). It
has an elliptical stylus, dimensions 0.3
x 0.7 mil. And it is not a poor tracker;
have you reviewed one on your reference
recordings? I have played this with my
audiophile copy of Soular Energy and it
tracks this record beautifully.
If I do not see a correction in the next
issue I will let my subscription lapse.
Needle Doctor contains a typo in this
regard and if you look further down
you can see that they cite the elliptical
profile.
Stephen Chamberlain
EUGENE, OR
I have sold Shelter cartridges for
nine years now, and the 501 mk2 does
not have a conical stylus, but an elliptical
stylus. The only cartridge that Shelter
makes with a conical stylus is the 301.
The 501 continues to be the best value
cartridge under $2000 (its retail is $900),
and believe me I have heard everything
in that price range. Sometime if you
are interested you should hear some of
their new cartridges, which also sound
fabulous, like the new Harmony, which
is in the top five cartridges ever made at
any price.
Rob Doughty
Applause Audio, TORONTO, ON
The Shelters do indeed have elliptical stylii,
though not line contact stylii. The incorrect
information is quoted all over the internet,
not just the Needle Doctor site. However
we should have known better, because only
special mono cartridges today come with a
conical stylus.
I was reading your magazine No. 82,
about Allied Radio and all the different
things you could buy. I went to Allied
Radio when I was in Indiana and bought
a bunch of stuff there, and I’ve still got
it today. I’ve got original Altec Lansing 18-inch three-way speakers with
18-pound woofer brackets, a Dual 1019
turntable, and a Garrard. I liked your
article.
Lloyd Gibson
PELL CITY, AL
I was reading older issues of UHF,
and was wondering what happened to
your past staff members: Odette L. Roy,
Henry See, Khurram Z. Syed and Marie
de Vault. They seemed to have just disappeared from your publication somewhere
between issues No. 37 and No. 38. Since
this is your 25th anniversary, I thought
it would be appropriate to acknowledge
the past contributions that they made to
the magazine, and to also update your
readership on where they are now and
what they are doing, particularly for
those of us who were around and reading
your magazine in the early years.
Rick Meyers
BURLINGTON, ON
Well, let’s see. Odette left a long time ago
to start a graphics company, leveraging what
she had learned working at UHF. Henry See
now lives in France, working on arts projects.
Khurram, who is an engineer, pursues his
career with a leading aerospace company.
Marie de Vault left in 1993 to start another
audio magazine, which lives on, though she
is no longer there.
Thank you for a great read and factual
information. I would still be listening to
crap, (or not listening), had it not been for
your recommendations, (Bryston B-60,
Reference 3A, Shure, etc.). I hope you
never let your standards lapse, and I’ll
still be reading you 20 years from now.
Long live UHF.
John Pylypchuk
THUNDER BAY, ON I much enjoyed Reine Lessard’s
informative history of great tenors, From
Enrico to Luciano in issue No. 82. It was
very concise and insightful, and I look
forward to another such essay.
But who in the world is the individual
in the photo just above the biography
of Jussi Björling? It is certainly not the
Swedish Caruso.
Charlie Focht
No, it’s Franco Corelli, whose profile was
omitted at the last moment for space reasons.
Here’s the actual picture of Jussi Björling.
I wanted to thank you in advance for
your upcoming review of the “mystery”
$80 CD/DVD player you’ve described
in the UHF blog.
But assuming this isn’t an early
April Fool’s joke, and assuming the
results aren’t utter tripe, you may be
opening Pandora’s Box — what other
dirt cheap sources might there be out
there that could match an expensive
high-end source? Could some of those
cheap sources be found at the (gulp) big
box stores? And — heresy of heresies —
could some of those “other” magazines,
where all components are deemed
equally wonderful not be staffed with
tone-deaf reviewers, as even a modest
hi-end system can readily demonstrate?
All my hi-end audio beliefs (you know,
qualit y components and attent ion
to detail matter and inevitably cost
money) teeter on the edge of ruin…
So if you claim that this $80 player
can even come close to matching your
current reference players, I’ll probably
weep. Whether those will be tears of
joy or tears of agony has yet to be
determined.
Jeff Tennant
BURLINGTON, ON
We kept its identity a secret, Jeff, though
of course now all has been revealed. But we
doubt the results will make you weep. On the
other hand it isn’t tripe by any means, and
we were happy we had taken the time. There
is one product with a truly awful review in
the next issue, but it isn’t this one.
Feedback
I read with interest your comparative
test of a Sony Blu-ray player and your
Simaudio Moon player. I must admit I
was surprised, because I had expected an
easy victory for the Moon. Why? For the
same reason CDs sounded terrible in the
early days, because of awful players.
Must we now conclude that low-end
Blu-ray players are already good enough
to allow the new medium to demonstrate
its superiority over the conventional
DVD, even when that DVD is played
on a very high-quality player?
Jean Dufresne
SHERBROOKE, QC
Yes, once again the source (in this case the
disc itself) overshadows the quality of the
actual player. As our comparison revealed,
the Sony did quite well (but did not win)
against the Moon with standard definition
DVDs, but when we popped in a disc with
much higher definition, that was another
matter.
I have a quick question concerning
digital interconnect cables.
I can certainly understand where
a higher quality of interconnect cable
would make an audible difference for
analog information, because it is better
able to convey a greater fidelity of the
information that is continuous rather
than binary. However, since digital
information is communicated in 1’s and
0’s how does a higher quality digital
interconnect cable improve sound quality? Does it communicate more 1’s and
0’s?
Patrick Burek
HAMILTON, ON
No, but it will communicate them more
accurately. Unlike an audio cable, which
need not have very wide bandwidth, a
digital cable must be able to transmit what,
in a perfect world, would be a square wave.
That requires the ability to pass extremely
high frequencies without phase shift. What’s
more, its geometry should allow it to have
accurate impedance, to minimize standing
waves that can cause echoes, and mess up the
timing. None of this is easy, and even some
expensive digital cables seem to be designed by
people who are unclear on the concept.
I have been reading a lot of papers
(mostly technical and hardly musical)
about the pros and cons of SACD and
DVD-A. Have you ever been able to
compare (from a musical point of view)
the same musical pieces remastered from
the same tapes on CD, SACD, DVD-A
and the corresponding LP?
Philippe Martiat
BRUSSELS, Belgium
This is not in fact easy to do, since most
labels will choose a particular format to the
exclusion of others. However we own two
versions of the Ray Brown Trio’s Soular
Energy album, and we use them quite frequently in equipment reviews. One version,
from Hi-Res Audio, is a DVD-Audio disc
with a 192 kHz sampling rate, and the other
is a 180 gram LP. We like both a great deal,
though we must add that they don’t actually
sound the same. Comparisons are not easy to
make. For instance, a number of great LPs
of the 60’s and 70’s have been remastered
as SACDs. However the original LPs were
made when the analog master tapes were
new, whereas the SACDs were done from
tapes that had been in a vault (if we’re
lucky!) for many years. The LP generally
sounds much better, but there’s more to the
difference than just the format.
Since I’ve collected thousands of
elderly LPs — some 22 thousand — the
invention of a laser turntable would be
the ultimate. I have brochures of the
early and current ELP laser turntable,
but this has been tarnished by many of
the audiophile mags.
I can understand their aggravation
at being able to present an absolutely
perfectly-cleansed vinyl treasure, but
there must be a method to avoid this
irritation. If an ELP-designed item is
put forth, “what a wonderful world this
could be,” to quote the lyrics of a tune
on an LP I remember.
Matt Stitzel
BOISE, ID
Indeed, but although the ELP laser turntable does exist, it is not quite at the point
where we could label it perfect. We have
heard it several times, though the company
has declined to lend one for a review. Our
impression in these listening sessions: the high
frequencies are unusually clean and clear, but
the lows are deficient, and the result is an
imbalance. We would be pleased if research
continued.
Having just read your latest take on
iPods and high fidelity, I’d like to see
you run some iPod tests pitting Nanos
against hard-disc iPods inserted into
docking stations with internal DACs,
or attached to a DAC via a USB port,
and then the winner against a good CD
player. All testing would be done with
CD files, so the data from one CD would
be used by each player.
Why? To determine whether or not
there is a difference in sound output
quality between the two iPod product
types, and between them and a quality
CD player, your reference. I feel there
will be, and it is the low-storage Nano
that will win.
Hypothesis: the biggest enemy of
digital reproduction is noise caused or
increased by moving parts (hard drives
or CD/data drives) imparting mechanical vibration and extra electrical and
magnetic fields generated by the same.
Removing all mechanical moving parts
and extraneous electrical/magnetic
influences from the data reading and
processing chain gives the simplest,
shortest and cleanest path from data to
analog output.
Denys Beames
VICTORIA, BC
The difference isn’t as straightforward as
it may seem, Denys. The hard-disc iPods,
now known as iPod Classics, do not read
music directly from the hard disc, but load
up a memory buffer and read from that.
The limitation, and it is severe, is actually
the converter that is part of the iPod. There
are methods for getting a digital signal out
of an iPod, but it requires an expensive mod
to the iPod itself. We’re keeping an eye on
other solutions, such as the one proposed by
Wadyia.
I was wondering if you will be
reviewing the Linn Klimax DS in your
continued explorations of computer
music. Comparing its sound head-tohead with less costly equipement like the
Benchmark and the SqueezeBox would
be interesting.
Jimmy Gauvin
QUÉBEC, QC
We’ve heard the Klimax DS, and it sounds
very promising. We do expect to announce
a review shortly.
This was one of a number of letters we
received when we asked whether we should
archive older entries on our blog, or just
dump them. The answers were unanimous:
dump them. And to answer your question,
the blog archive does not show up in our top
100 most visited pages.
Whatever happened to your classified
ads?
Bruce Touzel
SAN JOSE, CA
I have been a recent reader of your
magazine over the last couple years. I
left the hobby for about 10 years in the
nineties about the time those shiny silver
things appeared. I do find your magazine
refreshing compared to the American
cheerleading competitions.
I wish to know if you will seriously
consider a review of the Oracle. I am
aware of your preference for Linn. I will
say though it strikes me as odd that you
would not review a quality product built
in your own backyard so to speak.
David Faulkner
We have reviewed two versions of the
Oracle Delphi over the years, though not
the current MkV. We also reviewed two
other Oracle tables, the Alexandria and
the Paris.
I was intrigued by your article about
high resolution audio recorded onto
DVD, and so bought an Edirol UA-1ex,
which will record at 24/96, to try it out. I
found that when recording from vinyl to
my PC I indeed did hear the difference,
and it was not subtle.
I then bought a DVD burner and
Roxio Easy Media Creator for my PC,
And have been unable to find a way to get
those glorious 24/96 wav files onto DVD.
Do you have any experience with Easy
Media Creator? It does not look at all
like your pictures of Toast and will not
accept 24/96 files onto the DVD audio
playlists.
Michael A. Giles
We’re not sure why Roxio uses different interfaces for its Windows and Mac
programs. In Easy Media Creator, click on
the Audio tab in the Project Pane and then
select Quick Music DVD. Click on the “add
tracks” button to load up the DVD. But be
sure your files really are in WAV format.
I read with great interest your article
in issue No. 82, The Coming Mess in
Television. I too believe that it will be
a total mess. On that subject, I would
be interested to know what the general
opinion is at the CES.
One thing I noticed in your article
is the US switchoff date of Feb 17, 2010.
According to the FAQ section of https://
www.dtv2009.gov: “At midnight on February 17, 2009, all full-power television
stations in the United States will stop
broadcasting in analog and switch to
100% digital broadcasting.”
Your magazine is always so sharp and
on the ball that I’m sure it was just a typo.
But what is really interesting about this
date is that it comes exactly four weeks
after the next US President will be sworn
in. The President (or rather the newlyappointed FCC commissioner) will only
have four weeks to prepare for this awful
mess.
The part about analog radio broadcasting going away as well really surprised me! Does this mean our expensive
FM tuners will be rendered useless?
Jean-F Remillard
ST-BRUNO, QC
It was indeed a typo. The switchoff in the
US is scheduled for February 2009, and in
Canada in 2011. The people we talked to at
CES think there isn’t much public awareness
of the switchover, and it would have an even
lower profile in Canada, because it’s not
coming until so much later.
There is a theoretical plan in Canada to
switch everybody over to inferior compressed
digital sound, abandoning the FM and AM
bands. Our prediction is that it will never,
ever happen. The bandwidth cannot be resold
anyway, because the US right next door will
continue to occupy those frequencies.
Just for your survey…
I remained loyal to Sam The Record
Man as long as I could, but stopped
going, not because of digital downloading (I don't even have an iTunes account),
but because I got tired of not finding the
CDs I wanted in store.
Generally, I collect now through
mail order from artist and label sites, or
Amazon.
I enjoyed your piece on Piaf in UHF
No. 81, and the Software series overall.
James
TORONTO, ON
Feedback
Having lived elsewhere in stereo
purgatory for 15 years and recently
returned to Vancouver, I was delighted
to find UHF stronger and possibly more
erudite than ever. Keep up the good
work please.
My suggestion is to sacrifice your
blog entries 13 months and older —
most lead into your permanent articles
anyway.
And by the way, since your website
activity tracking programme seems to
do everything other than well, make
breakfast, maybe it could spill the beans
on just how many folks are accessing
entries 13 months or older.
David Britton
VANCOUVER, BC
We killed them off nearly two years
ago, Bruce. With a proliferation of free
and inexpensive classifieds venues on the
Web, our own section, which was originally
conceived as a reader service, had outlived
its usefulness.
Over the past two years I have made
incremental changes to my system,
according to your philosophy, and by
listening.
I have owned two CD players, two
amplifiers,
new cables and one pair of
loudspeakers (all this from my previLongueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
ous mid-fi system). I am saving for new
speakers now, but I have a problem you
[email protected]
could help me to solve. My current
system consists of a Marantz SA-11S2
After years of reading your excellent that the original Oracle had serious player, balanced Atlas Navigator All-Cu
magazine I though I would trouble you problems that weren’t totally solved until for all interconnects, Mimetism 15.2 and
for a little advice.
the MkIII version. But Oracle doesn’t 45.2 for biamping, Actinote LBD cables,
With the dust of getting married and do upgrades except to the full MkV and finally a pair of B&W 804S speakers.
having a kid settling down, I finally have, level, and we doubt that will fit into your Since I bought the Mimetism (which is
with my limited means, decided to dust budget.
very good by the way), I have a problem
off my beloved hi-fi. My current system
And then there’s the power amplifier. of stridency when listening to highis a pair of B&W DM7 Mk2 speakers, The Citation 16 is an older monster amp, pitched voices and such instruments as
NAIM NAIT 3 amplifier, a crappy built back when monster amps sounded piccolos. I do not think it is reverberation
Philips DVD player, and an Oracle MK1 opaque and non musical…as many still or a problem of positioning (I have done
turntable with Audiocraft unipivot arm do. Paying $300 to refit an older amp a lot of “experiments” regarding this).
that requires the Oracle restoration kit. that sells used for about $600 might not I can understand the words, but the
My musical tastes go all over the place be the best way to spend scarce funds. higher notes are accompanied by a sort
from Black Sabbath to Holly Cole to Since your B&W speakers are reason- of unpleasant ringing.
le
nd a coIup
Mozart. My friend has been so kind as to ably efficient, you
will
almost
certainly
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am not a professional
ugh you could
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mp
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No, thisbe happier with the Naim
gift me with a Harmon/KardonCitation
NAIT 3, and I do not own any measurement stuff.
ant the full version?
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conclusion
that what I hear is harmonic
from our back
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thi
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the right channel, and it makes for
a “frapcable
You
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’t have annoying banners
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the
bass tracks. I need a decent cartridge
Citation amp
can
be
solved
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good
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(with
Classé,
heard in the
fau x Latin. Getting
here
ling off intofor
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have
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less
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complete
store,
this
problem
was
almost
gone).
er. It costs just
, and it is also cheap
se faster
.
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lud
Oracle ($150), HK restoration co
tourfacfactory-sanctioned
refit.
Even
so,
we
Since
I
am
anyway
going
to
change
my
are inc
, if they are applicable,
. Ta xes
in theoilworld
tory specs at around $300, damping
would
recommend
that
you
then
sell
it
speakers
in
a
while,
I
wonder
what
to
MagZee.com.
ble from with
ilasomeone
It’s avato
for the tone arm ($25) and a half decent
very inefficient speakers listen to. An upgrade in the same brand
CD player (any advice?). Being broke and/or tolerant neighbors. Perhaps the (802D for example to benefit from the
but handy, I was going to make my own Oracle should be sold as well, to someone diamond dome) or a totally different
speaker and interconnect wires.
who would like to get it bumped up to construction such as the midrangeIs this worth it, or should I just sell current standards and has the means to tweeter combination (BC Acoustique
off all the old gear and start over again? back up that ambition.
A3 or A4, for example). Because of space,
If I do keep it, what would some recomTheir replacements will probably electrostatic speakers won’t do.
mendation from you folks be to spend have to come from the second hand
Philippe Martiat
the money in places to get the most hi-fi shelves. Some very good used turntables
BRUSSELS, Belgium
for my buck?
from the likes of Rega, Roksan and VPI
Tibor Princz can be had at reasonable prices (and
If you don’t have room for electroVANCOUVER, BC that’s not an exhaustive list). CD players statics, Philippe, you’ll find the BC
are tougher, because for various reasons Acoustique A3 and A4 to be very large,
This is going to be difficult, Tibor, you won’t want a really old one. However and a lot deeper besides. For a smaller
because you have serious problems in the there are sometimes surprising bargains room you may want to look at one of
most important place: the source.
on Cambridge, Creek, and even Rega — the more compact models, such as the
A n elderly Philips CD player is we actually know someone who bought A1. It uses the same excellent compresdefinitely a candidate for retirement, a mint Rega Planet for $150.
sion tweeter as the A3 and the others
and without a gold watch, either, but
Whatever this costs may leave you in the line, and as you know when we
the turntable is a problem too. We know with little choice but to make your own reviewed the A3 we found it delightfully
what’s included in Oracle’s turntable cables, but you may want to plan for their un-bright.
restoration kit, and we do also know upgrade sooner rather than later.
What you are hearing in the high
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amplifier to use with my TheaterMaster
solely for stereo listening. I want to use
the balanced outputs of the TheaterMaster so I’m looking for an amp that
can also be used fully balanced and I’m
considering the W-3. I’m curious to
know what your experiences are using
the Attraction and the W-3 together:
how well do they complement each
others’ sonic signatures in the endeavor
to reproduce music? I have two pairs of
speakers that I’m planning to use with
the proposed EAD/W-3 combination:
Castle Edens and Dynaudio Contour
1.3 SEs. I’m not as much worried about
having enough power to drive either of
the pairs of speakers, or any other pair
that I might buy in the future, but more
about the synergy of the EAD and the
W-3.
Since you are already using the
Attraction with the W-3 and are no
doubt familiar with how well the two
work together, I could not help but write
and ask.
Patrick Burek
HAMILTON, ON
Patrick, before the Moon Attraction
was even released (that would be some
six years ago), Simaudio told us they
were working hard on the analog portion
of the product, convinced they knew
something about how to handle analog
that others are merely catching on to.
The volume control, for instance, uses
the analog switched array familiar from
other Moon products. Simaudio was also
working on a beefier power supply. That
might well explain the extra size, though
it may also be the result of the need
to share sheet metal with other Moon
products (for instance, the Attraction
has non-functional side heat sinks).
There were at least two versions of
the Attraction, by the way. Our early
version has the advantage of builtin HDCD decoding. A later version
dropped HDCD but added an analog
“straight-through” circuit, so that analog
sources need not be digitized.
We do use our Attraction with the
(discontinued) Moon W-3 power amplifier, which runs the front left and right
speakers of our Kappa system. It was
Advice
Feedback
Free
I have two questions regarding the
first-generation Simaudio Moon Attraction preamp-processor reviewed in UHF
No. 62 and used in your reference home
theatre system. First, to what degree is the Moon
Attraction different from the EAD
TheaterMaster Signature Plus or Ovation Plus? Is it simply an EAD TheaterMaster in a more stylized box or, as your
review suggests but does not explain in
detail, is the analog part of the circuit
of the Attraction designed in-house
by Simaudio and added to the existing
circuit of the EAD TheaterMaster? If
the latter is true, since most of the signal
is digital and is only converted to analog
after it is amplified, how much of a sonic
difference, if any at all, could one expect
to hear from the Moon Attraction over
the EAD TheaterMaster?
I’m also curious about why the
chassis of the Moon Attraction seems
to be almost twice the size as that of my
Ovation. If the units are identical, is the
box just filled with air or is the extra size
of the box needed to house an improved
proprietary circuit? I’m wondering if
I would get any improvement in sonic
performance by selling my Ovation and
purchasing a first-generation Moon
Attraction. (I know of a used Attraction
for sale but unfortunately I’m not able to
compare it with my EAD).
The second question is about the
synergy between the Moon Attraction/
EAD TheaterMaster and the Moon
W-3. I want a higher-powered solid state
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frequencies is not harmonic distortion,
but — as you characterized it — a sort
of ringing. Dynamic tweeters are inductive, and so they filter out some of the
very highs they should be reproducing.
So how do those tweeters maintain
response to 20 kHz? They’re designed
so they ring! Though B&W does build
some very serious speakers, and notably
those in the 800 range, they are more
“forward” than the BC Acoustique, and
that may be exacerbating a mismatch
between amplifier and speakers.
But don’t assume that a Classé will
do better than your Mimetism unless
you can hear one at home. We suspect
the amp is not the culprit, or at least not
the only one.
Get UHF on your desktop
anywhere in the world!
Imagine getting an issue of UHF anywhere you live
for C$4.30 including all taxes.
Imagine subscribing for as little as C$21.50.
Anywhere!
www.magzee.com
Advice
Feedback
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evident as soon as it arrived, and before
it was fully broken in, that it was superior
to the earlier W-3 we had reviewed in
our pages. It gets along wonderfully well
with the Attraction. When we listen to
CDs, using the Moon Stellar as a transport, we usually switch off the surround
stuff and bask in the two-channel sound
the system gives us. We like it a lot.
I have t he spec s on t he Sony
RDRHX900 DVD recorder and HDD,
but, they do not answer many of my
questions.
Using a component video input into
the 900, will the HDD record from the
component video output of a 1080 video
satellite receiver? Will the 900’s HDD
play back the video in 1080? How many
hours can I record and play back in 1080
(the monitor is a Sony KDF-55XS955)?
Is HQ+ or HQ equal to 1080i? Can 480p
DVDs be written using the 900’s HDD
1080? Basically, I want to use the Sony 900
DVD Recorder HDD to record my
satellite movies and also to burn movies
onto DVD-R discs. I have a StarChoice
elliptical dish and a 505 receiver. Keith Crampton
PRINCETON, BC
Your Sony has component video
outputs, Keith, but not inputs. You’ll
need to connect to your satellite box
either with an S-Video cable (the ones
with small round multi-pin plugs) or
a plain old composite (coaxial) cable.
In any case the machine cannot record
in a resolution greater than what Sony
calls “HQ,” which is probably around
400 vertical lines. The “HDD” in the
product name means “hard disc drive,”
not “high definition.” The output can
be upscaled to 1080i by some TV sets,
but that’s not the same as true high
definition.
You can of course burn a DVD with
what you’ve recorded on the hard drive.
Refer to the page on dubbing mode in
your instruction manual. The recording time for HQ format will be in the
instruction manual, and is probably
around an hour. Longer recording times
are available if you can settle for lower
quality.
You have commented favorably in the
past on both the components that were
combined to make the CEC TL51XR
CD player. What is your opinion of the
single box TL51XR?
Billy Carter
ATHENS, AL
We hear it’s really good, Billy, but you
know what? We’re kicking ourselves for
not having done a review of the player
while we had one. Yes, we did have
one. After our old Parasound transport
(which was also a CEC underneath its
black uniform) gave out, we ordered a
new CEC transport. There were none in
stock, and so the importer lent us the full
player, which was essentially the same
transport with a converter aboard.
We can say that the transports
sounded essentially alike, which makes
us optimistic that the full player is a good
one, but we really missed an opportunity
to confirm it.
I understand UHF Magazine used The
Source as a reference turntable (until it
was terminally damaged in transit to a
hi-fi show?). I have the opportunity to
buy a unit in the UK but information is
hard to come by.
I wondered if I could trouble you for
some details and impressions from your
experience with the deck.
Stephen Littlewood
UNITED KINGDOM
Actually it was damaged after we
had sold it, and the courier company
dropped it, Stephen. We did ultimately
sell it, but for considerably less than we
had anticipated, as you can imagine.
We did like the turntable. We were
using it with the same Alphason tone
arm that is now on our Linn Sondek. It
had a suspended subchassis, a synchronous motor fed from an outboard power
supply, and a main plate and arm board
covered with Nextel. The platter was a
massive chunk of brass. Its top end was
particularly good. The lower frequencies were a little indistinct by modern
standards, and so we swapped it for an
Alphason Sonata, then (three years ago)
for the Linn.
Well, we do have first-hand experience with older tubes, Jon, if only
because we still have our private stash of
Mullards and Tung Sols, which mostly
do sound better than currently available
tubes. When we reviewed the Shanling
CD-T100 player (UHF No. 66), we
listened with its own 6N3 miniature triodes, and with Western Electric 396A’s
that were decades old. We noted that
transients were quicker and more precise
with the new-old tubes, perhaps enough
to justify the extra $95 they would add
to the cost of the player.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
Some NOS (new old stock) tubes carry
Cyrus products are handcrafted in
England
Advanced Audio and Video Systems
Very unique
Very Cyrus
huge price tags, up to a hundred times
the original price. And it pays to know
the seller, too. Some “NOS” tubes aren’t
new at all, and are actually pulled from
older equipment because they flunked a
tube test. Because today few consumers
have access to good tube testers (we don’t
mean the old drugstore models that were
rigged to show all tubes as borderline or
worse), your only defence is to deal with
a reputable source.
I currently have Paradigm Reference
Exclusive North American Distribution
EUROPRODUCTS
Celebrating 10 years serving Canadian music
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speakers connected in a biwire configuration to a Linn LK140 amp. I have
Atlantis speaker cable from Wireworld
and Milty banana connectors (which I
purchased from UHF).
Is the Linn LK140 amplifier sufficient to drive the Totem Mani-2
Signature and take full advantage of its
capabilities? Do you have any preference
between this Totem speaker and the
Gershman Sonogram?
Barry Ward
COQUITLAM, BC
Advice
Feedback
Free
I was wondering if the NOS tubes
of yesterday (ie. Mullard, Amperex,
Telefunken etc.) are worth the money
that they are commanding. Is there an
appreciable sonic difference to warrant
such a high price for these old tubes or
are newer tubes just as good, and will I
hear a difference?
Have you ever done any double blind
testing of NOS tubes?
Jon Nishi
KAMLOOPS, BC
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Carefully planned upgrade
options maximize your initial
investment, even many years
later.
CDs. For that reason, early players had
two pickup heads, with an extra one for
CD. Of course if you used a CD cleaning
disc on one, it would clean just one of the
two lenses. That seems to be pretty much
over, however, and modern DVD players
can be cleaned with a good cleaning disc
like your 20/20.
What these cleaning discs do have
problems with are slot-loading drives,
like those in portable computers and
car dashboards, which can damage the
brushes.
Yes we do, Barry. We are on record
as saying that the Mani-2 is one of the
world’s best speakers, regardless of size
or price. So where does that leave the
Gershman Sonogram (reviewed in UHF
No. 81)? In fact it is your better choice
I’m confused as to what should be my
next upgrade! My equipment consists
of a Shanling SCD T200 SACD player,
Copland CTA-301 preamp, two-way
Selah Audio RS8 line array speakers, and
a Selah Audio Citrine subwoofer. The
speakers are biamped with a Simaudio
W-5 for the bass/mids, and a Dussun V8
for the tweeters.
for a couple of reasons.
I use an active crossover/EQ from
The first reason is the obvious one
of price: the Mani-2 plus a stand worthy Behringer the DEX 2496. Of course
of its talents cost about double the I’ve tried different configurations for the
price of the Sonogram. Second, your crossover but ended up using a 24 dB
LK140 would be a disastrously wrong slope for best results. All cables and
choice for this speaker. The Mani-2’s interconnects are average quality.
T he s y stem is ver y revea l i ng,
back-to-back woofers present an electrical load that can paralyze even some extremely dynamic and powerful, and
is excellent, but it lacks
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lens cleaner (a Parasound 20/20) from and speaker cables and interconnects of
you. And it must be two or three years pure silver from Slinkylink, borrowed
ago I e-mailed and asked this question of from a friend.
Do you think my source is the
you, “how do you clean a DVD player?”
You answered and advised that you problem? If yes are you familiar with
would investigate the topic.
the Audio Aero Prima CD player or the
I don’t recall seeing anything on Capitole, or the Accuphase DP 500?
this topic from you, sooooo… the ques- Those are the high end players available
tion remains, how do you clean a DVD in Egypt, I’ve been proposed a second
player?
hand Accuphase DP 55!
John Touzel
Unless you advise me differently, in
SANTA BARBARA, CA which case the option of ordering online
is a possibility.
There was a short-lived problem with
Jean-Paul Haggar
cleaning DVD players, John. Because
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt
of lack of precision in the mechanism,
The Accuphase might be an intera DVD pickup head had to be carefully
optimized for DVD and wouldn’t play esting choice, Jean-Paul, if indeed the
Advice
Feedback
Free
r acti
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t
n
i
s
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i
Yes,
ve
Can you please explain what the
following means when referring to an
amplifier: With reducing power the
distortion falls progressively. There is
no “come back” significant of crossover
distortion at a lower power level.
John W. Davison
FERRYHILL, Durham. UK
“The Sonogram is one of Gershman’s best speakers, and indeed
one of the best speakers this sort of money will buy.”
UHF Magazine No. 81
Advice
Feedback
Free
quality of the player is the source of
the listening fatigue. However if the
Shanling player has a limitation, it is in
the finesse of detail that it can resolve.
It shouldn’t sound fatiguing.
We’re familiar with Behringer,
which offers gear for small studios that
is nothing short of astonishing in its
value, but we don’t think of it as a high
end company, and so the presence of the
electronic crossover/equalizer is probably not helping. Indeed we would be
tempted to think of that as the heart of
the problem, except that you found the
sound just as fatiguing when you were
using the single W-5 amplifier with a
passive crossover.
That might point the finger at the
speakers, or at least at the way they are
set up. Although ribbon speakers can
sound quite wonderful, not all ribbons
can perform even tolerably. We have
never heard the Selahs, but we note
that the manufacturer is oriented to the
do-it-yourself crowd. It sells kits with
or without cabinets, for example, and
even the cabinets need work with drills
and saws to make holes for the drivers.
What’s more, Selah actually recommends Behringer!
We think what you need to do is
determine whether those speakers can be
made to sound good (i.e. non-fatiguing)
with a different source, electronics,
cables, or room placement. We would
put the emphasis on room placement.
Unless you have a large room, these
array speakers will need to be relatively
close to listening position, and that could
be part of the problem.
Whatever you find, don’t change
your source until you can solve the basic
problem, whatever it is, because making
random improvements is expensive. We
have heard the Audio Aero Capitole
sound downright hideous in a system
that wasn’t working right. Any player
can.
Well, it’s not expressed as elegantly
as we might have wished, John, but we’ll
be happy to explain.
“Crossover distortion” in a push-pull
amplifier is a glitch that occurs when
the device (transistor or tube) doing the
pushing hands over to the one doing the
pulling. At an amplifier’s full power, the
glitch is of little importance, because it
affects only a tiny portion of the signal. It
is a constant form of distortion, however,
and as level drops it becomes more and
more bothersome. This is bad, because
an amplifier spends very little time
operating at full level, and much more
time at low level.
Normal harmonic distortion, by
contrast, is usually at its maximum at
full level. At low level, spurious harmonics (that is to say, those invented by the
circuit) will be below noise level, and may
therefore be considered inaudible. What
the phrase you quote seems to mean
is that the amplifier written about has
distortion that falls as level drops, and
the amplifier can therefore be assumed
to be free of crossover distortion.
We ourselves have a better way to
be a very tarnished brass. Should I have probably know that already. To get the
most from those double subwoofers,
these changed to WBT’s or the like? My associated equipment is as fol- however, you’ll want to upgrade to an
lows: Michell Gyrodec turntable with amplifier with more muscle, and one
QC power supply, Rega RB300 arm which is at ease even with low-impedance
with Cardas rewire, Shelter 501 Mk II loads.
I am a long time subscriber, and cartridge, Vecteur L-4 CD, Lehmann
After having my Simaudio Celeste
have just purchased a pair of speakers Black Cube phono, Vecteur I-4 amplifier,
that I have been lusting after for a long and DH Labs Q-10 speaker cable. Is the W-4070 amplifier for the last ten years or
For
now, we have
been publishing,
our the
WebSupremas
site, a free PDF
enough toon
drive
so, I figure it is time for a change. With
time, the Reference 3a years
La Suprema.
I Vecteur
version
of
our
magazine.
am thrilled to finally have this excellent long term? I know you reviewed it very limited funds I thought a good upgrade
Theand
reason
is simple.
know you’re
looking
information,
favorably,
but I am
unsurefor
what
my next and
would be an older Moon W-3. After
speaker in my system,
I have
a few We
that
is
almost
certainly
why
you’ve
come
to
visit
our
site.
And that’s waiting
why
for my local dealer to have one
questions for you about this particular move should be. we
give
away
what
some
competitors
consider
to
be
a
startlingly
large
Tyrone Edge come in on trade, I gave up and found
speaker, as it came with boxes but no
amount of information…for free.
TORONTO, ON another W-4070 that was ten years old
instruction manual.
would
it all away for free, if we could still stay in business.
but had never been sold. I just bought it
First, how do youWe
remove
thegive
speaker
Recent
figuresowner
indicate that
each issue
is getting
last week and it arrived today. Wouldn’t
Tyrone,
on ours,
whichdownloaded
are Supremaas many
grilles? It looks like
the previous
as 100,000
figure
growing.
thekeeps
speaker
grilles are held on you know it, I just came across a tradedattempted to remove
the times,
grilles,and
butthatII’s,
Yes, we
know, if the
we hadmagnetically,
a nickel for each
and itdownload…
is easy to loosen the in W-3 on the same day. My plan was to
slightly cosmetically
damaged
Truth
is,
we’re
in
the
business
of
helping
you
enjoy
music
at home
vertically biamp the W-4070’s.
front of the speaker. I can see why, as foam material when
you
remove
them.
under
the
best
possible
conditions.
And
movies
too.
We’ll
do
what we need
What would be better, vertically
the grilles are recessed, and appear The best way is with a bent paper clip,
to doDo
in order
to getany
the information
you.
biamp my two smaller 4070’s, or trade
difficult to remove.
you have
inserted intotothe
gap.
tobinding
read ourposts
published
too. We
them both on the W-3? I currently use a
suggestions? Of course, we also want you
The
on oureditions
Supremas
hope
that,
having
read
this
far,
you’ll
want
to
read
on.
Second, I have the version without are unusual, but they work extremely Celeste P-4001se preamp and a Shanling
Corian sides. They are instead finished well. They are easy to tighten with a CD-S100 MKll CD player with Von
Schweikert VR-2 speakers. in a wood grain. The speakers I have large coin, and they stay tight too..
Trevor Roberts
appear to have binding posts that are of
In the short term the Vecteur can
INGERSOLL, ON
fairly hideous quality — they appear to certainly drive the Supremas, but you
Advice
Feedback
Free
check for this (fortunately rare) flaw:
we look at the output of a very low-level
sine wave on an oscilloscope. If there is
a notch resulting from crossover distortion, it will be visible.
Why a free version?
Vertically biamping the W-4070’s is
an attractive solution, Trevor, because
that remains a very good amplifier. In
case you’re wondering, we still have ours,
running in bridged mode to drive the
centre channel in our Kappa system.
However the Kappa system also
includes a W-3, driving the front left
and right speakers, and it is in a different category entirely. We would be
tempted to make the trade, and if there
were any money left over we would next
set our sights on a replacement for the
preamp.
Paul, if you are convinced you need
more power, we recommend going for
one of the amplifiers, from Bryston or
from Linn. However we do not recommend spending money on a new
processor or a preamp-processor for the
moment.
That’s because there are currently no
high end units which include the ability
to handle the new Blu-ray-associated
formats, namely Dolby True-HD and
dts-HD. These two audio systems,
unlike present-day DVD sound, use
lossless codecs. Every high end manufacturer we’ve talked to — and we’ve
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talked to a number of them — is waiting
for the new chips to be available to them.
The first of them are promised for next
Summer, though we think Autumn is
more realistic, and even so they will
trickle in slowly. The processors you
could buy now have obsolescence written
all over them.
FREE ADVICE ON LINE!
www.uhfmag.com/FreeAdvice.html
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These are my components: Arcam
AVR 350, biamped to Totem Forest
speakers using Totem speaker wires,
Bryston BCD-1 player, Denon 2910
DVD player, and an Atlas Compass
digital cable. I want to increase the impact of twochannel music first.
I was thinking of going to separates.
Bryston has the 9BSST five-channel
amp, and the AV processor SP-2. They
also have the new 875 HT 8-channel
amp which can be configured to 240
wpc for the front three channels and
100 wpc for the rear. Or the Arcam FMJ
separates.
Or the Linn separates, A kurate
Kontrol, one Akurate 3200 amp and one
Majik 2200 amp for the rear. I like this
setup because it is very compact. I can’t hear any of these systems
because I live in a small town. Where
would you put your money on taking it
to the next level ? Paul Gorcak
NANAIMO, BC
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Acoustics
Part VII
Speaker Placement and Acoustics
I
t barely needs repeat ing t hat
selecting a placement for a pair of
loudspeakers will influence their
performance. Usually we think of
the influence of the room as being for the
worse, but this is not always so. Allow me
to backtrack a little.
In the very first installment of this
series on acoustics, I evoked the image
of a loudspeaker playing in the middle
of a pasture, and indeed an ad by a
well-known speaker manufacturer once
included an illustration of exactly that.
The open space of the field, plus the
(presumably) high acoustic absorption of
the porous soil, would eliminate virtually all reflections. What we would hear
would be principally — nearly
exclusively — the sound emitted from the loudspeaker, or
to be exact from the front
of the loudspeaker.
Would this be desirable? In fact it would not. The
output from the speaker would be
a fraction of what it would be in a real
room, and it would be exceedingly thin,
lacking in bass. When we are setting up
our music room, as I then suggested, we
do not wish to emulate a pasture.
It may seem ironic, then, that some
loudspeaker manufacturers test their
creations in precisely that fashion,
using an anechoic chamber, to prevent any
boundary reflections to “interfere” with
the speaker output they are attempting to measure. I need hardly explain
that this can be problematic, since an
anechoic chamber is totally unlike the
setting where the speakers are likely to
be used, or indeed should be used.
That does not mean that these manufacturers are wrong-headed or ignorant,
only that whatever numerical results the
test yields will be related only indirectly
to what we can expect to hear.
Interestingly enough, some audio
laboratories, especially those associated with magazines that once had
considerable influence, attempted to
by Paul Bergman
“remedy” this problem by placing not
only a microphone on axis with the front
of the speaker, but also one or more
microphones around to the rear and
perhaps the sides of the speaker. The
goal was ostensibly to allow the reading
of the “real” frequency response of the
loudspeaker under test.
This appears to be a rather expensive
and roundabout substitute for simply
making the readings with a single microphone in an ordinary room, though it
does have the advantage of standardizing
the method, and making it repeatable. I
would argue that repeatability does not
in and of itself give a test meaning.
It is however unquestionable that it is
in part the omnidirectional
output of a loudspeaker
that gives it its character. The precise
nat u re of t h is
out put is determined in part by the
design of the loudspeaker,
in part by the characteristics of
the listening room, and in part by
where in that room the loudspeakers
are placed.
What about loudspeaker design?
At low frequencies — let us say at
40 Hz or 80 Hz — a loudspeaker will
be omnidirectional, emitting sound
in all directions, and this holds true
regardless of which way the driver is
pointing. I explained this phenomenon
in the first installment, where I likened
low-frequency sound propagation to the
waves produced in a pond when you drop
a stone into the water. The waves go
all about, and they can even go around
obstacles.
As frequency rises, however, the sound
becomes more and more directional, and
behave less like waves in the water and
more like rays of light. There is of course
no precise cutoff at which sound behavior shifts from one model to the other,
but as frequency rises it becomes more
the folded horn.
Folded horn speakers have made something of a comeback
no doubt because of
the popularity of lowpowered amplifiers
and t herefore ver y
efficient loudspeakers.
Horn-loaded speakers can produce much
more sound per watt
than the usual reflex
speaker, or the sealed
enclosure.
Why should this
be? If loudspeakers are
inefficient (and their
efficiency is very low,
with from 2% to 15%
of energy going into
sound, the rest into
heat), it is not only
because of the cabinet that is behind the
speaker, but also what
is in front. A speaker
cone is much smaller
Of megaphones and loudspeakers
than the air mass of the room, and for
Someone shouting into a megaphone that reason it is difficult for it to transfer
will be heard much farther away, and large amounts of energy. A tapered horn,
such devices have long been used by if it has been designed correctly, provides
everyone from football coaches to film a gradual transition from one mass to
directors (ironically, their modern elec- the other, and so the energy transfer is
tronic versions are less effective because greater. This is also part of the secret
of distortion). If a loudspeaker is placed of the operation of the megaphone,
near a pair of room boundaries (a wall which provides a more efficient energy
and floor), or near three room bound- path between vocal cords, mouth and
aries (a corner, made up of the floor air space.
and two walls) it is evident that much
However the hi-fi horn has an Achilof the energy emanating from the rear les’ heel, namely its size. Efficient though
sides long-time
of the loudspeaker
have most
it is,
efficiency
andWhat
readers tellwill
us they
likeitsabout
UHF drops
is that precipitously
it
nowhere
to
go
but
forward.
below
a
frequency
whose
quarter wavedoes more than review amplifiers and speakers.
This
is inissue,
fact only
a part ofideas.
the expla- length is greater than the diameter of the
In
every
we discuss
nation
for
the
megaphone
effect,
and for
horn.
Thiswhat
is a considerable
We try to tell you what you need
to know,
besides
CD player tolimitation,
the
rest
I
shall
go
back
to
an
earlier
era
and
I
am
not
certain
all designers of horn
buy.
in
the
development
of
hi-fi.
loudspeakers
are
aware
of it.
It’s one of the features that makes UHF Magazine unlike any other
You
may
possibly
recall
that
at
one
To
compute
how
serious
this is, let
audio magazine.
time there were loudspeakers intended us recall the mathematical formula for
to fit into a corner. Some actually had calculating the wavelength of a sound in
a triangular shape so that they could be air. It is this:
tucked right into the corner. Though
l = s/f
this arrangement did not survive the where f is the frequency and s is the
development of stereophonic sound, speed of sound in air, about 345 metres
there were some advantages to the per second.
arrangement, and it was especially
Let us take a horn speaker whose
advantageous for one type of speaker, mouth is 70 cm (0.7 m) across. We can
Not just hardware…
Acoustics
and more useful to use
the light ray analogy.
Observant audiophiles will have noticed
that speakers become
more direct ional as
frequency rises. You
have on ly to l isten
behind a spea ker to
notice that bass notes
w i l l predom i nate.
Some loudspeakers are
in fact designed to be
extremely directional at
high frequencies. This
is done deliberately, and
I shall return to that
point presently.
Let us for t he
moment return to the
bass, which as mentioned is largely omnidirectional. There will,
therefore, be as much
low-frequency energy
emanating from the
rear (and the sides) of
the speaker as the front.
What happens to that energy?
In an anechoic chamber it is absorbed,
or at least it is if the chamber is very large
and sufficiently absorbent. In the pasture
mentioned earlier most of it simply goes
off into space, but for a small amount
reflected from the ground. In an actual
room, however, it is likely to have an
influence on the music you hear through
the speaker.
Though it is desirable to use absorbent
materials on the walls and other surfaces
of a music room, so that reverberation
does not keep rolling around and confusing the main signal, it is — for reasons
previously noted — exceedingly difficult
to achieve high absorption at very low
frequencies. We can therefore suppose
that the “lost” energy going behind the
speaker will not remain lost. It can be
expected to bounce, and to move forward
once more, thus reinforcing the primary
wave. Whether this happens will depend
on how the speaker is placed relative to
the room boundaries.
Why should this be?
The most common (though incomplete) explanation is that it can then take
advantage of the “megaphone effect.”
Acoustics
calculate the wavelength of an 80 Hz
sound, which will be 345/80, or 4.3
metres. The quarter wavelength will be
more than a metre, considerably more
than the 70 cm of the horn mouth.
This, however, is one of the articles
in this free PDF edition that is not
complete. The rest follows in imitation
Latin.
Of course, the article is entirely readable in either our print or electronic issue.
The rest is in what looks like Latin,
but there’s no need to pull out your
Latin-English dictionary.
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Acoustics
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augait
tisi.
Cinema
I
t is one of the most talked-about
aspect of home theatre: contrast.
You need to choose carefully in
order to get a video display with
sufficient contrast to do justice to the
film image. At the same time, we all
know that contrast is just a setting on
the display menu.
The key to understanding this is that
contrast has more than one meaning, and
unfortunately the meanings are often
confused.
Look at the image above, and you
can see that its three sections are
distinguished by only one aspect: the
contrast setting. The leftmost third has
normal contrast, and is a reasonable
representation of the original scene
(which is in Gananoque, Ontario). The
central panel is far less contrasty, and it
isn’t very attractive. It has neither whites
nor blacks. Even the swan is grey rather
than black, and the shadow area of the
trees is just another shade of grey. The
rightmost third, on the contrary, has
huge contrast, but it isn’t very attractive
either. The shadow areas are blocked
up, without detail, and the blue sky with
its cotton clouds has turned white. The
water is Crayola blue.
Clearly, extremes are not a good
thing.
Then why are we told that, in a video
display, the more contrast we have the
better? What do we miss when we switch
from the good old Trinitron tube (which,
by the way, Sony has just killed off) to
an LCD screen? That’s right…contrast.
It used to be as high as 100,000:1, and
now perhaps it’s 2000:1, hardly the same
thing. But couldn’t we just…raise the
contrast a bit on the display?
Contrast has two meanings. It can
refer to the image, as in the photo above,
or it can refer to the display device,
namely your video monitor. In an ideal
world we would match them. As we shall
see, however, a real-life scene like the one
above has a far greater contrast range
than any device can match, and than this
page can display.
Let’s look at a tonal patch first of
all. We have made it black and white in
order to avoid the confusion of different
colors.
It’s evident that the contrast here is
as extreme as it can. We have black and
we have white, and there is nothing in
between. This patch shows the contrast
of the device, which in this case is not a
video monitor, but a printed page.
What are the page’s contrast limits?
The range is narrow. Nothing can
be brighter than the white paper, and
nothing can be blacker than a full layer
of black ink. Nonetheless, the page is
capable of showing, or at least simulating, the full range of tones from white
to black.
We now appear to have more contrast, but it is an illusion. The white is
still the color of the paper, and the black
is still the color of the black ink layer. In
other words, the contrast of our “display”
(the magazine in this case) is unchanged.
What has changed is that more of the
patch is totally black and more of it is
paper-white. We have, however, lost
the gradations of grey in between. The
This pleasant scene is of a café in
Niagara-on-the-Lake. It has normal
contrast, and most of its range should fit
onto the contrast range of our “display.”
But wouldn’t it have even more punch if
it were contrastier? Of course.
before, now a washed-out white with blue
accents. The same thing has happened
to the awning of the Shaw Café, whose
color you can no longer distinguish. As
for the shadows under the flower bush,
they’ve lost all detail too.
Of course, we don’t really want to
have too little contrast either.
In this version, we can see the
extremes of tones, but they have no
punch, because they lack contrast. There
are no blacks, just greys, and there are
no whites either. In this case we have
reduced the image contrast well below
the contrast limits of our display.
But that’s easy to fix. Harder to fix is
this.
Well, it’s got punch all right — just
look at those red flowers! However what
we have gained in the middle tones (or
what we have selected to be the middle
tones) we have lost at the extremes. Look
at the blouse of the woman at left: blue
Cinema
Feedback
This magazine, by the way, was laid
out on a graphics-grade CRT monitor,
with a theoretical 100,000:1 ratio. The
patch looked far smoother on the screen
than it will in the magazine, but the
human eye adjusts amazingly well to
changes in contrast, and chances are you
will see it as normal. If you saw it in an art
book, with much whiter paper and finer
inks, you would notice the increase in
the contrast, or — as we would probably
express it — in the range of tones. But we
are stuck with this paper and these inks,
just as, in a home theatre system, we are
stuck with the range available from the
monitor we have purchased. We can of
course turn up the contrast.
image has punch, but it has lost all its
detail. The original of course didn’t
have anything worth looking at, so let’s
experiment with an actual photograph
once again.
Cinema
Feedback
In this image the contrast is normal,
with exactly the same setting as our
original version. So why doesn’t it look
right?
By all means check out the entire
article in our print or electronic issue.
The rest, nelow, is filler.
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Contrast, audio style
W hat you have just read about
contrast applies to the audio world
too. There, however, contrast is called
dynamic range. Like video contrast it has
not one but two meanings, and some
people who should know better get them
confused.
Let us first look at the loudness levels
in real-life situations. In the graph shown
here, the graduations are in decibels.
and cooling, and there may be a washing machine or dishwasher operating in
the background. There may also be the
rumble of traffic. And so we have placed
the noise level at 50 dB…not much fun,
but lots of people are living with it. Not
everyone notices anyway, because that
0 dB threshold of hearing is for a young
child, not for someone who is middle
aged, or has been listening to music too
loud for too long.
Nor can the typical music playback
Threshold of pain
110
system match a true hi-fi system. We
Onset of distortion
110
Symphony Orchestra (max)
100
have therefore brought down the maxi100
90
mum system level to 100 dB, and it is
90
80
that high only because mini systems and
80
Quiet office
70
ghetto blasters are typically listened to
70
60
at close range. Our dynamic range is
60
50
now 50 dB, less than that of naturally50
Quiet home
40
recorded acoustic music. Loud passages
40
30
will not be reproduced at realistic level,
System noise
30
Typical recording studio
Unlike with a physical magazine,
which forces you to turn pages,
20
andthe
soft passages (as well as fine details
20
on-line version of UHF Magazine
helps
you
along
with
technology.
For ones) will be below the noise.
10
of louder
10
Threshold ofinstance,
hearing click on any title in the table of contents (on the previous page),
0
We can, by the way, hear sounds that
0
and
whisked right to the article itself.
Theoretically, this you’ll
is thebedynamic
are below noise level, but not very far
Turn
to theAbove
table of advertisers
page
81systems
(and that,
the way,
is a before the masking effect takes
range that humans can
withstand.
Though on
some
hi-fi
canby
actubelow,
link),
and
click
on
the
name
of
a
product
or
company,
and
an
an
instant
110 dB sound is so loud it can cause pain, ally produce sounds at or beyond the over.
you’ll beif looking
at the threshold
ad itself. of pain (ask your neighbors!),
not to mention ear damage
it sustained.
We haven’t yet considered casual
And
then
try
clicking
on an
ad… without introducing an listening, often done at levels that peak at
Below 0 dB, sounds are inaudible (the most
cannot
If you
are connectedequally
to the painful
Internet,
you’ll be
taken right
to the
adveracoustic decibel scale
is deliberately
element,
distortion.
If we
85 dB,
leaving a paltry 45 dB of dynamic
tiser’s
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andelectronic
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A number of home theatre preampof
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but
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the
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you’re
seeking — a dynamic range of 115 dB then place the system noise at 30 dB, our processors and receivers have a “midlooking
We hope
enjoy it.range is now 80 dB. This is still night” setting, which compresses the
between loudest and
softestat.sound.
We you
dynamic
are, in other words, hard-wired for that very good, enough to allow reproducing dynamic range of film sound so that it
range.
the full dynamic range of a recording.
is possible to listen at relatively low level
Now comes the second definition of
But now let us get even more without losing the dialog.
dynamic range, that of the source that our realistic.
And wide though the range of an
system will endeavor to reproduce. The
acoustic recording may be, that of the
noise of a CD player is usually rated at
typical film is wider, often artificially.
110
over 90 dB, though this is not likely to be
The sound track will be recorded at
Maximum system level
100
achieved in practice. A high-definition
absurdly low level, thus lowering the
90
source such as an SACD could have a
quality, apparently in order to leave
80
wider range, perhaps in excess of 120 dB,
plenty of headroom for the “music”
70
but systems have too many noise sources
accompanying the logos of THX, MGM,
60
for that to be realized. An LP will have a
etc. Some studios also record the left and
Refrigerator, etc.
50
noise floor just 45 dB or so below maxiright front channels at much louder level
40
mum level, if we give all frequencies the
than the centre (dialog) channel. The
30
same weight. If we use the DIN B curve
result is that if you set up your channels
20
much favored by turntable manufacturcorrectly, with a microphone and test
10
ers, it climbs to as much as 75 dB.
tones, and you set volume so that you can
0
Those are technical figures, however.
understand the actors, the music will be
An actual music piece may have much
We are not listening in the quiet of overwhelmingly loud.
less dynamic range. That is especially a recording studio, nor are all (most?)
As with video, it is difficult to fit the
true of rock and other popular music homes as quiet as the one with the full dynamic range (or contrast) of the
genres, in which compression (that of 45 dB background noise level. Homes real thing into the reality of everyday
audio levels, not lossy MP3 compression) have refrigerators, they have heating life.
is used to narrow the dynamic range.
Compression is used for the same
reason that we cannot attempt to fit the
contrast ratio of a real-life scene into the
much narrower range of a video display
or a printed page. Not all listeners are
using genuine high fidelity systems,
and not all homes are as quiet as the one
labelled on the previous graph. This,
then, is a more realistic graph of a home
situation.
UHF on line is interactive!
Cinema
Feedback
Feature
Two Shows in a Changing Vegas
T
he picture on this page tells
the story: the famous Las
Vegas Strip is changing. The
wrecking crews have been at
work, wiping out kilometre after kilometre of hotels and casinos: the Stardust,
the Frontier, the Travelodge, and the
hotel formerly known as the Holiday Inn
(the picture across shows what’s left of
the Frontier). In their place are forests
of cranes bearing powerful spotlights to
allow crews to work 24/7. New casinos,
giant luxury hotels, show venues, stores
with designer goods, family attractions,
and condos with million dollar starting
prices.
The wild expansion has everything
to do with the Consumer Electronics
Show. Some of those hotels that are now
rubble were favorites of CES attendees,
because they were cheap, their nightly
prices — especially during the week —
subsidized by the gaming tables. But the
luxurious palaces replacing them have
prices to match their glittering appointments, and some of them even insist on a
guarantee that visitors during the show
will spend a certain minimum amount
by Gerard Rejskind
on food and entertainment. Even some
companies with deep pockets, such as
Hewlett-Packard, are cutting back on
booth staff.
Naturally, the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes CES,
is concerned. A couple of years ago
it rescheduled the show so that it fell
entirely on weekdays, avoiding the more
expensive weekends. Of course the hotel
operators caught on to that. And if you
don’t like the prices at Caesar’s Palace,
you won’t do much better by moving off
the Strip to the Rio, because Caesar’s
owns the Rio. Indeed, that is much of
the problem: a drop in competition. At
one time Vegas casinos were owned by
the Mob, but today they may be owned
in part by your own retirement pension.
They’re listed on the stock exchange,
and a few big players are gobbling up
the others.
Which led to a front-page story in the
Las Vegas Sun the day before CES opened:
the show might be looking for a new home.
But where? Four years ago the Las
Vegas Convention Centre doubled in
size, specifically to accommodate the
overflow of CES, and it’s not clear that
any other North American city can
match the capacity of Vegas. The Sun
article mentioned Chicago as a possible
alternative. But the Summer CES used
to be in Chicago, whose McCormack
Place had also doubled its size for the
show, and it’s doubtful the city could
handle the show today. Besides, Chicago
is not exactly a cheap destination, and
exhibitors used to complain about the
inflexibility of both the Teamsters and
the fire marshals. Could the show move
to Orlando? And share scarce hotel space
with Disney World?
The other venue mentioned by the
Sun is…Singapore. Would the CEA
really do that? With consumer electronics production moving increasingly to
Asia, it could make sense.
But the move is not for tomorrow, and
I suspect that the article was planted in
order to convince the Las Vegas Convention Bureau to pressure hotel operators
into easing up.
The other show
There are, as the headline above says,
two shows in Vegas, not one. The big one
is CES, with space in the Venetian on
the Strip (where most high end exhibits
are), the Las Vegas Convention Center,
the Hilton Convention Center next
door, and the Hilton hotel itself. For
the second year in a row, CES was not
in the Alexis Park resort, well off the
strip. Too bad for the alternative high
end show, known as T.H.E.Show, which
still had digs at the St. Tropez, right next
door to Alexis Park (which has returned
to its original name, after a year as the
“Alexis Villas”). This year T.H.E.Show
expended into Alexis Park, hoping no
doubt to pull in exhibitors nostalgic for
the place.
And it worked, sort of. The record
companies, most of which sat out
CES 2007, were back at Alexis, in the
Parthenon ballroom they had occupied
for years. However there weren’t many
other suites occupied. Nor were there
big crowds at Alexis, if only because the
St. Tropez had enough to keep visitors
occupied.
conferences, and the buzz
during the waits was…could
it be true that it was all over
for HD DVD? More on that
shortly.
Budgeting time
Covering Vegas properly
means long, long days, sometimes ending at 1 am, when
the on-line report is done
and ready to be uploaded. I
portioned out the four days
this way: the Venetian high
end exhibits, T.H.E.Show,
the “zoo” (i.e. the convention
centre and the Hilton), and whatever I
had missed at the Venetian. However
this report is built around themes, not
venues. After a couple of days, the
venues start to run together, and I
don’t plan to untangle them.
Loudspeakers
At every show there seem to
be more speakers than anything
else. I think I’m right that there
are more speaker manufacturers than
makers of amplifiers, CD players, and
more complex gear. Truth is, making a
speaker looks easy. It isn’t easy to make
a good one, but bolt some drivers into a
box, feed in a music signal, and unless
you’re pretty hopeless at soldering sound
will emerge.
The result is that many of the speakers at shows like these are not products I
want to spend much time with. Especially
scarce show time. However I confess to
Feature
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The show before the show
CES occupied four days, with a
“Day 0” for press conferences. There’s
even an event the evening before press
day, called CES Unveiled. That event was
once intended to showcase the winners
of the CES Innovation Awards, but that
function has pretty much faded. The
CEA, manifestly, wants to compete
with an off-site invitation-only press
event called Showstoppers (about which
more later). It has therefore adopted the
same formula: exhibitors can rent tables,
whether they’ve won something or not,
and show their wares to hungry and
thirsty reporters.
There were a lot of us there, far too
many for the limited space, as you can
see in the photo at right. I wasn’t really
there for the food, which is just as well,
because it was pretty much inedible. The
wine at the open bar had seemingly been
selected to limit consumption, so awful
was it.
The exhibitors were not of much
more interest, and certainly well below
what would be found two days later at
Showstoppers. I got my hopes up when
I saw a vaguely hi-fi device from Bel
Canto, pictured at right. It looks as
though it could be a small amplifier, or
possibly a digital-to-analog converter,
but it is instead a fancy dock for the iPod.
I was hoping that Bel Canto had found a
way to get a pure digital signal out of the
player, with or without Apple’s aid, but
no such luck. The unit pulls out the same
line-level analog signal you can get with
a $20 cable, but it claims to put back the
missing information by psycho-acoustic
processing. What’s next, Bel Canto, a
perpetual motion machine?
(Not at CES Unveiled was Wadiya,
whose device really can pull a digital —
not analog — signal from an unmodified
iPod. The iTransport will cost $350, and
if it works as claimed it is a breakthrough.
We’ll keep an eye on it.)
On press day there were, as usual,
long lineups for scarce space in press
having
a sof t spot for
unusual speakers, and even weird
speakers. I even enjoy them when they
are not very good, though some are quite
delightful. Some even become famous,
and then they don’t seem so weird
anymore.
Have a look at the speaker at top left
on the next page, the bright red one. It’s
from a company called Emerald Physics
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(I think of emeralds as green, but never mind). The Emerald CS2 is unusual
in more than its shape and color. For one thing, it’s open-backed. Although
that seems to run against basic principles, and indeed the very reason to have
a baffle in the first place, there are several companies that also make speakers
in this way, and a surprising number experimenting with them. But that isn’t
all. It comes with a digital processor module that is said to control directivity,
in order to tame room reflections. And all for $2995.
How did it sound? Rather pleasant in fact. The source was a SlimDevices
tube server (SlimDevices is the Logitech division that makes the Squeezebox).
The speakers were driven by an Absolute Definition power amplifier and a
ModWright preamplifier.
You’ve probably noticed the big speaker at right.
Yes, the Perfection speaker is made of glass, and rather thick layers of it
too, though probably fragile in shipping. You’ll have noted that there’s no
damping material, such as fiberglass, but you tap the cabinet and there’s no
audible ringing. And what you see isn’t even all of it. There is also a subwoofer,
and it is also glass, which sounds like madness, but it seems to work. It comes
in custom finishes, which is to say in glass tinted in colors other than green.
The delivery cost alone can probably explain the $275K price, as can the 200
hours of assembly.
The sound? I listened to a familiar recording, Lights of Louisianne from
Jennifer Warnes’ The Hunter album. It sounded very good, smooth and
airy.
The speakers were driven by BA Labo
electronics, which are new to me.
Now look at the speaker at bottom
left. It is nothing if not unusual, but
the manufacturer’s name is familiar.
It’s Gradient, the Finnish company
that once built a subwoofer for the
Quad ESL-63 electrostatic, and
went on to make some rather
original speakers. This one,
called the Helsinki, is rather
more original than most,
with drivers facing in what
appear to be conflicting
directions. The Helsinki
actually has characteristics in common with speakers
already mentioned. The woofer, which is side-firing, is
open-backed, and the unusual driver configuration is
intended to control directivity!
The Helsinki reproduces perspective just fine, I have
to add. I listened to it playing the opening from the
legendary Jazz at the Pawnshop album, and the image was
broad and deep.
How about a speaker that, far from controlling directivity, sprays sound around 360 degrees? That’s the case of a
new German Physiks speaker, at immediate left. If control
means reducing room effect, a speaker like this means the
opposite. As luck would have it, these speakers were set
up in one of those awful large rooms in the convention
section of the Venetian. It’s not a place for a speaker like
this one. In the next room was another German 360-degree
speaker, the 101X-Treme Double from MBL. It didn’t do
any better.
Now here’s a speaker I found downright weird when
I first ran across it some years ago. It’s the Rethm
Saadhana, and that’s it at left. After you get over your
initial surprise its looks kind of grow on you. The
superb fit and finish don’t harm.
This is a horn speaker, as you may possibly have
guessed, with a 15 cm Lowther paper-cone driver,
covering nearly the full range of frequencies. Below
70 Hz, a subwoofer of the same size fires downward
to fill in the bass line. Of course horn-loaded speakers are high in efficiency — this one claims 98 dB
sensitivity — and thus it was being driven to more than
respectable levels by a tiny Red Wine amp. A pair of
these speakers goes for $7850.
What I heard was excellent, with great smoothness
and especially song rhythm. Some visitors have been
known to ask whether “rethm” means “rhythm” in some
obscure language. In fact it’s Sanskrit for “harmony.”
But come to think of it that fits too.
By this time you’re probably peering at the speaker at
right. It’s the KEF Muon (say, aren’t muons supposed to
be small?). Its polished aluminum form made me think
of the T-1000 from Terminator 2, and I kept expecting it
to morph into a motorcycle cop (it made some other visitors think of Scarlett Johansson). This is a huge speaker, with
a lot of drivers at the front, plus two more at the rear. The cabinet
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the middle of the zoo, and seismic frequencies dominated.
The company also makes the Cinenova amplifiers, which
were providing the muscle. If you’re looking for weird,
you should see the centre channel!
Not at all weird is a new speaker from Totem, which
isn’t shown here, because it looks just like the Model
One. Called The One, it’s a special 20th anniversary
version of the original Totem speaker, using such exotic
(and expensive) parts as Mundorf capacitors and special
internal wiring, bringing its price to $3595. Is that a lot for
a small speaker? Vince Bruzzese would point to some of
the speakers on the last two pages. The One does sound
outstanding, yielding natural voice tone on an Alison
Krauss recording, and that despite the awful acoustics, but
that’s what I pretty much expect with Totem speakers. Only
2000 pairs of The One will be offered worldwide.
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Feature
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Feature
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New to me was M Acoustics, which makes large speakers, including
the two at right. The Eclipse (the black one) made me smile, because we
sometimes talk about “laid back” speakers. They weren’t playing, however,
so I have no idea how laid back they are, but I spent some time listening
to the even larger speaker at far right, the Coherence Stage 2.
Both speakers are from the Italian company Omicron. The Coherence is not exactly an inexpensive speaker, at something like $47,000,
but its size at least is in line with the price, and like many Italian
speakers it looks the part, with outstanding styling and finish. The
speakers, alas, were set up in a truly awful venue, and I noted that,
after last year, fewer exhibitors had exiled themselves to these cubes
(one entire floor of them was used entirely for meeting rooms, and
they were lousy even for that). What I can say is that the speakers
sounded amazingly natural despite the toxic surroundings.
Below left is a new speaker from Focus Audio. I
rather associate Focus with upscale speakers,
and some of them are huge too, notwithstanding the compact model that was on the cover of
UHF No. 68. The new FS7 costs just $2700. It
was playing opposite another model which has
a price of $12K.
At bottom left is a new speaker from ASW, the
Magadis, and it signals the German company’s
entry into a different league. Its previous upscale
“Genius” series topped out at around $5000, but the Magadis
will sell for six times that! Those white drivers are ceramic, and come
from Thiel (the German company, not the US one), as does the ribbon
tweeter. I listened to the Scherzo from Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9,
and was pleased with the brass sound, which was natural without the
all-too-common shrillness.
Speaking of Thiel (the US company, not the German one), you can
see its latest product at bottom right. Yes, the little bookshelf that is
sprouting antennas, sitting atop…what is that anyway?
Well, they’re antennas all right. Welcome to Thielnet. Jim Thiel
designed the speaker, but not the circuitry, which uses wireless networking to get music from here to over there. It doesn’t look like a purist
product, and it is perhaps a recognition that the times they are a-changin’,
but there’s a market for installations with fewer wires. Besides, if
someone has to design something like this, wouldn’t you rather it
was Jim Thiel?
At right are two Canadian speakers, one old, one new. The old
one (with the two woofers on the front) is one we know well but
hadn’t seen in years, the Pierre Gabriel Presence II. At one time
that was the company’s only product, until it began making cables
(several of which we use in our reference systems), and became distributors
for Jadis.
To the right of the Presence is Coincident Speaker Technology’s Pure Reference
loudspeaker ($22K). Those are of course ceramic drivers on the front, with the sidemounted woofers that Israel Blume often uses in his larger speakers. He was running
them with his own amplifiers, a pair of Frankenstein(!) monoblocks ($5799 for the pair).
The Frankensteins use 300B single-ended tubes and manage just 8 watts each, but the
Pure References were making plenty of music with them.
I think I did say that ceramic drivers are the “in” thing these days. I heard a new
Avalon speaker, the Indra, sporting a ceramic midrange and tweeter. There’s no picture,
but they look a lot like other Avalon speakers you’ve seen. I was surprised by the wide
sound stage, unusual for a large speaker, and the quickness of the transients. The Indra
costs “just under” $20,000, I was told.
Two more loudspeakers before we move on.
At right is the Raidho Ayra C3.0 (sounds like software rather than hardware).
It’s from Denmark, and it caught everyone’s ear, including mine. It rarely happens at CES, that people who have heard a product practically pull others in
telling them they “just have to hear this.” Say, are those white drivers…ceramic?
They sure are, but they’re designed by Raidho, not bought off the shelf. The
ribbon tweeter is an in-house product too. The sound of percussion, including
bells, through these speakers was unusually good. By the way, they had been
hooked up using that $20,000 Odin cable from Nordost, but then this speaker
is even more costly, at $37,000. Interesting, though.
Also interesting, though for a totally different reason, is the speaker at
left. It’s a Philips speaker, selling for about 10,000 times less than the Raidho.
Wait a minute, it’s not a Philips, it’s a Philip. It’s one of countless products from
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for output
except
that
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this
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have articles
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onoff
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anywhere
on the amplifier suggest an upscale price, but in fact it costs just $3995 for the pair. The maker is Opera
in thehome
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if they
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town.
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Geneva?
Prague? are
No,included.
it’s Beijing. Which explains
It’s
available
from
MagZee.com.
the price.
The preamplifier at right is from Rogue, a company whose products are not
from China, but whose
prices are mostly
on the low side,
considering that
they use tubes,
a nd t hat t hey
are for the most
part pretty good or
better. This one, called
the Hera, is a little more
expensive, at $7995. It uses
the 6H30P tube, which I can’t
say I recall coming across in my
(distant) day as a tube gear designer. It is in fact a Russian military tube, and the Hera
uses no fewer than eight of them. The motorized volume control is not the usual potentiometer,
but a 120-step switch from Switzerland. Not shown, by the way, is its outboard power supply.
Now here’s an interesting product, the one at bottom left. It’s from Boulder, known for
resolutely upscale electronics (including a $29,000 phono stage). The Boulder 1021 CD player is not
like anyone’s else’s. You will have noticed the large front-panel screen, which shows the album title
in large green letters, and includes a complete track list. How does it do that? It gets the information the same way that iTunes and like programs do, by polling the
GraceNote data base on line. Yes, that means it has an Internet
connection. The player also has a buffer memory that can
load a full minute of audio, and
play from that rather than
the mechanical drive. It
costs $24,000.
And at right is the
Tube Box 3, from ProJect. Since Pro-Ject makes
turntables, you will have
guessed this is a phono
preamp.
Get the complete version
Feature
Feedback
Is analog alive and well? If you
go by the number of turntables
that make their appearance at
shows like CES, there’s just
no denying it. Check out the
tables on this page.
Germany’s Clearaudio was
showing more models than anyone else,
including the one at left, inevitably called “The Statement.” It weighs 350 kg, which means reinforcing your floor, as you would
for a water bed. The platform is self-levelling with gyroscopes, the materials used
are (the company says) bulletproof, and the motor is the same one used on NASA’s
Mars Rover. A statement indeed! More practical perhaps is the Performance Black
Pearl, above, and the clear Pearl turntables at top. The lighting isn’t included,
though. They’re about $2500, and sound very good.
At left is a new turntable from Creek…yes, Mike Creek’s
company, which makes amplifiers and CD
players, as well
as Epos loudspeakers.
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Of course it
from the suspensionless Revolver of years ago. By the way, it will play 78’s.
Below it is the pinkish-orange Scheu Analogue turntable, which was playing this year (and
rather well, too). When I saw it last year it had no tone arm, and it bore the
model name “Ladylike” (it’s orange in photographs, but it’s pink in real
life). It may still be called that, but no one was writing it on a sign,
and a good move too.
At left is a
new t u r nt able
from Cambridge
Audio. It’s a rather
si mple one, a nd it
was upstaged by t he new
840-series Azur power amp and preamp
from the same company.
At right, the impressive Kondo Ginga table, from the company once called
Audio Note Japan. It’s part of a complete upscale system.
Feature
Feedback
r acti
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t
n
i
s
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i
Yes,
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Feature
Feedback
What’s this, a wooden hi-fi system? Yes, exactly. It’s from Soundsmith, whose founder,
Peter Ledermann once worked at Bozak (known decades ago for large upscale speakers),
and more recently IBM. Much of the gear on this rack
is his, except for…well, the components that don’t have
wood faces. That includes the loudspeakers, which
are not in the picture, the tone arm, and…oh
yes, the phono cartridge.
Not many audio designers take on the
challenge of making a phono cartridge,
because it’s the opposite of making a loudspeaker — it isn’t easy to make even a poor
one. Ledermann hasn’t gone for a custom
version of an off-the-shelf cartridge in this
case. His cartridges are strain gauge devices.
Perhaps you associate the strain gauge with
the device at the heart of your bathroom scale
(at least if your scale is a good one), but there
have been strain gauge cartridges before. Just
as the one in your scale measures how much
the scale sinks when you step on it, the ones
in the cartridge measure the displacement of
the stylus. The down side: the cartridge requires
a special phono preamp (Soundsmith makes five models). The
cartridge shown below right is probably an SG-410, and I must say it sounded impressive enough (as did, of course, the rest of the system) that I remained for several recordings. By the way,
notice that the tone arm has a wooden body.
I hadn’t sat down to listen to a product from Norway’s Electrocompaniet
for a while, and I was glad to lend an ear to the amplifier shown below left, the
awkwardly-named AW.3x120-M power amplifier. The power rating — 120 watts
per channel in class A — is right in the model name, though
the name also seems to
suggest that it’s a threechannel amp, which is
not the case. One of its
unusual features is not
only that it is remotecontrolled, which is
unusual for a power
amp, but that a screen
on the remote shows
the amplifier’s current
operating parameters,
presumably giving you something to read while you listen.
Fed by the company’s own EMP-1/S SACD player, it was worth staying around for. It was helped by the speakers, a pair
of Escalante Fremont speakers that have never failed to impress me
when I’ve run across them.
Bryston was baking in the glow of the warm response to its
BCD-1 CD player (reviewed in UHF No. 82), and it was launching
its new standalone digital-to-analog converter (it has previously
included DACs in preamplifiers). It was also showing the B250, at
left, the first Bryston amplifier to run in class D, making it what
many people call (not quite accurately) a digital amplifier.
But Bryston isn’t about to switch its celebrated amplifier series
to class D. The B250 is an eight-channel zone amplifier, intended to
feed remote speakers for those who want music everywhere. That
application doesn’t require maximum finesse, but reliability is
a must, and that is what the amplifier promises.
Feature
Feedback
As everyone prepared for CES, the
format war between HD DVD (Toshiba)
and Blu-ray (Sony) was in full force.
Toshiba was throwing a party on press
day, to convince journalists to celebrate
what would surely be the triumph of HD
DVD.
A nd then, the day before,
came the bad news. Warner, the
last studio to back both hi-def
camps, was switching to Blu-ray.
The party was cancelled, and
Toshiba execs moved into allday meetings to decide how to
respond. On the evidence, they
drew a blank.
There was worse to come.
The next day the Financial Times
ran a story which said that Paramount, which weeks before had
thrown its weight behind HD
DVD, was changing its mind and
going all Blu-ray. The story was
lukewarmly denied, but the harm
was done. The party became a
wake. The woman at left continued gamely with a spirited and
excellent pep talk on the dying
medium (to just two people, one of them me). The representative at right gave a less polished exposé of Blu-ray, and
she had standing room only.
What went wrong? Check the photo at bottom right,
showing a pyramid made up of all the HD DVD titles
available. It was perhaps a tenth of what it should have been.
Game over.
So it’s going to be Blu-ray. What we need now is high
end gear that will let us get the most out of it, and especially
uncompressed sound, Dolby True-HD and dts-HD. Yes,
uncompressed sound is on present-day discs,
but getting good
gear to decode
it is a not her
matter. Even
Harman/
Kardon,
which
I
figure would
have solid
c o n n e c t io n s
i n con s u mer
electronics, is promising its new preamp-processor for
next summer. So is Simaudio. We are still using its Moon
Attraction unit from six years ago, but its replacement,
shown above, is an empty box, awaiting the availability of
the relevant chips. We’re waiting patiently…or perhaps not
so patiently.
For the moment we’re not buying.
Feature
Feedback
Every year, someone claims the
crown for the biggest TV screen yet.
This year’s winner was Panasonic, with
a 150-inch (381 cm) monster. Sales so
far…
But if you’re counting just large
images, check the Panasonic Lifewall,
in the two pictures below. Why buy furniture when your Lifewall can furnish
the room in the blink of an eye? There’s
even a swimming pool visible through
the windows and a crackling blaze in
the fireplace. Make a hand gesture (the
Lifewall responds to those), and the
fireplace is replaced by an aquarium. Or
by a high definition movie. Great fun, if
a little creepy.
But my guess is that you will be shopping this year for neither the 150-incher
nor the Lifewall. Do the new video
screens have anything new to offer
besides size? Yes indeed.
Sharp was showing some particularly
attractive video displays, as it has done
for several years. One innovation I didn’t
see anywhere else is four-color video.
Aside from the usual RGB (red-greenblue) primary colors, Sharp has added
a fourth color that is a little pinkier,
which it calls "crimson red.” That sounds
redundant, but it allows subtler reds that
are less like neon signs.
Also new is “120 Hz Fine Motion
Adva nced.” I n N T SC telev ision,
60 frames per second are shown, which is
enough unless something moves. Sharp
is upscaling the rate to 120 frames per
second, allowing fast action and even
camera panning without blur. Sharp’s
side-by-side demo was convincing.
This advance is not unique, however.
Several other companies were showing
the same technique, including Panasonic
and even the bargain brand Ölevia.
It does improve things, and you may
want to look for it on your next HDTV
monitor.
Though there were surprisingly good
LCD panels on view, especially those
from Sharp, plasma still rules and you
have to be blind not to see it. Sadly, there
was no sign of SED, the superior display
system shown two years ago by Canon
and Toshiba. Canon is going it alone now
(Toshiba has its own problems), and it
may be that the best screen ever made
will never come to market.
Gadgets and other stuff
The Segway Human Transporter is hardly cutting edge now
(“bigger than the Internet,” it was supposed to be, but Head Monster
Noel Lee swooped in on one. How come? He suffers from serious
back problems, and that is how he gets around. He and his son Kevin
introduced Dr. Dre, who is the spokesrapper for the Monster “Beats”
phones. Er, phones? Monster is going up against the iPhone? No,
the Beats are headphones. They’ll be going for $400.
CES is a great place to catch up on gadgets, of course, but a good
venue for seeing a whole lot of them together is the annual Showstoppers event. There’s a Showstoppers in orbit around pretty much all
electronic-oriented trade shows. It’s for press, invitation only, and
exhibitors pay to get a table.
The little portable recorder at right (which comes in less obtrusive
colors too) is from Edirol, which
is a division of Roland, known for
synthetizers. It includes a stereo
condenser microphone, and runs
from batteries. You can do 24-bit
recording, which caught my eye,
but the sample rate is 44.1 kHz (or
What long-time readers
us they
most translate
like aboutwell
UHF
that it
48 kHz,tell
which
doesn’t
to isCD
does more than review
amplifiers
and
speakers.
format). It records onto SD memory cards, but
In every issue, we discuss
ideas.
if you’re
recording uncompressed sound you’ll
We try to tell you what you need to know, besides
CD player to
want awhat
ten-pack.
buy.
If you can read
It’s one of the features that makes UHF Magazine
unlike any other
the SlimDevices
audio magazine.
logo on the box at
left, you’ll k now
t hat it’s a Transporter. a one-piece music
server that makes its contents
available via your local network. But what’s with those tubes
sticking up through the top plate? That’s ModWright’s “Truth”
tube upgrade for the Transporter. Slim Devices wants $2000 for
the stock machine, and Mike Wright charges $3595 for his tube version, or
$2000 to upgrade yours.
It’s hard to get around CES without tripping over a few accessories for
the iPod, but the one at left is a little different: it’s for an iPhone (it will of
course fit a lot of other iPod models). The Teac MC-DX32i is a clock radio,
letting you awaken to the morning show or your own music. And notice the
vertical CD player. The speakers are those thin NXT panel speakers that are
showing up in a lot of compact products.
Well before Showstoppers, it seemed
fairly obvious that it would be
a poor move to invest in an
HD DVD disc drive, but
Blu-ray was looking
suddenly a lot
more interest i ng. So
I was most
interested in
LiteOn’s new Blu-ray computer drive, shown at right. No, it’s not
a burner, but a drive that lets you watch Blu-ray movies on your
computer. Even better, the announced price is under $200 for the
internal, a little more for the external. When, LiteOn, when?
Feature
Feedback
Not just hardware…
Bloggers recognized?
Bloggers don’t get no respect, right? But were they finally
recognized by CES? If they had been, they could have
used the main press lounge, no? But they were shoved
off into their own little room. Separate but equal?
Remotest remote
Least welcome innovation
The Taser C2, “designed just for her.” Asks the press
release: “Looking for the perfect Christmas gift for
that special someone who wants to pack heat but
doesn't want to mess with bullets?” The C2, according
to Taser International, comes in several high fashion
colors, including leopard, and is good for 50 uses.
Most Retro tendency
Can you tell at a glance this is a remote control? Look
for it at your local B&O store.
Remember when show booths were staffed by scantilyclad women, on the hypothesis electronic gadgets and
fishnet stockings appealed to the same demographic?
TechwareLabs, on its site, has a page on “CES 2008
Booth Babes.” Check the badges on these two reps!
Gone but not forgotten
Forgotten but not gone
Outside the Las Vegas Hilton, the King still reigns
Surprised? Elsewhere in Vegas, there were nightly
concerts of Earth, Wind and Fire. Ask your
grandparents.
Rendezvous
The Electrostat Man
R
oger Sanders was one of the
founders of Innersound, known
for its tall electrostatic speakers,
but he is now building speakers
under his own name, and selling them
directly (in the picture above he’s standing
next to a 10A, which costs $13,000). He is,
by the way, not related to Gayle Sanders,
president of MartinLogan, though he claims
to have invented the curved electrostat (ML
speakers are curved, the 10A is flat). We
listened to a pair of 10a tall panel plus their
built-in conventional woofers, and noted
their killer image, aside from other virtues.
They were playing in a rather small room,
not the sort of space in which you would think
to put tall speakers like the 10a’s.
We listened to several recordings, ranging
from popular music to world beat to opera,
and we talked with the speakers’ creator about
his long experience with electrostatics.
UHF: You use transmission line loading
rather than closed boxes or reflex loading.
Sanders: Yes, because they’re all reso38   ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
nant enclosures, and the real problem is
to stop this heavy woofer. Pretty much
all woofers have overshoot and ringing,
due to their poor enclosure designs. A
transmission line solve that problem. It
damps the woofer so that it comes to a
stop when it’s supposed to. This is further improved by a custom-built woofer
design with a magnetic damping system.
It’s biamplified too. A 600 watt amplifier
comes with each speaker. I use a lowmass, low-Q driver, to get the transient
response in the bass needed to match the
transient response of the electrostatic
panel, which — being massless — is
virtually instantaneous.
UHF: An electrostatic panel isn’t truly
massless.
Sanders: No, but it’s mass is swamped
by the mass of the air. It’s like trying to
ring a bell under water — it just won’t do
it. So even if you have a vinyl record that
has ticks and pops, those ticks and pops
are not exaggerated by an electrostatic
as they are by a normal tweeter, so you
have all the highs without the problems
of surface noise.
In addition, I’ve worked for 40 years
to develop a panel that’s very efficient.
It’s arc-proof, humidity-proof and bugproof. We’ve had no failures with this
design over the last 20 years, even in
Asia, where it’s very humid.
One other lovely thing about electrostats is that you can play them quietly
and still hear all the detail.
UHF: You no longer use a curved panel.
Sanders: I invented the curved panel
that Martin-Logan uses. After three
years working with them, I came to the
conclusion that they just weren’t good.
I decided to go to a highly directional
speaker, to deliberately limit highfrequency dispersion, to eliminate room
acoustics. No room sounds good, and
if you listen to all these delayed reflections from all directions you cannot get
accurate phase information, to give you
a three-dimensional holographic image.
This system does, because it eliminates
room acoustics, and allows you to space
the speakers as wide as you want without
ever getting a “hole in the middle.” The
speakers kind of disappear, and it’s like
listening to giant headphones.
UHF: What’s the crossover point between
your electrostatic panel and your dynamic
woofer?
Sanders: It’s 360 Hz. It takes very good
woofer performance to do that. One of
the biggest weaknesses of electrostatic
speakers is poor output, poor “slam” and
punch. They just don’t have the impact
or headroom, or the ability to produce
loud stuff live.
UHF: In that percussion sequence you played
for us, there’s an interesting height effect.
Some drums seem higher up than others.
Sanders: Yes, it’s interesting. They’ll
really reproduce the recording technique
very clearly. You can hear when multimiking has been used, because it sounds
as though the instruments are in a giant
pipe. It isn’t very natural, but it sure can
be nice.
UHF: And they do play loud…
Sanders: They sure do. A Quad could
never do that!
Listening Room
Raysonic CD128 Player
I
s this yet another Chinese CD
player? Sort of.
The styling is certainly reminiscent of Chinese products of the
past five or six years, with free use of
brushed and anodized aluminum, the
presence of tube circuits, and dramatic
illumination by colored LED’s. Even the
power switch gives away the origin of the
player — only in China do they mount
it on the side rather than on the front or
rear.
But Raysonic is a Canadian company,
and the C128 is built in a Chinese plant
it actually owns. Thus the player is billed
as designed in Canada and assembled in
China, but is that the whole story?
The Raysonic's externals are almost
certainly the product of a Chinese styling studio, and if it is exotic, it is also
gorgeous. True, it is not exactly discreet,
and it will not help your music system
to blend subtly into your living-room
decor. We liked it, however, but for
one jarring note: the display screen is a
nasty green that doesn’t go at all with
the blue lighting up top. The screen
can be turned off, fortunately, and that
is what we did when we took the cover
picture. It can also be dimmed, but we
wondered whether Raysonic knows that
half the players in the world today have
blue fluorescent screens.
The analog circuits used four 6922
Russian Electro-Harmonix triodes, a
version of the 6DJ8, splashed with light
from a series of blue diodes. Also backlit
in blue, in a circle around the top panel,
are the buttons for the basic transport
functions. Their placement is more
æsthetic than practical, but of course the
full set of functions is accessible from
the handsome aluminum remote control
shown on the next page.
You need a screwdriver to change
the remote’s batteries, by the way, but
Designed in Canada,
assembled in China, it
says here…
that screwdriver is actually supplied, as
are white gloves for handling the easilyfingermarked player.
This is of course a top-loading
player. The CD well is covered by a
well-machined chamfered acrylic cover
with an aluminum knob. We weren’t
sure where to put it during loading, since
there is also a magnetic puck to hold the
disc down. The player won’t run with the
cover off unless you want to put sticky
tape on the sensor switch. That makes
loading a disc feel as though it would be
easier if you had three hands.
At the rear are attractive phono jacks
for the analog and digital outputs. There
are XLR connectors for balanced operation, but not for the digital output.
Though the CD128 is strictly Red
Book, and won’t play any of the highdefinition formats, its remote control
includes a button to allow the player
to upsample the signal from a CD all
the way up to 96 kHz. Why 96 and not
88.2 kHz, which would be exactly double
the CD sampling rate, and wouldn’t
and that allowed more room
for the space around the
pipes to develop. Should we
continue with the upsampling switched in?
We returned to normal
sampling and listened to the
next selection, the Pompeya
from Pujol’s Brazilian Suite
(Analekta AN 2 9817) for
the Similia guitar-f lute
duet. The rhythm wasn’t
quite as strong as it had
been with our own player,
and the slightly forward
sound kept us from savoring
the depth and three-dimensional quality of this appealing recording. But once
again we listened a second
time, this time with the
player allowed to upsample
the digital signal to the
96 kHz of high-definition
media.
Gerard wasn’t sure it
truly sounded better the
second time, nor was Reine,
who still remembered the
magic the Linn had given the recording.
“With the Linn you could hear Nadia
Labrie breathing,” said Reine. Albert
thought that, without oversampling,
the space was flattened. We discussed
the differences and listened again. We
arrived at a consensus: we would listen
to the other recordings with the upsampling switched in.
With that decided, we turned next
to the wonderful harp recording Caprice
(Klavier K11133) from which we selected
Marcel Tournier’s tone poem Vers
une source dans le bois. It includes very
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Raysonic CD128
Price: C$1900
Size (WDH): 49 x 31 x 10 cm
Most liked: Very good musical performance, an absence of easily identifiable shortcomings
Least liked: Slightly awkward disc
loading, front panel a jarring color
Verdict: The virtues extend well
beyond the dramatic styling
soft passages, which can be as
impressive as loud ones, and
perhaps even more so…unless
the playback system has a sort
of built-in fog machine that
keeps us from hearing what we
want to hear.
And we were in agreement
that nothing like that had happened. In the soft passages, the
subtle cascading notes were
magnificent, flowing like the
forest brook of the title. As
louder passages arrived harpist
Susann McDonald accelerated
her pace, and the change was
easy to follow. The dynamic
change was impressive too,
with the low-pitched chords
sounding with great power,
the notes wrapping themselves
about us.
Was there a difference
bet ween t his version and
what we had heard with our
player? Yes, of course there
was. “There isn’t quite the
same magic,” said Gerard, “but
the top end sounds right, and the
bottom end sounds right too.” We agreed
on that much, though Albert admired
the way the music evoked the mysterious
atmosphere of the deep woods. That has
a magic all its own.
We turned next to a swing recording for guitar and other instruments
featuring the superb Scottish guitarist
Martin Taylor, The Spirit of Django (Linn
AKD030). The reference is of course to
Django Reinhardt and his Hot Club de
France, and our selection was Django’s
most famous composition, Nuages. It
came out so well that we forgot to make
comparisons with what we had heard
with our reference player.
There are two guitars in the recording, one of them electric (Taylor’s) and
the other acoustic, and both have a
characteristic “woody” sound that adds
texture to the piece. The tone was warm
and intimate, and the sound served the
performance well. “The playing is full
of nuances,” said Reine, “very rhythmic, but with significant pauses. What
musicians!”
Of course we needed to hear a female
voice through this player, because nothULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine    41    
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require complex mathematical transformation? Designers have to work with
the chips available, and 96 kHz is what’s
popular. Would using the upsampling be
a good thing? We would compare and
decide for ourselves.
First, we used the CD128 as a source
to break in a whole lot of other gear
scheduled for review, and of course
that ran up the hours on it as well. By
the time we brought it into our Alpha
room, it had close to 150 hours on it (it
had been shipped to us directly from the
factory).
As usual, our point of comparison
was our Linn Unidisk. We selected five
recordings of especially good quality,
and sat down to listen.
The first selection was from a new
organ recording titled Pipes Rhode Island,
which is — you will have guessed — a
collection of pieces played on the
organs of churches in the smallest US
state. The opening track, Dunstable’s
Agincourt Hymn, celebrating the battle
of 1415 made famous by Shakespeare in
Henry V, opens with a rather nasal pipe
that is delightfully dissonant, and then
brings in the full set of pipes, which are
fuller than the opening would lead you
to expect. The recording, done by John
Marks, is very good.
With the Raysonic it didn’t have
quite the clarity it did with our own
player, and that was despite the fact
that the pipe in the opening was more
forward, with possibly more emphasis
on its harmonics. There was certainly
no truncating of the bass, as there is in
some players, and the low notes may even
have been somewhat exaggerated.
Would using the machine’s upsampling make it sound better? Perhaps.
We’re habitually cautious about recommending what seems to us like trickery.
Sure, you can add extra digital samples
that don’t come from the original
recording session, and are based on
a mathematical analysis of what the
interpolated samples would have been if
they had existed. That can improve the
sound, but because it is artificial it can
also make it worse.
We listened again, with the upsampling this time (unlike with some players, switching modes doesn’t alter the
volume). The sound was less forward,
ing else will show up problems with
high-frequency performance like…let’s
say our frequent fave, Margie Gibson.
We put on her medley of Let’s Face the
Music and Dance and Cheek to Cheek.
On this final, potentially difficult,
recording, the Raysonic did itself proud.
Gibson’s voice was warm and expressive, without the touches of hardness or
excessive sibilance we have heard with
too many players. We enjoyed hearing
her slide from note to note, all to great
emotional effect. The piano and the
percussion were excellent as well, and
in good balance. “Of course she is more
realistically present with our reference
player,” said Albert, “but with the Raysonic the music still flows with ease and
simplicity.” Reine added that she is so
good that she deserves at least a player
this good.
With the listening session done, we
took the Raysonic into the lab for the
usual battery of tests.
Jitter was so low it was actually
difficult to detect. When we played a
deliberately damaged test disc, it took
a 0.1 mm slice across the track before
we could just begin to see it. And it
took a much larger slice through the
track — 1.25 mm — before jitter became
significant and we could start to see the
player concealing errors. With a 2.5 mm
slice we heard one uncorrected noise
burst, which however did not recur.
Anything beyond that caused plenty of
noise, though not mistracking. That is
outstanding performance.
The 100 Hz square wave, above left,
is quite good, with a minimum of ringing, and quickly damped at that. The
wave is more tilted than most, however,
indicating some rolloff in the top frequencies. The low-level 1 kHz sine wave,
above right, is well-shaped, though there
is some contamination by noise.
This had been a most enjoyable listening session. The price of the CD128 is
modest considering its styling cues, but it
is clear all the effort has not been spent
entirely on looks. The player sounds very
good on a wide range of music. Best of
all, it has no point of weakness, none of
the flaws that might make you eventually
sorry you had bought it.
You’d be surprised how seldom we
can say that.
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CROSSTALK
This player performs just a little better
than I would have assumed, and just a little
better than its price suggests, too. It gets
the basics right, and you have the right to
expect that much, but it does so well on those
subtle little details that are often reminders
of digital’s limitations, that it is in a class
above.
Besides, it does look great, as though it
just floated in from orbit to alight on your
equipment shelf. You can buy it for its looks,
knowing the sound won’t make you sorry.
—Gerard Rejskind
The first words that came to my lips
in seeing this player were ohs and ahs of
admiration. Its beauty can entice the most
demanding in terms of æsthetics.
But beyond the matter of looks, I was
delighted by its sonic qualities: great clarity,
broad dynamics, flawless rhythm, captivating
lows, fine and natural timbres. It reproduces
a lot of detail, with sharp inflections in both
voice and instruments. A harp invites us to a
bucolic pasture, a guitar has us hanging on
its pregnant pauses that act directly on the
emotions…none of this is hidden. Percussion
may be subtle, but it remains effective. What
struck me most of all was the playing, the
virtuosity of the musicians, the nuances of
their performance, their sensitivity.
In short, this is a player to consider, and
you may be tempted to add it to your system.
You’ll enjoy it.
—Reine Lessard
It’s interesting, I thought during the
listening tests, that so much work went
into designing a striking appearance for a
unit that actually disappears when the music
starts. After a while (especially with smaller
ensembles), I was so taken with the effortless
flowing of the music spreading out of the
speakers that I concentrated on the beauty
of the sound, the finely-defined image and
nothing else.
The Raysonic does, like all players, have
drawbacks, but like the best ones it gives
you so much of the good stuff and deals so
smoothly with the rest, that you can easily
compromise, sit back with a grin and enjoy.
Some people may enjoy the abundance of
musical textures it accurately reproduces
while others may be taken by the sheer
presence of the performers. I was touched
by the simplicity, the effortless ease in
the way the music was recreated — and
that always strikes me when I attend a live
performance.
—Albert Simon
LINN MAJIK
Linn has now added the Majik I Integrated Amplifier to provide astonishing results when coupled with a
suitable source such as the Majik CD player or Linn Akurate Tuner.
The illusion of having a singer standing between your loudspeakers or having a symphony orchestra seated in your
living room is made possible only when you faithfully reproduce the original performance.
For over thirty three years, Linn’s expertise, engineering excellence and focus on reproducing music in the home
has won praise and accolades from critical listeners worldwide.
Now, from the designer of the Linn Klimax Kontrol, comes an
integration of preamplifier and power amplifier that is truly
greater than the sum of its parts. Sound quality to amaze you
in a demonstration at your local Linn retailer. We cannot
conjure up the words to fully describe the sound: you have
to experience that for yourself.
To complete the system and reveal all the secrets of
the music you should also take the new Linn Majik
140 speaker system for an audition.
Patented 2K array, heavily braced cabinet with real
wood veneers, precise crossover with optional AKTIV
operation and multi-wire connections. Just some of
the reasons the new Majik 140’s perfectly match the
sonic accuracy of the Majik electronics.
Linn’s history as a speaker manufacturer is rich in
innovative concepts that have probed the possibilities of
music reproduction. Their reference can often be from
their own record company, with award winning artists
covering a wide range of musical tastes from jazz to folk.
Ask your Linn retailer about the “Follow the Tune” method of
evaluation. There are no “tricks” to a great listening experience.
For further information or the name of your nearest Linn retailer:
ALDBURN ELECTRONICS
A-1455 Crown, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC V7J 1G4
(604) 986-5357 [email protected]
VisionQuest DVD
Room
Listening
Feedback
T
here are so many low-cost
DVD players around, and
they get cheaper every year.
This one, with a price tag a
hair below $80, isn’t even unique…or is
it? Among the logos lined up across the
front panel JPEG, HDMI, etc.) is one we
didn’t expect to find: HDCD.
That stands, of course, for High Definition Compatible Digital, the system
co-developed by Keith O. Johnson,
whose Reference Recordings is among
several companies still putting out CDs
in that format (we included a résumé of
the way HDCD works in our review of
the Linn Majik in UHF No. 81). Can
you actually get HDCD in a player at
this price?
Sure, because remember that HDCD
is now the property of Microsoft. You
want HDCD, it will license it to you.
Windows itself is capable of decoding
HDCD, if your computer has a 24-bit
sound card.
The DVD-4802 is built in China
but distributed by a North American
company, VisionQuest, whose avowed
mission is to bring consumers affordable
cutting-edge goods just a little earlier
than the competition (we’re paraphrasing). Does it qualify? We figured it was
time we took a critical look at what a low,
low price can now bring you.
HDCD aside, the player has a wide
choice of features, including HDMI
output and video upscaling all the
way to 1080p. Yes, we know there are
inexpensive chips to implement these
features, and we know they’re finding
their way into a lot of players with eye-
popping (which is to day rock bottom)
prices. The box weighs so little that you
wonder what can possibly be in it. The
power cord is captive, which meant we
couldn’t have substituted a shielded cord
without doing surgery. We set out to
do two evaluations, first of all using it
as an audio player, and then as a movie
machine.
For the first session we set the player
up in our Alpha system, putting it up
against formidable competition, our
Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal player. To
the Linn we added our Counterpoint
converter, so that we could play HDCD
discs with proper decoding.
Yes, we know you’re waiting with
bated breath for the rest, but we do have
to preserve a certain market for our two
paid versions. Here we go…
tisi.
Movies, HDCD audio,
under 80 bucks. Any
questions?
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Summing it up…
Brand/model: VisionQuest
DVD-4802
Price: $79.95
Size (WDH): 43 x 24 x 5 cm
Most liked: Lorem eum iurer
Least liked: Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat.
Verdict: Andigna feuguer sustrud
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inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud
euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu
feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi.
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iustie magna core duipit wismod modit
vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto
delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu
ismodoloreet at.
Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat.
Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore
vulpute feu faci endre.
CROSSTALK
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facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am
quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen
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at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis
nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis
adionullamet praestrud.
Room
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Castle Richmond 7i
T
his has long been one of
our favorite loudspeaker
companies. It had its roots in
a distant event: when Wharfedale, one of the most admired speaker
makers of the 1950’s and early 60’s, was
bought up by the Rank organization…
yes, the one whose symbol is a slave
striking a gong. A dispirited group of
Wharfedale executives declined to join
the conglomerate, and they started their
own speaker company.
The Yorkshire town they settled in
was Skipton, just a little way from the
village of Wharfedale, in fact. Skipton
had an old castle, and so they called the
company Castle, and worked the image
of Castle Skipton into the company
logo.
Castle built its reputation on natural
sound. Indeed, one of those seminal
executives, a very good amateur clarinet
player, would come to shows and play a
duet with his instrument as reproduced
by Castle speakers. It was a class demo,
and it got the point across.
Natural sound is not the same as
loudness, we need hardly remind you,
and that turned out to be the Achilles’
heel of Castle. Americans love loudspeakers, and early Castles couldn’t fill the bill
(you may recall that Quad used to make
a special inferior version of its ESL-63
for the US market, offering twice the
volume at twice the distortion). With
time other models were developed, and
there were Castle models that could play
nearly anything.
Castle’s other claim to fame was its
extraordinary cabinetwork. You opened
up a Castle box, and you smelled furniture oil, not sawdust. So good was its
woodworking artistry that a number of
competitors would order their cabinets
from Skipton.
Need we explain why, in recent years,
some speaker manufacturers have gotten
into problems? The advent of home theatre, with its requirement for anywhere
from six to nine speakers, seemed to
open up the market, but all too many
people wanted multiple speakers that
would cost no more than two speakers
used to cost. That was not, of course,
the market companies like Castle were
looking to fill.
Castle eventually got into debt, and
it could see only one solution. Its large
Skipton complex included a building it
could sell, and which could be used to
build condominiums. And so it might
have, but for repeated rezoning refusals
by the municipal council. In the end
Castle suffered one final refusal, and
the next morning the bank was on the
premises changing the locks.
What happened to Castle is what had
happened to several other audio companies whose credit had run out, including
Quad, Audiolab, and even Wharfedale. It
was snapped up by a Chinese company,
the International Audio Group. Now
owning both the name and the designs,
IAG is bringing Castle back on line, with
a new distribution network.
Now let us be clear about something.
It must be obvious that we were fans
of Castle, but we had plenty of opportunities to castigate them too. Their
top speakers were some of the best we
knew of, but there were other models
whose very existence was a mystery to
us. Indeed, we had the growing suspicion that as soon as we praised a model
management would kill it and promote
an inferior model in its stead.
Now that Castle is back, we chose this
model more or less at random. There are
actually two Castle Richmond speakers.
We reviewed the smaller Richmond 3i
(from the Skipton days) in UHF No. 76.
Why not try the bigger version? Let’s see
whether we made the right choice.
The Richmond 7i looks much like the
earlier Skipton model, with two 13 cm
Back Issues
THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION:
Issues No.7-19 (except 11, 15, 17 and 18, out of
print): nine issues available for the price of five
(see below). A piece of audio history. Available
separately at the regular price.
No.82: Amplifiers: A large sweet tube amplifier
from Audio Space, the Reference 3.1, and the
reincarnation of an old favorite, the Sugden
A21. Digital: Bryston's first CD player, and the
Blue Circle "Thingee," with USB at one end
and lots of outputs at the other end.. Plus: the
BC Acoustique A3 speaker, a small subwoofer,
two more London phono cartridges, line filters
from AudioPrism and BIS, a blind test of three
interconnects, Paul Bergman on soundproofing,
and a thorough test of Sony's new-generation
Blu-ray player
No.81: Digital: The newest two-box CD player
from Reimyo, and the magical Linn Majik
player. Headphones a new version of our long
time reference headphones, from the Koss pro
division, and the affordable SR-125 headphones
from Grado. Plus: The astonishing Sonogram
loudspeakers from Gershman, a small but lovely
tube integrated amplifier from CEC, and the
London Reference phono cartridge.
No.80: Equipment reviews: From Linn, the
Artikulat 350A active speakers, the updated
LP12 turntable, the Klimax Kontrol preamplifier,
and the Linto phono stage; ASW Genius 300
speakers, ModWright preamp and phono stage.
Also: Bergman on absorbing low frequencies,
emerging technologies for home theatre, and
coverage of the Montreal Festival.
No.79: Digital players: Simaudio’s flagship
DVD (and CD) player, the Calypso, and Creek’s
surprising economy EVO player. Phono stages:
A slick tube unit from Marchand, and the superb
Sonneteer Sedley, with USB input and output.
Plus: the talented JAS Oscar loudspeakers, the
Squeezebox plus our own monster power supply.
Also: Bergman on what absorbs sound and what
doesn’t, what’s next in home theatre, Vegas
2007, and the secrets of the harmonica.
No.74: Amplifiers: Mimetism 15.2, Qinpu A-8000,
Raysonic SP-100, Cyrus 8vs and Rogue Stereo
90. More reviews: Atlantis Argentera speaker,
Cyrus CD8X player, GutWire MaxCon Squared
line filter, Harmony remote, Music Studio 10
recording software. Cables: Atlas, Stager, BIS
and DNM, including a look at how length affects
digital cables. Plus: the (hi-fi) digital jukebox,
why HDTV doesn’t always mean what you think,
and Reine Lessard on The Man Who Invented
Rock’n’Roll.
No.73: Integrated amplifiers: Audiomat Récital
and the affordable Exposure 2010S. Analog:
Turntables from Roksan (Radius 5) and Goldring
(the Rega-designed GR2), plus two cartridges,
and four phono stages from CEC, Marchand
and Goldring. The Harmonix Reimyo CD player,
Audiomat Maestro DAC, ASW Genius 400
speakers, and the Sonneteer BardOne wireless
system. Plus: Paul Bergman on the making of an
LP and why they don’t all sound the same, and
the many ways of compressing video so it looks
(almost) like film.
No.72: Music from data: We look at ways you
can make your own audiophile CDs with equipment you already have, and we test a DAC that
yields hi-fi from your computer. We review the
new Audio Reference speakers, the updated
Connoisseur single-ended tube amp, upscale
Actinote cables, and Gershman’s Acoustic Art
panels. How to tune up your system for an inexpensive performance boost. And much more.
No.71: Three small speaker: Reference 3a
Dulcet, Totem Rainmaker, and a low cost speaker
from France. We do a complex blind cable test:
five cables from Atlas, and one Wireworld cable
with different connectors (Eichmann, WBT nextgen, and Wireworld). The McCormack UDP-1
universal player, muRata super tweeters, the
Simaudio I-3 amp and Equinox CD player. Paul
Bergman reveals the philosophical differences
behind two-channel stereo and multichannel.
No.70: How SACD won the war…or how DVD-A
blew it. Reviews: Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal
player and Shanling SCD-T200 player. Speakers:
Reference 3a Royal Virtuoso, Equation 25,
Wilson Benesch Curve. Other reviews: Simaudio
W-5LE amp, the iPod as an audiophile source.
Plus: future video screens, and the eternal music
of George Gershwin
No.77: Electronics: The Simaudio Moon P-8
preamplifier, the successor to the legendary
Bryston 2B power amp, the Antique Sound Lab
Lux DT phono stage. Plus: the Reimyo DAP-777
converter, an affordable CD player/integrated
amp pair from CEC, and five power cords. Also:
Paul Bergman on room size and acoustics, how
to dezone foreign DVDs, and how to make your
own 24/96 high resolution discs at home.
No.69: Tube Electronics: Audiomat Opéra ,
Connoisseur SE-2 and Copland CSA29 integrated amps, and Shanling SP-80 monoblocks.
Audiomat's Phono-1.5, Creek CD50, a great new
remote control, GutWire's NotePad antivibration
device, and a music-related computer game that
made us laugh out loud. Paul Bergman on the
return of the tube, and how music critics did their
best to kill the world’s greatest music.
No.76: Loudspeakers: a new look at the modern
version of the Totem Mani-2, an affordable ELAC
speaker with a Heil tweeter, and the even more
affordable Castle Richmond 3i. Plus headphone
amps from Lehmann, CEC and Benchmark, a
charger that can do all your portables, and the
Squeezebox 3, which gets true hi-fi music from
your computer to your stereo system. Bergman
on speaker impedance and how to measure it.
No.68: Loudspeakers: Thiel CS2.4, Focus
Audio FS688, Iliad B1. Electronics:Vecteur
I-6.2 and Audiomat Arpège integrated amplifiers, Copland 306 multichannel tube preamp,
Rega Fono MC. Also: Audio Note and Copland
CD players, GutWire MaxCon power filter. And
there’s more: all about power supplies, what’s
coming beyond DVD, and a chat with YBA’s
Yves-Bernard André.
No.75: Amplifiers: The new Simaudio Moon W-8
flagship, and integrated amps from Copland (the
CTA-405) and CEC. Speakers: the Reference 3a
Veena and the Energy Reference Connoisseur
reborn. Plus the Benchmark DAC converter. And
No.67: Loudspeakers: A new, improved
Reference 3a MM de Capo, and the awesome
Living Voice Avatar OBX-R. Centre speakers
for surround from Castle, JMLab, ProAc, Thiel,
Totem and Vandersteen. One of them joins our
Kappa system. Two multichannel amps from
Copland and Vecteur. Plus: plans for a DIY
platform for placing a centre speaker atop any TV
set, Paul Bergman on the elements of acoustics,
and women in country music.
AP10 Also: Cambridge T500 tuner, Totem Forest.
Phono stages: Creek, Lehmann, Audiomat.
Interconnects: Actinote, Van den Hul, Pierre
Gabriel. Plus: Paul Bergman on power and current…why you need both
No.66: Reviews: the Jadis DA-30 amplifier, the
Copland 305 tube preamp and 520 solid state
amp. Plus: the amazing Shanling CD player,
Castle Stirling speakers, and a remote control
that tells you what to watch. Also: Bergman on
biwiring and biamplification, singer Janis Ian’s
alternative take on music downloading, and a
chat with Opus 3’s Jan-Eric Persson.
No.55: CD players: Linn CD12, Copland
CDA-289, Roksan Caspian, AMC CD8a. Other
reviews: Enigma Oremus speaker, Magenta
ADE-24 black box. Plus: the DSD challenge for
the next audio disc, pirate music on the Net, the
explosion of off-air video choices.
No.65: Back to Vinyl: setting up an analog
system, reviews of Rega P9 turntable, and
phono preamps from Rega, Musical Fidelity
and Lehmann. The Kappa reference system for
home theatre: choosingour HDTV monitor, plus
a review of the Moon Stellar DVD player. Antivibration: Atacama, Symposium, Golden Sound,
Solid-Tech, Audioprism, Tenderfeet. Plus an
interview with Rega’s turntable designer, and a
look back at what UHF was like 20 years ago.
No.64: Speakers: Totem M1 Signature and
Hawk, Visonik E352. YBA Passion Intégré amp,
Cambridge IsoMagic (followup), better batteries
for audio-to-go. Plus: the truth about upsampling,
an improvement to our LP cleaning machine, an
interview with Ray Kimber.
.No.63: Tube amps: ASL Leyla & Passion
A11. Vecteur Espace speakers, 2 interconnects (Harmonic Technology Eichmann),
5 speaker cables (Pierre Gabriel, vdH ,
Harmonic Technology, Eichmann), 4 power
cords (Wireworld, Harmonic Technology,
Eichmann, ESP). Plus: Paul Bergman on
soundproofing, how to compare components
in the store, big-screen TV’s to stay away
from, a look back at the Beatles revolution.
No.62: Amplifiers: Vecteur I-4, Musical Fidelity
Nu-Vista M3, Antique Sound Lab MG-S11DT.
Passive preamps: Creek and Antique Sound
Lab. Vecteur L-4 CD player. Interconnects: VdH
Integration, Wireworld Soltice. Plus: the right to
copy music, for now. Choosing a DVD player by
features. And all about music for the movies.
No.54: Electronics: Creek A52se, Simaudio W-3
and W-5 amps. Copland CSA-303, Sima P-400
and F.T. Audio preamps (two of them passive).
Musical Fidelity X-DAC revisited, Ergo AMT
phones, 4 line filters, 2 interconnects..
No.53: Loudspeakers:Reference 3a Intégrale,
Energy Veritas v2.8, Epos ES30, Totem Shaman,
Mirage 390is, Castle Eden. Paul Bergman on
biamping, biwiring, balanced lines, and more.
No.52: CD players: Alchemist Nexus, Cambridge
CD6, YBA Intégré, Musical Fidelity X-DAC,
Assemblage DAC-2. Subwoofers: Energy ES-8
and NHT PS-8. Plus: Paul Bergman on reproducing deep bass, and behind digital television.
No.51: Integrated amps: YBA Intégré DT,
Alchemist Forseti, Primare A-20, NVA AP50
Cambridge A1. CD players: Adcom GCD-750,
Rega Planet. An economy system to recommend
to friends, ATI 1505 5-channel amp, Bergman on
impedance, why connectors matter, making your
own power bars.
No.50: CD: Cambridge DiscMagic/DACMagic,
Primare D-20, Dynaco CDV Pro. Analog: Rega
Planar 9, Linn LP12 after 25 years. Also: Moon
preamp, Linn Linto phono stage, Ergo and Grado
headphones. Speaker cables: Linn K-400,
Sheffield, MIT 750 Also: 15 years of UHF.
No.49: Power amps: Simaudio Moon, Bryston 3B
ST, N.E.W. DCA-33, plus the Alchemist Forseti
amp and preamp, and McCormack Micro components. Our new Reference 3a Suprema II reference speakers, and a followup on the Copland
277 player. Plus: how HDCD really works.
No.61: Digital: Audiomat Tempo and Cambridge
Isomagic DACs, Vecteur D-2 transport. Speakers:
Osborn Mini Tower and Mirage OM-9. Soundcare
Superspikes. And: new surround formats, dezoning DVD players.
No.48: Loudspeakers: JMLabs Daline 3.1,
Vandersteen 3a, Totem Tabù, Royd Minstrel.
CD: Cambridge CD4, Copland CDA-277. A
interview with the founder of a Canadian audiophile record label.
No.60: Speakers: Monitor Audio Silver 9,
Reference 3a MM De Capo, Klipsch RB-5,
Coincident Triumph Signature. Plus: a Mirage
subwoofer and the Audiomat Solfège amp. Paul
Bergman on reproducing extreme lows.
No.47: FM tuners: Magnum Dynalab MD-108,
Audiolab 8000T, Fanfare FT-1. Speaker cables:
QED Qudos, Wireworld Equinox and Eclipse,
MIT MH-750. Parasound C/BD-2000 transport
and D/AC-2000 converter. Upgrading your
system for next to nothing.
No.59: CD players: Moon Eclipse, Linn Ikemi and
Genki, Rega Jupiter/Io, Cambridge D500. Plus:
Oskar Kithara speaker, with Heil tweeter. And:
transferring LP to CD, the truth on digital radio,
digital cinema vs MaxiVision 48.
No.58: Amplifiers: ASL AQ1003, Passion I10
& I11, Rogue 88, Jadis Orchestra Reference,
Linar 250. Headphone amps: Creek, Antique
Sound Lab, NVA, Audio Valve. Plus: Foundation
Research LC-2 line filter, Gutwire power cord,
Pierre Gabriel ML-1 2000 cable. And: building
your own machine to clean LP’s.
No.57: Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3,
Gershman X-1/SW-1, Coincident Super Triumph
Signature, Castle Inversion 15, Oskar Aulos.
PLUS: KR 18 tube amp. Music Revolution: the
next 5 years. Give your Hi-Fi a Fall Tune-Up.
No.56: Integrated amps: Simaudio I-5, Roksan
Caspian, Myryad MI120, Vecteur Club 10, NVA
Listening Room
No.78: Integrated amplifiers: the affordable
Creek EVO, and the (also affordable) Audio
Space AS-3i. Loudspeaker cables: six of them
from Atlas and Actinote, in a blind test. Plus:
the astonishing Aurum Acoustics Integris 300B
complete system, and its optional CD player/
preamplifier. Whew! Also: Bergman on taming
reverberation, how to put seven hours of uncompressed music on just one disc, and the one
opera that even non-opera people know.
also: Bergman on the changing concept of hi-fi
and stereo, a chat with FIM’s Winston Ma, and
the rediscovery of a great Baroque composer,
Christoph Graupner.
No.46: Electronics: Simaudio 4070SE amp &
P-4002 preamp, Copland CTA-301 & CTA-505,
N.E.W. P-3 preamp. Digital cables: Wireworld,
Audiostream, MIT, XLO, Audioprism, and
Wireworld’s box for comparing cables. Also: YBA
CD-1 and Spécial CD players. Yves-Bernard
André talks about about his “blue diode.”
No.45: Integrated amps: Copland CTA-401,
Simaudio 4070i, Sugden Optima 140. CD:
Adcom GDA-700 HDCD DAC, Sonic Frontiers
SFD-1 MkII. Interconnects: Straight Wire
Maestro, 3 versions of Wireworld Equinox.
Plus: Yamamura Q15 CD oil, and “Hi-Fi for the
Financially Challenged”.
To see older issues:
http://www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html
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uhfmag.com. Recent back issues are available electronically at www.magzee.com, for C$4.30 each, all taxes included.
carbon fibre woofer-midrange drivers on improving with even more run-in ing irritating.
with cast metal frames and a soft-dome time.
We had a hunch the speakers wouldn’t
VIFA tweeter. The finish is meant to
We continued with the SACD ver- handle a female voice, but we weren’t
recall the original, right down to the fine sion of one of the audiophile world’s here to follow hunches. We played the
decorative groove that frames the front most famous recordings, Jazz at the medley Say It With Music and How Deep
of the speaker. The cabinet isn’t quite Pawnshop. We chose Limehouse Blues, is the Ocean from Margie Gibson’s colup to what we used to see on Castles, as which is the opening piece on this lection of Irving Berlin songs (Sheffield
was obvious when we turned the lights three-disc set, but is an especially useful CD-36).
on it for the photography, but in more demonstration piece because each of the
Her voice was clear, the words easy
subdued lighting it looks elegant. The musicians gets a solo. We were pleased to follow, and some softer passages were
cloth grille is now rectangular, instead to see that, unlike some versions on rather attractive. When the volume
of having the curved bottom Castle which the introduction is cut off, this rose, however, the song lost all traces
speakers mostly had.
one includes lots of ambient sound, and of warmth, and Reine pronounced it
At the rear is a recessed plastic panel even the musicians tuning up. Of course “frightful.” The piano seemed quite
with two pairs of gold-colored binding we know this recording from LP, but pleasant, though it took up way too much
posts that were too large for our Postman we were impressed with the transfer to room.
wrench, joined by flat metal jumpers SACD. Some master tapes deteriorate
We ended with a recording we have
that are best changed (we did better, and greatly with age, but it seems that this used for many years to evaluate how well
biwired the speakers).
one, from 1976, is still in good shape.
speaker cabinets are put together, Secret
The Richmonds are easy to carry, and
But that was with our reference of the Andes. We have it on LP, though
we brought them up to our Alpha room, speakers. With the Castles, the left-right in this case we played the XRCD version
which uses Living Voice Avatar OBX-R stereo image remained very good, but (Audiophile, jvcxr-0016-2). Oddly, of the
speakers as a reference. We played a mix the depth that made this recording’s five recordings we had tried this was the
of different discs, including DVDs
and how
reputation
was magazines
almost totally
flattened.
that came
You know
most audio
do their
reviews:one
a number
of out best. The speakers
DVD-Audio, from our Linn
Unidisk.someThe
which
had seemed
so rich
passed the
basicof
test, which is to say that
reviewers,
withclarinet,
doubtful
“reference”
systems,
are assigned
reviews
We began the session with
a symand warm, lost most of its magic. The it didn’t make the series of exotic percusindividual
components.
phonic SACD of the BBC Symphony
vibraphone,
withactual
our speakers,
sion instruments
UHF, on the
other hand,opulent
maintains
reference systems,
on which in the opening sound
playing Beethoven’s Symphony
No. are
5 done.
had a All
dryour
sound.
The piano
hardened
the same.
all reviews
reviewers
participate
in eachall
review.
The Indeed, we were impressed
(Pentatone 5186 102). It struck
us article
imme- is based
up more
we would have
liked.
Thebutby
the quickness
main
on than
the concensus,
if there
is one,
sometimes
on of the transients, which
diately that the tone was thin,
favoring bass all but vanished, and… But by now would be a real asset if the frequency
divergence.
the highs over lows that seemed
allthen
too each
youreviewer
get the idea.
balance were
And
gets to write a “Crosstalk,” a personal
com-better. The scraped gourd
scarce. We had placed the Castles
in the may even
We suspected
the the
Castles
wouldn’t you can hear in the introduction made
ment, which
disagree with
others.
same position as our own speakers,
well on
next What
recording,
sinceisareally
us jump,
and that’s good. There was no
Therebut
is no do
pressure
to our
confirm.
you read
what we
that didn’t seem to be ideal.
Since
thethatbassist
the UHF
soloist.
It was Teach Me smearing of passages, nor had there been
think.
And
is whatwas
makes
unique.
reflex port is on the front, we could get Tonight from the DVD-Audio version of with any of the recordings. In the second
away with placing the speakers closer to the Ray Brown Trio’s Soular Energy.
part of the piece, the kick drum had more
the wall, and we did. It helped, though —
It didn’t really work, despite reason- impact than we might have expected,
as we shall see — not quite enough.
able rhythm and good midrange detail. again because of the very good transient
The midrange was very good, with Brown’s bass didn’t sound like itself, response. The piano was too forward,
a clarity that shone a spotlight on the and Gene Harris’s piano hardened but was otherwise lively and rhythmic.
basic musical structure, but the makeup up unpleasantly. “It has some quali- “Give me an extra octave of clean bass
of the orchestra became confused. The ties,” conceded Reine, “but they’re not and one octave less treble,” said Gerard,
lack of bottom end took the body away enough.” Albert pronounced the record- “and you’ve got something.”
from the music, and the excessive top
The rest of the article is missing here,
end made the strings and the brass sound
but is of course complete in our print
Summing it up…
alarmingly alike.
and paid electronic issue (from magzee.
Should we perhaps be listening with Brand/model: Castle Richmond 7i
com).
the cloth grilles on? That was what had Price: $1600
worked best, you may recall, with ASW Size (WDH): 18 x 26 x 92 cm
Genius speakers, which were a little too Sensitivity (claimed): 90 dB
hot otherwise. However grilles can’t Rated impedance: 8 ohms
supplement the lows. Albert inquired Most liked: Pleasant finish, good
whether the speakers had received suf- transients and dynamics
ficient break-in time. We had run them Least liked: An impure bottom that
an estimated 72 hours, which is enough leaves the top too much space
to make most speakers work at least Verdict: Visit other Castles
tisi.
reasonably well, even if they might go
An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sus-
Room
Feedback
Listening
Another unique feature!
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blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut
iniam.
CROSSTALK
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Room
Listening
Feedback
Moon LP5.3
Room
Feedback
Listening
W
e know it’s been a long
time, but when we think
of Simaudio and phono
preamps, we think of
how tough it’s been for the company
to get any respect. Power amplifiers?
Terrific, and they have been for years.
Preamplifiers? They were in gestation
a lot longer, though a Simaudio preamp
(the Moon P-8) sits in our Omega reference system, which kind of says it all.
Phono stages? Didn’t they used to be
kind of noisy and indistinct?
But Simaudio says it has it right this
time. The LP5.3 is the more expensive
of the company’s two phono stages, and
even so it is part of the company’s “Classic” series, rather than belonging to the
Renaissance class which gave birth to the
P-8 and the W-8 power amp (which we
also own).
Because phono stages are considered
by many to be accessories, the difficulty
of building one is often grossly underestimated. A phono stage must be able
to deal with signals thousands of times
smaller than those handled by line stage
preamplifiers, and do it with minimum
distortion and noise, but that is only the
beginning. The problem of equalization is
one that had bested even some of the top
designers. That calls for explanation.
Though we expect recordings to
exhibit flat frequency response — that
is, reproduce all frequencies at the level
at which they existed in the live performance — they aren’t recorded that way
on LP (nor on analog tape). Rather, the
highs are boosted by more than 30 dB
(in terms of energy, that’s one thousand
times!) whereas the lows are reduced.
That’s because musical low frequencies
typically contain so much energy they
would cause unmanageably wide groove
excursions, whereas real-life music has
much less energy at higher frequencies.
What’s more, upper octaves contain
more noise than lower octaves. And so
we can simply equalize the playback, to
make everything flat again, thus reducing the noise considerably.
Only it’s easier said than done.
Phono amplification
was once this
company’s weak
point. Not anymore!
The traditional method of equalizing was by placing, as the first stage
of a phono preamp, an operational
amplifier, called simply an op amp, with
a frequency-dependent feedback loop.
The loop samples the output of the amp
and brings it back to the negative input
of the op amp, so that it cancels some of
the signal at the output. If the loop
contains the appropriate filter, it will
cancel more of the high frequencies
than the low frequencies, and the
signal will come out as it should.
Easy, right?
Of course there’s what seems
to be an obvious problem: how can
you possibly correct a signal that is
already at the output? If the op amp is
too slow, and perhaps even if it isn’t, the
leading edge of the signal will barrel out
of the preamp with its high frequencies
perhaps a thousand times too “hot.”
There’s a second problem. An op amp
with that sort of feedback loop will have
a strange input impedance, and a phono
cartridge will not work well feeding it.
That was once a problem with all phono
preamps, even expensive ones, and it
greatly affected the quality one could
hope to get from an LP.
Let’s see, then, how else can we do
this?
We could use a purely passive filter,
made up entirely of capacitors and
resistors, and place it before any amplification takes place. A number of phono
preamps are made this way, and indeed
the first Sima phono stages (before the
company was renamed Simaudio) used
this technique too. But the signal from
a phono cartridge is already very small,
and it’s not a good idea to lower it even
more by scrubbing off energy right at
the input. The result might be very clear
sound, but there will be excessive noise
accompanying it.
Here’s another way, then. At the
front end we use an amplifier stage
with flat response, and we place a passive filter after that stage, where it will
have a larger signal to work on but will
be isolated from the cartridge. Fine…
except that this amplifier stage will need
tremendous headroom, able to handle
the hottest unequalized signals. That’s
a challenge!
It is, however, the challenge that
the Simaudio engineers have taken on.
The first amplifier stage is followed by
two filters, one of them active (for the
lower frequencies), and the other passive.
Neither equalization network affects the
phono pickup, which “sees” only the first
amplifier stage.
Giving that input stage the huge
headroom it needs means feeding it
enough power, of course. The LP5.3
has a toroidal power transformer right
at the front, which looks to be up to the
job, with the power section taking up
about a third of the chassis, but there is
another option. If you happen to have a
Moon P-8 preamp, as it so happens we
do, you can use the optional XLR power
cable to get DC power directly from the
P-8’s massive power supply. We tried
it, and indeed there was a subtle but observation: the
facilit lutpat nibh euguero
noticeable difference, which we will get LP5.3 is quiet. No, not quiet,
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to shortly.
silent.
dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamWe broke in our brand new LP5.3
We picked out five LPs, starting with consequat wismod modion vel ulputat.
using the special Granite Audio CD, the Reference Recordings Beachcomber Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi.
and then prepared to set it up. There are wind band album, from which we
An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver susno external controls, not even an on-off selected the Chorus Line Medley (RR-62). trud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue
switch, which means all adjustments This is a tough album to reproduce, with magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed
require removing the cover. That cover huge dynamics most CDs can only sug- te ming esent loborper iure commodio
is held on by eight screws (an Allen key gest, and with a complex arrangement of commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim
ifThe
eight pages
starting
on page 57 are
a catalog
for The
Audiophile
is included), and
the power
cord is
not instruments
large
and small.
The Moon
Store.
The
store
belongs
to
UHF,
and
it
is
stocked
with
accessories
removed there is potentially lethal AC preamp took it all in stride, convincing and
recordings
we recommend?
within easy reach.
What’sthat
more,
there us that its clarity was fully up to its dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molDo we
have Adjusting
a conflict of silence.
interest?The
Actually
don’t,
because anything
are no switches inside
either.
entirewe
band
of frequencies
orem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna
we
don’t
like
doesn’t
make
it
to
the
store.
We’re
not
tempted
cheat, conullaor
begain (to correspond to the cartridge was clear, from the almost scarytolows
si bla consecte et exerit lum
cause
the
credibility
we’ve
built
up
over
the
years
is
worth
a
lot
more
than
output), or altering load resistance and to brash, sparkling highs. The impact alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan
a few sales.
If a competitor
better,
be it, andwas
we’ll henisl
even ute core vent volor si.
capacitance, means
moving
jumpers makes
of thesomething
passages for
full so
orchestra
say
so
in
a
review.
from place to place. The operation is impressive, as was the tympani solo
And the
storeshould
actually
us from potential
conflicts.
best done with tweezers,
which
be protects
(Keith Johnson
has a talent
for recording accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore
In Worse,
the past,the
advertisers
attempted
shake
us down,
supplied but aren’t.
poorly- have
them).
Howevertothe
impact
did notthreatening
come ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praesto
cancel
their
ads
if
we
published
something
negative.
hasn’t happened
illustrated manual is of limited help. Our at the expense of the natural It
smoothness
tismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis
for agives
while,
everyone
knows
it won’t
The This
Audiophile
offer: if Simaudio
usbut
onethen
of these
of even
the
busiestwork.
sections.
was a Store
puts eight
advertising
in every
issue, and those are pages no one
for free, we’ll rewrite
the pages
damn of
book
for really
good beginning.
can cancel.
them.
For the next recording we went to the feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi.
Check adjusted
out the store,
on-line extreme:
counterpart.
think
there’s
The LP5.3 comes
for aot its
opposite
soft We
music
with
tre- greatIquametuerat nullamc ommolore con
stuff
there.
If
we
didn’t
think
so,
it
wouldn’t
be
there.
moving magnet cartridge, That’s not mendous low-level detail. We often use utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed
what our London Reference cartridge is, Susann McDonald’s magnificent harp euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse
but it uses the same settings as an MM recording, Caprice, a CD on the Klavier quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit
pickup, so we didn’t even need tweezers label. However the original recording ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe
before placing the unit in our Omega was done by none other than Keith O. rostrud dipis nonsenisi.
system.
Johnson, and the selection we often use,
That system includes an Audiomat Tournier’s Vers une source dans le bois, was mincilit acing er accum v ulput in
phono stage, the Phono-1.5, which we included on an early LP (RR-7), Professor utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol
had bought because of the sheer magic it Johnson’s Amazing Sound Show.
gives to music. Though the LP5.3 comes
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with the usual junk power cord, we used duis dignisc iliscipissi.
a GutWire B12 cable to plug it into our
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MaxCon Squared power filter. Our first facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et
About the Audiophile Store
Room
Feedback
Listening
tat.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Simaudio Moon LP 5.3
Price: $1500
Dimensions: 20.2 x 28 x 8.3 cm
Most liked: Very quiet circuits, magnificent performance
Least liked: Awkward, poorly-documented adjustments
Verdict: Nearly alone in its class
elenisi.
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dolore dionseniam.
Room
Feedback
Listening
CROSSTALK
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acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eummy nim velendre er ing
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AudioPrism Power Foundation III
T
If you have a ver y large power
amplifier it may be fitted with the same
connector.
Our Alpha system has the advantage
of being simpler than the Omega system,
and somewhat more accessible too. It is
fully filtered, with two different filters.
Most of the gear goes through our
original filter, an Inouye SPLC we have
used for many years. The exception is the
Moon W-5LE power amplifier. Because
the Inouye has series components, it is
not well-suited to large amps. Instead,
the Moon’s power source is filtered by
a Foundation Research LC2, designed
for power amplifiers, which replaces the
amplifier’s power cord.
We selected three recordings, one
SACD and a
pair of Red Book
CDs, played from our Linn Unidisk
player. We listened with our own filters
first, and then we heard them twice
more. How did they sound with our own
filters in place? Terrific. We did not try
the recordings with no filtering at all,
because we have done that numerous
times, and it’s not something we choose
to do for fun.
Because the LC2 filter is also a
power cord, we needed to give the Moon
power amplifier a new power cord. We
selected a GutWire B12, and plugged it
into the Audioprism section labelled for
power amps. The Unidisk was of course
plugged into the “digital” section. The
filter has two sections labelled “source,”
whatever that means. We plugged our
Copland tube preamplifier into one of
them.
The first selection was from the
SACD version of the choral recording
Now the Green Blade Riseth, always an
exceptionally revealing piece. It sounded
very good with the AudioPrism, but
not nearly as good as it had been with
our own filters. There was some loss of
detail, with the solo flute being occasionally submerged by the singers. Rhythm
remained very good, and the bottom end
was solid, allowing even the subtle organ
chords at the end to be heard.
The music seemed less loud, too,
though when we turned it up it was
evident that the difference was due to a
psychoacoustic effect, not to an actual
volume drop. “There’s nothing very
specific I can point to,” said Albert, “but
it left me disappointed.”
Next came an orchestral piece, Glazunov’s
Sérénade espag nole
(A na lek t a A N 2
9897), played
by I Musici de
Montréal. Once
again it sounded
very good, much
better than we knew
it would have sounded
without filtering, with
excellent rhythm that was
communicative. Even so, it was no match
for our own filters.
Once again the flaws were not major
ones, rather they were collections
of small f laws. String textures were
rougher, and the music didn’t flow the
way it had before. Transients were a little
too forward. “You can hear it when the
violins play pizzicato,” said Gerard.
Once again, the Audioprism had done
well, but it did not beat or even equal our
own gear, and so far the results were in
line with those of our previous test.
For the final selection we went to
Barbra Streisand’s Movie Album (Columbia CK90742), and played Charlie Chaplin’s celebrated nostalgic song, Smile.
Like all pop records this one was not
recorded with purist methods, but with
the right equipment it can be entirely
engrossing. It was a lot less attractive
with the AudioPrism, and this time we
listed plenty of problems. Streisand’s
voice was less warm, and less mesmer-
Room
Listening
Feedback
his is, you may note, a followup to our review of this
AudioPrism power filter in
UHF No. 82. The filter had
done reasonably well the first time
around, but not outstandingly, and we
weren’t satisfied with our own efforts.
And so we are doing it again for a couple
of reasons.
First, we made a mistake trying it in
our Omega system. Though that system
has a GutWire MaxCon Squared filter
in it, it has two other filters as well, and
the result was that we didn’t take full
advantage of the AudioPrism’s possibilities. It would be easier to do in the Alpha
system, with its two filters.
Second, we had expressed doubts
about the quality of the power cord
supplied with the AudioPrism. It
isn’t a cheap molded
cord like the ones
supplied with nearly
all audio components (including
some ex pensive
power filters), and
it is f it ted w it h
Wattgate connectors
at each end. On the
other hand it appears
not to be shielded, and
we are convinced of the
importance of shielding a ny power
cable that sits close to the cables carrying audio, and to the system itself. We
wanted to try it with a different cord, to
see whether we were right.
However we couldn’t just pull a cord
out of our stock, because the AudioPrism
doesn’t have the usual IEC 320 connector. It is rated for 20 amperes, not 15, and
so it needs to use the appropriate connector. It looks much like the common
one, but with its prongs rotated the other
way, like this:
izing too. Even the words were harder to
follow, because the arrangement seemed
busier, more chaotic. The violins of
the large orchestra were a little more
strident, and they were less natural too.
“The details are all there if you take the
trouble to look for them,” said Gerard,
“but you have to look for them, because
they just don’t come out to you.”
Not good so far. But now we pulled
out another power cord, the 20 ampere
version of the GutWire G Clef. It would,
of course, make the AudioPrism filter
half again as expensive, but if it did the
trick…
It did. The choral piece still seemed
a little softer, but we barely noticed that
because in all other respects it was much
improved. Voices were smoother and
more natural than they had been. The
details we had heard with our own filters,
which had seemed hidden by the Audioprism, were now apparent. The tutti at
the end was clearer, revealing not only
the organ but also a distant triangle.
“It’s still a touch less smooth than
with our own filters,” said Gerard, “but
that cable sure makes a difference.”
The Glazunov piece was a delight too,
improved in every respect. The strings,
which of course predominate in this
suite, were silkier, and the music flowed.
The pizzicato passages were normal once
again. “It’s musical,” said Reine, “it’s not
just noise as it was before.”
The final recording, Smile, which had
not pleased us much earlier, was now a
delight. The orchestral opening was
smooth, silky, inviting. The strings were
more natural, but also more transparent,
not covering up the singing. Streisand’s
voice on this bittersweet song was warm
and expressive. “It just flows with ease
and fluidity,” said Albert. “It’s like…well,
it’s like a smile.”
Could a power cord really make that
much difference?
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Audioprism Power
Foundation III filter, GutWire G Clef
power cable
Price: $899/$459
Size (WDH): 39.5 x 11.8 x 12.4 cm
Most liked: Potentially superb even
for a complex system
Least liked: Supplied with an inadequate power cable
Verdict: With the right cord, able to
take out the trash
We shouldn’t have been surprised,
because we’ve observed this sort of
improvement before. Indeed, we got
an audible improvement in our Omega
system when we had changed a low-cost
power bar for a shielded one, even though
not one key component was plugged into it.
Just its presence in close proximity to
the system had been enough to alter the
sound.
We do not, of course, claim that a
filter like this “improves” the sound of
a system. Rather, poor power — and
as nearly as we can make out it’s all
poor — causes serious problems with
the performance of audio components.
With the right filter, and also the right
power cords, you can hear them as they
were designed to sound.
This second review seems to confirm
what we had suspected. AudioPrism
has built a very good filter, but made a
mistake adding that cable to it. Good
cables, of course, are not cheap.
Our suggestion to the company is
this. Don’t include a power cord at all
with the Power Foundation III, and
that might allow you to knock a good
hundred dollars off the price. That will
put your product into very competitive
territory.
Room
Feedback
Listening
CROSSTALK
I can’t say I’m surprised. After our not
quite satisfactory session last time, I was
pretty sure AudioPrism had made an error
putting a less than impressive power cable
on this large and elaborate power filter.
Of course the cable adds a lot of money
to the cost of the Power Foundation, pushing
it out of contention for a lot of audiophiles
(and videophiles too). Can’t be helped. This
level of performance is not available at an
economy price, or if it is I have yet to discover
how.
—Gerard Rejskind
the claim that a cable can make all the difference to the sound of a music system. All
by itself the Audioprism is satisfying, which
is to say that it allows music to emerge in
adequate fashion. However — and this is the
surprise — when we substituted a superior
power cord we exclaimed unanimously how
much better it sounded. With this power
cable, the AudioPrism is indeed tempting,
and I would even say it deserves a good
cable, that it might show off its qualities. So
equipped, it promises years of joy.
—Reine Lessard
Participating in a review session is always
a privilege. We may be disappointed by this
or that product, yet at other times we are
happy witnesses to the giant steps made by
designers and manufacturers in the direction
of excellence.
This was one of those times, because
for the umpteenth time I heard confirmed
I don’t know if you need the help of a
line filter where you live, but I know that
installing one in a system always amazes me.
It seems to open up the sound, to liberate it in
a way, to clean its very texture and somehow
remove layers of electronic haze.
This line filter did all that and more. I
noticed I could better hear the space where
the music was taking place, the sum of an
infinite variety of minute audio signals recreating the event. The music flowed with ease,
unhindered, it seemed, by rugged edges.
And then, as I was going over my notes
and reliving the listening test, I kept puzzling over what I was actually talking about.
After all, this is about the electrical power
coming out of the wall, the basic stuff that
feeds the system, not about the performance
of amps, speakers or a player! And yet I
can’t deny it. It’s not even subtle. I guess
it’s like filling the tank of a great car with
a higher grade of gasoline and filtering the
gunk out — only then does it reveal its true
character and potential.
By the way, all that I have mentioned can
be heard only using a high quality power
cord linking this line filter to the power
source, otherwise you won’t even discover
its true potential.
— Albert Simon
Two New Cables From Atlas
T
The Mavros interconnects
“Mavros” is a fairly common Greek
name (George Mavros was a Greek
political leader), and we’re not sure why a
Scottish company has given it to an audio
cable. The finish of this interconnect
is impressive, with a tightly-knit outer
jacket and gorgeous phono connectors.
The conductors, as in several other Atlas
products, are single-crystal copper,
which means that the copper is drawn
by a special process to harden without
crystal boundaries. The connectors
are also monocrystal. The dielectric is
porous Teflon.
The 1 metre cable supplied has a list
price of US$1395. A balanced version,
using Atlas’s own monocrystal XLR connectors, is slightly more at US$1760.
A first, very casual, listen seemed
promising, but that’s no way to evaluate
a cable. Once again we set up a blind
test, though it was not double blind (in a
double blind test even the experimenter
doesn’t know what is being evaluated).
Gerard knew what the cables were, but
he kept his notes to himself, and offered
no reaction until the session was over.
Albert and Reine were told only that
they would be listening to cables, and
that each listen would be preceded by our
reference cable, but they knew neither
the brand nor the price, and they were
not permitted to examine either cable.
We used three recordings for each
cable test, returning to our reference
between each test in order to avoid
the absurd situation of inadvertently
comparing an interconnect to a speaker
cable. We first listened to the discs
in our Alpha system, with our Linn
Unidisk player as a source. Our reference
interconnect in that system is a Pierre
Gabriel ML-1, which was at the time we
acquired it slightly more expensive than
the Mavros. The test cable was placed
between the CD player and our Copland
preamplifier.
We began with organ music, Bach’s
Toccata & Fugue in D Minor (from Organ
Treasures, Opus 3 CD22031). This is
challenging music, and to make the
challenge even tougher, it is an SACD.
Neither Reine nor Albert ranked
Room
Listening
Feedback
hat we are generally pleased
with the cables made by Atlas
won’t come as much of a
surprise. We first ran across
Atlas when our Audiophile Store was
searching for a new source of cables to
replace a line we had decided to drop, and
what struck us first was the relatively reasonable cost…especially — we quickly
discovered — considering the often
outstanding quality. To make sure we
weren’t indulging in wishful thinking,
we put the cables they sent us through
blind tests. Not all of them did well, but
a sizeable number did. Our favorites
weren’t always the most expensive ones,
because when you can’t see the cable you
can’t see the price tag.
Now this Scottish company has gone
further upscale, claiming to challenge
the state of the art with expensive new
cables, both interconnects and speaker
cables. We were among the first to
receive samples, and we ran hundred of
hours of break-in time on them before
putting them through…yes, another
blind test.
the Mavros as high as our reference
cable. Reine found the organ sound less
rich, and not quite as lifelike as it had
been with our reference. Albert was less
certain what difference there was, but
judged there was less substance to the
organ, which made the piece therefore
less moving. “The reverberation is linear,
left to right,” he said, “whereas before it
was three-dimensional.”
The second selection was the Pauline
Viardot art song Haï Luli (Analekta
AN 2 9903). This is a song that can be
stunning in its beauty, though it is also
disappointingly fragile when poorly
reproduced. The Mavros did very well,
rendering Isabel Bayrakdarian’s delicious
voice with clarity and detail. Even so
there were some notable differences in
comparison with the reference. Reine
thought the piano, normally flawless,
would sometimes cover up syllables.
Albert admired the finesse of the highs,
and wasn’t sure where the difference lay.
“With this cable she is excellent,” he said
of the soprano, “but with our reference
cable she was bewitching.”
We ended the session with another
female voice, that of Margie Gibson
singing Irving Berlin’s The Best Thing
For You. It was nearly flawless, the best
of the three recordings. The clarity was
exemplary, the rhythm excellent, with
the piano, percussion and bass very good
as well. “Why is the cable better with
this recording than with the other two?”
asked Reine rhetorically.
Gerard, who had thus far kept his
notes to himself, had rated the Mavros
slightly higher than his “blind” colleagues, finding the two cables very
close in the Bach. In the Viardot song he
had found Bayrakdarian’s voice to have
more punch, and wasn’t sure that was a
good thing. He had noted some loss of
microdetails. And like his colleagues,
he had judged the Gibson recording
to be virtually perfect, with spaciousness, excellent sibilants, and satisfying
transparency.
Should the Mavros replace our cable?
None of us thought so, though when
we went over our notes from the last
Room
Listening
Feedback
issue, it was evident that the Mavros had
scored better than the present-day Pierre
Gabriel.
The Mavros also sounds considerably better than the less expensive Atlas
Navigator All-Cu, which we had been
using between the phono stage and the
preamplifier in our Omega system. We
installed it there, happy we would have
the use of it during our phono preamp
test, which was then coming up.
The Mavros is a very good interconnect cable, just a little short of a reference
cable that is, alas, no longer made.
The Mavros loudspeaker cable
This speaker cable has the same
characteristics as the interconnect, but
it contains two pairs of monocrystal
wires to allow biwiring. For the lower
frequencies the wires are multistranded,
and for the highs they are solid core.
Atlas has not identified them, and you
can distinguish them only by the fact
that the multistranded (bass) wires are
more flexible.
The Mavros is available with a
choice of three possible connectors. A
3 metre pair using either oxygen-free
copper spades or bananas would cost
US$2560. Both are cold-welded under
pressure, not soldered. Our sample
was terminated with gold-plated OCC
(monocrystal) spades, which boost the
price to US$3015. And we had asked
for 5 metre cables, which brought the
price to US$4670. We would soon see
whether these prices are sheer madness,
or whether they somehow represent
value.
We compared the Mavros to our
Actinote LBD cables, to which we had
added silver jumpers from Pierre Gabriel.
With the Mavros we would of course not
need the jumpers. The comparison was
once again organized as a blind test, with
only a mute Gerard having any idea what
was being reviewed.
We began with the Bach recording,
which greatly pleased both Reine and
Albert, who praised the clarity of the
reverberation and the huge sense of
space. “There’s detail, detail, detail!” said
Albert. Was the reproduction perfect?
Reine initially thought the multitude
of small pipes playing so rapidly in the
fugue were a little more strident, though
in listening again with the reference
cable she changed her mind. Albert
thought the very lowest pedal was not
quite as powerful, but otherwise had only
praise.
There would be no more complaints
coming.
After the Pauline Viardot song, Reine
pronounced herself delighted, praising
whatever this cable turned out to be
without reservation. So did Albert, who
however reached for more adjectives.
“It’s beautiful, it’s moving, the detail is
refined. There’s a beautiful balance with
the piano, which is warm and limpid.”
Would this cable turn out to be better
than our reference? We had one more
recording to come.
The Marg ie Gibson recording
confirmed the superiority of this cable.
“It’s magnificent,” exclaimed Reine,
“her voice is even more detailed. What
a surprise.” Albert agreed. “And it’s not
as though this were an easy recording.,”
he said. “Everything is well positioned
in space, timbres are natural, the voice
is clear. Everything is there, it’s alive.
Gerard uncovered his notes, which
were in sync with those of his colleagues.
He had found the organ farther back
than with the reference cable, but no less
clear. “It’s because there’s more depth,”
he said. He had praised the Viardot
song not only for the same reasons as
his colleagues, but for “the delicious
dying syllables against a velvety black
background.” In the Gibson song he has
noted an almost eerily realistic sound of
drumsticks on snare drum. “I noticed
that too,” said Reine.
We needed only the shortest of
discussions before we decided to leave
the Mavros cables right where they
were, to become a part of the Alpha
system. Our only hesitation concerned
the connectors. When you work for an
audio magazine and you are constantly
connecting and disconnecting things,
bananas have an obvious advantage
over spades. Fortunately these spades
are well-shaped, and they slip with ease
into the binding posts of both our Moon
W-5LE amplifier and our Living Voice
Avatar-OBXR loudspeakers. We would
live with that.
We were happy with our decision.
Though this review appears last in the
magazine, it was among the first to be
done. In listening sessions to come,
there was more than one comment that
the Alpha system sounded better than it
ever had before. Why?
The answer seems obvious.
THE AUDIOPHILE STORE
ATLAS QUADSTAR
INTERCONNECTS
ATLAS NAVIGATOR
Oxygen-free continuous
cast (OCC) cable: each
strand is a single copper
crystal. Two internal
conductors, plus double
shielding. The double shielding is copper mylar plus close-lapped
99.997% pure OCC copper multi-stranded screen providing 100%
RFI protection. The premium “All-Cu” version (shown here)
uses solid copper connectors that are also continuous cast. The
copper is then silver-plated and double-shielded.We use two in our
reference systems. Special-order lengths from the factory.
ORDER: AN-1 pair, 1m, $300, AN-2 pair, 2m, $350
ORDER: ANA-1 All-Cu, 1m, $405, ANA-2 All-Cu, 2m, $495
ORDER: ANAB-1 All-Cu balanced, single crystal XLR, 1m, $675
ATLAS VOYAGER
A cable with superior performance at an
economical price. Oxygen-free copper,
continuously cast, double-shielded with conductive
PVC plus close lapped 99.9997% pure OCC copper
multi-stranded screen, for 100% coverage against
RFI. Direct gold-plated, non compressing, doublescreened, self cleaning RCA plugs. Also available
with the All-Cu connectors like those of the
Navigator (above).
ORDER: AV-1, Voyager 1m pair, $285, AV-2, 2m pair, $325
ORDER: AVA-1, All-Cu 1m pair, $375, AVA-2 2m pair, $420
MAVROS INTERCONNECTS
THE POSTMAN
The Postman wrench (for 1/2” or 7/16” hexagonal
posts)
ORDER: Dynaclear Postman, $13
DIGITAL CABLES
ATLAS COMPASS DIGITAL
ORDER: AMI-1, 1 m Mavros interconnect pair, $1195
ORDER: AMI-2, 2 m Mavros interconnect pair, $1895
SPEAKER CABLES
Excellent performance at an affordable price. Single crystal pure
copper. The 1.5m version sounds way better than a 1m.
ORDER: ACD-1.5 digital cable, 1m, $160
ATLAS MAVROS CABLES
We’ve adopted them for our Alpha system, which sounds better
than ever before. This is a four-wire monocrystal cable with
porous Teflon dielectric. Available with copper bananas or spades,
or with superb monocrystal pure copper spades.
ATLAS OPUS DIGITAL
We dumped our reference cable for this one! And to be at its very
best, it has to be this length.
ORDER: AOD-1.5 digital cable, 1.5m, $399
EICHMANN BAYONET BANANAS
This could be the world’s lowest-cost
interconnect with single-crystal copper. It has
the same connectors as the Equator (below),
and we thought it sounded like a much more
expensive cable.
ORDER: AQ-1, 1 m pair Atlas Questor, $140
ORDER: AQ-2, 2 m pair Atlas Questor, $180
ORDER: AMBCu-3, 3 m pair, copper bananas, $2150
ORDER: AMBCu-5, 5 m pair, copper bananas, $3850
ORDER: AMSCu-3, 3 m pair, copper spades, $2150
ORDER: AMSCu-5, 5 m pair, copper spades, $3850
ORDER: AMSX-3, 3 m pair, monocrystal spades, $2800
ORDER: AMSX-5, 5 m pair, monocrystal spades, $4150
The Eichmann Bayonet
Banana uses a minimum of
metal, and tellurium copper
at that, but clicks tightly into
any binding post with spring
action. For soldering or crimping, or both.
ORDER: EBB kit 4 bayonet bananas, $57.95
ATLAS HYPER SPEAKER CABLES
EICHMANN SPADES
A big winner in one of UHF’s blind tests of speaker cables is
Hyper 2, an oxygen free stranded wire in Teflon dielectric.
Inexpensive too. Plus connectors (we recommend Eichmann
Bayonet Bananas, $57.95/set).
ORDER: AH2, Hyper 2 cable, $29.95/metre
ORDER: AHB, Hyper Biwire cable, $49.95/metre
ATLAS EQUATOR
Perhaps the best $150
interconnect cable you could
buy. Only it costs just $90. And
yes, that’s in Canadian funds.
Other lengths on order.
ORDER: AE-1, 1 m pair Atlas Equator, $90
ORDER: AE-2, 2 m pair Atlas Equator, $125
ATLAS ICHOR SPEAKER CABLE
Ready to solder, in
gold-plated copper, or
pure silver. Two sizes,
plus extra narrow for
barrier strips (McIntosh,
Vandersteen, etc.). Price for sets of four.
A. ORDER: EXB, set of 4, barrier strips, $20
B. ORDER: EXQ, set of 4, 1/4" (6.3 mm), $28
C. ORDER: EXQA, set of 4, 1/4" (6.3 mm), silver, $47
D. ORDER: EXF, set of 4, 5/16" (8 mm), $37
E. ORDER: EXF,A set of 4, 5/16" (8 mm), silver, $57
EICHMANN BULLET PLUGS
ACTINOTE MB INTERCONNECTS
These cables
use WBT
NextGen
locking connectors, and
they are a virtual match for
our own reference cables.
ORDER: MB-130, 1.3 meter pair Actinote MB, $740
Continuous-cast single-crystal cable, ready for biwiring. It costs
just $235 per meter of double cable (a 2 m pair has 4 meters of
wire). We suggest adding the Eichmann Bayonet bananas, $57.95
per set of 4, or Furutech connectors (at right).
SINGLE CRYSTAL JUMPERS
PRISMAL DUAL INTERCONNECT
This Swiss-made cable has especially solid connectors. Teflon
dielectric. oxygen-free copper Toss your “free” interconnects!
ORDER: PD-1, 1 meter pair Prisma Dual Interconnect, $34.95
Need to feed two preamps into two
amps? This solid Y-adapter (two
jacks into one phono plug) is gold
over brass, with Teflon dielectric.
ORDER: FYA, one pair Y adapters, $20
Terrific in our blind test.
With Eichmann Bullet plugs,
or balanced with Neutrik
XLR's. Silver solder included with kit.
ORDER: AQS-1 pair Quadstar kit, 1m $95.95
ORDER: AQS-1A pair Quadstar assembled, 1m $169.95
ORDER: AQS-X pair Quadstar balanced kit, 1m $95.95
ORDER: AQS-XA pair Quadstar balanced, assembled, 1m $169.95
CONNECTORS
ATLAS QUESTOR
TWO CABLES INTO ONE JACK
57
Not biwiring? Dump the free jumpers that
with your speakers. Atlas jumpers are
made from single-crystal copper,
goldplated spades.
ORDER: ACJ, four single crystal
jumpers,
$99.95
CONNECTOR TREATMENT
DeOxit (formerly ProGold)
cleans connections and
promotes conductivity. Small
wipes for cleaning accessible
contacts, or a squirt bottle for connections you can’t reach.
ORDER: PGW box 25 DeOxit wipes, $35
ORDER: PGS, can DeOxit fluid, $35
ORDER: PGB, both when ordered at the same time, $56
www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html
came
The first phono plug to maintain
the impedance of the cable by using
metal only as an extension of the
wire. Hollow tube centre pin, tiny
spring for ground. Two contacts for
soldering, two-screw strain relief.
Gold over copper. Got silver cable? Get the unique Silver Bullets!
ORDER: EBP kit 4 Bullet Plugs, $54.95
ORDER: EBPA kit 4 Silver Bullets, $139.95
EICHMANN CABLE PODS
Minimum metal, gold over tellurium
copper. Unique clamp system: the back
button turns but the clamp doesn’t.
Solder to it, or plug an Eichmann
banana into it, even from inside!
ORDER: ECP, set of four posts, $54.95
MICHELL BINDING POSTS
Big Mother posts are machined to
stay tight. Gold-plated. Long, shank
for mounting in speaker cabinets. Limited stock.
ORDER: Big Mother, 4 gold posts for speakers $55
58
MORE CONNECTORS
ANALOG PRODUCTS
For crimping connections to certain connectors from WBT or
Furutech, we recommend the gold crimping sleeves from WBT,
and the special crimping tool.
Buy the tool at the same time as appropriate WBT or Furutech
connectors, and we’ll buy it back at the price you paid when
you’re through.
ORDER: WBT-0403 crimping tool (refundable), $125.
The sleeves are shown here, actual size.
WBT-0431
WBT-0432
WBT-0433
WBT-0434
WBT-0435
WBT-0436
WBT-0437
WBT-0438
0.75 mm sleeve
1 mm sleeve
1.5 mm sleeve
2.5 mm sleeve
4 mm sleeve
6 mm sleeve
10 mm sleeve
15 mm sleeve
$0.50
$0.50
$0.50
$0.50
$0.60
$0.70
$0.85
$0.95
MORE ANALOG…
LONDON REFERENCE
ATLAS QUADSTAR PHONO BOX
Yes we can supply the awesome London
Reference phono cartridge that we have
adopted for ourselves. Other models on
special order. this unique cartridge has
a line contact stylus, and an output of
5 mV…right for an MM preamp.
ORDER: LRC cartridge, $4695
GOLDRING ELITE
If you have limited funds and
want an MC cartridge with
line contact stylus, this is a great
choice. It's a detuned version of the
very expensive (but discontinued)
Excel we still own.
ORDER: GEC cartridge, $745
you
a
REGA FONO
We can’t get
over how
good it is…
and how
affordable.
The Rega
Fono is a
superb way to
add vinyl to your system. For low sensitivity MC cartridges. While
stocks last.
ORDER: RF-MC high sensitivity phono preamp, $565 now $495
FURUTECH CONNECTORS
Rhodium-plated banana tightens
under pressure. Installs like
WBT-0645 banana. The spade's great too!.
ORDER: FTB-R, set of four bananas, $70
ORDER: FTS-R, set of four spades, $70
LP RECORD CLEANER
WBT CONNECTORS
WBT makes banana plugs for speaker cables, all of which lock
tightly into any post. All use crimping technology.
ORDER: WBT-0644 Kit 4 Topline straight bananas, $90
ORDER: WBT-0645 Kit 4 angled bananas, $110
ORDER: WBT-0600 Kit 4 Topline bananas, $180
EXSTATIC RECORD BRUSH
the Goldring
Super eXstatic. It
includes a hard
velvet pad to get
into the grooves,
plus two sets of
carbon fibre tufts. We’ve worn one out already, because we use it
every time!
ORDER: GSX record brush, $36
J. A. MICHELL RECORD CLAMP
ORDER: WBT-0108, kit 4 Topline crimp plugs, $190
ORDER: WBT-0101, kit 4 Topline solder plugs, $190
The 0144 Midline version has “only” three layers of gold plating,
smaller and lighter, with the same locking action.
ORDER: WBT-0144, kit 4 Topline solder plugs, $90
NEW! The high-tech minimum metal “nextgen” phono plugs.
Easy to solder, with locking collar. Silver version available.
TITAN STYLUS LUBRICANT
Amazing, but true: dabbing
a bit of this stuff on your
stylus every 2 or 3 LPs makes
it glide through the groove
instead of scraping. Fine artist’s brush not included, but readily
available in many stores.
ORDER: TSO-1 Titan stylus oil, $39.95
ZEROSTAT ANTISTATIC PISTOL
A classic
adjunct to
the brush is
the Zerostat
anti-static
gun. Squeeze
the trigger
and release: it
ionizes the air,
which becomes
conductive and drains off the static charge. By the way, it works
for a lot more than LP’s. No batteries needed.
ORDER: Z-1 Zerostat antistatic pistol, $94..95
LP SLEEVES
Concentrated cleaner for LP vacuum cleaning machines.
Much safer than some formulas we’ve seen! Half litre, mix with
demineralized or distilled water to make 4 litres.
ORDER: LPC, $19.95
ORDER: WBT-0110, kit 4 nextgen copper plugs, $170
ORDER: WBT-0110Au, kit 4 nextgen silver plugs, $280
Got a tone arm with a 5-pin DIN
plug. Substitute this Quadstar cable
and box, and add the interconnect
of your choice. straight DIN (shown)
needs 7 cm clearance. If you have
less, get the version with an angled
DIN plug.
ORDER: AQPS, Quadstar phono
box, $248
ORDER: AQPA, Quadstar phono box, angled DIN, $248
Clamp your LP to the turntable platter. We use the J. A. Michell
clamp, machined from
nearly weightless
aluminum. Drop it
on, press down,
tighten the knob.
ORDER: MRC
Michell record
clamp, $75
ORDER: MRC-R
clamp for Rega and
short spindles, $85
Keep your records clean and
scratch free. Replace dirty,
torn or missing inner sleeves
with soft-plastic-in-paper Nitty
Gritty sleeves.
ORDER: PDI, package of 30
sleeves, $30
TURNTABLE BELT TREATMENT
What this is not
is a sticky goo for
belts on their last
legs. Rubber Renue
removes oxidation
from rubber belts,
giving them a new
lease on life. But what astonished us is what it does to even a brand
new belt. Wipe down your belt every 3 months, and make analog
sound better than ever.
ORDER: RRU-100 drive belt treatment, $14.95
VINYL ESSENTIALS TEST LP
This precision-made German test record lets you check out channel
identification, correct phase, crosstalk, the tracking ability of your
cartridge (it’s a tougher test than the old Shure disc was, and the
resonance of your tone arm and cartridge. When we need to test a
turntable, this is the one we reach for.
ORDER: LP 003, Image Hifi Test LP, $48.95
IF WE DON’T LIKE IT YOU WON’T SEE IT HERE
SUPER ANTENNA
MkIII
INSTANT CIRCUIT CHECKER
Plug it into an AC outlet, and the three lights can
indicate a missing ground, incorrect polarity,
switched wires — five problems in all. Some of these
problems can be fatal, but none of them is good for
feeding your music or home theatre system. The
first thing we did after getting ours was phone the
electrician.
ORDER: ACA-1, Instant Circuit Checker, $21
Ours has no stupid rotary switch to muck
things up, and with a 1.8m low-loss 75
ohm cable and gold-plated push-on F
connector, it has low internal loss. Covers
analog and digital TV bands as well as FM.
ORDER: FM-S Super Antenna, MkIII, $55
GUTWIRE G CLEF POWER CABLE
CLEANER POWER
MAXCON2 POWER FILTER
Looks great,
and does a
wonderful
job. Made
from milled
aircraft-grade
aluminum,
with Furutech and Hubbell connectors. Parallel filtering, so it can
be used even with very large power amplifiers. List $1299, but…
ORDER: GMC, MaxCon2 power line filter, $995
Needs IEC power cord: order one at the same time at 20% off!
Multiple shielding, including external electrostatic shield
connected to a clip. Used by UHF. Now in an upgraded version,
with performance “squared.” Length 1.7 m, longer cords on order.
G Clef 2 has 195 conductors, 3 shields providing 98% shielding.
Available with 20A IEC plug (for amplifiers requiring special plug)
ORDER: GGC G Clef, Square 1.7m, $385
STINGRAY POWER BAR
Most power bars knock voltage to your equipment way down,
and generate more noise than
a kindergarten class. The
Gutwire Stingray Squared
doesn’t. 12 gauge doubleshielded cable, Hubbell
hospital grade connectors at
both ends. Indispensable!
ORDER: GSR-2 Stingray Squared power bar, $285
We dumped our
cheap power
strip, added a
GutWire 16 power
cord, and made
our system sound better, even though no major component was
plugged into it. ORDER: EPS power strip, $48
Take $10 off any one of our IEC power cords or cord kits with
an EPS purchase
MORE POWER TO YOU
Better access to
electrical power.
Change your 77-cent
duplex outlets for
these Hubbell hospital
grade outlets. Insert a
plug and it just snaps
in. A tighter internal
connection as well.
Possibly the cheapest improvement you can make to your system.
ORDER: AC-DA Hubbell duplex outlet, $23.95
ORDER: AC-DB (more than one outlet), $21.95
ORDER: AC-D20 20A duplex, red color, $28.95
When we put a quality
AC plug on our kettle,
boiling time dropped by
90 seconds! The best AC
plug we have ever seen is
the Hubbell 8215 hospital
grade plug. It connects to wires under high pressure, and it
should last forever.
ORDER: AC-P2 Hubbell cord plug, $25.95
Amazingly good at a much lower price are these two cord plugs
from Eagle. No hospital rating, but a rather good mechanical
connection. Male and female versions.
ORDER: AC-P1 Eagle male cord plug, $5.95
ORDER: AC-PF Eagle female cord plug, $5.95
Making your own power cords for your equipment? You’ll need
the hard-to-get IEC 320 connector to fit the gear. We have two
sizes.
Gutwire’s B12 is a fat pipe, well-shielded, to which we’ve added a
Hubbell 8215 hospital grade wall plug and the Furutech IEC copper
connector. We use a couple of these ourselves, and we love them!
Optionally available as an easy-to-assemble kit, with the blue jacket
pre-stripped and shrink-wrapped at one end.
ORDER: GWB12, 1.5 m B12 power cord, $285
ORDER: GWB12K, 1.5 m B12 power cord kit, $240
Need it longer? Add $95 per metre extra
ORDER: AC-P3 10 ampere IEC 320 plug, $9.95
ORDER: AC-P4 15 ampere Schurter IEC 320 plug, $18.95
GUTWIRE 16
EICHMANN POWER STRIP
HOSPITAL GRADE CONNECTION
GUTWIRE/UHF B12
ENACOM LINE FILTER
Economy price, but astonishingly effective, we wouldn’t run our
system with less. It actually shorts out the hash on the power line.
ORDER: EAC Enacom line filter, $105
59
No budget for a premium cable? Make your own! We use several
ourselves, and they even
make our computers run
better! Double-shielded,
to avoid picking up
or transmitting noise.
GutWire 16, assembled
or as a kit. (If you are
not comfortable around
electricity, we suggest
the assembled one.) With
the Hubbell 8215 hospital
grade plug and the
Schurter 15 A IEC 320 connector. Highly suitable for digital players,
preamplifiers, tuners, and even medium-powered amplifiers.
ORDER: GW16-1.5K, GutWire 16 gauge power cable kit, $79.95
ORDER: GW16-1.5 GutWire 16 cable, assembled, $119.95
Need it longer? Add $28 per metre extra
IEC ON YOUR DVD PLAYER
Why do big name DVD players come with those tiny two-prong
plugs for their cords? A
good shielded power cable
will do wonders! Take $18
off if you order an adapter
at the same time as a G
Clef or B12 cable, or $8
off if you order one with a
GutWire 16.
ORDER: DVD-A, GutWire adapter, $39
SILVER SOLDER
This is a lovely solder, from the
company that makes Enacom
line filters (which we also like).
Wakø-Tech solder contains 4%
silver, no lead.
ORDER: SR-4N, 100 g solder
roll, $59.95
BETTER DIGITAL
IMPROVED CD WITH FINYL
This is the most famous of all the treatments for
Compact Discs. The maker of Finyl claims it reduces
surface reflections and provides a higher contrast
image for the laser cell of your player. Use it just
once. We get a lot of repeat orders on it. One kit can
treat over 200 discs. Or order the refill.
ORDER: F-1 Finyl kit, $40.00
ORDER: F-1R Finyl refill, $35.00
CLEAN YOUR PLAYER
After as little as three
months, your new
player will have more
trouble reading your
CD’s. Why? Dust on
the lens. We’re happy
to have found the
new Milty CD lens
cleaner. Unlike some
commonly-available
discs, the Milty is nonabrasive, so we use it and rest easy. Can be used wet or dry.
ORDER: 2021 Milty CD lens cleaner, $35
60
SUPPORT SYSTEMS
THE SUPERSPIKE
TENDERFEET
Machined cones are wonderful
things to put under speakers or
other audio equipment. They anchor
it mechanically and decouple it
acoustically at the same time.
Tenderfeet come in various versions:
tall (as shown) or flattened, in either
anodized silver or black. Tall Tenderfeet have threaded holes for
a machine screw, or for the optional hanger bolt, which lets you
screw it into wood. If you have a fragile hardwood floor, add the
optional Tendercup (shown above) to protect it.
ORDER: TFG, tall silver Tenderfoot, $15
ORDER: TFGN, tall black Tenderfoot, $16.50
ORDER: TFP, flat silver Tenderfoot, $10
ORDER: TCP, silver Tendercup, $10
ORDER: THB, hanger bolt for Tenderfeet, each $0.80
This is unique: a sealed unit containing a spike and a cup to
receive it. It won’t scratch even hardwood floors. For speakers
or equipment stands, on bare floors only. Four sizes of threaded
shanks are available to fit speakers or stands.
ORDER: SSKQ, 4 Superspikes, 1/4” shank, $75
ORDER: SSKT, 4 Superspikes, 5/16” shank, $75
ORDER: SSKS, 4 Superspikes, 6 mm shank, $75
ORDER: SSKH, 4 Superspikes, 8 mm shank, $75
WHAT SIZE SUPERSPIKE?
Do you prefer spikes for your speakers? Target spikes and sockets
mount in wood. Available with or without tools.
ORDER: S4W kit, 8 spikes, sockets and tools, $39
ORDER: S4WS kit, 8 spikes and sockets, $30
AUDIO-TAK
It’s blue, and it’s a sort of modelling
clay that never dries. Anchor
speakers to stands, cones to speakers,
and damp out vibration. Leaflet with
suggested uses.
ORDER: AT-2, Audio-Tak pack, $10
A good ruler will let you figure it out. The stated size is the outer
diameter of the threaded shank. Then count the threads:
1/4” shank: 20 threads/inch
5/16” shank: 18 threads/inch
M6 (6mm) shank: 10 threads/cm
M8 (8mm) shank: 8 threads/cm
OTHER
SUPERSPIKES
FOUNDATION STANDS
Absolutely the best speaker stand known to us. They’re filled with
a proprietary material that deadens the stand completely. Matte
black, with spikes adjustable from the top. Height 61 cm (24”).
ORDER: FFA, one pair Foundation stands, $1295
AN ON-THE-WALL IDEA
Need to fasten a speaker
securely to the wall? Nothing
beats the Smarter Speaker
Support for ease of installation
or for sheer strength. And
it holds the speaker off the
wall, so it can be used even
with rear-ported speakers.
Easily adjustable with two
hands, not three, tested to an
incredible 23 kg! Glass-filled
polycarbonate is unbreakable.
Screws and anchors included,
available in two colors.
ORDER: SSPS, pair of black speaker supports, $29.95
ORDER: SSPS-W, pair of white speaker supports, $29.95
TARGET WALL STANDS
We keep our turntables on these, secure from floor vibrations, but
they’re wonderful for CD players, amplifiers, and virtually all
components.
ORDER: VW-1 Target single-shelf wall stand, $199
We have also have a Superspike foot
(at right) that replaces those useless
feet on CD players, amps, etc., using
the same screws to fasten them. And
there’s a stick-on version (not shown) for other components.
ORDER: SSKF, 4 Superspike replacement feet, $80
ORDER: SSKA, 3 stick-on Superspike feet, $50
ORDER: VW-2 Target dual-shelf wall stand, $259
AUDIOPHILE RECORDINGS, RECOMMENDED BY UHF STAFF
REFERENCE RECORDINGS
Garden of Dreams (HDCD)
David Maslanka’s evocative music for wind band.
30th Anniversary Sampler (HDCD)
A collection of excerpts from recent Reference albums.
Yerba Buena Bounce (HDCD)
The (terrific) Hot Club of San Francisco is back, with great music,
well-played, wonderfully recorded by “Profesor” Johnson!
Crown Imperial (HDCD)
The second chapter of the famous Pomp&Pipes saga, with the Dallas
Wind Symphony, in a set of perfectly recorded pieces in glorious
HDCD.
Serenade (HDCD)
A collection of choral pieces, wonderfully sung by the Turtle Creek
Chorale, with perhaps the best sound Keith has given them yet.
Nojima Plays Liszt (HDCD)
The famous 1986 recording of Minoru Nojima playing the B Minor
Sonata and other works is back…in HDCD this time!
Nojima Plays Ravel (HDCD)
Nojima’s other hit disc, now also in glorious HDCD.
Beachcomber (LP/HDCD) �
Fennell and the Dallas Wind Ensemble.Includes Tico Tico, A Chorus
line, and a version of 76 Trombones you’ll remember for a long time.
Holst (LP) �
From the composer of The Planets, 3 suites for wind band, plus the
Hammersmith Prelude and Scherzo. Fine power playing by the Dallas
Wind Symphony.
Trittico (HDCD) �
Large helping of wind band leader Frederick Fennell doing powerhouse music by Grieg, Albeniz, Nelhybel, etc. Complex and energetic.
Fennell Favorites (LP)
The Dallas Wind Symphony: Bach, Brahms, Prokofiev and more.
Fireworks on this rare Reference LP.
The Oxnard Sessions, vol. 1 (LP) �
Pianist Michael Garson, of Serendipity fame, takes on familiar standards, backed by five fine musicians. Inventive and beautiful.
Dick Hyman - Fats Waller (LP)
Analog version of this famous recording, cut to CD during the performance. Keith Johnson simultaneously recorded the performance on
his own hand-built analog recorder.
Blazing Redheads (LP)
Not all redheads, this all-female salsa-flavored big band adds a lot of
red pepper to its music.
Felix Hell (HDCD)
The young organ prodigy turns in mature versions of organ music of
Liszt, Vierne, Rheinberger and Guilmant. Huge bottom end!
American Requiem (HDCD)
Richard Danielpour's awesome Requiem mass is all about war, and
about the hope for peace too, with a dedication tied to 9/11.
World Keys (HDCD)
Astonishing young pianist Joel Fan amazes with music from all the
world, including that of Prokofiev and Liszt
Ikon of Eros (HDCD)
Huge suite for orchestra and chorus, by John Tavener. Inspired by
Greek Orthodox tradition. Overwhelming HDCD sound.
PLUS THESE HDCD RECORDINGS:
Pomp&Pipes (HDCD) �
Requiem (HDCD) �
From the Age of Swing (HDCD) �
Swing is Here (HDCD) �
Copland Symphony No. 3 (HDCD) �
Medinah Sessions, two CDs for one (HDCD)
Ports of Call (HDCD)
Tutti (HDCD)
Bruckner Symphony No. 9 (HDCD) �
Ein Heldenleben (HDCD) �
61
with the set’s creators.
Test CD 4 (SACD)
A sampler of Opus 3 performers, clearer than you’ve ever heard them
before. Hybrid disc.
Test CD 5 (HDCD) �
Another of Opus 3’s wonderful samplers, including blues, jazz, and
classical music. A number of fine artists, captured with the usual pure
Blumlein stereo setup. A treat.
SHEFFIELD
Showcase (SACD/LP) �
Available as a hybrid SACD/CD disc, or a gorgeously-cut LP, with
selections from Opus 3 releases.
Say It With Music (CD) �
Margie Gibson sings Irving Berlin in what may be one the greatest
jazz vocal recordings of all time. And she’s right in your living room!
Growing Up in Hollywood Town (XRCD) �
FIM's XRCD version of the original Amanda McBroom LP.
Good Stuff (DOUBLE 45 LP/HDCD/SACD) �
As soothing as a summer breeze, this disc features singer Eric Bibb
(son of Leon), singing and playing guitar along with his group. Subtle
weaving of instrumentation, vivid sound.
I’ve Got the Music in Me (CD) �
This was originally Sheffield’s LAB-2 release. If you haven’t heard
Thelma Houston belt out a song, you’re in for a treat.
Harry James & His Big Band (Gold CD)
Harry said he would have done this recording for free, because he
sounded better than ever.
The King James Version (CD)
Harry James and his big band, live from the chapel!
Spirit and the Blues (DOUBLE 45 LP/CD/SACD) �
Like his father, Leon Bibb, Eric Bibb understands the blues. He and
the other musicians, all playing strictly acoustic instruments, have
done a fine recording, and Opus 3 has made it sound exceptional.
Tiny Island (HDCD/SACD)
If you like Eric Bibb and his group Good Stuff as much as we do, pick
this one up.
20th Anniversary Celebration Disc (HDCD) �
A great sampler from Opus 3. Includes some exceptional fine pieces,
jazz, folk and classical. The sound pickup is as good as it gets, and the
HDCD transfer is luminous.
Drum/Track Record (XRCD2) �
OPUS 3
Unique Classical Guitar Collection (SACD)
An SACD, mastered from analog, of some of Opus 3’s long-discontinued classical guitar LPs. Terrific!
Beyond (SACD)
The second recording by the versatile guitarist Peder af Ugglas (who
also did Autumn Shuffle, below), who plays every instrument there is:
jazz, rock, blues, country. From Sweden???
Autumn Shuffle (SACD/LP)
Ugglas plays a number of different guitars, and borrows from jazz,
Blues, and (yes!) country. Piano, organ, trombone, bowed saw, etc.
Showcase 2005 (SACD)
The latest Opus 3 sampler, with Eric Bibb, Mattias Wager, the Erik
Westberg Vocal Ensemble and lots more, in glorious SACD.
Organ Treasures (SACD) �
All those showpieces for big organ you remember hearing through
huge systems…only with all of the power and the clarity of Super
Audio. 4.1 channels, plus 2-channel CD.
Just Like Love (SACD/LP) �
The newest from Eric Bibb, less oriented to Gospel and more to Blues.
Bibb’s group, Needed Time, is not here, but he’s surrounded by half a
dozen fine musicians. A nice recording. Hybrid SACD.
Comes Love (HDCD) �
Another disc by the terrific Swedish Jazz Kings, led by saxophonist
Tomas Ornberg, proving again Sweden understands jazz. The sound
is luminous, sometimes dazzling.
It’s Right Here For You (HDCD) �
Is there, anywhere, a better swing band than The Swedish Jazz Kings
(formerly Tömas Ormberg’s Blue Five)? Closer to Kansas City than to
Stockholm, they are captivating.
Levande (LP/CD) �
The full recording from which “Tiden Bara Går” on Test Record No.1
is taken. Believe it or not, this great song isn’t even the best on the
album! A fine singer, doing folklike material…and who cares about
understanding the words?
Concertos for Double Bass (CD/SACD) �
This album of modern and 19th Century music is a favorite for its
deep, sensuous sound. And the music is worth discovering. It is sensuous and lyrical, a delight in every way.
Across the Bridge of Hope (SACD)
An astonishing choral recording by the Erik Westberg Ensemble,
famous for its Musica Sacra choral recording.
Musica Sacra (HDCD/SACD) �
Test Record No.4 (LP) �
PROPRIUS
Antiphone Blues (CD) �
This famous disc offers an unusual mix: sax and organ! The disc
includes Ellington, Negro spirituals, and some folk music. Electrifying performance, and the recording quality is unequalled.
Antiphone Blues (SACD/HDCD) �
This is the Super Audio version, with a Red Book layer that is HDCDencoded. The best of both worlds!
Now the Green Blade Riseth (CD/SACD) �
Religious music done a new way: organ, chorus and modern orchestra. Stunning music, arranged and performed by masters, and the
effect is joyous. The sound is clear, and the sheer depth is unequalled
on CD. The new SACD version is the very best SACD we have yet heard!
Jazz at the Pawnshop Set (SACD) �
The entire set oin glorious SACD, plus a video DVD with interviews
Jazz at the Pawnshop 2 (CD/SACD) �
From the original master, another disc of jazz from this Swedish pub,
with its lifelike 3-D sound. Now a classic in its own right.
Good Vibes (CD)
The third volume of Jazz at the Pawnshop. And just as good!
Cantate Domino (CD/SACD) �
This choral record is a classic of audiophile records. The title selection is stunningly beautiful. The second half is Christmas music, and
includes the most stunning version of O Holy Night we’ve ever heard.
Sketches of Standard (CD)
ANALEKTA
Graupner: Vocal & Instr. Music vol.1 (CD)
Geneviève Soly and Les idées heureuses play music from a lost genius
whose reputation once outshon Bach’s.
Graupner: Partitas, vol.1 (CD)
Geneviève Soly plays some of Christoph Graupner’s incredibly rich
harpsichord music
Graupner: Vocal & Instr. Music vol.2 (CD)
Graupner: Partitas vol.3 (CD)
Graupner: Christmas in Darmstadt (CD)
SPECIAL PRICE ON ALL 8 CDs (see last page)
Violonchello Español (CD) �
I Musici de Montréal comes to Analekta, with a stunning album of
Spanish and Spanish-like pieces for cello and orchestra: Glazunov, de
Falla, Albéniz, Granados, and more.
Vivace (CD) �
Classical or rock? Claude Lamothe plays two cellos at the same time
in an amazing recording of modern compositions.
Pauline Viardot-Garcia (CD) �
Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian steps into the role of 19th Century
singer and composer Pauline Viardot so convincingly that listening
to her is like going back in time. One of the best classical recordings
of all time!
Romantic Pieces (CD) �
How does James Ehnes manage to get such a sweet sound from his
Stradivarius? Czech pieces from Smetana, Dvorak and Janacek.
The playing is as glorious as the tone, and the sound is sumptuous.
Bonus: Analekta’s 10th sampler is included.
Once Upon a Time… (Video DVD)
Violinist Angèle Dubeau et her La Pietà string group with a spectacular video of music inspired by the Underworld…with the devil
himself in attendence. Includes other videos plus two CD’s worth of
uncompressed music. Superb!
Cantabile (CD)
The Duo Similia is made up of striking blonde twins, who play flute
and guitar. Familiar airs from Mozart, Fauré, Elgar, Ravel, lots more.
Fine listening.
Nota del Sol (CD) �
The Labrie twins are back, with a delightful recording of flute and
guitar music by Piazzola, Pujol and Machado. Joyous works, wonderfully played and recorded
62
Fantasia (CD)
A third, gorgeous, recording by the twins, on flute and guitar.
disc. Some exceptional guitar and bass solos.
Fritz Kreisler (CD)
Possibly the best recording of Kreisler’s delightful violin music: James
Ehnes and his Strad bring a new magic to this fine disc.
Musique Guy St-Onge (CD)
One-man band St-Onge plays dozens of instruments — scores for
fourteen films which never existed outside of his imagination. Fun
pretext, clever, attractive music that makes you wish you could see
the films!
French Showpieces (CD) �
Awesome violinist James Ehnes, with the Quebec City Symph. takes on
Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Chausson, Massenet, and more.
HI-RES MUSIC (FOR DVD PLAYERS)
Handel (CD) �
Superb soprano Karina Gauvin is joined by the Toronto chamber
ensemble Tafelmusik in a series of glowing excerpts from Handel’s
“Alcina” and “Agrippina.” The sound is smooth and lifelike, with an
acute sense of place.
Little Notebook of Anna Magdalana Bach (CD) �
Over 30 delightful pieces, most by Bach himself. Soprano Karina
Gauvin’s voice is mated to Luc Beauséjour’s harpsichord work. The
sound is deep, detailed and warm, truly of audiophile quality.
Vivaldi: Motets for Soprano (CD) �
The wonderful soprano Karina Gauvin tackles the gorgeous but very
difficult vocal music of Vivaldi: two motets and a psalm.
AUDIOQUEST
Mississipi Magic (CD/SACD)
The legendary Blues, Gospel, rock and world beat singer and musician Terry Evans, in an energetic recording we loved.
Come to Find (CD) �
The first by Bluesman Doug McLeod, as impressive as the second, and
no Blues fan should resist it.
You Can’t Take My Blues (CD) �
Singer/songwriter Doug MacLeod and colleagues present one of the
most satisfying Blues records ever made.
Unmarked Road (SACD)
The third disc from the great blues singer and guitarist Doug McLeod
is every bit as good as the first two.
Brazilian Soul (24/96 DVD)
Guitarists Laurindo Almeida and Charlie Byrd, plus percussion and
bass, in an intimate yet explosive recording of samba and bossa nova
music. Great!
Jazz/Concord (24/96 DVD)
It's 1972, and you have tickets to hear Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown
and Jake Hanna at the Concord Jazz Festival. You won’t ever forget it.
You can be there, with this high resolution disc that goes in your DVD.
Rhythm Willie (24/96DVD) �
Guitarists Herb Ellis and Freddie Green, With bassist Ray Brown and
others. This is an uncompressed 24 bit 96 kHz disc that can be played
on any video DVD player. Awesome!
Trio (24/96 DVD) �
Pianist Monty Alexander with Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. “Makes CD
sound seem as if it’s coming through a drinking straw.” Playable on
any DVD player, uncompressed.
Seven Come Eleven (24/96 DVD)
Herb Ellis and Ray Brown again, but this time with guitarist Joe
Pass (he and Ellis alternate playing lead and rhythm), and a third
guitarist, Jake Hanna. This is a live recording from the 1974 Concord
Jazz Festival.
Soular Energy (24-96 DVD/ 24-192 DVD-Audio) �
Perhaps the world’s greatest bassist, the late Ray Brown, playing with
pianist Gene Harris, whom Brown called one of the greats. The proof
is right on this 24/96 recording, made from the analog master. Side 2
has a 24/192 DVD-A version.
band, and the Keystone Wind Ensemble does his music justice. So
does the sound, of astonishing quality!
Carmina Burana (CD)
The celebrated Carl Orff oratorio sends chills down your spine, thanks
to the huge orchestra, gigantic choir, and of course the clarity and
depth of the Klavier sound.
Obseción (CD)
The Trio Amadé plays Piazzola, Berstein, Copland, and Emilion
Cólon…who is the trio cellist. The Colón and Piazzola is definitely
worth the price of admission. Lifelike sound.
Misbehavin’ (CD)
The superb Denver Brass does Gershwin (Cuban Overture, Porgy and
Bess), plus On the Town, Sweet Georgia Brown, and of course Ain’t
Misbehavin’. Great sound.
Hemispheres (CD)
The North Texas Wind Symphony with new music by contemporary
composers who know how to thrill. Some of the best wind band sound
available.
Illuminations (CD)
Absolutely great chamber musicians take on music by Villa-Lobos,
Malcolm Arnold, and some composers you may not know but you’ll
wish you did. Sublime sound, nothing less.
Mozart Serenade and Divertimenti (CD)
Lowell Graham (of Center Stage fame, Wilson Audio) conducts a
glowing version of these pieces, including the famous “Grand Partita.”
The engineering, by Bruce Leek, is absolutely first-rate.
Kickin’ the Clouds Away (CD)
Gershwin died more than 60 years ago, but you can hear him playing
piano in glowing stereo. Nineteen of his pieces are on this fine CD,
including a solo piano version of the Rhapsody in Blue.
FIRST/LAST IMPRESSIONS
KLAVIER
La Fille Mal Gardée (XRCD)
A fine ballet with the Royal Ballet Company orchestra, from the
original 1962 Decca recording. Exceptional
Evolution (CD)
Lowell Graham and the USAF wind band, with two superb suites by
Holst, plus music by Nelhybel, Hanson, etc. Lively, tactile sound with
impact by Bruce Leek..
Film Spectacular II (XRCD)
The orchestra of Stanley Black plays some of the greatest film music
of bygone years. From the original Decca Phase 4 tape.
Poetics (CD) �
A superb wind band recording which includes a breathtaking
concerto for percussion.
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante (XRCD)
Igor and David Oistrakh with the Moscow Philharmonic, in a glorious
1963 recording, from the original master tape
Tres Americas (CD)
A gold audiophile disc of lively Latin fusion music. Irka Mateo and
Tadeo de Marco sing and play, drawing their influence from Africa as
well as their native Brazil. Clear, close-in sound.
Ghosts (CD) �
This haunting(!) wind band recording features a suite of music that
could be the soundtrack to a film that will keep you awake nights. A
recording of astonishing dynamics and depth
Artistry oi Linda Rosenthal (HDCD) �
The great violinist Rosenthal plays favorites: Hora Staccato, Perpetuum Mobile, Debussy’s Beau Soir, etc.
Djembé Tigui (CD)
This gold disc features the voice and percussion of African artist
Sekou Camara, captured by the famous Soundfield microphone.
Camara died just before the disc was released.
Caprice (CD) �
Can harp be spectacular? Believe it! This famous Klavier recording
features Susann McDonald playing Fauré, Glinka and Liszt, is a
powerhouse! Engineered by Keith O. Johnson, with a great transfer by
Bruce Leek.
Whose Truth, Whose Lies (SACD) �
The third disc from the great blues singer and guitarist Doug McLeod
is t as good as the first. These songs have powerful rhythm, and can
make you smile and cry at the same time.
Bluesquest sampler (CD)
SILENCE
Styles (CD)
Is this ever a surprising disc! Violinist Marc Bélanger worked up these
string études for his music students, but they actually deserve to be
put out on a gold audiophile disc! The more strings he adds, the better
it gets.
Sonatas for Flute and Harp
These same great artists with sonatas by Krumpholz and Damase, as
well as Spohr and Glinka. Oh yes, and a spectacular solo harp version
of Ibert’s hilarious Entr’acte .
Fable (CD)
Easygoing modern jazz by Rémi Bolduc and his quartet, on this gold
Norman Dello Joio (CD) �
This contemporary composer delights in the tactile sound of the wind
Suite Española (XRCD) �
The Albéniz suite, gorgeously orchestrated by Rafael Frühbeck de
Burgos, who conducts the New Philharmonia. Beautifully remastered
from the original 1963 tape.
Audiophile Reference IV (SACD) �
A stunning sampler, with recognizable audiophile selections you have
never heard sound this good!
Songs My Dad Taught Me (HDCD)
Jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro and three other musicians, with a retro
collection of unforgettable tunes.
A Time for Us (HDCD)
Orchestral versions of music from great movies. Easy to love!.
63
but it has been spent wisely. Superb songs, gloriously sung in Portuguese, French and the ancient Aymara language.
saxophonist Ernie Watts. The HDCD sound is explosive!
Café Blue (HDCD/CD) �
Gold HDCD version of jazz singer Patricia Barber’s 1994 classic, an
audiophile underground favorite. Or get the original CD, at lower cost.
MISCELLANEOUS
Pipes Rhode Island �
John Marks recorded this tour of the organs of the tiny state, with
amazing tones, captured in astonishing sound
My Foolish Heart (CD)
A collection of live and atudio pieces by Monteiro and other musicians, notably saxophonist Eernie Watts
Coeur vagabond (CD)
Bïa sings French songs in Portuguese, Brazilian songs in French. A
delight, as usual from this astonishing singer
Neil Diamond: Serenade (CD)
Just eight songs on this European CBS disc, but what songs! I’ve Been
This Way Before, Lady Magdalene, Reggae Strut, The Gift of Song,
and more. Glowing sound too.
Nightclub (CD) �
Patricia Barber, doing nightclub standards rather than her own
songs. But can she do them!
All We Need to Know �
Jazz singer Margie Gibson’s first album since Say It With Music, on
Sheffield. No one sings the way she does!
Harry Belafonte (CD)
We haven’t heard Belafonte sound like this except on analog. The 16
songs include Island in the Sun, Jamaica Farewell, Midnight Special,
Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Brown Skin Girl, etc.
Modern Cool (CD)
The previous release from Patricia Barber, including songs she does
live on the Companion live disc.
Classica d’Oro (CD)
All of the classical world’s most important heritage, on 50 audiophilequality gold CDs, at under $4 per CD. Fine artists from Germany,
Austria, the UK, Eastern Europe. Listen to excerpts on line.
Sources (CD) �
A wonderful recording by Bïa (pronounced Bee-yah). She’s Brazilian,
lives in France, recorded this terrific album (in 5 languages!) in
Montreal. Just her warm voice and guitar,
SEE EVEN MORE PRODUCTS
IN OUR ON-LINE CATALOG
www,uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html
Audiophile (XRCD) �
A fine jazz recording, including Secret of the Andes. We never test a
speaker without it.
La mémoire du vent (CD)
The original recording by Bïa, in French, Portuguese and English. If
you love her second one, don’t hesitate.
Blues for the Saxophone Club (HDCD) �
Swing jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro, with guest artists, including
Carmin (CD) �
The third by Bïa. Different this time, with more money for production,
REMEMBER, IF WE WOULDN’T
RECOMMEND IT TO OUR BEST
FRIENDS, WE WON’T RECOMMEND IT
TO YOU.
Payment by VISA or MasterCard, cheque or money order (in Canada). All merchandise is guaranteed unless explicitly sold “as is.” Certain
items (the Super Antenna, the EAC line filter, and most standard-length cables) may be returned within 21 days less shipping cost. Other
items may be subject to a restocking charge. Defective recordings will be exchanged for new copies.
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64
VINYL ALBUMS
Autumn Shuffle
Beachcomber
Blazing Redheads
Dick Hyman — Fats Waller
Fennell Favorites
Good Stuff (2 LP)
Holst
Jazz at the Pawnshop
Just like Love
Levande
Showcase
Spirit and the Blues (2 LP)
Test Record No.4
The Oxnard Sessions
Trittico
Vinyl Essentials (test)
Bach Suites, Airs & Dances
FL 2 3133
21.00
Beachcomber
RR-62CD
16.95
Best of Chesky & Test, vol.3 JD111
21.95
Best of the Red Army Chorus AN 2 8800
21.00
Beethoven Symph. 5 & 6
AN 2 9891
21.00
Blues for the Saxophone Club 26-1084-78-2 21.95
Bluesquest
AQCD1052 21.95
Bossa Nova
JD129
21.95
Bruckner: Symph. No.9
RR-81CD
16.95
Café Blue
21810
21.95
Café Blue (HDCD gold)
CD 010
39.95
Cantabile
AN 2 9810
21.00
Cantate Domino
7762CD
21.95
Caprice
K11133
21.00
Carmin
ADCD10163 21.00
Carmina Burana
K 11136
21.00
Classica d’Oro (50 CDs)
GCM-50
149.95
Come to Find
AQCD1027 21.95
NEW MEDIA (SACD, DVD, ETC.)
Come Love
CD19703
19.95
Across the Bridge of Hope
CD22012
24.95 Companion
22963
21.00
Antiphone Blues (SACD)
7744SACD 37.95 Coeur vagabond
ADCD10191 21.00
Audiophile Reference IV
SACD 029
40.00 Concertos for Double Bass
OPCD8502 21.95
Autumn Shuffle (SACD)
CD22042
24.95 Copland Symphony No.3
RR-93CD
16.95
Beethoven/Mendelssohn
5186 102
29.95 Djembé Tigui
SLC9605-2 22.00
Beyond (SACD)
CD22072
24.95 Drum/Track Record
LIM XR 005 38.95
Brazilian Soul (DVD)
HRM2009
24.95 Ein Heldenleben
RR-83CD
16.95
Cantate Domino (SACD)
PSACD7762 29.95 Evolution
K11161
21.95
Conc. for Double Bass (SACD) CD8522
37.95 Eybler Quartets
AN 2 9914
21.00
Good Stuff (SACD)
CD19623
37.95 Fable
SLC9603-2 22.00
Jazz at the Pawnshop (3-SACD)PRSACD7879 90.00 Fantasia
AN 2 9819
23.00
Jazz at the Pawnshop 2 (SACD)PRSACD7079 37.95 Felix Hell
RR-101CD
16.95
Jazz/Concord (DVD)
HRM2006
24.95 Flm Spectacular II
XR24 070
35.00
Just Like Love (SACD)
CD21002
24.95 French Showpieces
FL 2 3151
21.00
Mississipi Magic (SACD)
AQSACD1057 24.95 Fritz Kreisler
FL 2 3159
21.00
Musica Sacra (SACD)
CD19516
24.95 From the Age of Swing
RR-59CD
16.95
Now the Green Blade Riseth PRSACD9093 29.95 Garden of Dreams
RR-108
16.95
Once Upon a Time… (DVD) ANDVD 9 8720 34.00 Ghosts
K11150
21.00
Organ Treasures (SACD)
CD22031
24.95 Gitans
Y225035
24.95
Rhythm Willie (Audio DVD)
HRM2010
24.95 Good Stuff
CD19603
19.95
Seven Come Eleven (DVD)
HRM2005
24.95 Good Vibes
PRCD9058 19.95
Showcase (SACD)
CD21000
24.95 Graupner: Instr.& Vocal, v1
FL 2 3162
21.00
Showcase 2005 (SACD)
CD22050
24.95 Graupner: Partitas v.1
FL 2 3109
21.00
Soular Energy (DVD/DVD-A) HRM2011
24.95 Graupner: Instr. & Vocal, v2
FL 2 3180
21.00
Spirit & the Blues (SACD)
CD19411
FL 2 3164
21.00
Tchaikovsky: Symph. #6 (SACD) 5186 107
FL 2 3181
21.00
Test CD 4 (SACD)
CD19420
AN 2 9116
21.00
Tiny Island (SACD)
CD19824
AN 2 9118
21.00
Trio (Audio DVD)
HRM2008
24.95 Graupner: Christmas in…
AN 2 9115
21.00
Unique Classical Guitar (SACD).CD22062
24.95 Graupner Discovery: all 8 CDs GDP-8
157.00
Unmarked Road (SACD)
AQ1046SACD 29.95 Growing up in Hollywood Town LIM XR 001 38.95
Whose Truth, Whose Lies?
AQ1054SACD 29.95 Handel
FL 2 3137
21.00
Harry Belafonte
295-037
19.95
RED BOOK COMPACT DISCS
Harry James & His Big Band 10057-2-G
24.00
20th Anniversary Celebration CD19692
19.95 Hemispheres
K11137
21.00
30th Anniversary Sampler
RR-908
16.95 Illuminations
K11135
21.00
Alleluía
AN 2 8810
21.00 Infernal Violins
AN 2 8718
21.00
All We Need to Know
GG-1
21.00 It’s Right Here For You
CD19404
19.95
An American Requiem
RR-97CD
16.95 I’ve Got the Music in Me
10076
21.00
Antiphone Blues
7744CD
21.95 Jazz at the Pawnshop
PRCD-7778 19.95
Artistry of Linda Rosenthal
FIM022VD
27.95 Jazz at the Pawnshop 2
PRCD9044 19.95
A Time for Us
FIM051
27.95 Jazz/Vol.1
JD37
19.95
Audiophile
jvcxr-0016-2 38.95 Keep on Movin’
AQCD1031 19.95
Bach Sonatas, violin & harpsi. AN 2 9829
21.00 Kickin’ the Clouds Away
K77031
21.00
LP22042
RR-62
RR-26
RR-33
RR-43
LP19603
RR-39
7778-79
LP20002
7917
LP20000
LP19401
OPLP9200
RR-53
RR-52
LP003
27.95
35.00
25.00
25.00
25.00
47.95
25.00
65.00
27.95
24.00
27.95
47.95
27.95
25.00
32.00
48.95
La Fille Mal Gardée
XR24 013
La mémoire du vent
ADCD10144
Les matins habitables
GSIC-895
Levande
OPCD7917
Leyrac chante Nelligan
AN 2 8815
Liszt-Laplante
FL 2 3030
Little Notebook of Anna M. BachFL 2 3064
Masters of Flute & Harp
KCD11019
Medinah Sessions
RR-2102
Mendelssohn: 2 Violin Conc. FL 2 3098
Misbehavin’
K77034
Modern Cool
741-2
Mozart Complete Piano Trios AN 2 9827-8
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante XR24 069
Mozart: Soprano Arias
FL 2 3131
Musica Sacra
CD19506
Musique Guy St-Onge
SLC9700-2
Musiques d’Europe centrale 88001
My Foolish Heart
26-1084-92-2
Neil Diamond: Serenade
465012-2
Nightclub
27290
Nojima Plays Liszt
RR-25CD
Nojima Plays Ravel
RR-35CD
Non-Stop to Brazil
JD29
Norman Dello Joio
K11138
Nota del Sol
AN 2 9817
Now the Green Blade Riseth PRCD9093
Obseción
K11134
Opera for Two
FL 2 3076
Pauline Viardot-Garcia
AN 2 9903
Pipes Rhode Island
CD101
Poetics
K11153
Pomp&Pipes
RR-58CD
Ports of Call
RR-80CD
Requiem
RR-57CD
Rio After Dark
JD28
Romantic Pieces
FL 2 3191
Sans Domicile Fixe
19012-2
Say It With Music
CD-36
Serenade
RR-110
Sketches of Standard
PRCD 9036
Songs My Dad Taught Me
FIM0009
Sources
ADCD10132
Spirit and the Blues
CD19401
Styles
SLC9604-2
Suite Española
XR24 068
Swing is Here
RR-72CD
Telemann Sonatas for 2 Violins FL 2 3085
Test CD 5
CD20000
The King James Version
10068-2-F
Tres Americas
SLC9602-2
Trittico
RR-52CD
Tutti
RR-906CD
Ultimate Demonstration Disc UD95
Villa-Lobos
FL 2 3051
Violonchelo Español
AN 2 9897
Vivace
AN 2 9808
Vivaldi: Motets for Soprano
FL 2 3099
Vivaldi: Per Archi
FL 2 3128
World Keys
RR-106
Yerba Buena Bounce
RR-109
You Can’t Take My Blues
AQCD1041
38.95
21.00
21.00
19.95
21.00
21.00
21.00
21.00
16.95
21.00
21.00
21.95
27.50
38.95
21.00
19.95
22.00
24.95
21.95
16.95
21.95
16.95
16.95
19.95
21.00
21.00
19.95
21.95
21.00
21.00
15.95
21.00
16.95
16.95
16.95
19.95
21.00
24.95
21.00
16.95
19.95
27.95
21.00
19.95
22.00
38.95
16.95
21.00
21.95
21.00
22.00
16.95
16.95
20.00
21.00
21.00
21.00
21.00
21.00
16.95
16.95
21.95
Domingo in Turandot
Software
I
Plácido
t is often said of someone who has
succeeded in life and amassed a
great fortune that he was “born
with a silver spoon in his mouth.” It
is also said that many are the tenors that
were born tenors, and that they had but
to open their mouths in order to deliver
an extended tessitura. Pavarotti was one
such tenor.
Much more numerous, in fact, are
singers who, having been classified as
baritones, learn one day that they have
a tenor range, and in order to take on
the demands of that range and even
to extend it, they must work hard each
and every day, without being certain of
success.
So it was with Plácido Domingo, as
it had been in an earlier age for Enrico
Caruso. Domingo, when asked by an
interviewer how a singer of his calibre
can know he has arrived, replied that
having once considered himself a bari-
tone but then taking on the attributes of
a tenor, each day was a new challenge. He
said he needed to work with obstinacy
and without letting himself be discouraged, that each time he was able to sing
notes a little higher, to do better in a new
role, he had taken another step toward
his goal.
And so when did he think he had
“arrived?” Never.
The young years
José Plácido Domingo Embil sees
the light of day in Spain on January
21, 1941. His parents are both classical
singers who have known great success
in zarzuelas, the Spanish counterpart
of operettas and romantic musical
comedies. Singing aside, his father,
Plácido Domingo Ferrer, of Aragon and
Catalan descendence, is a violinist with
by Reine Lessard
the orchestra of the Liceo of Barcelona,
and he is in demand as an accompanist
in zarzuelas and operas. Though he has a
marvellous voice, he is reluctant to leave
his family and perform abroad, and so he
renounces a solo career.
His mother, Pepita Embil, is Basque,
and she too has a remarkable voice. As an
adolescent she performs in a chorale that
tours such cities as Paris and London.
During her singing studies in Paris,
she decides to return to Spain for her
opera début at the Liceo of Barcelona,
then Spain’s most illustrious lyric stage.
There she sings the role of a young girl
with a portentous name, Plácida. She is
but 18 years old.
Such is her success that the Liceo
offers her a contract, but she refuses,
attracted more by the zarzuela, which
is in its golden age. There are even
zarzuelas written for her.
It is in one of these shows that Plácido
and Pepita meet, fall in love, and decide
to unite their destinies.
In Domingo’s autobiography, My
First 40 Years, Plácido Domingo states
without hesitation that his parents’
attraction to the zarzuela was an enormous loss for the world of opera.
In many ways Plácido’s childhood
is a pleasant one, despite the frequent
absence of his busy parents. Plácido and
his sister Mari Pepa are often left in the
care of their aunt Agustina, a fine woman
who looks after them lovingly.
In 1946, after a two-year tour of
Puerto Rico, Mexico and Cuba, the
Domingos decide to settle in Mexico
and found their own troupe. Agustina
brings the children by boat, and after a
month of exciting stopovers they arrive
in Mexico in January 1949. Then begins
for the young Plácido a new sort of
adventure.
He and his sister are enrolled in piano
lessons. He often attends rehearsals of
his parents’ troupe, where he can observe
the work of the singers, the musicians,
the costume designers, the stage hands,
and all that goes into the making of a
stage show. This theatrical experience
will serve him all his life.
Domingo in Turandot with Eva Marton
gations, Plácido puts aside his studies.
He sings in musical comedies in his fine
baritone voice, and he uses his skill at
the piano to earn money in nightclubs.
Carmen with Julia Migenes
Software
Feedback
After the death of his piano teacher,
Plácido attends the National Conservatory for musical and general studies.
His interest in the piano diminishes
as he discovers solfège, harmony and
composition. He audits a course by the
celebrated conductor Igor Markevitch,
and it is then that he is strongly attracted
by the symphonic repertoire and orchestral conducting. Discovering that some
singers with the National Opera come to
the Conservatory to perfect their singing
and rehearse their roles, he audits classes
alongside them.
He has caught the bug…and so
begins his passion for singing.
Falling madly in love with a piano
student barely older than his 16 years, he
leaves home to live with her at the home
of one of her brothers, and they elope.
They have a child, José, nicknamed
“Pepe.” Now faced with financial obli-
A career is born
Though his parents have taught him
the basics of vocal technique, Plácido
knows he still has much to learn, and
he enrols himself for lessons with the
renown master Carlos Morelli. It is in
that same period, between 1955 and 1957,
that he first sings a high B in the presence
of the Mexican president, who is visiting
the Conservatory.
At that time in his village there are
weekly musical evenings, featuring
from five to 20 singing artists. Plácido is
content to accompany them on the piano,
noticing that among the performers are
some extraordinary voices. That experience too adds to his growing musical
baggage.
Despite his high notes, he continues
to sing baritone roles in his parents’
zarzuelas. One evening, however, during
a performance of Luisa Fernanda in Veracruz, the tenor falls ill and Plácido steps
in for him. Then he plays a drunken
friend of Alfred Doolittle in My Fair
Lady, and sings the tenor role in The
Merry Widow.
A friend persuades him that he is
wasting his talent in musical comedies,
and thus he finds himself before the
directors of the National Opera for
an audition. The jury classifies him as
a tenor. For one who has mostly sung
baritone the surprise is complete, and it
is a joyous one. What’s more, he is hired
immediately.
In September of 1959, then, he makes
his début at the opera in a secondary role,
that of courtier Matteo Borsa, in Verdi’s
Rigoletto. However it is in the 60’s that his
career truly takes off. In 1961, at a mere
20, he sings the main role of Alfredo in
La Traviata, and he later sings Arturo in
Donizetti’s Lucia di Lamermoor alongside
Joan Sutherland. He performs the same
role in New Orleans, following with
Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) in Florida,
Cassio (Verdi’s Otello) with Del Monaco
in Hartford, Connecticut in 1962. His
career is well and truly launched, and
will continue on its flight.
Though he sets aside time for healthy
equally demanding within the span of a
day will be the story of his career, and
it demonstrates his great passion and
affinity for work. These are qualities that
will never let him down.
In 1969 he performs at La Scala, and
then at London’s Royal Festival Hall,
where he sings in Verdi’s Requiem under
the baton of Carlo Maria Giulini. In
1971 he débuts at Covent Garden singing Cavaradossi in Tosca, which remains
today among his favorite roles.
And so we see him recognized as one
of the greatest lyric tenors of his time,
and henceforth classed also among the
great dramatic tenors.
From 1973, though he continues
to sing, he also takes up conducting
operas, beginning at the City Opera
of New York with La Traviata. He will
often be called upon to take his place on
the podium all around the world — he
conducted the Orchestre Symphonique
de Montréal in November of 2005.
In 1973, after he sings the role of
Manrico in Il Trovatore, the critics and
the public agree: he is the greatest. In
1974 at the Paris Opera he takes on
Verdi’s most difficult role, that of Arrigo
in Il Vespri Siciliani. The work had premiered in Paris in 1855 but had not been
programmed since. It is a consecration!
In 1974, in Madame Butterfly under
Karajan, he demonstrates his fabulous
talent as an actor. His will be a role of
leadership, for if we owe to Callas the
emphasis of dramatic intensity over that
of mere vocal prowess, it is Domingo
who has fanned the f lames of this
revolution.
In this he is supreme, beyond even
Caruso and Pavarotti. There is the era
“before Callas,” and there is the era
“after Domingo.”
Fulsome praise continues for his
Alvaro in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino,
and his passion for Verdi is by now
evident. He will state that it is even
because of Verdi that he has had such a
love affair with France, for “the scores
of the composer’s youth are the apogee
of the bel canto style.”
Daring or recklessness?
To take on, at the age of just 34, the
vocally demanding role of Verdi’s Otello,
based on the character by Shakespeare,
was condemned by some as premature
and even foolhardy. Yet he sings the role
in Hamburg in 1975 and wins over not
only the most serious critics, but also a
sophisticated public. So much for the
pessimists who had warned that singing
Otello would destroy his voice and end
his young and promising career. On
the contrary, he will sing it more than
200 times, discovering in it “the ideal
marriage of music and theatre.” It is said
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America and the world
In the summer of 1965 the couple
leaves for New York. The following
February, as the New York City Opera
inaugurates its new quarters at the
Lincoln Center, Plácido makes an
auspicious beginning in the title role
of Don Rodrigo by Alberto Ginastera,
a dominant figure in Argentinian and
South-American music, whose US début
this is. The following years bring Plácido
new roles and new successes. He sings in
Milan, Madrid, Munich, Rome, Naples,
Florence, Hamburg and Vienna.
He works daily to learn the greatest possible number of roles, and one
day, while he is rehearsing Turandot he
receives a call. The great tenor Franco
Corelli has fallen ill. And so, on September 28, 1968, Plácido Domingo
enters the Metropolitan Opera to sing
Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur opposite
Renata Tebaldi. His ability to shift from
one demanding activit y to another
Manon Lescaut with Renata Scotto
leisure — he is a lover of football and corridas — he has no lack of work in diverse
areas. He refers to himself as a general
handyman, alternating among the roles
of singer, accompanist, rehearsal director and conductor, though for modest
pay. Life being what it is, with its lot of
surprises, grief and joy, disappointment
and success, the now-divorced Plácido
meets a soprano who is already known,
Marta Ornelas. Theirs will be a long love
story that continues to this day. In 1962
they wed and together go to seek success
in the world of opera.
This happy event is a vital element
in the development of Plácido’s career.
Marta is well known for her musical ear,
and she puts aside her own ambitions to
help her young husband work tirelessly
to perfect his breathing technique. The
result will be a rare vocal longevity.
In the Fall of 1962, faced with the
paucity of opportunities in Mexico, the
couple leaves for Tel Aviv, where they
will live for two and a half years. Under
contract to the Israel National Opera,
Domingo participates in numerous productions, and sings some dozen roles.
Plácido and Marta will have two
children, Plácido Jr. in 1965 and Alvaro
Maurizio in 1968. Plácido’s first child,
Pepe, will eventually join the family.
Otello with James Morris (Iago)
as mine. They are too heavy, too intense.
They require too much emphasis on the
middle tone, which marks the rupture
between the low and high registers.”
However James Levine, who knows
him so well, was the one to persuade him
to sing Parsifal, and how right he was! Is
it his charisma that makes him suited to
Wagner, or his voice? He is, in any case,
a star beyond all categories.
Oh yes…about the Samson et Dalila at
the same gala, a critic recalls an earlier
performance of the work by Domingo in
1978, and writes, “After 20 years, we can
hardly believe our ears. There is the same
glow in his voice, the same radiance of
timbre, the same ease, the same possession of the role. At one point Domingo,
moved by an instinct more trustworthy
than any director’s instructions, skirts
the conductor, Pinchas Steinberg, to be
closer to his Dalila, the Russian mezzo
Elena Zaremba.”
that, one day, after having heard him
And indeed in that same role in the
The performance at the Châtelet is,
sing Otello, Laurence Olivier turned to in any case, a triumph, and the ovations “Live from the Met” version of 1998,
Franco Zeffirelli and said, “You realize go on and on.
available on DVD, Domingo surpasses
that Domingo plays Othello as well as I
Let me speak of Wagner, for whom himself once more, if indeed that is still
do, and he has that voice!”
our tenorissimo has an immense respect. possible. With Levine on the podium,
Among Domingo’s roles available on In 1998, Domingo sings at a gala concert opposite Olga Borodina as Dalila, PláDVD is his Otello of October 1995 at the at the Palais Garnier in Paris, to mark cido Domingo transforms himself into
Met, a performance different from that the 25th anniversary of his début there. a staggering Samson. This is a virtuoso
in Hamburg, but also with James Levine Aside from Act II of Samson et Dalila, the role for dramatic tenor, and his version
on the podium. It is an astonishing program includes Act I of Die Walküre. is considered impossible to equal.
performance by this great divo, with no Writes one critic, “He gives his Sigmund
On that evening, September 28, 1998,
apparent effort, against Renée Fleming the quasi-permanent stylistic exactitude Domingo was celebrating 30 years with
For years
now,
we have
publishing,
on our Web
as a divine Desdemona and James Morris
that
makes
him been
credible
in a repertoire
the site,
Met,a free
and PDF
the tying with Caruso’s
version
as an unforgettable Iago. It should
beof our
thatmagazine.
has not always been his own.”
record of 17 consecutive opening nights.
is 2001
simple.
looking
information,
noted that Domingo’s plausibility inThe
suchreasonIn
the DVDand
you can see him being
at We
the know
Opéra you’re
de la Bastille
inforOn
is almost
certainly
why
you’ve acome
our site.
And that’s
roles is helped by a solid build that
entirely
Paris,
he sings
Parsifal,
role to
he visit
previpresented
withwhy
one of Caruso’s selfgive away
whatperformed
some competitors
to be a caricatures,
startlingly large
appropriate for heroic dramaticwe
roles.
for Caruso was the tenor to
ously
in someconsider
of the most
amount of information…for
free. of the Wagner whom all others are compared.
It is in the 1980’s that, at the Châtelet
prestigious sanctuaries
We
giveinit New
all away
for free,
if we Milan,
could still stay in business.
in Paris, Domingo sings in a concert
ver-would
cult,
York,
Vienna,
Recent
indicate that
each issue
is getting
sion of Massenet’s Le Cid, whose story
is figures
The futureas many
Rome, Salzburg,
London,
and —
yes — downloaded
as 100,000
times, and that
figure keeps
growing.
of course Spanish. This opera seemed
to Bayreuth.
A singer like Domingo signs conDomingo
was interviewed
it Yes,
know,
we had
a nickel for
each download…
him so important that he rescued
fromwe for
theifParis
newspaper
Le Figaro
con- tracts five years in advance. For him,
Truth is,cerning
we’re inthe
thehero
business
of helping
you enjoy2008
music
home filled. Milan, Moscow,
obscurity by presenting it at Carnegie
is at
already
of this
monumental
under the best
possible
conditions.
movies
too. We’ll
what weHong
need Kong, Madrid,
Hall in New York, and then in Hamburg.
Dohado(Qatar),
work.
“Parsifal
requiresAnd
three
voices,”
to of
dothe
in order
to get the information
to you.
“I am bent on the re-conquest
he explained.
“There is one
voice for Washington, New York, Barcelona,
Of course,
also want
you
read
ouract,
published
editionsPecs
too.(Hungary)…an
We
French repertoire despite the indifferthe we
foolish
youth
oftothe
first
and Vienna,
exhausting
that, having
thisnaive
far, you’ll
want
ence of the French themselves,”hope
he said.
anotherread
for the
young
mantoofread
the on.list, yet not even exhaustive. Happily, he
“You have to go to New York, Hamburg second, and yet another for the man after has the gift of good health and always his
or San Francisco to hear Le Cid. I have Kundry’s kiss. After his voyage of initia- excellent capacity for work.
a passion for your repertoire, which has tion in the third act, the Knight of the
If he remains so popular with dirhad no defender since Georges Thill. Grail is transfigured, and there must be ectors and producers, it is because of
Many of my roles are from the French light in the timbre of his voice. Yes, three his great charisma and his unequalled
repertoire. Such is my crusade in favor voices.” He admits that such roles are professionalism. All know they can count
of your music.”
not comfortable “for Latin voices such on him come what may.
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Tosca with Hildegarde Behrens
Whenever possible, he studies his
text directly from the complete orchestral score. He sings in six languages:
Spanish, French, English, Italian,
German and Russian. He stands out for
the beauty of his timbre and the mastery
of his technique, always with gracious
concern for his protagonists. Never has
he been heard to speak ill of another.
Now at the age of 67, he seems tireless, pursuing with the same passion his
activities as a singer, a conductor, and as
administrator of two opera companies,
in Washington and Los Angeles. He is
followed by hordes of admirers on all
continents. Other successes are sure to
be his, for he can sing all styles and all
roles, eclipsing even Caruso and Pavarotti, both of whom hesitated to take
on certain composers. Idol for an international public as singer and conductor,
here he is, close to us, still marvellous,
sumptuous, phenomenal. He has behind
him thousands of performances at the
opera, in the concert hall, on television,
or on film, for his impressive dramatic
power and his photogenic looks have led
film directors to seek him out.
How the electronic version works
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Compare with stars of rock, heav y have been the model for the chevalier
metal, hockey or football, who pocket Des Grieux. In 1893 Puccini wrote his
The Three Tenors
extraordinary sums. Even so, they don’t own version. The “Live From the Met”
I wish to spend a few moments on this always deliver.
production of 1980 is available on DVD.
series of productions, which surprised
Aside from his other activities, some The story concerns two lovers who
both opera lovers and a more general of them for charities, Plácido Domingo take a very long time to die in the desert
public. If they delighted the crowds, they founded the world’s most important and somewhere in America. It runs at least
displeased the purists, considering them noted lyric competition, Operalia, from one act too long, but with rare intensity
to be less music for the millions than music which emerge future stars. Domingo is it gives free rein to the dramatic talents
for millions. “I understand the complaints delighted to see a succession arrive. He of its two protagonists, Plácido Domingo
of purists,” said Domingo in a 1998 believes that opera lovers haven’t seen and Renata Scotto. Both are stunning.
interview, “but I don’t want the purists anything yet, that awesome talents are
With 4:3 image, sound in Dolby and
to go to The Three Tenors.”
ready to pick up the torch.
dts surround, or two-channel PCM.
The Three Tenors originated with ItalThe competition will be held in
La Traviata by Verdi is an operatic
We
don’t mean
this next
version,
because you
know
how it works.
It’sgreat
a PDF,
ian producer Mario Dradi, who
wanted
Canada
September,
andalready
he will
adaptation
of the
novel by AlexandFoundayou open himself
it with Adobe
reader,
to raise money for the Carreras
conduct
the etc.
Orchestre Sym- andre Dumas fils, La dame aux camélias.
celebrate
But we alsophonique
have a paid
whichofis complete,
like Zeffirelli,
tion to fight leukemia, and to
de electronic
Québec onversion,
the evening
Directedwithout
in 1983banners
by Franco
this one, or articles
in fluent
gibberish. 24th. Quebec who has illustrated himself in Verdi, is
Carreras' victory over that disease.
the finale
on September
That
one, because
it is will
complete,
has to beitsordered
a credit in
card.
To regard,
open in a natural
My own view? You can call
it show
City, which
be celebrating
400th with
sumptuous
every
it,when
you also
to download
plugin
for your
or Acrobat.
business, but let us agree that
the have
anniversary,
willabe,
that week,
thecopy
worldof Adobe
decor.Reader
Domingo
is Alfredo opposite
You’ll
receive capital
a user name
to allow you to Teresa
download
youras
full
copy of With 1.66:1
great operatic singers give such
concerts,
of theand
newpassword
wave of opera.
Stratas
Violetta.
the magazine.
the three-channel
first time you open
or participate in “crossovers”
toward You’ll need the same user name and password
image,
surround, but a
the magazine on
your computer,
but only the first time. rather
After that,
works like
any image and
other styles, they still sing wonderfully
Plácido
at the movies
poorittransfer
of both
well. Those who have paidother
for PDF.
their
Several films have already been sound.
For details,
visit our Electronic
page.
To buy anCarmen
issue orby
subscribe,
tickets get their money’s worth,
and mentioned,
but there Edition
are many
more.
Georgesvisit
Bizet is based on
MagZee.
such evenings are for them
genuine
Manon Lescaut by Puccini. Originally a novel by Prosper Mérimée. Directed
fiestas. After having delighted the ears produced in 1884 on music by Jules Mas- in natural settings in 1984 by Franand hearts by their art for so many senet under the title Manon, it is based cesco Rosi, it is a brilliant film in which
years, I judge that they have every right on a novel by Abbé Antoine François Domingo plays a perfectly credible
to make money with special events. Prévost d’Exiles, who is believed to Don José. He is a rustic in uniform, too
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Otello with Desdemona (Renée Flemind)
excerpts, complete operas and musical
comedies, we must not overlook the
light, entertaining and highly musical
zarzuelas, which he sang with gifted
colleagues. One of these is soprano
María Bayo, whose unforgettable voice
can produce astonishing scales imitating
perfectly the song of the nightingale.
naive to understand the maneuverings
of his provocative lover, Carmen (Julia
Migenes), and before the end he becomes
a murderer. Here too he is a great actorsinger.
With 1.66:1 image, excellent transfer,
two-channel stereo sound.
Tosca by Puccini is a three-act opera
based on a play by Victorien Sardou. The
1985 Metropolitan Opera production by
Zeffirelli must be seen. Domingo plays
opposite the gorgeous and superb lyric
tragedienne Hildegarde Behrens. These
two masters of their craft are totally
believable and stunning, under the baton
of Giuseppe Sinopoli.
With 4:3 image, Dolby Digital and
dts surround, or two-channel uncompressed PCM. Excellent transfer.
Turandot by Puccini. This is a
Metropolitan Opera production of
1988, available on DVD. The prodigious
production by Zeffirelli, with conductor
James Levine and a sensational cast,
includes Domingo as Calaf who triumphs with all the power of his dramatic
ability. His body language, his gestures,
his frowning expressions draw us into
his search for the answers to the three
enigmas posed by the cruel Turandot
(Eva Marton). You can virtually read his
mind. Never have I seen such magnetism
from a stage performer.
With 4:3 image, Dolby Digital and
dts surround, or two-channel uncompressed PCM. Very good on all counts.
Aida by Verdi. This is a 1989 Met production, available on DVD. Domingo
imposes his presence as Radamès, with
as protagonists two flowers of the lyric
world with celebrated talent and extraordinary plausibility, Aprile Millo (Aida)
and Dolora Zajick (Amneris). Also in the
cast is the incomparable baritone Sherrill
Milnes.
With 4:3 image, uncompressed PCM
stereo sound.
The First Emperor by Tan Dun on a
libretto by Ha Jin was performed in New
York in January 2007 to hostile reviews
by American critics, and was broadcast
in the Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD
series. The emperor Qin Shi Huang
(Domingo) is hard and cruel but he
has vision. It is he who built the Great
Wall and the life-sized army of soldiers
of terra cotta buried in his mausoleum.
The opera was composed for Domingo
by Dun, who also directed. Aside from
his immense vocal abilities, Domingo
delivered an incomparable incarnation
of the title character.
With 1.85:1 image, high definition,
but not yet available on DVD.
Plácido on record
His discography is considerable.
A side from recordings of operatic
Honors
Plácido Domingo has received countless prizes and the greatest honors that
can be bestowed, to mark an exceptional
career which, nonetheless, remains open
to new challenges.
He has several Grammy awards. For
service to French lyric literature, he was
given the medal of the city of Paris, as
well as being made a chevalier of arts and
letters. On Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk
of Fame, there is a star commemorating
Plácido Domingo.
He has performed more than 3000
times in some 20 different roles, and
he has made more than 100 recordings.
One cannot consider the number and
diversity of his activities without being
dumfounded. Always on the road, to
play on stages around the world, to play
in films, to appear on television, to be
interviewed hundreds if not thousands of
times, to prepare for the heavy demands
of multiple recording sessions, to put
aside some time for social activities, for
official receptions… All of this without
losing his composure, showing a warm,
gracious and even indulgent face to all,
even fans who are insistent and awkward,
in quest of an autograph, or a photo
taken with him, or journalists looking
above all for gossip, for the slightest
flaw in his private life, not to mention
the hours of makeup and cleaning up
afterwards, for demanding roles such as
Otello. It never ends.
W it h h i s stor ied w i sdom , he
announced early last year (or was it but
a rumor?) that no later than 2009 he will
return to his original register, to play
some of Verdi’s great baritone roles (I
must say I’ve always suspected that Verdi
had a great fondness for baritones).
Plácido Domingo remains, I am
convinced, the greatest of all the tenors
we have known to this day. He has left
his mark on the history of music and lyric
art forever.
Software Reviews
by Reine Lessard
and Gerard Rejskind
Roma Triumphans
Studio de musique ancienne de
Montréal
Atma SACD2 2507
Rejskind: There is something soothing
and restful in the plainsong chants of
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Alessandro Scarlatti: Flute
Concertos
F. Colpron/Les Boréades
Atma ACD2 2521
Lessard: Scarlatti was a Baroque Italian
composer who lived from 1660 to-1725,
and was known especially for his operas
and his chamber cantatas. He should
not of course be confused with his son
Domenico, who would have a magnificent career in Spain. Alessandro was 12
when he was sent to Rome to study
music. After his marriage in 1678, he was
engaged as maestro di cappella of San Giacomo degli incurabili. He filled the same
post at the court of Queen Christina of
Sweden, and then the vide-regal court
of Naples.
Scarlatti composed half of the new
operas presented in Naples, and several
were highly successful. Unfortunately
the war of the Spanish Succession had
begun to erode the privileged status of
the Neapolitan nobility, and that greatly
affected his career. He therefore left with
his family for Florence, but finding no
opportunities he moved to Rome. There
he had to settle for a lesser position than
the one he had occupied, that of assistant
music director at San Maria Maggiore.
An attempt to present two operas in
Venice met with no success.. He did,
however, eventually obtain the senior
post he had hoped for.
However he wasn’t happy wit h
church music, and in 1708 the new
viceroy of Austria invited him to return
to his original post at Naples, a post he
would occupy for the rest of his life. Even
so he visited his former patrons in Rome
and even composed operas for them (his
last opera, La Griselda, was written for
them).
But if he knew a certain success
with his operas, cantatas and oratorios
(he wrote dozens of operas and some
700 cantatas!), he is noted more for his
chamber music, though it is not much
known. Yet the instrumental music he
composed in the latter part of his life
is of great beauty. This album features
seven concertos or sonatas — the designation is uncertain — for flute, strings
and bass continuo. It is characterized by
its great melodic richness. I very much
enjoyed the frequently joyous tempo,
which now and again lets through a hint
of melancholy. The enjoyment is due in
part to the excellent solo flutist, Francis
Colpron, who is also founder (in 1991) of
this excellent chamber ensemble, known
in North A merica and throughout
Europe.
And since Atma is in the habit of
doing things properly, the sound quality
of this CD is beyond reproach.
medieval times. The monks for whom
this music was composed lived outside
of time, contemplating something other
than worldly matters. You don’t have to
be as detached to feel that this music,
also known as Gregorian chant, has a
very special quality.
But that is not what is on this recording, for it belongs to the age that immediately followed, which we know globally
as the Renaissance. Rome had been
overrun by the Barbarians centuries
before, but now it was on the rise once
more, represented not by a new Cæsar
but by the Church. It was under Pope
Sixtus IV that work began on the huge
Vatican complex, including the Sistine
Chapel which bears his name, engaging
the great artistic geniuses of the new age,
including of course Michelangelo.
Music changed too, for how could it
not? Though monasteries have survived
down to our own day, the Renaissance
was marked by music that was more
complex and joyous, and was intended to
show the faithful the way to Heaven. In
the new music, as in the paintings of the
Renaissance, the sky is open and luminous, and the Kingdom of God is not far
above if we care to raise our eyes upward.
The change began with the ensemble
of singers called the Capella Giulia. At
least that was the name given it by Pope
Julius II, who manifestly had taken no
vow of humility. Amazingly, this choral
group would be active for the next three
centuries, attracting composers not only
from Rome and other Italian cities, but
also from Spain to Flanders.
Polychoral music is written for two
or more choirs, though in practice one
could divide a large choir into two, or
more sections, which would sing contrapuntally. In some of these compositions,
there is a choir of one, which is to say
a soloist. That brings us close to the
concertante style that would eventually
emerge. An example is the Gloria de la
Missa Dominus Angeli of Orazio Benevoli,
with the solo by the excellent bass Normand Richard.
There are six composers represented
on this fine album, including Tomás
Luis de Victoria, the Castilian composer
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who turns up on many collections of
ancient music, and Palestrina, who would
eventually invent the basis for the opera.
The group here recorded is conducted
by Christopher Jackson, cofounder of
the ensemble in 1991. Accompanied by
organ, cello and theorbo, it gives exciting new life to the music. The sonics
are helpful too. This is an SACD, with
a feeling of spaciousness that seems to
extend to…well, to the Heavens.
Holst: The Planets
Boult/Vienna State Opera Orch.
HDTT HDDVD 130
Lessard: Seven planets on this CD,
each one expressing in music its particular characteristics, triggering a wide
diversity of emotions — the subject is of
broad interest and seems well suited to
our time. The composer is brilliant, the
orchestra among the most celebrated,
and the maestro superb. I was confident
as I popped this album into my DVD
player.
But I was disappointed, and my disappointment is proportional to my earlier
expectations.
Usually HDTT does excellent work
on its re-release on high-definition DVD
of commercial tapes of yesteryear. Not
this time, for I think the company made
the wrong choice. The original was a
four-track tape from Westminster, and
when the original is not good, you can’t
make it better no matter how great your
efforts. I shall say no more, for if you buy
it you’ll discover the problems too.
Pipes Rhode Island
Various artists
Riago CD 101
Lessard: This album is a compilation
of music by 15 composers of varied
periods and styles, played by the cream
of the state of Rhode Island’s organists.
It has had rave reviews. It is the first
worthy recording of 11 of the state’s pipe
organs. The booklet includes details on
the composers, the performers, and in
particular on the organs, some of which
have historic value.
The very first piece, the Agincourt
Hymn, took my breath away. This piece
by the great early Renaissance English
composer John Dunstable, arranged by
the great American organist E. Power
Biggs, celebrates the decisive battle of
the English over the French. However
it wasn’t the memory of this battle that
was responsible for the shock I felt. That
was due to the “trumpets” at the opening, with their rare studied dissonance
and overwhelming power. The impact is
striking. The introduction is followed by
a great mass of pipes, a sonic body that
is deep, rich and soothing for the next
minute and a half. I could have gone on
with the same composer, but the tracks
that follow offer their own treasures.
The organ was Bach’s favorite instrument, because of its awesome sonic
capabilities. On this disc is a short work
which is as fascinating to listen to as it
must be demanding to play, the Gigue
and Fugue in G, magnificently played by
Mark Steinbach on an English Renaissance organ at St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church in Wickford.
From the splendid American organist
and composer Searle Wright (1918-2004),
the gorgeous Lyric Rhapsody runs over
nine minutes. It opens with a soft mix of
stops, bringing a serenity that is appreciated after the previous work. However
its finale has spicier seasoning, with a
lively and firm rhythm. This superb
work is played with authority by Peter
Krasinski.
Though organ music may be considered pompous and serious, it can also be
melodious and attractive. The remarkable organist and composer Martha
Sobaje plays her own lively Trumpet Tune
on track 4, and she returns to intoxicate
us with an overpowering Chaconne. So
exquisite and touching is it that it will
take but one listen for it to catch your
ear and your heart. Indeed, you may
well recognize it. The two pieces, with
a choice of stops well chosen for the
atmosphere of the two works, are played
on the Cranston organ of the Phillips
Memorial Baptist Church.
Among the great organists lionized
for their genius is Charles-Marie Widor,
long principal organist at Saint-Sulpice
in Paris, and composer of no fewer than
ten “symphonies” for organ. Stephen
Martorella plays the Adagio from his
Organ Symphony No. 5. Pay attention,
because it’s a jewel.
And then hold on to your easy chair,
for here comes John Cook’s Fanfare,
inspired by the first three verses of the
81st Psalm. It’s some fanfare! The brilliant choice of stops puts dazzling brass
together with a more massive set of pipes,
all with great richness.
Transport de joie…but what means this
masterpiece by the illustrious French
composer Olivier Messaien? The title
is apt, for it does indeed transport us.
Virtuoso organist Mark Steinbach has
chosen a spectacular set of stops, and his
playing is gripping.
A delight awaits you on the next
track. From Buxtehude, played here by
the remarkable Andrew Galuska, is the
Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C. The
music is solemn and majestic, with the
mix of stops well chosen, a breathtaking work that requires rare virtuosity.
Excellent playing on the organ of Christ
Church (Episcopal) in Westerly.
Ot her good moments await us.
Andrew Galuska returns with César
Franck’s Chorale No. 2 in B Minor, a brilliant work running nearly a quarter hour,
one of the most difficult pieces ever written for organ, and possibly Franck’s masterpiece for the instrument. Let yourself
be surprised by the lively segments and
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an immense choice of stops that requires
rapid changes. Galuska returns with the
dazzling Intermezzo or Marco Enrico
Bossi (1861-1925), a fine melody. A little
later he plays his own composition, Our
Lady of Grace, luminous music with passages that alternate between lightness
and a certain seriousness.
Herbert Howell’s Master Tallis’s
Testament is the third of six of his compositions for organ, delivering three variations on a theme. It is reserved at first,
and then it accelerates in both rhythm
and volume, toward a climax. Note
that the low C, which has a frequency
of 32 Hz, is doubled an octave down,
at 16 Hz by an untersatz pipe resonating in sympathy, a full four octaves
below middle C. You’re more likely to
feel it inside than to actually hear it.
Spectacular!
Jehan Alain’s Litanies is his testament,
for he died in the war in 1939 at the
dawn of what would have been a brilliant
career. The organ was in his genes, for he
was the son of a famous organist, Albert
Alain, and brother of another MarieClaire Alain. Once again we have Mark
Steinbach at the console of St. Dominic
Chapel of Providence College, to interpret these prayers in a way that would
have given Alain great satisfaction. The
playing is brilliant, and it is compelling
because of the repetition inherent in
incantations. Listen for yourself.
Then comes Maurice Duruf lé’s
Toccata in B Minor. From the standpoint of virtuosity, this is one of the
most demanding pieces of the organ
literature, with dazzling cascades and
sudden changes of rhythm, a melodic
segment set in the centre, and a majestic
fortissimo finale with numerous mixes
of stops. It’s magnificently played by
Stephen Martorella.
Finally comes Sir Charles Hubert
H. Parry (1848-1918), closely associated with the women’s movement and
considered to be the most important
British composer since Purcell. His brief
but grandiose Jerusalem was redone for
orchestra by Edward Elgar. George V,
when he heard it, expressed the hope it
would someday replace God Save the King
as the national anthem. It is played here
by Patrick Aiken.
Don’t hesitate to get this album,
offering you over an hour of great music
with matchless recording. It is certainly
a must for all those who love organ
music.
Rejskind: Does a small state mean small
churches, and therefore small organs?
It could, but some of the organs represented on this collection, put together by
noted producer John Marks, hold some
surprises.
One of my favorites is found on the
first and final tracks, an Aeolian Skinner
organ from the Central Congregational
Church in Providence. It opens with
a relatively small pipe that appears to
be under high pressure, judging by its
loudness and its dissonance. Small organ,
right? But then the Plein Jeu comes in,
and you realize there’s more here than
you might have expected. That first
piece is from 15th Century composer
John Dunstable, the Agincourt Hymn. It
returns at the end with the great hymn
by Parry, Jerusalem (whose words include
the phrase “Chariots of Fire,” borrowed
by the film of the same name).
The disc includes the impressive
Litanies, by French organist Jehan Alain,
who died in World War II. There is some
Bach here too, a gorgeous Fugue in G.
If you have a system that can reproduce the very lowest octaves of the
audible spectrum, this recording is a
fascinating exploration of the individual
voicing of different organs, and of the
acoustics of churches and chapels, small
and large. I recommend it.
Evolution
Graham/USAF Band
Klavier K11161
Lessard: This album shows off the evolution of music for modern wind band.
The music alternates between animated
and lyrical, executed with passion under
the direction of Lowell Graham. He is
internationally recognized, and continues to dazzle us with this disc.
The first two suites are from an
English composer of Swedish descent,
Gustav Holst (1874-1934). Holst studied composition with no less a master
than Edvard Grieg. He himself played
trombone in London orchestras. It is
interesting to know that, like Vivaldi,
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Holst taught music at a school for girls
Four compositions that are interSo ends this album, not at all without
(St. Paul’s Girls’ School), and that he esting for different reasons, all from interest, and of excellent sound quality.
wrote all the music they were called upon American composers, fill the rest of the
to play. Among his pupils was his own album. Peter Mennin’s joyous Canzona
daughter Imogen, who wrote interest- pleased me. Dazzling brass and roaring
ingly about her father’s philosophy. Holst percussion unite in the Dies Natalis of
believed more in an empirical training Howard Hanson, and if you overdo the
than in a strictly didactic method with volume your ears are in danger. I have a
exams. His methods, she believed, gave little difficulty in finding a link between
him very special experience which stood this music and the Nativity. I’m sure
him in good stead when he began to much more can be said about it, but so
write for military bands. Of course his much noise is just not for me.
knowledge of the trombone was helpful
Vaclav Nelhybel’s Symphonic Movetoo.
ment is every bit as tumultuous and
The three movements of his First excessive. It opens with rolling tympani,
Suite in E Flat, Op.28 begins with a theme leading you into a strange ambience
opening a Chaconne at restrained volume where you encounter a thousand textures
by a brass instrument, which develops in a dynamic scope extending from ppp
into a series of delicious and original to fff, with light and subtle percussion Acoustic Audiophile Voices
melodies. The full brass enters to add occasionally punctuated by the bass Various artists
sparkle with electrifying chromatics, drum. It is a din that is not without Premium PR 27852
leading to a fine crescendo with rolling interest, but is best enjoyed by those with Rejskind: Female voices are a tough test
drums, preparing the highly impressive solid nerves. If that’s you don’t hesitate, for music systems, so it seems logical to
final tutti. In the Intermezzo which fol- for the recording quality puts the disc produce an audiophile disc featuring
lows, the brass catches fire once more, in the audiophile category. Nelhybel, I female singers. I was even thinking
and transports us into a lively ambience might mention, is also the composer of that this might be another arrow in our
on a slightly jerky rhythm accompanied Trittico, a wind band piece famous on quiver in our equipment tests. Not!
by attractive lyrical passages. The final Reference Recordings.
It isn’t that there aren’t good singers
movement takes on a military character,
The last two pieces are rather noisy on the album. There’s Alison Krauss,
with a march tempo that nonetheless too, but I found the din more accept- whose country song Looking in the Eyes
draws us in.
able because of the strangeness of the of Love is just gorgeous. There’s Cheryl
The Second Suite, this one in F subjects.
Wheeler’s Frequently Wrong But Never in
Major, borrows several tunes from
Inspired by Native American music, Doubt, which is worth your time, and she
New Hampshire folklore, and recre- Walter Mays’ Dreamcatcher is as intrigu- has two more songs on the album. And
ated as the composer pleases. The first ing as its title suggests. The web-like there’s lots more. The problem I have is
aNo,
thismarch
free version
is not complete,
though
could aspend
couple
nota with
the choice of artists but with
movement opens with
lively
dreamcatcher,
which
has you
become
of
hours
reading
it.
Want
the
full
version?
followed by a beautiful melody and then popular decoration, catches bad dreams, the “audiophile” in the title.
You
can,Words
of course,
order the print
we have published
The first hint of trouble is the incredanother march. The Song
Without
nightmares,
and version,
all sortswhich
of negative
for
a
quarter
of
a
century.
You
can
get
it
from
our
back
issues page.
ibly high volume on the disc, 10 dB
of the second movement is filled with vibrations. With the clack of drumsticks
The
But we
also
have aand
paid
electronic
version,
is just
this one,
than most recordings. How do
untroubled melancholy.
very
brief
a melodic
line
carriedwhich
by the
flute,likehigher
except
that
it
doesn’t
have
annoying
banners
like
this
one,
and
it
doesn’t
put that much volume onto a CD
Song of the Blacksmith evokes the sounds silences, drum rolls, notes on a xylo- you
articlesus
tailing
into afaux
Latin. textures,
Getting the
electronic
version is
of
bumping
your head on the hard
of the workshop, andhave
surprises
by off
phone,
thousand
both
inter- without
course
faster,
and
it
is
also
cheaper.
It
costs
just
$4.30
(Canadian)
anywhere
lively segments that could be taken for esting and strange, you are transported digital ceiling? Why, you pump the
in the
world. Taxes,
they
applicable,
are included.
dances. Directly inspired
by folklore,
the if
into
theare
heart
of mystery.
Give in to the audio compressor up to 11, that’s what
It’s
available
from
MagZee.com.
4th movement, Fantasia on the Dargason, temptation to listen to this adventure of you do. The result is that although the
sound has a nice texture, because it is
begins with a sort of gigue in a round. a dozen minutes.
Almost hidden within these electrifying
The album ends with the Circular using all of the available bits, there is no
passages are a few bars of Greensleeves!
Marches of Dan Welcher, inspired by headroom, and therefore no dynamic
The two suites are, I think, what is the worship rites of the Shakers, mem- space.
I have a problem with the inclusion
best in the album. With its lyrical pas- bers of the Millennial Church brought
sages, other passages that are rapid, with from England to the United States in of the word “acoustic” in the title as
brass that is bright and powerful, with an the 18th Century. The marches are well. Even the voices are not acoustic in
impressive bass drum, with irresistible a series of exotic choreographies of a any reasonable sense, because there is
tuttis, you will be cured of the fatigue complex nature, executed to the chants scarcely a track that does not use voice
engendered by your working day. This of a moving vocal band. I found it an doubling or overdubbing for an effect
music can pep you up like the blackest irresistible curiosity. Will you react the that, frankly, gets tiring long before the
final track.
Turkish coffee.
same way?
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News From the Front
Audio Research bought out
Score another for the Chinese? Not
so fast.
The Minnesota company was set
up by William Z. Johnson in 1970, and
became well known for upscale amplifiers
and other audio products, many (though
not all) using tubes. Johnson is going
into semi-retirement for health reasons,
and his company has been purchased.
Ah, but by whom? Perhaps by someone like the International Audio Group?
No, in fact it’s by the Italians.
You've probably never heard of
Quadrivio SGR, not unless you have
extensive dealings wit h European
private equity firms. The fund was set
up under the aegis of the Bank of Italy,
and its mandate is not to meddle in the
management of firms it acquires, but
rather to maximize return on the investments of its subscribers. (Its name refers
to the medieval liberal arts category
which included arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music.)
However the company is not quite
new to hi-fi, since its previous acquisitions included Sonus Faber, the maker of
definitely upscale loudspeakers. Note to
the pessimists: even some bean counters
think high end audio has a future.
Accordingly, Audio Research is not
expected to move to Milan. Johnson’s
replacement as president is Terry Dorn,
who has been with the company for 22
years.
Sound from all around
What’s best, loudspeakers that limit
sound projection to a narrow angle,
aimed at the listener, or ones that spray
sound all around, as real musical instruments do?
It’s not that we have a definitive
answer to that. Omnidirectional speakers require some care in placement and
acoustic treatment. On the other hand
they can make the phrase “sweet spot”
meaningless, maintaining a plausible
stereophonic image anywhere in the
room, letting you walk around and still
“see” the performers.
tion, Mimetism, and others, and will
be available in Mutine’s “Audio Zendo”
dealerships in Canada and the US. The
two models shown, as well as the blacklacquered Bella Luna Diamante, will be
shown at the Montreal Festival, April
4th to 6th.
A Benchmark with an extra
We still get mail and phone calls
concerning the Benchmark DAC1, the
very good digital-to-analog converter
reviewed in UHF No. 75 (we later
reviewed it as a headphone amp, and it
did pretty well there too). Now there’s a
new model, the DAC1 USB.
This is the Duevel Venus, which uses
a common method: placing the drivers
vertically, and positioning a sculpted
reflector (an “acoustic lens”) to send
sound all around. Most Duevels use this
method, but not all. The Planets model,
shown above right, combines two vertical drivers with two floating balls that
act as reflectors. They are, by the way,
the smallest of the Duevels.
The speakers are from Germany, the
design of Markus Duevel, and are being
brought into North America by Mutine,
the company already marketing (and
sometimes building) Audiomat, Equa-
The name rather suggests what is
new here, namely a USB input that can
connect to your computer, allowing you
to play music from your hard drive with
much better fidelity than you can expect
from the sound card that came with your
computer.
The new model, at $1275 ($300 more
than the non-USB model), has 24-bit
192 kHz capability, which opens up
rather interesting possibilities. For more
and more audiophiles, the hard drive is
the source component, and they won’t
be turning back.
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Finally: an iPod Touch for Audiophiles
You may know that UHF owns a
60 Gigabyte iPod, which has played a
role in some of our articles, notably in
issues 70 and 76. That player is now three
years old (if you multiply by seven for dog
years, then for iPod years it must be...),
and newer models do get our interest,
because ours is starting to seem rather
quaint.
essentially an iPhone without the phone
part. Only problem: its memory topped
out at 16 Gb. That’s because the iPod
Touch (and the iPhone) uses batteryfriendly flash memory rather than a
spinning hard disc. But flash memory
prices are dipping, and as of now you can
get an iPod Touch with 32 Gb of user
space.
You can actually get an iPod Classic
with 160 Gb now, though even audiophiles may not need quite that capacity.
However the product that grabbed our
attention last year was the iPod Touch,
shown here. It's slim and light, yet it
has a huge touch screen, it plays movies
as well as music, and it has a (nearly)
full-featured Web browser built in. It is
Why does this matter? Though many
(most?) iPod owners load music onto their
players in lossy compressed form (MP3,
AAC, WMV, etc.), audiophiles prefer
to get higher quality, and indeed insist
Preamp/Processors
There has been only a trickle of new
preamplifier/processors for home theatre
of late, and for good reason: the existing technology is mostly obsolete. An
exception to the waiting game: Cyrus,
which has launched its AV Master 8, a
7.1-channel unit, shown here.
The Cyrus has a dizzying variety of
audio options available, including some
we’ve never heard of, and its built-in DSP
(digital sound processing) system can,
on it. Apple Lossless is available for the
iPod, but the files shrink by only about
half, and small iPods are not the thing.
We confess to thinking of music
in terms of albums rather than the
“songs” touted in Apple ads. A typical
album in Apple Lossless will occupy
about 300 Mb. It seems obvious that the
older 16 Gb iPod Touch (still available)
could therefore hold about 53 albums.
That assumes, however, that all the
memory is available for music, but since
the device also holds e-mail and other
files, and it's also a movie player, that
16 Gb doesn't look so roomy anymore.
The new iPod Touch should be able
to accommodate some 106 albums,
and even if you also carry two or three
movies (about 700 Mb each, with lossy
compression this time), and some of
the new third-party applications that
are expected soon, we now have elbow
room. By the way, the iPhone can now
be had with 16 Gb, though of course
in very few of the world’s countries.
That 32 Gb is still tight, of course.
How tight? Well, let's assume your
applications, mail and other housekeeping matters will take up about 6 Mb,
and we’ll add in three movies at 2.1 Gb.
That leaves us with room for about 79
complete albums. That’s getting not
too shabby, though you may still need
to rotate music in and out of the player,
which takes at least a little away from
the feeling of having all of your music
in your pocket.
The bigger iPod Touch costs US$500.
In Canada, though the Canadian dollar
is worth ever so slightly more than the
greenback, it's $520. Go figure.
Cyrus says, enhance and upsample, as
desired.
Now here’s the intriguing part.
Cyrus says this new unit is upgradable
(the 7.1 channel configuration is optional
for instance). Will there also be upgrades
for HDMI v1.3 connectivity, and the
non-lossy Dolby True-HD and dts-HD
sound systems?
Cyrus isn’t saying so, but the company must be preparing for the arrival
of the new technologies.
Home Theatre News
3-D plasma for home
Paramount switches gears
We are shocked, shocked, to hear that
Paramount and DreamWorks Animation
are cancelling their planned releases in
HD DVD. The company had a good list,
too far down the pipeline to be recalled.
That would be Into the Wild and Things
We Lost in the Fire. Of course no sane
retailer, already stuck with remaindering
existing titles, is likely to order either
one. Hey Paramount, have you heard of
eBay?
The UHF Reference Systems
Equipment reviews are done on at least one of
UHF’s reference systems, selected as working
tools. They are changed infrequently.
The Alpha system
Our original reference is in a room with special
acoustics, originally a recording studio, letting
us hear what we can’t hear elsewhere.
Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1
Additional CD player: CEC TL-51X
belt-driven transport, Counterpoint
DA-10A converter with HDCD card.
Digital cable: Atlas Opus 1.5m
Digital portable: Apple iPod 60 Gb
Turntable: Audiomeca J-1
Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5
Pickup: Goldring Excel
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5
Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon
W-5LE)
Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar
OBX-R
Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1,
Atlas Voyager All-Cu
Loudspeaker cables: Atlas Mavros
Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld Aurora
AC filters: Foundation Research LC-2
(power amp), Inouye SPLC.
The Omega system
It serves for reviews of gear that cannot
easily fit into the Alpha system, with its small
room.
Digital players: shared with the Alpha
system
Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II
Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS
Pickup: London Reference
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5
Preamplifier: Simaudio Moon P-8
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-8
Loudspeakers: Reference 3a Suprema II
Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1,
Atlas Navigator All-Cu
Loudspeaker cables: Pierre Gabriel ML1 for most of the range, Wireworld Polaris
for the twin subwoofers.
Power cords: BIS Audio Maestro,
Wireworld
AC filters: GutWire MaxCon Squared,
Foundation Research LC-1
Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art panels
The Kappa system
This is our home theatre system. As with
the original Alpha system, we had limited
space, and that pretty much ruled out huge
projectors and two-metre screens. We did,
however, finally come up with a system whose
performance gladdens both eye and ear, with
the needed resolution for reviews.
HDTV monitor: Hitachi 43UWX10B
CRT-based rear projector
DVD players: Simaudio Moon Stellar
with Faroudja Stingray video processor,
Sony BDP-S300 Blu-Ray player
Preamplifier/processor: Simaudio Moon
Attraction, 5.1 channel version
Power amplifiers: Simaudio Moon W-3
(main speakers), bridged Celeste 4070se
(centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear)
Main speakers: Energy Reference
Connoisseur
Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1, on UHF’s
own TV-top platform
Rear speakers: Elipson 1400
Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics
Cables: Atlas, Van den Hul, MIT,
GutWire, Wireworld
Line filter: GutWire MaxCon Squared
All three systems have dedicated power
lines, with Hubbell hospital grade outlets.
Extensions and power bars are equipped with
hospital-grade connectors.
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We keep seeing show demos of 3-D
video screens, and we have been since the
1980’s, but do they ever come to market?
Now here’s an interesting advance which
is supposedly coming to a store near you
(or at least neat Seoul), a Samsung 3-D
plasma screen.
When we think of 3-D video we
think of movies. Bwana Devil, anyone?
Or The House of Wax, the one without
Paris Hilton? But that may not be quite
what Samsung has in mind, because it
will be launching the “PAVV Cannes
450” (a focus group must have worked
weeks on that one) in conjunction with
Electronic Arts. Yes, the games company. Samsung says it wants to take the
lead in 3-D content for video.
But there mat be movies too, and we
hope Samsung has the phone number
of Sensio, the Canadian inventor of
the impressive 3-D video system. Aside
from the dreck of the 50’s, IMAX has
some great 3-D movies, and Sensio has
a number of them ready to roll.
The price looks inviting, at2.5 million won, about $2600, for the 50-inch
version, less for the 42-inch.
By t he way, Samsu ng claims a
contrast ratio of a million-to-one. We
thought that had to be a typo, but the
company stands by it.
which would have included Sweeney Todd,
There Will be Blood, The Kite Runner, and
a collection of Jack Ryan thrillers. Won’t
happen. By Summer, the companies will
be listing Blu-ray titles.
There will be two more releases,
however, presumably because they’re
How HD DVD Lost the War
It’s been a long time coming but on
the 19th of February it became official:
the long (too long) war of high definition
video formats is over. Blu-ray has won
(see our Vegas report in this issue for the
gory details). Blu-ray is, actually, the only
Sony format ever to succeed (except for
the CD, which was also backed by Philips
and had no competitor). Onward!
equipment optimized for much lower- spread that Toshiba was about to pull
resolution would have meant a high per- the plug, the DVD Forum’s Web site
centage of rejects. Blu-ray discs, made on labelled its HD DVD FAQ as “coming
new equipment with tighter tolerances, soon.” No hurry or anything!
cost more to make but would probably
Format wars cause huge damage
have had a higher yield. The result was to everyone, and even winners can be
that most HD DVD titles were the same losers. Remember when Sony launched
price as Blu-ray, and sometimes several its ill-fated MiniDisc in the early 90’s?
dollars more. True, the players were Its former partner, Philips, countered
(mostly) cheaper, but you don’t need a with a poorly-conceived cassette called
degree in advanced math to figure out the Digital Compact Cassette. There
that the hardware is not what will cost was widespread speculation — includyou most.
ing from us — that DCC was launched
3) There was time to bring out lots of for only one reason: to cause doubt and
films. At January’s CES, a somewhat confusion in the market and prevent
demoralized Toshiba boasted of the MiniDisc from succeeding and sucking
existence of 1000 HD DVD movies, royalties away from the Compact Disc.
but a mere 400 in North America. Does As we know this destructive strategy
anyone think that was enough? There worked, and neither format succeeded.
It’s well known that we rather favored had been time to turn out 4000 titles,
Yet perhaps the Sony victory is not
Blu-ray, because the disc has higher and that would have made all the differ- as definite as all that. Blu-ray’s potential
capacity than HD DVD, and therefore ence. To be fair, if Sony had been more enemy now is the downloadable movie.
more potential. We even purchased a diligent with Blu-ray titles, the war could But that, to put none too fine a point on
Blu-ray player. We feel the pain of those have been a year shorter.
it, is crap, and is likely to remain crap
who put their hearts and souls into this
4) Toshiba had powerful partners. for much of the next decade. Come on,
respectable format, but we are relieved Though Toshiba itself may not have Blu-ray!
to see the war end. Any more delays, deep pockets, one of its partners was
and both formats might have foundered. Microsoft. We hear they have money…
That could still happen, because the The conspiracy theorists claim some of
battle went on at least a year too long.
that money was used to bribe studios to
So Sony has finally won a format
Yet Toshiba’s HD DVD entered the back HD DVD, but if it’s true it would battle, and that is after a long string of
war with advantages. How did it blow have been a lot more effective if it had losses, stretching over many years.
And it seems
every single one of them?
been done two years before.
The one everybody mentions is Beta,
?
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Remember the MiniDisc? It had little
Sony would never have had a chance. game consoles. Microsoft could have advantage over recordable CD, and it
Yet Toshiba, inventor of the format, beaten them to the punch by putting couldn’t hold uncompressed music, as
announced delay after delay after delay. HD DVD drives into its Xbox 360 con- of course a CD can. Nor could it use
By the time the players shipped to real soles, and possibly done it even earlier.
MP3, having its own proprietary format,
people (as opposed to reviewers), Blu-ray
6) HD DVD was officially sanctioned ATRAC, which went through three difwas available too.
by the DVD Forum as the next generation ferent (incompatible) versions.
2) HD DVD discs would be cheaper. movie disc. Sure, it looked like an advanRemember Memor y St ick? You
Today they are, but only because retail- tage that this standards organization, probably do, since Sony has yet to admit
ers are blowing them out. In fact the home of the DVD, put its weight behind defeat on this one.
price advantage was illusory. Yes, the Toshiba’s next-generation disc, but that
And then there's the Walkman, a
discs could be turned out in conven- weight finally didn’t amount to much. brilliant success, but which Sony failed
tional plants, but the use of production Even in mid-February, as the news to morph into…the iPod.
Feedback
Gossip&News
Sony Formats
tive
c
a
r
e
t
n
i
s
Yes, it’
Testing Blind
Mainst ream media most ly pay
little attention to high end audio — or
any audio with aspirations beyond
home-theatre-in-a-box — and so it
was rather refreshing to see this sign at
T.H.E. Show in Vegas, courtesy of the
Wall Street Journal.
The test was set up by WSJ Portals
columnist Lee Gomes. He set up a
system which included Totem Forest
speakers, a Magnum Dynalab amp,
Monster Sigma cables, and an expensive
(but unnamed) CD player. Large paper
sheets hid most of the gear from sight,
as you can see below, and switching
was done by the subject with a remote
control.
a later test, the iPod held uncompressed
(WAV) files, a 52% majority actually
picked the iPod.
On other days there were more tests.
A majority of subjects picked the Monster Sigma over hardware store wire,
though Gomes says Stereophile’s John
Atkinson rated the Sigma as only 5%
better (whatever that means). A rep from
Audience spotted his own company’s
$2800 power filter just two out of three
times.
There are of course some problems
with Gomes’ methodology, and he admits
as much in his WSJ article. “These ‘A-B’
tests have limits,” he writes, “including
the fact that differences you might not
pick up right away can become more
apparent with extended listening.”
Yes, exactly. Each subject could
switch over either frequently or after
significantly listening time. The more
frequent the changeovers, the less the
results mean. We would have preferred
that each subject listen to a longer segment twice before deciding.
Still, considering the sheer idiocy
with which all too many media cover
high quality audio, this was an impres-
ADVERTISERS
Aldburn Electronics. . . . . . . . . . . 43
Audiophileboutique.com . . . . . . . . 73
Audio Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 73
Audiophile Store. . . . . . . . . . . 57-64
Audioprism. . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Audio Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Audiyo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Aurum Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
BC Acoustique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
BIS Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
CEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Charisma Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Cyrus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Diamond Groove. . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Divergent Technology. . . . . . . . . 75
DNM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Ecosse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Eichmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Europroducts International . . 13, 17, 75
Gershman Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . 15
Harbeth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Hifisupply.ca. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Home Theater Cruise . . . . . . . . . 39
Justice Audio. . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
MagZee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Marchand Electronics. . . . . . . . . 75
Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Mutine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Planet of Sound. . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Reference 3a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Roksan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Simaudio. . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4
Signature Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Stereo Passion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Gerard took the test on the second
day of the show and had little difficulty
telling the better sound (the Compact
Disc player), from an MP3 playing from
an iPod. Three quarters of subjects got
it as well. On the other hand when, on
sive effort. We hope Lee Gomes has the
budget to come back next year, perhaps
with a bigger sign.
To read his whole article, visit:
http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB120044692027492991.html
Sugden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Tentlab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Totem Acoustic. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
UHF Back Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . 47
UHF Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Feedback
Gossip&News
Linn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
T
State of the Art
he role of the audio designer
is changing, and in fact it
has been for many years.
Designing, say, an amplifier
or a source component in 2008 is not the
way it was in 1978.
And that isn’t only because the technology has shifted, from analog to digital
for example. It is also because the basic
building blocks of audio components are
different from what they were then.
The old way is not totally gone, to be
sure. If you build a tube amplifier, you
will still be buying sockets, resistors,
capacitors and transformers, just as you
would have in 1945. Even so, chances are
you will be dealing with some elements
that would have baffled the pioneers of
hi-fi. The odds are low that you will be
using a 5R4 rectifier tube just for the
task of turning alternating current into
pulsating direct current. At the very
least you will need a solid state rectifier
bridge, and you may in all probability
choose to stabilize your amplifier’s internal voltages with one or more integrated
circuits.
Ah, the integrated circuit, the IC,
the chip! It began appearing as early as
the 1960’s, containing not one or two
transistors, but perhaps a dozen of them
printed onto the substrate of a layer
of silicon. Chips made design faster,
cheaper and easier. That dozen transistors became hundreds, then thousands.
A modern microprocessor chip may
contain some 50 million transistors. Who
would have dreamed it?
In the first wave of the microchip
invasion, it was the cheapness that
drove innovation. Chips like the still
ubiquitous 741 made electronic products
affordable. Buy a TV set for $1000, and
three years later its clever design would
be incorporated into a tiny chip that
could be found in $300 sets.
Of course, everyone knew that these
cookie-cutter products weren’t really as
good as circuits using discrete (separate)
transistors and resistors, and indeed at
first the designers of high end audio
components resisted the trend. “Operational amplifiers,” chips with differential
by Gerard Rejskind
(positive and negative) inputs were so
useful they opened the way to new
audio configurations. Still, an op amp
didn’t contain that many transistors, and
you could still build one using discrete
transistors, and the cost be hanged.
Notice that I used 1978 — 30 years
ago — as a point of comparison, but by
then there was a new technology afoot,
digital sound. And just four years later
the Compact Disc was born, and the
digital revolution was well and truly
launched. That revolution finished what
the development of the chip had begun:
it made seat-of-the-pants audio design
pretty much impossible.
That was true for t wo reasons.
First, chips now had a huge number of
transistors — even op amps did — and
it was unthinkable to simulate one with
discrete parts. Second, the growth of
digital meant that circuits had to operate at increasingly high frequency, or if
you prefer at high speed. The time taken
by an electrical current to get from one
component to the next became a limiting factor. If you could have simulated
a modern chip using discrete parts, it
STATE OF THE ART:
THE BOOK
Get the 258-page book
containing the State of the Art
columns from the first 60 issues
of UHF, with all-new introductions.
See page 6.
simply wouldn’t have worked.
That was a problem for high end
designers. The new chip-savvy designers
treated a chip as a “black box,” with an
input and an output. They didn’t worry
about what went on inside, even assuming they could understand it, as long as
the output was what they wanted. The
spec sheet packed with the chip would
tell them all they needed to know. That
was not the way the real hi-fi designers
were used to thinking, however, and
some wondered whether the chip (and
digital) meant the end of high fidelity.
What to do with these newfangled
CD players, which sounded horrible
to the ears of music lovers, but whose
complex integrated technology resisted
analysis, to say nothing of improvement? The first “audiophile” players
were simply mass-market players with
upgrades to the power supply and the
analog output stage. These were things
traditional designers understood. One
famous company, whose name I shall
by compassion omit, tried to bypass
the digital chips by doing the decoding
entirely in software. The experiment
was a disaster that would have sunk the
company if CD players been its only
products.
Today the role of the audio designer
has evolved. A good design team will
include engineers who are experts
in digital, and can make those once
mysterious chips do tricks. It will also,
of course, include experts in analog.
Digital signals cannot be reproduced
as music, and it is only once the digital
signal becomes analog that it is possible
to determine whether the overall circuit
is doing what it should be doing.
Today the chip, the integrated circuit,
is the basic building block of electronics,
just as resistors and tubes once were, and
in some gear still are. You cannot look
inside a complex chip and see what it is
doing, but then the idea that you could
see inside a 12AU7 twin triode was
pretty much an illusion too. Good hi-fi
design begins today with chips and spec
sheets. It ends as it always has…with the
human ear.
Van den Hul Electronics, half price!
a division of Broadcast Canada, publisher of UHF Magazine
[email protected]
(450) 651-5720
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