report

Transcription

report

IN THIS ISSUE
ISSUE 161 n APRIL/MAY 2006
122 COVER STORY
Mark Levinson No.326S Preamplifier and
No.432 Power Amplifier
Listening to Levinson’s latest, Robert Harley finds the company’s
tradition of excellence not just upheld but improved upon.
85
Basic Repertoire: South African and West African Pop
Derk Richardson dips into a richly varied musical culture, and
recommends essential recordings.
22 A Higher High End—The 2006
Consumer Electronics Show
22
Join us on a trip to Las Vegas, where our staff shows you a bounty of
fascinating new gear and reports on the state of the high end.
EQUIPMENT REPORTS
14
Absolute Analog: Lamm Industries LP2 Deluxe
Phonostage and Clearaudio Titanium Cartridge
Spin a few LPs with Jonathan Valin, who is savoring some tasty
analog goods.
97
Sonus Faber Concerto Domus Loudspeaker
Neil Gader on an Italian speaker that makes you feel right at home.
101
Thule Audio Spirit IA350B Integrated Amplifier and
Space DVA250B DVD/CD Player
Sallie Reynolds on two sweet performers from Denmark.
106
Esoteric X-03 CD/SACD Player
Jacob Heilbrunn listens to the latest from TEAC’s high-end division.
112
Channel Islands Audio D-200 Monoblock Amplifier
Class D amps are all the rage. Chris Martens listens to another offering in
this rapidly growing field.
97
118
Krell SACD Standard CD/SACD Player
Fred Kaplan explains how one player changed a critic’s mind about the
SACD format.
130
HP’s Workshop
Memoirs of the CES: What happened in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in
Las Vegas—this time around.
85
2
THE ABSOLUTE SOUND n APRIL/MAY 2006
VIEWPOINTS
6
Letters
134
Manufacturer Comments
founder; chairman, editorial advisory board
Harry Pearson
editor-in-chief Robert Harley
editor
executive editor
managing and
music editor
acquisitions manager
and associate editor
news editor
equipment setup
editorial advisory board
advisor, cutting edge
COLUMNS
12
From The Editor
MUSIC
136
136
Recording of the Issue: Mogwai’s Mr. Beast
Rock Etc.
Reviews of 11 new CDs, including the latest from the Flaming Lips,
Drive-By Truckers, Cat Power, Loose Fur, Rosanne Cash, Sarah Harmer,
Tom Zé, and Swearing at Motorists. Plus, a round-up of recent
Pure Pleasure and Analogue Productions audiophile blues LPs.
151
Classical
Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1with Han-Na Chang, Shostakovich’s
Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2 with Beaux Arts Trio, Handel’s Delirio with
Natalie Desay, and five more new CDs critiqued. Also, four Mozart
SACDs with which to celebrate the composer’s 250th birthday.
161
Jazz
The scoop on the latest from Manu Katche, Ken Hatfield, Paul Motian,
and Quinsin Nachoff, plus four Nina Simone reissues and Monster Cable’s
Vince Guaraldi set.
168
Wayne Garcia
Jonathan Valin
Bob Gendron
Neil Gader
Barry Willis
Danny Gonzalez
Sallie Reynolds
Atul Kanagat
senior writers
John W. Cooledge, Anthony H. Cordesman,
Gary Giddins, Robert E. Greene, Fred Kaplan,
Andrew Quint, Paul Seydor, Alan Taffel
reviewers and contributing writers
Soren Baker, Greg Cahill, Dan Davis, Andy Downing,
Jim Hannon, Stephan Harrell, Jacob Heilbrunn,
John Higgins, Sue Kraft, Mark Lehman, Ted Libbey,
David McGee, Derk Richardson, Don Saltzman, Dan
Schwartz, Aaron M. Shatzman,
Arnie Williams
design/production Design Farm, Inc.
publisher/editor, AVGuide Chris Martens
web producer Ari Koinuma
Absolute Multimedia, Inc.
chairman and ceo Thomas B. Martin, Jr.
vice president/publisher Mark Fisher
advertising reps Cheryl Smith
(512) 891-7775
Marvin Lewis,
MTM Sales
(718) 225-8803
subscriptions, renewals, changes of address
Phone (888) 732-1625 (US) or (815) 734-5833
(outside US), or write The Absolute Sound,
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editorial matters
Address letters to: The Editor, The Absolute Sound,
PO Box 1768, Tijeras, New Mexico 87059, or
e-mail [email protected].
TAS Retrospective:
Harman Kardon Citation 16 Power Amplifier
classified advertising
Please use form in back of issue.
Sue Kraft goes shopping on eBay.
newsstand distribution and local dealers
Contact: IPD, 27500 Riverview Center Blvd., Suite
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136
112
© 2006 Absolute Multimedia, Inc., Issue 161, April/May 2006.
The Absolute Sound (ISSN #0097-1138) is published ten times per year,
$42 per year for US residents, Absolute Multimedia, Inc., 4544 S. Lamar,
Bldg G300, Austin, Texas 78745. Periodical Postage paid at Austin, Texas,
and additional mailing offices. Canadian publication mail account #1551566.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Absolute Sound, Subscription
Services, PO Box 629, Mt Morris, IL 61054. Printed in the USA.
4
L E T T E R S
Best Article Ever
As a reader since Volume 1 and a subscriber since Volume 2, I have enjoyed
your publication and believe you are
working hard to make it even better.
The interview in Issue 159 with
Benjamin Zander [by Jonathan Valin
and Mark Lehman] has to be the best
article I have ever read in an audio publication! The passion this man has to get
the “message” of classical music to the
non-initiated is unprecedented. If only
more people in the business/art had that
desire we would not be talking about
the demise of classical music.
sound really good with the TacT (I’ve
used several, including VBT and RBH)
I would encourage TacT users to experiment with dipole bass also. I use a pair
of stacked Linkwitz Phoenixes beside
my line arrays, and the bass is simply
fabulous. I’m not a bass freak, and
mostly listen to acoustic jazz, but the
room-filling bass from eight 12" drivers provides a foundation of power and
musical drive that I’d never experienced before in a listening room. The
miniscule trade-off in transparency
with the TacT is more than compensated for in musical realism.
JOHN C. SHAW
RICHARD SHWERY
No Mark Levinson?
I bought the December issue of The
Absolute Sound and was amazed that the
listing of recommended products does
not feature any components from Mark
Levinson. On this side of the ocean,
these are often regarded as reference gear
and have some “cult-status.”
JOHN VAN POLEN
THE NETHERLANDS
See this issue’s cover story. –RH
The new room-correction system from
Lyngdorf Audio appears to be a significant
advancement in the technology. See REG’s
report from CES in this issue. –RH
Perhaps it Was Breathing Those
Solder Fumes
I must write after reading the garbage
written by Bob Gendron about high end
doing the nosedive because manufacturers are ignoring new music. Hip-hop,
Bob, is garbage music from a garbage
culture that glorifies gangs, cop killing,
and the white man as the root of all evil.
What’s worse is to see rich suburban
kids listening to this shit with their four
18" subwoofers. All of the other
garbage, like the bands Garbage and
Phish, follow suit.
Yes, gone are the days when an
artist sat in front of a microphone and
performed with real talent. Nowadays,
the music is a MIDI patch stuck on
repeat. Where is the melody? Today’s
music is like Hollywood’s latest films.
We need another King Kong? Most
movies today are patches of other movies
put together under a new title. There is
no creativity at all.
If you like this shit Bob, you need
to talk to someone who actually knows
about music. Like a real musician. Neil
Young’s latest album Prairie Wind is perhaps one of the finest albums to come
along in years. There are no MIDI tracks
stuck on repeat. It’s real music made by
a real person in real time. The lyrics are
timeless. Will the world remember the
band Garbage in 20 years?
Back to the real reason high end is
doing the tip. No one builds kits anymore. When I was sixteen all I could
afford were Dynakits and AR turntables
on my lawn-mowing budget. I got so
turned on to hi-fi by building this stuff
that it became a part of my soul. I’ll bet
Getting the Bass Right
Thank you for REG’s article on getting
the bass right using the TacT 2.2X and
corner subs. Flat bass response coupled
with time-alignment in a real room
should be heard by music lovers everywhere. I’ve experimented with sub/sat
arrangements since my first M&K system back in 1982. Finally, with the
TacT, the promise is realized. The room
effects, and the loss of midrange magic,
obscured by those ever-present bass
nodes, are effectively removed. My TacT
replaced eight room lenses and bass
busters in the corners and the effect is an
order of magnitude more profound (and
the Wife Acceptance Factor is high, too).
While corner/front-firing subs can
6
Upcoming in TAS
A complete Goldmund system
Hovland HP-200 preamp
Adept Response power conditioner
Revel F52 speaker
Basic Repertoire: Free-jazz guitarists
Wilson Benesch Full circle turntable system
HP’s Workshop
L E T T E R S
a large number of equipment manufacturers put kits together
when they were young, too. It gets in the blood. Though I’m
not an electrical engineer, I know what resistors and capacitors
and transistors are. Kids nowadays don’t care about this unless
it’s an Xbox. That’s it.
Could you own a ’57 Chevy and not have your head under
the hood? There are people that try, but it just doesn’t work.
You can’t get to the next level until you tweak the transmission
or put in a Hurst shifter—stuff like this. This is the stuff of love.
And like that ’57 Chevy owned by a non-motorhead, you
just can’t go out and buy a good high-end system the first time.
It will sound like crap because the person buying it didn’t
know why he was buying it. It was just because it cost a lot of
money, and the guy at the stereo shop said this was top shelf.
When you get to your sixth or seventh power amp, you’ll
know why you don’t have the other ones anymore. You let this
stuff get into your blood.
My advice to equipment manufacturers is this: There has to
be a lot more touchy-feely to this stuff. Help consumers understand what goes on under the hood. Make some stuff that can
be tweaked at home. Let them breath in solder fumes. Once
hooked, this Audiofish will soon know the difference between
good and garbage.
WAYNE NIELSON
Buying Used Gear
I love reading TAS, but I’m also a poor college student, as I’m
sure many of you were in your glory days, and nothing interests
me more than budget hi-fi. I am constantly amazed by the
magic that companies can work for less than $1k. Last month’s
article about the $2000 system raises some serious points about
how to build a modest listening setup. I understand that the
goal of the article was not to build the perfect $2000 system,
but to demonstrate the state of normal, two-channel hi-fi in a
world of big-box electronics stores peddling $200 surround systems. However, in my humble opinion, I’m not sure if I agree
with the system put together by the local hi-fi shop, particularly the peculiar cost imbalance of the components. I believe the
best solution is to go at least partially with used components.
I don’t think that there is any serious audiophile who
would agree that the best budget system can or should be
built entirely from new gear. For example, the Web site
Audiogon is filled with great used gear; most of the sellers are
honest audio freaks like you and me who take care of their
stuff and are willing to part with it at substantially reduced
prices. It’s also important to note that many fine, expensive
CD players diminish in value after only a couple of years—all
the more reason to go used. A buyer could snatch up something like my amp, the 60W Rotel RA972 (w/remote)—a
perfectly good substitute for the pricey 1062. This would
leave several hundred dollars extra to devote to the rest of the
system. It’s this kind of balancing/compromising that will in
the end yield a system that gives a true taste of the high end,
and all it requires is a bit of browsing and e-mailing.
DAVID METHOT
The Retail Experience
After reading Barry Willis’ article on The Quest for Great Sound
on a $2000 budget, I could not agree more with his experience
with Mr. Patrick Pack at Access to Music in San Rafael,
California. I was a novice audiophile looking for a decent twochannel system and visited almost all the high-end audio shops
in the San Francisco Bay Area. I must say that not all salespersons are alike in the so-called high-end audio market. Everyone
appears to be a self-proclaimed audiophile who has the necessary
technical knowledge on the products he sells, but certainly with
varying attitudes. Mr. Pack stands out in the crowd with his
enthusiasm and willingness to help a novice customer like me. I
ended up purchasing my system from Mr. Pack who handdelivered the speakers free of charge to my third floor San
Francisco apartment on his day off. What exemplary service! In
comparison to that, when I visited a well-known high-end
audio-video store in San Francisco, a salesperson almost laughed
at my budget and called it “mid-fi” (which is probably true by
his standards).
I think it’s the experience that counts when you are shopping for your audio gear. In this age when true audiophile
salespersons are a blink away from extinction, I cannot com-
8
L E T T E R S
mend enough the positive experience a
salesperson like Mr. Pack provides to all
his customers no matter what the size of
their wallets. An experience like this is
hard to find, and we ought to acknowledge such outstanding service whenever
we can so that others in the sales market
will learn from such examples.
JIN KIM
Red Book CD is Forever?
Congratulations on upping TAS to
monthly issues. This is a welcome event,
as most people still prefer to read in
physical form over a computer screen.
My letter concerns your persistent
push for new formats in audio. You have
been doing this since at least the mid
1990s—not too many years after CDs
became mass-market giants. It almost
looks as if you have a personal interest in
a new format, but I’m not charging you
with this per se.
In your most recent editorial, you
blame the mass market for rejecting
SACD, creating its downfall. But it was
audiophile rejection of this format that
really did the damage. If SACD can’t satisfy audiophiles, then how can it satisfy
the mass market?
Understand that when I say this I
mean the majority of audiophiles, not all
of them. There is a small group out there
that swears by DSD recordings, most
notably David Robinson, editor of Positive
Feedback Online. Many audiophiles used to
be SACD fans, but, due to advances in
Red Book recordings and playback, they
are no more.
It’s funny that in your piece you didn’t mention the incredible advances this
“old” format has made in recent years. I
recommend spinning a few recordings by
Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, or EMI
Classics through the Reimyo CD player
(or the Zanden gear if you’re not afraid of
the price) to get a refreshing update on
CD playback technology.
So my theory that “Red Book is
Forever” holds true, but I’ll be the first
to admit that we still could use a few
more bits in word length—why not
JOHN HARNICK
HDCD?
WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM
Editorial Whining
Your January piece on the neglected
high-res audio potential of Blu-ray and
HD DVD was interesting and informative, but I believe it ultimately represents another instance of misdirected
energy in the audiophile community.
Misdirected because you entertain the
slim possibility that someday the
industry might indeed agree upon, roll
out, and support a better audio format
for all music genres, and misdirected
because you dismiss the current success
of SACD as a niche format. By declaring SACD and DVD-A dead already,
you’re discouraging audiophiles, many
of whom are niche-music fans, from
supporting a hi-res format that’s
already here.
As a classical, jazz, and roots-music
follower, I’ve watched many important
European and American boutique labels
enthusiastically embrace SACD. They’re
not only continuing to issue new product; some of them seem to be increasing
their output. Great producers like Jared
Sacks, Robert Wood, and Ted Perry
know what their customers want, and
they’re backing SACD. The series of
Bach cantata discs I’ve been acquiring
for a couple of years now—beautiful performances by the Japan Bach Collegium
on early instruments—will be issued,
from Vol. 28 onward, in SACD hybrid
format only; their label (BIS, Sweden)
understands that SACD offers not only
improved sound but also a competitive
edge in the classical marketplace. Last
month The Gramophone, England’s venerable classical-music magazine, devoted a
special section to SACD, with capsules
of the best music released so far, reviews
of new hardware (including pricey twochannel gear), and heartfelt advocacy for
the technology itself. They have seen a
future that’s actually possible, and they’re
trying to encourage it.
In contrast, your forlorn wish for
some future, more universal format flies
in the face of the evidence and only comforts the enemy. Major labels have
already essentially abandoned minorityinterest genres like classical and jazz.
Why should they invest in technology
9
L E T T E R S
that likewise interests only a few consumers? Let’s face it: The most reliable
consumer base for hi-res, now and in the
future, consists mainly of people who
know what a Stradivarius or a Martin
Dreadnought actually sounds like and
are willing to pay to hear it in their living rooms (or, OK, possibly through
their E5c’s, sucking in a high-sample file
from an iPod).
All those iPods have convinced the
majors that ordinary folks, many of
whom have never heard an acoustic
instrument or experienced unamplified
music in a performance space, want
music that’s portable and easy to manipulate, not “sweet” or “absolute.” Ashlee
Simpson fans are never going to rise up
and demand Blu-ray.
By repeatedly and prematurely
sounding the death knell for SACD and
DVD-A, you are hurting those who actually care. We’ll probably survive—after
10
all, we’ve been hearing reports of the
“death” of classical music for years now—
but continued editorial whining from
influential voices like yours will only further diminish the stream of new domestic
releases on existing hi-res formats. It certainly won’t pave the way for Blu-ray
audio; as you admit, its chances are slim.
Please consider giving more space
and support in TAS to digital hi-res
that’s here, now, instead of cultivating
false hopes for formats that are far less
likely to emerge, let alone succeed.
LAWRENCE SCHENBECK, DMA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC HISTORY
SPELMAN COLLEGE, ATLANTA
For the record, I never said that SACD was
“dead.” Rather, my point was that as a niche
format at best, SACD (and DVD-Audio)
would not satisfy the two essential criteria of
great sound and availability of a significant
percentage of the world’s recorded music. –RH
CD, High-Res Digital, and LP
First of all, I would like to congratulate
you on a magazine which is courageous
enough to tackle new and varied highresolution types of music reproduction
such as SACD and XRCD. Thank you
for proposing to the reader what you
hear and how you hear it on certain
equipment when most other magazines
are ignoring or barely mentioning such
important changes in the formats of
sound reproduction. In the future, it
will be interesting to see how you tackle the new high-resolution formats in
the form of Blu-ray and HD DVD, with
what seems to be the relegation of
SACD and DVD-Audio, in particular,
to footnotes of audio history. This
upheaval in high-res digital helps me
appreciate your fallback mode with the
LP. It is already a niche market, and as
such is like an old shoe, always familiar
and comfortable. It is for most of us,
L E T T E R S
the initial imprint of musical information aside from live performances, and
as such holds a very dear and special
place in our hearts. When I listen to my
LPs, there is always a remembered
experience, which is in itself an art
form. Our shared experience with the
people who make the music on the LP,
and those who share our love of hearing
it many times over, is a very engaging
and life-affirming activity. Naturally,
we find this experience so intensely
personal that we want to relive and
enjoy the sensation we have found in
such an activity.
I have found the new high-res formats remind me of much that I loved
with my LPs. My CD collection on the
other hand has not been able to live up
to the musical art form I felt with LPs
and my SACDs, DVD-Audios, and
XRCDs. Only in the last couple of
years have I heard some CDs that real-
ly do express the art of music in the
digital format. Mainly in the high-res
formats have I found the soul and joy of
music as it is relayed to the listener in
the earlier LP mode. However, even in
the high-res format I’ve found sterile
and univolving music performances
such as the Sonoma SACD of “Music
for Organ, Brass and Timpani.” I realize this is highly regarded by you, but I
would ask you to listen to the Strauss
“Feierlicher Einzug Der Ritter Des
Johanniterordens” on the Audite label.
It is with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrucken conducted by
Johannes Wildner and performed in the
gothic church of St. Arnual.
Where
the
Graham Ashton
Ensemble is perfect in their execution of
the piece on Sonoma, they also, to me,
kill its sense of artistic excitement. The
Wildner group brings the excitement
and artistic sense of life to this music in
great measure, and makes me want to listen to it over and over, just as I used to
listen to my best LPs. Both recordings
are in the SACD format. I would just say
to you that the joy of music is the real
basis of listening, no matter the format.
For the above reasons, I would like
to say that I find the XRCD recordings
of RCA Living Stereo far more listenable than many of the SACD RCA
Living Stereo recordings. The SACDs
are screechy in the highs and terribly
congested in louder passages, whereas
the same performances on XRCD are
much smoother in the treble and bass,
and much less congested in fuller passages, where instruments are playing at
a forte level.
I realize much of this is how I hear
music and thus my opinion, but I would
ask you to always listen for the joy of
music in all that you review.
STEVE LIVINGSTON
11
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TAS Plus
Robert Harley
I
’m pleased to announce that Absolute
Multimedia, publisher of The Absolute Sound
and The Perfect Vision, has acquired the
British magazine Hi-Fi+. We think that HiFi+ is a natural fit with The Absolute Sound
from both an editorial and a business perspective. Both magazines share a fundamental viewpoint on high-quality music reproduction, although we have our own distinctive flavors. The magazines’ respective editorial directions and staff will remain the same now and in the foreseeable future.
We see an opportunity to increase the presence of
The Absolute Sound in the U.K. and in Europe in concert
with Hi-Fi+, and to make Plus more readily available in
North America. The magazines will co-exist side-byside in all markets throughout the world. We at TAS
have long admired Hi-Fi+ and are delighted to welcome Editor Roy Gregory and his team to the Absolute
Multimedia family.
Absolute Multimedia is making big waves in the
automotive-publishing world too with its start-up auto-
ne plus ultra in Austin, Texas
12
enthusiast magazine, Winding Road. After just seven
issues, Winding Road has more than 120,000 readers,
making it the world’s fastest-growing auto magazine.
The dean of automotive publishing, David E. Davis, just
assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief. Mr. Davis led Car
and Driver to great success beginning in 1962, and went
on to found Automobile magazine in 1985.
Winding Road is a free digital magazine available at
www.windingroad.com.
***
As discussed in last issue’s Roundtable on the state
of high-end audio as a business, the premium-grade
presentation of high-end equipment is becoming a lost
art—to the great detriment of the industry. There’s no
way to tell someone about great sound; one must hear it
for oneself to appreciate what high-end audio is all
about. Given the overall decline in the number of places
to experience high-end audio at its best, I was greatly
heartened to discover a relatively new high-end dealership that is fully committed to delivering the best possible sound in an absolutely wonderful environment.
That dealer is ne plus ultra in Austin, Texas.
Proprietor Casey McKee, an industry veteran, has set up
shop in a Victorian mansion in downtown Austin.
Although a by-appointment retail establishment, ne plus
ultra feels nothing like a store. Rather, it’s like listening
to music in an elegantly furnished home (which, in fact,
it is). The “store’s” five listening suites feature a spectrum of gear all the way from a Sugden integrated
amplifier and Audio Physic loudspeakers to the Wilson
Alexandria X-2. (A full listing of lines carried is available at www.neplusultrainc.com.) Every room I heard
delivered terrific sound and the atmosphere encouraged
relaxed listening and appreciation of the musical pleasure these products can provide. Ne plus ultra is a model
of how high-end audio should be presented and sold.
Finally, I’d like to encourage you to join the writers
and editors of The Absolute Sound and The Perfect Vision at
our new on-line forum for discussing all things audio.
All your favorite writers will be there along with lots of
other TAS readers. Visit www.avguide.com and bring
your questions, comments, and suggestions. We’d love
to hear from you, and look forward to some lively and
informative discussions.
&
a b s o l u t e
a n a l o g
Lamm Industries LP2 Deluxe Phonostage
and Clearaudio Titanium Cartridge
Jonathan Valin
’ve been patting MBL speakers and
electronics on the back so often
lately for their transparency and
resolution that the front-end components I’m about to review have
been kind of lost in the shuffle. True, the
“grip” of the 101 E Radialstrahlers,
6010 D linestage preamp, and 9011
monoblock amps on very low-level
musical details is phenomenal; in combination, they simply don’t let go of a
sound until the instrument stops sounding, reaching with greater clarity higher
into fortissimos and lower into pianissimos than other electronics, and reproducing the way a note dies off so clearly
and completely that you can hear the
exact moment when the faintest sound
stops and silence starts.
As I mentioned in my review of the
ARC Reference 3 preamp and 210 amps
in Issue 159, my locus classicus for this
sort of thing is the first movement
cadenza of the Montsalvatge Concerto
Breve [London], where pianist Alicia de
Larrocha sustains a note via finger and
pedal for what seems like an eternity,
providing a primer on the way a piano’s
overtones gradually die out. With the
MBL gear, the instant that de Larrocha
I
14
finally lets up on pedal and key and that
last little enharmonic overtone, which
has been sounding at an extremely low
level for several seconds, finally stops is
so marked that the moment of rest
which follows takes your breath away.
The clear divide between very-lowlevel sounds and silence is something you
hear in concert halls all the time, but
typically don’t hear on stereo systems,
which tend to add enough of their own
noise to obscure both. With this recording and the superb ARC tube gear, for
example, you would be harder put to tell
precisely when that last overtone stops
and silence begins. The one just seems to
vaguely meld into the other without an
unambiguous line of demarcation. With
the MBL electronics, the moment that
overtone dies out is like a bank vault
door closing.
On the other hand, in the
instants between successive notes, the ARC gear
has a magical ability to
“hang” harmonics almost
visibly in the air, so you can
hear the way the colors of
one note of, say, John
Ogden’s Steinway—at the
start of the great Andante of
Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto—
harmonize with and reinforce the colors
of the next note, as you would (to an
even greater degree) in life.
All of this perceived detail is a testament to the class-leading resolution of
MBL and ARC electronics (and MBL’s
second-line preamp, the $8000 5011,
and second-line amp, the $40k 9008
monoblocks, belong in this same exalted
company). But it is also a testament to
the transparency of the Lamm LP2
phonostage, the Clearaudio Titanium
cartridge, and the Walker Proscenium
Gold record player that feed these preamps and amps.
This front end is a veritable pane of
glass when it comes to low-level
detail—and frankly to just about every
other aspect of high-fidelity reproduction. It is also neutral enough to allow
the ARC gear to show its set of virtues
to full advantage and the MBL its rather
different one, without stamping its own
personality too markedly on either.
Though other cartridge/phonostage/
record-player combos have significantly
different virtues and several items on
the horizon look promising, as a music
source nothing I’ve yet heard betters
the Clearaudio/Lamm/Walker, analog
or digital.
There was a time
when I wouldn’t have
said this—when I
would’ve conceded that
digital
(particularly
SACD) had the edge in reproducing certain kinds of details,
particularly transient-related
ones. And while I still think that
CD/SACD is superior to the best analog
in definition, extension, and impact in
the low bass, everywhere else the
Lamm/Clearaudio/Walker stomps it.
Since it was the addition of the
$6000 Clearaudio Titanium cartridge
that elevated the Lamm and Walker to
new levels of clarity, I’ll start with it.
The Suchys of Clearaudio (Peter,
Robert, and Patrick) and their U.S.
importer, Garth Leerer of Musical
Surroundings, have been kind of vague
about what it is that makes this movingcoil cartridge (one of several new “HD”
Series Clearaudio moving coils, including the Gold, the Stradivari, and the
Concerto) sound so much better. One
difference is obvious. A flanged plastic
disc—looking rather like a small gear or
gigantic, serrated Marigo Dot—sits
atop the cartridge where it mounts to
the headshell. Playfully designated
“magic fingers” by Leerer, it is said to
serve some sort of decoupling/resonancecontrol function. Like most quasi-magical audio “tweaks,” the science of it is
less important than the effect, which
appears to be profound. Clearaudio cartridges have always been high in detail;
this one is the highest yet, with simply
unparalleled (in my experience) resolution of both attacks and decays from the
midbass to the upper treble and a (to my
ear) nearer-to-ideal tonal palette than
Clearaudio has before achieved.
It has become a reviewer cliché to
rhapsodize about how much more information remains to be discovered in the
thirty, forty, and fifty-year-old grooves of
old-standby LPs, but, folks, it is simply
mind-boggling to play back a record
you’ve heard scores of times—like the
Rózsa Violin Concerto [RCA]—and
hear new details in Heifetz’s bowing and
fingering, and, best of all, in the sumptuous tone of his Guarnerius. Listening
to this disc through MBL, ARC, and
Edge electronics, I got the eerie feeling I
was hearing a slightly different pressing
of the LP with each pair of preamps and
amps—fresh features were brought to
the foreground by each combo. In combination with that of the Lamm LP2
Deluxe, the cartridge’s transparency to
the source seems to make every disc a
veritable smorgasbord of audio
delights—a table so large and varied
that no one set of electronics can sample
all that is being offered.
The Titanium (so-called because it is
housed in a titanium body) uses lowermass coils and higher-efficiency magnets
than previous top-end Suchy designs,
although both coils and magnets are configured in same “symmetrical” fashion as
classic Clearaudios, and output remains a
relatively high 0.8mV. The Titanium
does have a completely new stylus, however—a design that the Suchys call
“Micro HD.” I don’t know what geometric changes the Micro HD may entail,
15
but the resolution, tone color, transients, soundstaging, and transparency
of the cartridge are doubtlessly attributable in part to the extremely low mass
16
(0.00016 grams) of the HD stylus and
perhaps to the high mass (9 grams) of
the titanium housing, which is said to
lower resonance and reflections and per-
mit better dynamics. (Clearaudio claims
a dynamic range of +95dB, which
would explain the Titanium’s way with
starting and stopping transients.) At a
VTF of about 2.35 grams, the Titanium
also tracks beautifully.
The Titanium isn’t perfect. It is not
as thunderous or extended in the very
deep bass as, say, the MBL 1621A/
1611E CD player are. Though it has
plenty of “oomph” on doublebasses,
timps, piano, or low brass and winds, it
won’t reproduce something like a battery of Tsuridaiko and Kakko drums or
the synths on David Bowie’s Earthling
[Sony] with the jaw-dropping impact of
the MBL digital gear. On the tip-top it
is just a little less stingingly dynamic
than CD/SACD on attacks like cymbal
strikes, although it compensates for this
with greater treble-range air, superior
extension, more natural tone colors, and
simply marvelous decays. The way the
Titanium/Lamm hangs on to something
like the long reverberation of the tamtam in the Decca recording of Henze’s
charming ballet-cum-flute-concerto The
Emperor’s Nightingale [L’Oiseau-Lyre] is
something to marvel at. Its midband is,
as noted, much more gemütlich than previous Clearaudio I’ve auditioned,
though not overly warm after the fashion of a Koetsu or gravy-rich-and-thick
like a Shelter. On a superb cut like “All
My Trials” from Peter Paul & Mary’s In
the Wind [Warner]—a record that really
ought to be reissued by someone—it
comes as close to making voices and guitars sound in-the-room-with-you there as
anything I’ve heard from any source.
If the Titanium has added new layers
of musical detail to my front-end setup,
the $6990 Lamm Industries LP2 Deluxe
phonostage has preserved them intact.
To be honest it has taken me a very
long time to appreciate the virtues of the
LP2 Deluxe. When I first got it—several years ago, now—I thought it was too
polite, too lacking in bloom, too dark
and lifeless. Why, then, did I use it?
Because it was also, and in spite of these
serious deficiencies, dead quiet.
Vladimir Lamm lives and works in
Brooklyn, where RFI is a genuine problem. Unlike certain other designers of
phonostages, who seemingly live on
mountaintops far from urban broadcast
towers and who simply don’t appreciate
how irritating it is to listen to an LP
while a radio program intermittently
drones on in the background, Vladimir
feels your pain. Thanks to what is
unquestionably the best step-up transformer around (the unit is made by
Jensen Transformers) and elaborate RFI
filtering of the AC voltage, he has seen
to it that I don’t have to “tune out” some
evangelist praising the Lord over the airwaves while Messaien praises Him after
his own fashion on the turntable.
Generally step-up devices rob you of
transparency, and they do this at the very
first link in the Great Chain of
Reproduction, which means there is no
way of compensating for what’s been
lost. I don’t know what’s different about
the Jensen transformer, but it is phenomenally transparent, and, since it isolates
the signal from RFI/EMI contamination, phenomenally quiet.
The step-up transformer aside, you
wouldn’t think that the LP2 would be a
world-beatingly low-noise component,
as it is all-tube save for one solid-state
regulator for the heater supply.
Vladimir, who likes to do things differently, makes a superb solid-state
linestage preamp, the L2 Reference; for
reasons only he can explain, he turned to
Western Electric 417A/5842 triodes for
his phono preamp. You might think this
would soften the sound and grunge it up
17
a bit, but it doesn’t. Indeed, you’d be
hard put to distinguish the LP2 from its
transistorized partner—it sounds so little like tubes. As noted, right out of the
box it doesn’t sound particularly distinguished, either.
A friend and former employer of
mine, Jerry Gladstein, once told me that
the keys to getting the most out of the
LP2 were time and patience. He was
right. It takes a good six months of constant play to start to get the LP2 to
straighten up and walk right. Even then
it still sounds the slightest bit dark,
overly controlled, and lacking in bloom
compared to something like the
Aesthetix Io. But even before it fully
loosens up, its clarity will impress you,
and when it finally does break in...folks,
you ain’t heard nothing yet until you’ve
heard this preamp with a truly high-resolution cartridge like the Titanium. It
passes everything through, uncolored
18
and unedited (save for that slight persistent darkness and reduction in bloom),
making for what may be the most transparent source component I’ve yet heard.
With the LP2, what you get from the
cartridge is essentially what you get from
the Lamm unit’s outputs, which is why
very different preamp/amp combos like
the MBL 6010/9011 or 5010/9008 or the
ARC Reference 3/210 or the Edge
1.1/12.5 not only sound markedly different but bring entirely different details of
the recording to life. The LP2 just transmits the information, letting the preamps
and amps pick and choose the emphases.
As different-sounding as they are, the
presentations of all these preamp/amp
combos do have certain things in common that are attributable to the LP2.
First, as noted, low-level transient
and harmonic details are exceptionally
clear, making attacks and decays more
lifelike and producing the best reproduc-
tion of the duration of notes I’ve yet
heard. With the right recordings, such as
Viktor Kalabis’ Sonata for Violin and
Piano [Panton], you not only get the
whole note you get the whole mechanism by which that note was sounded.
The LP2 (with the Titanium and
Walker) positively illuminates the action
of pianist Milian Langer’s piano, so that
you can “hear” the depression of the keys,
the felts of the hammers, the movements
of the balanciers and the jacks. These are
the kinds of detail that, as Robert Harley
noted in our last issue, contribute to the
“realistic” presence of an instrument and
instrumentalist, and the LP2 gives them
to you, to quote Sallie Reynolds, in
spades and diamonds.
Second, bass is unusually welldefined and extended. As noted, the LP2
won’t give you CD definition and thwack
on Japanese drums or bass synth, but as
phonostages go it comes mighty close
and is simply superb on low-pitched
acoustic instruments, reaching deeper
into the bottom than the Aesthetix Io but
without all of the Aesthetix’s magical
mid-and-upper-bass bloom.
Third, though the LP2 is a supremely transparent device, it is slightly sweet
and forgiving—nothing ever really
sounds awful through it, although
whether this is a demerit I leave up to
you. As for its tonal balance…at one
early point in its sojourn, I thought the
LP2 was darker than it actually is; either
it or I have outgrown that phase, for it
now sounds closer to neutral.
Fourth, because the LP2 lacks the
helium bloom of something like the
Aesthetix Io, instruments can sound
slightly “flatter” through it than they do
through classic tube phonostages.
However, dimensionality depends to a
large extent on what you feed the LP2
into. With linestages that are capable of
3-D imaging, such as the Edge or ARC
Reference 3, you get a very satisfyingly
three-dimensional sound.
Fifth, the LP2 is not a one-size-fits-all
soundstager like the Zanden phonostage.
As with bloom, it doesn’t over-inflate the
stage, but passes on what’s on the record,
letting the linestage/amp make its own
interpretation of the data. If the linestage
and amp are consistently big-sounding,
like the Ref 3/210, the stage is enormous.
If they are more size-neutral, like the
MBL 6010/9011 or 5011/9008, then the
stage grows and shrinks with the source.
With speakers that are as capable as
the 101 Es, and electronics that are as
high in resolution as the MBL amps and
preamps and the ARC amp and preamp,
it is easy to forget how crucial the front
end is. But its transparency to the source
is, in fact, the key to all that follows, and
in the case of the Titanium cartridge, the
Lamm LP2 Deluxe phonostage, and the
Walker ’table and arm, this transparency
is so high that I seldom find myself listening to CDs or SACDs anymore. I can
think of no higher compliment to pay an
&
analog front end than that.
M A N U FA C T U R E R A N D D I S T R I B U T O R I N F O R M AT I O N
MUSICAL SURROUNDINGS, INC.
5662 Shattuck Ave
Oakland, California 94609
(510) 547-5006
musicalsurroundings.com
Price: $6000
LAMM INDUSTRIES INC.
2621 East 24th Street
Brooklyn, New York 11235
(718) 368-0181
lammindustries.com
Price: $6990
19
A HIGHER HIGH END
2006
CONSUMER
ELECTRONICS
SHOW
This year’s CES was a most
fascinating affair. For those
of us assigned to cover the
high-end exhibits at the
Alexis Park and T.H.E.
Show, it’s safe to say
that this expo was
unlike any other
in recent
memory.
It was almost exclusively about two-channel sound,
and almost exclusively about very pricey gear. To be
sure, there’s still plenty of affordable stuff out there
(and you’ll find the cream of it on the following
pages), and aspiring to the highest of the high end
has always been an expensive game, but never before
have we seen so many components at $10,000 and
above. Manufacturers routinely described systems
comprising $30,000 monoblock amps, $15,000 preamps,
$20,000 DACs, and $25,000–$60,000 speaker systems
as “affordable.” To actually come across a component
that was “merely” $10,000 was a kind of perverse
relief. In our current economy, the gap between the
haves and have-nots is growing and the middle class is
shrinking. If this trend is reflected in specialty audio—
and we believe it is—it indicates that what was once the
bread-and-butter price range of $1500– $5000 per
component is shrinking as well. If last year’s show
indicated a growing separation between two-channel
audio and home theater and an increase in analog
sales, this year’s—at least in our little high-end world—
even more forcefully announced itself as two-channel,
analog-based, pricey, and proud of it. So, pour yourself
a drink, put on some music, sit back, and tour the
show with our staff. Eight enthusiastic and ultimately
footsore gents were assigned to report on the most interesting components seen and heard. Although we don’t
list every item displayed in every room, we’re confident
that our commentary reflects what makes CES—and
our hobby—so much fun. Finally, apologies to the
many worthy manufacturers who we were unable to
mention due to either time or space limitations.
23
CES2006
REPORT
LOUDSPEAKERS $4000–$10,000
NEIL GADER
very CES has its own characteristic vibe. Over the last
few years that vibe has been decidedly downbeat in the
audio sector, with the home-theater groundswell creating a siege mentality among high-end exhibitors. In
a half-baked response, a bevy of new subwoofers, center channel and surround speakers, and even in-walls
were floated like lifeboats
on the swiftly rising
video-centric tide.
This year the mood
was more upbeat, even
defiant. And certainly
more focused. Clearly
attendance was lighter
and exhibitors fewer, but
according to some distributors more serious
business was being
done. The exhibits
seemed to pander less to
potential crossover buyers and more to the
high-end’s dedicated base.
TAS’ Neil
As a result, entry-level products played second
Gader chats
with Elite’s fiddle to some of the most impressive flagship loudScot Markwell speakers I’ve seen in some time. There was even an
(a former
unapologetic trend towards small but mondocolleague)
expensive “statement” components in product categories typically associated with cost savings. Whereas integrated
amplifiers and stand-mounted two-ways were rarely priced north
of three or four grand a few years ago, they sure aren’t today. Fresh
integrated amplifier offerings like the CA200 control amplifier
from Conrad-Johnson and the Précis from Chapter Electronics
and speakers like the Duette from Wilson Audio and the 121
from MBL exemplified this champagne-and-caviar trend.
E
Small Speaker for Big Spenders
These noteworthy compacts may not be at the
top of their respective lines, but the seriousness of their performance could signal a revolution in small-speaker design—and an
important development for high-res multichannel fans seeking space-saving alternatives
to large floorstanders.
Eben of Denmark made a strong impression in a couple of settings, but it was its XCentric ($9200), a stand-mounted monitor
with a planar-magnetic tweeter, that demonstrated a speed, dynamism, and punch rare in
24
this weight class.
Elac
of
From
Germany the BS 602
X-Jet, a compact
stand-mounted threeway, offered an interesting spin on the
concentric
driver,
wrapping a circular
planar magnetic/honeycomb
midrange
around Elac’s own Jet
III ribbon tweeter.
Replete with inverted aluminum-cone woofer and high-tech
aluminum
enclosure, it jetted in at
Acapella’s Fidelio II
$9000. At $6800 the Acapella Fidelio
II was a tiny but brilliant reproducer of vocals, although it will
certainly benefit from a subwoofer for more aggressive listening. Beautifully constructed of layered hardwoods rather than
the customary MDF, it uses a pair of small woofers nestled
tightly against a centered tweeter. Bass output and extension
are said to be roughly the equivalent of a single 7" driver.
The Wilson Audio Duette falls just wide of my category at
$11,000, but I’ll take the liberty of mentioning the impressive
performance it displayed at a demo in the Mirage. Its understated looks conceal some intriguing technology. Built to meet
the challenges of “hostile environments”—that is, positioning at
weird heights, like bookshelves or near boundaries—it can be
optimized via an extravagant external crossover and custom
crossover-to-speaker cabling. In an A/B/C comparison with two
other ultra-prestige speakers, a compact two-way and a hefty
floorstander, the Duette made the sonic pecking order clear.
Goldmund introduced the Logos Active, part of the company’s new (and for Goldmund, affordable) Metis Line. The Logos
Active is a two-way satellite with solid aluminum cabinets. Each
of the speaker’s drivers is powered by a 200-watt Goldmund
Telos amp. In addition, since Goldmund DACs are built-in, the
Logos Active accepts digital input. Total cost is $10,000.
Jewel-like in its construction, the MBL RadialstrahlerCompact 121 ($10,000) produced vivid three-dimensional
imaging and soundstaging
thanks
to
the
omni
tweeter/midrange technology
that it shares with the vaunted
MBL 101 and 111 speakers.
With surprising bass output
from its push-pull woofer configuration it displayed more
than a passing resemblance to
MBL RadialstrahlerCompact 121
CES2006
NEIL GADER’S
REPORT
Best of Show
Most Significant New Product
Any product that draws the younger generation toward the high
end is significant. So my most significant new product is Arcam’s
r-Lead ($85)—an “intelligent” cable that enables Arcam’s Solo
remote handset to control the iPod, and provides track, song, and
other iPod information on the receiver’s display. A more advanced
unit, the r-Dock arrives later this year.
Coolest New Products
Thorens premiered a series of stunning electronics—the $2000
TEP-302 phono preamplifier, the TEP-3800 preamp at $14,995,
and the TEM-3200 tube/transistor hybrid monoblock amplifiers at
$29,990.
Coolest Accessory
Synergistic Research has been clever enough to exploit the possibilities of one of the most musical subs out there, the REL line.
Its SR Spec cables with active shielding, specifically voiced for
REL subs, are a natural expression of this cable manufacturer’s
spirit of innovation.
Most Frequently Heard Demo Music
Diana Krall and Kodo drummers were popular. So was Nils
Lofgren’s guitar-slashing “Keith Don’t Go.” I was pretty numb from
this track until I heard it on the Coincident Speaker Technology
Total Victory—a heckuva loudspeaker.
Greatest Value
In the mini department, Silverline’s Prelude at $1200 is a tiny
tower capable of playing surprisingly big and clean. From Finland,
the Amphion Ion is a petite two-way that was tuneful with a
vibrant presence range at $1350. Finally, there was the Majestic
Magic Diamond II two-way from TBI Sound. This mini with a 2"
paper-cone tweeter and 5" cone woofer made some serious highend music, while clocking in at an estimated $1000.
Biggest Surprise at CES
The sheer number of turntables actively being used in exhibitor’s
rooms was truly eye-opening—as was their performance.
Best Sound at CES
Sonicweld takes a systems approach with its active loudspeakers. Not inexpensive at $49,000–$64,000 (depending on subwoofers), the system comes complete with triple ICEpower modules for each quasi-line-array satellite speaker, a Subpulse bass
module, and the DEQX PDC (preamp-style functions and digital
crossover and room correction). Sonicweld’s trademark CNC aluminum construction throughout is a mindblower.
TAS Family Reunion:
Neil Gader, Harry Pearson,
Jon Valin, and Wayne Garcia
its slamming big brothers. The new rosewood finish was a breathtaking change from the more somber piano black seen throughout
the show.
Curves Are In
It’s well known that non-parallel sidewalls make for better
loudspeakers, and they made their presence known this year.
Musical Surroundings, the distributor of all things analog, has
taken on its first speaker line with fascinating Vivid Audio.
Out of South Africa, with an ex-B&W designer at the helm,
Vivid offered a series of graceful ovular loudspeakers that use
carbon-fiber-loaded polyester-compound enclosures and drivers
of Vivid’s own design and manufacture. The fully decoupled
midrange and tweeter feature aluminum domes mounted in
tapered tubes. The new V1.5 ($7500), a two-way with a single
pole floorstand that flares out to a broad pedestal, is likely to be
the meat-and-potatoes of the line. Available in any Pantone
color for an additional $750.
Much ink has been spilled writing about the Model 1
loudspeakers from the TAD Pro Division of Pioneer
Electronics. The new Pioneer EX Series embodies many of
the Model One’s virtues, including the Coherent Source
Transducer (a beryllium tweeter mounted within a magnesium midrange), in a much more affordable package.
Available as the stand-mounted three-way S-2EX for $6000
and the S-1EX floorstander at $9000.
Curves were also in evidence in the Evolution line from
Italian maker Pearl Evolution. The speakers’ dynamic drivers are essentially decoupled from their front baffles, though
they remain pistonically linear and
stable thanks to a rigid horizontal
pole running from the rear of the cabinets to the back of the transducers’
magnets. The resulting sound was
boxless and electrostat-like in the
mids and highs, melding transparency with dynamism like few speakers
at the show. The Evo-203, a two-way
Pearl, will retail for $6000.
Mirage has rescaled its small
potent Omnisat technology and driven
it uptown with the curvaceous OMD28. On display in a vivid burl grain,
this three-way, upward-firing omni
with concentric tweeter/midrange
sports a dual port in its base. Due in
late spring at $7500.
Perennial Frontrunners
Quad, one of the high-end’s legendary
darlings, displayed the 2805 ($9000)
and its larger cousin the 2905
($11,500) electrostats. Derived from
Harbeth’s new, unnamed speaker
PHOTO BY ROBERT HARLEY
26
CES2006
REPORT
the current 988 and 989 respectively, both boast improvements
to the stator panel membrane and greater frame rigidity (thanks
to hefty aluminum side extrusions and top caps, and an aluminum buttress in the rear).
Focal’s new Electra 1007Be ($3995) compact two-way projected rich sonics via a beryllium inverted-dome tweeter. The
bass-reflex design locates the port at the back near its base. Also
available as a floorstander, the 1027Be, that will list for $7495.
Harbeth premiered a mysterious, mid-sized, three-way,
tri-wireable floorstander in gorgeous burl that employs a dualwoofer design with a rear port. The speaker embodied the characteristic Harbeth qualities of tonal neutrality and warmth in
an updated design. Available later this year. (Pricing has not yet
been announced.)
Importer/distributor Immedia has replaced Audio
Physic in its distribution chain with another German contender, Sonics. The deep, narrow-baffle designs of the
Allegretto and Allegro ($5300 and $7800) are reminiscent
of the best of Audio Physic (they should be with former AP
designer Joachim Gerhard at the helm), and judging by a
quick listen to Tony Bennett/Bill Evans tracks on the flagship PassionS ($32,000), Sonics offerings obviously have the
transparency and many of the same soundstage qualities that
have always distinguished AP loudspeakers. ä
Several of the trends that I note in power amplifiers (see
“Power Amplifiers under $10,000” below) also apply to integrated amplifiers. Some of the biggest names in audio are using their
integrated and control amps to expand their markets into lowerpriced segments. The good news here is that many are using the
same circuits in their integrated amplifiers found in their more
expensive separates—but at a significant savings. Unfortunately,
many of these components were on static display, so I am unable
to comment on their sonics. However, if you’ve ever dreamed of
owning Conrad-Johnson, McIntosh, Bryston, or MBL separates
but found their prices beyond your budget, I encourage you to
check out their new integrated or control amplifiers.
What’s a control amplifier? Conrad-Johnson is calling it
a new category between power and integrated amplifiers. The
Conrad-Johnson CA200 control amplifier ($6500), for example, combines a set of input selector switches, a stepped attenuator positioned at the input of the amplifier, and a reduced
power version of CJ’s Premier 350 amplifier. This design
JIM HANNON’S
Best of Show
Most Significant New Products
The upcoming Classic Records reissues, particularly the 35mm
Everests, the mono Blue Notes, the Coltrane (One Down, One Up),
and Voodoo Child from the Jimi Hendrix collection.
INTEGRATED/“CONTROL” AMPLIFIERS
JIM HANNON
The Manley Labs Manta Ray integrated (think two Snappers on
one big chassis, five line inputs, a USB connector, and a remote),
and the Wavelength Audio Jupiter 50 (the first commercially
available amp based on the RCA 50 tube).
Coolest Accessory
s the audio venues in Las Vegas demonstrated, integrated amplifiers offer some of the best values in
audio, and several new offerings grabbed my attention. Designers are overcoming some of the physical and performance limitations of integrated
amplifiers, namely the relatively small size of
power supplies and the inability to completely isolate sensitive
preamp circuitry from the noisier power amplifier section. Indeed,
this show suggested that the performance gap between integrated
amplifiers and their “separates” counterparts is narrowing.
A
The Acoustic System Resonators. These minute metal objects
that rest on wooden bases can help focus your soundstage and
disperse room “nasties.”
Can’t say since I asked them to play jazz and classical music.
Greatest Value
The McIntosh MA6300 and NuForce IA7 integrated amplifiers
with circuits from their much more expensive separates.
The number of turntable rigs being used in demos. How I wish I
could afford the Kuzma straight-line arm and Reference table.
Listening to the marvelous sound of the Merlin VSM-MXs driven
by a VPI TNT VI rig made my ears go “Ahhhhh!”
Best Sound at CES
Besides the $750,000 Bosendorfer Grand Piano, the big
SoundLab Millennium-1 PXs (Tascam DV-RA1000/Blowtorch
Pre/Parasound JC1s) captured my heart with their seamless
coherence from top to bottom, ultra-low distortion, transient
speed, and truth of timbre. However, my head said the nod
should go to the big MBLs for their resolution and incredible
dynamic range. Honorable mentions: Merlin, Kharma, Wisdom
Audio/Edge, Rockport/Nagra/Purist, Verity Audio/Nagra, Usher
(particularly the BE-20s), Wilson/Audio Research, and
B&W/Musical Fidelity.
Conrad-Johnson CA200 control amplifier
28
CES2006
REPORT
essentially eliminates the linestage and
has no gain in the “control section.”
We’ve seen some fine amplifiers with volume controls, but this solution allows the
use of multiple sources.
McIntosh premiered its MA6300
integrated amplifier (price is still TBD
but is projected around $3000), which
combines the preamp circuit from the C46
Audio Control Center with the output
topologies of its MC2KW power amplifier and MA6500 integrated. It is rated at 100Wpc into 8 ohms and uses a new type
of output device that locates the thermal sensor inside the transistor. This is said to result in lower distortion at all power levels without excess heat. All switching is done at the jacks, and
the switches are encased in a nitrogen bath. Switches need to be
cleaned once every 325 years—so put that in your will.
Bryston’s B100-SST ($2995) integrates the circuitry and
power supply of the 2B-SST stereo amplifier with the BP-16
preamplifier in a dual-mono configuration. The layout of the
amplifier looked very clean, with good isolation of critical components, and it comes with a full-function remote control.
The MBL 7006 integrated amplifier ($3500) is rated at
180Wpc but uses the same circuits as the MBL 8006 B amplifier and 4006 preamplifier combo that I liked so much driving
the low-sensitivity MBL 121 compact monitors.
Two less familiar makers of high-performance separates also
introduced noteworthy products that made me forget I was listening to integrated amplifiers. The Karan KAI 180 ($8500)
is hand-built with no caps in the signal path, no phase distortion, gold-plated circuit boards, resonance control, and no negative feedback. It is balanced from input to output and held the
new Ascendo C7s under complete control, yielding a highly
musical result with excellent detail, transparency, and transient
speed. The Chapter Précis integrated ($6500) exemplified an
emerging trend towards using Class D output stages. It is rated
at 130Wpc into 8 ohms and, like the Karan, its sound was fast,
accurate, and liquid without a trace of hardness. It also sports
KEF’s KHT 3000 Series system
an iPod input on the front panel, a feature that is appearing in
more new integrated amps.
Perhaps the most anticipated introduction among Class D
integrated amps was the NuForce IA7 ($1195). It utilizes the
same chassis as the NuForce Reference 9 and is said to include
two Reference 9 boards and the board of the P8 stereo preamplifier. It comes with a remote, preamp outputs, and home-theater bypass, and can be daisy chained for surround. The sound
on a pair of monitors was clean and transparent but given the
Reference 9’s performance, I suspect it will also produce very
good bass. (Given the speakers, it was impossible to verify this.)
Several manufacturers of integrated amplifiers displayed
offerings at very attractive prices, typically because of off-shoremanufacturing efficiencies. The Genesis I60 ($3495) is rated
at 60Wpc, uses KT88s, and employs very little feedback. If it
sounds anything like the Genesis M60 monoblocks ($3995) I
heard driving a pair of G3 speakers, it is definitely something
to check out. That Genesis combo had a lot of dynamic slam
but also considerable harmonic richness.
LA Audio was showing its A-6550 integrated ($3900)
rated at 150Wpc with point-to-point wiring and hand-wound
transformers.
PrimaLuna was showing a prototype of its Dialogue One
($2000), an EL-34-based integrated with a remote control and
triode/ultralinear switch. At approximately 70 pounds this
baby was heavy.
Some attractive entry-level integrateds were the Music Hall
A25.2 ($600), the Creek EVO ($895), and the Audiolabs 800S
($995). Creek was also demonstrating a fine-sounding integrated under $2k, the New Destiny, which uses MOSFET output
devices. It sounded very natural and musical on vocal recordings.
As part of its Masters Series, NAD was showing its M3
dual-mono integrated amplifier ($2799). It is rated at 180Wpc
into 8 ohms and uses custom-made Holmgren transformers.
NAD’s Bjorn Erik Edvardsen designed the preamp section to
keep signal paths as short as possible.
Last, but certainly not least, was the new Manta Ray integrated from Manley Labs ($4000). It is essentially a stereo
integrated version of Manley’s popular Snapper monoblocks,
using Manley’s own output transformers in a low-feedback
design with a fully symmetrical circuit. It looks very cool. As
Manley Labs Manta Ray
30
CES2006
REPORT
Final Sound’s Virtual Home
an aside, the Manley Labs folks seemed to be having the most
fun at the show. ä
LOUDSPEAKERS UNDER $4000
CHRIS MARTENS
ES 2006 left me convinced that now is a terrific time
to be shopping for loudspeakers in the sub-$4000
price range. Why? The short answer is that technological and market forces are converging in ways
that both enable and compel manufacturers to build
speakers that sound great for not a lot of money.
We’re all for that, aren’t we? To see how speaker manufacturers
are pulling this off, let’s consider three trends.
C
Definitive debuted its $1099 ProCinema 800 and
$1499–$1649 ProCinema 1000 5.1-channel systems, both
with satellite speakers that incorporate top-mounted passive
radiators and drive units featuring innovative new suspension
systems. The result is a small satellite/subwoofer system that
offers almost shocking levels of openness and midrange subtlety, and terrific dynamics.
The British firm KEF unveiled its new KHT 3000 Series
surround system, which will sell for approximately $1500,
with drive units that—much like those in the Definitive systems—offer innovative new suspension systems. As an additional twist, KEF molds slender radial stiffening ribs into the
backs of the KHT 3000 Series mid/bass driver cones—a change
said to increase resolution of low-level details. A brief listening
session showed that this system offers remarkably smooth,
well-focused sound with unexpected dynamic punch.
Finally, the Dutch manufacturer Final Sound exhibited a
remarkably affordable 90i-based 2.1-channel Virtual Home
Theater system based on two stand-mounted, dipolar electrostatic panels and a very fast powered subwoofer—all for just
$1300. Final Sound has developed new-generation electrostatic
panels that offer good dispersion, support surprisingly high
playback levels, and eliminate the weight and bulk of previous
designs. Final’s entry-level Virtual Home Theater system puts
electrostatic sound within reach at an unprecedented low price.
The sonic gravy, so to speak, is that the system’s dipolar electrostatic panels sound particularly good when used with the SRStype virtual-surround-sound decoders in modern A/V receivers.
Compact speakers that offer a taste of
“audiophile heaven”
Each year, it seems, CES brings us a new crop of compact speakers that somehow manages to deliver disproportionately huge
Budget-priced surround systems as
entry-level music systems
Surprising though it seems, today’s most cost-effective and
musical small speakers are often found in surround systems.
That’s because space and budget constraints are leading many
enthusiasts to choose multichannel home-entertainment systems that serve double-duty for film and music playback. And
buyers’ performance expectations run high, though their equipment budgets are slim by audiophile standards. Further, mounting anecdotal evidence suggests that many “home-theater” customers regard music listening as the primary activity for which
they use their systems. Manufacturers are answering this challenge by developing new technologies calculated to help small,
affordable speakers perform as never before. At CES, three good
examples of this trend came in the form of new surround speaker systems from Definitive Technology, KEF, and Final Sounds.
DALI’s IKON series
32
CES2006
CHRIS MARTENS’
REPORT
Best of Show
Class D amplifiers from a variety of manufacturers are changing
the way we think about amplification, both for purist audiophile
and home-theater systems. The best designs provide sonic
finesse and substantial power in surprisingly small, cool-running,
affordable packages.
Combo cellphone/PDA/digital-video-and-audio-players from a variety of manufacturers. Could future high-end audio systems be
based on handheld devices? Perhaps.
Coolest Accessory
The Chang Lightspeed Encounter parallel noise sink/power strip.
Just plug the Encounter into the same power circuit you use for
your hi-fi system and watch the noise floor drop. Neat.
There were few clear-cut trends, but various Diana Krall tracks,
especially “Narrow Daylight” from The Girl In the Other Room,
appeared quite frequently.
Greatest Value
DALI’s new IKON loudspeaker family offers value that is off the
charts.
Biggest Surprise At CES
The SLS Loudspeakers Q-line surround system (endorsed by Quincy
Jones), which provides five ribbon-driver-equipped satellites, a powered subwoofer, and an AVR for—I am not making this up—$500.
Best Sound At CES
The Sound Lab Millenium-1 full-range electrostats. Accuracy, neutrality, high resolution, and musicality converge right here.
helpings of audiophile magic. My sense is that as driver technologies continue to improve and as designers become more
adept at juggling performance trade-offs, small monitors are
becoming more and more capable of surprising us with what
they can do. This year, two of the most pleasing surprises came
from ERA and Amphion.
ERA loudspeakers are developed by the team at Signal
Path International (the U.S. distributors for Musical
Fidelity), and at CES ERA demonstrated its tiny new Design 3
loudspeaker, whose projected price is just $400, alongside a
pair of B&Ws flagship 800Ds. The funny part was that the little ERAs sounded so full, warm, and three-dimensional that
some suite visitors sheepishly asked, “Which ones are playing?”
Does this mean the $400 ERAs sound as good as the big
B&Ws? Of course not, but it does mean they’re good enough
to keep listeners guessing, at least for a while.
Amphion is a Finnish loudspeaker manufacturer whose
designs emphasize controlled directivity, achieved by using
dish-shaped waveguides said to help minimize interactions
between the speakers and the listening room. (The theory: You
hear more music and fewer room anomalies.) Among the least
expensive Amphions are the $1300 stand-mount Ions, which I
34
found capable of remarkable purity, delicacy, and expressiveness.
Though not the last word in bass extension or high output, the
Ions in other respects remind me of more costly monitors.
Brilliant generalists at affordable prices
The best speakers in the $2000–$4000 range have gotten so
good that they truly qualify as brilliant generalists that do all
things well. While expensive top-tier models have undeniable
appeal, I suspect speakers in this lower price range will, for
many music lovers, represent the point of diminishing returns.
And judging by the sounds of three new floorstanders from
DALI, ProAc, and Reference 3A, those sonic returns are greater
than ever before.
TAS readers will know our writers hold DALI’s Helicon
Series speakers in high regard, so what we didn’t see coming
was a new family of DALI loudspeakers that deliver about 90%
of the goodness of Helicons for about one third their price. Yet
that is precisely what DALI’s new IKON Series speaker offers.
The IKON features wood-composite fiber-cone mid/bass drivers, oversized fabric-dome mid/high drivers, and ribbon tweeters, just as the bigger Helicons do, yet the flagship IKON 7
floorstanders will sell for just $2100. A brief listen to the
IKON 6 floorstanders ($1595) convinced me these speakers are
the real deal.
ProAc speakers from Great Britain have long been audiophile favorites, and while they offer compelling sonic merits I
doubt anyone would have termed them “bargain priced”—
until now. ProAc demonstrated its delightful new Studio 140
floorstander, and my first impression was that it offered the
kind of balanced performance and effortless musicality likely to
make it extremely expensive. I was surprised and delighted to
learn the Studio 140 will sell for just $2800. (Based on its
sound, I feared it might cost twice that.)
Finally, I was entranced by Reference 3A’s new
$3000–$3300 Veena floorstander, specifically because it does
all the good things for which Reference 3A’s smaller standmount monitors are famous—openness, textural finesse, terrific resolution of inner details—while offering improved three-
A bevy of Pro-Ject turntables
CES2006
REPORT
dimensionality, greater bass extension, and more neutral tonal
balance. What particularly caught my ear was the Veena’s ability to reveal deep interior aspects of the music—much as costly top-tier speakers do—but at a budget-friendly price. ä
PREAMPS UNDER $10,000 AND
ANALOG SOURCES
D O N S A LT Z M A N
thought I had the plum assignment with analog
sources—report on a few turntables, maybe a random cassette player or 8-track, then kick back and enjoy the Las
Vegas nightlife. Not. There was a turntable here, turntable
there, everywhere a turntable. I had to scramble all four
days just to try to cover them all. Vacation, anyone?
No CES in recent memory had had a better showing of analog sources, including new vinyl. That’s the good news. The
not-so-good news: Statement turntables are now priced like
cars, and I’m not talking about that most musical of vehicles,
the Hyundai Sonata. Let’s see, do I buy that new M-B 500S or
a Continuum Caliburn turntable? Maybe that shiny Carrera S
I’ve spied at my local dealer, or a Blue Pearl Audio JEM?
Perhaps an easy decision for most folks, but, sadly, if you’ve got
the analog bug you’ll decide there’s really nothing wrong with
the Civic you’ve been driving for the last 10 years.
To be fair, there was no shortage of affordable turntables,
either. Let’s start with those manufacturers who showed continuing devotion to making analog accessible to the masses.
Sumiko showcased a static display of stylish new Pro-Ject
turntables that should make it easy for those presently without
analog to see what they’ve been missing. At only $299, the
Debut III includes a pre-mounted Ortofon OM-5E movingmagnet cartridge and, for a slight upcharge, is available in one of
eight different colors. The Xpression II ($499) includes a carbonfiber arm with pre-mounted Sumiko Oyster cartridge, while a
handy feature on the Xperience ($999) is a plinth-mounted
phono-input jack which allows use of connecting cables of your
choice. Rounding out the new offerings are the space-efficient
RM-5 ($649, carbon-fiber arm, quick VTA and azimuth adjustment) and RM-9.1 ($1499, acrylic platter, single-piece carbonfiber arm and headshell). Pro-Ject also introduced a tiny phono
preamp with up to 60dB of gain and a matching turntable speed
controller, each priced at only $119, about 5% of the sales tax on
Sumiko’s superb SME 30/2 turntable. If that isn’t attractive to
the vinyl lover on a budget, what is?
The friendly folks at Roksan were showing their very
attractive Radius 5 turntable which features a frosted acrylic
platter and a plinth available in acrylic, walnut, or maple.
Roksan also has an updated Artemiz tonearm ($2495) and a
too-cool electronic tracking force gauge that reads to the hundredth of a gram for only $199.
I
36
Clearaudio had an entire room devoted to turntables,
arms, cartridges, record cleaning machines, and fascinating
accessories including “The Vinyl Doctor,” a device that looks
like a laptop until you open it up to discover it is designed to
bake (safely, Clearaudio assures me) the warps out of records. As
always, Clearaudio showed an amazing array of beautiful tables
and arms at all price points, simply too many to cover in this
report—but it was the incredible new “Statement” turntable
that had the visitors buzzing, more about which later.
In the “mid-price” category I found the new SE-1 recordplaying system from Sound Engineering of Nashville,
Tennessee. Since it came from Nashville, I shouldn’t have been
surprised to see it sporting a precision platter made of wood
similar to that used in Gibson guitars. With a custom Tom
Roksan’s Radius 5; Immedia’s “Spiral Groove” SG1;
Continuum's $90,000 Caliburn 'table and Cobra arm
CES2006
REPORT
Evans-designed DC motor-controller, beautifully machined center weight, and periphery
clamp, the SE-1C retails for a still-reasonable
$7450. Unfortunately, I did not get to hear this
’table because an amplifier had failed just before
I visited the room, but it sure looked like it was
worth a serious audition.
Venerable turntable manufacturer Thorens
had its new TD350 on static display. With a
floating sub-chassis, belt-drive, motor controller, and TP250 arm, it should offer typically
outstanding Thorens performance at an affordable $3599.
DON SALTZMAN’S
Best of Show
A four-way tie to new turntables that attempt to
advance the state of the art—the Caliburn by
Continuum, the Statement by Clearaudio, the JEM
by Blue Pearl Audio, and the top models from Transrotor. All use
magnetic suspension as part of their design philosophy.
Coolest Accessory
A tie between the Roksan digital stylus force gauge and The Vinyl
Doctor from Clearaudio.
Selections from Harry Belafonte and Ray Charles.
Greatest Value
Epiphany 6-6 Plus. At $10,900, these speakers added two 8"
bass drivers, self-powered, to the six midrange/bass cones and
six ribbon tweeters of their 6-6 model. I thought the speakers
were a knockout. Open and spacious like other Epiphany models,
they now have true bass slam and extension and need make no
apology whatsoever for their low-frequency performance. I also
must add the lower-priced turntable/tonearm combinations from
Pro-Ject, Clearaudio, and Basis, which offer high performance at
a reasonable cost.
I didn’t catch a cold—first time for a CES. Other than that, I was
pleasantly shocked at the great proliferation of analog sources.
Best Sound at CES
The first was the room showing the Continuum turntable, Boulder
preamplifier, Wavac amplification and Venture Grand Excellence
Signature loudspeakers. While the sound varied day to day, at its
best it was extremely direct with great body, tonal color, and pacing. For once, you could forget about the equipment.
Kharmas have been speakers I admired but could not quite
see bringing home. They didn’t seem to fully flesh out large-scale
orchestral music, although they certainly excelled at the presentation of almost everything else. But the combination of the
Kharma Midi-Exquisites ($75,000), ASR Emitter II amplifier, and
MBL CD player took me over the top. The soundstaging and
imaging were truly phenomenal; the speakers disappeared, as did
the walls of the demonstration room. While they still did not quite
deliver the majesty of a full orchestra, they came close enough
so it wasn’t a distraction.
38
Clearaudio’s 770-pound
“Statement”
Very intriguing was
the new Monaco turntable
from noted equipmentstand manufacturer Grand
Prix Audio. The result of
substantial research and
development, the Monaco
features a beautifully designed carbon-fiber plinth,
active-feedback speed control for its DC motor, a
magnesium platter and
bronze flywheel supported
by a pressurized film of oil,
and magnetic drive. This
’table looks fully raceready, in a Ferrari sort of way, and I want a test drive! I refuse
to let the $15,000 price set me back—my wife can work two
jobs if necessary.
MusicDirect exhibited the sexy Avid Acutus which, at
$13,000 with motor controller and suspended 22-pound platter,
represents the top of the Avid line of turntables. Gracing the
armboard was a Dynavector DV-507 arm ($4200) that features
a pivot in the vertical plane located right behind the headshell.
Not to be outdone by Clearaudio, Grand Prix Audio, or
Avid on the all-important sexiness front, the entire line of
Transrotor turntables was simply dazzling in the AXISS
room. It was hard to take my eyes off the Tourbillon (about
$35,000), with its three drive motors, thick clear acrylic plinth
to accommodate up to three tonearms, and frosted acrylic platter with chrome or gold outer weights. After only two or three
minutes of gazing at the spinning Tourbillon, your spouse will
be hypnotized into agreeing you really need one. Equally enticing was the Apollon TMD ($15,000), constructed of polished
aluminum and black acrylic and also capable of holding three
tonearms. “TMD” stands for Transrotor Magnetic Drive, while
the new FMD Magnetic Drive System featured on the Orion
and several other Transrotor models drives the platter through
a separate flywheel with magnetic coupling.
Big news at the show came from Allen Perkins of Immedia
Distribution. No, he has not left Immedia. But he has started a
new company, “Spiral Groove,” devoted to the manufacture of
new turntables and arms. He showed two new ’tables at CES.
The SG1 (about $20,000) is a compact design constructed
largely of stainless steel, aluminum, and layers of damping
agents. The turntable base is extremely dense—I was shocked
when I tried to lift one corner of the table and discovered it
weighs 70 pounds. A very cool feature is a bayonet mount for
the arm board, allowing quick changes of tonearms. The SG1
also has a stainless-steel periphery ring at the bottom of the
platter for increased speed stability. Similar in design, the less
CES2006
REPORT
expensive SG2 (about $12,500) has lower mass than the SG1
and gives up the bayonet mount for a removable arm board.
The new Spiral Groove arm was not on display.
And now, something completely different—Garrard, yes
Garrard, still lives. The British manufacturer of fine recordcleaning machines, Loricraft, is distributing a modern version
of the Garrard table utilizing a drive system whereby an idler
wheel directly drives the inside of the platter. The new Garrard
501, at approximately $20,000, looks a little retro but uses the
finest parts. The manufacturer claims that idler drive eliminates the minute, but audible, speed fluctuations of most beltdrive turntables.
Which brings us to the Big Boys of the show, the cost-noobject contenders for state of the art in turntable technology.
Continuum Audio Laboratories of Australia mounted a
compelling demonstration of its Caliburn turntable, Cobra
arm, and Castellon isolation stand (all for approximately
$90,000, give or take). Space does not permit a detailed
description of these technological wonders, but in a nutshell
the Caliburn is driven by a battery-powered DC motor and provides vacuum hold-down via a small and silent pump, while the
Cobra (about $12,000 separately) has a computer-designed
shape like no other tonearm and is built of organic materials.
The Castellon features two heavy, opposing magnetic plates
that are said to completely isolate the Caliburn from external
vibrations. An exciting package that produced exciting sound
(see “Best of Show” on p. 38). The show sample was purchased
(before the show) by a friend who lives near me—I’m sure I’ll
get to know the ’table better in the next few months.
Also falling squarely within the second mortgage category is
the incredible new “Statement” turntable from Clearaudio
(approximately $90,000), shown in static display at CES.
Weighing 770 pounds (!) and standing over four feet tall on its
dedicated stand, this ’table too is a technological tour de force. I
can’t possibly describe all of its features here. Indeed, I don’t fully
understand how it all works. What I can tell you is that the huge
frosted acrylic platter rests entirely on a cushion of air created by
opposing magnetic forces. The platter is magnetically driven by
a sub platter, a magnetic clutch so to speak, with no physical
contact between the two. The main chassis is oil damped, and the
motor drive is controlled by a high-speed processor. But wait—
there’s more. Hanging from the sub platter is a long metal tube
with a very heavy weight at the bottom, like a pendulum. As I
understand it, the tube rides in a gyroscopic-type bearing so that
the weight of the pendulum keeps the top platform (and therefore the platter) level at all times, with no air pumps or compressors. The new Statement TQI linear tracking arm was in prototype form, with the production version anticipated in a few
months. The turntable will hold up to four different arms. I
already have a call in to my mortgage broker.
Also using a magnetically suspended platter, the Britishbuilt Blue Pearl Audio JEM turntable is a relative bargain at
only $82,000—its 103-pound platter is supported by a beautiful, floorstanding base that appears to be made of granite.
Shown with an SME arm, the JEM was an exquisite sight to
behold. This was at the end of the show on Sunday, and by this
time I was delirious and actually considering the possibility of
a third mortgage (or heading to the casinos). Mercifully, the
manufacturer saved me by informing me that HP had already
laid claim to the JEM.
With too many turntables and too little time, I apologize to
those manufacturers with new products I may not have mentioned in this overview. Any omission was purely unintentional.
Two channel is still very much alive and well, as witnessed
by a number of new stereo preamplifier entries in the under$10,000 category. Balanced Audio Technology displayed its
new reference solid-state preamplifier, the VK-42SE (approximately $6000). Using a topology similar to its acclaimed tube
preamplifiers, with proprietary oil capacitors in a new power supply, this unit promises the delicacy of BAT’s tube preamps with the bass extension and slam of solid-state.
Also promising to deliver more than a little of the
great sound of the 6010 D that JV has raved about,
MBL displayed its full remote 5011 stereo preamplifer ($8382). This should offer a great amplification
system when paired with one of MBL’s Noble line of
amplifiers.
Rogue Audio displayed two new tube preamplifiers, the 99 and the 66. Surprisingly well finished at
their price points, the 66 Magnum ($1495) can be
configured as a linestage or a preamplifier with
phono. The 99 Magnum ($2495 linestage, $2995
Edge GM 8 Statement amps (bottom); Kharma
Matrix MP150-SE amps (top)
40
CES2006
REPORT
with phono) offers a larger power supply, additional flexibility,
and higher-quality components. Both preamps have separate
power supplies and an analog remote volume control. While I
have not heard either of these preamps, Rogue Audio has a
good reputation for quality sound at reasonable prices, and I
would expect both to further that reputation.
Simaudio introduced the Moon P-7 preamplifer, the
newest addition to its Evolution Series. This $5500 preamp
offers elegant cosmetics, individual gain trim for each input,
ROBERT HARLEY’S
Best of Show
precision volume control, and great flexibility for stereo and/or
home-theater use.
Thorens displayed its new TEP 302 phono preamp
($2000). This attractive and nicely finished solid-state unit
offers 60dB of gain (MC) and adjustable input capacitance and
input impedance. ä
POWER AMPLIFIERS UNDER $10,000
JIM HANNON
wenty-five years ago I attended my first CES. I
recall that the main floor was awash in a sea of
white shoes, white belts, gold chains, and polyester,
and I felt like I had traveled to another planet.
However, quietly ensconced in a separate hotel were
Coolest New Product
a group of high-end audio companies with repreImagine the sound quality of a freestanding loudspeaker coming from a
small speaker mounted on a shelf or in a cabinet against a wall. That’s
sentatives with strikingly different demeanors and clothing.
exactly what Wilson Audio’s new Duette promised—and delivered, based
Here were some of the titans of the industry, easily accessible to
on the demonstration I heard.
all who walked through the doors of their hotel
suites. While the main hall has changed considerCoolest Accessory
The new line of Pro-Ject LP-playback prodably, I still enjoyed some of the same vibe at the
ucts, which share a tiny yet sturdy chassis,
audio venues that I had many years before.
were the coolest—and cutest—accessories.
Perhaps in response to the soaring prices of
The Head-Box II is a headphone amplifier;
years past, I noted three trends in the under-$10K
the Phono Box II is a miniature outboard
segment. First, many of the big boys—you know,
phono preamp; and the Speed Box II
the ones who produce products you covet but can’t
turntable speed regulator allows you to
afford—introduced products that are more within
switch from 33rpm to 45rpm without moving
reach but have some of the same sonic attributes as
a belt. The units are priced at $119 each.
their more costly brethren. New entries from Edge,
Most Frequently Heard Demo
Boulder, Musical Fidelity, and MBL definitely
Music
caught my attention and were included in systems
Bizarrely, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms.
that produced some of the best sounds of the show.
Greatest Value
The new Edge GM 8 Statement amps (introAlthough not demonstrated, the M3 inteductory
price of $8488) are dual-channel amps in
grated amplifier, part of NAD’s new
two chassis. They are rated at 575Wpc into 8
Masters Series, looks like a winner. The
ohms but lack the laser-biasing of Edge’s more
M3 sports gorgeous metalwork along with
interior parts and build-quality that would
expensive amps. They were driving a new luxury
Jim Thiel with the
be at home in a product costing $10k.
speaker system, the Precision Acoustic Labs
radical new CS3.7
Model 27, on extremely demanding material,
with terrific control and explosive dynamics, and without the
Without question, the biggest surprise was the move toward super-expensive products, along with the introduction of lots of very high-end turntafaintest hint of clipping, transistor brightness, or grain. I am
bles. The industry has apparently decided to pursue customers who are
one admitted tube lover who could happily live with them. For
upgrading rather than those just getting into high-end audio.
those on tighter budgets, Edge displayed the two-channel GS 8
Statement ($5288) at 150 watts a side, as well as the 100Wpc
Best Sound at CES
The MAGICO Mini didn’t have quite the size and scale of some of the
G.5 ($2488).
show’s behemoth loudspeakers, but this stand-mounted two-way bowled
The MBL 8006 B ($3500) is a new 180Wpc stereo power
me over with its staggeringly realistic rendering of timbre, huge and
amplifier that was effortlessly driving the 82dB-sensitive MBL
nuanced spatial presentation, and wonderfully direct musical communica121 monitors. This combo offered surprisingly good resolution,
tion. I’m going to cheat and also mention the Aerial 20t and its fabulous
imaging, and freedom from distortion, as well as the ability to
top-to-bottom coherence and super-sweet yet detailed treble.
start one’s toes tapping.
Boulder introduced the 850 mono power amplifier, the
Rather than follow traditional methods of improving loudspeaker-driver performance, Jim Thiel has forged his own path in the radical new Thiel
CS3.7. This new speaker’s corrugated metal diaphragms and coaxial
midrange-tweeter are just the start of the CS3.7’s innovations.
42
T
CES2006
REPORT
company’s first $10,000 amplifier offering “in a long, long time,” according to a
Boulder spokesperson. The 200-watt-perchannel, all-analog 850 draws on technology developed for Boulder’s 1000 and
2000 series amplifiers. I was impressed by
its crystalline highs and ability to reproduce subtle details when driving B&W
802D speakers.
Another attractive alternative at the
$10k price point is the Musical Fidelity
kW 750. This all-choke-regulated powerhouse was ultra-quiet, with nice timbre
and focus. Driving a pair of B&W
Signature 800Ds, it produced some of the
best, most-tightly-controlled-and-defined
bass at the show—Jaco Pastorius’ bass guitar sounded terrific.
Another high-power amplifier, the
Cary 500 MB ($7000/pair), is a 500Wpc
monoblock (into 8 ohms) that offers traditional Cary musicality in a true balanced, solid-state design. The piano on a recording of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata sounded quite natural
with particularly impressive bass on the Dynaudio C4s.
Another trend among new power amplifier entries is the
use of Class D/switching technology. Designers seem to have
really attacked the noise, distortion, and dynamic-limiting
problems associated with previous Class D amps. The
Kharma Matrix MP150-SE monoblocks ($6800) were producing lovely, nuanced sound from the Kharma MiniExquisite loudspeakers, and soundstaging fans will likely go
nuts over this combo. The 150s use a unique pulse-control
scheme yielding extremely low output impedance over their
entire bandwidth.
In passive displays, Halcro was showing its low-distortion MC20 amplifier ($4600) using its patented LYRUS tech-
Bardone’s Music Server
nology, and Rowland was premiering its diminutive Model
102 ($1490), a 100Wpc stereo amp milled from a single piece
of aluminum. It uses ICEpower technology and sports balanced inputs (adaptors are available for single-ended use).
Not to be outdone, one of the pioneers in producing
musical Class D amplifiers, John Ulrick of Spectron, was
showing his Musician III stereo power amplifier ($5495)
rated at 600Wpc into 8 ohms. It seemed to have a bit more
refinement in the highs and mids than some of the less expensive Class D amps I heard at the show.
Another good performer among Class D amps was
Channel Island’s new D200 Class D monoblocks ($2300).
The final trend is that several companies are offering
power amplifiers with price/performance capabilities unheard
of a few years ago, typically through off-shore manufacture.
For those of you who always
wanted a Threshold S/350e but
couldn’t afford the $3900 price
tag more than a decade ago, the
reissue is practically half the price
at $2000.
I walked into the Hyperion
room and spotted some 845-based
amps, thinking they were approximately $10k, but they were less
than half of that. The HT-845s
($4600) are rated at 25 watts of
pure Class A, have point-to-point
wiring, and use hand-wound transformers. They were mated to the
new HPS-986 loudspeakers; the
DCS Verdi Encore
44
CES2006
REPORT
ALAN TAFFEL’S
Best of Show
Olive Opus
combo had transient quickness, coherence, and surprisingly
controlled deep bass.
Antique Sound Lab introduced the bargain-priced
Explorer 805 DT amps ($2995), which produced a seductive
and musical sound driving the Reference 3A Veenas.
Continuing its welcome tradition of offering high-value
tube products, PrimaLuna introduced two new 70Wpc
monoblock amplifiers in the Upscale Audio suite: the EL34based ProLogue Six ($2295) and KT-88-based ProLogue Seven
($2695). These monoblocks feature PrimaLuna’s adaptive autobias and soft-start capabilities, as well as wideband, low-loss output transformers that are built to handle difficult loads. Both
amps sounded great, and I’d love to try them on my Quads.
A few noteworthy amps do not fit into any of these categories. The Muse Model 200 ($3275) starts life as a power
amp, but with the addition of optional modules can become an
integrated amplifier.
For single-ended fans, the new Wavelength Jupiter 50
($6000) is the first commercially available amplifier that is based
on the RCA 50 tube (RCA’s answer to the WE300B). If you can
get by with 5-watts/channel, you could be in heaven. ä
DIGITAL SOURCES AND
MULTICHANNEL ELECTRONICS
A L A N TA F F E L
t this year’s CES, everything old was new again.
Peggy Lee’s chestnut “Fever” wafted through the
Alexis Park and St. Tropez corridors. Stereo experienced a renaissance, as not a single audio system
I saw boasted more than two channels. The resolution of source material—universally CDs or
LPs—never exceeded the level available twenty years ago.
Conventional solid-state or tubed electronics drove, for the
most part, conventional cone or even horn speakers. And in one
of the show’s biggest announcements, Classic Records unveiled
its plan to release a slew of early Everest recordings—in mono.
This is the cutting edge of audio? Yes, it is, if sonics is your
yardstick. Though the ingredients were old-fashioned, the
sound cooked up at this year’s CES was impressively consistent
in its excellence. Determining the best sound of the show
entailed real deliberation.
Olive Opus ($3000). A fully networked
high-resolution media server, with wireless
connectivity to multiple listening zones, the Opus also plays
and burns good old CDs. But beyond features, the Opus is
significant as a harbinger of what such devices can and will
achieve sonically.
Coolest New Product
Goldmund Logos Active Speaker ($10,000). This satellite
speaker, a steal considering its built-in twin 200W amps
plus Goldmund’s excellent DAC, accepts either digital or
line-level analog signals. Small though the Logos’ aluminum
enclosure may be, it delivered towering dynamics and a
rhythmic insight sorely lacking in many of the show’s “statement” products.
Coolest Accessory
Stello HP100 headphone amp ($595). In a revelatory
demo, this amp goosed a pair of Sennheiser 600 headphones to unsuspected sonic heights—highly detailed,
open, and dynamic.
Peggy Lee’s “Fever.”
Greatest Value
Resolution Opus 21 CD player. Three grand for a CD player
seemed cheap at this show, but the Resolution’s performance belied its sane price. Not to be missed.
Best Sound at CES
The Kharma Mini-Exquisite/mbl/Kubala-Sosna Room. An
exceedingly difficult choice this year, but the finalists came
down to the Lamm room, with its impeccable setup of the
Wilson Maxx2’s, and the two Kharma suites. The system
that kept calling me back featured the new Mini-Exquisite
speakers, the entry level for diamond-tweetered Kharmas. I
preferred its purity and coherence over even the larger,
costlier Midi-Exquisites next door. No doubt the associated
equipment played a major part in this system’s effortless
ability to conjure the magic of real music.
A
46
Stello HP100 headphone amp
CES2006
REPORT
Still, a novice visitor might be excused for
wondering whether recent innovations such as
multichannel audio, high-resolution media,
Class D amplification, or post-Fifties music
ever existed. Next year, I predict, the availability of Blu-ray and HD DVD—with their
associated hi-res Dolby and DTS digital audio
formats—will prompt a metamorphosis of the
venerable audio architecture. In the meantime,
there were still some noteworthy trends on
display at CES 2006.
Cost is (Apparently) No Object
One thing truly new at this year’s show was
the shockingly stratospheric prices to which
functionally humble, technologically mature
components have climbed. Imagine an auto
show at which every car on display is some
variation of a Bentley, and you have the equivalent of this CES. Perhaps manufacturers were
convinced that a Nineties-like economic juggernaut will materialize to mint thousands of
new millionaires. Or maybe, given the current limbo between old and new sonic frontiers, they simply saw few options other than
maximizing quality (and thus cost). For whatever reason, manufacturers abandoned affordability in droves.
I lost count of the bonanza in new
$40,000+ speaker models—how many people
can really afford such things?—and a surprising number of CD playback systems emerged
in similar territory. These included the
$43,000 dCS stack consisting of the new
Verdi Encore transport ($17,995) plus
$25,000 worth of existing clocks and DACs; a
resurgent Wadia’s $38,000 rig that includes
its new 781 transport (est. $10,000); and
mbl’s exquisite 1622 transport (est.
$24,000), designed for use with its $21,450
1611 DAC. In the context of such extravagant introductions, the plethora of new
$5000 CD players—occupying a price point
once considered fairly lofty—resembled
downright bargains.
CD Strikes Back
Last year, even two-channel systems took
advantage of high-resolution formats such as
SACD. Not so this year, as CD and CD-playing equipment made a triumphant comeback. The announced players sported several
features that elevated them above Plain Jane
status. For instance, while universal players
were virtually extinct, nearly every new CD
player could also accommodate SACDs. This
puzzled me, since that format, along with
DVD-A, is essentially dead. However, several manufacturers explained that CD and
SACD are technologically “friendlier” to
each other, at the design and implementation
level, than are CD and any other format. All
three of the aforementioned flagship models
play SACD, but the trend was evident at
every price point, as exemplified by
Esoteric’s new X-01 Limited ($14,000) and
SZ-1 ($5600) players, as well as
Goldmund’s Eidos 18 ($5450).
While CD player prices climbed—five
grand qualifying as “entry-level” at this
show—many of them partially offset that
increase by obviating the need for a separate
linestage. To accomplish this, several players
featured digital inputs and/or digital volume controls, enabling them to serve as a
system’s control point. Typifying this trend,
which began last year with Meridian’s 808i ($14,950), was
Wadia’s 581i ($8450) and Burmester’s 052 (est. $8000).
Many players, including the dCS, Burmester, and Wadia units,
also included upsampling circuitry, once the exclusive
province of outboard DACs.
Music-Minded Media Servers
Media servers are no longer novel, but CES demonstrated that these
devices are beginning to take sound quality more seriously. In general, servers fell into two categories: those utilizing a PC platform,
and those aimed at mitigating the need for a PC. In the first camp
is Bardaudio, whose hardware, along with the user’s choice of PC
music software (iTunes, etc.) turns one’s computer into the front end
of a 2.4GHz wireless, whole-house music system.
Ofra and Eli Gershman displayed the impressive
Black Swan speaker; Sonicweld’s aluminum speaker
48
CES2006
REPORT
ROBERT E. GREENE’S
Best of Show
The Avega Wireless System and the Lyngdorf Audio “Room
Perfect” correction device and algorithm. The Avega seems to the
way of the future. Meanwhile, kudos to Lyngdorf and inventor J.A.
Pedersen for their efforts on the big frontier: room-correction algorithms that give natural, truthful sound.
Coolest New Product
Morch anisotropic arm (prototype). At long last, a pivoted arm that
plays the bass of records right (bigger moment of inertia horizontally than vertically, for deep bass and warp tracking both at once).
[Note: I was an informal, unpaid consultant on this project.]
pressed 44.1kHz/16-bit format, providing full CD-quality sound.
At the receiving end, users can choose either a Bardone receiver/DAC, which then connects to a traditional audio system’s analog input, or a Bardthree, which includes a 25-watt stereo amplifier for direct connection to speakers. Refreshingly, both options
are eminently affordable; a BardUSB/Bardone set lists for $599,
while a BardUSB/ Bardthree combo sells for just $1295.
Olive Media represented the music-server camp. The
Symphony ($899) and Musica ($1099) models look like traditional CD players—indeed, they can play CDs normally—but
are actually ultra-quiet, ultra-intuitive, 80- and 160-gigabyte
servers, respectively. Olive offers a simple wireless receiver, the
Sonata ($199), which employs the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard.
The forthcoming Melody receiver ($499, April availability)
will also include a built-in amplifier and small speakers.
Olive’s most noteworthy show introduction was the Opus
($3000), a 400-gigabyte server that raises the stakes on sound
quality. Built around Burr-Brown DACs, the Opus can download
music from the Internet in virtually any format. For example,
Opus can receive 96kHz/24-bit material from, say, MusicGiants,
then transmit that content losslessly to any system in the house.
Compared to a $40,000 standalone, non-networked CD player
with inherently lower resolution, the Opus and its ilk make more
sense all the time. ä
DSP AT CES
ROBERT E. GREENE
Morch prototype arm
Coolest Accessory
Isol-Pads. This small, inexpensive isolation device (set of four for
$25) does a lot of what the far more awkward and expensive
ones do.
A category, not a single recording—the miserably recorded, male, pseudo-blues vocal accompanied by sound without acoustic antecedents.
(Multiples of a middle-class monthly salary to hear this?)
Greatest Value
Tyler Acoustics PD 20. Imaging, natural voices, clarity, bass
extension, and big dynamics for $2800. Some horn artifacts, but
so what, at the price?
So much DSP!
Best (DSP) Sound at CES
Sonicweld, in a room exhibited with enough damping, very close to
the reality of the recordings. Honorable mention: the Lyngdorf system. And for bass: Wisdom Audio/Edge electronics (analog EQ’d).
At the PC sits the BardUSB, a thumb-sized transmitter of
content that resides on either the PC’s hard drive or on a CD
inserted into the computer. Significantly, music is sent in uncom-
50
his was the breakout year for the use of digital signal processing (DSP) in high-end speaker design.
There have been DSP-based speakers earlier, from
Philips, more than ten years ago, Meridian on an
ongoing basis for a long time, and the conspicuously successful NHT design of a year or so ago. But
this CES seemed the moment when DSP became a “go to”
thing for new designs aspiring to the proverbial state of the art.
Products from Sonicweld, Wasatch, and MSB represented allout attempts to compete at the highest level. Digital room correction also continued apace, with new developments from
Lyngdorf Audio (formerly TacT Europe), from TacT USA, and
DEQX. DSP room correction also continued to expand its presence in the lower-priced world, with developments from
Denon/Audyssey and Harman.
Perhaps the most striking of all, however, was the Avega
system. The Avega involves actual products—a DSP speaker
called the Oyster, for example—but it is preeminently a vision
of the digital future. It is based on wireless data transmission
from computer source to speakers (if you insist, though, you
can wire a CD player to it). This is no doubt a convenience, but
more importantly the system is based around the idea that once
music is made digital, it becomes natural to treat it as computer data. In its ultimate form, the Avega system will allow the
T
CES2006
REPORT
user not only to do equalization for room correction or just to
taste, it will also allow manufacturers and perhaps eventually consumers to change the crossover settings—frequencies
and slopes/alignment—of the speakers, or indeed of any
speaker which is using the DSP and amplification provided.
Wireless data transmission is fast enough with room to spare
to do uncompressed digital audio in real time (16-bit words
at 44.1kHz require 706kbps, while Wi-Fi is on the order of
several Megabits/sec, depending on the standard used). And,
of course, computers are plenty fast enough to do crossover
and room-correction calculations in real time. But somehow
no one had put it all together until Avega. The days of the
stand-alone audio systems may well be numbered. Only
speakers, the actual mechanism of making sound, will be
anything but a computer peripheral in this brave new world.
Stand by for the revolution!
In the world of conventional standalone speaker designs,
DSP speakers from Sonicweld and Wasatch were using the
DEQX digital box to good advantage. Both systems used
crossover slopes much steeper than usual, taking advantage of
digital filters with steep slopes but linear phase. Both speakers
have very flat frequency response and excellent phase behavior.
They also have a very wide radiation pattern, which implies
some considerable dependence of the sound on the room characteristics (above the bass, where DEQX room correction was
being used). As it happened, the Sonicweld was in a large, heavily curtained room. It sounded very smooth all the way up, and
indeed offered quite stunning performance. Neil Gader called
it “lovely,” and it seems an apt word. I had the sense of hearing
very exactly what was on the recordings. Listening to my own
playing (from REG Plays Dvorák, available on regonaudio.com)
was like looking in a mirror, sonically speaking, so exactly did
it sound like my own instrument. The Wasatch, in a smaller
and less damped room, was also superb in the bass and
midrange, with altogether remarkable reproduction of
Reference Recordings’ Rutter Requiem. But to my ears, the
speakers would have benefited in the top end from a “softer”
environment. In the treble, the room still counts, even when
the bass is DSP corrected!
The MSB S8 speaker, a DSP design using a custom digital
crossover, with an enclosure of an unusual spherical shape, was
sounding very natural on vocal material. All three, MSB,
Wasatch, Sonicweld, are remarkable—at a price. (All three systems were in the $40,000–$65,000 bracket.)
Lyngdorf Audio demonstrated a new room-correction system developed by Jan A. Pedersen called “Room Perfect,”
which is based not only on measurements at the listening position but also on overall room behavior. Demonstrated with corner woofers, it sounded really excellent in the bass and
midrange, in spite of the small room, though the target curve
was set a bit “hot” to my ears in the top end (this is useradjustable, though the initial choice of target curve is automated). This system may well be a major advance in room correction, where the real DSP action is to my mind. (Analog speakers already work quite well, but their interaction with the room
usually does not.)
Tact USA was silent when I visited due to speakers being
damaged in transit, but it had on visual display a digital, PCbased, “while it plays,” tone-control system—just point at the
screen and click to change the tonal balance—and an interesting system of “loudness controls,” with personalized FletcherMunson-type equi-loudness curves for unusual listening levels
(e.g., low, one hopes). Really good ideas here.
Interestingly, the best bass I heard at the show was from
Wisdom (with Edge amplification)—Wisdom adjusts bass to
the room by analog electronics, not DSP. Stunning bass sound,
with power and superb definition combined.
Analog design in more affordable price ranges was not neglected, though I did not do a systematic survey.
At entry-level prices, Tyler Acoustics new
PD20 gave excellent imaging (controlled dispersion really works), loudness without strain, and
something overall a lot like music in a pro monitor context (Eminence drivers)—not perfect (a
few horn artifacts), but at $2800 and drivethem-with-anything-at-all sensitivity, one
impressive system.
Two of my perennial favorites, Harbeth,
with a prototype floorstander with superbly natural midband, and Gradient, with an improved
woofer system offering the room independence
that only controlled radiation pattern can provide, were sounding fine, indeed. Even in an
increasingly DSP world, analog sound was alive
and well and living in Las Vegas in 2006. ä
Hannl record cleaning machine
52
CES2006
REPORT
HIGH-END LOUDSPEAKERS AND
ELECTRONICS—THIS AND THAT
WAY N E G A R C I A
y assignment for this year’s show was to cover
speakers and electronics between $10,000 and
$20,000, and my pal Jon Valin was to cover the
same items priced above $20,000. Problem
was, as Jonathan and I made the rounds together, it quickly became clear that most of the
rooms at the Alexis Park and St. Tropez fell into his half of the
draw, or, at the other extreme, well below both our designated
ranges. And because his report later in this section is so thorough and straddles both our categories, I’ve decided to focus on
what I found to be the best-sounding and most interesting
items regardless of cost.
Elite Audio Video Distribution displayed a system comprising the Kuzma Stabi XL Turntable and Airline arm
($27k), an ASR Basis Exclusive phonostage, the Plinius M8
linestage ($3695) and SA-Reference amps ($14,495), and the
$12,000 Nola Viper Reference speakers (all very fine items but
for some reason Nola speakers don’t seem to sound their best at
shows). What captured my fancy were three relatively
compact, remarkably quiet, and beautifully
made record-cleaning machines from
Germany’s Hannl—the Micro ($1399),
the Mera ($1999), and the top-of-the-line
Aragon ($2999). The Mera is on the way
for review, so I’ll report back.
I believe I was more impressed by the
sound in Von Schweikert Audio’s display than Jonathan was, but then I didn’t
have his experience with this same setup
at the Rocky Mountain show, which I
missed due to illness. Plus, as anyone
who has been to any audio show can
tell you, between horrid acoustics,
marginal AC, and a host of other
potential disasters, good sound at
these things is a rarity; great sound is
a combination of luck, know-how,
and something like a miracle, and we
must cut manufacturers a healthy bit
of slack if their sound isn’t up to
snuff. On Tom Brosseau’s What I
Mean To Say Is Goodbye CD, the
$60,000 Von Schweikert VR9-SEs
displayed a good balance, natural
sounding vocals, and very (overly?)
sweet violin sound. And with JV’s LP
M
54
of Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata, the Andante sounded lovely,
with lilting microdynamics during a pizzicato passage. The system was fleshed out by the Swiss-made Dartzeel NHB-18NS
preamplifier and NHB-108 Model One amps ($18,000), which
are red-hot these days, the EMM Labs CDSD and DAC6, and
the $15,000 Grand Prix Monaco, a carbon-fiber composite
direct-drive(!) turntable, and Tri-Planar VII arm ($3900).
Importer/distributor Music Hall was showing its wide
range of goodies, but the three that stood out for me were the
new Whest Audio Reference V phonostage with outboard
power supply (est. $7k–$8k), and Music Hall’s own rdr-1 table
radio and Takahashi One Box, a mini stereo CD player.
Whest’s James Henriot (one hell of a sweet guy) was a bit
sheepish when we met each other, as he’s been promising me a
review sample of the MC Reference for the past several months
(designs usually take longer than expected to complete). In any
case, it appears to be worth the wait and is not simply a hotrodded version of the company’s acclaimed PS.20 (a review of
that one is in the works) but a totally fresh design. As for the
Music Hall items, how refreshing it is to see a guy with Roy
Hall’s high-end standards think “outside the box.” The $189
rdr-1 (stands for “radio done right”) is a compact table radio
with remote control that, while on static display only, should
be one sweet-sounding item, given its pedigree. The $699
Takahashi One Box was also on static display, and in a rainbow
of available colors appears to be something of a high-enders
mini-stereo—a pair of 3" speakers sit just a
few inches apart in the unit’s lower section. Whatever else it does well, a wallto-wall soundstage is probably not
something one should expect.
Distributor Aydn displayed a very
fine sounding system comprising the
Artemis Labs SP-1 amplifier
($11,400) as well as the $2850 LA-1
linestage and $3350 PL-1 phonostage
I reviewed so favorably last year.
Speakers were the $5800 Triangle
Australe, which were open, sweet on
violins, and rich sounding with piano
(if not the last word in deep bass),
while a Galibier Stelvio ’table and
Schroeder Reference Arm combo
($17,550) provided the signals.
As they usually do, Coincident
Technology and Manley Labs
showed together, and fun was had by
all. This is easily the most down-toearth room at the show, in large part
due to EveAnna Manley’s party-girl
spirit, which bubbles over all who
visit. Manley’s outstanding Steelhead
Von Schweikert VR9-SE
CES2006
REPORT
Music Hall’s rdr-1 radio
phono preamp ($7300) and Snapper
monoblocks ($4250/pair)—fed by VPI’s
HRX turntable and a Helikon cartridge, as
well as an Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD
player—were driving Israel Bloom’s Coincident
Technology Total Victory II speakers ($13k). The sound was
lively, quite coherent, tonally warm, and musically inviting.
Alon Wolf and his MAGICO line are generating a great
deal of positive buzz (see last issue’s feature on this exciting
young company), and over at the St. Tropez Alon’s near-field
setup with an Esoteric digital player, Edge Signature One
linestage, and Convergent Audio Technology JC-1 monoblocks
sent chills down my spine. Whether it was the Barber Violin
Concerto [Stern on Sony CD] or Wilco’s “Jesus, Don’t Cry” the
sound was incredibly open, detailed, and lively, with beautiful
textures and lots of air. JV is slated to get the Mini, so expect
more on this little sweetheart in a future issue.
Also at the St. Tropez was Peter Clark of Redpoint—another of my recent favorites—who was showing his newest
turntable, the Model D ($16,000) with a Tri-Planar MK VII arm
and Transfiguration Temper cartridge ($4k each) with a comparatively modest system made up of the Naim NAP 112 preamp
($1350) and NAP 200 amp ($3495), and a new,
yet-to-be-priced-or-named Harbeth floorstanding
speaker. Though the sound was not as airy, detailed,
or dynamic as I’m used to hearing from the
Redpoint Model B and Tri-Planar at home, it still
exemplified what a great front-end can do by creating sounds so inherently beautiful, inviting, and
musically pleasurable from very good but modestly-priced speakers and electronics.
Back at the AP, Hovland was playing a particularly lovely sounding system using its $9500
HP-200 tube preamplifier (which I’m in the process of reviewing), the newly introduced $34,000 Stratos solid-state mono
amps, a modified Kenwood LO-7D turntable/Grado Statement
cartridge, a Mac Mini-based digital source feeding a prototype
USB DAC, and Avalon Eidolon Diamond speakers. The sound
here was consistently elegant, detailed, and natural, with
WAYNE GARCIA’S
Best of Show
Too many to choose just one: I would cite two newly revised horncone-hybrid speakers as raising the bar for their type—the new
Avantgarde Duo Omega and the Acapella Arts High Violin MkIII.
Both are from Germany, both hover just above $25k the pair, and
both are exceptionally low in horn coloration, unusually coherent,
and possess the immediacy and lifelike dynamics horns excel at.
I’d also have to mention the new ARC Ref 3 preamp, and the new
affordable analog goodies from Pro-Ject.
Coolest New Product
Kharma’s Mini-Exquisite speaker…cooler than cool.
Coolest Accessory
The Hannl record cleaners distributed by Elite Audio Video.
Since JV and I walked most of the show together—does that make us
Brokeback audiophiles?—I heard everything on his list plus Nine Inch
Nails’ With Teeth [Innerscope], David Bowie’s Earthling [Sony],
and my own pop and jazz discs: Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
[Nonesuch], Tom Brosseau’s What I Mean To Say Is Goodbye
[Loveless], Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning [Saddle
Creek], and James Carter’s Chasin’ the Gypsy [Atlantic].
Greatest Value
Music Hall rdr-1 radio.
Biggest Surprises at CES
Stratospheric prices, fewer exhibitors, so many (really good
sounding) horns, and so much more analog stuff than even
last year.
Best Sound at CES
Being a sucker for a great two-way, I’m going to give a close
runner’s up nod the to the MAGICO Mini, with my best sound
at the show reserved for the Kharma Mini Exquisite. And
exquisite is the right word for this speaker’s sound, look, and
build-quality.
Valin and Garcia relaxing with Roy Hall
56
CES2006
REPORT
Hovland’s own musical selections and also
with Wilco, Bright Eyes, and Jon Valin’s
LP of the Prokofiev sonata.
Canada’s Pierre Gabriel showed
his speakers and cables with a bevy of
Jadis electronics, and after several
years’ absence in the U.S. it’s nice to
see Jadis back.
No real listening was done, but we
did get a run down on the French tube
maker’s extensive line of gear, which
now includes many affordable components. We’re lining up review samples
for future issues.
AXISS Distribution had its
extensive line of goods on hand, from
Accuphase to Air Tight to Shelter to
Transrotor. Among the new offerings
were a lovely sounding new Koetsu
cartridge called the Bloodstone ($7k),
which during a brief listen sounded
very Koetsu-like—beautiful, tonally
rich, and highly seductive—and the first cartridge
from Air Tight.
As per usual, distributor GTT Audio was making some of
the best sounds at the show, and was I ever smitten by the new
Kharma Mini-Exquisite, which is an aptly named two-way
floorstanding design ($45k) of exceptional musicality.
Essentially a super-duper version of my reference Kharma 3.2
with a newly fashioned cabinet, crossover, ceramic mid/bass
driver, and diamond tweeter, it swept me away with the purity,
detail, and sheer beauty of its sound. I listened to it with a wide
range of music and could barely tear myself away. Luckily, I’ll
soon be getting a pair for review. And if I’m even luckier, I’ll
get the same system GTT’s Bill Parish and the Kubla-Sosna
cable boys were playing. Along with the K-S cables it comprised MBL’s 6010 D solid-state preamp ($19k), 1611-E
Reference DAC ($21.5k), and Reference CD transport ($21k),
as well as the diminutive and terrific sounding Kharma
MP150-SE monoblock amplifiers ($6800). ä
ULTRA-HIGH-END
LOUDSPEAKERS
AND ELECTRONICS
J O N AT H A N VA L I N
A
All things considered, this was the
most interesting CES I’ve been to—not
just because the sound was on average
better than usual, but because of three
trends that together add up to a seismic
shift in what got shown at the world’s
biggest high-end audio expo.
Trend number one was the reduced
number of exhibitors at the Alexis Park
and St. Tropez. Usually, virtually every
room on every level of the AP and ST
houses a display. This year there was more
of a “gap-toothed” distribution of exhibits,
Hovland’s new
with empty rooms (and empty floors)
Stratos mono
amps
galore. The reason for this is simple: With a
few exceptions, home-theater systems
weren’t being shown alongside traditional stereo systems. This
show was about old-fashioned two-channel audio, above all else.
Trend two rather proves the point. This year there was more
analog to be found at both the AP and ST than at any time
since the early 1980s. It seemed as if everyone was demo’ing
with vinyl (or, at least, with vinyl and CD), once again reinforcing the traditionalist high-end bent of this year’s CES.
Need more proof? Trend three: There was a lot more veryhigh-priced, very-hardcore-high-end two-channel gear at this
CES than in years past. It was almost as if the middle ground—
which had been largely taken up by multichannel and dualpurpose home-theater rigs—had disappeared. The goodies on
display here were for the very-well-heeled, analog-loving, twochannel audiophile.
Put all three trends together and what you get, I think, is
the end of an identity crisis that has been plaguing high-end
audio shows since the advent of home theater. It’s almost as if
everyone decided at once that dual-purpose theater systems just
weren’t what the monied hi-fi buyer wanted to see at a highend expo. It was time, instead, to return to two-channel roots,
and admit that the customers high-end dealers really want to court are wealthy audiophiles old enough (or young enough) to
appreciate the glories of analog and the
superb reproduction of music via
stereo. I will leave it to others to speculate on how this trend jibes with the
Jadis Orchestra integrated amp
58
CES2006
REPORT
Time to get off the soapbox and on with the show,
which was, as noted, mighty good sounding. My
assignment this year was to report on speakers and
electronics above $20k. Little did I know that there
would be so much of both. Below you will find a selection of what I heard; my apologies in advance to
exhibitors I didn’t get the chance to visit or I didn’t
have the space to comment on.
I have organized my report by room, listing the
system and then commenting on it. Remember: This
is a report on the sound of rooms at a trade show, not
a series of formal reviews of equipment.
A multi-armed Transrotor w/Koetsu Bloodline
Bush economy and the current conservative spirit of this country, but there is clearly some sort of fit.
Other sub-trends which fed this larger one were the ascendance of high-priced European high-end gear,
especially gear from Germany (two-and-a-half
of my Best Sounds at CES were German systems). Given the premium Americans must
pay for foreign goods, it is clear again that, at
least at this year’s CES, price was not the
deterrent it has been at previous shows. Also,
we are seeing more horn speakers than ever
before—or speakers that make use of horn
drivers. Once again, it takes a committed
audiophile to buy a horn-loaded speaker.
Handsome though they may be, horns take
up room and, generally, cost a lot.
There is an obvious downside to the
trends at this year’s CES, as well. Lasertargeting the very-well-heeled traditionalist audiophile is also a tacit concession
that the high-end market is aging and is
or will, alas and alack, soon be shrinking. But then the high-end market has
always been small and select—and in
this economy they are plenty of young
monied folks who may catch the highend fever, just as we did when we were
young. The reduced number of displays
may also be a sign of show-exhaustion.
With
CES,
CEDIA,
Rocky
Mountain, the two Primedia
shows, and the innumerable
Canadian, British, European, and
Asian expos, resources have to be shepherded in what
is, after all, a small specialty market.
60
Nola I
Nola Viper Reference ($12k)
Kuzma Stabi XL Turntable ($18k)
Kuzma Airline tonearm ($9k)
Plinius SA-Reference amps ($14.5k)
Plinius M8 linestage ($7k)
ASR Basis Exclusiv phonostage ($5690)
The relatively diminutive Nola Vipers were transparent, but
brighter than and not as detailed nor as incisively dynamic as
what I’m used to hearing on the Shostakovich Second Piano
Concerto LP and other discs. Perhaps the Plinius
electronics were holding them back because
the Vipers sounded great with deHavilland
tube gear at the Rocky Mountain show.
Von Schweikert I
Von Schweikert VR-9 SE ($60k)
Dartzeel amp and preamp ($18k apiece)
Monaco turntable and Tri-Planar arm
($18,900)
This system was one of the great hits of the
Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. At CES, it
was less impressive. Part of the reason had
to be the room, which was about a quarter
the size of the one in Denver. In any event
it is clear that these very large speakers
need space around and behind them to
show their best. In Vegas, they sounded a
little “hi-fi” and considerably more forward
and less expansive and alive than in Denver,
but still warm, sweet, and solid, though
they did have a bit of a “cupped hands” coloration in the mids and were a little closedin on top. Overall, the Von Ses were just
too syrupy for my taste, at least in the room
they were in at the AP.
Kharma’s Mini-Exquisite
CES2006
REPORT
Wisdom Audio/Edge
Wisdom Audio M-75s ribbons line-source with separate
cone subwoofers ($52k)
Edge G CD player ($4788)
Edge G 2 solid-state preamp ($4788)
Edge G 8 stereo amplifier ($6588)—subs
Edge NL12.1 stereo amplifier ($18.5k)—panels
The M-75s were a little reticent dynamically (which has
always been the case with Wisdom speakers driven by
Edge electronics), but had good openness, bloom, and
neutrality (all of which are also typical of the
Wisdom/Edge pairing). This year, I thought the integration of the outboard subwoofer and the ribbon panel was
considerably less than ideal. (OTOH, REG thought it
was the best bass at the show! Go figure.)
Kuzma Stabi XL turntable and Airline arm
Calix
Calix Venus Phoenix Grand horn-loaded loudspeaker ($13k)
Chord CPM integrated amp
Chord CD player
TAD
TAD Model 3 three-way floorstander with concentric
beryllium mid/tweet and 10" bass drivers ($40k)
Pass Labs XA600.5 for bass ($12k)
Pass Labs XA150 for concentric mid/tweet ($20k)
Keith Johnson custom DAC and TEAC Esoteric transport ($TBD)
This fancy TAD loudspeaker, with technology borrowed from
Andrew Jones’ top-of-the-line Model 1, had good focus, con-
A dynamic horn speaker system, the Calixes are, ultimately,
prettier to look at than to listen to because of driver integration
and localization problems.
Hiroyasu Kondo, Rest in Peace
t is with considerable sadness that we report the death of
Hiroyasu Kondo, founder of Audio Note Japan, who passed
away in his sleep on January 8, 2006, while attending CES in
Las Vegas. He is survived by his wife Kazuko, his son Yuji, and
his daughter Hisae.
The son of a Buddhist priest, Kondo San was a professor of
electronic engineering and molecular metallurgy before founding
Audio Note in Japan in 1976. Famous for his revolutionary use of
silver in audio equipment, Kondo almost single-handedly revived
the single-ended-triode amplifier; his 211-based SET, the Ongaku,
remains the exemplar of Japanese high-end audio.
TAS Associate Editor Jonathan Valin, who reviewed Audio
Note’s Neiro and Kegon amplifiers in Fi, says: “It’s both appropriate and ironic that Kondo San passed away at the Consumer
Electronics Show—appropriate because high-end audio was his
art and ironic because he was as far from making ‘consumer
electronics’ as a human being could get. He was an artisan like
Fabergé and Tiffany, and the beautiful things he made, like theirs,
were fit for czars and kings.”
Audio Note Japan reports that Kondo San had been in ill health
for some time. In order to ensure that his standards would be maintained, he appointed his close colleague and chief designer Masaki
Ashizawa as President of Audio Note Japan six months ago.
I
Andrew Jones describes the TAD Model 3
62
CES2006
REPORT
trol, and coherence and very good tight bass.
Though plenty lively, the Model 3 was not as
abrasive as TAD speakers have sounded at
other shows. (But then I wasn’t listening at the
rocket-launch levels I’ve heard TADs play at in
other shows.) I was very impressed by the Pass
electronics, which were neutral and detailed
and civilized without being polite, making
these sometimes too-aggressive speakers sound
less “shouty” than usual.
Acapella Arts
Acapella Arts High Violin MkIII three-way
horn-loaded/hybrid floorstander ($26k)
Einstein “The Tube” preamplifier ($13.5k)
Einstein “The Final Cut” monoblock tube
amplifiers ($25,250/pair)
To my ear, these gorgeous horn speakers (with
dynamic woofer) from Germany, driven by gorgeous-looking (and sounding) Einstein tube
electronics, sounded far more like electrostats
than horns: extremely delicate, beautiful, open,
transparent, and detailed. Though perhaps a
little “dark” in overall balance, they were one of
the better sounds of the show—very close to
one of the best. Coincidentally, they also represent a mini-trend. Although Acapella has been
making horns for better than thirty years (it
pioneered the spherical horn), the show saw
more and more manufacturers using the oldest
of loudspeaker technologies, the horn driver, as
a component in some of the newest and most sophisticated designs.
AAA Audio
AAA Audio XLH Ref 1812 three-way horn-loaded/dynamic
loudspeaker system ($50k)
XLH SL-11XS dual-mono preamp ($5k)
XLH M-2000 monoblock amplifier ($20k/pair)
Original Leonardo A9.3 CD player ($3k)
Lyra Titan cartridge
Though the presentation on several
familiar recordings was not quite as spacious as what I’m used to, and a little
closed in on top and dark overall, these
beautiful jigsaw-piece Austrian speakers
and superb Austrian tube electronics
were nevertheless gorgeously detailed
and gorgeously rich in tone color. One of
the better sounds of the show, they
illustrate yet another trend in hi-fi: the
ascendance of European (particularly
Austro-German) high end to a position of
equality with—and in some cases outright superiority to—American products.
Harbeth
Harbeth “Untitled” floorstanding
loudspeakers ($TBA)
Red Point Model D turntable ($16k)
Tri-Planar MkVII tonearm ($4k)
Transfiguration Temper cartridge ($4k)
Naim NAP 112 preamp ($1350)
Naim NAP 200 amp ($3495)
A little lacking in dynamics with imaging
that is slightly miniaturized and flatter
than life, these new, as yet unnamed multiway loudspeakers from Harbeth were
still strikingly lovely sounding—so
Lumen
voluptuous in tone color they reminded
White
me of mini-Sonus Faber Stradivarii. The
Silverflame
Harbeth room illustrated yet another
Precision
trend at CES—the triumphant return of
analog. No more than a year or two ago,
you would only find turntables in one out of twenty or thirty
rooms. This year the digital-only-room was the exception.
Analog was everywhere, which either means that retailers are
selling it far more briskly or that the folks who run show demos
have recovered their hearing. Either way, ain’t it grand!
These remarkable-looking speakers from China combine a huge
horn tweeter (working from 1.8kHz up) with high-quality treated-paper midrange and woofer drivers. The sound they produced
was very live, open, and transparent. I could hear a little localization of the horn (unlike the Acapella), and the bass from the
18" woofer (!) was considerably overblown. The midrange, however, was great. On the whole, a promising design.
Lumen White
Lumen White Silverflame Precision Monitors ($27,750/pair)
Ayon Spheris tube preamplifier ($24k)
Ayon Reference monoblock SET amplifiers ($30k/pair)
Blue Pearl Audio JEM turntable ($80k)
Graham Phantom tonearm ($4.4k)
64
Hansen’s newly crowned “The Prince”
CES2006
REPORT
Hansen Audio
Hansen “The Prince” loudspeaker ($27k)
VAC Reference preamp ($10k)
VAC Phi 300 power amp ($15k)
Redpoint MG turntable ($20k)
Tri-Planar tonearm ($4k) with Phasteck cartridge
DCS P-8i CD/SACD player ($14k)
Dynalab MD109 tuner (approx. $10k)
Lars Hansen introduced “The Prince” floorstanders,
slightly smaller versions of the excellent-sounding
“The Kings” he demo’d at RMAF.
Immedia
Sonics PassionS loudspeakers ($27k)
Alan Perkins Spiral Groove turntable with Immedia
arm ($20k)
Lyra Titan cartridge ($4k)
Lyra Connoisseur 4-2L linestage preamp ($25k)
Lyra Connoisseur 4-2P phonostage preamp ($25k)
German designer Joachim Gerhard’s PassionS—a
modular three-way D’Appolito floorstander that
looked a bit like a segmented orange slice—
sounded open but also a bit bright and stressedout on heavily modulated passages. The electronics, originally designed by Mares Design
of California, were from the Japanese cartridge-design firm Lyra.
Ridley Audio
Ridley Audio powered loudspeaker ($TBA)
Ridley Audio One full-function preamp
(ca. $15k)
Ridley Turntable with modified Well-Tempered
Arm ($TBA)
These self-powered ribbon/cone hybrid linesource loudspeakers were undoubtedly the
best sound I heard at the show from equipment
that wasn’t yet for sale. The whole system—
from speakers to amps to preamp to
turntable—was a prototype designed by
British engineer Dr. Ray Ridley. The selfpowered speakers were particularly fascinating. The amp sits atop the columnar speaker
and is designed to look like an integral element. What makes it so fascinating (and
perhaps part of what made the system so
good) was a little stroke of genius that, like
most great ideas, is so simple you wonder
why no one else thought of it. It dawned on
Dr. Ridley that all amplifiers—tube and
solid-state—sound better after their parts
have “warmed up.” So why not warm them up
immediately? To this end he literally heats,
via internal elements, the amp so that the
components will operate from startup at precisely the right temperatures to function optimally. I assume the heating element is sensitive
to ambient temperatures, so that the amount of
heating depends on the warmth of your room.
Fanfare International
Pearl Evolution four-way loudspeaker ($20k)
ASR Emitter 1 ($15.5k)
Stibbert Blue Note Mk II CD player ($4950)
The Sonic
PassionS
Up and
coming—
Ray Ridley
The Pearl/ASR/Stibbert combo was very
detailed with nice sparkle on the upper octave
of piano in the Rachmaninoff Third, but it was
also a little light in the bass and, I thought, slightly
too homogenized overall. I will have more to say on this
subject when we come to the ASR Emitter 2/Nola Pegasus
room later in the report.
Zanden Audio
Peak Consult Empress three-way loudspeaker ($25k)
Zanden 3000 5687-based tube preamp ($15k)
Zanden 9500 845-based monoblock amplifiers ($40k)
Zanden 5000 MkIV Signature DAC ($15.5k)
Zanden 2000P Premium transport ($28k)
The most analog-like digital I heard at CES. Spacious, lively,
extraordinarily airy, wonderfully detailed and neutral,
Zanden electronics from Japanese guru Yamada San (in combination with these very nice floorstanding three-ways from
Denmark, which sound like slightly-more-hooded Kharma
Reference Monitor 3.2s) are in a class of their own (the Weiss
Medea DAC excepted) when it comes to making Red Book
CD sound like LP. Like all digital the presentation was a little less three-dimensional in the midband than analog
(though the room may not have helped here or in the bass,
which was a little lightweight). One of the better sounds of
the show.
66
CES2006
REPORT
E.A.R.
Martin Miles III loudspeakers ($12.5k)
E.A.R. 913 preamp ($10k)
E.A.R. 810 amplifier ($5595)
E.A.R. Discmaster turntable ($13.5k)
Helius Omega tonearm Deluxe ($4k)
Tim de Paravacini’s latest amp and preamp were just plain
beautiful-sounding. Very detailed and defined, the E.A.R. gear
was at once the slightest bit dark and bright in balance and perhaps a little reticent on really hard transients; nonetheless, tone
colors were ravishing.
Acoustic Precision
Venture CR One loudspeaker ($15k)
Lamm ML 2.1 SET monoblock amplifiers ($30k)
Lamm L2 Reference preamp ($15k)
Metronome Kalista Reference CD transport/C2A
Signature DAC ($37k)
Very spacious and detailed (heck, Acoustic Precision was using
the world’s best low-powered amp with their French speakers
and French CD player). Like the E.A.R. gear, this wasn’t the
bloomiest sound I heard from CD (for which see Zanden above
or Weiss below), but it was still mighty damn fine.
Zanden 9500 amplifier
Talon/Joule Electra
Talon Firehawk Diamond loudspeakers ($32k)
Joule Electra Rite of Passage OTL monoblock amplifiers ($28k)
Joule Electra LA150 preamplifier ($5250)
Joule Electra OPS2 phonostage ($4100)
tronics. While the sound this year was as gorgeous as ever,
and spacious and nicely detailed to boot, there was a definite
peak in the midbass (and some glare in the upper mids, too)
that made for a disappointing presentation. Too bad, because
this gear is first-rate.
In the past I’ve very much liked the Talons, which (like
Kharma speakers) use high-quality diamond tweeters and
Accuton ceramic drivers in a three-way configuration. I am
also a fan of the always-beautiful-sounding Joule Electra elec-
Nola II
Nola Pegasus loudspeakers ($50k)
ASR Emitter II amplifier ($30k)
Lector CD player ($8500)
Nola’s new Pegasi were notable for their openness, neutrality,
and tonal accuracy in the mids. That said, they, like every
other large Nola I’ve heard at shows, have a bass-driver integration problem that simply swamps the speakers’ otherwiseexcellent sonics. I need to say something here about the ASR
Emitter amplifier that was driving the Pegasus. I heard it (or
versions of it) in several rooms, including several rooms that I
liked. It is a very low-noise, very detailed device, with worldclass reproduction of low-level dynamic and harmonic information. It is not, however, in any of the rooms in which I
heard it on any of the speakers I heard it with, a world-beater when it comes to large-scale dynamics and the reproduction
of bass. It is, in fact, like many battery-powered products (it
has a battery-powered input stage), rather polite in both these
regards. I realize that in saying this I am contradicting my
mentor, HP, whose opinions about audio I value most highly.
But I think I know why HP doesn’t hear the ASR as I do: In
his system (and in others), the ASR Emitter II may be comDesigner Tim de Paravacini
68
CES2006
REPORT
Eben Loudspeakers/Radho
Eben XCentric planar/cone two-way, stand-mounted loudspeaker ($12k)
Chapter Précis integrated amp ($6800)
Electroaccompaniet CD player ($5k)
These cute Danish two-ways from designer Michael Boerresen
sounded lively and lovely and freed-up in the mids, a little soft
in the treble, and a little muffled in the bass. The integration
between planar tweeter and cone mid/bass, though not perfect,
was acceptably good. Designed to be used as a stand-alone mini
or the center channel of a surround system.
E.A.R. Discmaster and Helius Omega arm
pensating for an excess of Nola bass, its slight politeness
going unnoticed or actually playing to the strengths of the
overall presentation.
Burmester Audiosysteme
Burmester B100 loudspeaker ($, mucho)
Burmester 808 MkV preamp ($, see above)
Burmester 909 monoblock power amp ($, see below)
Burmester 969 CD transport ($, go to top)
Burmester 970 SRC DAC ($, see above)
Jim Wang of Harmonic Technology
This very costly, entirely Burmester-designed-and-manufactured system was, along with the MBL room, the best all-digital display at CES. Though I’ve not been a fan of previous
Burmester loudspeakers, the B100s sounded terrific this
year—exceptionally open, extraordinarily detailed, and neutral
without the customary Burmester chill or bite. Soundstaging
was superb. Though Burmester digital does not sound analog,
like Zanden’s and Weiss’ great CD players do, neither does it
sound dark or lifeless like virtually every other digital device
on earth. It is its own, quite realistic thing. One of the better
sounds of the show.
Coincident Technology/Manley
Coincident Technology Total Victory II ($13k)
Manley Steelhead phono preamp ($7300)
Manley Snapper EL34-based monoblock amplifiers ($4250/pair)
VPI HRX turntable with Helikon
cartridge ($10k)
Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD player ($14.8k)
The Total Victory IIs, powered by Manley, were extremely coherentsounding at very loud levels, though lacking the deepest bass.
70
Party Girl EveAnna Manley
CES2006
REPORT
Sound Lab
Sound Lab M1-PX full-range electrostatic
loudspeaker ($22,770)
Parasound amp, preamp, and CD player
($, affordable)
Simply gorgeous-sounding, this latest, updated
version of the Sound Lab M-1 was the best fullrange ’stat at CES, with incomparably beautiful
tone color and superb inner detail. Even the bass,
which has been a touch overblown in past M-1s, sounded
“right,” though the M-1s are not the kinds of speakers that
stage outside the “box.” You need space for these babies and
height, too. As in past demos, the affordable Parasound electronics the M-1s were paired with drove these ’stats extremely
well, proving that you don’t have to spend a fortune on amps,
preamps, and CD players to get a world-class system. One of
the better sounds of the show.
Artemis Labs
Triangle Australe loudspeaker ($5800)
Artemis Lab LA-1 linestage preamp ($2850)
Artemis Lab PL-1 phonostage preamp ($3550)
Artemis Labs SP-1 amplifier ($11,400)
Galibier Design Stelvio turntable with Schroeder Reference
arm ($17,550)
The Triangle loudspeakers were neutral, open, and transparent,
with very nice bass down to 50Hz but a slight (probably roominduced) discontinuity in the upper bass. The Galibier
turntable, which sounded terrific at the Rocky Mountain show,
was again impressive, as were the
Artemis electronics.
MAGICO
MAGICO Mini ($22k)
Convergent Audio Technology JC-1
monoblock amplifiers ($20k)
Edge Signature One battery-powered
linestage preamp ($15k)
We come now to the first of my Best
Sound at CES award-winners. These
exquisitely made, stand-mounted twoways from ultra-perfectionist designer
Alon Wolf have everything I most prize
about loudspeakers: liveliness, neutrality,
openness, bloom, presence, natural size
and scale, and seamless, single-driver
coherence. On top of their Kharma-grade
disappearing act and soundstaging, the
Minis have terrific bass for a two-way (down to
about 50Hz, I’d reckon) and extraordinarily natural tone color (the most realistic vocals I heard
at the show on Wayne Garcia’s Wilco CD). I have
to say a word or two about the electronics, as
well. Alon happened to be using “my” Edge pre-
72
Chapter Précis
integrated amp
amp (the review sample I shipped to CES), which, as I’ve
noted, is a wonder when it comes to reproducing tone colors
and the natural size and bloom of instruments and voices, but
isn’t (like all battery-powered stuff) the last word in dynamics
or bass. Happily, he was also using Ken Stevens’ JC-1
monoblocks, which are close to the last words in each.
Simultaneously among the most dynamic and most delicate of
pentode tube amplifiers, the JC-1s were able, in combination
with the preamp and speakers, to reproduce the physical scale
and “action” of the real thing. A truly wonderful stereo system.
Audio Research Corporation
Wilson Audio Specialties Sophia Series 2 ($12k)
ARC Reference 3 tube linestage preamp ($10k)
ARC Reference 210 monoblock tube amplifiers ($20k/pair)
ARC Reference PH-7 phonostage
preamp ($5995)
VPI Super Scoutmaster turntable/JMW arm
The three words I wrote down, after
hearing a trio of my favorite LPs played
back on the ARC/Wilson system, were
“gorgeous-ity,” “bloom,” and “depth,”
all of which this system had in spades.
Indeed, the Audio Research/Wilson gear
was the only combo that reproduced the
piano in my Prokofiev LP at the proper
depth and distance from the violin.
Were it not for the fact that I am not
wild about the Sophias’ tonal palette,
the ARC system would’ve been a shoein for one of my Best Sound at CES
awards. But the speakers were just a little too dark and opaque for my taste.
Even at that, they couldn’t conceal the
glory of the electronics. So, for its quality
alone, the ARC Ref 3/210/PH-7 phono combo
earns one of my Best Electronics at CES awards.
(BTW, that Super Scoutmaster is a helluva turntable!)
MAGICO Mini
CES2006
REPORT
Ascendo
Ascendo Systems M/S three-way ribbon/cone hybrid
loudspeaker ($45k)
Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Ultimate preamplifier ($9k)
Convergent Audio Technology JL-3 Signature monoblock
amplifiers ($36k)
Reimyo CD player ($13k)
Though these ingeniously time-aligned ribbon/cone
hybrids from Germany didn’t image much outside their
boxes, spreading sounds between the speakers but not
far beyond them, they still evinced gorgeous tone color
with simply marvelous reproduction of strings (both
the string itself and the body of the instrument) on the
Barber Violin Concerto, tremendous dynamic power,
and great low-level detail. Part of their excellence, I’m convinced, was due to the driving electronics from Ken
Stevens, who, for his showing here and in the MAGICO
room, earns my second Best Electronics at CES award.
Despite the slightly curtailed soundstage, the Ascendos
were certainly one of the better sounds of the show, narrowly missing a Best Sound award. (P.S. The Reimyo CD
player was also fabulous.)
Avalon/Hovland
Avalon Acoustics Eidolon Diamond loudspeakers ($33k)
Hovland HP-200 full-function tube preamplifier ($9500)
Hovland Stratos solid-state monoblock amplifiers ($34k)
Hovland-modified
Kenwood LO-7D
turntable with Grado
Statement cartridge
I haven’t been a fan of
Avalon Eidolon Diamonds, but they certainly showed well this
year driven by Hovland
electronics. Light in
balance, they were airy,
nimble, articulate, and
fast-sounding. On the
Prokofiev sonata LP,
they came very close to
the lifelike sound I hear
in my own system at
home. Cooler than the
Ascendos and not as
voluptuous in tone
color,
they
are
realistic in their own
right, with wonderful integration of their drivers. Certainly,
one of the better sounds at CES
Eben XCentric
74
Convergent
Audio
Technology JC-1
and, like the Sound Labs, Lumen Whites, and Ascendos, razorclose to one of the very best.
Signals-SuperFi
Peak Consult Zoltan loudspeaker ($37k)
Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn turntable/tonearm/isolation-rack
system ($90k)
Wavac HE-833 v1.3 SET amplifiers
Boulder 2008 phonostage preamp
Boulder 2010 linestage preamp
This 90 grand turntable/tonearm didn’t sound sixty grand better
than a Walker Proscenium Gold, IMO.
Jeff Rowland Design Group
MAGICO Minis ($22k)
Rowland 302 solid-state stereo amplifier ($14.8k)
Rowland Synergy full-function solid-state preamplifier ($6200)
SME Model 20 turntable with SME 4 arm and some farchachdat
strain-gauge cartridge
Jeff Rowland was having some trouble with his strain-gauge cartridge, which may have contributed to the slightly smoothedout, less lively, more homogeneous sound of the MAGICO Minis
in this room. For instance, while the violin and piano of the
Prokofiev sonata LP had good meat on their bones, they didn’t
have the life they should have had—and did have—in other
exhibits. Nor did the speakers seem to have the same reach and
coherence in the bass that they had in Alon Wolf’s room.
DALI Loudspeakers
DALI Megalines ($40k)
McIntosh electronics ($God only knows)
This room was a true disappointment, since the ribbon/cone
hybrid Megalines are among my favorite linesource loudspeakers.
With McIntosh driving them, they sounded wiry, flat, and boomy
on the Barber Violin Concerto—a hard feat to accomplish with a
CES2006
REPORT
Avantgarde Acoustic
Avantgarde Duo Omega two-way spherical-horn loudspeakers with
dynamic subwoofer ($27k)
Avantgarde One.A solid-state monoblock amps ($40k)
Avantgarde One.P solid-state preamp ($30k)
Weiss Medea DAC ($18k)
In the past, the only Avantgarde spherical-horn/dynamic-sub
loudspeakers I’ve truly liked have been the three-way Trios. This
year, however, I was absolutely floored by the two-way Duo
JONATHAN VALIN’S
Best of Show
The ARC PH-7 Phono and Reference CD-7, which (along with the
Reference 3 preamp and Reference 210/610T amps) completes
ARC’s fabulous new suite of Reference electronics, and the
Avantgarde One.A amp and One.P preamp, which worked wonders
with Avantgarde’s Duo Omega horn loudspeakers.
Audio
Research
Reference 610T
Coolest New Product
disc this gorgeous, but DALI, Mc, and AP sonics managed it.
Ayre Acoustics Inc.
JBL K2 S9800se loudspeakers ($30k)
Ayre P-5xe phono preamp ($2350)
Ayre K-1xe linestage preamp ($7k)
Ayre MX-R monoblock power amps ($TBA)
Ayre C-5xe universal disc-player ($TBA)
SME Model 20 turntable with SME Model IV.Vi tonearm and SME
Celebration cartridge ($15k)
Seeing JBL loudspeakers at the Alexis Park certainly took me
by surprise. But these numbers are rarities, usually available
only in Japan—three-way floorstanders with horn-loaded
supertweeters and horn-loaded mid/tweeters and 15" ported
woofers. The sound was surprisingly smooth and well integrated, but, alas, not very alive.
Though I was greatly impressed with Lumen White Precision loudspeakers and the Ayon electronics, the Ascendo ribbon/cone
hybrid loudspeakers, and the Sound Lab M1-PX electrostats, the
Mini-Exquisite two-way loudspeakers from Kharma would get the
nod from me.
Coolest Accessory
The good old 33rpm long-playing vinyl record. New, used, or reissued it just comes closer to the sound of the real deal.
The Andante of Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata [SalernoSonnenberg/Rivers, Musicmasters LP], the Andante of
Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto [Ogdon/Foster, EMI LP],
the Allegro of Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello [Hajdu/Déri,
Hungaraton LP], “All My Trials” from PP&M’s In the Wind [Warner
LP], “All the Love in the World” from Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth
[Halo LP]—all discs that I brought to the show.
Greatest Value
The best value system I heard (and remember because my
assignment was the ultra-high end, I didn’t hear a lot of lowerpriced gear) comprised the Tonian Acoustics TL-D1 ribbon/cone
hybrid two-way floorstanding loudspeakers ($1500) driven by
Stellavox (Goldmund/JOB) monoblock amplifiers ($3000) and a
Marantz PM17 player ($1700). The sound was simply swell for
about $6k.
As noted, the amount of very pricey two-channel-only gear and the
number of rooms equipped with analog playback equipment were
the biggest surprises.
Best Sound at CES
Perhaps it is a testament to the general quality of the show, but
there wasn’t one system that stood head-and-shoulders above all
other (as for instance, the MBL 101 Es did last year). My four best
sounds—the MAGICO Minis driven by Edge/CAT electronics, the
Avantgarde Duo Omegas driven by Avantgarde electronics, the
Kharma Mini-Exquisites driven by MBL/Kharma gear, and the MBL
116 Elegances driven by MBL components—were all stand-outs.
Chord CPA 4000 preamplifier
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CES2006
REPORT
Omegas,
driven
by
Avantgarde’s superb electronics and fed by “my”
Weiss Medea DAC (the
review sample I shipped
to the show). Either the
new Avant-garde electronics are eliminating
previous coherence and
coloration issues or the
speakers themselves have
been greatly improved or
both, because past problems with woofer/horn
integration didn’t crop up,
nor did driver-localization
troubles (wherein sounds
seem to be pinned to individual horns), nor did
“cupped-hand” horn colorations. The presentation
was, in fact, superb: lively
as hell, transparent as
glass, detailed as all
get-out, and as
neutral as you can
find in a horn-loaded
JBL K2
speaker (short of MAGICO’s
monsters).
Avantgarde’s
owner Holger Fromme and
his ace-designer Matthias Ruff have clearly outdone
themselves, reaching a new plateau of horn-loudspeaker excellence, for which they earn my second
Best Sound at CES award and, also, one of my Best
Electronics at CES awards for the tremendous improvements their phenomenal preamp and amp have made to
the sound of their speakers. (The preamp is battery-pow-
ered, BTW, but with speakers as inherently dynamic as the Duo
Omegas any slight politeness—coupled with the extremely low
noise floor of the battery-powered One.P—only worked in this
high-sensitivity system’s favor.)
Von Schweikert II
Von Schweikert VR-7 SE loudspeakers ($36k)
VAC Renaissance MkII full-function tube preamplifier ($9k)
VAC Renaissance Signature 140 triode-tube monoblock
amplifiers ($14k)
Oracle Delphi Mk V turntable with SME 345 tonearm ($10k)
This Von S/VAC system had lovely presence on the Prokofiev
sonata LP, with very good attack and adequate decay on the
lower octaves of the piano. Though a little thick in the midbass and a little down on top, it had nice midband transparency, too. Like the E.A.R system, this was among the
most gorgeous of sounds at the AP; it was, nonetheless, not
among the most realistic, being a bit prettier than life and
not as wide-range.
Reimyo CD player; Avantgarde’s Duo Omega
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Genesis Advanced
Technologies
Genesis G3 ribbon/cone
hybrid linesource loudspeaker ($30k)
It was a pleasure to
see
Arnie
Nudell’s work
back at the
show—with
the old familiar circular ribbon
tweeters,
newly designed
midbass couplers,
and sidemounted
servo-woofers.
Bass, as you would
expect from Genesis, was very deep
and powerful
and, as you
not
might
expect, fairly well
integrated. Depth
was good; width
somewhat constricted. Overall
balance
was
problematical,
with a bit too
much tweet
and woof for
my taste.
CES2006
REPORT
GTT Audio
Kharma Mini-Exquisite two-way floorstanding loudspeaker ($45k)
MBL 6010 D solid-state stereo preamplifier
($19k)
MBL 1611-E Reference DAC ($21.5k)
MBL 1621 Reference CD transport ($21k)
Kharma MP150-SE monoblock amplifiers
($6800)
We come now to my third Best Sound at
CES award winner and it happens to be
another two-way. (Curious, ain’t it?) Though
its tonal balance is nothing like that of the
MAGICO Mini, it shares with that remarkable stand-mounter those virtues that I most
prize in speakers, which, once again, are:
liveliness, neutrality, openness, bloom, presence, natural size and scale, and seamless,
single-driver coherence. The Mini-Exquisites
are improved-upon versions of the Kharma
Reference Monitor 3.2s that were my referMBL’s 116 Elegance
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ence speakers for two years and are currently
Wayne Garcia’s reference speakers. Since I
know the sound of the 3.2s almost by heart,
I can assure you that these are, in fact,
improved. Equipped with diamond tweeters,
an even better ceramic mid/bass driver, and
an Exquisite-level cabinet, they were stunning to hear. A more detailed loudspeaker
will be hard to find and so, in this case, will
be a more beautiful-sounding one. Driven by
what I consider to be the world’s best solidstate preamp, the MBL 6010 D (for which,
see below), and Kharma’s own superb Class
D monoblocks, this was a sound I could live
with and Wayne Garcia (lucky man) will, as
he is slated to review the Mini-Exquisites.
Brace yourselves for a rave.
MBL of America
MBL 116 Elegance 4-way loudspeakers ($20k)
MBL 5011 solid-state preamp ($8.4k)
MBL 9007 solid-state stereo amplifier ($13.3k)
MBL 1521 A ($8.9k)/1511 E DAC ($9.1k)
CES2006
As I hear them every day and know their incredible virtues,
I didn’t audition my own reference speakers—the 101 Es—
which MBL had set up in an adjoining room. (I’m told that
they weren’t quite as mind-boggling this year as they have
been for the last two in a row, but I’m sure they were still
plenty boggling.) Instead, I listened long and hard to MBL’s
second line of gear and all I can say, again, is “Wow!” Even
upon coming from room after room of very fine gear generating very fine sonics, as soon as I heard the 116s start to play
I felt as if I’d stepped from a hi-fi store into a concert hall. To
my ears, even at this slightly reduced quality level, MBL is
still high among the fullest-range, most alive-sounding
music-reproducing equipment that money can buy. The
116s’ bass was through the floor, its midrange was just plain
realistic, and its treble was, as all Radialstrahler treble is,
nonpareil. So, my final Best Sound at CES award goes to the
MBL 116 room and my final Best Electronics at CES award
also goes to MBL, not only for the gear I heard playing in its
own display but for the phenomenal 6010 D that I heard in
Bill Parish’s GTT Audio room.
&
Photographs by Leonard Norwitz (www.lensphoto.com), with supplementary shots in their sections by RH, JH, CM, DS, and AT.
REPORT
T
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Basic Repertoire
Southern African and West African Pop
Derk Richardson
The third in an occasional series that highlights the “basic
repertoire” of a particular music by identifying the recorded
essentials.
hile thousands, if not millions, of
pop music fans in the United
States gained their initial exposure to African pop music in
1986 through the vehicle of Paul
Simon’s Grammy-winning Graceland album, the
taste provided by the globetrotting singer-songwriter’s groundbreaking disc and subsequent tour
was not only diluted in Simon’s shimmering and ethnically eclectic folk-pop, but
was also as narrow as it was buoyant and
emotionally uplifting. The primary African
influence on Graceland was South African,
represented most prominently by the male
vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black
Mambazo. (Senegalese superstar Youssou
N’Dour was overdubbed onto “Diamonds on the Soles of Her
Shoes,” but it would take a collaborative 1987 tour with that
even more ambitious pop promoter of world music, Peter
Gabriel, to break N’Dour onto the international scene.)
If listeners had strictly followed Simon’s lead, they might
have rediscovered the resurgent Miriam Makeba and Hugh
Masekela, who both joined the Graceland tour, and might have
made further investigations into South African pop music rooted in the Zulu a cappella singing (isicathamiya) of Ladysmith
Black Mambazo—plus such styles as marabi and kwela, the precursors that led to mbaqanga and township jive. That, of course,
would have yielded plenty to enjoy, including music by
Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, the Boyoyo Boys, and
others. But just as Graceland was neither the first nor last
attempt to fuse African and Western musical styles, so even a
deep dip into South African popular music hardly penetrates
the surface of what the African continent has to offer.
African pop music was being disseminated to the West well
before Simon scored a cassette copy of Gumboots: Accordion Jive
Hits, Volume II from a friend. Musicologist John Storm Roberts
had been studying and gathering the Afro-pop sounds that originated in the 1950s, and founded his seminal Original Music
W
record label in the 1970s; Fela Anikulapo Kuti made his first
trip from Lagos, Nigeria, to Los Angeles in 1971, hipping the
hipsters to his funky and political Afrobeat sounds; and by
1982, the potentate of Nigerian juju music, King Sunny Adé,
had been signed to Chris Blackwell’s Mango label
and was poised to break big—by virtue of albums
and tours—in the U.S.
In the 20 years since the release of Graceland, the
many genres and subgenre variations of African pop
have become ever more familiar to the growing
legions of “world music” fans in the West. When you
consider that even in a somewhat more politically
and socially cohesive country like the United States you have
great disparities in popular music styles—from Memphis soul
to Seattle grunge, Delta blues to Southern California surf, to
name but a few—the task of building a representative repertoire of African pop is daunting. Even confining a survey of
essential recordings to southern and western Africa (for the
time being sidestepping the fertile cultures of the northern,
eastern, and central regions) yields a plethora of bright, bubbling, poignant, and politicized regional genres, styles, and
artists as crucial cornerstones for any African pop collection.
SOUTHERN AFRICA
Largely because of the long and ultimately victorious struggle
against apartheid, South Africa has been in the cultural spotlight longer and more consistently than most other African
nations. Its music industry is nearly 100 years old, with commercial recording dawning in 1912, and Eric Gallo founding
the country’s first professional studio in the 1930s. By then,
African-American musicians were already making the transatlantic voyage to entertain in South African cities, and gospel
and jazz influences were merging with the indigenous traditions of the Zulu, Sothos, and Xhosa peoples—a tendency that
would continue with the assimilation of rock, soul, disco, reggae, and hip-hop as the century progressed.
South African jazz artists—including trumpeter Masekela,
singer Makeba, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, and saxophonist
Dudu Pukwana—were among the first to travel (and exile themselves) to the U.S. and Europe in the early 1960s. Makeba—a.k.a.
“Mama Africa,” whose life journey included playing for President
Kennedy, testifying against apartheid at the U.N., collaborating
85
with Harry Belafonte, and marrying and living in Guinea with
black-power leader Stokely Carmichael—reconciled with her
folk heritage on the enthralling 1988 comeback album Sangoma
[Warner Bros.]. Although the production seems to
strive more for the gloss of mainstream ’80s pop, and
Makeba’s seasoned and sometimes raspy vocals are
overdubbed into choral tapestries that don’t always
ring true, the singing, punctuated by sharp, surprising, and sonically crisp tongue clicks, is nothing less
than inspirational.
The vocal arrangements on Sangoma are indebted to mbube, a choral style rooted in the male vocal groups that
competed with one another in Zulu mining communities. The
four-part harmonies crossed over into the pop realm on
Soloman Linda’s 1939 hit song that the U.S. came to know as
“Wimoweh,” as recorded by the Weavers in 1950, and “The
Lion Sleep Tonight,” the Tokens’ hit of 1961. As the tradition
grew more refined, it came to be known as isicathamiya (meaning “to step lightly on one’s toes”). Under the leadership of
Joseph Shabalala, it was Ladysmith Black Mambazo that
became—and still remains—the most renowned promulgator
of the lush ensemble style. Though the group has released more
than 40 albums—plus a string of high-profile collaborations,
86
with Bill Withers, the English Chamber Orchestra, Emmylou
Harris, Taj Mahal, and others—1999’s superbly recorded Live
at the Royal Albert Hall [Shanachie] stands out for its delightfully spirited and sonically generous representation
of the simultaneously rugged and velvety textures of
the men’s layered voices.
On the gruffer end of the vocal spectrum, Simon
“Mahlathini” Nkabinde earned his moniker—“the
Lion of Soweto”—by virtue of his deep “groaning”
style and forbidding stage presence. Recruited in
1965 by producer Rupert Bopape to front the powerful Makhona Tsohle band, with the Mahotella Queens added
for entertaining dance moves and harmony vocals, the former
church choir and township band singer rode the new, harddriving mbaqanga sound to stardom. Mahlathini and the
Mahotella Queens dubbed their dance-augmented style
mqashiyo (“to bounce”), and Mahlathini’s contributions to
1986’s indispensable landmark anthology The Indestructible Beat
of Soweto [Shanachie/Earthworks] burned their way into western
listeners’ consciousness. As the Graceland juggernaut got
rolling, and older township styles gained new credibility with
younger audiences, Mahlathini, the Mahotella Queens, and a
reunited Makhona Tsohle band (featuring phenomenal guitarist
Marks Mankwane and rock-solid bassist Joseph Makwela) hit
the international touring circuit and in 1989, ten years before
“the Lion” died, recorded Paris: Soweto [Polydor], an album that
benefits more than it suffers from its high-sheen audio, which
enhances the dance drive while polishing the edges.
South Africa gained independence from England in 1934,
but white minority rule was not overthrown until 1994.
Zimbabwe, South Africa’s neighbor to the north, declared independence from English colonial rule in 1965, and another 15
years of struggle by the Shona and Ndebele was necessary to dislodge the minority leadership. The liberation movement gave
rise to cultural nationalism that sought to recover long-suppressed tribal traditions. In music, the players most
audible to western ears have been Thomas Mapfumo
and Oliver Mtukudzi. Before forming his band
Blacks Unlimited, Mapfumo absorbed a tremendous
array of musical influences—the Shona mbira (metal
thumb piano) music of his rural upbringing, South
African jazz, Congolese rumba, and English and
American rock and soul. With Blacks Unlimited,
Mapfumo transposed mbira lines to electric guitars and sang
rebellious songs with such titles as “Mothers, Send Your
Children to War.” He called his sound chimurenga, after the
Shona word for struggle. His singles became virtual anthems
during the civil war and have been reissued on several anthologies, including 1984’s rousing Chimurenga Singles [Shanachie].
The recording quality is inconsistent, but message and danceability ring loud and clear. A restless and continually outspoken
spirit, Mapfumo eventually reintroduced mbiras into his band,
continued to denounce corrupt political leaders after independence, and finally exiled himself to the northwestern United
States, broadening his collaborations to include avant-garde
trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser.
Where Mapfumo’s music immediately interested Western
world-beat fans who responded to the potent mix of political
content and updated traditional elements,
Mtukudzi has enjoyed a broader cross-cultural
appeal since the worldwide release of his 1999
album, Tuku Music. Thematically, he takes a lowerkey approach than Mapfumo when addressing the
travails of everyday life in Zimbabwe. Musically, he
is more catholic in his resources, which include
South African pop, gospel vocal harmonies, and
R&B. Above all, Mtukudzi (“Tuku,” for short) is a soul man, a
singer-songwriter/guitarist with an appealingly rough voice
that draws frequent comparisons to Otis Redding and Toots
87
Hibbert. His ethos of interconnectedness manifests most radiantly on 2002’s Vhunze Moto [Putumayo], notable for its successful keyboard-buoyed crossover moves, crisp and
richly textured sound, and ready-for-radio sonics
that convey tightness but not compression.
The cross-fertilization of styles between
Zimbabwe and South Africa is a common phenomenon across the continent, where national boundaries
are rarely more than crude demarcations that don’t
necessarily correspond to the cultural geography of
tribal history and tradition. The island nation of Madagascar
does have natural borders, and isolated as it is off the eastern
coast of southern Africa in the Indian Ocean, it is home to
thousands of endemic plant and animal species. But
Madagascar also harbors a multiculturalism that should make
any American activist think twice about using the word. The
island’s 16 million people (and 18 ethnic groups) descend from
continental Africans, Polynesians, Malaysians, Southeast
Asians, and Arabs, and their music reflects this mix. While lilting melodies and complex interlocking rhythms seem common
to most of the folk and commercial styles rounded up on Henry
Kaiser and David Lindley’s comprehensive three-volume series,
A World Out of Time: Henry Kaiser & David Lindley in Madagascar
[Shanachie], shockingly well-recorded in 1992, the instrumen-
88
tation ranges from acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, and
percussion to valiha (zither), the mandolin-like kabosy, and sodina (flute). Although some of the bigger stars have
toured off the island since their recordings became
internationally available, the names Rossy, Dama
Mahaleo, Rakoto Frah, D’Gary, and Tarika Sammy
have hardly ensconced themselves on the western
radar in any way commensurate with the tremendous marvels of their music.
Bandleader/guitarist Jaojoby has a slightly better
chance, partly because his few recordings have been picked up
for European and international distribution, and partly because
his magnetic personality and magnetic lead vocals, the
enthralling backup singing by family members and friends, and
the unshowy virtuosity of his guitar-heavy band, make his 12/8time salagy dance music sound less complex than it really is. The
full-bodied 2004 recording Malagasy [World Village], with its
sparkling and well-rounded sonics, captures much of the excitement and all of the endearing sweetness of a Jaojoby concert.
WEST AFRICA
When a homegrown world-beat movement started to materialize in the U.S. in the early 1980s, many of its practitioners, such
as the Looters and Big City in the San Francisco Bay Area, found
their inspiration in the pop music of West Africa, especially the
politically charged Afro-Beat of Nigerian superstar Fela
Anikulapo Kuti. Itself a hybrid of the indigenous and the
imported—the longstanding West African pop form known as
“highlife” plus the hardcore AfricanAmerican funk of James Brown—Fela’s
Afro-Beat was characterized by deep,
extended grooves driven by electric guitars,
keyboards, bass, drums, and hand percussion, and punctuated with crisp horn section blasts and jazzy saxophone solos. Fela,
who was born in 1938, had dozens of wives,
and died in 1997 (from complications attributed to AIDS),
sharpened the edge of his fundamentally dance-oriented music
with lyrics that challenged his country’s political and economic leadership, and represented the interests of his region’s poor
and disenfranchised. As a consequence, he experienced severe
persecution, including raids on his family compound and
imprisonment. Fela’s big bands, under such names as Africa
70 and Egypt 80, often swelled to as many as 30 members and
indulged in extended jazz-inflected jams that could occasionally grind down into boring ruts or, more often, maintain a
thrillingly high level of explosive tension.
Although he has been succeeded on the international music
scene by his son Femi Kuti, and his musical legacy continues to
thrive stateside, most notably in the New York-based Antibalas
Afrobeat Orchestra, Fela was a unique force, and his musical
innovations should be experienced in their original form.
Fortunately, MCA’s massive turn-of-the-century Fela reissue
program included 2000’s The Best of Fela Kuti, a two-CD set
that squeezes 13 songs (some edited down from half-hour versions) into just over an hour and a half. Cornerstones of Fela’s
repertoire such as “Lady,” “Zombie,” “No Agreement,” and
“Army Arrangement” are represented, and though they
embody 17 years of recording, from 1972 through 1989, and
are of slightly varying sound quality, most tracks boast clean
definition of the critical elements: guitars,
horns, percussion, and the leader’s inflammatory vocals.
The highlife music out of which Fela’s
Afro-Beat grew was a seminal fusion of traditional African rhythms (rooted in the
drumming of the Yoruba, Ashanti, and
Ewe peoples) and modern western sounds.
Military brass band music, calypso, and Cuban son were among
the first ingredients stirred into the pot by such practitioners as
Ghana trumpeter E.T. Mensah. American swing entered the
mix during World War II, and highlife remained the dominant
89
Youssou N'Dour
dance music in Ghana and Nigeria until new variations arose in the 1970s. One of the
most endearing and popular progeny of highlife was juju—dance music with layers of
interlocking guitar parts weaving in and out of powerful polyrhythms churned up by
a percussion section that usually has Yoruban talking drums at the forefront. Although
juju music’s roots extend back to the 1920s and ’30s, the ability to plug in and amplify guitars in the 1950s made all the difference—a difference first exploited by I.K.
Dairo, the father of the modern large juju ensemble. (He called his the Morning Star
Orchestra, and later, the Blue Spots.)
But it was the competition between two popular giants of Nigerian juju in the
1970s that ignited the music’s explosion onto the international scene. Chief
Commander Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Adé (born Sunday Adéniyi in 1946) vied
to dominate the Nigerian marketplace, cranking out several recordings annually. And
while Obey reached far-flung audiences with his 1980 LP Current Affairs, Adé enjoyed
the patronage of Island Records impresario Chris Blackwell, who issued 1982’s breakthrough overview, Juju Music, and cast the charismatic Adé as the West African successor to reggae hero Bob Marley.
With its insistent pulse, lilting melodies, chant-like choral singing, and instrumental subtleties (accordion, keyboards, and even pedal-steel guitar add intriguing
colors and textures to the mix), juju music is especially infectious. That of Adé and His
African Beats is the most beguiling of all. Purists can debate the “compromises” he
made to sell himself to non-African listeners (and they will find much satisfaction in
the 2003 Shanachie Records anthology of tunes from 1967-74, The Best of the Classic
Years), but as universally appealing pop music, it’s hard to beat 1983’s Synchro System
[Mango]. Consolidating the success of his now-legendary 1982 U.S. tour, Adé hooked
up with French keyboardist/producer Martin Meissonnier and made an album that is
sonically sizzling and sophisticated, with drums, guitars, and harmony singers buoying Adé’s sweet, enchanting lead vocals.
While Nigeria and South Africa produced the pop music that most successfully
penetrated the global consciousness in the 1980s, less populous nations whose bloodlines extend back to the great Empire of Mali of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries
spawned the biggest international stars of the 1990s and the early 21st century. Of the
15 countries that make up modern West Africa, Senegal, Guinea, and Mali have catapulted an extraordinary number of musicians to superstardom. Some descend from
Sundjata Keita—the founder of the Malian empire and cultural hero of the Mande (or
Mandinka, Manding, or Malinke) people—and others from the griots (a caste of professional oral historians in the Mali Empire) whom he inspired to develop and pass
down the oral tradition of bearing witness to history, singing the praises of benefactors,
and providing entertainment. The pivotal traditional instruments—the xylophone-like
balafon, the lute-like n’goni, and the harp-like kora—have sustained their presence over
91
the centuries, and the griot (or jeli) tradition of declamatory
singing is carried on to spine-tingling effect by many of the
most popular contemporary performers. Between the modern
griot-tradition vocalists and the virtuoso instrumentalists (especially guitarists and kora players), West
Africans have stepped forward to claim a
predominant position in African pop.
The most recognizable voice belongs to
Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour, who followed up
his world tour with Peter Gabriel by joining
the Amnesty International Human Rights
Now! Tour in 1988 and releasing albums
that succeeded in internationalizing the mbalax pop music he
made with his Super Étoiles band. A stirring, flexible singer
with command of five languages (including his native Wolof,
French, and English), N’Dour has sometimes gone overboard in
catering to western tastes, but he made what has now become
an almost obligatory return to roots on 2002’s Nothing’s in Vain
(Coono du Reer) [Nonesuch], an album that succeeds in showcasing his amazing band and spectacular singing. Airy, punchy
sonics do justice to every instrument and complex grooves.
Unlike N’Dour, who descended from griots on his mother’s side, Salif Keita was born into noble lineage in Mali, but
he nonetheless chose a career as a professional singer. Like
92
N’Dour, he soon distinguished himself with his powerful
voice, a sometimes-raw sounding instrument, akin to that of a
high-pitched blues shouter. In 1970, he joined the legendary
Rail Band, which featured the masterful guitarist Djelimady
Tounkara and was sponsored by the Malian Railway
Company to provide stewardship for Mali’s indigenous kora
and balafon music. Keita left two years later (succeeded by
another future superstar, Mory Kanté) and founded Les
Ambassadeurs, taking a plunge into fusion that became full
immersion when he moved to Paris in 1984. If some of
Keita’s recordings—such as 1992’s Amen, a collaboration
with Weather Report’s Joe Zawinul, and 1999’s Papa, coproduced by Vernon Reid—sound more
like jazz and rock than African pop despite
a consistent thread of the Arabic influences
present in the Wassoulou region of southern Mali, they still garnered Grammy
nominations and helped build an international following that one hopes stuck with
him for 2002’s transcendently beautiful
Moffou [Universal]. Though not a total return to roots, the
record’s toned-down dynamics (captured with clean, spacious
21st century high fidelity) give Keita’s singing a luminous
presence, even amidst 23 instrumentalists and singers.
N’Dour and Keita’s younger distaff counterpart in vocal
brilliance, Oumou Sangaré, rose to stardom in 1990 when she
sold more than a quarter-million copies of her album Moussolou.
Born in the Malian capital of Bamako, Sangaré used the
Wassoulou musical idioms of her family heritage to express the
social and cultural concerns of modern African women. On
1996’s international breakthrough, Worotan [Nonesuch],
Sangaré brought soul-jazz saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis and a horn
section into an essentially acoustic mix. The two-CD anthology
Oumou [Nonesuch] includes songs from Moussolou, 1993’s Ko
Sira, Worotan, and the Malian-only 2003 cassette release Laban.
Predominantly featuring kamalengoni (six-string “young person’s
harp”), dejembe (hand drum), flute, and traditional violin, Oumou
has a vibe and tempos that are more contemplative than those of
even the acoustic N’Dour and Keita. But the feminist themes
(sung in call-and-response style), contemporary studio touches,
and generally superb audio separation and definition belie any oversimplified notion of Sangaré
as a folkloric musician.
Young performers such as 31-year-old
singer/composer Rokia Traore, who takes
Sangare’s social concerns and musical experiments to the next level on Wanita [Indigo] and
Bowmboi [Nonesuch], and relatively new
Amadou & Mariam
93
arrivals on the global scene—including charismatic guitarist
Habib Koite and his band Bamada and Benin’s exciting
Gangbé Brass Band—are West Africa’s future cultural ambassadors. Currently, “the Blind Couple of Mali” and a band of
guitar-playing nomadic tribespeople are the most prominent
musical diplomats.
Amadou Bagayoko, a former guitarist with Les
Ambassadeurs, and singer Mariam Doumbia met at
the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako.
Making music together over the past 20 or so years
as Amadou & Mariam, their widening travels took
them to Paris, where their musical palette broadened
to include Cuban son, blues, and reggae—a mix
nowhere more evident than on last year’s remarkable Dimanche
a Bamako [Nonesuch]. Produced by Manu Chao, as eclectic and
studio savvy as American pop maestro Joe Henry and Brazilian
legend Caetano Veloso combined, the album is a joyous, subversive riot of unpredictable arrangements and special effects
that celebrate Chao’s experimentalism and Amadou and
Mariam’s sweet sensitivity. Guitars and the couple’s voices
remain prominent, although you may not always be able to discern their Malian origins in this finely spun aural candy. The
sonics are sumptuous enough—warm, translucent, and smooth
throughout the spectrum—to make this a major studio event,
yet there’s more heart in this music than you’d find in a decade’s
worth of most disco-doomed French productions of African
crossover pop.
The members of Tinariwen, a guitar band born of the
struggles of the Touareg people at the oft-brutal Saharan edge
of Mali and Algeria, may not be as theatrical and universally
entertaining as Amadou & Mariam, but their sound is far more
grounded in a particular sense of place—or at least a longing
for home. Their “guitar revolution” began in the 1970s among
young Touaregs seeking refuge as far from home as Libya, and
it reaches a thrilling climax on 2004’s Amassakoul [World
Village], Tinariwen’s second internationally distributed CD.
Trancelike tensions build from a half-dozen guitarists overlapping riffs that are part Ali Farke Toure blues, part Bo Diddley
and Chuck Berry rock and roll, and part Jimi Hendrix overdrive, and singers moaning, chanting, and rapping their plaints
and protests, with little more than handclaps, percussion, and
flute stippling additional texture. Simple, unfussy, and direct,
the sonics are almost as raw as the passions and true to the rock
’n’ rebellion spirit of this important music.
The vanguard features fresh faces, but plenty of elders,
including such revived veteran bands from the 1960s and ’70s
as Guinea’s Bembeya Jazz (featuring the dazzling Sekou
“Diamond Fingers” Diabate on guitar) and Senegal’s multicultural Orchestra Baobab, are holding or reclaiming their positions as pillars of West African pop. Fifty-two-year-old Baaba
Maal catapulted himself out of Senegal’s fisherman caste and
onto the world stage with a vibrant, punchy electric fusion of
pop, reggae, and rock styles as played by his band Daande
Lenol. But although his star rose with the crossover-savvy
1990s albums Wango, Firin’ in Fouta, and Nomad Soul, his
“nightingale” singing (in the Pulaar language of the nomadic
Fula people) has always been most affecting in minimalist settings that emphasize the interplay of his and longtime musical
partner Mansour Seck’s guitars and vocals over percolating percussion. That’s what Maal got back to on 2001’s
wonderful Missing You (Mi Yeewnii) [Palm], ten
years after the release of the similarly hypnotically
spiritual Baayo. But the place to start is where many
westerners discovered Baaba Maal and Mansour
Seck—1989’s Djam Leelii [Mango], an informalfeeling session quietly bristling with complex but
casually rendered acoustic guitar filigrees, absorbing
vocals, and light accents of hand percussion and electric guitar.
The sonics may not be as pristine and dramatic as later Maal
recordings, but everything you need to hear is present and
clearly accounted for.
Ali Farka Toure was nearly 50 before westerners en masse
connected the dots between his droning fingerpicked guitar
patterns and the snaky boogie of African-American bluesman
John Lee Hooker, making Toure the most celebrated guitarist
not only of Mali but perhaps the entire African continent.
Self-consciously embodying and giving voice to the multiple
historic cultures of his native Niafunke, Toure is at his best
when his tersely eloquent acoustic and electric guitar lines
and conversational vocals are least adorned, although he did
win a Grammy for his collaboration with Ry Cooder on
1994’s Talking Timbuktu [Hannibal] and was paired to gorgeous effect with kora player Toumani Diabate on last year’s
mesmerizing In the Heart of the Moon [World
Circuit/Nonesuch]. Since the 1998 release of his eponymous
album for Mango made him an overnight sensation, the farming guitarist has gone in and out of retirement. Important retrospective compilations of historic stripped-down tracks, such
as Radio Mali [World Circuit] and Red & Green [World
Circuit/Nonesuch], have filled the gaps between new studio
recordings. But start with 1999’s Niafunke [Hannibal], which
rewards the curious with superior sonics and soulful performances. Recorded with a state-of-the-art mobile studio in his
home village, it captures Toure singing and playing guitars,
violin, and percussion with judicious accompaniment (guitar,
violin, percussion, and vocals). The production is welldefined, warm, and airy. Void of anything more technologically modern than an amplified guitar (and all the invisible
microphones and recording gear necessary for such realistic
audio), Niafunke is nonetheless a pinnacle of West African
popular music, with a sensibility that combines deep spirituality and musical exploration.
Toure’s brief liner notes come to a conclusion that applies to
more than just his personal and regional permutations of what
the Art Ensemble of Chicago has called “Great Black Music—
Ancient to Future.” He writes, “In the West perhaps this music
is just entertainment and I don’t expect people to understand.
But I hope some might take the time to listen and learn.” &
95
equipment report
Sonus Faber Concerto Domus Loudspeaker
Making You Feel Right At Home.
Neil Gader
ince the word “domus” is
and further tricked out at the factory. In a
Latin for house or home, it
clever bit of engineering, Sonus Faber has
is safe to conclude that
ensured smooth driver integration by
Sonus Faber’s new Domus
physically scalloping the tweeter’s mountSeries of loudspeakers has
ing plate where it abuts the mid/bass dribeen designed for any media habitat,
ver’s frame. The semi-gloss cabinet-work
the aim being to please both music
is exemplary, the gently arched side panels
(stereo or multichannel) and home-theterminating in smoothly radiussed edges
ater aficionados.1 Although technically
at the rear. Domus also features the ventedpositioned as Sonus Faber’s entry-level
phase-plug design premiered in Sonus’
line, the Domus speakers are imbued
Stradavari Homage flagship—a design
with so many of the physical and sonic
that boasts exceptionally low compression
virtues of the Italian speaker-maker’s
characteristics. The single pair of binding
more expensive Classic and Homage
posts is top notch. For added stability, a
Series offerings that even the faithful will
heavy, black-crackle, steel pedestal bolts to
likely be fooled. I was.
the bottom of the speaker. Adjustable
Like any of the fine Sonus Faber
spikes let you angle the Concerto back a
speakers from founder/designer Franco
few degrees to mechanically time-align
Serblin, the new Domus Series builds
the silk ring-radiator tweeter with the
upon its predecessors’ strengths.
mid/bass transducer.
Along with increases in interior volume it
This was the first Sonus I’ve had for evaluborrows the Concert line’s decoupling of the
ation since my visit to the factory a couple of
side panels for cabinet-resonance control,
years ago for the debut of its flagship, the
In short, the
while the elegant arching of its solid walnut panStradavarius. At a tenth the cost of the Strad you’d
els are clearly inspired by the Cremona line. Concerto Domus expect some epic sonic differences in the area of
Fitted out with Sonus’ trademark leather-effect
dynamics and extension, and you wouldn’t be
material on the front and top panels, the Domus has the soul of entirely wrong. But in terms of the Concerto
comes to market richly appointed technically,
the Romantic. Domus’ voice, the bloodline was unmistakable.
That voice was an expressive one, a hint darker in
and ripe with the charisma that Sonus Faber and
character with a seductive overall warmth that was utterly nonSerblin have cultivated—an Old World aesthetic replete with
fatiguing across the octaves. The Concerto is virtually incapable
classical forms and shapely allusions to the art of the master
of reproducing a sterile-sounding note. The bass, which extends
violin and lute builders of Cremona. Its cabinet is “tuned” by
confidently into the upper 30Hz range, was well defined and
the same means that the great stringed-instrument builders
generally well controlled with a warmth in the midbass that, at
used to create the characteristic sound of their prized instruits best, enriched acoustic bass lines, bassoons, and bass drums.
ments—with bracing, varying wood thicknesses, and varnishThe treble frequencies, while not ruler-flat, were unprickly and
es. Mystique or marketing, to gaze upon a Sonus Faber loudhad an inherent sweetness that plainly speaks to the quality of
speaker is to almost smell the pungent aroma of golden varnish
the ring-radiator tweeter. Overall, its spectral balance was comor feel the fine grit of ebony dust on your fingertips.
paratively even, marked by benign undulations in a couple of
The Concerto Domus is the smaller of two floorstanders in
frequency bands—a shallow dip in the presence region, and a
the Domus Series. It’s a two-way bass-reflex design with a forbump or resonance in the midbass—that the ear easily inteward-firing port. Like all Sonus Faber speakers, the
grates into the listening experience.
Scandinavian-sourced drivers are manufactured to Serblin’s specs
S
1 The Domus line also includes the Grand Piano floorstander, the stand-mounted Concertino, its wall-mount cousin the Wall Domus, the Center Domus, and a subwoofer, Gravis
Domus. The entire line is magnetically shielded.
97
equipment report
Like its forbears, the Concerto
Domus doesn’t study sound through the
lens of a clinician. Rather, it treats music
in a holistic way, not segmented into a
S P E C I F I C AT I O N S
Type: Two-way floorstanding loudspeaker
Driver complement: 1" ring-radiator tweeter, 7" coated-paper mid/bass
Frequency response: 35Hz–20kHz
Sensitivity: 88dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Dimensions: 8.25" x 39" x 12.25"
Weight: 50 lbs.
A S S O C I AT E D E Q U I P M E N T
Sota Cosmos Series III turntable; SME V
pick-up arm; Shure V15VxMR cartridge;
Sony DVP-9000ES, Simaudio Moon
Supernova; Plinius 9200 integrated amplifier: REL Britannia B3 subwoofer; Nordost
Blue Heaven and Kimber Kable BiFocal XL,
and Wireworld Equinox III cables; Wireworld
Silver Electra & Kimber Palladian power
cords; Richard Gray line conditioners
98
dry checklist of audiophile criteria. In
short, the Concerto Domus has the soul
of the Romantic. The result is a sensation that frequencies across the bandwidth are in harmony with one another
and dynamically open.
The most obvious beneficiaries of this
were vocals of all stripes. For example, the
deep sonorities of a bass-baritone like
Bryn Terfel singing “Shenandoah” [Sings
Favourites, DG] were lush and expressive.
Similarly Claire Martin’s “Black Coffee”
[Too Darn Hot, Linn SACD] revealed a
full-bodied vocal presence with all the
sizzle of a live performance.
The Concerto Domus’ soundstage
was wide with better than average
dimensionality—a listening perspective
that was relaxed but not distant.
Although it’s not a physically large
speaker by any means, its sonic images
do not undergo death-ray miniaturization. During Lisa Gerard’s “Who Are
We To Say” [A Thousand Roads, Wide
Blue Sky], the Concerto produced a
wide, vibrant soundstage where the output from surging string crescendos kept
increasing in volume but remained firmly rooted in position on stage. Images
were cleanly delineated without the
deadly etch of artificiality. Similarly, the
Domus recovered low-level details without drama. During Jackson Browne’s
“Color of the Sun” [Greatest Hits,
Asylum] there’s an alternating high-hat
figure that varies in intensity and character with each strike—distinctions that
go along way to conjuring up the live
listening experience. Hearing details
like these were one of the great pleasures
of spending time with the Concerto. As
I expected from a Serblin-designed twoway, driver integration was superior, the
sweetspot comfortably large. You’d
think this issue would be a slam-dunk
with contemporary two-ways but driver
discontinuities continue to plague many
so-called high-end designs.
equipment report
However, topping my lengthy list
of positive impressions was the
Concerto’s cool combination of midband dynamic liveliness and lowerrange oomph—muscular attributes that
I don’t normally associate with Sonus
speakers in the way that I might with,
say, a Revel or a Krell. I know it sounds
odd, but this is a Sonus that does Slayer
as well as Schubert—Korn as well as
Korngold. Take as examples the propulsive kick-drum intro of The Police’s
“Murder By Numbers” [Synchronicity,
A&M] or the bottomless, flat-pick electric bass of Mary Chapin-Carpenter’s
live version of “Stones in the Road”
[Party Doll, Columbia], and you’ll hear
how the elegant little Concerto hides a
bit of the beast beneath all the beauty.
And more to the point, its gutsiness in
the low end rarely interferes with the
finer points of bass pitch and definition.
At least some of the credit must go to
the inert enclosure—throughout my
evaluations it was for all intents and
purposes invisible.
Ultimately, however, even the most
grandiloquent two-way hits the dynamic
wall. At its limits there was a sense of the
port shouldering more of the burden and
of the otherwise-well-disciplined bottom
end growing a bit underdamped. But
only moderately. There was never any
conspicuous chuffing or overhang to give
away the location of the speaker. Of
greater significance was the slight softness of leading-edge dynamics in the
uppermids/lower treble—an occasional
lack of zip and attack on transients. No
doubt an effect intertwined with the
pinch of brilliance in the mid-treble, it
was most often characterized by a subtle
rounding of the edges of percussion
instruments—i.e., the initial tick of the
stick on the high-hat or the tickle of the
upper-octave ivories on piano.
This trait can be an enhancement,
however. On the Bryn Terfel recording,
for example, the Concerto sweetens edgy
moments by rounding off Terfel’s more
aggressive vocal peaks. By the same
token, it can also cast some shade over the
ultimate transparency of great recordings.
In a market where viability literally
depends on catching the ear of the consumer, the Concerto Domus neither
points, punctuates, underlines, nor
exclaims its merits. Rather, it achieves
an exquisite equilibrium of virtues. The
Sonus Faber Domus Concerto is about
refinement and balance and musicality.
It’s a speaker that I would be proud to
&
welcome into my home, any time.
D I S T R I B U T I O R I N F O R M AT I O N
SUMIKO AUDIO
2431 Fifth Street
Berkeley, California 94710
(510) 841-4500
sumikoaudio.net
Price: $3595
99
equipment report
Thule Audio Spirit IA350B Integrated Amplifier
and Space DVA250B DVD/CD Player
A report on two sweet performers from Denmark.
Sallie Reynolds
n the past two decades, a slow evolution has taken place in audio, as
top-notch designers come more
and more to understand the nature
of the beasts they are working
with. Today it is not hard to put together a system that is clean and musical,
and extremely well built, for a moderate
price. My reference system—modest by
reviewer standards—retails for about
$13,000. It is cleaner, clearer, more
extended at the frequency extremes,
more exciting—more musical—than
one costing three times that in the mid1980s. It is also a reviewer’s system. That
is, it accommodates changes. Different
technologies in a plethora of review gear
pass through it with grace and accuracy,
so that most visitors can strut their various stuffs. It is forgiving in many
ways—placement of speakers, power
capabilities, “system matching,” and the
like—and a strict taskmaster in others.
It suffers frequency imbalances not at
all, shows up badly recorded CDs, and
shudders at “hi-fi” sizzle and boom. The
weak point in the system now is the
room. Since I live in it, I hesitate to
make it a laboratory of acoustic treatment devices. (Of course, most con-
I
sumers probably have that same hesitation, and will be happy to learn that
some speaker designs interact less with
room resonances than others.)
This is not entirely the system I
might buy for pure listening pleasure,
although I love its sound. Buying for
pleasure, I might opt for a pinch more
sweetness (forgiving of bad digital
recordings). A point that brings me to
the present items—the Danish Thule
considerably in price (with Spendor S8e
loudspeakers at $3000, and Nordost
Blue Heaven cabling at about $1000 in
my configuration, the total would drop
to around $11,000). The Thules are simple black boxes that make musical
magic. If you pair them with good
speakers and cables, you’ll have a fine
system that needs no subwoofer, no powerline conditioner, and no fancy resonance-control feet or other tweaks.
The silvery high harmonics touched the ears like
eldritch chimes.
(pronounced “toola”) Spirit IA350B 2/5-channel integrated amplifier and
Space DVA250B DVD/CD player, both
of which are truly sweet, in that word’s
best possible light. They offer, together
and apart, extended frequency response,
rich bass, subtle and startlingly transparent midranges, and shimmering
beautiful highs. They are simple to use,
good looking, reasonable in price. The
amp goes for $4000, the player for
$2200. I could be quite happy with
them as permanent lodgers in my system, and they would lower that system
So much for the verdict. Now the
evidence. With the Thule player in a
system based on Musical Fidelity’s
kW500 integrated, Vienna Acoustics’
Mozart Grand loudspeakers, and REL’s
108Q subwoofer, the luscious midrange
opened like a flower. I had not expected
that, since that musical range was
already quite wonderful. But the added
clarities of the Thule made lyrics, for
example, come through with new intelligibility; violins had added rosiny bite;
mid-tones in the gamelan shimmered
and rang. All this on Lou Harrison’s
101
equipment report
Gamelan Music [Music Masters Classic].
The first cut, “Philemon and Baukis,”
begins with a soft figure on the liquid
xylophone-sounding part of the gamelan
(an orchestra of wonderful percussivetype Indonesian instruments), touched
with a deep bell tone. A few seconds
later, the violin softly comes in with a
melodic theme, the xylophone figure
ongoing behind it, and that soft, yet
deep and reverberant “bong” of the bell
or gong an occasional reminder of the
Dark. About ten years ago, when I got
this CD, a system had to be extraordinary (and expensive) to get the subtleties
of the soft tones and the drama of the
depths, at once. The gong was swallowed up if you played the piece at a low
enough level to get the delicious
nuances of the soft themes, so you
turned up the volume. But even just a
little of that made the gong overwhelm
that soft little figure. And when the full
gamelan orchestra came in about two
minutes further on, you ran for the volume knob. (In those days, a remote’s circuitry was thought to contaminate the
purity of high-end sound.) Today, illustrating my theme that audio designers
have solved many old problems, I’ve
heard a number of systems that get this
piece dynamically right, or nearly so.
On the Thule player, in the first configuration (with the MF amp and Vienna
Acoustics speakers subwoofed), the opening subtleties were lovely, and the low
gong haunting yet clean and shapely,
receding slowly into silence while the
music swirled on around it. The remaining pieces on this recording have always
been difficult for me. Harrison uses chorus
and solo voices in many of the cuts, and I
never really liked them. The harmonies
bordered on harsh, and the songs slipped
so far into atonality they lost me. But that
Thule clarity in the midrange brought out
the lyrics and some subtle vocal tones. I
found myself entranced. Also there was
sparkling air and light among the separate
instruments of the gamelan. Those elements I’d found harsh now revealed subtle
musical rapprochements. The swelling and
decay of the various gamelan tones
became sheer enchantment. The room
filled with the quick onset then slow fade
of boom, under—not swimming over—
the rest, and the silvery high harmonics
touched the ears like eldritch chimes.
All good equipment, in my experience, brings out different elements of a
good recording. If the gear really is basically well designed, choosing becomes a
matter of musical and sonic taste and
system capabilities. These are areas
where the listener will make his choices.
An old-time engineer said to me recently that he couldn’t understand how we
reviewers continue to hear differences in
digital equipment, when in theory no
differences can exist. Perhaps he’s right,
in theory. But in truth, I hear differences.
And so do other reviewers. We’re not
making this up, you know, as Anna
Russell once hilariously said. Differences
subtle and not so exist. Where they
come from, if theory denies them, I
couldn’t begin to say. But if you don’t
believe me, listen to the clarity in the
voice range with the Thule player. This
is real, because real is what is in the ears.
Next I hooked up my reference
Spendor S8e, taking out the subwoofer
too, and listened again to the whole
recording. The Spendors don’t need a
subwoofer (in theory, they go no lower
than the Viennas, but see “theory” above).
You will feel, not hear a 16–20Hz note;
you will get good, clean, solid bass that
maintains its character throughout—no
muffling or fattening. The overall fabric
IA350B Integrated Amplifier
Power output: Two channels x 350 watts/
five channels x 120 Watts, at 8 ohms
Inputs: Four line-level stereo inputs (via
RCA jacks), one balanced stereo input
(via XLR connectors), one 6-channel
multichannel input (via RCA jacks)
Outputs: One stereo tape output (via RCA
jacks), one stereo preamp output (via
RCA jacks), two subwoofer outputs (via
RCA jacks), five speaker taps (via WBT
binding posts)
Dimensions: 16.5" x 4.7" x 14.75"
Weight: 46.3 lbs.
DVD250B DVD/CD Player
Formats: MP3, HDCD, CD, CD-R, CD-RW,
CD-DA, VCD, SVCD, DVD-Video and
DVD-Audio
Dimensions: 16.5" x 3.5" x 11.8"
Weight: 14.3 lbs.
Spendor S8e and Vienna Acoustics
Mozart Grand loudspeakers; Musical
Fidelity k500 integrated amplifier and A5
CD player; Nordost Blue Heaven cabling
103
equipment report
An old-time engineer said to me recently that he
couldn’t understand how we reviewers continue
to hear differences in digital equipment, when in
theory no differences can exist.
of the music remained much the same,
except that since there might have been
some added emphasis in the midrange of
the Viennas, the frequency balance
sounded better to my ears.
Finally, I replaced my reference amp
with the Thule IA350B integrated (running two-channel), and listened some
more. I was worried that without the
sub and the sheer power of the kW500,
the sound would be thin. But this amp
has bass—noticeable bass, yet without
the sense of being “bass weighted.”
What this means, technically, again I
haven’t a clue. The low frequencies are
full and low, clear and largely satisfying.
And the amp has what I suppose to be
the Thule earmarks of sweetness, clarity,
and richness in the midrange. The highs
are transparent, smooth (ragged where
they must be, musically—as in some
non-beautiful high notes of the violin),
and sparkling.
This amp does not, however, have
the power of my big reference Musical
Fidelity, nor should that be a surprise. It
costs less than half as much. Still the
overall feel is noticeably lighter. Clean,
good, reaching deep into the musical
fabric, even in the lows, light in comparison to a bigger unit. This showed up
throughout. At its worst, as on ”In
Honor of Mr. Mark Twain” on the
Harrison CD, where bells or chimes
come in behind the chorus, the Thule
simply loses a bit of steam. On the MF,
the sheet of bell sound rises, threatens to
surround the voices (singing in unison),
then retreats. Through the Thule, these
high tones faded in strength unless I
turned the volume up higher than was
“right” for this music. The ringing was
still there, musically, but its dramatic
power was gone. At this effect’s mildest,
which is most of the time, you may not
notice the lack of the “air,” “force,” and
“feel” that you’d get from lots of power
cleanly done. But in immediate comparisons, you will. The Thule is clean, clear,
balanced. But it does not have the sheer
presence of a beefier unit.
Aside from this one thing, the Thule
amp is more than satisfying with all types
of music. I played Diana Krall and
Patricia Barber and got intimate, closemiked, in-the-jazz-club clarity, and luscious vocal nuances—and bass and smallensemble power in spades and diamonds.
With Vaughan Williams’ A Sea
Symphony’s [Telarc], full orchestral sound
also came through, as much, that is, as a
non-mega-multi-driver system in an ordinary room can provide. The Thule player
is a jewel, and the combo is extraordinarily good. And both play well with others.
In addition, they can do double duty: two
channel and multi. They are, indeed, a
wonderful bridge between the worlds of
pure audio and home theater.
The Thule amp provides line-level
subwoofer outputs driving the low-level
inputs found on most powered subwoofers. Because the Thule is a balanced
amp, technicians recommend against
using it with subs that require speakerlevel inputs.1
In fiddling with the sub setup, I
ended up taking it out completely, just
for a listen. To my surprise, the sound
was fine. Then I went on a simplification
journey. I also took out the powerline
conditioner. Listened some more. The
sound was fine. In fact—it was better.
One never plugs amps into line conditioners, but digital players had always
sounded clearer. Well, two new designs
so far sound oceans better just into the
wall outlet. The AC fluctuations and
1 Henrik, Thule’s Technical Support person, wrote, in answer to my query about sub hook up: “…this is a balanced
amplifier, so the negative (black) terminal is not ground, as it would be on a normal amplifier. In a balanced amplifier,
the output signal is the difference between the red terminal and black terminal, and there’s no reference to ground (the
audio system is 100% separated from ground and the usual noise running ground). This means that it is also not possible to use a chassis bolt as ground [for the sub].”
noise problems I probably still have are
not audible to me any longer. And the
constriction of the soundstage and the
timbral veiling I was expecting, sans
conditioning, just didn’t happen.
I began to suspect that I was still
going on ideas developed in 1980s and
’90s. This made me really rampageous,
and I stripped the system to its bare
bones. Sub and conditioner already out;
I now removed all isolation feet.
Listened. Put back only those under the
speakers. I took off all damping rings
and such from old CDs. With each
change—taking out “refinements”—the
sound got better and better. And yes, I
believe this reveals another advance in
modern audio design: Much of the new
gear is so cleanly designed, with knowledge of circuitry garnered over the
decades, it sounds better naked.
So, as I hinted at the beginning,
today is a good day to buy a high-end system. You can get beauty, accuracy, depth,
and excitement for a modest sum. And
you may be able to simplify: no subwoofer, no powerline conditioner, few isolation devices. A system of well-designed,
solidly built gear needs little makeup.
Try it, at least as a starting point.
Complications you can always add later.
So how will you choose this clean,
solid stuff? Well, by listening first, and
thinking about your druthers. If you have
good, clean speakers and you like sound
that is clear, yet rich in depth and dynamics, and possesses great midrange magic, I
wager you will love the Thule IA350B
integrated amp. The DVA250B DVDCD player will enchant you. The amp
offers 2 or 5 channels, and the combo will
give you a fine system for home-theater or
multichannel listening, to boot.
Magic and practicality—the mark of
&
modern sonic miracles.
D I S T R I B U TO R I N F O R M AT I O N
CRAIG ACOUSTICS, INC.
1006 West 20th Street
Santa Ana, California 92706
(714) 648-0983
[email protected]
thule-audio.com
Prices: IA350B, $3995; DVD250B, $2195
105
equipment report
Esoteric X-03 CD/SACD Player
The latest disc-spinner from TEAC’s high-end division.
Jacob Heilbrunn
t’s an old story that the more revealing an audio system becomes, the
faster it can teeter on the edge of
abrasiveness. In the audiophile
quest for detail, highs can become
searing and mids thinned out. The effect
may initially be enthralling, but soon
results in a serious case of listener
fatigue—and may even deter the novice
from venturing into high-end waters at
all. A case in point came for me a few
years ago when, after lurching out of a
room featuring a super-duper, megabuck system with the excellent
Avantgarde Trios and all the obligatory
audio doo-dads, I wondered, “How can a
system that expensive sound that lousy?”
Nowhere is this danger more pronounced than in digital recordings,
which have long had a tendency towards
stridency. Whip out a recording from the
matutinal years of CD in the early 1980s
and you may well find yourself crying
uncle. In recent years, however, matters
have begun to improve and the perils
recede as CD recordings get better and
new formats such as SACD and DVD-A
take another step in the direction of a
more inviting sound. The difference
remains real, but there’s no denying the
I
106
fact that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish CDs from vinyl, and
that the digital format is sometimes
markedly superior, both because of better
equipment and recording techniques.
Enter the TEAC Esoteric X-03. It
produces one of the most natural,
refined, luminous, and above all, sophisticated sounds that I have ever heard
from a digital player. Forget the three
Gs: glare, grunge, and grit. Those terms
Topping the scales at
over fifty pounds, this
heavyweight is built
like the Fort Knox of
CD players.
are utterly foreign to the Esoteric. This
is a mellow and full-sounding two-channel unit, but with excellent transparency. The Esoteric is interested in the big
picture rather than spotlighting details,
which, incidentally, is closer to what you
actually hear at a concert.
Seldom has a product been more misnamed. The Esoteric isn’t in the least eso-
teric. Its virtues aren’t hidden, but in
plain sight. In fact, no small part of the
Esoteric’s superlative performance, I’m
certain, can be ascribed to its phenomenal
build-quality. I don’t know how it is with
you, but I’m fairly indifferent to the way
most audio equipment looks. What I’m
more interested in is resonance control.
I’ve found most isolation devices to be
something of a mixed bag and have lost
the desire and energy to do much tweaking over the years, so I tend to place a premium on well-constructed equipment.
Does the top case ring when you rap it?
When it comes to digital, immunity to
vibration means that the laser can track
the CD more precisely. This is why the
lightweight, reverberant quality of some
expensive gear never ceases to confound
me. Not so with the Esoteric.
The designers of the Esoteric have
made Herculean efforts to ensure that both
the tray and the casing of the unit are close
to impregnable. Topping the scales at over
fifty pounds, this heavyweight is built like
the Fort Knox of CD players, and, considering the musical treasures it can unlock,
so it should be. Another nice touch is that
the unit only features three feet, which, in
theory, should help further isolate it from
equipment report
any nasty vibrations. There’s also a little
hole cut into the CD tray for your thumb,
so that you can easily seat and unseat discs.
And speaking of the CD tray—it’s a special sled that’s been designed with an
internal clamping system that essentially
holds the disc in a vise. No stupid pucks
placed on top of the CD that can wiggle
and bounce around inside—these guys at
TEAC are dead serious about excavating
the last drop of performance. To its credit,
TEAC has clearly put a lot of thought,
effort, and TLC into this baby.
While some audiophiles get hung up
on the nuances of SACD versus CD. I don’t
and neither does the Esoteric, which plays
them both beautifully. In fact, the Esoteric
never balked at playing any disc—burned,
scorched, seared, or otherwise. The
machine is mechanically as unflappable as
it sounds. It never loses its serenity. Far too
many players suffer transport breakdowns
or balk, for often inscrutable reasons, at
playing certain discs.
No doubt the Esoteric’s virtues come
at a stiff tariff. At $7700 the Esoteric is
not inexpensive, but to acquire this kind
of sound five years ago would have
required the fortune of a Croesus. It’s
important to say upfront, however, that
this is not a player for the headbanging
crowd. It doesn’t draw attention to itself
and lacks the slam that rock aficionados
not only crave, but also deserve. Rather,
the Esoteric seduces you with its wonderful palette of tonal colors, bloom, and
capacious soundstage.
The first and most immediate
impression that the Esoteric makes is
how fully it reproduces the musical line.
In visual terms, to me it’s the difference
between a balloon that’s sagging or bursting with air. On one of my favorite
recordings of the Handel Trio Sonatas
[Convivium Ensemble, Hyperion], the
mellowness of the oboe and the amount
of tube-like air surrounding it were
enchanting. I can’t get that beautifully
woody oboe out of my head. Overall, the
sound was full and warm with each
instrument carefully reproduced in its
own space. Hearing all four instruments
like this, particularly the cello with its
rich resonance, bumbling along together,
each easily distinguished, each limpidly
108
communicating with the other to create a
coherent musical message, is always a
thrill for me. Isn’t that what this hobby
is, or is supposed to be, about?
The truth is that the Esoteric is so
mellifluous that it simply floats out the
music, tugging at your heartstrings rather
than bellowing, “Listen to me!” On “I
Deserve It” [Warner], Madonna’s voice
simply sounded immaculate—relaxed,
luscious, and heart-rending—while the
accompaniment, especially the drums,
was perfectly in place, with nary a trace of
harshness. It’s the kind of sound, I’m convinced, that would instantly make any
non-audiophile, if not capitulate to the
siren song of high-end audio, at least
understand why a table radio may not
always be the right answer. A friend of
mine who is an experienced listener discerned the Esoteric’s gentle qualities within seconds, and it was certainly fun to
watch his eyes bulge at the refined sound.
Don’t get me wrong. The Esoteric
does not smudge or blur transients. Quite
the contrary. The Esoteric lingers over
notes, giving them their full value. Its
sound is not effervescent, but stately with
extremely measured and regular pacing.
This makes for a convincingly whole
presentation, unruffled and unhurried,
where the notes simply unfold instead of
colliding with each other.
Indeed, what makes the Esoteric so
enjoyable is the combination of articulateness and bloom. The things that
audiophiles crave—the reproduction of
quavers, vibratos, and shadings within a
phrase—are what make the rise and fall of
a passage more than just a rote recapitulation of a series of pitches. The ability to
deliver these qualities is what distinguishes what the Germans like to call the
Liebhaber, or amateur, from the Kenner, or
expert, musician. The Esoteric, you
might say, is a Kenner.
After weeks and weeks of listening to
the Esoteric, I returned to my regular
Meitner digital gear. It reinforced the
virtues of listening to different gear for me.
The Meitner threw the Esoteric’s qualities
into even starker relief. The Meitner was
more detailed, complex, and transparent,
revealing more lines of music. In addition,
it was more energetic, particularly in the
bass and treble. The Esoteric’s octave-tooctave balance is irreproachable, but it
sounds slightly shrunken next to the
Meitner. It’s simply not quite as big. It
seems to me that the Esoteric is a piece
that you love, excusing any deficiencies,
however minor, because you love it, whereas the Meitner is the King Kong of digital.
It simply commands awesome respect for
its power and sweep. Ultimately, however,
the similarities rather than the differences
between the players are what stood out. I
could easily live with either with no
regrets. Of course, audiophiles like to place
enormous importance on small distinctions, which is their right. Fine. One person’s diminishing returns is another’s minimum requirement. But both the Esoteric
and the Meitner offer stratospheric performance, an embarrassment of riches, by
any standards.
Top-notch digital playback is becoming scary stuff and breathing in this rarefied air can be a dizzying, even intoxicating, experience. The Esoteric draws
you into the sound to such an extent that
you tend to forget about the nuts and
bolts of the player and simply wallow in
the music. If you haven’t guessed by now,
I did a not insubstantial amount of wallowing. Yup, I liked it. A lot. And so, I
bet, will you. If you’re in the market for a
top-notch player and your budget permits the likes of the sumptuous Esoteric,
I suspect that, after listening to it, you
may decide not to waste much time look&
ing elsewhere.
Transport outputs: One optical, one coaxial, one i.LINK terminal
Analog outputs: Balanced (XLR) and
unbalanced (RCA)
Dimensions: 17.5" x 6" x 13.75"
Weight: 51 lbs.
M A N U FA C T U R E R I N F O R M AT I O N
TEAC AMERICA, INC.
7733 Telegraph Road
Montebello, California 90460
(323) 726-0303
teac.com
Price: $7700
equipment report
Channel Islands Audio D-200
Monoblock Amplifier
Another offering in a rapidly growing area of amplifier design.
Chris Martens
I
met Dusty Vawter, President of
Channel Islands Audio (often
abbreviated to CIAudio), on a shuttle-bus ride to the Denver airport
as we returned home from the
Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Mr.
components should offer solid buildquality and should be rigorously
designed and tested to provide troublefree performance and reliability at sensible prices. Amen to that.
CIAudio offers a range of audio com-
Class D amplifiers are light, but the D-200s weigh
in at a comparatively chunky 15 pounds apiece.
Vawter, I learned, had been head of customer service at now-defunct Audio
Alchemy before founding CIAudio, and
the experience left him with a refreshingly different slant on high-end design.
Like any serious manufacturer of audio
products, he is passionate about sound
quality, but more than many he believes
112
ponents that includes a family of Class D
amplifiers, some of which I’d heard in
speaker manufacturers’ demonstration
suites at RMAF. CIAudio amplifiers are
based on the comparatively new
Philips/Hypex UcD (Universal class D)
modules, rather than on the earlier
Tripath or Bang & Olufsen/ICEpower
technologies used in many other Class D
designs. Like the NuForce amplifiers
recently reviewed in TAS, the CIAudios
are analog switching amplifiers, not “digital” amplifiers—an approach that proponents say gives Class D amps a more
open and detailed sound. With the current proliferation of new Class D amplifiers on the market, many TAS readers
(and writers) are curious to learn how the
latest designs sound, and for this review
we chose a pair of CIAudio’s newest
model, the D-200 monoblocks. The D200s are small, cube-shaped units that
deliver 200Wpc at 8 ohms and sell for
$2299 per pair. At that price, the D200s offer two options: either 26 or
32dB of gain (the latter intended primarily for use with passive level-controls),
equipment report
and single-ended or balanced inputs.
Typically, Class D amplifiers are
light, but the D-200s weigh in at a comparatively chunky 15 pounds apiece—
heft that reflects both a beefy chassis on
the outside and an even beefier powersupply on the inside. Early on, I discovered the CIAudio amps, in contrast to
the NuForce Reference 9s, were utterly
quirk-free. There were no power-on
“pops,” no subtle increases in background noise with muted inputs, and—
says CIAudio—no sensitivities to noload or dead-short conditions. Vawter
has zero tolerance for finicky products.
The D-200s also offer a feature I came to
love: a play/mute switch in lieu of a traditional power switch. This feature
enables users to keep the amplifiers
warmed up and ready to play, while
allowing output muting when switching associated preamps on or off. At
Vawter’s suggestion, I gave the D-200s
about 100 hours of burn-in before listening critically, and during burn-in
observed small, gradual improvements
in bass solidity, midrange smoothness,
and treble resolution.
When I review components, I try to
identify their dominant sonic characteristics, and what first struck me about the
D-200s was the sweetness and delicacy of
their midrange, the warmth and quickness of their midbass, and an overall presentation that, paradoxically, sounded at
once detailed yet very smooth—almost
to the point of sonic politeness.
To zoom in: The midrange sweetness
is the sort that makes both male and
female voices sound graceful and rich,
even if some rough edges are ever so
slightly smoothed out in the process. A
good example is Dave Alvin’s voice on
“California Snow” from Blackjack David
[MFSL SACD]; Alvin’s dark, smoky, storyteller’s voice comes through vividly,
but with its typical gritty and gravelly
textures planed down just a bit.
Similarly, the D-200’s midrange makes
strings in general and solo violins in particular sound achingly beautiful, albeit
with their uppermost harmonics and the
inner textures of bowing and finger
changes diffused just a little. Listen to
the Heifetz performance of the Sibelius
Violin Concerto [RCA Living Stereo,
SACD] through the D-200s, and see if
you aren’t flat bowled over by the glory
of Heifetz’s string tone.
Still, the question of the D-200s’
handling of high-frequency details and
textures remains. My observation was
that the amps reproduce low-level
details well up to a point, and that their
high-frequency response is not rolled off.
However, as high-frequency details
113
equipment report
Power output: 200 watts @ 8 ohms, 325
watts @ 4 ohms
Inputs: One single-ended, or alternatively
(at buyer’s option) one balanced
Dimensions: 6.25" x 5.5" x 8"
Weight: 15 lbs.
Kuzma Stabi S/Stogi S turntable/arm;
Clearaudio Discovery cartridge; Supex
SDT-722 transformer; Musical
Surroundings Phonomena phonostage;
Musical Fidelity kW500 integrated amplifier and Tri-Vista SACD player; Rogue Audio
Metis preamplifier; NuForce Reference 9
and Audio Research 300.2 power amplifiers; Magnepan MG1.6/QR and WilsonBenesch Curve loudspeakers; PNF Audio
and Cardas interconnects and speaker
cables; RGPC 1200S power conditioner
114
become progressively finer and subtler,
the D-200s eventually allow their contours to melt into a soft diffuseness—the
sonic equivalent of a cinematic dissolve
to white. In fairness, I should say this
blurring affects only the very-lowestlevel details, but when it occurs, key
ingredients of transparency and of great
soundstaging are, to some degree, lost.
This leaves me of two minds. On the one
hand, the D-200s are never guilty of the
sort of overwrought transient excesses
that drive many of us nuts, which is a
very good thing. On the other, they fall
short of the profound transparency and
three-dimensionality that amplifiers
such as the NuForce Reference 9s offer.
The D-200s’ midbass is pleasingly
warm and weighty, with a good measure
of transient snap that helps make basses
(acoustic, electric, and human) and low
percussion instruments sound articulate
and expressive. Listeners will particular-
ly appreciate these qualities on recordings such as bassist Charlie Haden’s
Nocturnes [Verve], where the ever-tasteful Haden makes his musical points not
through flashy pyrotechnics, but
through delicate variations in the attack,
sustain, and voicing of his well-chosen
notes. Overall, I found the D-200s
offered midbass clarity on a par with
that of the considerably more powerful
and expensive Audio Research 300.2
power amplifier and Musical Fidelity
kW500 integrated that I had on hand
for comparison. Alongside the NuForce
Reference 9s, the D-200s delivered
slightly warmer and more prominent
midbass, while the Reference 9s offered
more potent and extended low bass and
an even greater degree of overall bass
control and definition.
Finally, the D-200s sound unfailingly smooth, even on complicated,
densely layered material such as
equipment report
Respighi’s Pina di Roma [Deutsche
Grammophon, LP], which can make
some components sound frazzled or distressed. Provided you don’t crank the D200s to levels where they start to run out
of power (something I’d not recommend
with this or any amplifier), they’ll sound
graceful and self-assured. But this selfassurance carries, I think, a small but
audible sonic price, namely, a tendency
toward sonic “politeness” that—in a
very subtle way—softens the vividness
and liveliness of reproduced music. It’s
not that the Channel Islands amplifiers
sound dull or compressed; they don’t. In
fact, the D-200s sound very expressive
in comparison to well-regarded traditional linear amplifiers such as the current generation McCormacks. It’s just
that there is an elusive layer of dynamic
accuracy, or intensity if you will, that
the D-200s can’t quite reach. After you
play a selection of reference recordings
on the D-200s, the first word that would
come to mind might be “smooth.” After
you hear the same selection on the
NuForce Reference 9s, the one-word
description might change to “alive.”
The Channel Islands Audio D-200s
are very good amplifiers, and they show
every sign of being a polished, thoroughly tested, trouble-free design
(would that every high-end manufacturer took product reliability and testing as
seriously as Channel Island does). The
CIAudios earn high marks sonically, as
well, sounding noticeably better than
many old-school linear amplifiers and
offering sound that is on a par with that
of contemporary Class D amps such as
the Audio Research 300.2. But the D200s’ most direct competitors are the
NuForce Reference 9s, and a comparison
forces the issue. The fact is that the D200s sound very good and have no vices
whatsoever, while the slightly more
costly Reference 9s offer elements of true
sonic greatness, but at the expense of
some annoying quirks and foibles. The
sonic differences between the amplifiers
are such that I could imagine listeners
choosing one or the other purely as a
matter of taste, and both offer exceptional value for money. If you like amplifiers that combine detail, smoothness,
warmth, and clarity, then the D-200s
could be perfect for you; but for greater
overall transparency and three-dimensionality, and more lifelike dynamics,
the Reference 9 would get my nod. &
CHANNEL ISLANDS AUDIO
567 W. Channel Islands Blvd., PMB #300
Hueneme, California 93041
(805) 984-8282
ciaudio.com
Price: $2299
115
equipment report
Krell SACD Standard CD/SACD Player
How one player changed a critic’s mind about the SACD format.
Fred Kaplan
t the turn of the decade,
when the first SACD players made their debuts at
the hi-fi shows, I remember wondering what the
fuss was about. The specs looked great,
but the discs sounded weirdly antiseptic.
As recently as a couple years ago, a manufacturer whose expensive amp I was
reviewing loaned me the same company’s five-figure SACD player. I thought:
Better, but the high frequencies are still
odd. They were smooth but flat, uninflected; cymbals, for instance, all sounded the same. Around this time, TAS
published a forum, in which some critics
wondered if this was an inherent flaw in
the format, which offers vast bandwidth
and ultra-fast sampling speed but single-bit signals.
I wondered so, too, until I heard the
Krell SACD Standard. Is it flawless? No,
but its sonic shortcomings are extremely
slight. At the very least, it redeems the
format’s technical promise. It makes
recorded music a pleasurable experience,
to a degree that few digital machines in
this price-range approach.
About those oft-problematic high
frequencies, listen to the piercing purity
A
118
of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s excursions
on Handel arias [Avie] or the shimmer
of Philly Joe Jones’ cymbals on the Miles
Davis quintet’s Relaxin’ [Acoustic
Sounds SACD]; they’re airy, even ethereal; you hear their distinct tones and resonances, and the ambience around them.
The highs don’t stick out—neither as
too bright nor too veiled—as digital
highs often do.
I was about to write
“sensationally,” but
that’s not right; it does
so naturally, seamlessly, without calling
attention to itself.
The midrange is also sweet and natural, if a bit on the warm side (which I don’t
mind). The bass goes staggeringly deep
and stays tuneful. If your speakers are fairly seamless from top to bottom, this digital machine won’t spoil the illusion.
The main appeal of most SACD
players (even the cheap ones, for instance
Sony’s first-generation model, which I
bought for $200 a few years ago) is that
they project the sound into your room;
you sense the music breathing forth
from the speakers, three-dimensionally,
in a way that PCM digital just can’t
manage (and in a way that good analog
does routinely). The Krell Standard
pulls off this feat…I was about to write
“sensationally,” but that’s not right; it
does so naturally, seamlessly, without
calling attention to itself.
On the Academy of Ancient Music’s
SACD of Bach solo and double violin
concertos, Andrew Manze and Rachel
Podger’s violins waft into your room on
a wave and their overtones float up to
the ceiling. The level of detail is extraordinary, including the “inner detail” of
specific instruments. You can distinguish the thickness of the six guitar
strings that Gene Bertoncini picks and
strums on Quiet Now [Ambient Music]. I
hadn’t realized the cellist was bowing
every beat on “Ruby Tuesday,” until I
listened through the Krell to the
Rolling Stones’ Hot Rocks SACD.
The Krell Standard also tosses up a
soundstage as wide and as deep as the
recording and the rest of your equipment allow. Listening to Michael Tilson
equipment report
Thomas’ series of Mahler symphonies,
especially the Ninth, on the San
Francisco Symphony’s own label, you
can “see” precisely the position of the
various instruments and sections.
It’s fair to ask why you should buy an
SACD player at all. Only a small number
of labels are still producing in the format.
The rush of jazz and pop SACDs, which
so excited audiophiles a few years ago (the
multi-disc series of the Stones, Dylan,
and so forth), has slowed to a near-halt. I
have two replies. First, the labels still
putting them out—Harmonia Mundi,
SFSA, Telarc, Deutsche Grammophon,
Songlines, Acoustic Sounds, among others—put out quite a lot of great recordings. Second, and more to the point here,
the Krell Standard also does a superb job
of playing standard Red Book CDs.
Everything I’ve said about it as an SACD
player also holds for its performance as a
CD player (allowing, of course, for the
differences between the two formats).
How does the Krell hold up to
vinyl? Not at all badly, but, hey, it’s not
a miracle worker. Listen to Acoustic
Sounds’ reissues of Bill Evans’ Waltz for
Debby. On the title tune, Paul Motian’s
hard-brushed snare-slaps sound a bit less
dynamic, a bit more softly slapped, on
the SACD than on the 180-gram LP. In
general, transients are softened, dynamic contrasts are shaded—noticeably, but
not dramatically, not much more than
the effect you’d hear by lowering a
phono cartridge’s VTA by a few hairs.
When TAS editor Jonathan Valin
reviewed an earlier version of the
Standard a couple years ago, in Issue 145
(more later on what’s different about this
revised version), he praised, in particular,
its “exceptionally rich and powerful bass”
as well as its “midband bloom and sweetness.” At the same time, he compared it
unfavorably with two much costlier models (EMM Labs’ DAC6e and EMM’s modified Philips 1000), finding the Krell
“less extended and incisive in the treble”
and for softening transients “more than a
tad, as if it were…a tube unit.”
I haven’t heard the EMM units
(except at a Consumer Electronics Show
too long ago to remember). But I have
heard the old and new versions of the
Krell Standard, side by side, and can
report that I agree with JV (as this review
bears out), although the new model is
still deeper and tighter in the bass and
slightly crisper on the treble transients.
What is different about the new
model—which, on the outside, looks
exactly like the old one—is where some
qualms come into play, though they’re
strictly ergonomic qualms. The main
difference between the two is a new
servo-drive—a change necessitated
when the supplier, Philips, suddenly
stopped producing the old one. In most
ways, this turned out to be good news.
Judging from a few online high-end
chat sites, the old drive had notorious
reliability problems. (An earlier version
of the unit, which I started to review,
went haywire, as did one purchased by a
friend.) However, by all accounts, the
Inside the SACD Standard
T
he Standard’s servo-mechanism—including separate lasers for CDs and
SACDs—is unusually stable, so as to focus the beam onto a disc’s pits with
minimal error. The chassis is actually a chassis-within-a-chassis—a steel
plate inside an aluminum enclosure—to dampen vibrations. (This is one of the few
CD players, or pieces of electronic gear generally, that doesn’t benefit from TipToetype cones or pucks.) The transport and the analog circuits draw on separate power
supplies; the analog stage’s is a hefty toroidal transformer. As with much of Krell’s
electronics line, the Standard’s circuitry employs a balanced topology, which boosts
the signal-to-noise ratio by 6dB. It also manipulates current instead of voltage all the
way through the signal chain up to the output stage, a possibly unique approach
that, Krell’s tech people say, expands bandwidth, increases speed, and greatly minimizes distortions caused by impedance interactions.
FK
120
new model is functioning fine. Still it,
too, has some idiosyncrasies. It’s noisy,
though not noisy enough to be heard
when music is playing, as long as you’re
sitting at least five feet away (except I
should add for two discs in my collection that for some reason produce a very
loud grinding). It takes a long time to
load a disc (15 seconds for SACDs, 25
seconds for CDs). And after the first few
seconds of a track, the track number disappears from the display panel. (If you
like what you’re hearing on a CD and
wonder which song it is, you’ll have to
start the track over to find out.)
Apparently, these problems are built
into the drive; there’s nothing to be
done. Krell’s technical people say they
decided to use this drive anyway,
because it sounds so much better than
any other they’ve tried. I have no reason
to doubt them. The machine is a bit of a
drag, like cuff links on a sleeve. But, at
least to my mind (yours may be to calculate costs and benefits differently), the
&
pleasures outweigh the foibles.
Stereo and multichannel CD and SACD
player with 24-bit/192kHz DACs on
each channel
Analog outputs: One balanced XLR connectors, six single-ended RCA connectors
Digital outputs: One S/PDIF RCA connector, one EIAI optical TosLink connector
Dimensions 17.3" x 5.72" x 16.5"
Weight: 25 lbs.
Krell KAV-280p linestage and FPB400cx
amplifier; Verity Audio Parsifal Ovation and
Krell Resolution 2 speakers; Nirvana
cables; Bybee Technologies Signature
power purifier and Monster Cable AVS-2000
voltage-regulator (though not for amp)
KRELL INDUSTRIES, INC.
45 Connair Road
Orange, Connecticut 06477
(203) 799-9954
krellonline.com
[email protected]
Price: $4000
E X P L O R I N G
T H E
A R T
A N D
T E C H N O L O G Y
The Cutting Edge
Mark Levinson No.326S Preamplifier
and No.432 Power Amplifier
A tradition of excellence, not just
upheld but improved upon.
Robert Harley
Today’s Mark Levinson brand of electronics traces it lineage back to 1972 when Mark Levinson
(the man) founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS). The company’s first product, the JC1 preamp (named after its designer, the great John Curl), jump-started the entire American
high-end renaissance in the early-to-mid 1970s. Along with Audio Research and Magnepan,
MLAS paved the way for the creativity and innovation in high-performance audio design that
continues more than thirty years later.
122
The Cutting Edge
Unlike those two other pioneers of the American high end,
which to this day are owned and operated by their respective
founders, the Mark Levinson brand has been produced under a
succession of corporate umbrellas. Founder Mark Levinson left
the company in the early 1980s to start Cello. Madrigal Audio
Laboratories, the parent company that owned the brand for
much of its existence (1984 to 1995), sold part of the company
to the giant Harman International in 1993. (By chance, I was
at the factory on a tour the day the announcement was made to
the employees.) The link between Madrigal and Harman was
no accident; Madrigal CEO Sandy Berlin had been Sidney
Harman’s right-hand man during the decades that Harman
became a behemoth by buying smaller audio companies.
Madrigal continued to operate independently until 1995 when
Harman bought the remaining interest in the company. The
Mark Levinson brand is now part of the Harman Specialty
Group, which comprises Mark Levinson, Lexicon, and Revel.
Perhaps the biggest shakeup in the company’s history
occurred in October, 2003, when Harman closed Madrigal’s
venerable Middletown, Connecticut, factory and moved all production to the Lexicon factory in Massachusetts. This move
took dealers and customers by surprise, and resulted in a complete cessation of production for several months. Some products
were out of production for more than a year as the new factory
ramped up. By mid-2005, however, the company was back in
full swing.
The question on everyone’s mind was whether the Mark
Levinson products made in the new factory were true to the
original intent of its founders, as well as to the engineers and
product-development managers who made the brand iconic
during the 1980s and 1990s.
Which brings us to the subject of this review, the Mark
Levinson No.326S preamplifier and No.432 power amplifier. My
aim is to not only evaluate these products in and of themselves,
but to discover whether the traditional Mark Levinson design
and build-quality, meticulous attention to every detail (down to
the shipping boxes), and distinctive sonic signature are embodied in the new products. Has this venerable marque become
merely a boutique brand under Harman? Or does Harman’s
financial stability provide a platform for a new era in creativity
and innovation that is true to the brand’s great legacy?
This project is of particular interest to me; I lived with and
reviewed a number of Mark Levinson products starting in the
late 1980s and became quite familiar with their designs and
sonic signature, as well as with the company ethos. Madrigal
Audio Laboratories was second to none in explaining to the
press the intricacies of its products, the meticulousness with
which it built its components, and the passion that drove new
development.
The $10,000 No.326S is a single-chassis preamp based on
the highly acclaimed No.32 Reference preamplifier, a $15,950
two-box unit introduced in 1999. The No.32 was, astonishingly, the first preamplifier to which the then-27-year-old company applied the designation “Reference.” Unlike other audio
companies that use the term for marketing purposes, Mark
Levinson reserved that special word for products that embodied
the company’s best possible effort. Levinson Reference gear
served as an internal benchmark for what could be done in a
product category, and as an ideal to which to aspire in subsequent, less-costly designs. Levinson had introduced Reference
power amplifiers, digital processors, and transports, but never a
preamplifier until the No.32.
The No.326S’s chassis is smaller than that of most components, but the styling cues (curved front panel, matte aluminum buttons, red LED display) are unmistakably Mark
Levinson. Interesting features include the ability to customize
the unit by naming each input, deactivating unused inputs,
adjusting the gain-offset of each input, and assigning the
record-out jacks to an input. A unity-gain bypass mode (called
Has this venerable marque
become merely a boutique
brand under Harman? Or does
Harman’s financial stability
provide a platform for a new era
in creativity and innovation that is
true to the brand’s great legacy?
“SSP” for surround-sound processor) allows the No.326S to be
used with a home-theater controller. The controller’s left and
right outputs feed one of the 326S’s line inputs. With the 326S
in SSP mode, it’s as though the preamp isn’t in the signal path.
This connection method, which I use in my system, allows you
to have a two-channel signal path completely separate and
uncorrupted by a surround-sound system. In a nice touch,
switching inputs or absolute polarity causes the volume to
quickly ramp down before switching, and then ramp up to the
previous level, preventing pops or other noises from reaching
your loudspeakers. Optional phono boards ($1400) convert the
No.326S from a linestage to a full-function preamplifier.
123
The Cutting Edge
The 326S’s fundamental design is dual-mono, with the left
and right audio channels physically separated in the chassis and
powered from completely separate supplies. Only the AC
power cord is shared between channels. The internal topology
is fully balanced, which requires that an unbalanced input signal be converted to balanced by a phase splitter at the input. A
differential amplifier at the output converts balanced signals
back to unbalanced. This topology adds additional circuitry to
the signal path for unbalanced signals. The upside is that balanced signals remain balanced from input to output. Note that
a truly balanced preamplifier, such as the No.326S, employs
four signal paths (+/– left, +/– right) and four volume-control
elements rather than two.
The No.326S’s volume control is a work of art. Identical in
design and execution to that developed for the No.32
Reference, it is a stepped attenuator using a discrete-resistor
array. The front-panel volume knob’s motion is converted into
digital data which then engages the resistor network to achieve
the desired attenuation. Volume can be adjusted in 1dB increments up to 23dB, and 0.1dB increments above 23dB.
Levinson introduced the switched-resistor volume control in
the No.38 preamplifier, but that unit employed an MDAC
(multiplying digital-to-analog-converter), an IC that provided
digital control over analog signals. The No.326S’s volume control is significantly more sophisticated, employing discrete
resistors rather than resistive elements in an IC. Advantages of
a switched-resistor network over a traditional volume control
are that the audio signal is never subjected to the wiper and
resistive element in a potentiometer, and that high precision
can be achieved between the left and right channel gain.
Even more important in a fully balanced preamplifier, perfect gain matching is possible between
the + and – phases of the balanced signal. From a user’s point of view,
the switched-resistor network
and front-panel volume display
allow precise level setting and
matching—a feature of even more utility to a reviewer.
The No.326S’s circuit boards are made
from Arlon, a material developed for circuit
boards used in microwave and radar applications. It reportedly has ideal properties for
audio, including low dielectric loss and excep-
124
tionally low conduction between traces. Because Arlon is
extremely expensive it is reserved for Mark Levinson’s more
costly products.
The remote control is a beautifully made oval with nice
button layout and enough functions to be useful without
becoming cluttered. The owner’s manual is also superb.
The parts and build-quality are all comparable to the standards set previously by Mark Levinson products. I have, however, two very small nits to pick. The first is that the No.326S’s
front-panel power button is a different size, color, and material
than all the other front-panel buttons. Given that the No.326S
is meant to be left in standby mode, the power button could
have been mounted on the rear panel. The second is that the
remote control’s battery-access panel sticks out slightly, disrupting the remote’s continuous curve on the back. These are
admittedly minor issues, but the company is famous for being
maniacal about such details.
Looking next at the No.432, the power amplifier continues
a trend started about ten years ago by Madrigal to make Mark
Levinson amplifiers more installation-friendly. Among these
measures are internal heat sinks, rack-mounting capability, and
the ability to integrate the amplifier into a system with control
and communication ports.
The No.432 shares the circuit topology of the company’s
flagship No.33H monoblocks. The unit features a massive
power supply with separate toroidal transformers for each channel. Indeed, the No.432 is rated at 400Wpc into
8 ohms, and can double that figure into 4
ohms. Any amplifier that doubles its output
power as the load impedance is halved
must have a massive power supply, a
robust output stage, and serious
heatsinks. High-level signals are
routed through the amplifier on
large buss bars rather than via
wiring. The DC-servo’d
input and driver stages are
fully balanced. As with the
No.326S, the power amplifier employs Arlon circuit
boards.
I started the evaluations by inserting the No.432 power amplifier into my reference system and immediately recognized the
The Cutting Edge
familiar Mark Levinson presentation. That sound is characterized by an extremely sophisticated, cool, and polite rendering
that doesn’t try to impress by hi-fi fireworks. Instead, the
No.432 presented a finely woven fabric of musical subtleties
that invited me into the music. Although laid-back, the
No.432 had tremendous resolving power, but in a much more
subtle way than that of most power amplifiers. The sound had
an easy-going and relaxed quality that fostered an immediate
involvement in the performance. To draw an analogy with
pianists, the No.432 was like Bill Evans; no flash, but a wealth
of subtlety and expression if you take the time to listen.
The No.432 presented a wonderful impression of space,
depth, and dimensionality. This was one of the amplifier’s
defining—and best—qualities. The overall perspective was
characteristically Mark Levinson—that is, with a feeling of sitting a little farther back in the hall. The soundstage was beautifully rendered, with a tremendous sense of size, air, and
bloom. The soundstage had the unusual (unusual in an audio
No.326S
Type: Solid-state, two-channel preamplifier
Inputs: Three balanced stereo line inputs on XLR, four unbalanced
stereo line inputs on RCA (phono input optional)
Outputs: One stereo balanced on XLR (main), one stereo balanced
on RCA (main), two stereo record-out on RCA
Dimensions: 13.62" x 2.66" x 13.58"
Weight: 30 lbs.
No.432
Type: Solid-state, two-channel power amplifier
Output power: 400Wpc into 8 ohms, 800Wpc into 4 ohms
(20Hz–20kHz at <0.5% THD)
Input impedance: 100k ohms balanced, 50k ohms unbalanced
Inputs: Balanced on XLR jacks, unbalanced on RCA
Additional connectors: Two 1/8" mini-jacks for remote turn-on; one
RS232 port on RJ-11; two Mark Levinson communication ports
on RJ-11, RJ-45, EIC power connector
Outputs: Custom binding posts
Dimensions: 13.75" x 7.66" x 20.1"
Weight: 115 lbs.
Wilson Audio MAXX 2 loudspeakers; Aesthetix Calypso linestage;
Theta Generation VIII digital processor and Mark Levinson No.31.5
transport; Meitner DCC2 and CD30 CD and two-channel SACD playback; MIT Z-System AC conditioner; Shunyata Hydra 8 and Hydra 2
power conditioners, Shunyata Anaconda AC power cords; MIT Oracle
loudspeaker cable; Nordost Valhalla interconnects; Acoustic Room
Systems room; Acoustic Sciences Corporation 16" full-round Tube
Traps (x3), custom-built room with two dedicated AC supplies; Billy
Bags equipment racks
126
component, not in live music) attribute of a billowy quality at
the edges that made the space more like the presentation of live
music and less like an audio system’s reproduction of a soundstage. It was as though the soundstage didn’t abruptly end, but
extended well beyond the boundaries of my listening room.
The No.432 managed to sound simultaneously diffuse and
focused, with an overall sense of spaciousness, precisely defined
images, and layers of depth between instruments. It was a combination I found extremely engaging.
Although it was polite, subtle, and sophisticated in the
midrange and treble, those qualities didn’t prevent the
No.432 from delivering a rock-solid, tight, and extremely
dynamic bottom end. This amplifier can rock when asked.
Roscoe Beck’s outstanding bass work on Robben Ford and the
Blue Line’s Handful of Blues had terrific punch and drive, laying the foundation for Ford’s searing guitar work. Timpani
whacks had the appropriate measures of depth, suddenness of
attack, and freedom from strain. With 800Wpc on tap into 4
ohms, the No.432 isn’t likely to run out of power even when
driving the most difficult load. I never heard a softening of
the bass, a reduction in bottom-end dynamics, or a congealing of the soundstage—all characteristics of an amplifier nearing its power limitations—during the auditioning.
The No.432 is fully competitive with the best amplifiers
Mark Levinson has produced, but offers a greater value, in my
view. At $8000 for 400Wpc, the No.432 is about half the price
of the company’s comparable efforts of ten or more years ago,
and perhaps a touch better sounding. If you don’t need this
much power, consider the otherwise-identical 200Wpc
(400Wpc into 4 ohms) No.431 at $7000.
If the No.432 held few sonic surprises, the No.326S preamplifier rendered me slack-jawed. Inserting it into the reference system, now with the No.432 installed, completely
upended my preconceptions. Yes, the No.326S had some
identifiable Levinson characteristics, but was in a completely different league compared with the company’s previous
efforts in preamplifier design. Specifically, the No.326S had
much less of a “house sound” and vastly greater transparency and truth to the source than any other Mark Levinson
preamp I’ve heard. In my review of the Mark Levinson
No.38 preamp (Stereophile, August, 1994), for example, I
wrote that the unit didn’t quite resolve the last measure of
detail, and that its soundstage was somewhat constricted.
The No.38 had a veiled and distant character that never really let me connect with the music. Not so the No.326S. This
new preamp is absolutely world class in terms of transparency, soundstaging, bass extension, dynamics, and most
dramatically, dimensionality.
Inserting the No.326S into my system (combined with
the No.432 power amplifier) produced the most convincing
and engaging sense of dimensionality I’ve heard from my
system. Dimensionality is difficult to describe; it is a multifaceted aspect of reproduced music that encompasses soundstaging, tone color, image focus, bloom, and the ability of a
The Cutting Edge
component to resolve space between instrumental images.
Dimensionality is that quality of an audio system that provides the impression of an instrument’s size, shape, texture,
and precise position in the soundstage. Lots of hi-fi components throw images between the loudspeakers, but very few
project a convincing illusion of the instrument’s body hanging in three-dimensional space before you. Dimensionality
is also related to a component’s ability to differentiate tone
colors, allowing the listener to pick out a single instrument
from within a dense orchestration. This particular quality
was apparent on the JVC XRCD resissue of Holst’s The
Planets during the loud and brash multiple brass lines on
“Mars.” I heard no smearing, no congestion, and no congealing of instrumental textures, just a sound very much
closer to what one hears in the concert hall. (I had the benefit of hearing The Planets performed recently.)
Interestingly, counterpoint was well served by the No.326S’s
dimensionality, particularly its ability to keep left- and
right-hand piano lines distinct. Listen to the Bach
Passacaglia and Fugue as transcribed for piano and performed by Junichi Steven Sato [Sato Music Editions] on a
fabulous new recording. The No.326S simply made the
counterpoint more interesting and engaging.
Dimensionality is of course dependent on cues encoded in
the signal, but is actually created by the brain. The signals
128
driving the left and right loudspeakers are two-dimensional
in nature—merely voltages that vary over time. These signals
are converted to two patterns of compression and rarefaction
in the air. From this pair of two-dimensional signals, the
brain creates the illusion of objects (musical instruments)
existing in space before us. How miniscule the difference in
signals must be between a preamp that delivers dimensionality and one that doesn’t—but how important to the musical
experience. Dimensionality gives music a natural sense of
vividness and life without resorting to hi-fi trickery. Some
components attempt to make up for lack of dimensionality
by sounding forward, forced, and aggressive. This sonic
vividness quickly becomes fatiguing, but natural dimensionality has the opposite effect, drawing the listener into the
presentation in a completely relaxed way that encourages
long listening sessions.
The No.326S had a remarkable transparency, not just sonically (lack of veiling), but to the musical expression. For example, when I listened to guitarist John McLaughlin’s Que Alegria
[Verve] from start to finish, the wide spectrum of expression on
this album seemed to be heightened. The pensive, almost meditative tracks such as “Reincarnation” seemed even more introspective, and the exuberant “1 Nite Stand” conveyed a stronger
feeling of this amazing trio locking into a groove and having a
blast. I had this impression every time I listened to the system
The Cutting Edge
with the No.326S and No.432—of the system conveying the
musical values on the recording.
Bass extension, definition, and dynamics were another of the
No.326S’s great strengths. Whether it was an orchestra’s double-bass section or an electric bass and kick drum working
together, the bottom end had a solidity and power that anchored
the music.
The No.326S had a very clean, precise sound, presenting
the music against an utterly silent and velvet-black backdrop.
Musical dynamics seemed to emerge suddenly from this inky
blackness, with deep silences between notes. There was a distinctive lack of haze, both in the background and overlaying
musical textures. This quality, combined with the dimensionality described earlier, fostered a deep feeling of engagement
and involvement with the music.
CONCLUSION
The Mark Levinson No.432 power amplifier is a worthy successor to the company’s previous efforts in power-amplifier
design. It combines brute-force output power with remarkable
delicacy and resolution, and embodies the company’s aesthetic
of subtlety in presentation. If you know and like the classic
Mark Levinson sound, the No.432 won’t disappoint.
The No.326S preamp is a huge step forward for Mark
Levinson preamplifiers in resolution, transparency, and dimensionality. With less of an identifiable sonic signature, the
No.326S is truer to the source, musically and sonically, than
any previous ML preamp. There’s much to like about the
No.326S, including its jet-black background, unconstricted
dynamic expression, bottom-end punch and extension, and
clean, grain-free rendering of timbres. It’s also beautifully built
and a joy to use. But what really makes the No.326S special is
its remarkable dimensionality. This preamp goes beyond conventional soundstaging to throw a convincing illusion of threedimensional instruments in a three-dimensional space.
Based on my experience with the No.326S and No.432, the
Mark Levinson brand under Harman International not only
upholds the sterling tradition it spent 35 years developing, it
has, in my view, actually expanded the reputation of one of the
great marques of high-end audio.
&
MARK LEVINSON
3 Oak Park Drive
Bedford, Massachusetts 01730
(781) 280-0300
marklevinson.com
Prices: $10,000 (No.326S), $8000 (No.432)
129
H P ’ S WO R K S H O P
Memoirs of CES:
What Happened in Las Vegas Doesn’t Stay
in Las Vegas—This Time Around
Harry Pearson
here are so many things about the Consumer
Electronics Show and Las Vegas that they don’t tell
you in the usual show report, which this one isn’t
going to be. They don’t tell you about the dry heat,
and how it dehydrates you—to the point you’ll get
new meaning out of the phrase brick, uh, outhouse.
So you’ll see most everyone lugging bottled water
around, and tubes of what we now call lip “balm.” Oddly
enough, with all the swimming pools and incessant waterings
of the endless golf courses here in the desert, the air manages to
be both dry and sweat-sticky at the same time.
They probably don’t have to tell you that the area itself is
the fastest growing in the United States. And that this has
brought with it, mushroom-like fields of box housing and
thickening traffic where lickety-split is the driving speed at any
hour. Its hooker population now exceeds the taxi fleets in number—and there even appeared to be members of its “sisterhood”
hired to entice the innocent into sparsely attended exhibits at
the Alexis Park, the main high-end audio venue. They probably don’t tell you that taxis are at premium during “rush” hours
(the hookers, of course, at any time) and that you may have to
wait in line a half-hour to go where you could walk in the same
or less time. Or that, if you want to see more than just the esoterica of audio—say the more grandiloquent audio manufacturers and the big-time video guys—you’d have to tote yourself all
over town; that’s how spread out the show is, how, really,
impossible it is to get more than a taster’s sampling.
It isn’t even possible in the four full days of demos to
see/hear all that the high-end establishment has to show (off),
for even the most indefatigable. The Alexis Park is packed
with exhibitors and next door, in a rat’s maze known as the St.
(Saint? Really?) Tropez, there is something called T.H.E.
show, the T.H.E. standing for, not “the high end,” but rather
“the home entertainment” experience, where the even more
esoteric tended to congregate. In all, between the two hotels,
there were in excess of 450 high-end audio companies
exhibiting. As for me, I hadn’t darkened the show’s doors in
seven years and so, like Maine taffy (as opposed to Coons) I
got yanked in all kinds of directions by all sorts of people and
wound up feeling as if I had hardly skimmed the surface. But,
what I did get was, I think, choice.
Another thing you probably could surmise, but that almost
no one writes about, is the social aspect of the show, at least in
T
130
high-end-audio terms. This is a small industry, albeit with an
increasingly international flavoring, in which almost everybody
either knows or is acquainted with everybody else, and this
works in sometimes unexpected ways. And, oh, what a talkathon it can be, with more than a bit of nasty backbiting, especially when “sacred cows” are the topic.
They talk over breakfast convocations, where the search is
always on for the best (preferably, and often in this town, free)
buffet. (The one at Steve Wynn’s new pleasure dome got the
highest ratings.) Keep in mind that audiophiles tend to the
sensory pleasures, so the serious fooding, partying, and drinking is done evenings, especially now that most of America’s
most famous chefs have set up shop in Lost Wages. Now let it
be said that these self-same stars are virtually never personally
in attendance, so there is a pig-in-the-poke kind of gamble
involved in striving for a reservation in a “name” place. In certain circles, there’s a hot competition to see who can go to and
rave, bitch, or moan about these starless (nighttime) establishments. And it would be for naught if there weren’t a largerthan-life aspect to all this, so typical of Vegasanary inflations.
For example, Picasso, in the Bellagio, has nothing but original
Pablo Picassos lining its walls, making for what just maybe the
world’s most expensive wallpaper. And in some places, the old
LV hustle yet abounds. At a “deluxe” sushi joint, Shibuya in the
MGM Grand, where my birthday was celebrated, the quality of
the fish, which started out a breathtaking level (along to be sure
with the prices), descended as our consumption of sake ascended until the last course one my pussies would have given an “F”
rating—a true demonstration of the PPDD, the Pearson
Principle of Descending Discrimination, in this case the theory here was that one’s discrimination descended as one’s sake
intake ascended, an inverse proportion rule that definitely does
not apply to this writer.
One can only wonder at what this fiesta of sound must cost
the small companies who have to pay for it all—the hotel
rooms (never acoustically heavenly), the cost of shipping the
gear back and forth to Nevada, and the man-hours spent in the
process, not to mention the not-inconsiderable “extras,” like
food, transportation—well, you get the picture. And we
haven’t even begun to wonder at the totals the foreign manufacturers must run up. And I have no way to estimating what
might be lost at the gaming tables, which are ubiquitous, but,
perhaps happily, not at the two high-end show sites.
And there are disasters too numerous to count. Since it is
high-end gear,1 there are breakdowns, especially with the power
surges that plagued the Alexis Park. Sometimes a perfectly
good display of gear is either ruined or seriously compromised
by mismatches in the system or clumsy setup. One particularly noxious episode occurred in the big Von Schweikert room at
the St. Tropez, where the firm (minus Albert when I was there)
was demonstrating the VR-7 SE Reference, an ambitious fourway system, complete with a pure ribbon supertweeter and a
dual-woofer system said to reach down into the 15Hz region.
Four of Kevin Hayes’ 140-watt amplifiers were driving the two
speakers, and the soundfield was both expansive and eerily
“right.” But, the Oracle ’table setup, complete with the
Dynavector XV-1S, was off. The cartridge’s vertical tracking
angle was set too low, which robbed the highs of air and bloom,
and made the midbass fatter than I think, based on what I’ve
heard from Von Schweikert’s earlier works, that it should have
been, obviously, to these ears, obscuring the very bottom
octave. And the tracking pressure was too light. But despite my
protestations and Kevin Hayes’ intervention on my behalf, the
guy in control would not change the settings, saying it would
take 20 minutes to do. Well, it wouldn’t have taken me 20
minutes to make those adjustments. And so, rather than listen
to colorations that ought not to have been there, I walked out.
Similarly, I was invited for a private demonstration of the
new Zanden equipment, being imported here from Japan. The
CD player and decoder were the very same units I’ve had for
evaluation (and loaned back to the company for the show), and
they are honeys. So, to my ears, were the visually stunning electronics2 designed by Kazutoshi Yamada, their quite proud
papa. But, to hear the strengths of the electronics, I had to listen around the speakers, which were not of Yamada design, and
whose ringing tweeters reminded me of those Focal units in the
Wilson MAXX IIs. Once you’ve heard enough combinations of
components, you can hear past an obvious irritant to see the
magic that’s happening underneath, and this is exactly what
happened to me here.
I was surprised that there was such an abundance of turntables at the show. I’m not objecting, of course, but it does seem
someone is doing the time warp again, as the number of new
recordings on LP approach zero (disregarding, for the moment,
the proliferation and increasing abundance of remasterings of
the Oldie Goldie hits from the past) and the prices of many
turntables rise toward mania. The $100,000 pricing of the
Australian-made Continuum was, negatively speaking, the
talk of the show—would I ever like to get my hands on this to
see if it could be, let’s say, 20 times better in sound that the
circa-$5000 Super Scoutmaster. But, as the manufacturer let
me know, that’s not bloody likely. I did, I think, manage to
wrangle a promise from the guys behind the British Blue Pearl
table (circa $90,000) for an evaluation sample. Roy Gregory,
editor of Hi-Fi+, a magazine I admired long before AMI
acquired it, wrote an impressive review of this that sparked my
interest. Given the conglomeration of equipment in the room
where the Blue Pearl was being demonstrated (with the wonderful new Graham Phantom arm), I could make no judgments about its sound.
There was a turntable that I could “hear,” and it was the
Baron Tim de Paravicini’s “magnetic” suspension DiscMaster
(priced at a measly $16k—it’s a joke, Maude, a joke). There
looks to be no “connection” between the drive mechanism and
the platter, and, within about five seconds, it was obvious to me
that something special had been achieved in the reduction of
inherent turntable noise pollution. (Happily, they had on hand
one of my reference recordings for LP testing, the Bartók
Hungarian Sketches, with Reiner and the Chicago, and this,
friends, told the tale.) That I intend to test. The sound in this
room was, in its way, as good as anything else I heard—and I
heard at least three other setups that were, putting it mildly,
stunning (and that in a hotel room no less). FYI: The other gear
was the Esoteric Audio Research (the Baron’s company) 912,
the 890 amplifier, and his new CD player, the Acute—about
which more very shortly—the Marten Design Miles III speaker system, Jorma Design One interconnects, and Acro-Link
power cords.
Now, that CD player. I can’t be sure of this, without hearing it in my reference setup in Sea Cliff, but, with the Howard
Hanson Composer and His Orchestra, I heard what I thought was
the cleanest high-frequency reproduction and extension I had
encountered from a CD. By the time you read this deathless
prose, I should have the unit in hand and be better able to see
whether it was the excellent setup in Dan Meinwald’s suite or
the player or my fevered imagination.
Another most excellent setup was at the Hovland suite, an
acoustic the Hovland folks have mastered since they insisted on
the same room for three years running. The sound was a coherent and nearly flawless entity, smooth, extended, and lush in all
the right ways. The biggest surprise for me were the Avalon
Ediolon Diamonds (at $33,000 the pair), which far surpass (at
last) the original Avalons that so endeared themselves to JWC
(and me) many a moon ago. The sound was so coherent that I,
for once, couldn’t be quite sure what was contributing what. I
would have, that said, been curious to hear an analog source
other than their own modified version of the Kenwood L0-7D
playback system, with the Grado Statement moving-magnet
cartridge. But, for the record, the system consisted of the HP200 (weird initials those, n’est ce pas?) preamplifier, which is
available as a linestage without the phonostage, the yet-to-be
1 Pearson’s Second Law of High End: The more vital it is for the gear to work perfectly, the less chance it will.
2 For example, the 845 push-pull mono blocks, the 1200 phonostage, the 3000 preamplifier, and 300 passive linestage were on display.
132
released Stratos solid-state monoblock amps—and, boy, do they
ever have looks to drool over—Hovland interconnects, and a
prototype USB digital-to-analog converter, and I quote “to
become part of a complete computer-connectable CD player
with a new technology data-extraction transport,” set for
December release. In this instance, we heard most undigital
and convincing digital sounds from a transport that was the
Apple Mac Mini and iTunes “loaded,” it is said “with uncompressed CDs.”
I don’t think anything quite prepared me for the show’s
sonic ballbusters. I stopped by Jeff Rowland’s suite because I
was curious to know why he had dropped off the sonic map
for a while—I didn’t find out. But we did discuss his new
line of Class D amplification, which he said was neither digital nor switching in its design. While there I heard two
quite small two-way speakers with voices bigger than a
Metropolitan Opera star’s and inquired after them. “They’re
called MAGICOS,” the guy said, with the requisite sneer
about the Wal-Mart sound of its name. Then, later, one of
our writers—pretty sure it was Valinosky, who had already
managed to bag an evaluation pair—said if I thought they
sounded good at Rowland’s place, I ought to go over to the
St. Tropez and check out MAGICO’s own suite, to which,
you can be sure, I hied me thither.
I encountered the resident singularity behind what he calls
the Mini’s, Alon Wolf, who came to the U.S. from Israel 17
years ago with $324 in his pocket and has come to this. He had
the Edge linestage and Ken Stevens’ imposing looking (and
impressive-sounding) Convergent Audio Technology JL-3s. (I
didn’t care much for the TEAC Esoteric player he was using,
because I knew he could have done better, given the great
strides forward in CD player design. But the Esoteric’s top-end
digitis wasn’t fatal to the sound of the speakers).
The speakers really took me by surprise, by storm even. You
wouldn’t expect drivers this small (they are bonded to the rock
solid cabinet) to have wide frequency response, particularly
down low, or a dynamic response that illustrates better than
anything I’ve heard of late, the concept of “jump,” i.e., the ability of a speaker to respond, instantly, to microdynamic variations, and, in this case, not just microdynamics, but the macros
as well. The sound is big, big, big. Not in the bloated sense,
but big like lifelike sound is. More than one person visiting the
suite wondered where Wolf was hiding the non-existent
woofers. I heard no obvious colorations during the session
(which, included, you can be sure, some unamplified classical
cuts).
To me, it was almost—I said almost—worth putting up
with Vegas to make discoveries like this one, and the Baron’s
“magnetic” drive turntable. It puts that old thrill back in high&
end audio.
Manufacturer’s Comments
Krell SACD Standard
I would like to thank Fred Kaplan for his very thorough
review of the Krell SACD Standard. There are two points that
need to be reinforced.
Since we are not a transport manufacturer, we are at the
mercy of our OEM manufacturer of this part. As a company
that places sound reproduction first and foremost, we selected the Philips transport because it best met our performance
criteria. The inherent drawbacks of this device, as Fred points
out, are a necessary evil.
Not everyone is able to take full advantage of the latest
high resolution SACD software. For us, it was extremely
important to produce a machine that would give exemplary
performance on Red Book CDs as well. We appreciate Fred’s
careful listening and critical evaluation of the SACD
Standard with CDs in this format.
Dan D’Agostino
Chief Executive Officer, Krell Industries, Inc.
Mark Levinson No.432 Amplifier and No.326S
Preamplifier
To say that we are pleased with Robert Harley’s commentary
134
on the No.432 amplifier and No.326S preamplifier would
simply be stating the obvious. We offer a heartfelt “thank
you” for the time and effort that led to his review.
Beyond that, we’d like to offer your readers an observation. Both products benefited from significant work by the
Mark Levinson team (HSG). Specifically, the No.432 underwent some circuit and manufacturing changes to enhance
reliability. The No.326S was revised even more thoroughly.
Although based in part on the No.320 preamplifier (a product that existed only in prototype form when Mark Levinson
moved to MA), the 326S underwent extensive listening tests,
parts selection, and voicing. Mr. Harley’s comments show
just how successful those efforts were.
The point is that the passion and aural sensitivity that
was so instrumental in establishing the Mark Levinson brand
over the last three decades is, if anything, even stronger today
than it was several years ago. In addition, the resources we
can now tap through Harman’s world-wide technology network ensure that Mark Levinson products will continue to
lead the industry in sonic accuracy.
Walter Schofield
Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mark Levinson
m u s i c
POPULAR
Rock, Etc.
RECORDING OF THE ISSUE
Mogwai: Mr. Beast. Tony Doogan and
Mogwai, producers. Matador 681 (CD and
two-LP). Music: HHHH Sonics: HHHH
ince releasing
the eye-opening Young Team
nine years ago,
Mogwai has been
hounded by lofty
expectations even
as its subsequent creations have helped
lay the foundation for the flowering
instrumental and cosmic-rock outgrowths, ambitious developments that
are commonly tucked under the descriptively vacant “post-rock” moniker.
After consciously turning away from
the soft-loud dynamic it veritably patented on its previous efforts, the Scottish
quintet returns to but doesn’t simply
recycle the strategy on Mr. Beast. Rather,
the group makes it a subplot to noisier,
heavier currents flowing throughout the
seismographic work. The gorgeous
fragility that lightened 2003’s Songs for
Happy People hasn’t disappeared, but is
enveloped in piano-based soundscapes
that convey lyrical episodes, the darklight tonal contrasts serving as speech
even when words are present.
Part of this secretive communication
resides in Mogwai’s song titles, which
here range from the mysterious “Folk
Death 95” to the more overt “Travel is
Dangerous.” With its treated piano intro
and harmonium glow, the latter fades
into view as a black-and-white photo, its
mood of subdued glory suggesting that of
a dignitary’s funeral. “Emergency Trap” is
similarly meditative, crawling piano
strides doubling as locked gates barely
able to hold off intruders—in this case,
welling waves of guitar-feedback that
resemble string orchestras madly striking
S
Star Ratings Key:
136
H Poor
Mogwai
their instruments. Mogwai also ventures
into other musical disciplines. “I Chose
Horses” is jump-started with fingerpicked spiritual tremolo patterns before
giving way to underwater synthesizer
washes over which Envy member Tetsuya
Fukagawa drapes words. “Acid Food”
glides on sunny western motifs, pedalsteel lines, and faintly whip-cracked electrobeats that elicit Daniel Lanois’ salted
atmospherics. Again, while present, spoken language struggles to be deciphered
over a submerging rhythmic drone.
Words don’t even dare enter most
realms, and while this approach is nothing new for Mogwai, the album’s weighty
din and clamorous crescendos are an integral part of Mr. Beast’s unspoken premise—that there’s a monster raging inside
all of us, and while it can’t be tamed, it
can occasionally be harnessed. But more
often, it roams freely. In response,
Mogwai increase the volume and physical
mass on the record’s most thrilling tracks,
HH Fair
HHH Good
those in which the quintet seems to crash
through glass-brick houses, ransack the
premises, and move on for more. That the
production allows for a multi-dimensional palette in which hues, volume, scales,
and pitches are properly varied and monumentally presented does wonders for the
music’s impact on the senses, particularly
on attacking passages that grow to enormous heights without ever simply
devolving into empty threats.
Hence, “Glasgow Mega-snake”
writhes against wall upon wall upon wall
of guitar distortion, the bass notes swaying like a four-ton I-beam being precariously dangled from a crane. Warrior
drums and low-end thunder mushroom
on “Auto Rock,” the tune’s deadly outro
mimicking the claustrophobic sensation
of ice pelting against a car windshield.
Brake-screeching feedback is offset by
lean, melancholic chords on “We’re No
Here,” a battering-ram of a bender that
feeds off the denial in the title. Rubbing
HHHH Excellent
HHHHH Extraordinary
m u s i c
together like charged ions, the band’s
instruments dissolve into a melodic hail,
the overdriven psychedelic cacophony
pointing towards the fall of a civilization
and implicating that the monster lives,
and there ain’t a damn thing we can do
BOB GENDRON
about it.
FURTHER LISTENING: Pelican: The Fire In
Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw; Mono:
Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky
Loose Fur: Born Again In the USA. No producer credit. Drag City 309 (CD and LP).
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHHH
A
side project
for producer,
occasional filmmaker, and former Sonic Youth
member
Jim
O’Rourke and
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche,
Loose Fur is three exceptionally simpatico musicians playing with, off, and for
each other, and obviously having a ball in
the process. Unlike the group’s 2003 selftitled debut—a quite good if rather disjointed effort—Born Again In the USA has
a greater feeling of cohesion. Granted,
these are three very experimental musicians. So don’t be surprised when
“Wreckroom,” one of Tweedy’s songs (he
and O’Rourke split the lyric writing
duties while the band takes credit for all
the music), begins as a tongue-in-cheek,
vaguely John Lennon-ish pop song that’s
interrupted by occasional slashes of noise
before unfolding into a sonic dreamscape
that lasts for much longer than you might
anticipate. Song titles like that one as
well as the opening “Hey Chicken,” a
nice rocker with a powerful backbeat,
indicate that Loose Fur doesn’t take itself
too seriously, though there is some seri-
popular
ously good music making at work.
“The Ruling Class” contains some of
Tweedy’s wilder lyrics about current
American society and saunters along at a
country-waltz pace that’s bridged by
hands-in-pockets whistling. Changing
gears, O’Rourke’s “Answers To Your
Questions” features his beautiful
acoustic finger picking, filigreed textures, and ringing vibes against Kotche’s
throbbing bass drum, while the latter’s
carefully syncopated stick work on
“Apostolic” demonstrates why he’s
arguably rock’s tastiest and most musically adventurous drummer. The
record’s 10 tracks are equally strong, and
as with its first recording, the trio slips
in a jazzy instrumental number, “An
Ecumenical Matter.”
The sound is first-rate, with a lovely
overall balance and a warm, open, and
easy nature that allows for a remarkable
sense of space around the instruments
137
m u s i c
Loose Fur
(even if many of them are overdubbed).
Given those involved and where it was
recorded, Sear Sound and Wilco’s loft,
I’d venture that this is an all-analog
recording. Great stuff here—for the
musically adventurous, of course.
WAYNE GARCIA
FURTHER LISTENING: Loose Fur: Loose
Fur; The Minus 5: Down With Wilco
Drive-By Truckers: A Blessing and a Curse.
David Barbe, producer. New West 3016.
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHH 1/2
o love is
to
feel
pain,” solemnly
states Patterson
Hood during “A
World of Hurt,”
the raw, barebones ballad that closes his band’s seventh album. The spoke-sung conclusion—as well as several other adages
about emotion, persistence, and perception Hood utters matter-of-factly, as if
reading from a post-suicidal diary
entry—are the core themes surrounding
A Blessing and a Curse, a work whose central tenet holds that without tenacious
struggle and both good and bad times,
life isn’t really lived at all.
Having gutted it out as a welltraveled group for a decade straight,
Drive-By Truckers know of what they
speak. The quintet’s last trio of records
has been as brilliant as those of any
other contemporary band, no small
praise given the current streaks of
Wilco, Radiohead, and Flaming Lips.
On those three prior efforts, the
Truckers took on challenging Southern
topics—the duplicitous history and
“T
legacy of its music and culture; the
darker sides of its people and traditions; the customs and mythical figures—that universally resonate, yet
nonetheless are regionally grounded in
Southern gothic. More worldly, the
songwriting here reflects a greater
degree of geographical independence.
Guitarists Hood, Mike Cooley, and
Jason Isbell again contribute originals,
each member bringing distinctive tones
and angles to the material, much of
which cranks. Isbell offers cautionary
advice on “Easy On Yourself,” his wispy
voice nearly getting caught underneath
the meaty grind and cowbell plunks that
stamp the tune with a ’70s bent.
Hustled and hoodwinked, Hood
nonetheless remains resilient and relaxed
on “Aftermath USA,” a twistingthrough-the-brambles hangover anthem
that, narratively, is Southern rock’s
unambiguous version of the Grateful
Dead hit “Touch of Grey.”
While the Truckers represent rock
and roll’s free spirit in all its glory when
they have the amps moaning and drums
stomping, a la the lonely “Wednesday”
and punk-shot “Feb 14,” their unflinching approach to serious issues and intelligent lyrical signature are why they are
among music’s elite. An acoustic shuffle
shot through with a rippling electric
twang, Cooley’s pull-no-punches
“Gravity’s Gone” depicts a protagonist
who’s tired of champagne, hand jobs,
and cocaine but still hasn’t yet hit bottom. Ruminations on the deceptive
pulls of nostalgia, guilty consciences,
and permanence shroud “Goodbye,” a
soulful tale of a busted friendship, the
memories wallowing in a Hammond
organ’s afterglow. Pacing as if it were
keeping time to a ticking grandfather
popular
clock, “Space City” pictures life though
the eyes of an elderly man who recently
lost his wife, all of his machismo pretending worthless in the face of death’s
aftermath. Somber and poignant, the
insightful character sketches and poetic
movements force listeners to think.
Reflection is not just a premise but a
purpose of this impacting record.
Handled by the band’s longtime
producer, David Barbe, the sonics are
typical of the Truckers—raw, simple,
dynamically present, and alert. When
sticks hit drum skins, the beats resonate
with realistic kickback vibrations; when
members scrape an acoustic string for
added texture, the extra finger pressure
is ascertained. Above all, the music is at
it should be—unadorned, honest,
BG
declarative.
FURTHER LISTENING: Slobberbone:
Everything You Thought Was Right Was
Wrong Today; Merle Haggard: Down Every
Road
Cat Power: The Greatest. Stuart Sikes,
producer. Matador 626 (CD and LP).
han Marshall,
a.k.a.
Cat
Power, is notoriously shy, shunning interviews
and turning concert performances
into high theater—complete with tearful meltdowns, deer-in-the-headlights
bouts with stage fright, and abrupt
walkouts. That makes the title of the
singer’s seventh album, The Greatest, all
the more out-of-character, like former
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy
Corgan naming a record Oh, Modest Me.
Fortunately, the reference isn’t the
result of newfound ego, but a nod to
never-realized dreams (“Once I wanted
to be the greatest,” Marshall coos on the
title track), a theme that haunts the
album’s twelve cuts. Recorded at
Ardent Studios in Memphis with an
assist from several Southern soul architects—among them guitarist Mabon
“Teenie” Hodges and bassist Leroy
C
139
m u s i c
“Flick” Hodges from the Hi Rhythm
band and drummer Steve Potts from
Booker T. & the MG’s—The Greatest is
clearly Marshall’s most mature record.
It might also be her best.
“Where Is My Love” is a tender ballad buoyed by graceful strings and a
sympathetic piano line that dips and
darts like a butterfly in a spring garden.
“Lived In Bars” finds love long after last
call, Marshall’s ethereal croon waltzing
the night away with Jim Spake’s sumptuous saxophone. “The Moon” offers a
rudimentary astronomy lesson that doubles as a metaphor for emotional distance. Best of all is the frantic “Love &
Communication,” Psycho strings and
Marshall’s on-edge lyrics creating a
growing paranoia as the song lurches to
a devastating close.
Marshall’s voice, which on past
albums made even Norah Jones seem
like a Broadway belter, sounds warmer
and more soulful. Much of this change is
due to the delicate production, which
keeps the focus on the vocals, allowing
the record to maintain the feel of a living-room jam session. Even when horns
make an appearance on “Could We,”
they sound distant, as if coming from
somewhere down the street. Overall
dynamics are excellent, with clear separation between the instruments and a
wide soundstage, though the drums do
slightly lack impact—a minor complaint on album that manages to deliver
ANDY DOWNING
on its brazen title.
FURTHER LISTENING: Bonnie “Prince” Billy:
I See A Darkness; Edith Frost: It’s a Game
Rosanne Cash: Black Cadillac. Bill Bottrell
and John Leventhal, producers. Capitol
43381. Music: HHHH 1/2 Sonics: HHHH
teeped
in
anger, confusion, melancholy,
and existential
angst, the challenging songs on
Black Cadillac
chronicle a wrenching two-year period
in which Rosanne Cash lost her stepmother, her natural mother, and her
S
father. In response to tragedy multiplied
threefold, she turned to song to work
out her conflicted emotions, and then
enlisted not one but two producers—her
musical collaborator/husband John
Leventhal, and Bill Bottrell, whose
resume includes sterling work with
Sheryl Crow and some exquisite soundscapes for Shelby Lynne.
With Bottrell, Cash is backed by a
harder-edged, rock-centric band whose
members include another former collaborator, the Heartbreakers’ estimable
keyboard master Benmont Tench. The
Leventhal-produced tracks favor a rustic,
earthy, largely acoustic atmosphere in
which some sounds are rather suggested
than actually there. Regardless of the
exquisitely balanced instrumental support, both producers keep Cash’s husky,
plaintive, and exceedingly searching
voice close to the listener’s ear, as if to
emphasize the supremacy of the text as
well as the intimacy of these revelations.
Whether the track gets into a driving, rocking mode, a la the Bottrell-produced “Burn Down This Town,” or
offers a somber, folk-based, cabaret-intimate musing via the Leventhal-produced “God Is In the Roses,” the instruments are in perfect proportion to shadow—nay, illuminate—lyrical passages
that startle with unabashed frankness
and vulnerability, even by Cash’s standards, as the singer struggles to find her
balance when there seems to be no place
to fall. “Black-hearted pain…suits me
just fine,” she offers in an anguished
memoir to her father, “Black Cadillac.”
“Someone tell me how to live/now that
we must live apart,” she pleads in “Like
Fugitives,” a song she wrote after her
mother’s passing, in which she also excoriates the church and lawyers for their
insensitivity to the human condition.
It’s not like there’s no fanciful
moments amidst all the agonizing,
though. A snippet of melody from “As
Tears Go By” tantalizingly surfaces in
“Like a Wave.” “The World Unseen”
finds her copping the phrase “westward
leading/still proceeding” from the
Christmas carol “We Three Kings,” the
carol’s melody closing the song in an austere, piano-and-organ instrumental outro
popular
that bleeds into and is then later reprised
at the end of “Like Fugitives.” But there’s
nothing easy about this journey or the
philosophical howls fueling it.
Signing off with 71 seconds of total
silence, each second a tribute to each
year of her natural parents’ time on
earth, Cash’s mute exit suggests neither
acceptance, nor resignation, nor denial,
but rather a soul that’s free floating, at
loose on the land, searching for a reason
DAVID MCGEE
to believe.
FURTHER LISTENING: Rodney Crowell: The
Houston Kid; Joe South: Midnight Rainbows
Sarah Harmer: I’m A Mountain. Harmer,
producer. Zoë/Rounder 01143-1084.
Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHH
I
’m A Mountain,
the
third
release
from
Canadian singersongwriter Sarah
Harmer, settles
upon the ear as
soothing as a soft southern Ontario
breeze. Arriving on the heels of 2005’s
Juno-awarded All Of Our Names, the lilting 11-track collection bridges old and
new country, folk, and bluegrass.
Comprised of eight originals and three
covers, the tunes have a spontaneous living-room candor that’s rarely bottled in
the cold environs of the recording studio. All the better to allow Harmer’s
assured voice, filled with tonal strains of
Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, as
well as some of Rosanne Cash’s throatiness, to come through.
In songs like the bluegrass-inspired
“I Am Aglow,” “The Ring,” and
“Oleander,” Harmer sings of second
chances and possibilities with the clarity
of a mature optimist. The Appalachianderived “Goin Out” rings true as a lullaby of abiding faith. A tender cover of
Parton’s “Will He Be Waiting For Me”
touches on the complex emotional layers
of restlessness, regret, and longing. And
on “Escarpment Blues” and the title
track, Harmer demonstrates the sharptongued wit of an environmentalist outsider. Although I’m A Mountain is not
141
m u s i c
popular
agenda heavy, hot-button topics like
shopping-mall consumerism and global
warming aren’t off of the radar screen.
For those old enough to remember, fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell’s “Big
Yellow Taxi” will easily come to mind.
Recorded at her Ontario home, the
mix of mandolin, banjo, and guitar
almost sounds like a live radio program—real musicians enjoying a real
time exchange. And aside from the clatter of a flat-pick or scratch of rosin on a
fiddle bow, there is little percussion.
The sonics are pleasantly soft, like an old
home studio that relied on its own
acoustics with the odd mattress pinned
to the wall for added damping. Harmer’s
vocals are unvarnished without a hint of
sibilance; the bass is fairly extended and
decidedly wooly. Overall, a fine effort
from a very promising artist. NEIL GADER
FURTHER LISTENING: Dolly Parton: Little Sparrow, Emmylou Harris: Stumble Into Grace
Swearing At Motorists: Last Night
Becomes This Morning. Dave Doughman,
producer. Secretly Canadian 99 (CD and
LP). Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HH 1/2
n the press
release
that
accompanies
Swearing
at
Motorists’ sixth
a l b u m ,
singer/guitarist
Dave Doughman defends the “10 years
I
142
and 2 million miles” the Dayton, Ohio
two-piece has spent under the radar, writing, “For What? To be in debt? For the
glory of 27 paid in Lawrence, KS? No, it’s
because it’s because there’s no choice. It’s
not what we do, it’s who we are.”
Last Night Becomes This Morning is
the culmination of all those lonely years
on the road, Doughman’s lo-fi pop
nuggets conjuring empty hotel rooms,
missed romantic connections, and midnight drives down endless highways.
The album veers between stripped-down
confessionals such as “Time Zones and
Area Codes,” an acoustic dirge that plays
like the flip side to Ludacris’ “Area
Codes,” to the pop-perfection of
“Timing Is Everything,” which builds to
a rapturous, horn-driven climax, the
boozy, Doughman-led choir singing,
“Why do I do the things I do?”
The frontman doesn’t waste any
time soul-searching to find an answer (“I
don’t know, how ‘bout you?,” he quickly surmises), but that short attention
span is what frequently makes his tunes
so compelling. The album has the effect
of flipping through a manic journal that
details everything from how ten dollars
could best be spent (on drugs, apparently) to thoughts of ending it all (on
“Done in a Hurry,” the singer pictures
the tour bus plunging into the sea).
While not everything works—”Slave to
the Kettle,” in particular, is a one-note
joke—there’s rarely a dull moment.
Most of the arrangements are sparse,
whereby sawtooth guitars and Joseph
Siwinski’s hollow snare provide the backdrop for Doughman’s musings. The production, as with most Swearing At
Motorist albums, is comfortably lo-tech,
the sound echoing the bedroom intimacy
of early Meat Puppets. This approach
brings out the best in the acoustic numbers, especially “This Is Not How Forever
Begins,” where the soft hum of
Doughman’s guitar makes it sound as if
he’s trying not to rouse a sleeping lover.
Meatier tunes, like the menacing “You
Will Not Die Tonight (Probably),” aren’t
handled quite so deftly, the soft-touch sacrificed in favor of a thunderous rumble. AD
FURTHER LISTENING: Guided By Voices:
Bee Thousand; Beulah: Yoko
Tom Zé: Estudando O Pagode. Jair
Oliveira, producer. Luaka Bop 350.
Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHH
t age 69,
Brazilian pop
wizard Tom Zé
has taken up the
cause of feminism, adding a
new radical twist
to the cultural role he has previously
described as “spoken and sung journalism.” Dedicated to 18th century writer
Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A
Vindication of the Rights of Women),
Estudando O Pagode was crafted as a 16song operetta in three movements,
musically unified by Zé’s postmodern
A
m u s i c
extrapolations of pagode, a style that began life in improvised
samba songwriting gatherings but which later evolved into a
popular street-dance music with often misogynist overtones.
Zé “takes on” pagode in both meanings of the term. By
adopting an idiom he identifies with Brazil’s urban underclass,
he continues to subvert bourgeois decorum, a project he’s pursued for more than 40 years as a founding member of the tropicalia movement with Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa,
and others. And by lyrically exploring the metaphorical and literal connections between property ownership and the oppression of women, he challenges pagode’s backward assumptions
about gender roles and relationships.
The songs are sung in Portuguese by Zé, Luciana Mello,
and Suzana Salles, so English speakers may have to take the
Dadaist story line—which moves from a murder trial to
Aphrodite’s garden to slave ships, the U.N. Security Council,
and an ambiguous conclusion about the redeeming qualities of
love—on faith, or on its musical merits. Like the previous
work of this Bahia native who found international fame late in
life thanks to his “discovery” by David Byrne, Estudando O
Pagode is a pastiche of folk and urban music, traditional and
invented instruments, acoustic and electronic sounds.
Fractured and jittery, with layered vocals, acoustic guitars,
percussion, sampled beats, homemade instruments (chainsaws,
ficus leaves), and an infinite number of effects, the 63-minute
album is charming and unnerving, part bossa nova and choro,
part Beck-ology.
Though the overall sound feels brittle and bright at the high
end, the lows have a solid punch, and the often-processed vocals
boast beguiling textures. Meanwhile, the dancing of myriad
manipulated noises all over the broad aural panorama keeps listeners delightfully off-balance and engaged. DERK RICHARDSON
FURTHER LISTENING: Tom Zé: Com Defecto de Fabricacao
(Fabrication Defect); Hermeto Pascoal: Slaves Mass
The Gibson Brothers: Red Letter Day. Eric Gibson, Leigh Gibson,
and Mike Barber, producers. Sugar Hill 4002. Music: HHH 1/2
Sonics: HHH 1/2
popular
hit. The playing is precise, intricately woven, and impassioned,
and the stripped-down sound has straightforward high-lonesome
rusticity, the vocals close-miked and intimately framed by the
various acoustic instruments, with Mike Barber’s steadily pulsing
bass providing an unwavering rhythmic lifeline. It doesn’t hurt
that the instrumental lineup is rounded out on occasion by
ringers Ronnie McCoury on mandolin and Jason Carter on fiddle, both on loan from the Del McCoury Band.
As writers and singers, Eric and Leigh Gibson have elevated their game to an inspired plateau. Teamed with evocative
instrumental shadowing from his sprightly banjo and Carter’s
soaring, triumphant fiddle, Eric’s reedy vocal on his self-penned
strutter “Walking with Joanna” is the ideal vehicle with which
to make a listener feel the urgency of a sinner trying to change
his ways to win the gal of his dreams just as Leigh’s sturdy,
emotive tenor could not have been better cast to add the
poignant edge to his steady shuffling reminiscence of days long
past, “The Barn Song.” Tenderness, heartache, triumph,
tragedy, salvation, redemption—the stuff of life informs Red
Letter Day’s texts, and the musicians’ commitment to the cause
makes this exactly what the album title proclaims for both the
DM
Gibsons and contemporary bluegrass.
FURTHER LISTENING: The Monroe Brothers: What Would You Give
in Exchange for Your Soul?; Keith Whitley & Ricky Skaggs: Second
Generation Bluegrass
quarter page ad
2/2
RENO
he brother duo has an honored place
in bluegrass history, starting at the
very beginning with the Monroe
Brothers and later, embracing giants
such as the Stanley Brothers and Jim
and Jesse. With their startling third
album, the Gibson Brothers join the
party, the promise of their first two albums realized here in a
fully formed work of art.
The original songs are as meticulously crafted and as lyrically resonant as the vibrant covers they’ve chosen—no small feat
that, given that the Gibsons tackle “Lonesome Number One” by
Don Gibson, “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles, and Bobby and
Shirley Jean Womack’s “The Last Time,” an early Rolling Stones
T
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Marty Stuart and his Fabulous
Superlatives: Live at the Ryman. Stuart
and Harry Stinson producers.
Superlatone/Universal South 02670.
Music: HHH Sonics: HHH
othing if not
prolific,
Marty Stuart and
his
Fabulous
Superlatones
return with their
third album in
N
less than a year, and it’s as different from
this past fall’s Native American-themed
Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota Sioux as
that one was from the summer’s foray into
deep south gospel, Soul’s Chapel. This
time, the setting the shrine of country
music, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium,
the theme is bluegrass, and the modus
operandi is a blend of new and old, with
some of Stuart’s country hits retooled and
meshing perfectly with timeless texts
from the bluegrass cannon.
Judging from the lively response—
which isn’t cranked up to make it seem
HOT WAX
The Strokes: First Impressions of Earth. David Kahne, producer.
RCA 82876 73177 (LP and CD). Music: HHH 1/2
Sonics: HHH 1/2
ack before The White Stripes hit it
big, The Strokes’ 2001 debut Is This
It ushered in a new era of straightforward
garage rock. But the New York City
quintet’s second outing, Room On Fire, was
a letdown, viewed by many as a retread.
Having something of statement to make,
the band teamed up with noted producer David Kahne (Paul
McCartney, Tony Bennett) for First Impressions of Earth. And
the results are mostly excellent.
In many ways, First Impressions maps The Strokes’ history over the past five years—the joys, dismays, expectations,
illusions, fleeting fame, and mixed emotions that come with
the job. “On the Other Side” begins with Nikolai Fraiture’s
chugging bass grooves and a few minor chords from guitarists Albert Hamley Jr. and Nick Valensi before Julian
Casablancas’ ennui-soaked voice intones, “I hate them all/I
hate them all/I hate myself for hating them/so I’ll drink
some more/I love them all/so I’ll drink even more.”
Although The Strokes are plenty capable of crafting
pretty pop melodies, as the opener “You Only Live Once”
demonstrates, and a cursory listen may indicate a lack of
structural and thematic variety, the more you hear this
album, the richer it gets. “Vision of Division” at first sounds
like a few proceeding numbers, but before you know it the
music, buoyed by drummer Fab Moretti, surges beneath
Casablancas, who repeatedly screams, “How long must I
wait?” “Ask Me Anything” finds the world-weary vocalist
channeling Lou Reed atop a burping synth. There are times,
as in “Razor Blade,” where the yawning hipness seems like
posturing, but such moments are relatively rare.
The vinyl pressing’s sound is quite good. Super studio-
B
popular
more than it was—Stuart and company
get themselves and their audience all fired
up from the start and don’t let up. “The
Whiskey Ain’t Working,” originally a
duet smash with Travis Tritt, is transformed into a languid, old-timey backwoods drinkin’ song with ample room for
mandolin and fiddle sorties, while the
stomping “Hillbilly Rock” gets a frenetic
makeover as a rambunctious breakdown
with decided locomotive overtones. In
assaying “Orange Blossom Special,” fiddler Stuart Duncan burns up the box with
ferociously fiery soloing that so energizes
clean and -polished, it’s dimensionally flat but dynamically
lively. Clear and articulate, Casablancas’ vocals never
breakup, even when he’s shredding the mic. The bottom end
has a terrific solidity, and instrumentals are richly textured,
with everything shining through the well-balanced mix.
WAYNE GARCIA
FURTHER LISTENING: The Strokes: Is This It; The White Stripes:
De Stijl
Lightnin’ Hopkins: Lightnin’. Rudy Van Gelder, original producer.
Analogue Productions/Bluesville 1019 (two 200-gram 45rpm
LPs). Music: HHH Sonics: HHHH 1/2
Lightnin’ Hopkins: Lightnin’ in New York. Bob d’Orleans, engineer. Pure Pleasure/Candid 9010 (180-gram LP).
Otis Spann: Otis Spann Is the Blues. George Piros, engineer.
Pure Pleasure/Candid 9001 (180-gram LP).
Music: HHHH 1/2 Sonics: HHHH
Otis Spann: The Biggest Thing Since Colossus... Warren Slaten,
engineer. Pure Pleasure/Blue Horizon 63217 (180-gram LP).
Music: HH 1/2 Sonics: HHH
Blues Jam at Chess. Mike Vernon and Marshall Chess, producers. Pure Pleasure/Blue Horizon 66227 (two 180-gram LPs).
Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHHH
coustic Sounds proprietor Chad Kassem has got the
blues, and to prove it, he’s back with another sparkling
Fantasy 45rpm title and a distribution deal with Londonbased audiophile reissue label Pure Pleasure, whose latest LP
titles include several outstanding finds.
Lightnin’ Hopkins has twice before been superbly documented on Analogue Productions’ extraordinarily expensive
but ridiculously lifelike-sounding 45rpm series. Lightnin’ is
no different. Recorded in November 1960 by the inestimable Rudy Van Gelder, the affair reflects the simplicity
inherent in the record’s title. Hopkins is backed by bassist
A
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m u s i c
his mates that one of them cries out, “Git
it, boy!” before letting out a whoop in
response to the resulting fury. “The Great
Speckled Bird,” one of the show’s few
solemn moments, is defined by “Uncle
Josh” Graves’ beautifully textured dobro
solo, the passage eloquently and wordlessly speaking to the song’s mystery.
Bearing in mind that Stuart did not go
into the show intending to cut a live
album, the production gets the job done.
There’s a slight dead spot here and there
when someone wanders off the mike, and
what it might lack in vibrancy it more than
makes up for with infectious energy. DM
FURTHER LISTENING: Bill Monroe and
Various Artists: Bean Blossom; Ricky
Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder: Live At the
Charleston Music Hall
The Flaming Lips: At War With the
Mystics. Dave Fridmann and Flaming Lips,
producers. Warner Brothers.
hen
the
Flaming
Lips
released
Yoshimi Battles
the Pink Robots in
July 2002, the
ensuing culturealtering effects weren’t yet in sight.
Many critics (including yours truly)
lauded it as the band’s third landmark
album, but no one expected it would
attain platinum status, land the Lips
prominent exposure, fuel grand touring
Leonard Gaskin and drummer Belton Evans, both of whom
provide inconspicuous small-combo jazz accompaniment.
Sticking to his acoustic guitar, Hopkins deals country blues
and lazy Texas shuffles, occasionally upping the pace for a
get-down boogie such as the romping “You Better Watch
Yourself,” a rural talking-blues that cautions against excessive drinking. “Shinin’ Moon” meanders a bit, allowing its
narrator to share his peeping-tom observations while the musicians lock into and
rock the groove as if it were an automatic
transmission. That’s the only problem
here. At times, Hopkins is too laid back,
the songs coming too easily. That said,
every musical grain is vividly present—
Evans’ weightless sticks-on-skin drum rolls, Hopkins’ deep
hull-of-a-ship vocals, the purity of the natural acoustic. Not
essential, but worthy of deluxe treatment.
Made six days later, Lightnin’ In New
York offers a more fascinating perspective
of the Houston-based singer-guitarist. By
the mid ’50s, Hopkins had commercially
peaked with his earlier electric sides. But
his career got a boost from the burgeoning
folk movement, with which he came to be associated. This
outing is a solo affair, the music offering a wide-angle snapshot of Hopkins’ Texas vernacular. Expectedly, Hopkins
dazzles with two-finger picking techniques while keeping
one digit free to pluck a bass line. But the biggest surprise
is Hopkins’ turns on piano, particularly on tracks where he
simultaneously strikes keys, strums chords, and sings.
Rarely has Hopkins sounded so free, loose, open, relaxed,
and willing. Consider his ad libbing on “Mighty Crazy.” Or
the stomping “Your Own Fault,” an unhurried New
W
popular
spectacles that culminated with singer
Wayne Coyne rolling around Coachella
in a transparent bubble, and at long last,
solidify the group’s place as one of pop’s
most influential and ingenious artists—
an achievement cast in stone by the
2005 documentary The Fearless Freaks
and journalist Jim Derogatis’ new biography, Staring at Sound. Of course, the
storybook success didn’t come easily or
by mistake. In 23 years, the Oklahoma
band has never lost sight of its oddball
visions, pulled back on the reigns of
enthusiasm, or satisfied its insatiable
craving for the unknown.
While to the naked eye Coyne and
company may seem silly and overly
theatrical, the group has always
responded to its surroundings by criti-
Orleans jaunt in which spidery piano lines cast voodoo
spells. And the moaning and crying “I’ve Had My Fun If I
Don’t Get Well No More,” a prayer on which Hopkins’ guitar doubles as a backing choir. The emotions range from
lonely to romantic, the delivery sincere to playful to stern.
Fittingly, the album closes with the carefree “Black Cat,”
Hopkins staging a conversation between a black man and a
white man who are drinking Thunderbird wine. Outside of
some upper-end crackle when Hopkins raises his voice to a
near-shout, the sonics are glorious, with tremendous presence and a control-room view of a thrilling performance.
Pure Pleasure also unearthed Otis Spann Is the Blues,
another treasure from 1960. The son of a blues guitarist (his
mother) and pianist (his father), Spann learned to play by ear
and made a name for himself as part of Muddy Waters’
pathfinding band. Here, on his debut, he turns the electricity down and works just with guitarist Robert Lockwood Jr.
The results are a veritable blueprint of post-WWII Chicago
piano blues, the chemistry between the players as close to
perfect as one can get. Spann is a heavy hitter whose bold
strokes induce tremors and whose hands are equally capable
of forceful chords or loose boogie-based bars, his left hand
jiggering repetitive two- and three-note patterns that
respond to Lockwood’s milky licks. Both bluesmen possess
riveting voices, Spann’s slightly lighter and containing a
pinch of Mississippi drawl and Lockwood’s
a darker-hued call that howls in the night.
There’s an abundance on-the-spot playfulness, the pair locking horns on the country
blues “Beat Up Team” and drifting off
into their own worlds before crossing
paths on “I Got Rambling On My Mind.”
Throughout, Spann hypnotizes. On the uptempo “Great
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m u s i c
cally thinking about superior possibilities, and on the base level, circumventing the mundane by delivering
happiness and optimism to audiences
eager to go along for the ride. At War
With the Mystics lacks the conceptrecord schematic of its predecessor but
finds the trio threading large and small
ideas through song. It’s an album that
could be interpreted as an anti-war
statement, though the stakes are much
higher and themes too complex for
such a simple reading.
Where Yoshimi had our heroes battling machines over the future of
humanity, the quest at hand takes on
the very-real Powers That Be via existentialism and perception. For the Lips,
imagination and melody remain the
most expressive, effective, and accessible weapons. The psychic will and
means to make change is outlined in
“The W.A.N.D.,” a fuzz-blasted slice of
pop magic that takes by the horns questions presented in the guitar-talk-box
lathered “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and
puts decision-making authority back in
the peoples’ hands. Contemplations of
humankind’s place in the universe
(“Vein of Stars”), acknowledgements of
that which we don’t grasp but strive to
understand (“The Sound of Failure”),
life-affirming admittances of mortality
(“Mr. Ambulance Driver”), and cheerful proclamations in the face of pessimism (“My Cosmic Autumn
Rebellion”) inhabit a moody galaxy
that isn’t without sadness or frustration. Yet the Lips’ ambition isn’t to
steer anyone away from reality but to
demonstrate that we can alter its detrimental parts, transform mindsets without resorting to violence, and at the
least, confront our doubts by embracing a sense of wonder.
Expanding their musical palette,
the Lips get down with funk, soul, and
disco, all of which are stirred into a
melting pot along with their trademark
space-rock excursions. With Dave
Fridmann at the controls, the concoctions again make for an advanced study
in mind-popping psychedelic arrangement. Choral crescendos, Rhodes
Northern Stomp,” a jitterbug of touchand-go rhythms and fluid melodies,
Spann’s two hands sound like four, the
clickety-clack of the keys bringing a taste
of the Southern cotton fields up to the
Midwestern plains. The LP lacks the final
word in presence, but separation between
instruments is fine, the vocals centered and Lockwood’s
guitar off to the right. It’s missing the firm reach-out-andgrab-you hold of Kassem’s 45s, but this is a very wellrecorded piece.
Spann also plays on The Biggest Thing Since Colossus and
Blues Jam at Chess, both recorded in January 1969 and featuring the original (read: genuine) Fleetwood Mac lineup.
The former is just Spann and Mac (sans Jeremy Spencer).
Peter Green’s knife-sharp guitar fills and lashing hooks are
plenty nasty, but Spann is buried behind splashy drums and
middling arrangements that owe more to rock than blues.
Several songs, including the funky “It Was A Big Thing,”
are either dated or instantly forgettable. And even on the
minimalist, mournful read of the evergreen “Ain’t Nobody’s
Business,” Spann seems like he’s playing down to the band
rather than with them. In addition, sonics are bogged down
popular
pianos, synthesized-flute instrumentals,
string-laden orchestrations, skittering
percussion, blurping electronics,
splashy cymbals—all expertly played
and composed by Steven Drozd and
Michael Ivins—are layered, placed, and
stretched across warm sonic canvasses,
the production three-dimensional and
aglow with textures.
In that journeys occasionally meander and cosmic waltzes sometimes lead
to unspectacular ends, Mystics sets its
sights high but ultimately falls short of
the tallest Lips summits. But these few
missteps are minor blips in a work
where blaxploitation funk, soul-jazz
grooves, wordless vocal harmonies, aciddipped guitar riffs, bubbling bass lines,
and bobbing hooks unite to meaningfully deal with the hurt of the present while
simultaneously tapping a spiritual and
emotional currency that rewards persistence and gives reason to believe in a
BG
brighter future.
FURTHER LISTENING: Sly & The Family
Stone: There’s A Riot Goin’ On; Bobby
Conn: Homeland
by muddled passages and a cloistered soundstage.
A much better example of the Spann-Fleetwood Mac
pairing is gleaned from Blues Jam at Chess, an informal
studio blowout recorded in Chicago that also counts
Walter Horton, Willie Dixon, and J.T. Brown among the
rotating cast of participants. What it lacks in focus it
makes up for in fun, via straightforward grooves, shuffleboard riffs, huff-and-puff harmonica
solos, and jive-and-wail throwdowns.
Dixon is especially hot, slapping and
thumping his stand-up bass with soulful
passion. Mac slide guitarist Jeremy
Spencer does make this date. His contributions are knockoffs of Elmore James
and JB Lenoir standards, but the tunes jump, honk, and sway
with R&B delight. The Brits don’t let infatuation get the
best of them, and while they seldom force the blues greats to
break a sweat, the cross-cultural connection and creative
sparks make for an enjoyably lively experience. Speaking of
which, the sonics nail the detail and pluck of Dixon’s bass.
There’s a bit of vocal congestion, but the soundstage opens up
and allows the big-band rush to get the room hopping.
BOB GENDRON
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CLASSICAL
Classical Caps
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1; Cello
Sonata. Han-Na Chang, cello; London
Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano,
conductor. David Groves, producer;
Jonathan Allen, engineer. EMI 32422.
orean cellist
Han-Na
Chang was a
teenage prodigy;
today, she’s an
artist. As evidence, here’s her
outstanding version of Shostakovich’s
first Cello Concerto, a work conceived
on a broad, symphonic scale and written for Rostropovich in 1959. Chang
is joined by conductor Antonio
Pappano and the London Symphony at
the top if its considerable form, the
important horn solos brilliantly
played by Tim Jones.
But Chang is the star of this show.
Without neglecting the composer’s sly
humor, she’s vigorous in the virtuoso
first movement and really lets go in the
Finale, full of Shostakovich’s trademark
orchestral grotesqueries, flashy solo
work, and earthy rhythms. In the long
slow movement, Chang mesmerizes
with her caressing tenderness and ghostly, hushed harmonics. In the following
melancholy, six-minute-long solo cadenza, her outstanding technique and ability to infuse each note with expressive
content are riveting.
The disc’s other half is given over to
a vastly different, earlier Shostakovich
piece, the Cello Sonata. Written in
1934, at about the time that Stalin’s
minions promulgated the notorious
“socialist realism” dogma for the arts,
it’s far more conservative in form and
content than his earlier, cheekier works.
But you can’t keep a good man down,
and there’s much lovely music here. The
K
long first movement gives Chang opportunities to flaunt her big-toned lyricism,
and in the Largo she projects the longlimbed melody with sympathetic
inwardness. Here, conductor Pappano
puts down the baton and skillfully joins
her on the piano.
With its vivid sound and powerful
bass, this is one of the best-sounding
versions of both works. The engineering
realistically captures the different timbres of the horn solos—brazen at first,
warmer later on—with exactitude. In
the cadenza, the wide dynamics are
thrilling, the cello moving from roars to
whispers, with infinite gradations in
between. EMI’s also taken care to provide venues that yield appropriate
DAN DAVIS
acoustics for each work.
FURTHER LISTENING: Shostakovich: Cello
Concerto (Rostropovich); Prokofiev:
Symphony-Concerto for Cello and
Orchestra (Chang)
Shostakovich: Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2.
Seven Romances on Verses by Alexander
Blok. Beaux Arts Trio; Joan Rodgers,
soprano. Da-Hong Seetoo, producer and
engineer. Warner 2564 62514.
hen
the
Beaux Arts
Trio first performed at the
Berkshire Music
Festival in 1955,
the pianist was
Menahem Pressler. He still is. I saw the
Trio in December 2005, and the 82 yearold Pressler—now playing with two seasoned chamber musicians (violinist Daniel
Hope and cellist Antonio Meneses) who
weren’t born when the Beaux Arts was
formed—has lost little of his technical
edge and none of his musical insight.
W
On its second Warner release, the
BAT takes on three Shostakovich works
that span the composer’s career. The concise Trio No. 1 was written when
Shostakovich was only 17 but is easily
recognizable as his music, despite the
more traditionally Romantic-era feel of
the harmonies and ensemble textures.
The Second Trio, from 1943-44, is
among Shostakovich’s greatest—and
grimmest—works. Inspired by both the
premature death of a close friend and the
emerging details of the Holocaust, the
piece has a decidedly haunted quality. In
the finale, Shostakovich vividly represents accounts he’d heard of Jews being
forced to dance before open graves prior
to being shot. The Beaux Arts doesn’t
sensationalize the horror but instead creates an aura of cold cruelty.
Lastly, there’s the Alexander Blok
Romances, composed in the 1960s when
Shostakovich was already a sick man.
Each of the seven movements has the
singer accompanied by a different combination of the three instruments—
singly, in pairs, and as a full trio. The
music, in the composer’s stark and concentrated late style, is extraordinarily
evocative. Joan Rodgers’ creamy soprano
matches the sonority of the two string
players’, and she’s exceptionally responsive to the texts.
The audio quality is superb, thanks
to Da-Hong Seetoo, to whom the
Emerson String Quartet entrusts its
sound. The piano is placed behind the
strings, allowing for a natural scaling of
the three instruments. Tonally, the
recording is exquisite. There’s no question, for instance, that the spectral line
opening the Second Trio is the cello playing high harmonics, rather than the violin in its upper register. ANDREW QUINT
FURTHER LISTENING: Shostakovich: String
Quartets (Emerson); Dvorák/
Mendelssohn: Piano Trios (Beaux Arts)
151
m u s i c
Handel: Delirio – Solo Cantatas. Natalie
Dessay, soprano; Le Concert d’Astrée,
Emmanuelle Haïm, conductor. Daniel
Zalay and Laurence Heym, producers;
Michel Pierre, engineer. Virgin 332624.
atalie Dessay
is a coloratura-lyric soprano
with a great
voice, who also
delivers material
with rare intelligence and passion. Here she joins leading lights of the new wave of period
instrument specialists, Le Concert
d’Astrée and Emmanuelle Haïm, in a
pair of Handel’s cantatas and an oratorio
aria, all written during an Italian
sojourn the composer took in his 20s.
The works are typical of the period:
figures from mythology dwell on the
torments of love; the protagonist, an
abandoned woman who veers between
pleading with her lover and going ballistic with rage. The longest and most
substantial work is Delirio amoroso,
whose three long arias, recitatives, and
orchestral sections add up to a meaty 37
minutes of terrific playing and singing.
The orchestra of about 30 players is
superb, with special mention due to
oboe soloist Patrick Beaugiraud, whose
rounded juicy tone and lively phrasing
are exemplary in the work’s orchestral
sections and in duet with Dessay. The
latter is splendid, tossing off flashy coloratura runs with ease, investing the
hopeful parts of the narrative with
bright-voiced emotion, the dramatic
sections with fiery ardor. Her pianissimos are ravishing too, and she matches
her voice to perfectly suit the accompaniments, an important part of what
makes this such a fine work since the
singer engages in wonderful duets with
oboe, violin, and, in the longest aria,
“Per te lascia la luce,” the cello.
The disc is filled out with an aria
from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, and a
chamber cantata for soprano, oboe, and
basso continuo, Mi palpita il cor, which
N
gets the same deluxe treatment, albeit
on a more fitting smaller scale. The
sound is admirable—plenty of texture
and body to voice and instruments, a
touch of the reverberant space around
them, and excellent balances. The voice
and accompanying instruments are
depicted naturally, yielding a transparDD
ent stage picture.
FURTHER LISTENING: Handel: Aci, Galatea
e Polifemo; Dessay: Mozart Arias
Williams: Munich. John Williams, conductor. Williams, producer; Shawn Murphy,
engineer. Decca B0006093.
Music: HHH 1/2 Sonics: HHH 1/2
Williams: Memoirs of a Geisha. Yo-Yo Ma,
cello; Itzhak Perlman, violin. John
Williams, conductor. Williams, producer;
Shawn Murphy, engineer. Sony Classical
82876747082. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHHH
Howard: King Kong. Pete Anthony, Mike
Nowak, Bruce Babcock, conductors.
James Newton Howard and Jim Weidman,
producers; Joel Iwataki and Alan
Meyerson, engineers. Decca B0005715.
Music: HHH Sonics: HH 1/2
he Oscars are upon us, and the winner
is…. Well, as of this writing it’s too
early to say who the winners will be, but
not too early to note that 2005 was some
kind of year in filmmaking and film
scoring. By himself, John Williams, the
dean of Hollywood soundtrackers, composed, conducted and produced the
recordings of four feature-length
scores—Star Wars: Episode Three—Revenge
of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Memoirs of a
Geisha, and Munich. At the age of 74,
which he will be by the time this review
appears, he is scarcely slowing down.
Nor is he losing his touch. While people
T
classical
have long complained that when he isn’t
parroting someone else’s music—
Walton’s, or Prokofiev’s, or Holst’s—he’s
repeating himself, in fact he is still finding interesting ways of making music an
integral and emotionally telling element
of the films he works on. The scores to
both Munich and Memoirs of a Geisha
show that he is very much at the top of
his game.
Williams has long been unsurpassed
at limning the character, the emotional
terrain, of a film, through the application of orchestral color and distinctive
rhythmic and harmonic inflections in
his music. One of his tricks is finding
the right “voice” to go with the subject
and mood of a film. In Schindler’s List it
was the violin, in The Terminal, the clarinet. For Munich, another in the long
line of Spielberg films he has scored, he
chose a real voice, the voice of Lisbeth
Scott, whose haunting, exposed vocals
contribute powerfully to the sense of
anguish and suspense that pervades the
score. The ideas Williams works with
are rich and intriguing, the “Israeli”
accent convincing but not too thick.
Best of all, he gives the strings real stuff
to do (as in the touching “A Prayer for
Peace”), and they respond. The recording, made at Sony Pictures Studios with
the usual topflight
band of L.A. studio musicians, is
better
than
decent—tonally
natural and with a
plausible reverb.
But Williams’ best work of the year
(which would be a lifetime best for
many a Hollywood journeyman) may
well be the score he produced for Rob
Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha.
Aphoristic, contemplative, and powerfully evocative, it features major solos by
cellist Yo-Yo Ma (with whom Williams
also worked on Seven Years in Tibet) and a
couple of cameos from Itzhak Perlman
(featured in Willams’ music for
Schindler’s List, but their collaboration
goes all the way back to 1971’s Fiddler on
the Roof, for which Williams won his
first Oscar). The score relies on drones
153
m u s i c
classical
and spare textures, with Japanese accents
provided by koto, a plethora of exotic
percussion, and prominent use of
shakuhachi—a breathy “bamboo” flute.
This is a vein Williams has been mining
for a long time, but he comes up strong
here: effortlessly sustaining long sections
of music, he recaptures some of the magic
he found in E.T. and Hook, and some of
the suspense he achieved in Close
Encounters, especially in the spectral, suspenseful “The Rooftops of the
Hanamachi.” Most of the recording was
done at UCLA’s Royce Hall, where the
Los Angeles Philharmonic used to record
for Decca, and that really helps the sound.
The imaging is solid, with excellent
front-to-back depth, the orchestral sound
well balanced, with appropriate body, and
the solos immediate and nicely integrated into the whole.
Finally, to Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
But first, some precedent. Max Steiner’s
score for RKO’s 1933 King Kong was the
first full-length film score, and established the model for the adventure/horror genre that in many ways Hollywood
still follows today. In the case of James
Newton Howard’s score for the new King
Kong, “follows” is indeed the operative
word. Howard certainly knows his craft,
and he knows what others have done,
almost too well. He gets it all in: the
tremulous rustlings and eerie harmonics
in the strings; the meditative solo piano
and guitar obbligato; the pounding percussion and ominous brass; and, at
moments of greatest urgency, the awed
choral overlay. All the clichés in the
book, piled high as the jungle canopy,
but, let’s admit it, masterfully handled.
Most of the score is in what used to be
called “the key of woe minor,” and there
are little tips of the hat to Bernard
Herrmann and John Williams just to
make sure you get it. Not very original,
but undoubtedly effective. The main
drawback is the sound. The score was
recorded piecemeal in numerous venues,
some of them pretty dry and “studioish,”
and mixed and processed to a fare-theewell. The result sounds way too artificial
to listen to, unless you happen to be
watching the movie at the same time.
154
Which, for King Kong, is clearly the
point—it’s about the ape, stupid!
TED LIBBEY
FURTHER LISTENING: Williams:
Schindler’s List; Howard: The Sixth Sense
Philip Glass/Allen Ginsberg: Symphony
No. 6, Plutonian Ode. Bruckner Orchester
Linz, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor;
Lauren Flanigan, soprano. Michael
Riesman and Kurt Munkacsi, producers;
Dan Bora, Ichiho Nishiki, and Dave Perry,
engineers. Orange Mountain Music 0020.
ongos
be
damned.
When the great
beat poet Allen
Ginsberg chose to
read to music, he
eschewed “conventional” bohemian trappings associated
with folk and bebop music of the ’50s and
’60s. Especially later in life, he preferred
either the downtown Manhattan cuttingedge fusions masterminded by producer
Hal Willner or avant-classical settings
crafted most notably by fellow Buddhist
Philip Glass. On the occasion of his 65th
birthday, the latter was commissioned by
Carnegie
Hall
and
Austria’s
Brucknerhaus Linz to compose his sixth
symphony, using Ginsberg’s epic 1978
poem as the libretto. By the time the poet
died in 1997, he had recorded several
readings of the work, which decries the
“radioactive nemesis,” envisions an idyllic
threat-free world of “sunlit mountain
meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone
cliffs above brick townhouse roofs,” and
calls on like-minded dissenters, artists,
and spiritual fellow travelers to “take this
inhalation of black poison to your heart,
breathe out this blessing from your breast
on our creation.”
To realize Ginsberg’s tripartite vision,
Glass, who originally conceived of the
project as piano music, wrote three corresponding orchestral movements, performed here by the Bruckner Orchester
Linz and the daring lyric soprano Lauren
Flanigan. Conducted by Dennis Russell
B
Davies, the orchestra invests Glass’ trademark arpeggios with robust energy, and
Flanigan adds piercing intensity above
the two-against-three pulses that almost
invariably drive Glass’ music. The dark
drama of the work, even if often rings alltoo familiar, suits Ginsberg’s foreboding
and embodies the message when the
words are not clearly discernible in
Flanigan’s delivery.
Smooth through the entire instrumental range, the sonics are rich in the
lows and mids and sparkling in the range
of brass and bells, grandly pushing the
pure, clear tones of Flanigan’s voice to the
fore. On the second disc, Ginsberg’s reading of the poem is overdubbed out in
front of the symphony and soprano performance. He adds warm, gritty emotionalism that some may find mismatched to
the lofty art music, but it makes the
humanity of his concerns more palpable
and reminds us how inspirational his
unique, homey, and greatly missed voice
DERK RICHARDSON
could be.
FURTHER LISTENING: Philip Glass/Allen
Ginsberg: Hydrogen Jukebox; Kronos
Quartet: Howl, U.S.A.
Orlando Consort: The Rose, the Lily & the
Whortleberry. Nicholas Parker, producer
and engineer. Harmonia Mundi 907398.
n The Rose, the
Lily & the
Whortleberry, the
Orlandos give us
24 motets and
chansons written
between 1250 and
1565 whose texts reference flower and
garden imagery. Lest you think this
makes for a disc full of pastoral boredom,
be advised that many of the selections are
full of X-rated sexual innuendos and double entendres. A 15th century English
motet, for example, compares a beauty’s
breast to clusters of grapes, and a chanson
from Burgundy has the lady singing “I
was sprinkled … by the loving dew,” and
I don’t think she had a light drizzle in
mind. Tame by current standards, but
O
m u s i c
classical
Orchestra. Everett Porter, producer; JeanMarie Geijsen, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. PentaTone 5186 079.
Music: HH 1/2 Sonics: HHH 1/2
olfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250th
birthday year has only just begun,
but worthy new SACD recordings of the
Austrian master’s music have been
appearing for months.
Andrew Manze, the baroque violinist par excellence, is joined by his usual
accompanist Richard Egarr on fortepiano to offer stunning performances of
four sonatas for keyboard and violin.
The two works in F and the one in Eflat were among the very first pieces
Mozart composed after moving to
Vienna in 1781, finally escaping the
stifling environment of Prince
Archbishop Colloredo’s court in
Salzburg. The pieces exude a sense of
liberation and a progressive spirit that
is fully evident in these fresh, exuberant readings. On pianoforte, Egarr
plays full out without overwhelming
the violinist, and Manze’s vibratoless
but very appealing tone makes the
material sound especially vivid and
adventuresome, thanks to the bracing,
earthy colors of the period instruments.
The disc also holds the Sonata in C
major, two movements completed by
Mozart with a finale idiomatically finished up by Maximilian Stadler, who
knew the composer well. Recorded in a
Dutch church, the SACD doesn’t provide much suggestion of a reverberant
acoustic, even in surround, but the characteristic sonorities of the violin and
keyboard are faithfully captured.
Likewise, Manze’s approach to three
of the Mozart violin concertos is emotionally direct. The impression of a dialogue between soloist and orchestra is
strong, reflecting the close working relationship between Manze and The
English Concert. (The violinist took
over the directorship of the renowned
original instrument group from Trevor
Pinnock in 2003.) Manze’s technique
may not possess the steely perfection of
an Anne-Sophie Mutter but neither is it
threadbare. These are self-effacing inter-
W
Andrew Manze
then again, we live in coarser times.
The four-man Consort sings with
ideal purity, their well-blended voices
weaving in and out of the complex contrapuntal lines. In a French chanson
about a maid’s deflowering, they sing
with a rhythmic zest you could dance to,
and an English selection opens with a
hypnotically melismatic opening that
leads to an early example of the round,
with each voice taking the lead in turn.
Not surprisingly, many of the texts are
drawn from the Biblical Song of Songs,
either directly or by inference. An Agnus
Dei from a Mass by Frye makes a surprising appearance due to its use of the
melody of the secular motet on the preceding track. Other composers include
such luminaries as Machaut, Brunel,
Gombert, and our old friend,
Anonymous.
Performances are first rate, the music
attractive though perhaps best heard in
chunks of several tracks unless you’re a
devotee of this period’s dense counterpoint. At over 76 minutes, timing is generous. And the packaging is downright
opulent: a 116-page book with copious
color illustrations, texts, and translations,
even a design for a “new medieval garden” with recommended grasses, trees,
hedges and flowers.
The engineering is ideal. Voices have
body, timbres are true, and the ensemble
singing is transparent. Despite a resonant
church venue that lends warmth to the
sound, the clarity is such that you can
trace each of the complex vocal lines as
they dip and bob and soar, essential in
music that otherwise might sound conDD
gealed.
SACD
FURTHER LISTENING: Orlando Consort:
The Toledo Summit; Orlando Consort:
Food, Wine and Song
Mozart: Wind Concertos: for Horn (No. 1);
for Flute (No. 1); for Bassoon; for Oboe.
Soloists; Concertgebouw Chamber
156
Mozart: Violin Sonatas in F, K. 376; F, K.
377; E-flat, K. 380; C, K. 403. Andrew
Manze, violin; Richard Egarr, fortepiano.
Robina G. Young, producer; Brad Michel,
engineer. Hybrid multichannel. Harmonia
Mundi 807380. Music: HHHH 1/2
Sonics: HHH
Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 3, 4 & 5.
Andrew Manze, violin; The English
Concert. Robina G. Young, producer; Brad
Michel, engineer. Hybrid multichannel.
Harmonia Mundi 807385.
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHH 1/2
Mozart: Violin Concertos 3 & 4. Adagio, K.
261. Rondo, K. 269. Julia Fischer, violin;
Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Yakov
Kreizberg, conductor. Job Maarse, producer; Sebastian Stein and Jean-Marie
Geijsen, engineers. Hybrid multichannel.
PentaTone 5186 064. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHH 1/2
m u s i c
classical
HOT WAX
Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites 1 and 2, Lyric Suite. Eileen Farrell
(soloist); Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, conductor.
Cisco/RCA LSC 2125. Music: H 1/2 Sonics: HHH
reissue like this one rather makes
me wonder what level of the barrel we’ve come to. It’s not that
Fiedler and the Pops don’t play the
dickens out of Grieg’s three suites, or
that the sound from this relatively
early RCA Shaded Dog isn’t up to
snuff. The Boston Pops, than whom none was better at this
sort of fare when Fiedler was at the helm, do their customary ebullient job, and Cisco’s repressing is a great improvement over the original in every regard. The weakish bass, in
particular, has undergone a sea change, gaining considerable power, color, and solidity (though it still isn’t the most
floor-shaking I’ve heard—for instance, on the celebrated
bass drum thwacks at the finish of “In the Hall of the
Mountain King”). String, wind, and brass tone are gorgeous. Nonetheless, given all the marvelous, little-known
A
pretations devoted to serving the composer’s expressive voice rather than to
mere virtuosic display. The soloist wrote
the stylistically apt cadenzas himself.
The concertos were recorded at Air
Studios’ Lyndhurst Hall in London, and
the sound is intimate and relaxed—
perfect for this music and Manze’s
approach to it. The orchestra’s slapping
of bows on strings during the “Turkish”
episode of No. 5’s finale is striking in
dynamic immediacy.
I certainly have no problem with
Mozart—or Haydn, Bach, Handel, or
Vivaldi—executed on modern instruments, though the two PentaTone
SACDs demonstrate the range of possible outcomes. Julia Fischer’s renderings
of Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 are big, bold,
and extroverted. She plays with graceful, lithe musicality and a sweetness of
tone reminiscent of Hilary Hahn, who’s
just a few years her senior. Yakov
Kreizberg supports her sensitively, providing a wonderful ease and flow to the
orchestral contribution. The disc is
filled out with “substitute” movements
from two other Mozart concertos, a
repertory that hasn’t been sold and resold on LP scores of
times, I’m still left wondering whether the world needs
another vinyl reissue of the Peer Gynt Suites, even one as
well-played and good-sounding as this is.
A few months ago, I actually had to sit through the
Suites, which made up the post-intermission half of a
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concert. (The first half was,
believe it or not, Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and
Celesta!) I couldn’t leave for political reasons (though I saw
my friend Mark Lehman sneaking out) and perforce had to
endure “Ase’s Death” and “Anitra’s Dance” and “Ingrid’s
Lament” for what seemed like days. My point is: You don’t.
Unless you’re a Grieg completist, a Fiedler fan, or an RCA
collector (and barring the off chance that you’ve never heard
this music before in some elevator), my advice would be to
steer clear. And my advice to my friend Robert Pincus at
Cisco is that it is time to turn the page on bottom-of-thebarrel RCAs. There is a veritable universe of EMIs, Argos,
Decca Heads, L’Oiseau Lyres, Novas, Hungarotons,
Supraphons,
MusicMasters,
Pantons,
Caprices,
Contemporary Music Series, Epics, and Columbias out there
that no one has touched. Be a little daring. JONATHAN VALIN
FURTHER LISTENING: Ernst H. Meyer: Symphonie für Streicher;
Viktor Kalabis: Sonáta pro Housle a Klavír
lovely Adagio and a sprightly Rondo.
Like Manze, Fischer plays her own
cadenzas for most of the eight movements on the program.
There can be no complaints about
the technical capacities of the four
soloists on the Wind Concerto album.
Jacob Slagter (French horn), Emily
Beynon (flute), Gustavo Núñez (bassoon), and Alexei Ogrintchouk (oboe)
are, after all, first-chair players in the
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. But
these performances, beautiful as they
are, are wrong in scale, overly ripe and
plush. As a result, some of the operalike drama is missing, and they begin to
take on the flavor of nineteenth-century
confections. The conductorless orchestra—again, all RCO members—plays
well, if a bit blandly. Both the Wind
Concerto disc and the Fischer program
were recorded in Amsterdam’s Waalse
Kerk; multichannel presents a very
atmospheric feel for the venue. Fischer
sounds to be positioned very close to the
orchestra, and balances between soloist
and ensemble are excellent on the Wind
AQ
Concerto disc.
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Aliante Speakers, Nightingale Class
A Tube Amps imported from Italy.
Custom American made tube amps,
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euphoric. [email protected]
159
m u s i c
JAZZ
Jazz Caps
Manu Katche: Neighbourhood. Manfred
Eicher, producer. ECM 1896 350.
ttentive pop
fans will recognize the name
Manu Katche
from the French
drummer’s associations
with
Peter Gabriel, Sting, Joni Mitchell, Dire
Straits, Robbie Robertson, and Youssou
N’Dour. Some might have tracked down
his 1992 BMG France recording as a
leader, It’s About Time, with its all-star
fusion lineup that featured Gabriel,
Daniel Lanois, Branford Marsalis, David
Sancious, and others. Jazz aficionados
with ears tuned towards the distinctive
European elegance of the ECM imprint
probably know Katche’s work with saxophonist Jan Garbarek on such albums
as Twelve Moons, In Praise of Dreams, and
Ragas and Sagas.
For this work, ECM impresario
Manfred Eicher negotiated a merger
between the Katche-Garbarek partnership and one of his label’s latest franchise players, trumpeter Tomasz Stanko,
who brought along his pianist, Marcin
Wasilewski, and bassist, Slawomir
Kurkiewicz, to complete the band for
Katche’s ECM debut as a leader. The
moves paid off. Katche, a 37-year-old
Conservatory-trained Parisian with
family roots in Ivory Coast, makes himself at home in the ECM aesthetic of
cool emotions, warm undercurrents, and
spacious sonics.
Neighbourhood often sounds like it
could have been Garbarek’s or Stanko’s
date. Both saxophonist and trumpeter
take characteristic solo turns marked by
bittersweet melodies, carefully constrained passions, and impeccable
tones. And Wasilewski, who anchors
the Stanko rhythm section (which has
recorded impressively as Trio), gets
A
ample room to exercise his nimble and
graceful touch. Still, by virtue of
Katche’s all-original compositions and
his certain guidance of the insistent
governing pulses and deceptively simple-sounding rhythmic configurations,
it’s clear that everyone is playing in the
drummer’s house. Unlike many of the
drummers Eicher favors, Katche is
more prone to set up a very musical,
almost melodic, pattern on toms and
snares rather than spreading the
rhythm until it almost dissolves. As he
manipulates it in place, the other musicians meditate on closely bound
melodies that have a 1960s
Miles/Hancock/Shorter feel.
With lots of air and space, the sonics
grant an exquisite realism to every
instrument, especially the wood, skin,
and metal of Katche’s kit, to point where
you can actually luxuriate in a cymbal
DERK RICHARDSON
splash.
FURTHER LISTENING: Jan Garbarek: In
Praise of Dreams; Tomasz Stanko:
Suspended Night
Ken Hatfield: String Theory. Hatfield, producer; Jim Clouse, engineer. Arthur Circle
Music 7502. Music: HHHH Sonics: HHHH
his is the
most satisfying solo guitar
album I’ve heard
in a long time. I
don’t
know
whether to call it
jazz—it’s as much classical, folk, gypsy,
and blues—but Ken Hatfield has such a
command of all these genres, in technique and idiom, that he can call it
whatever he wants.
A confession: I usually find solo
jazz guitar a bit boring and, when it’s
imbued with classical influences, a bit
precious to boot. But there’s something different about Hatfield, whose
T
name I’d never run across until his
publicist sent me this CD; it’s a name
we’d all be seeing, if justice ruled the
music biz.
Listen to his 12 “Snowhill
Variations,” each about a minute long,
covering the same theme as, varyingly,
baroque, Renaissance, Irish, Spanish,
pop, bluegrass, finally ending with an
infectiously rhythmic samba—none
gimmicky, each style convincing, elegant, even passionate on its own terms.
On half the album, Hatfield plays
nylon-string guitar; on the other half,
he plays overdubbed duets with dobro
or mandolin. Since his music tends
toward the polyphonic on his own,
these duets are head-shakingly rich.
But there’s nothing self-conscious
about his virtuosity; there’s even a casualness, which lets in an airy swing.
Hatfield, who lives in Queens but grew
up in Virginia, can also stir a backwoods wit when he wants. His threepart opener, “The Gospel According to
Sam,” is an ironic tribute to his
Southern homily-reciting dad, not
some righteous meditation. The disc’s
final seven tracks, under the heading
“Borges & I,” are named after stories by
the Argentine surrealist Jorge Luis
Borges, and they share some of his
knotty playfulness.
String Theory was recorded in a tilefloored basement-turned-studio through
a stereo pair of Earthworks QTC-1 and
QTC-30 omni microphones (known for
their extended high frequencies and fast
response to transients) with no EQ or
compression. And that’s how this album
sounds: live, spacious, naturally reverberant, and finely detailed. Had the session been taken down on analog tape or
Direct Stream Digital, instead of a conventional hard drive, sonics might have
been close to perfect; as is, the sound is
FRED KAPLAN
damn fine.
Further Listening: Marc Ribot: Saints;
Gene Bertoncini: Quiet Now
161
m u s i c
jazz
Paul Motian Band: Garden of Eden.
Manfred Eicher, producer. ECM 1917.
iven his historic associations with Bill
Evans and Keith
Jarrett, as well as
his recent intimate working
relationship with Marilyn Crispell and a
track record that extends all the way
back to Lennie Tristano and up through
Carla Bley, Mose Allison, and Gonzalo
Rubalcaba, it would be easy to think of
Paul Motian as “a pianist’s drummer.”
But as a leader, Motian has favored electric guitars over keyboards, probably
because their tonal elasticity so naturally suits his supple approach to time and
his emphasis on color and texture over
relentless drive.
Last year, after long stints recording
for JMT and Winter and Winter, Motian
returned to ECM (the label where he
made his debut as a leader in 1972) in a
trio with longtime collaborators Bill
Frisell and Joe Lovano on I Have the Room
Above Her. For Garden of Eden, he builds
on the larger Electric Bebop Band format he introduced in the early ’90s with
three guitarists (Jacob Bro, Steve
Cardenas, and Ben Monder), two saxophonists (Tony Malaby and Chris
Cheek), and electric bass (Jerome
Harris). The septet context and relative
brevity of the pieces keep the solos
reined in and further emphasize the
tonal-watercolor aspect of the ensemble
sound. After opening with two Charles
Mingus classics, “Pithecanthropus
Erectus” and “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,”
the program concentrates on moody,
mostly contemplative originals (seven
by Motian and one each by Cheek and
Cardenas) on the way to a boppish conclusion with Monk’s “Evidence” and
Charlie Parker’s “Cheryl.”
With solos deemphasized between
the opener and closers, Garden of Eden
unfolds as a series of intertwined melodic lines and pastoral harmonic washes.
G
162
Paul Motian
Although the lush and crystalline sonics
give precise definition to individual
instruments, the snap of Motian’s skins
and the ticks, soft crashes, and purrs of
his cymbals are especially pristine in the
DR
midrange-dominant mix.
FURTHER LISTENING: Paul Motian and the
Electric Bebop Band: Reincarnation of a
Love Bird; Jerry Granelli: A Song I Thought
I Heard Buddy Sing
Nina Simone: The Soul of Nina Simone.
RCA/Legacy 71973. Music: HHHH
Sonics: HHH
Nina Simone: Forever Young, Gifted &
Black. RCA/Legacy 74413.
Music: HHHH Sonics: HHH
Nina Simone: Nina Simone Sings the
Blues. RCA/Legacy 73334. Music: HHH
Sonics: HH
Nina Simone: Silk & Soul. RCA/Legacy
73335. Music: HH Sonics: HH
For The Soul of Nina Simone: Barry
Feldman, producer. For all others: Danny
Davis, original producer; Richard Seidel,
reissue producer.
ou need only listen to the way Nina
Simone transforms the British
Invasion ballad “Don’t Let Me Be
Misunderstood” into a simmering spiri-
Y
tual to know that she’s something special. No wonder she’s regarded as the
High Priestess of Soul and an inspiration
to a new generation of strong female
singers and songwriters, including Alicia
Keys, Lauryn Hill, and Norah Jones. Yet
for many, Simone, who died in 2003 at
the age of 70, remains a mystery.
The Juilliard-trained pianist started
vocalizing as a way to expand her role as
an instrumental accompanist. Blessed
with a reedy voice and a no-nonsense
attitude, Simone is a bold song interpreter who defies categorization. Her
albums have spanned blues, soul, jazz,
gospel, folk, show tunes, pop, and
protest songs—a multi-faceted career
that baffles those eager to pigeonhole
someone who has described these seemingly far-flung styles simply as black
classical music.
This quartet of newly reissued discs
includes expanded editions of her first
two RCA LPs, Nina Simone Sings the
Blues and Silk & Soul, and a pair of new
compilations, Forever Young, Gifted &
Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit and the
DualDisc anthology The Soul of Nina
Simone, all steps toward restoring
Simone’s catalogue and helping put this
unique singer’s gifts in sharper focus.
1967’s Nina Simone Sings the Blues,
released eight years after her debut on
the small Bethlehem label scored a Top
20 hit with “I Loves You Porgy,” introduced Simone to a wider audience. The
m u s i c
jazz
album ranges from the gritty urban
blues of “Do I Move You” to the uptempo soul of “Real Deal.” At times these
studio arrangements are maddeningly
generic, but the players (especially guitarist Eric Gale) and Simone’s own excellent piano work spark plenty of magic.
All that, two bonus tracks, and the sassy
“I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl”—
not too shabby.
Less soulful than its bluesy predecessor, the uneven Silk & Soul suffers from a
slick studio sound and forgettable covers—a so-so reading of Burt Bacharach’s
“The Look of Love,” a sappy take on the
Association’s “Cherish.” Simone is best
when left to her own design. Check out
the stripped-down blues ballad “Love ’o
Love,” written by husband/manager
Andy Stroud, or the defiant “I Wish I
Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.”
Simone hit her stride in 1969 with
the release of “Young, Gifted and
Black,” an inspirational Black Power
salute that was a hit for Aretha Franklin
in 1972. The song lends its name to a
new compilation that gathers such
civil-rights-era anthems as “I Wish I
Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”
and Simone’s powerful “Mississippi
Goddam,” heard here wracked with
pain and pathos and recorded the night
after the assassination of Martin Luther
King. The title track is included in
both studio and live versions. This moving collection also features an unedited
live version of “Why (The King of Love
is Dead),” a heart-wrenching MLK tribute penned by bassist Gene Taylor and
performed
the
next
night.
Arrangements are sparse, thus allowing
songs to soar on the wings of Simone’s
barely contained rage.
For the uninitiated, The Soul of Nina
Simone is a good primer. Her transcendent take on the Anthony Newly pop
tune “Feeling Good” alone is worth the
price of admission. The collection also
includes the aforementioned “Don’t Let
Me Be Misunderstood,” the bluesy
lover’s lament “In the Dark,” an emotionally naked spin on Randy
Newman’s “I Think It’s Going to Rain
Today,” and the gleeful “My Baby Just
164
The Best in New-Format Software
(All titles multichannel unless otherwise noted)
SACD
Bach: The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues. Biggs, organ. Sony 87983 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 143)
Baltic Voices 3. Harmonia Mundi 80739 (HHHHH) (TAS 160)
Patricia Barber: Modern Cool. Mobile Fidelity Hybrid Stereo 2003 (HHHH) (TAS 137)
Beck: Sea Change. Geffen 0694935372 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 141)
John Coltrane: Soultrane. Mobile Fidelity 2020 (HHHH) (TAS 143)
Dvorák: Symphonies 8 and 9 (Fischer). Philips 470 617 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 142)
Love & Lament (Cappella Figuralis). Channel Classics 17002 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 137)
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (Tilson Thomas). SFS Media 0002 (HHHHH) (TAS 139)
Music for Organ, Brass, and Timpani. Sonoma 001 (HHHHH) (TAS 159)
Music of Turina & Debussy (Lopez-Cobos). Telarc 60574 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 135)
Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral. Interscope 3739 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 152)
Popov: Symphony No. 1. Shostakovich: Theme and Variations. Telarc 60642 (HHHHH) (TAS 152)
Poulenc: Concerto for Organ. Linn Records CKD 180 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 138)
Rainbow Body. Barber. Copland. Theofanidis. Telarc 60596 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 144)
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 (Jarvi). Telarc 60601 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 149)
Ravel: Orchestral Music (Skrowaczewski). Mobile Fidelity 4002 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 146)
Rózsa: Three Choral Suites (Kunzel). Telarc 60631 (HHHHH) (TAS 154)
Rossini: Famous Overtures (Marriner). PentaTone 5186 106 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 142)
Roxy Music: Avalon. Virgin 83871 (HHHH 1/2)
Saint-Saëns/Tchaikovsky/Bruch: Cello Works. Channel (HHHHH) (TAS 133)
Steiner: The Adventures of Mark Twain. Naxos 6.110087 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 153)
Stravinsky: L’Histoire du soldat. Ragtime. PentaTone 5186 046 (HHHHH) (TAS 149)
Vivaldi: La Stravaganza. (Podger) Channel Classics 19504 (HHHHH) (TAS 145)
DVD-A
Beethoven: The Nine Symphonies (Abbado). DG 01462/3/4/5/6 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 148)
Deacon John’s Jump Blues. AIX 81004 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 144)
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Warner Brothers (HHHHH) (TAS 145)
Grateful Dead: Workingman’s Dead. Warner Brothers 78356 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 135)
Mickey Hart: Best Of: Over the Edge and Back. Rykodisc 10494 (HHHHH) (TAS 137)
John Williams: A.I. Warner Brothers 48096 (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 135)
Frank Zappa: QuAUDIOPHILIAc. DTS Entertainment (HHHH 1/2) (TAS 151)
Zephyr: Voices Unbound. AIX 80012 (HHHHH) (TAS 139)
m u s i c
jazz
Cares for Me,” which put Simone back
on the UK pop charts in 1987 after it
was used in a Chanel No. 5 TV ad. The
DualDiscs’s DVD side features nine
stunning performances from the Ed
Sullivan Show (1960), the Bitter End
nightclub (1968), and the Harlem
Festival (1969), all of which capture the
powerhouse performer’s frank stage persona and musical acumen.
Although remastered, sonically, the
discs are a mixed bag. The two 1967
reissues are bright and harsh. But Forever
Young, Gifted & Black fares much better,
and the DualDisc offers an “enhanced
stereo” that smoothes out the rough
edges. All four discs offer good stereo
separation, with Simone placed clearly
on a wide soundstage. The DVD footage
is a marvel; Simone intensity radiates
with a white heat few performers have
GREG CAHILL
ever matched.
FURTHER LISTENING: Abbey Lincoln: The
World is Falling Down; Lauryn Hill: The
Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown
Christmas. Noel Lee and John Burk, reissue producers; Stephen Hart, reissue
engineer. Monster Music (two discs: one
stereo CD; one 5.1 DTS DVD with Dolby
headphone surround). Music: HHHH 1/2
Sonics: HHH
o n s t e r
Cable, manufacturer of fine
cables and power
conditioners, is
getting
into
audiophile music
in an odd way. It’s licensed a handful of
hits and reissued them as multiple surround-sound “experiences.” With the
Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown
Christmas—the most musically worthy of
Monster’s releases—you get two discs.
M
One is a stereo CD mastered from the
original 1965 three-track analog tapes.
The other is a DVD (audio only), playable
as Dolby Digital or as 96/24 DTS, in any
of three different surround-sound perspectives—“Front Row,” “On Stage Jazz
Club,” or “On Stage Concert Hall.” (This
disc can also be downloaded onto an iPod
and heard as simulated surround through
conventional headphones.)
The stereo CD sounds quite nice;
the piano is up front and particularly
resonant, though the drums are off in a
corner and seem isolation-booth compressed. The DVD is another story.
“Front Row” is fine, especially in DTS, a
nice left-to-right stereo spread (the
drums sound a bit louder and crisper)
with a subtle ambience from the rear
channels—just enough for a hint of
envelopment, which is the whole point
of surround sound.
But the “On Stage” mixes, alas, are
as the name implies. They try to put you
in the middle of the band—the piano in
front of you, the drums behind you. “On
Stage Concert Hall” is the same, but
with tons of artificial echo pumped in,
to make those who have never been in a
concert hall feel like they might be. For
those who like this sort of thing, this is
just the sort of thing they like (as Max
Beerbohm once put it), but who are
these people and why do they like this
sort of thing? And why is Monster Cable
pandering to them, just as a fair number
of recording labels are finally beginning
to get surround sound right?
The music, of course, is irresistibly
charming—breezy, sweet, and quietly
swinging. Like Fantasy Records’ commercial CD, the disc also contains a bonus
track, from a different session: a liltingly
off-centered take of “Greensleeves” that’s
FK
masterful by any standard.
FURTHER LISTENING: Vince Guaraldi Trio:
A Boy Named Charlie Brown; Wynton
Marsalis: Crescent City Christmas Card
SACD
Quinsin Nachoff: Magic Numbers. Nachoff
and Tony Reif, producers; David TraversSmith, engineer. Hybrid multichannel.
Songlines 1556. Music: HHH 1/2
Sonics: HHHH
agic Numbers
doesn’t seem
to be a promising
album on the face
of things. A
moody soprano
saxophone, freestyle bass, and R&B-inflected drums,
joined by a string quartet—what New
Age fusion hell is this? But Magic
Numbers turns out to be something else
entirely: a heady delight, complex but
immediately engaging, brooding but
also swinging.
Quinsin Nachoff, a Canadian saxophone
player who’s new to me, has apparently
learned much from Wayne Shorter, and
learned it well—those sweet, darting high
notes mixed in with dark, dissonant intervals. The string arrangements are a kick:
inventive harmonies, unexpected cadences, a
dash of Bartók to spice the blues. Bassist
Mark Helias and drummer Jim Black are
lively staples of New York’s “downtown”
jazz scene, where eclecticism is the norm;
they know just when to play into, off, and
against this music’s multiple strands.
The sonics, in stereo or multichannel, are excellent. The soundstage is a bit
dark—you don’t get the luminous seethrough effect of the best SACD recordings—but each individual instrument
shines. The strings sound properly lush
and resonant; the horn is clearly made of
brass and reed, and you can practically
see its size and shape. The bass and
FK
drums snap, bang, and sizzle.
M
FURTHER LISTENING: Lee Konitz: Strings
for Holiday; Art Pepper: Winter Moon
MUSIC EDITOR BOB GENDRON’S SYSTEM
BAT VK-300x integrated amplifier; Gallo Nucleus Reference3 loudspeakers; Rotel RSX-1065 receiver; Sony SCD-CE775 SACD player;
Panasonic DVD-RP91 DVD-A player; Clearaudio Champion turntable; Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridge; Bright Star Audio IsoRock
GR3 speaker supports; Synergistic Research, MIT, Monster Cable, and Audioquest cables and interconnects; SolidSteel 5.5 rack
166
TAS Retrospective
Harman Kardon Citation 16 Power Amplifier
Sue Kraft
“Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.” –Franklin P. Adams
I
t would seem the more we revisit the past, the
better it gets. The component HP deemed as “a
major disappointment” back in 1976 (Volume
2, Number 8) has now become a fairly popular
commodity on the used-high-end-audio market.
EBay watchers can verify that a Harman Kardon
Citation 16 power amplifier in working condition still
fetches up to $400 at auction. That’s not bad considering
the unit sold for $795 new.
Of course, that was 30 years and a couple of lifetimes
ago. For most of us, anything with a window sticker
approaching eight bills was a pipe dream back then, especially when it came to “frivolities” such as stereo. I was
barely out of high school in the mid ’70s and pulling in
a whopping $55 per week after taxes, $54 of which was
spent maintaining a ’74 Chevy Nova with a hopped-up
small-block 350 under the hood. It wasn’t until the mid
’80s that I gave up weekend drag racing in favor of audio,
as I thought it would be easier on the wallet. (Little did
I know that a power cord would someday sell for more
than a new car.)
In a recent fit of nostalgic curiosity, I ran across a
Citation 16 on eBay with one channel out, and was high
bidder at $150. The amp arrived in otherwise good condition with retro-chic multicolored LED output meters,
front-panel handles, and captive power cord. (The word
“detachable” hadn’t been invented yet.) Upon contacting
Harman Kardon for possible technical assistance, I
received word back via e-mail that because the company
had changed hands so many times, I was basically SOL.
Luckily for me technical manuals are readily available on
eBay as well.
With schematic in hand, I brought the HK to a techie
friend who diagnosed a burned out op-amp on the driver
board. While in the shop, I also had the large filter caps
replaced, and a speaker protection circuit installed.
168
Although the Citation 16 has a DC filter network on the
input side, there’s no factory fail-safe in the event of
major meltdown on the output side. I didn’t even want to
imagine what the B&W 800D would look like with
woofer cones strewn about the floor. I should also note
that at some point prior to my purchase it appeared the
output transistors were also replaced.
In the original TAS capsule review KJL concluded
(with HP concurring in a follow-up) that the Citation 16
“lacks openness, is hollow in the midrange and is too
bright up top.” While I’m not about to question what
anybody (especially HP) heard so many years ago, I’d say
that I’ve somehow managed to stumble into one of those
“opposite universe” things I saw on an episode of Star
Trek. Upon listening, the first thing I noted about the HK
was its remarkable openness, transparency, and wall-towall soundstaging. The highs were extended, perhaps
more so than even the Meridian G57 amplifier I’m using,
but not overly bright. And I’d describe the midrange as
being sweet, not hollow. The bottom end was also tight
and well defined, the pace quick and energetic. I wasn’t
disappointed at all.
When all was said and done, the Harman Kardon
Citation 16 set me back roughly in the neighborhood of
$300. That’s a heck of a nice neighborhood when you’re
talking about a 150W “twin-powered” (dual-mono)
solid-state amp in a bulletproof chassis. I wouldn’t call
this vintage piece a giant-killer, but even with its primitive design, it still performs surprisingly well against the
amplifiers of today. As for the transformation in sound
from the original reviewed back in 1976, who knows?
Certainly modern-day speaker technology and a few new
parts under the hood didn’t hurt. A fellow audiophile old
timer tells me (with a smile) that age has a tendency to
dull the senses a bit. That could be true. Or perhaps the
Citation 16 just needed 30 years to finally break in.

report

Transcription

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