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THE RETURN OF ANALOG: Did it ever really
go away? We listen to the Scheu turntable
and arm from Germany, and we try terrific
phono stages from Korea and Canada
MORE REVIEWS: We lend our ears to
three upscale headphones, we pursue
our exploration of the sound of speaker
connectors, and we discover a recording
studio that fits in your palm
PLUS: The truth about color, and a report
No. 86 CAN $6.49 / US $7.69 from Vegas in mid-recession
ISSN 0847-1851
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April Music
ASW Speakers
Atlas
Audioprism
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Bard Audio
QED
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April Music Eximus
For the Compact Disc
For your computer
For the digital source of tomorrow
Vandersteen
McCormack
Harmonix
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WBT
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FIM Accessories
Kandy K2
Goldring
Milty
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JUSTI
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DIO
Justice Audio
111 Zenway Blvd., Unit 9
WOODBRIDGE, ON L4H 3H9
Tel. : (905) 265-8675 • Fax : (905) 265-8595
www.justiceaudio.com
[email protected]
WATTGate
Audiophile CDs
Audiophile LPs
DVD and SACD
Cinema
Color Space
30
Why your video display can’t show you everything
your eye can see
The Listening Room
Issue No. 86
The Scheu Premier II
Massive, transparent and spectacular. Now let’s
plug this German turntable in and listen.
34
Allnic H-1200 Phono Preamp
From South Korea, a tube phono stage with
unusually smooth sound
38
Moon LP3 Phono Preamp
41
We loved its bigger brother, but you keep badgering
us to try Simaudio’s smaller preamp
Cover story: The spectacular Scheu Analog Premier II
turntable and its transparent Cantus tone arm. The
Scheu is one of three hot analog components
reviewed in this issue
18
Do Connectors Matter? (Part II)
With a gulp, we chop the expensive connectors
from our reference speaker cables
46
Zoom H2
A recording studio in the palm of your hand,
nothing less
47
Upscale Headphones
We slip on a pair of comfy phones that bear the
name of a famous rapper, and we push a couple of
expensive in-ear phones into our auricles
50
The Concerto
by Reine Lessard
One instrument against a full orchestra? How
composers meet the challenge
61
Software Reviews
by Gerard Rejskind and Albert Simon
67
Departments
Nuts&Bolts
Analog In a Digital World
by Paul Bergman
Analog may be coming back, but it’s difficult to
keep music out of the digital domain
44
Software
Feature
Vegas vs the Recession
by Gerard Rejskind
Our editor tours what has been one of the world’s
largest tech shows…but is it still?
BIS Power Maestro
It may be billed as a mere power bar, but our ears
tell us it is much, much more
28
Editorial
Feedback
Free Advice
Gossip & News
State of the Art
4
7
9
76
82
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine    3    
UHF Magazine No. 86 was published in March, 2009. All
contents are copyright 2009 by Broadcast Canada. They
may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publisher.
EDITORIAL & SUBSCRIPTION OFFICE:
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Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383
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World Wide Web: www.uhfmag.com
PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind
EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Steve Bourke, Toby Earp, Reine
Lessard, Albert Simon
PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY: Albert Simon
ADVERTISING SALES:
Alberta & BC: Derek Coates (604) 522-6168
Other: Gerard Rejskind (450) 651-5720
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4   ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
Editorial
Welcoming two new reviewers
First the bad news.
One of our long-time contributors, Reine Lessard, disappears from the
masthead as associate editor. Reine has gone through growing health problems
that now make it impossible for her to continue with the rigorous daily schedule of activities needed to put out the magazine. However she will continue
to write for us. In particular, she will maintain her popular series of features
on music.
That leaves us a major gap, however. Albert Simon has been filling in, and
was of great help polishing up our last issue. Of course he continues in his
(several) indispensable roles at the magazine, with additional responsibilities.
But we also need to replace Reine in our equipment reviews. For the moment,
we have invited two guest reviewers, whose writing you will see in the pages
of this issue.
One is highly familiar to regular readers, because he is such a prolific letter
writer, namely Toby Earp. Toby may be passionate about writing to us, but
he is also passionate about music, and about hearing it well reproduced in his
home. His point of view is right in line with that of UHF.
The other guest reviewer is Steve Bourke. Steve’s music system includes
some of the same components we use in our own reference systems, as well
as a number of upscale products to which we have given particularly warm
reviews.
It seems clear that additional staff will need to be recruited in the next year
or so, as resources dictate. This is especially true because, contrary to what
the daily bad economic news seem to dictate, we are growing, not shrinking.
Together, we will work hard to maintain and indeed strengthen the character
of UHF that you have told us you most appreciate.
Wild currencies
Because we are located in Canada, we need to keep an eye on what our
country’s dollar is doing relative to the currencies of our customers and our
suppliers. And it has been a wild ride!
Not long ago the Canadian dollar was about at parity with the US dollar,
and even soared briefly to US$1.10. With the meltdown of the stock markets,
and especially of the commodities Canada produces and exports (lumber,
aluminum, and especially oil and gas), our dollar has dropped sharply. It was
at US$0.78 at one point, and is now hanging around US$0.80 (but may have
dropped or risen while this issue was being printed).
That makes things difficult for us. You may recall that currency realignment caused us to raise the price of the magazine for US readers. It also caused
us to lower the price of certain products at The Audiophile Store, particularly
products we pay for in US dollars. Will we now be forced to raise them
again?
In some cases we still have stock we purchased when our dollar was stronger,
but in other cases we have been forced to change some prices. I think (or hope
anyway) that currencies will settle down after a bit. More price realignments
may be inevitable nonetheless, and we will deal with problems as they come
up.
“I LIKE DOGS, BUT NOT DOG-EARS”
We hate those folded-down corners on magazines we
just bought, and we know you do too. May we suggest
a solution?
You see, oddly enough it’s the expensive copy that’s
likely to be tattered, torn, and… yes, dog-eared. We
mean the newsstand copy.
Where do copies sit around unprotected? At the newsstand.
Where do other people leaf through them before you arrive, with
remains of lunch on their fingers? At the newsstand. Where do
they stick on little labels you can’t even peel off? Right!
Our subscribers, on the other hand, get pristine copies protected in plastic,
with the label on the plastic itself, not the cover.
We know what you really want is a perfect copy, and if that means paying a little
less, then so be it.
As if that weren’t enough, there’s the fact that with a subscription you qualify
for a discount on one or all three of our much-praised books on hi-fi (see the offer
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One more thing. Some newsstands run out of UHF four days after they come in.
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Feedback
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
[email protected]
Is the “Bong Crosby” referred to
in the picture accompanying Reine
Lessard’s article on Cole Porter (UHF
No. 85) also the artist known as Nat
King Bowl? Just kidding (isn’t Google
wonderful?).
Thanks for a great read.
Andy Laing SCARBOROUGH, ON
Actually he’s a friend of Michael Phelps.
Just want to pass along a note of
appreciation and kudos to your mag. It’s
a highlight of my reading material.
I envy your occupation!!!
Joe Walsh
MISSISSAUGA, ON
In issue 82 and 84 you tested two
devices to get sound out of a PC or Mac
from the USB port. You said there were
three ways to get sound out of a Mac. I
think there is a fourth possibility you
don’t know about.
Each and every Mac model from
the MacBook to the Mac Pro have one
optical input and one optical output (the
headphone and microphone jacks are
hybrid analogical/optical on all models
but the Mac Pro). For three years now
I have been using a Mac mini as my
main audio source. The music is stored
on an external 1 TB USB hard drive,
and an optical fibre is linking the mini
headphone jack to a Benchmark D/A. I
am enjoying that set up a lot, even more
so recently thanks to you, now that
you made me discover that I can buy
HD music online. I can now enjoy 24
bits/192KHz music in my living room!
Could you please test the optical out
and compare it with the Thingee and
Off-Ramp devices. I would be curious to
know which one produces better sound.
Also I would recommend you test with
the music coming from an external USB
drive since a lot of people will have that
kind of set-up and it probably influences
the “musicality” of the USB port.
Philippe Grégoire
MONTRÉAL, QC
We do know about it, Philippe, and we
have ordered an appropriate adapter so that
we can use the optical output of both the MacBook Pro and the Airport Express. We are
also shopping around for a superior optical
cable, which will be glass, not plastic.
With regards to your comments
about DVD recorders having an analog
tuner, this would only be an issue if
one does not use a digital set-top box,
right? Also, your Super Antenna pulls in all
stations from channels 2 to 69? So that
could take the place of a digital set-top
box for those who do not want HD or
digital channels as well as a monthly
cable bill? Will it still work when the US
goes digital? Having said that, I realize this idea
conflicts with my comments regarding
the recorders and that your antenna can
pull in some HD channels. As always, thanks and keep up the
wonderful work you do! Chris Carty
MISSISSAUGA, ON
If you want to record one channel while
watching another, you would need two set-top
boxes, Chris. The Super Antenna also pulls
in digital stations, in full HD, if you have
a digital tuner. In Montreal, where we are,
both CBC stations broadcast in off-air high
definition, and we expect others to join them
between now and the 2011 analog switch-off.
You can get off-air HDTV from the US as
well, but unless you live very near you may
need a rooftop antenna.
I picked up UHF No. 85 at the local
Barnes and Noble Saturday. Audio has
been on my mind recently and I’ve
been looking for input. I grabbed a
stack of audio magazines. They varied
from rewritten press releases to piles of
insufferable pretentious hyperbole. Your
magazine was so different. So clear, so
straightforward. I bought it and took it
home.
I learned more about audio from this
one issue than I have in years. Right now
I’m wrestling with the advantage of getting a subscription versus another excuse
to go to the bookstore. My renewed
avocation of playing music (mandolin
and guitar) is driving my renewed interest in audio. It’s bad when I feel like I get
better definition through ear buds on
my iPod than from my Yamaha 5.1. I’m
not looking for the ultimate system but
I think I can do a lot better than what I
have. Frankly, if I had $10K available it
would go into a mandolin.
I was amused about the discussion
about blind tests (State of the Art, UHF
No. 85) and what people can hear. As a
scientist, I like to read about science outside of my field. Recently that has crossed
with my musical avocation and I’ve been
reading a lot about music. It’s clear from
this reading that the relation between
people and music is way too complicated
for simple analysis. I know this practically too. You can do all sorts of blind
tests on instruments that purportedly say
a good quality Pac-Rim guitar will sound
as good as a US or Canadian guitar, but
it’s just not true. It might sound good but
it won’t be the same. The relationship is
so personal that it just can’t be “blinded
out” and make any sense.
I’ve already upgraded back to stereo.
A lot of my dissatisfaction was related to
surround and ambience modes. Turns
out I really don’t want to be in the band
after all. That and the fact that, for all
the surround prowess, the actual music
was surprisingly flat. It’s better when I
go to straight stereo, but I don’t think it’s
as good for music as my old integrated
amp was from 25 years ago.
Anyway, I really appreciate how much
info I got from one issue. Not meaning
to stir up any provincial issue, let me say
thanks for writing about high fidelity in
plain English. (I assume there is a similar
French sentiment.)
George Wilson
SAN ANTONIO, TX
Feedback
I read your review of the Moon LP5.3
phono preamp in UHF No. 85. Too bad
you didn’t have a pair of XLR interconnects on hand. This is surprising on the
part of a magazine that has a section selling both recordings and audio supplies.
I have the same phono preamp as
well as the W-8 amp and the P-8 preamp
from the same manufacturer. I tried the
LP5.3 with Acoustic Zen Matrix Reference II XLR cables as well as coaxial Van
den Hul Fusions. After a few recordings,
it was evident that the XLR connection
was superior. Michel Viau
VARENNES, QC
Michel, there’s a good reason we don’t
use balanced cables on any of our reference systems. We need to be able to test all
equipment without adding any extraneous
differences. If our cables were balanced, we
couldn’t review unbalanced gear without
also changing cables, and introducing an
uncontrolled variable.
An audiophile may well choose to employ
balanced cables, but our systems are working
tools.
I noticed in your Still More News section of the latest mag that you indicated
that your Sony Blu-ray player’s days
are numbered because it cannot decode
Tr ueHD and ot her uncompressed
audio formats. I have the same BDPS300 player as you, and I just updated
the firmware which adds (per the Sony
Web site) Dolby TrueHD Audio and
Dolby Digital Plus Audio decoding
functionality. The firmware update is
available on the Sony site. My update
took ~15 minutes, not the minimum of
30 minutes they indicate.
http://esupport.sony.com/
perl/swu-download.pl?upd_
id=4320&SMB=YES?template_
id=1&region_id=1
So my question: my HTR does not
have any HDMI inputs, but can I access
this uncompressed audio via the Sony’s
5.1 analog outputs into my NAD’s 5.1
inputs? Does the firmware update allow
me access to the HD audio only when
using an HDMI 1.3a cable to a processor
capable of decoding it, or will the Sony
now decode TruHD internally and send
this high sample rate info via analogue
connection?
I am currently using the HDMI out
of the player directly into my HDTV
and running an optical cable to my NAD
for audio.
Tim Leeney
GEORGETOWN, ON
We appreciate the heads up, Tim. However
we were not able to get a usable upgrade CD
with either our Dell PC or our MacPro
running Windows XP. Sony offers a free
upgrade CD, but only in the US. We will
be buying a new player, and it won’t be a
Sony.
In issue No. 85 of UHF you tested and
confirmed the “minimalist” approach of
Keith Eichmann’s connectors. Did you
ever test the “Anti Cables” from Paul
Speltz?
Denis Marchand
SHERBROOKE, QC
We haven’t, no, Denis. The Anti Cables
are minimalist in their approach to the wire
itself, but not the connectors. We would be
reluctant to use tinned spades.
But the cost of the I-5 upgrade (which
would then become an I-5.3) is more
than reasonable compared to the cost of
a new amp. You’ll also get replacements
for aging parts that might later cause
trouble. We would go for it.
We’re told, by the way, that the
improvements made to the amplifier are
essentially those originally introduced
on the limited edition 1-5LE.
Free Advice
Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4
[email protected]
I own a Rega Fono MC preamp
I am t hink ing of replacing my
coupled with Creek Evo electronics, Simaud io I-5 (circa 1998) w it h a
I have a Yamaha HTR5790 with
Maxcon Squared filter, Totem Arros and new integrated, and was considering Yamaha CDC685 CD driving Energy
Clearaudio Champion turntable with the Vecteur Ai4 which you reviewed in C-1 speakers and in direct mode on
Goldring Elite cartridge.
UHF No. 85. I was hoping that since the HTR5790. We love the ability to
The Fono gives me a great deal of you have reviewed both amplifiers you have five discs playing at random for
hum unless I slide the circuit board out might be able to comment on how they entertaining.
of its extruded aluminum case, I have differ sonically.
I run it via analog cables and wonder
placed the whole thing in a cardboard
Adam Yalonetsky if you can comment if the DAC is supeshoebox so I can enjoy the music!!!
TORONTO, ON rior in the CD or receiver. Should I be
Everything seems okay, but nothing
using an optical connection instead?
works out while it’s inside its own case,.
Don’t do it, Adam. The Vecteur is
Realizing this is low end, I am going
It may sound fine for a few minutes, but certainly a bargain, offering excellent to move up to a proper two-channel
then the hum comes back.
musicality at a lower price than most system and put the Yamaha/Energy into
It may be originating from the power of its competitors, but it is Vecteur’s Home Theatre service. With this goal
switch, because the hum changes as I entry-level model, and it is not a match in mind and a budget of $1500 at a time,
jiggle it. Is this possible? I am looking for Simaudio’s very good I-5.
would you suggest my first upgrade be
forward for a possible upgrade to a silent
By the way, Simaudio does offer a receiver, Rotel 1062, Arcam, the new
Moon LP3 later on, but I can’t even factory upgrade of the I-5 to the current Moon or speakers? I am thinking Totem
dump the darn thing on eBay without model, the I-5.3. Check out the next Arro, Rainmaker or Sttaf.
risking bad feedback!
letter.
In short which will give me that
Thank you for this one, and for
quantum
leap in soundstage I desire?
everything else !
My two-channel system is powered
- Mark Dixon
what w ill hap OTTAWA, ON
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This sounds like a grounding probnnectedWeb
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rk s w it hand
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properly grounded, acting like a Faraday
the Simaudio factory sonic upgrade speakers are the best thing you’ve got for
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Yes, i
cage to protect the sensitive low-level
circuits against outside interference. If
it is floating (i.e. if it is not kept at earth
potential), then it will do the opposite,
acting as an antenna, capturing stray
fields and bathing the circuits in a mist
of radio-frequency noise.
You’ve found a rather desperate fix
by transferring the circuit to a shoebox,
but we need hardly emphasize that this
is less than an ideal solution. If you
know someone else who has an MC cartridge, try the Rega with that turntable
(with its metal case, of course), to see
whether it produces the same problems
in that system. If it does, it will require
service.
e
to “current production standards.”
What is your experience/opinion of
such upgrades? Is it worth the $500 plus
shipping?
The I-5 is wired to Totem Sttaf
speakers via Transparent Audio MusicLink Plus bi-cable, and my source is a
Naim CD5i.
Jon Fawcett
OAKVILLE, ON
We are mostly a little cool to factory
upgrades, Jon, because the gap between
cost and tangible improvement is almost
always very broad. In most cases you’ll
do better by selling the older unit and
buying new.
the moment. The most urgent upgrade
would be the CD player.
Yes, we do understand the appeal of
music playing when you have company,
but CD jukeboxes are riddled with
diesel-grade compromises, and a good
single-disc player would do better for
you when you’re actually listening.
For when company comes ,there are
two alternatives. The multidisc player
can remain as a second source, doing
what it does best. The other possibility
is to move the appropriate music over
to your computer, if you’ve got one, and
connect it by either cable or WiFi to the
DAC in your receiver. Then, once your
budget has caught its breath you may
want to upgrade to a new amplifier. We
think you already know what to go out
and listen to.
Feedback
YOU CAN
HAVE IT ALL
IN TORONTO
Creek
Cyrus
Epos
Sugden
BUT ONLY AT
416-346-3738
www.audioeden.com
results in a depressingly large number of
hits, and I’m sure that 98% of the listed
software considers the MP3 format to
be “all you’ll ever need.”
As I write this I know you are in Las
One other consideration with using
Vegas for the yearly CES. I read your a computer as a source is the fan noise.
book about hi-fi and I am impressed with In an office environment that noise is
the details of your explanation for every barely noticeable, but move it to your
subject. I am a newbie and just starting equipment rack (or worse, a notebook
in the exciting hi-fi world.
next to your listening position) and
I found a pair of NAD C272 and during quiet music passages I think the
C162 amp and power amp for less than fan would be quite annoying. Sure, the
$1000. I know these are entry-level computer can be placed a good distance
units. Would you recommend them, away from the listening position, but
or am I better off saving my money then it’s a short hike to select a different
and buying a used Copland, YBA or “CD,” and anything other than having
Classé? the computer next to you effectively
Ron Grey eliminates the equivalence of a CD
TORONTO, ON player’s remote control. Any ideas for
that?
We would suggest going with a CopA computer and Thingee sounding
land or the YBA, Ron, but there is no better than roughly a $2000 CD player?
way you’re going to get anything usable Great! The eventual emergence of a
from either company for a three-digit more sophisticated Thingee-like device?
price tag. One question, though: do you Awesome!
have a reason for looking at a separate
Jeff Tennant
power amplifier and preamplifier rather
BURLINGTON, ON
than an integrated amplifier?
You might in fact have a good reason.
Jeff, the Apple iTunes program,
Separates give you added flexibility as which comes with Mac OS X and can
you upgrade. However integrated amps be downloaded for Windows, includes
mostly take up less space, they can be error-correction, as shown in the article.
excellent and even superb, and you don’t Steve Nugent over at Empirical Audio
need to add a quality interconnect cable says that it’s a good choice for the Macinto make them sing. We would look at the tosh, but that on Windows he prefers the
alternatives.
free Exact Audio Copy for ripping, and
either Foobar or JRiver for music library
Thank you for the issue No. 85 management. He also recommends
article on ripping one’s existing stock of avoiding Windows Vista, because with
CDs onto a computer disc drive (Music 16/44 data it lowers volume to 90% of
From Your Computer). I’ve been think- normal, thus truncating the bitstream.
ing of giving this a try for some time, There are lots of other variables too, as
and pitting my CD player against a there always are in high end audio.
computer — winner take all. A “Ripping
We agree that having a PC with a fan
for Audiophile Dummies” guide was the near listening position won’t be much
perfect thing to eliminate many of my fun, and we don’t like having one near
questions. That, plus the availability of our desks either, but there are affordable
the Blue Circle Thingee at the Audio- computers without fans, inexpensive
phile Store eliminates all obstacles.
enough to be classed as audio accesExcept one. In the article you men- sories. The Mac mini is widely used for
tioned the need for error correction exactly this purpose, and the new crop
in the ripping software (I hadn’t even of “Netbooks,” the cheap miniature
thought of that). Could you give some laptops, are mostly quiet and sell for
names of programs that rip to uncom- under $400. Some audiophiles use the
pressed formats (PC) using what you tiny Apple Airport Express to get music
consider audiophile-quality error check- wirelessly from a remote computer. It has
ing? Googling for “CD ripping software” no fan, and it comes with both a USB
Some time ago I bought and read
two your books, The UHF Guide to High
Fidelity and The World of High Fidelity.
I was impressed by the depth of your
knowledge, together with the easy style
for this complicated subject (I even didn’t
think how everything is complicated). I love music (a ny k i nd except
modern — after the 80’s), but have no
time for searching, so I decided to ask
your advice. What components in the 2
to 4 thousands CAD price range (for the
whole system): 1.CD player (most likely
new) 2. loudspeakers (could be used) 3.
anything else? Cables? Accessories?
I have already a NAD C352 integrated amplifier.
Igor Louckov
BARRIE, ON
This is a wide open question, Igor.
The problem is not that there are no
answers, but that there are too many
answers. There are countless ways to put
together a musical system on a budget,
and the possibility of looking to used
(and possibly discontinued) products
multiplies the possibilities.
An integrated amplifier is definitely
the right choice for such a system, and
you already have one. Though its rated
power — 80 watts per channel — is quite
respectable, amplifiers like the NAD
C352 don’t have huge power supplies,
and you will want to mate it with speakers that are reasonably sensitive, with a
rating of at least 90 dB. A small speaker
is not likely to be efficient enough, and
anyway it will require a stand, which
will suck badly-needed money from
your budget. This is where buying used
will be useful. There is a vast number of
possible brands.
But don’t overspend on the speakers,
because you want money available for
the best possible source. The quality of
affordable CD players has improved considerably, fortunately. You might look
at Creek, Moon, Vecteur, Roksan
and Cambridge, but those are merely
examples.
Leave a small amount for proper
cables, meaning cables that don’t come
from the hardware store, and didn’t come
free in the box. But don’t overspend there
either, otherwise you’ll be forced to make
painful compromises on the source.
After reading all the good words
about the Totem Mani-2 Signature
speaker, the temptation is great to
bring one home. Moreover, knowing
that UHF applies strict and unbiased
criteria for evaluating hi-fi gears makes
the temptation even greater. However,
UHF, as always made clear that this
speaker requires an appropriate amplifier. Mine is the Naim Supernait. If I
Advice
Feedback
Free
connector and an optical digital output.
Incidentally, Steve Nugent has a modded
version of the Airport Express.
Apple also has a nifty solution to
the problem of controlling music at a
distance: the iPod Touch (or the nearly
identical iPhone). A free downloadable
application lets you see and control
iTunes over your WiFi network. You
can even view the cover art on its screen.
There are also free or inexpensive
remote applications for other jukeboxes,
such as Winamp.
We’ll be writing more about this
topic shortly.
Get UHF on your desktop
anywhere in the world!
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for C$4.30 including all taxes.
Imagine subscribing for as little as C$21.50.
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www.magzee.com
indeed get angry. Worse, the wrong
amplifier can actually damage the speakers. Talk about wrath!
W hen we reviewed the original
Mani-2’s a decade and a half ago (UHF
No. 43), no one had told us they were difficult to drive, and so we broke them in
using a Robertson 4010, which boasted
60 watts per channel. The combination
sounded glorious. When we reviewed the
current Signature version (in UHF No.
76), we listened with a Moon W-5LE,
which is explicitly not recommended by
Totem. They sounded even better. We
have heard them driven by various tube
amplifiers, not offering huge amounts of
power. Really fine!
You will by now have gathered that
the rumors are true. We do like the
Mani-2, which we consider to be one
of the world’s great speakers. A welldesigned amplifier capable of operating
under high-current conditions can drive
it without much risk.
For what it’s worth, a mismatch that
is not downright absurd may show up
only under gross overload conditions.
Our advice: on New Year’s Eve, keep the
drunks away from the volume control.
succumbed to the temptation, would it complicated than mere wattage. Output
I’m a long time reader (since issue
make “Manitou” mad at me, and would current is certainly an important factor
in the equation. How can I know how No. 30 I think), and over the last few
I suffer great punishment?
If that were to be the case, what would much current the speakers need for years I’ve been a little out of touch as
far as state-of-the-art gear is concerned.
playing music?
be my best Totem to follow?
Jean-François Mondou We’re all getting a little older and perI like to listen to chamber music,
SAINT-HUBERT, QC haps a little less ambitious. Don’t get me
piano, jazz and World music. My listenwrong; I’ve been listening, but I haven’t
ing room is 12’ x 14’ The rest of the
Well, Jean-François, they say you been purchasing. Thanks to UHF, I’ve
system is a Rotel RCD975 connected by
a pair of Audioquest Viper cables. The can never be too thin or too rich, or been very content with my system…until
upgrade of the speakers (B&W P6) seems have too much amplifier power. But now.
Unfortunately, my Musical Fidelity
more urgent because of some distortion times change. “Too rich” runs counter
We don’t(possibly
mean this to
version,
because
you times.
already“Too
knowthin”
how it Tri-Vista
works. It’s CD
a PDF,
player requires service.
current
economic
in low and medium frequencies
and
you
open
it
with
Adobe
reader,
etc.
because capacitors in the crossover have is no longer politically correct in the I made the purchase three years ago
the
But same
we also
have a paid
electronic
version, which
is complete,
without
banners
a demo)
andlike
would like it repaired.
age of
eating disorders.
And the
saying (albeit
leaked). The P6 has
distorthis
one,
or
articles
in
fluent
gibberish.
tion when paired to my Audio Analog about “too much amplifier power” may I’m more than willing to pay for the
That
one, because
complete,
to be ordered on
with
a credit
card.but
To here’s
open the problem: see the
repair,
not be has
true…depending
what
Enigma (which, I think,
confirms
the itorismay
it,
you
also
have
to
download
a
plugin
for
your
copy
of
Adobe
Reader
or
Acrobat.
attachment.
fact that the culprit is the P6 and not the you have to do to get all that power.
You’ll receive a user nameThere
and password
allow
to download
your
of I understand parts
So, full
whatcopy
to do?
is indeedtomore
toyou
matching
an
amplifier).
the
magazine.
You’ll
need
the
same
user
name
and
password
the
first
time
you
open
Since we are on the subject of select- amplifier and speaker than mere rated are discontinued all the time, but three
magazine
your computer,
only the first
time. After
it works
like any
years
at $10,000
list? Sure, I only paid
power, butbut
an amplifier’s
capability
with that,
ing the appropriatethe
speaker
for a on
given
other
PDF.
amplifier (or the inverse), how can I make a given speaker is not easy to pin down. half that, but I’ve lost a little faith in the
For
details,
visit ourAmplifiers
Electronicthat
Edition
page. To
buy
an issuehobby
or subscribe,
visit and maybe there’s
nonetheless,
my own analysis? The
Mani-2’s
impedcan deliver
high
current
MagZee.
ance is 4 ohms (“mainly resistive”) and will generally have very large power a hard lesson to be learned (funny how
recommended power is in the range of supplies, at least unless they use switching my Adcom HDCD is still giving). When
40 to 200 Watts. The Supernait has 80 power supplies. The Supernait would I purchase a CD player or anything
watts per channel at 8 ohms.
certainly be wrong, but what would be mechanical, I’m thinking hopefully five
I suspect that the story is more right? Choose badly, and Manitou may to seven years. Bummer…
How the electronic version works
I’m not wise on the players they’ve
offered, not to mention the bigger question: does an expensive Red Book CD
player make sense today? Heck, they’re
probably offering units with the same
transport! I knew this day would come…
just not this early and I’m not ready for
it.
I’m not keen on supporting Musical
Fidelity again, but I may not get a better
value. And most of us work hard. My
local dealer stopped carrying Musical
Fidelity, and I can’t believe I’m about to
say this, but “I don’t care about bringing
home a new box…I just want my music
back!”
I must be old. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.
Oh, and Ivy says, “Hi!” She just about
killed me when I failed to mention her.
George Watkinson
OTTAWA, ON
Advice
Feedback
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Hello to you both, George and Ivy.
We’ve read the letter you got from Musical Fidelity USA, informing you that the
Philips transports used in your Tri-Vista
player are failing all over the place, and
(of course) Philips no longer makes that
transport. We feel your pain. Our Moon
Stellar DVD player also used a Philips
transport, it has also failed, others are
failing all over the place, and Philips no
longer makes that model transport. We
have heard this story more times than
we care to recall.
Musical Fidelit y is offering you
“drastically reduced prices” on two other
models. These are not Tri-Vistas (the
Tri-Vistas used miniature tubes from
the 1950’s in their circuits), and they will
play only Red Book CDs, not SACDs.
The choice is yours, obviously, but we
would decline and look elsewhere. We
also question the wisdom of spending a
lot on a Red Book CD player when the
medium is in steep decline.
Some players, however, now have
digital inputs or even USB connections,
allowing their (presumably superior)
internal converters to be used with a
computer as a music source. Those
players are future-proof, and they can be
used even if the transport melts down…
by which time you might not care.
But what about SACD? It has settled
nicely into its niche, abandoned by Sony,
Exclusive North American Distribution
EUROPRODUCTS
Celebrating 12 years serving Canadian music lovers
www.europroducts-canada.com
which developed it and led it to victory
over DVD Audio, but supported by a
number of audiophile labels. If you have
a substantial number of SACDs, and if
your taste in music is for material likely
to be released on SACD, you might
want to look for another player than can
handle the format.
This may not be fair, but before
choosing we would inquire whether a
given player contains a Philips transport.
We are slow to anger, but equally slow
to forgive.
604-522-6168
I’d like to get your view on the importance of loudness (decibels) in stereo
playback. Is it fair to say that, in order to
get a realistic and accurate reproduction
of the music, one has to play at the same
loudness that was achieved during the
recording environment (live or studio)?
How important is sound reproduction in terms of loudness, in the
audiophile sphere? In a studio or any
household music room, you seldom/
never get sound (decibel levels) close to
what you’d experience in a live concert
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hall. I guess part of the reason is most
speakers do not reproduce realistic
loudness, predominantly due to inefficient speakers. Not if you really want
to overheat your amp or destroy your
speakers!
To get a realistic loudness experience,
is your only option horn speakers? Is it
fair to say that the best speaker in terms
of realistic loudness come from horns
(i.e. Avant Garde)? Any horn speaker that
you would recommend without breaking
the bank?
CAMBRIDGE AUDIO • CLEARAUDIO •EXPOSURE AUDIO • GRADO •ELAC•TRIANGLE•MUSICAL FIDELITY
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Lee Andrews
OTTAWA, ON
That’s a really interesting question,
Lee, and we will answer it by giving you
two contradictory bits of data.
Bit number one: stereo systems are
mostly played too loud, well beyond
concert levels (though possibly not rock
concert levels). An editor in another
magazine — we can’t recall which one
it was just now — took his sound level
meter with him to his expensive seat at
a symphonic concert. Peak levels registered around 97 dB, a lot less than the
105 dB peaks he was getting when he ran
his home music system at his preferred
volume.
Bit number two: even the most powerful home music system cannot match
the dynamics of a single piano. That
was a point made by Paul Klipsch in a
Klipsch ad some years ago. His wife was
a pianist, and he claimed her grand piano
produced peak acoustic levels that even
his Klipschorn couldn’t match.
How do we reconcile this?
The two statements are contradictory
only if we assume that what comes out
of the speaker is linear, that is, directly
proportional to the acoustic energy
of the original performance. In fact
reproduced music is dynamically distorted. In particular, live music contains
instantaneous peaks that contain more
energy than any home system could
possibly reproduce. These brief peaks
are simply clipped short, and the clipping
causes a momentary burst of harmonic
distortion. We cannot build a system
that can handle such peaks accurately,
nor can any recording medium, digital
or analog, capture them. Therein lies the
difference between high fidelity (even
ultra high fidelity) and perfect fidelity.
But just as the best systems cannot
reproduce such instantaneous peaks,
so sound level meters cannot measure
them; meters have internal amplifiers
too. Horn speakers are highly efficient,
reproducing perhaps ten times as much
volume for a given power input than you
could get from conventional speakers.
They can, therefore, reproduce concert
levels even with a modestly-powered
amplifier, but no speaker can reproduce
the quick transient peaks Paul Klipsch
was referring to. And yes, they do break
the bank, because they are so much more
complex than tuned reflex speakers, and
they’re tougher to design, too.
We should mention one other important aspect to choosing a playback
volume. An audiophile may find that
there are details, and even actual musical
instruments, he cannot hear unless he
turns up the volume. He then notices
other details he hadn’t heard before,
but which he wishes were clearer, and
so he turns up the volume some more.
The high volume results in distortion,
which makes things fuzzier, and so he
“upgrades” his amplifier in order to get
more power. He goes from 100 to 200
watts, then 500, and there are still details
he strains to hear. By now he is running
the system dangerously loud, and neither
he nor his neighbors are happy.
His problem, if only he knew it, is
a lack of clarity, not volume. Perhaps
he needs a better source, a better amp,
better speakers, better wiring…whatever. It might be that 60 watts, under
ideal circumstances, would let him hear
all of the music that has been eluding
him.
Your article in issue No. 85, UHF
Chooses an HDTV, was most helpful,
as we are presently shopping around
for such an item. We note that in this
category there are additional models that
cost about 10% more than your selected
model; the Samsung PN50A550.
The t wo models are t he Samsung PN50A650 and the Panasonic
TH50PZ800U. Are either of these additional models worth this extra cost?
Gordon Krip
BEACONSFIELD, QC
I recently completed my system with
a Puccini player and the recently released
Puccini U-Clock. When playing CD
or SACD, the improvement brought by
the clock is incredible. This is really a
combination you should try.
My question is the following: this
U-Clock has also a USB input plug that
allows reproducing music from a laptop,
and the increase in quality is also stun-
You’ll certainly need a computer you
can make available for the task, Philippe.
A Mac mini would certainly be a good
choice, and of course by high end standards it isn’t expensive. If your laptop is
also a Mac, you can use Back to My Mac
to control it from your laptop, so that
you won’t need to give it either a monitor
or a keyboard. Even cheaper would be
one of the new inexpensive “netbook”
laptops, some of which come with Linux
installed. That however gets you into an
unfamiliar operating system.
You could install a large hard disc
with your music on it next to your
system, accompanied by a charger for
your laptop. Connect them together
when you want to listen.
Incidentally, if you’re using iTunes
there is a free application for the iPhone
or iPod Touch allowing it to act as a visual
remote control over WiFi. Applications
are also available to control WinAmp
and other computer jukeboxes.
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Gordon, we’re not sure about the
Panasonic, whose added attribute is a
THX-certified mode. The Samsung 650
has different styling, with a red tint we
find more distracting than attractive.
It also has an upgraded anti-glare coating, possibly worthwhile if you view in
brightly-lit rooms.
The bad news is that its gray-scale
tracking is less accurate than that of the
earlier model, though Samsung offers a
downloadable firmware upgrade to fix
that.
ning. But I cannot dedicate my laptop to
this only task.
Basically, what I would need would be
some sort of hard drive on which I could
copy high quality downloaded music
(from Linn for example), with a USB
output, but also allows me to visualize
(on my TV screen?) the list of musical
pieces. Does this exist ? Or do I need to
buy a dedicated computer, such as a Mac
mini, to render it possible ?
Philippe Martiat
BRUSSELS, Belgium
Having a little time off work over the
holidays allows for more listening time.
Of course, that gets me thinking of the
next step in the upgrade process, so it’s
time for more of your advice, please.
So far I’ve upgraded to the CEC
TL51XR belt drive CD player and the
Sugden A21a integrated amplifier. Still
remaining from the original system are
the Wireworld Solstice III interconnects, Silver Sonic T-14 speaker cable,
and B&W DM602 Series 1 speakers.
I like listening to anything from Pink
Floyd to Rickie Lee Jones and Miles
Davis. I have collected hundreds of CDs
over the years, and of course some sound
evil, whereas some sound quite nice.
My goal is to put together a system that
allows me to experience as much of the to be sure. Whatever future changes you
magic as possible that is hidden in my may consider, including floorstanding
collection, without running out of the speakers with extended response down
room with my hands over my ears on to where your favorite instrument plays,
anything less than a perfect recording. you may want to focus on the cables
Is this a realistic goal and am I headed you’re using. Both the Silver Sonic
in the right direction so far?
and the Solstice interconnects are best
With this in mind I am trying to put described as cost-efficient. We’re not
together a list of speakers to consider. I against cost efficiency, but you can do a
have set up my room using the Cardas lot better, and your system is now good
formula, and this means I am doing enough that you’ll want to. You might
nearfield listening (quite entertaining look at better power cables too.
but I think I like sitting back a bit more).
You may also want to tweak the
My listening room is about 11’x 17’. Is acoustics of your room. It’s awkward to
this considered a medium-sized room? rearrange a room that size, at least if it’s
Will floorstanding speakers be too big also a living room, but sometimes minor
for the room? Are 8 ohm speakers all that differences can have a big impact.
I should look at? What are the characWith your next bonus (do they still
teristics of an easy-to-drive speaker? I give those after the meltdown?), look at
want something that will do my source speakers. The Harbeths would indeed
and amp justice. To quote Gerard from be a good choice, and the Reference
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make such a major luxury purchase, so I system. The Linn Classik products make
have time for research. But a Christmas sense for my budget, which is limited to a
bonus may allow the purchase of inter- few thousand dollars. Are there alternaconnects and/or speaker cables now.
tives to the above products as well?
Thanks again for your help and hope
Dean Nicholson
to hear from you soon (before my wife
SASKATOON, SK
finds a better use for my bonus).
Jay McHollister
Well of course, Dean, because there
STETTLER, AB always are, though perhaps not in this
unique one-box configuration. We have
Well, better is as better does, Jay. heard the Linn Classik Musik, yes, and
Your preamble suggests that you are now it is certainly superior to the usual alltempted to run from the room covering in-one receiver. It does have limitations,
your ears. Indeed, the fact that nearfield to be sure, but if we were spending time
listening is less than comfortable hints in a dorm room or a tiny apartment, we
at the same thing. The top end of your would take a serious look at it.
system is not pleasing you.
However we don’t recommend the
Like most speakers, the B&W’s Classik Movie, because it is obsolete. It
have a “family sound,” and that sound is has a SCART video output, common
relatively forward. They can be tamed, in Europe, and S-Video outputs, but no
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e
r
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n
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te
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HDMI output. HDMI is so superior that
we would not consider a player without
it.
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response will be less than smooth around
that point, and the roughness (concealed
by smoothing in published curves) will
be accompanied by intermodulation
distortion. What’s more, many threeway designs have a crossover point right
around middle C, where the ear is particularly sensitive. Electronic crossovers,
with dedicated amplifiers and filters for
each driver, can get around some of these
problems, though not the ones caused by
physical distance between drivers.
Not too many floorstanding speakers
will be at home in a small room. The
Totem Sttaf and Forest come to mind
as possibilities, as does the Gershman
Sonogram. Those are just examples,
though.
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I’m looking for a pair of full-range
floorstanding speakers. Doing research
on three-way vs. two-way speakers, I
noticed that there seem to be two schools
of thought. The t hree-way school believes
dedicated drivers will provide the full
frequency range compared to a two-way,
since one driver is not trying to do two
things. The two-way school believes
that, although a two-way speaker may
not produce the full frequency range
(lacking in deep bass), the absence of a
third driver and crossover will introduce
less phase error and other abnormalities,
plus the speaker will use less power.
What are your thoughts on either
design? Also, what floorstanding speakers would you recommend for about
$3000 that are easy to drive, provides
a full frequency range (including some
deep bass), are easy to place (not too
picky with room placement) and produce
a deep and wide soundstage in a 12’x14’
living room?
I listen to all types of music except
country western.
Antonio Giaccio,
MONTREAL, QC
Oh, we would love to play you a bit of
Dolly Parton or Crystal Gayle, Antonio,
but we digress.
There are indeed two schools of
thought. With three or more drivers,
each can be specialized. Though a twoway speaker can reproduce deep bass, it
may do better if it hasn’t been designed
to cover most of the midrange as well.
Similarly, if a tweeter needs to move lots
of air at medium frequencies, it can’t be
made as light and quick as it would be if
it took care only of its own little corner
of the world.
So why not at least three drivers in
every speakers? Cost aside, there is a
sonic penalty to including more crossover points. Because handover is not
instantaneous, there will be a range of
frequencies that will be reproduced by
two drivers of radically different characteristics, spaced apart by a number of
centimetres. Phase problems will result,
A QUIET REVOLUTION
FEATURE
Vegas in Bad Times
A
t least this is one town where
there’s still construction,
right? A year ago, huge swaths
of the storied Las Vegas Strip
had been demolished, sweeping away
such landmarks as the Stardust and the
Frontier. There were cranes all around,
putting up a new casino and entertainment centre to rival ’em all, and condo
towers like the ones in the picture
above, with prices starting at a million
dollars.
Anyone notice that a lot of those
cranes aren’t moving?
We f lash back to January 2007,
and the Consumer Electronics Show
is riding a wave. It occupies fully the
recently enlarged convention centre,
and it still has overflow pavilions. If you
haven’t booked your hotel before the
end of November, you’re going to be
sleeping out in Henderson, where the
bright lights of Vegas illuminate only
the horizon. Want a table in a good
restaurant? Reserve early, preferably
before leaving home.
But that was two years ago, when the
world’s bankers were blowing their noses
in thousand dollar bills. By last year Wall
Street might still have been running fine,
but the consumer electronics industry
was furrowing its collective brow. Business was down, and there were plants
closing all over the world.
As for Vegas, it might once have
been the kingdom of the $39 room and
the $1.99 all-you-can-eat buffet, but its
casinos had consolidated into a very few
conglomerates, and those conglomerates were fat and greedy. Book a set of
rooms at an upscale hotel (and that’s
nearly all there is now anywhere near the
Strip), and not only did you get dinged
for expensive rooms, but you had to
guarantee that each person would spend
a minimum amount in food and shows.
Also last year, the Las Vegas Sun ran
a story, probably planted, that said CES
might leave Vegas in favor of New York,
or even Singapore. The story quoted
management at large companies, such as
Hewlett-Packard, as talking staff reductions in Vegas.
This year…well, you can guess what
happened. Attendance dropped by as
much as 35%. Lots of corners of the Las
by Gerard Rejskind
Vegas Convention Centre were vacant.
Even on the eve of CES I was bombarded
by e-mails offering top hotels at bargain
prices. I dined in a variety of restaurants
before, during and after CES, and I
never waited more than two minutes for
a table. I wanted to see a second time the
Cirque du Soleil Beatles-themed show,
Love. In 2007 getting a ticket meant long
waits. This year I got a great seat half
price for the same evening.
(And, by the way, it was worth it this
time too.)
Even so, the worst may be to come.
The commercial paper hit the fan only
in September, and by then a lot of companies had already committed to being
at CES. They may have downsized their
staff, but they came. Will they be there
in 2010?
Another question: at a time when
the Internet connects us all, and we’re
talking about “reducing our carbon footprints,” do big shows like CES still make
sense? For high end audio the answer
seems obvious, but high end audio is
not what makes the wheels of consumer
electronics turn. And we might be seeing
a sign of the times at another show in
another city.
For many years, the Macworld show
has been held in San Francisco at the
same time as CES. That meant Apple,
a growing force in consumer electronics, was not coming to CES, nor were
many of their partners. Journalists were
forced to choose which show they would
cover. Though Macworld is minuscule
compared to CES, it often got more
headlines. Year after year Bill Gates
would give a forgettable keynote, while
at Macworld Steve Jobs would stroll on
stage with his trademark jeans and black
turtleneck, and wow the overflow crowds
with “insanely great” products. Two
years ago the iPhone was introduced
at Macworld, not at CES, and for three
days it bumped CES right out of the
news.
didn’t take up much of it. I toured it in
just four hours, not counting the rooms
where the exhibitors hadn’t bothered
showing up.
Crowds were sparse, too, and that’s
despite the fact that, this year, the show
was open not only to CES attendees (who
are trade, not consumers), but also to
bona fide members of audio societies.
I don’t know what the future holds
for CES, for T.H.E. Show, or for trade
shows in general. I suspect that Las
Vegas itself will bounce back, even if
the casino and hotel operators will have
to rein in their greed a bit. It’s possible
that the gigantic Las Vegas Convention
Center will never be totally filled again,
but Vegas is not just conventions. It’s Sin
City, it’s Disneyland for adults, and it
is — as a cab driver once told me — the
place people go to do what they wouldn’t
do at home.
So bring on the cheap weekday
flights, and the low-cost room packages,
and the gift packs of tokens to start
gambling with, and the 75¢ imported
Feature
Feedback
But consider what happened this year. There was
an Apple keynote, but Steve
Jobs wasn’t there (I started
the rumor that Obama had
recruited him to run the
GM-Chrysler company, but
he turned out to have health
issues). More important was
that Apple announced it
would not be at the next
Macworld, probably dooming the show. Apple says it
has its stores all over the
world, and they get more
visitors in a week than Macworld does.
Quick on the ball, CES
announced an entire Applethemed pavilion for 2010. It
was quickly sold out, and it
then quadrupled the space in
it (they’re likely to have space
they won’t know what to do
with). There is, however, a
difference bet ween Macworld and CES. Macworld
is a consumer show, but CES
is trade only. And it’s not as
though Apple can’t get ink
without ferrying dozens of its
employees away from their work to meet
and greet journalists and store owners
who wish they could sell iPods.
Yet, as I said, for high end audio it’s
a different matter. You don’t want your
products merely seen, you want them
heard. A good chunk of CES space
(the Venetian towers, notably, and the
Hilton) is given over to audio. However
high end audio is one of the most fragile
sections of consumer electronics, and it
is the makers of audio gear who are the
most susceptible to being unable to buy
food if business goes south. For many of
them, going to a show is something that
can be cut.
There is, of course, an alternative
venue, T.H.E. Show, which CES considers a disloyal competitor and would
like to wipe off the face of the earth.
It is strictly high end audio. So how as
it doing? Not too well. Last year it had
expanded to take not only the St. Tropez
but also the Alexis Park next door (once
occupied by CES itself). This year it was
only at Alexis Park, and its 50 exhibits
beers. At some point, there will be visitors who came for fun, but start asking,
“Wouldn’t this be a great place for our
next convention?
***
Enough! Let’s tour the show.
driver which pumps the 833a output tube (that’s the big one
in the middle) to 65 watts. At CES they were driving Florence Audio Pololena pyramid-shaped speakers, with a Sony
SACD player as a source. Incidentally, Win Analog lists only
one dealer, and that one in its home town, so I presume it was
going fishing for more at the show.
The preamplifier at left is the Wavemaster WM-1 from
Audience, and it is not a tube unit. Nor, for that matter, is
it a solid state preamp, not full-time at least. It is a passive
preamp, which in ordinary operation has no amplification at
all. Such preamps usually have perilously-high impedance, but
the Wavemaster uses a multi-tapped transformer to achieve
high efficiency and a satisfactorily low impedance.
There is a solid state amplifier stage which can
be switched in if the source is just not loud
enough. Projected price: between $10 and $12
thousand.
The power amps Audience was using were
prototype monoblocks, and the speakers used 16
proprietary drivers, plus a subwofer that goes to
work below 40 Hz. It all sounded very good, with
a particularly smooth violin.
Simaudio continues to move its well-reviewed
technology downmarket with the Moon I-.5 (yes, that’s
point five) and the matching CD-.1 player. They’re the model
down from the I-1 and CD-1 reviewed in UHF No. 84, and
the price is of course lower, at an estimated $1200 each. A
sign of the times?
Perhaps this is another sign of the times: iPod docks, or
products that are also iPod docks, are multiplying. The most
expensive one was from Chord, not known for paying the
least attention to the budgets of its customers. It’s the Chord
Indigo, a preamplifier that also has the (now obligatory) USB
input.
One of the truly impressive rooms was from the Austrian
company Ayon. Its CD player and large tube amplifiers were
driving Pinyon speakers from Escalante (another company
worth checking out, come to think of it). The combination had
Feature
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Yo u r
System
Belongs on the Wall
W
ith every new CES there are new amplifiers, or
at least new versions of amplifiers we’ve seen
before. I constantly marvel at the continuing
presence of vacuum tubes. Check the two
tube units at the top of this page.
They’re from a California company called Win Analog (I
presume, then, that the “Win” doesn’t stand for “Windows”).
The closeup image at left is that of a preamplifier, the LS845a.
At right is the WA833a monoblock. The amplifier includes a
KT66 output tube, but it isn’t used for output. Rather, it’s the
Target One and Two-Shelf
Wall Stands
at
The Audiophile Store
they are today, and an extra tube would have added distortion
and noise. I heard it drive a pair of Sonist Concerto speakers,
making the always sensuous and warm voice of singer Ana
Caram sound particularly pleasant.
Above are a couple of prototypes being demonstrated at
T.H.E. Show by Edge, well-known for its large solid-state
amplifiers. The really original piece was a battery-powered
CD player with an unusual feature: pick your transport.
Sony? Philips? Yes, sure. The system was driving humongous
PDN Montana speakers, with Tibetan monks chanting and
beating a large drum.
Below is an astonishing device from SE2 Labs, which
has everything
but could
the…actually
the kitchen sink may be
dynamics
No, this amazing
free version
is not complete,
though you
spend a couple
option. This huge box ($30 to $46 thousand, depending
andof
great
musicality.
hours
reading it. Want the fullan
version?
on configuration)
contains
Blu-ray player, an Apple TV, a
You
At one
it seemed
that
can,time
of course,
order
the print
version, which
we havea published
Microsoft
Xbox,
Nintendo
the for
really
exoticofaudio
products
a quarter
a century.
You can
get it from
ouraback
issues Wii,
page.a Wadia transport, a Runco
videoversion,
processor,
a Bryston
surround
came
course
Japan
from
But Japan.
we alsoOf
have
a paid
electronic
which
is just like
this one,sound processor, and
ICEPower
power
amps.
It’s modular, in case some of
has largely
by other
except been
that itovertaken
doesn’t have
annoying
bannersclass
like D
this
one, and
it doesn’t
becomes
obsolete.
Worth it version
for entertainment
value alone!
Asian
countries,
but the
have
articles tailing
offTriode
into faux it
Latin.
Getting
the electronic
is of
lower
left
is the
new Cambridge
DACMagic. Yes, the
Corporation
was and
at CES
with
a
course faster,
it is also
cheaper.
ItAtcosts
just
$4.30
(Canadian)
anywhere
name hasare
been
used before (Albert owns one). It’s compact,
variety
of tube
gear
that ifwas
more
in the
world.
Taxes,
they
are applicable,
included.
than a little
interesting.
top left it’s affordable (US$399), and yes, it has a USB input.
It’s available
fromAtMagZee.com.
is the Tri Version 7, an updated (and
expensive, at almost $14,000) version of one of its designs. However
the company has other interesting
products that certainly look good,
including a $2799 tube preamp
with phono stage, a tube CD player
for $2100 (no digital input, though),
and a push-pull tube integrated amplifier for $2200.
One of the most interesting amplifiers
I saw (and heard) was DeHavilland’s KE-50A
power amplifier (above centre). This $7495 beauty is made
under license from Kara Chaffee Engineering, and is based
on a design of the Fifties, from the days when Fisher was a
company, and not merely a brand name. The amplifier uses
a pair of KT-88 output tubes, hefty for the time, and phase
reversal for the push-pull output stage is provided not by the
usual active inverter, but from an interstage transformer. Why?
Well, transformers in those days were more affordable than
Get the complete version
Feature
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Feature
Feedback
F
i r s t
question:
is that cont r apt ion at
upper centre a woodburning speaker? Not
exactly. The Raal Requisite Eternity is from
Serbia, and it is a joint
venture between designer
Aleksander Radisavljevic (at right
in the picture above) and the man
standing next to him, marketer
Danny “Sage” McKinney. Five
15” (38 cm) woofers are in the
solid bronze base. The rest of
the speaker is omnidirectional
too, with an array of 18 midrange
driver and 15 ribbon tweeters.
I listened to them reproducing
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Coq d’Or,
and it was a most pleasant experience. Price: $100K.
At left is DeVore Fidelity’s
Gibbon 9 speaker. It’s a twoway system, but with an extra
side-mounted woofer. I listened
to some classic Nat King Cole
recordings on a Basis turntable
and Nagra electronics. I would
have liked more smoothness (I
don’t know whose fault that was),
but I enjoyed the
liveliness.
At the last Montreal salon, a new
c omp a ny c a l le d
Laf leur had done
something clever:
it s pr ot ot y p e X1
speaker was set up
in the press room,
where jou r nal ist s
could get a look at
it. Laf leur was at
CES, but in a regular
room. At right is the
X2 speaker, so named
because it has two
woofers instead of
one. This is a luxury
speaker ($17K), with the enclosure made
of lateral laminations. Paired with Moon
components, it sounded most pleasant. I
expect Lafleur will be back at the Montreal Salon first weekend in April.
Below right is another Canadian speaker, the Herald. This is
a fully active loudspeaker, made in
Markham, in suburban Toronto.
This $12,000 speaker includes four
amplifiers. In the demo
it ex h ibited power f u l
dynamics, with a very
good sense of space. It’s
certainly a speaker to
keep an eye on.
In a totally different price range,
Focus Audio, known for speakers
you’d probably save money for years
to buy, is adding affordable speakers
to its line. The new FC 9, with nice
wood finish and chamfered sides,
costs $1800. I heard them with
NAIM gear, and they sounded very
good, natural, not all all forward.
There is an even less expensive
Focus speaker (C$1030 or US$800),
the FC 6. I haven’t heard it.
Remember the French speaker
make, Elipson? We still have a
pair of Elipson 1400’s, used for the
rear channels in our home theatre
system. But then the company tried
to make its living with “lifestyle”
speakers, which is a little like an
upscale restaurant specializing in
Pablum. It’s back with large, high
performance speakers, the 42XX
(t h e y ’r e p r o t o It’s always a pleasure to run across a
types, and the last speaker from Rethm (the name is not a
two digits are to be variant on “rhythm,” it’s actually Sanskrit
named later. I heard for “harmony”). The Saadhana, at right,
the 18121 Overture, was back, but this time with a bass module
with the speakers to add a little extra impact to the bottom
joi ned by Acc u- end. Without the bass module, the Rethm is
phase gear. Frankly a single-driver horn-loaded speaker. Having
the sound was loud praised it (because I normally enjoy it so
and hollow, but the much), I have to add that it sounded a little
cannon shots had a harsh this time, and that’s despite the analog
lifelike impact.
source. I suspect the turntable, because the
At extreme left Saadhana is usually impeccable.
is a Cessera horn,
I spent some time with a most unusual
wh ich was dem- speaker, the Nola Baby Grand Reference.
o n s t r a t e d w i t h What is unusual about it is that the top
Zanden electron- of the enclosure looks as though it was
ics. What made the removed. The four midrange drivers and
demo unusual was the Raven ribbon tweeter are open-backed.
t hat t he Za nden The Nolas have an external crossover. Playpreamplifier offers ing with an Audio Research CD player and
a choice of equal- electronics, they sounded truly lifelike, and
ization curves, as I spent some time in the room.
The
pages starting
on
53 are
a catalog
for The
waseight
common
in
A tpage
lower
r ight
i s t he
St udAudiophile
io E lec t r ic T 3
Store. The
store
belongs
to
UHF,
and
it
is
stocked
with
accessories
and from the same
t he early days speaker, which was driven by hybrid amplifiers
recordings of
that
we
recommend?
the LP. It company. It sounded very good. I was invited to slip my iPod
Do we have
conflict
interest?
Actually we don’t,
anything
has acur
ves of
into
the accompanying
Wadiabecause
iTransport,
and I needed no
we don’t like
doesn’t
make
it
to
the
store.
We’re
not
tempted
to
cheat,
be- Bïa’s Sources
not only for further encouragement. I listened to a song from
cause
the
credibility
we’ve
built
up
over
the
years
is
worth
a
lot
more
than
the usual RIAA curve, but also for album. Far, far too much bass, unlike what I heard from CDs,
few sales. If a competitor
makes
something
better, so clean
be it, and
and clear.
we’ll even
FFRR (the olda Decca-London
curve) but
the sound
was otherwise
say
so
in
a
review.
but also Teldec and others. The
To its left is a speaker I spent plenty of time with, from
And thesome
store actually
protects
us from
potential
conflicts.
company had brought
older Ocean
Way
Monitor
Systems.
Much larger than its photo sug
In
the
past,
advertisers
have
attempted
to
shake
us
down, used
threatening
recordings from Archiv and Decca, gests, it’s a triamplified pro monitor
at Allen
to
cancel
their
ads
if
we
published
something
negative.
It
hasn’t
happened
purporting to show that older curves Sides’ Ocean Way Studio in Los Angeles.
a while,
but thenviceveryone
won’t there?
work. Selling.
The Audiophile
Store
were used longfor
after
the supposed
Whatknows
was heitdoing
He said he
puts
eight
pages
of
advertising
in
every
issue,
and
those
are
pages
no
tory of RIAA. I don’t know whether got tentative orders for 10 sets of the speakers.one
can cancel.but certainly Kevin Hayes of
I’m totally convinced,
the
Check
therooms
store, otVAC
its on-line
counterpart.
We think there’s great
this was one of
trulyout
great
was there
to,
stuff
there.
If
we
didn’t
think
so,
it
wouldn’t
be
there.
at the show.
and the two dis To the right of the Cessera is the cussed the sounds
Scaena Acoustics inline array. This of different genbeautifully put-together speaker erations of studio
includes a dozen little woofer/mid- microphones they
range drivers, and nine ribbon tweet- have worked with.
ers. It sells for $54K. It was advantaged Sides played nearby VTL tube electronics and a dCS master high-res
player. Very nice.
recordings of
At left is a Venture speaker from Peggy Lee and Nat
Belgium, with a f ull set of four King Cole. Hayes
ceramic drivers. It’s new to me, and had one too. And
the Venture site includes not a word, there were tapes
so I can’t tell you much about it. It to be played on the
was in the room with Wavac tube Ampex ATR-100
monoblocks and the (always welcome) recorder. Result:
emmLabs player. A nother great I stayed much too
room, with tight and detailed music, long, but I enjoyed
and generally good sound.
every second.
About the Audiophile Store
Room
Listening
Feedback
A
h, turntables! I’m thrilled by the way digital
sound has progressed since its unpromising
introduction in the 80’s, but it’s always special
to put on a good LP. It’s also good to see that,
in this age of the computer as a music source, there are
also more and more turntables available.
Here are two turntables of opposite extremes. One is
bewilderingly complex, the other simplicity itself.
At left is the Gabriel turntable. It’s Italian, but you
had probably figured that out. In fact some of its complex
parts were machined over at the Ferrari plant when it
wasn’t busy. The suspension is magnetic. By the way,
pen?the
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have you counted the tonek narms?
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Of cours
whose Katana speaker we will be reviewing shortly.
At the show, however, was a pair of tiny speakers,
coupled with a long subwoofer the size of a sideboard.
My initial impression was that the system had a
couple of rough edges. However when they put on
Janos Starker playing one of the Bach cello suites,
my objections melted away.
Above is the opposite of the Gabriel, the deceptively simple DPS table from Germany (the initials
stand for “der Plattenspieler.” It was in the Ayres
room for a good reason: the DPS uses a three-phase
AC motor, and Ayres designed the power supply.
The room featured (of course) Ayres electronics and
Sonus Faber speakers. Need I explain why that room
was a veritable oasis of music?
At left is Bill Firebaugh, the man behind Well
Tempered turntables. He’s still going, too, shown
here with his Amadeus table. Firebaugh always
maintained that the designer of a turntable bearing
should pay attention to the side of the bearing wall
rather than the bottom, because the belt tends to pull
the platter sideways. He hasn’t changed his mind, and
what he has done, in his own words, is put a round
pole into a square hole…the opposite of the popular
expression. Then again, Bill, I’ve always thought of
you as a square peg in a round hole. Nice work.
The turntable costs $3K, and the arm $5300. The
Dynavector lacquer-damped cartridge? Another
$9000.
Room
Feedback
Listening
ct i v e
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Yes, it
I
Feedback
Nuts&Bolts
s there life beyond CD, and even
SACD and other current high-resolution formats? Keith O. Johnson
believes there is, ant at CES for
the first time he set out to demonstrate
it. Keith is co-inventor of HDCD, and
the designer of modern Spectral components. His is the creative imagination
behind the small miracles that are Reference Recordings.
Keith today makes his master recordings in what he calls the HRx format,
with 24 bits and a sampling rate of
176 kHz. Why not 192 kHz? Because at
least some of the material winds up on
CD, and 176 kHz is exactly four times the
CD’ sampling rate. That avoids strange
rounding errors during the mastering.
Only how do you play back the original
without a high-powered computer?
At a special invitation-only event, he
and PS Audio’s Paul McGowan (at left in
this photo) showed off the first-ever HRx
disc player. It is nowhere near done, and if you let it run long enough the built-in
buffer will run out of room and the player will let go with a sharp zork. That said,
the segment I heard, an excerpt of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, was arguably
the very best thing I heard at CES.
Less serious, and not just by a small margin, was the NFS room, which is shown
below left. NFS is a project by a group of Vegas audiophiles, one of them a doctor,
and the initials stand for “not for sale.” They told me they had done very well at the
show this year, signing up exactly zero dealers, “the same number signed up by a
lot of companies here.” The starscape, by the way, is the result of a product called
Blisslight.
NFS doesn’t go for the
latest technology — two
years ago it brought an
8-track player picked up on
eBay. The source this time
was a little better: a SOTA
turntable, and large stacks
of LPs, including Beatles
originals. Other gear: an
ancient Yamaha receiver,
obscure Chario loudspeakers from 1992, and expensive cables.
Do cables matter even if you don’t have first-rate gear? Well, you
could argue that, and Clarity Cable purports to demonstrate it. Its
slogan… well, that’s it above right.
So what’s the demonstration? Clarity has put together a $1750
system, using a cheap Blu-ray player, a Panasonic receiver and a pair
of Infinity speakers (I’d say there’s a difference between cheap and
ill-chosen, but who would listen to me?). To that has been added a set
of Clarity cables with a total price tag of $9950.
So what’s the result? Do the cables make the system sound better
than you would expect? Definitely. Does it sound the way you would
expect an $11,700 system to sound? In your dreams!
I’d suggest revising the slogan. How about, “Garbage in, garbage
out, stupid.”
I
Feature
Feedback
Nuts&Bolts
t’s obvious to everyone that home
theatre is not immune to economic
woes (and whoas!), despite all the
talk about cocooning. But some
claim that bad times bring opportunities:
if your adversaries are hurting, now’s the
time to go in for the kill.
That may be the thinking behind
Samsung’s biggest-ever display, which
would have f illed a medium-sized
convention centre all by itself. The
South Korean company has been pouring money and energy into its video
research, and it has made solid inroads.
Our new reference HDTV, as you no
doubt know, is a Samsung plasma.
But perhaps Samsung overdid it.
There were countless pairs of displays,
showing how an image looks with and
without a particular technical feature.
Normally I eat this up, but my head was
spinning before I was through.
Pioneer was showing its excellent
Kuro panels, but without new features,
and for good reason: in February the
company would announce it was quitting
the TV business (in favor of car electronics — they must know something
I don’t). Panasonic had a huge display
too, but is hurting. Not long after CES
it announced massive plant closings and
layoffs.
Not that it’s planning to roll over
and play dead. The next big thing, says
the company, is 3-D. It’s currently big
in movie theatres, but there was lot of
buzz at CES about 3-D in the home.
Samsung was showing a 3-D display at
Showstoppers, but the demo was done
with a video game, and it was beyond
awful. Panasonic was showing actual
film clips, and even had a clip of director
James Cameron, who is busy shooting
his film, Avatar, in 3-D.
W hat Panasonic is proposing is
nothing less than a new standard for
Blu-ray movies. Competing 3-D systems
compromise resolution, cutting it in half
to make room for the second image.
Panasonic claims full 1080p resolution
plus the third dimension. It remains to
be seen whether the technology is truly
unique — and whether it will catch
on — but certainly Panasonic’s standingroom-only 3-D demo was a dazzler.
The only other 3-D demo that wasn’t
disappointing was that of Da-Lite, the
Is GM in Trouble?
O
There were a couple of interesting
cable innovations, which you can see
above.
The snakelike wire is an HDMI
video cable called the Flexicord. You can
stretch it right out like any other cable,
but you can also “sculpt” it to the shape
you want. As someone who has overlong
cables sometimes acting as dustcatchers,
I confess it grabbed my interest.
As for the HDMI plug just below it,
it’s from PPC, and it is the first locking
HDMI plug. I haven’t heard reports of
ordinary HDMI cables dropping out of
jacks all by themselves, but if you need
to move anything it could happen. The
locking mechanism resembles that of an
XLR plug, except that it doesn’t require a
reciprocal mechanism on the jack it goes
into. I asked whether PPC will be offer-
ing the plug as an OEM item for other
manufacturers, or even licensing the
technology. The answer was no, which
was a disappointment. However we have
asked for a review sample, and we’ll let
you know whether the wire attached to
this innovative plug is truly top-grade.
And so ends yet another Consumer
Electronics Show. Notwithstanding
the gloomy news about being able to
get into restaurants easily, the traffic
in major CES venues was pretty good,
and exhibitors I talked to were generally
happy they came. Indeed, at the “zoo”
(the Convention Center) at noon on Day
Three, it was crowded enough to make
getting around a chore.
Of course that was this year. By CES
2010 the economic recovery will have
kicked in. Right? What?
Acoustics
Feedback
Nuts&Bolts
screen people. However the demo was
meant to show how good the screens are
(successfully, too), and it used technology you’ll never have at home: two large
video projectors, one for each image,
through polarizing filters. Of course
we all wore polarized glasses, as did the
audience in the Panasonic demo (the
picture at top shows what may look like
red-green glasses, but that’s caused by
reflections).
This may seem the wrong time to be
launching new, incompatible formats,
but I’m a 3-D fan from way back, and
I wish Panasonic and the other players
good success.
A nother product announced by
Panasonic was a portable Blu-ray player,
which drew snickers from some worldweary journalists, who asked why? But
I think the answer is obvious. If you
bought Wall-E in Blu-ray, how do you
explain to your children that they can’t
watch it in the back seat of the car while
driving to the lake? No price or launch
date yet.
r it might be better to ask why GM is in
trouble. The official UHF limo at
CES is from Hertz, usually a
Ford or Toyota. This year?
A Chevrolet HHR, an inept knockoff
of Chrysler’s PT Cruiser (apparently
unable even to copy on its own, GM
hired away the PT Cruiser’s designer).
Perhaps Hertz gets them for nothing.
Here’s one detail: how do you open the hatch? Is there a button on the dashboard, or on the floor? Nope. Then perhaps in the glove compartment? Can’t find
one. A button for the hatch on the remote? No there isn’t. I look in the owner’s
manual index under “H.” No mention.
If you just read the manual the way you read a novel, eventually you run across
what you’re looking for. Just push the remote button for unlocking the doors twice
in five seconds, and you can then pull the hatch open. But four times out of five
it doesn’t work. Repeated attempts sometimes succeeds, sometimes not. I discover
accidentally that it works fairly reliably if you leave the rear door ajar.
The manual says that if the battery on your remote poops out, hey, no problem.
Crawl into the back with a screwdriver, remove a trim panel, and you can get at
the latching mechanism.
Nor was that all. The motor and transmission actually work quite well, and the
car has a short turning radius I appreciated in parking garages. But the suspension
is downright bizarre. The controls for the power windows are not on the door but
on the floor, just near the transmission lever. Windows are small, and the interior
is arranged so that the passenger headrest exactly eclipses the right rear window.
The HHR has so many blind spots it should come with a guide dog as standard
equipment. Merging right is best done slowly, to give other motorists a chance to
honk.
I have, in the past, taken high end audio designers to task for poor human interface design and useless manuals. The syndrome is not, on the evidence, limited to
the audio world.
T
Nuts&Bolts
In traditional (analog) recording, an analog of the original
sound wave is transferred to tape,
in the form of a pattern of magnetic particles oriented as to
their polarity. When an LP is
cut, the groove is also an analog
of the original sound wave, with
lateral and vertical deviations
that correspond to the original
acoustic wave. The phono cartridge, as it follows the meandering
groove, will generate an alternating
current that is once again an analog of
the groove modulation. This signal will
be amplified, and then the loudspeaker
will turn it into an acoustic wave that
is, or so we hope, not totally unlike the
original acoustic wave.
The rest of this article can be found in
the complete print or electronic version
of UHF No. 84. Order the print issue
from www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html (it’s case sensitive). Or subscribe
at www.uhfmag.com/Subscription.html.
The electronic issue is available from
www.magzee.com.
We now cont inue in im itat ion
Latin.
Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute
duis dignisc iliscipissi.
hough it has come as a surprise to many, we are at
the twilight of the Compact Disc, the format
which brought digital sound to
all. That is not the same as the
twilight of digital, however. The
CD is being replaced rapidly by
the downloadable music file,
which is every bit as digital.
However it is also being crowded
out on its other flank by a return
of the vinyl disc. That is, of course,
an analog medium.
Is analog act ually superior to
digital as many audiophiles have long
claimed? In some ways it certainly is,
though as someone who has done a great
deal of recording, I must add that for
some reasons I was glad to see analog
eclipsed. I realize that this requires some
explanation.
First, let me venture into the territory of definitions. What is analog…
concretely?
Not so long ago the term was not
used in ordinary conversation, because
digital media did not exist, and there was
only analog. As the saying goes, we don’t
know who discovered water, but we are
quite sure it was not a fish.
Analog In a Digital World
Consider the fact that a pure acoustic
tone is commonly represented by a sine
wave.
What does this mean? The actual
acoustic wave consists of vibration of the
air, with the result that some segments
of air are compressed while others are
rarefied. This alternating variation
in pressure is represented by the sine
wave, which is an analog of (that is, it
is analogous to) the acoustic wave. The
upper part of the wave corresponds to
the points of higher pressure, the lower
part to points of lower pressure.
A microphone captures the sound
wave, which impinges on its diaphragm,
as an alternating current which is also an
analog of the sound wave. The positive
voltage represents the higher pressure
state, and the negative voltage represents
the lower pressure. Note that because
sound is inherently analog, and microphones capture analog information, all
sound recording begins exactly this way.
They will then diverge.
by Paul Bergman
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Nuts&Bolts
Feedback
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Cinema
Color Space
I
t will almost certainly not come as
a surprise to you that the range of
colors visible on even the best video
display is but a pale shadow of the
colors that nature can afford us. We have
spoken of that inevitable discrepancy
before, in the feature article on Contrast
(UHF No. 83), in which we discussed the
fact that all display systems — whether
it be the paper this magazine is printed
on or your HDTV — can show only a
small fraction of the contrast of real life.
In some cases it can be as little as 1%.
Yet we are not overly bothered by
such discrepancies, because both our
eyes and our ears can compensate for
inaccuracies that would seem all too
obvious. We see a flat photograph as
a plausible representation of a threedimensional scene. We can even accept
a black and white image as reasonably
like our own colorful world.
(If is, of course, much the same with
hearing. The sound of a large orchestra
emerging from a small radio is instantly
recognizable, and a good thing too.)
By the same token, then, we can
accept as “realistic color” an image
whose correspondence to real-life color
is no more than tangential. This is true
even in the thinning ranks of color film
aficionados. They can — or could —
debate whether Fujichrome Velvia had
more “lifelike” color than Kodachrome
64, or indeed whether Kodachrome 64
can hold a candle to the old Kodachrome
25. Yet none of these (admittedly excellent) films ever came close to matching
the color and brightness range of visible
light. Need we add that even the best
video displays are even further from the
ideal?
The diagram on this page shows the
range of colors that the human eye can
detect. Or at least it attempts to. In fact
the three primary colors — red, blue and
green — would require three dimensions
to map, and they would not be adequate
even so. This graph, which is often seen
in reviews of video displays, is known as
the CIE chromaticity diagram, determined by the International Commission
on Illumination (the abbreviation is that
of the Commission’s French name). It
dates from 1931, well before the invention of color television, and indeed at
the dawn of practical color photography
(Kodachrome was still four years away).
What it shows is two of the three attributes of light: hue (that is, color) and
saturation. The third dimension would
correspond to brightness.
Outside of this stylized rounded
triangle is nothing because by definition
it cannot be seen. Or at least it cannot
be seen by most people. Those who
have had implants of synthetic corneas
(as opposed to corneas from human eye
bank donors) can in fact see into the near
infrared.
Of course the colors of the diagram
are not even close to being accurate,
because a printed page like this one
cannot show the entire gamut of visible
colors. Nor, as we shall see, can a video
display.
Those primary colors
Why are red, green and blue considered to be primary colors? Didn’t they
teach us in school that red, yellow and
blue were the primary colors? And don’t
you get green when you mix blue and
yellow paints?
Yes, but those are subtractive colors.
If you’ve ever mixed together red,
yellow and blue paints, you will have
gotten something close to black (actually something between grey and dirty
brown, depending on the proportions).
On a video or computer screen, the three
primary colors add up to make white.
They’re additive colors.
As you can see, cyan is slightly more
turquoise than blue and magenta leans in
the direction of purple. A fourth color,
black (which is conventionally rendered
by the letter K for “key”), is included so
that black text need not be rendered by
the three other colors piled atop each
other.
There is, as you would expect, a
considerable difference in the way colors
are rendered in sRGB and CMYK. The
CIE chromaticity diagram, when it was
converted from the original RGB to the
CMYK required by the printing process,
changed quite radically, losing much of
its glow. This is due to the difference
between additive and subtractive colors.
When we then view the CMYK image
on our computer monitor (which is still
RGB, remember), we are shown a rough
approximation of the way the printed
page will look.
Because the approximation is so
rough, Adobe proposes its own version of
RGB, represented by the black triangle
in the diagram above, with an extension
into the yellow and green spaces, the
better to suggest printed colors.
Designers for print media of course
use Adobe RGB, even though the files
must be converted to CMYK for press
purposes. It seems easier to get consistency among devices — cameras, scanners, monitors, image and page layout
software — by standardizing on Adobe’s
version of RGB. Many Web designers
also prefer Adobe RGB because they
do their work with Adobe software:
Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc.
If you own an ink jet printer, by the
way, you will have noticed that its ink
colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and
black, the same colors used by professional printing presses.
The color space of photographic film
does not span the entire range of the CIE
chromaticity diagram either, and that is
a problem when you are trying to reproduce a photograph on a CMYK ink jet
printer. That is why some printers come
with additional color cartridges, such as
pastel colors. The additional colors do
not truly enlarge the area of the color
space of the print, but they can make
certain subtle tones more plausible. As
long as familiar tints, such as (Caucasian)
flesh tones can be presented acceptably,
and as long as whites and greys are not
Cinema
Feedback
The initials of these three colors,
namely RGB, are no doubt familiar,
because your computer monitor has an
RGB input. The photos from your digital
camera are also in RGB, since the camera
sensor uses elements sensitive to red,
green and blue light respectively. You
cannot, however, use just three colors
to make up all of the colors of the CIE
chromaticity diagram. For the purpose
of color reproduction, therefore, there
is a standard red-green-blue color space,
abbreviated to sRGB, and developed
jointly by Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
Some digital cameras use sRGB for their
photos, and chances are that your video
display does too.
The boundaries of the sRGB color
space are represented by the green
triangle on the diagram on this page. It
need hardly be pointed out that a lot of
colors get left out. Partly for that reason,
there are other color space representations, and especially one proposed by the
giant software developer, Adobe.
Before getting to Adobe RGB, however, we need to explain that the additive
color model is not suited to print media.
On a magazine page, as in your grade
school coloring book, the colored inks
are subtractive. In printing, the inks used
have tints that we wouldn’t recognize as
primary colors.
Cinema
Feedback
too obviously contaminated by color
casts, we may see colors as very good,
or even “perfect.”
However the eye, as already suggested, is all too adaptable, which makes
it a rather poor instrument for evaluating
color. Put on green-tinted glasses, and
after a few minutes you won’t see the
green tint anymore. Indeed, when you
remove them the world will seem, for a
brief period, to have a magenta coloring.
Graphics artists like to work in a room
with a neutral wall color, to avoid influencing their vision, and graphics-grade
computer monitors have hoods to block
out incident light from the screen.
Getting the grey scale right
Few consumers own a colorimeter
that can do what the eye cannot do,
namely determine the correct value of a
grey color on a video screen. A professional will have such a device, of course,
and will be able to determine the grey
values across the dynamic range, from
near-black to near-white. The grey scale
should “track” correctly, not shifting
color at different levels from light to
dark. The image above is that of the
GretaMacbeth color chart, which can
be used to check linearity of imaging
systems (including UHF’s own product photographs). The bottom row of
patches shows a progression from white
to black. Each square should be neutral,
containing equal intensities of the three
primary colors.
However the grey scale measurement
ignores gamma, the rate at which the
brightness increases from dark to light.
Gamma itself is easy enough to measure,
fortunately. But how?
Doing the alignment
There is a useful test and alignment
Blu-ray disc from Joe Kane Productions
titled DVE HD Basics (DVDI6004).
Kane was the creator of the earlier Video
Essentials DVD, long discontinued. The
disc is full of test signals for both audio
and video, to allow proper setup of a
home theatre system. Kane uses his
own color bar system, shown below, in
preference to the usual SMPTE color
pattern. Kane assumes you do not have
access to a color meter in order to make
the adjustments. Packed in the case is
a set of three dark color filters through
which you can see the pattern and set
the colors. You begin with the blue, and
if you get it right then the other colors
should be right too (but red and green
filters are included so that you can verify
your settings).
Kane also assumes you don’t have
access to the service menus. Access is
available through an arcane system,
usually consisting of pressing certain
buttons simultaneously on the remote.
A technician may know these codes and
be able to make adjustments not available
to you. Some codes can be found on the
Internet, but beware! You can mess up
the settings so badly even the factory
will not be able to get them right.
Indeed, you may prefer to get a technician to do the job. You can find one
from the ISF site, www.imagingscience.
com. Those listed have at least taken the
ISF course, but there is a separate listing
for those with measuring equipment. Of
course we suggest selecting from the
latter list.
It has perhaps occurred to you that if
you can mess up a TV with the service
menus, so can a technician who is unclear
on the concept. Recommendations can
be useful in selecting one who really
takes the time to get everything right…
and possibly avoiding one who can’t be
bothered.
Your HDTV will still reproduce only
a fraction of the color range your eye can
see, but you shouldn’t settle for less than
the technology can deliver.
Back Issues
THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION:
Issues No.7-19 (except 11, 15, 17 and 18, out of
print): nine issues available for the price of five
(see below). A piece of audio history. Available
separately at the regular price.
No.85: Integrated amplifiers: the luxurious
Sugden A21SE and the affordable Vecteur
Ai4. We evaluate Eichmann’s new Quiessence
cables, and chat with Keith Eichmann himself.
We listen to a very good mid-priced speaker
cable with four different connectors, and the
results leave us stunned. Plus: We choose
(and evaluate in depth) a new HDTV reference
monitor, Paul Bergman winds up his series on
acoustics, and we tell you how to transfer music
to hard drive without saying you’re sorry.
No.84: Digital streaming: the awesome Linn
Klimax DS and the Off-Ramp Turbo 2 interface.
Also: the classic Harbeth HL5 speaker, the
affordable Moon CD-1 and i-1 amplifier, and
a great phono stage from Aurum. Plus: UHF
chats with Linn’s Gilad Tiefenbrun and Harbeth’s
Alan Shaw, Paul Bergman discusses signals for
acoustic measurement, and we look at the prospects for 3-D…at home and in the cinema.
No.83: Digital: The dramatically-styled Raysonic
CD128 and an absurdly low-cost player from
VisionQuest. Other reviews: The Moon LP5.3
phono stage, the Castle Richmond 7i speaker,
the upscale Mavros cables from Atlas, and a
retest of the Power Foundation III line filter, with
a better power cord this time. Plus: The acoustics
of speaker placement, the two meanings of video
image contrast, and a portrait of super tenor
Placido Domingo.
No.82: Amplifiers: A large sweet tube amplifier
from Audio Space, the Reference 3.1, and the
reincarnation of an old favorite, the Sugden A21.
Digital: Bryston's first CD player, and the Blue
Circle "Thingee," with USB at one end and lots of
outputs at the other end. Plus: the BC Acoustique
A3 speaker, a small subwoofer, two more London
phono cartridges, line filters from AudioPrism
and BIS, a blind test of three interconnects, Paul
Bergman on soundproofing, and a thorough test
of Sony's new-generation Blu-ray player
No.80: Equipment reviews: From Linn, the
Artikulat 350A active speakers, the updated
LP12 turntable, the Klimax Kontrol preamplifier,
and the Linto phono stage; ASW Genius 300
speakers, ModWright preamp and phono stage.
Also: Bergman on absorbing low frequencies,
emerging technologies for home theatre, and
coverage of the Montreal Festival.
No.79: Digital players: Simaudio’s flagship
DVD (and CD) player, the Calypso, and Creek’s
surprising economy EVO player. Phono stages:
A slick tube unit from Marchand, and the superb
Sonneteer Sedley, with USB input and output.
Plus: the talented JAS Oscar loudspeakers, the
Squeezebox plus our own monster power supply.
Also: Bergman on what absorbs sound and what
doesn’t, what’s next in home theatre, Vegas
2007, and the secrets of the harmonica.
No.78: Integrated amplifiers: the affordable
Creek EVO, and the (also affordable) Audio
Space AS-3i. Loudspeaker cables: six of them
from Atlas and Actinote, in a blind test. Plus:
No.77: Electronics: The Simaudio Moon P-8
preamplifier, the successor to the legendary
Bryston 2B power amp, the Antique Sound Lab
Lux DT phono stage. Plus: the Reimyo DAP-777
converter, an affordable CD player/integrated
amp pair from CEC, and five power cords. Also:
Paul Bergman on room size and acoustics, how
to dezone foreign DVDs, and how to make your
own 24/96 high resolution discs at home.
No.76: Loudspeakers: a new look at the modern
version of the Totem Mani-2, an affordable ELAC
speaker with a Heil tweeter, and the even more
affordable Castle Richmond 3i. Plus headphone
amps from Lehmann, CEC and Benchmark, a
charger that can do all your portables, and the
Squeezebox 3, which gets true hi-fi music from
your computer to your stereo system. Bergman
on speaker impedance and how to measure it.
No.75: Amplifiers: The new Simaudio Moon W-8
flagship, and integrated amps from Copland (the
CTA-405) and CEC. Speakers: the Reference 3a
Veena and the Energy Reference Connoisseur
reborn. Plus the Benchmark DAC converter. And
also: Bergman on the changing concept of hi-fi
and stereo, a chat with FIM’s Winston Ma, and
the rediscovery of a great Baroque composer,
Christoph Graupner.
No.74: Amplifiers: Mimetism 15.2, Qinpu A-8000,
Raysonic SP-100, Cyrus 8vs and Rogue Stereo
90. More reviews: Atlantis Argentera speaker,
Cyrus CD8X player, GutWire MaxCon 2 line
filter, Harmony remote, Music Studio 10 recording software. Cables: Atlas, Stager, BIS and
DNM, including a look at how length affects
digital cables. Plus: the (hi-fi) digital jukebox,
why HDTV doesn’t always mean what you think,
and Reine Lessard on The Man Who Invented
Rock’n’Roll.
No.73: Integrated amplifiers: Audiomat Récital
and Exposure 2010S. Analog: Turntables
from Roksan (Radius 5) and Goldring (the
Rega-designed GR2), plus two cartridges, and
four phono stages from CEC, Marchand and
Goldring. The Harmonix Reimyo CD player,
Audiomat Maestro DAC, ASW Genius 400
speakers, and the Sonneteer BardOne wireless
system. Plus: Paul Bergman on the making of an
LP and why they don’t all sound the same, and
compressing video so it looks (almost) like film.
No.72: Music from data: We look at ways you
can make your own audiophile CDs with equipment you already have, and we test a DAC that
yields hi-fi from your computer. We review the
new Audio Reference speakers, the updated
Connoisseur single-ended tube amp, upscale
Actinote cables, and Gershman’s Acoustic Art
panels. How to tune up your system for an inexpensive performance boost. And much more.
No.71: Small speaker: Reference 3a Dulcet,
Totem Rainmaker, and a low cost speaker from
France. A blind cable test: five cables from Atlas,
and a Wireworld cable with different connectors
(Eichmann, WBT nextgen, and Wireworld). The
McCormack UDP-1 universal player, muRata
super tweeters, Simaudio I-3 amp and Equinox
CD player. Paul Bergman examines differences
behind two-channel stereo and multichannel.
No.70: How SACD won the war…or how DVD-A
blew it. Reviews: Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal
player and Shanling SCD-T200 player. Speakers:
Reference 3a Royal Virtuoso, Equation 25,
Wilson Benesch Curve. Other reviews: Simaudio
W-5LE amp, the iPod as an audiophile source.
Plus: future video screens, and the eternal music
of George Gershwin
No.69: Tube Electronics: Audiomat Opéra ,
Connoisseur SE-2 and Copland CSA29 integrated amps, and Shanling SP-80 monoblocks.
Audiomat's Phono-1.5, Creek CD50, a great new
remote control, GutWire's NotePad antivibration
device, and a music-related computer game that
made us laugh out loud. Paul Bergman on the
return of the tube, and how music critics did their
best to kill the world’s greatest music.
No.68: Loudspeakers: Thiel CS2.4, Focus
Audio FS688, Iliad B1. Electronics:Vecteur
I-6.2 and Audiomat Arpège integrated amplifiers, Copland 306 multichannel tube preamp,
Rega Fono MC. Also: Audio Note and Copland
CD players, GutWire MaxCon power filter. And
there’s more: all about power supplies, what’s
coming beyond DVD, and a chat with YBA’s
Yves-Bernard André.
No.67: Loudspeakers: An improved Reference
3a MM de Capo, and the Living Voice Avatar
OBX-R. Centre speakers from Castle, JMLab,
ProAc, Thiel, Totem and Vandersteen. One of
them joins our Kappa system. Two multichannel
amps from Copland and Vecteur. Plus: plans for
a DIY platform for placing a centre speaker atop
any TV set, Paul Bergman on the elements of
acoustics, and women in country music.
No.66: Reviews: the Jadis DA-30 amplifier, the
Copland 305 tube preamp and 520 solid state
amp. Plus: the amazing Shanling CD player,
Castle Stirling speakers, and a remote control
that tells you what to watch. Also: Bergman on
biwiring and biamplification, singer Janis Ian’s
alternative take on music downloading, and a
chat with Opus 3’s Jan-Eric Persson.
No.65: Back to Vinyl: setting up an analog
system, reviews of Rega P9 turntable, and
phono preamps from Rega, Musical Fidelity
and Lehmann. The Kappa reference system for
home theatre: choosing our HDTV monitor, plus
a review of the Moon Stellar DVD player. Antivibration: Atacama, Symposium, Golden Sound,
Solid-Tech, Audioprism, Tenderfeet. Plus an
interview with Rega’s turntable designer,.
No.64: Speakers: Totem M1 Signature and
Hawk, Visonik E352. YBA Passion Intégré amp,
Cambridge IsoMagic (followup), better batteries
for audio-to-go. Plus: the truth about upsampling,
an improvement to our LP cleaning machine, an
interview with Ray Kimber.
No.63: Tube amps: ASL Leyla & Passion
A11. Vecteur Espace speakers, 2 interconnects (Harmonic Technology Eichmann),
5 speaker cables (Pierre Gabriel, vdH ,
Harmonic Technology, Eichmann), 4 power
cords (Wireworld, Harmonic Technology,
Eichmann, ESP). Plus: Paul Bergman on
soundproofing, how to compare components
in the store, big-screen TV’s to stay away
from, a look back at the Beatles revolution.
No.62: Amplifiers: Vecteur I-4, Musical Fidelity
Nu-Vista M3, Antique Sound Lab MG-S11DT.
Passive preamps: Creek and Antique Sound
Lab. Vecteur L-4 CD player. Interconnects: VdH
Integration, Wireworld Soltice. Plus: the right to
copy music, for now. Choosing a DVD player by
features. And all about music for the movies.
No.61: Digital: Audiomat Tempo and Cambridge
Isomagic DACs, Vecteur D-2 transport. Speakers:
Osborn Mini Tower and Mirage OM-9. Soundcare
Superspikes. And: new surround formats, dezoning DVD players.
No.60: Speakers: Monitor Audio Silver 9,
Reference 3a MM De Capo, Klipsch RB-5,
Coincident Triumph Signature. Plus: a Mirage
subwoofer and the Audiomat Solfège amp. Paul
Bergman on reproducing extreme lows.
No.59: CD players: Moon Eclipse, Linn Ikemi and
Genki, Rega Jupiter/Io, Cambridge D500. Plus:
Oskar Kithara speaker, with Heil tweeter. And:
transferring LP to CD, the truth on digital radio,
digital cinema vs MaxiVision 48.
No.58: Amplifiers: ASL AQ1003, Passion I10
& I11, Rogue 88, Jadis Orchestra Reference,
Linar 250. Headphone amps: Creek, Antique
Sound Lab, NVA, Audio Valve. Plus: Foundation
Research LC-2 line filter, Gutwire power cord,
Pierre Gabriel ML-1 2000 cable. And: building
your own machine to clean LP’s.
No.57: Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3,
Gershman X-1/SW-1, Coincident Super Triumph
Signature, Castle Inversion 15, Oskar Aulos.
PLUS: KR 18 tube amp. Music Revolution: the
next 5 years. Give your Hi-Fi a Fall Tune-Up.
No.56: Integrated amps: Simaudio I-5, Roksan
Caspian, Myryad MI120, Vecteur Club 10, NVA
AP10 Also: Cambridge T500 tuner, Totem Forest.
Phono stages: Creek, Lehmann, Audiomat.
Interconnects: Actinote, Van den Hul, Pierre
Gabriel. Plus: Paul Bergman on power and current…why you need both
No.55: CD players: Linn CD12, Copland
CDA-289, Roksan Caspian, AMC CD8a. Other
reviews: Enigma Oremus speaker, Magenta
ADE-24 black box. Plus: the DSD challenge for
the next audio disc, pirate music on the Net, the
explosion of off-air video choices.
No.54: Electronics: Creek A52se, Simaudio W-3
and W-5 amps. Copland CSA-303, Sima P-400
and F.T. Audio preamps (two of them passive).
Musical Fidelity X-DAC revisited, Ergo AMT
phones, 4 line filters, 2 interconnects..
No.53: Loudspeakers:Reference 3a Intégrale,
Energy Veritas v2.8, Epos ES30, Totem Shaman,
Mirage 390is, Castle Eden. Bergman on biamping, biwiring, balanced lines, and more.
No.52: CD players: Alchemist Nexus, Cambridge
CD6, YBA Intégré, Musical Fidelity X-DAC,
Assemblage DAC-2. Subwoofers: Energy ES-8
and NHT PS-8. Plus: Paul Bergman on reproducing deep bass, and behind digital television.
Listening Room
No.81: Digital: The newest two-box CD player
from Reimyo, and the magical Linn Majik
player. Headphones a new version of our long
time reference headphones, from the Koss pro
division, and the affordable SR-125 headphones
from Grado. Plus: The astonishing Sonogram
loudspeakers from Gershman, a small but lovely
tube integrated amplifier from CEC, and the
London Reference phono cartridge.
the astonishing Aurum Acoustics Integris 300B
complete system, and its optional CD player/
preamplifier. Whew! Also: Bergman on taming
reverberation, how to put seven hours of uncompressed music on just one disc, and the one
opera that even non-opera people know.
No.51: Integrated amps: YBA Intégré DT,
Alchemist Forseti, Primare A-20, NVA AP50
Cambridge A1. CD players: Adcom GCD-750,
Rega Planet. An economy system to recommend
to friends, ATI 1505 5-channel amp, Bergman on
impedance, why connectors matter, making your
own power bars.
No.50: CD: Cambridge DiscMagic/DACMagic,
Primare D-20, Dynaco CDV Pro. Analog: Rega
Planar 9, Linn LP12 after 25 years. Also: Moon
preamp, Linn Linto phono stage, Ergo and Grado
headphones. Speaker cables: Linn K-400,
Sheffield, MIT 750 Also: 15 years of UHF.
No.49: Power amps: Simaudio Moon, Bryston 3B
ST, N.E.W. DCA-33, plus the Alchemist Forseti
amp and preamp, and McCormack Micro components. Our new Reference 3a Suprema II reference speakers, and a followup on the Copland
277 player. Plus: how HDCD really works.
To see older issues:
http://www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html
EACH ISSUE costs $6.49 (in Canada) plus tax (13% in Québec, NB, NS and NF, 5% in other Provinces), US$7.69 in the USA, CAN$10.75 elsewhere (air mail included).
THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION (issues 7-19 except 11, 15, 17 and 18) includes 9 issues but costs like 5. For VISA or MasterCard, include your number, expiry
date and signature. UHF Magazine, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, Longueuil, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4. Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383. Order on line at www.
uhfmag.com. Recent back issues are available electronically at www.magzee.com, for C$4.30 each, all taxes included.
Listening Room
Scheu Premier II
I
t had been a while — a long while in
fact — since we had had a turntable
on the cover of UHF. Oh, it’s not
that our faith in the desirability
of vinyl has ever been shaken, merely a
recognition that our enthusiasm might
not be shared by everyone. But we seem
to be at a crossroad. And as Yogi Berra
wisely said, when you come to a crossroad, take it.
This German turntable maker (its
name is pronounced “Shoy”) has models
that look not unlike other German turntables, notably those of Clearaudio. The
huge acrylic platter, in particular, looks
oddly familiar. However the price tag,
while not exactly in entry-level territory,
is lower than the looks of the table would
suggest.
The very thick platter, by the way, is a
$499 extra-cost option. Our Premier was
decked out in transparent acrylic, though
a more opaque livery is available as well.
The tone arm is one of three Scheu
offers, and the lowest-priced one.
The motor is in a separate assembly,
linked to the platter only by a polyethylene thread of the sort used to finish
pantleg bottoms. A roll of the stuff is
supplied, and making up a “belt” takes
good eyes and preferably three hands
(and we suggest working on a black
background for reasons that will be
obvious to you soon enough). Yes, you
do make a knot in the string, but the
platter doesn’t seem to mind. The motor
unit has adjustable speed controls for
each speed, and each control has a huge
range. This turned out to be a problem,
as we shall see.
Our turntable came with a unipivot
arm called the Cantus, which is a great
visual match for the transparent version
of the table. Like the table itself, the arm
is relatively affordable. It was also the
least pleasant aspect of this turntable.
A unipivot arm, which is essentially
suspended on the end of a needle, can
be finicky to handle, because it can
wobble right and left on either side of
its point of contact. It is difficult to find
the track you want to play. It is possible
to add damping, so that the arm is easier
to manipulate, but Scheu has not done
that. To make things more awkward, the
counterweight is nearly impossible to set
correctly, because there is no calibration, and no way to slightly increase or
decrease stylus pressure. The adjustment
of the counterweight also determines
whether the arm tracks straight or tilts
to one side. With each adjustment you
feel as though you are starting again
from scratch. A precise adjustment is so
difficult as to be nearly out of reach.
The Cantus has no anti-skating
system. We have mixed feelings about
this, since anti-skating is so difficult to
set correctly, and most manufacturers
recommend a setting that is actually
too high. We always set ours lower than
recommended, but we’re not thrilled on
not having one at all.
We mounted one of our reference
cartridges, the Goldring Excel, in the
arm, and set it initially to 1.8 gram pressure, the setting that works well in both
of our own tone arms. Finding the right
setting, and simultaneously getting the
left-right balance right so the arm didn’t
lean to one side, took about 20 minutes,
and we would later opt for a higher pressure. We’ll get to that shortly.
Leveling the table is as easy as you
could wish. The base sits on spikes,
which can be levelled from the top,
though the motor unit has only rubber
feet. The power supply is a “wall wart,”
albeit a big one. There is no suspended
subchassis. Rather, the hollow acrylic
base — just visible below the player
in our photo — is filled with fine lead
shot. This is in every way a high-mass
design, particularly if you order the thick
platter.
We have already mentioned the presence of speed controls on the motor base.
Such controls are common on deejay
turntables. You can fine-tune the speed
to match the pitch of an instrument,
such as a piano, and some deejays run
their tables slightly fast, to give a slightly
“brighter” sound to the music. Even
radio stations once did this. Need we
add that none of these is a requirement
in a high fidelity music system?
What’s more, Scheu doesn’t supply a
means of checking the speed. We used
our own strobe disc for the purpose,
tat.
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Room
Listening
Feedback
although strobes always read wrong
(see Why Strobe discs Read Wrong) on
page 36). We also noted that you need
to run the table for about five minutes
before the speed settles down.
We did the session in our Omega
system, against our Linn LP12 with
Alphason tone arm and London Reference cartridge.
We began with a large-scale symphony orchestra, the Chicago Symphony
under Georg Solti, playing the fourth
movement from Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 9. This is the Mobile
Fidelity version from some years ago
(MFSL2-516).
www.magzee.com.
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Why Strobe Discs Read Wrong
Room
Listening
Feedback
How do you set the speed of a variable-speed turntable? The usual way is with
a stroboscope disc, and some pro tables have them built in. Light the disc with a
small lamp (neon bulbs are good for this), and adjust the speed until the
pattern on the disc looks immobile. It must then be on speed.
In fact that’s wrong.
Some time ago, there was an Internet rumor which
said Rega turntables were all slightly fast. If that
were true it would be a reason to avoid the brand,
but it isn’t true. What is true is that, if you put a
strobe disc on a Rega you will see the pattern
creep ahead slowly. We don’t know why the
rumormongers picked on Rega, because it’s
the same story with any turntable that turns
at the right speed.
Here’s why.
In North America alternating current has
a frequency of 60 Hz, which means a small
bulb will blink 120 times per second, once
on the positive voltage, once on the negative.
What you want is a strobe pattern which will
advance by one “spoke” every 120th of a second.
Only it can’t be done.
An LP turns at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute or
0.5555 revolutions per second. During that second the
platter rotates 199.98°. During one revolution at the correct speed, there will be 216.02 flashes.
Thus a properly-designed turntable will appear to run ever so
slightly fast, not a lot, but enough to worry fussy audiophiles. We have yet to see
a strobe disc with instructions telling you this.
elenisi.
luptat.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Scheu Premiere II
turntable, Cantus arm
Price: C$2979 plus $499 for optional
thicker platter, $1439 for the arm
Size (WDH): approximately 46 x 30
x 26 cm
Most liked: Well-behaved turntable
at an attractive price
Least liked: Design problems with
the arm, unneeded speed controls
Verdict: Mid-price category, high-end
looks, performance to match
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For years now, we have been publishing, on our Web site, a free PDF
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Room
Listening
Feedback
CROSSTALK
Allnic H1200 Phono Preamp
products by hand, and that extends even
to winding the transformers.
Though the H1200 is not exactly an
economy product, Allnic makes two
other phono preamps, both larger
than this one, both with outboard power supplies.
Room
Listening
Feedback
T
here
seems
to be an
ex plosion i n
the number of high end phono
preamplifiers arriving on the
market, and perhaps for good reason.
Vinyl is making a major comeback,
at least as a niche product, and at the
same time it has been a while since any
amplifier or preamplifier manufacturer
included a phono input as a matter of
principle. It’s obvious that the need is
there. With a steady increase in the
variety of turntables available, there
is a corresponding market for phono
stages.
The Allnic is from South Korea, the
work of designer Kang Su Park. The
brand name is derived from “all nickel,”
and reflects the fact that Park has long
championed the use of Permalloy allnickel transformer cores. Indeed, Kang
Su Park believes in the importance of the
power supply. In the picture on the next
page you can glimpse the transformer,
which is relatively large for a low-current
device.
Nor is that the only transformer on
board. The front panel includes a switch
for selecting an MC (high sensitivity) or
M M
input. Most phono preamps add extra
gain for MC cartridges with an extra
circuit (usually solid state, even in a
tube preamp), but the Allnic uses a
step-up transformer. With a Permalloy
core, naturally. We have also received
a standalone step-up transformer from
Allnic, and we will be reviewing it in our
next issue.
We should add that the workmanship
on this unit is fully in keeping with the
best standards, as is the choice of materials. This should go without saying on a
product of this price, but we know all
too well that we don’t dare take that for
granted.
Allnic is very much a family enterprise, with family members assembling
It may not be
obvious from the photo,
but the H1200 is a tube product, just
as it says on the front panel, using very
small 6112 and 6021 twin triodes, two of
each.
Our H1200 was brand new, and we
ran it in nearly 100 hours using the
Granite Audio burn-in disc. We then
installed it in our Omega system, comparing it to our Audiomat Phono-1.5
reference.
We began with our often-used allpurpose LP, the Reference Recordings
version of William Walton’s Façade,
which includes so many instrumental
solos that it could serve for equipment
reviews all by itself. Certainly, there
are no conceivable equipment flaws that
won’t show up on this disc. When it’s
reproduced well, on the other hand…
And the H1200 did reproduce it well,
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Room
Listening
Feedback
with none of the instruments suffering
from the strange anomalies we have
heard all too often. We were impressed,
and indeed Albert pronounced himself
pleasantly surprised. The recording’s
three-dimensional image came through
very well, and the diverse instruments
were reproduced with finesse. There
was no sign of excessive shrillness, not
even in the often difficult piccolo passage in the first part of the suite. The
background was pleasantly quiet, as it
should be.
Were the highs a little too polite,
too rounded off? Gerard noted that the
cymbals were a little discreet. “In the
second section when the reeds come
in,” said Toby, “there’s a nice mellifluous
quality, but it has less drive. The attacks
are less snappy, the clarinet a little more
hollow.” We agreed that the tilt of the
Allnic was different from that of our own
preamp, and it was in the direction of
smoothness. That is of course a quality,
but we would see how things would play
out with the other recordings.
www.magzee.com.
Latin.
tisi.
elenisi.
luptat.
vullaor se ex enim dignim digna com-
modolore commy num veniam dolut
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Allnic H1200
Price: US$1600
Size (WHD): 13 x 10 x 25.5 cm
Most liked: None, but really none,
of the usual flaws of too many phono
preamps, impressive quietness
Least liked: A bit of exaggeration in
its politeness
Verdict: The antidote to overly brash
analog, to say nothing of digital!
ismodoloreet at.
Room
Listening
Feedback
CROSSTALK
I don’t know what to say about a unit that transparency. It can handle complex passages challenge for any system component, and
does some things so well. And I mean so very and keep the musical threads untangled. It’s that goes double if not triple for a phono
preamp.
well that you’re left wondering why it is not quiet. It can please with all kinds of music.
The Allnic, I’m happy to say, passes
However on the Uccellini recording
equally superb in other respects. It has a way
of disappearing from the system, and letting the musical interest dropped when things that challenge admirably. Its highs are silky
the music through in such a transparent got softer. The Allnic is a lyrical-sounding smooth, with no trace of the asperity, the
manner that lyrics write themselves, and unit, but the more “singing” sections of the graininess, or even the shrillness of lesser
complex textures separate smoothly into cheeky Walton piece didn’t really have the products.
Is the smoothness overdone? Sure, any
dynamic flow they needed to contrast well
different layers of sound.
good
thing of
can be overdone, and now and
with
the
jumpy
bits.
But this clarity seems to come
at
a
price.
You know how most audio magazines do their reviews: a number
then
I
wanted
a little more edge to the
I
found
the
Allnic’s
performance
respectI was left wanting more in the
mid
to
lower
reviewers, some with doubtful “reference” systems, are assigned reviews of
instruments,
to
the
voices. Not too much, and
able
for
its
price,
though,
and
I
wondered
range, and in the solidity and
substance
of
individual components.
that’s
for
sure.
Our
if
another
power
cord,
a
tube
bias
check
or
which live performers are made.
UHF, on the other hand, maintains actual reference systems, on which reference preamp nails
this difficult
something
elsereviewers
would have
brought it ainlittle
However, considering that
all systems
reviews are
are done.
All our
participate
each review.
The balance admirably. The Allnic
is
a
bit
over
closer
to
the
magic
of
the
(much
costlier)
vastly different, you may find
those
lacks
main article is based on the concensus, if there is one, but sometimes on
onone side…the right side, but
even
so!
reference.
quite minor and end up with
the
best
this
divergence.
Thiscomwell-made tube phono preamp is
—Toby Earpa personal
phono preamp can offer.
And then each reviewer gets to write a “Crosstalk,”
not
far
from
a neutral balance, though, and
Lucky you.
ment, which may even disagree with the others.
its
civilized,
sophisticated
sound is in pleasWhen
a
phono
preamp
is
not
performing
—Albert
Simon
There is no pressure to confirm. What you read is really what we
ant
contrast
to
the
brashness
of too many
well,
you
probably
know
where
to
look —
the
think. And that is what makes UHF unique.
I have to give this preamp its due of top end. For reasons that have been explained preamps.
—Gerard Rejskind
praise. It has tonal complexity, detail and in our pages before, high frequencies are a
Another unique feature!
Moon LP3 Phono Preamp
S
Room
Listening
Feedback
imaudio may not hit a home run
with every new product it brings
out, but its record should give it
a shot at the Hall of Fame. We
thought it did particularly well with its
Moon LP5.3 phono preamp (reviewed
in UHF No. 83). Of course that product
costs more than a lot of consumers can
budget for, particularly if they have
entry-level turntables and nothing to
plug them into. What could the company
do for very significantly less money?
Like any company that’s thinking
clearly, Simaudio likes to recycle its
hit technologies in simplified — and
therefore less expensive — form, hoping
to bring in a wider audience that less
experienced companies cannot hope to
reach. That doesn’t always work, and
some companies have succeeded in doing
nothing more than trashing their brand
names. However that is essentially what
Simaudio has attempted with the LP3,
and cleverly too.
The circuit configuration is in fact
similar to that of the upscale LP5.3, and it
still has both MM and MC inputs, a capability that it too often sacrificed on the
altar of
economy. However t he
parts used in the LP3 are not quite as
expensive, and it has omitted some features. You can’t change the impedance
and capacitance settings for the MC
circuit, for instance (not that most people
do). There are no balanced outputs, as
there are on the LP5.3. And there isn’t
a hefty power supply either. The LP3
gets its electricity from one of those
ubiquitous wall warts. We’ll get back to
that a little later.
Like its big brother, the LP3 doesn’t
have a convenient switch to select the
MM and MC inputs. Instead you have
to pull out a set of Allen keys to remove
the cover, and then find some tweezers
in order to move tiny jumpers from one
position to the other. This isn’t what
you call user-friendly, but at least the
LP3 doesn’t have any live high voltages
lurking about inside. Simaudio says it
selected this arcane adjust method in
the interest of keeping the signal path
as short as possible,
We gave the LP3 plenty of time
with our special break-in disc (intended
specifically for phono preamps), and
then installed it alongside the reference preamp in our Omega system, an
Audiomat Phono-5.1. Plugged into it was
our Linn LP12 with Alphason arm and
London Reference cartridge.
The f irst quest ion we had was
whether the LP3 would be reasonably
silent, as its big brother was. We
weren’t sure it would be, because
it seemed evident that the tiny
unshielded cord from the wall wart
would make a lovely conduit for all
the noise emerging from the power
line and the rest of the system. We
need not have worried. If you go
by our experience, this preamp is
unlikely to disturb your listening
with hiss, hum or buzz.
We began the listening session
with William Walton’s rollicking
orchestral suite Façade, with its
broad variety of instrumental solos.
With the LP3 there was a little extra
energy in the higher frequencies, which
is not really a good thing, but it’s not
what we focused on initially, because
there were more important things going
on. We can sum it up this way: the music
was fun to listen to.
Oh, of course you want to know more.
Toby Earp praised the midrange, the
heart of the music. “It’s wonderful,”
he said. “The colors are delicious, and
the roundness of the clarinet is full.”
Albert and Gerard were on the same
wavelength. Both found the varied musical passages lyrical, even in the case of
background melodies, and of course of
the suite’s complex counterpoints. The
trumpet was particularly pleasant, and
it was easy to tell one woodwind from
another. No homogenization of timbres
here!
True, the huge sound stage was
smaller, and indeed everything was
smaller, but we didn’t much care. Music
trumps mere sound anytime.
Would the LP3 give a little too much
edge to the top end of a well-recorded
violin? We put on the Uccelini Sonata e
Corenti from an Open Window LP we
have long owned and admired. We say
it’s “well recorded” because the timbre
of the instrument is very close to what
a violinist would hear, but of course
MM and MC
Room
Listening
Feedback
First things first. If you are (finally) adding a turntable to your audio system,
can you just plug it into any input that’s free? No you can’t. An input meant for a
CD player, a tuner or an iPod expects to “see” a signal of perhaps 2 volts. A phono
cartridge typically has an output of 0.002 volts, or even 0.0002 volts. What’s more,
LPs are recorded “on a curve,” with lows de-emphasized and the highs boosted.
You need a phono preamplifier that can reverse that curve, as well as adding the
necessary amplification.
Possibly you know that there are two sorts of
phono cartridges, MM and MC, and that each
requires a different treatment. In fact it’s not quite
that simple.
Conventional magnetic cartridges have a fixed
coil and a moving magnet: that is, the magnet is
on one end of the cantilever, with the stylus on the
other. The magnet has to be small, so it will be easy
to move, and so the coil must be large, with a lot
of turns of wire. That means high inductance, and
in all but a few expensive models it means compromised high frequencies. However the output voltage is relatively high, typically 2
millivolts, and an MM phono preamp “expects” a signal of that voltage.
An MC pickup does things the other way around: the magnet is fixed, and the coil
is wound around the end of the cantilever. But now it is the coil that must be kept
small, with fewer turns of wire. It will have low inductance, and very extended high
frequency response, and that is good. You’ll often see it stated that such cartridges
have low output, and therefore require extra amplification, but that isn’t actually
true. In fact they have low voltage (but correspondingly higher current). You can
use a transformer to swap out the current for voltage, but most designers actually
do provide extra gain, to accommodate the low voltage (0.2 to 0.5 mV). Doing it
that way adds noise and distortion, but quality phono-grade transformers are rare
and expensive.
violinists are very close to their instruments, and that gives prominence to the
higher harmonics. Emphasizing them in
playback could be a recipe for auditory
catastrophe.
The LP3 did give them extra prominence, and we judged that the violin
didn’t have quite the transparency it
had with our reference preamp, but once
again that was not what captivated our
attention. As before, it was the liveliness
that particularly pleased us. The violin
had wonderfully clear articulation, and
the harpsichord was clean and easy to
follow as well. Rhythm was strong, and
we had the impression that the playing
was particularly quick, or at least that
nothing was slowing it down. Even the
softer passages, often left behind by
economy products, survived well. “It’s
not the reference,” said Albert, “but I’m
happy.”
We turned to the title song from
Mary Black’s (alas!) unavailable LP No
Frontiers. Black’s voice is notable for its
effortless power, and that has been well
captured on this recording (not all of
her recordings, unfortunately, do her
justice). With the LP3 her voice had
all of its power and none of the effort.
Summing it up…
Brand/model: Moon LP3
Price: C$599/US$499
Size (WDH): 10.5 x 10.3 x 6 cm
Most liked: Lively dynamics, surprising musicality, lack of noise
Least liked: Finicky switching from
MM to MC
Verdict: Simaudio tries to make the
phono preamp its competitors have
worked on for years, nails it
The higher frequencies were a little
prominent, but there was no glare, and
nothing truly objectionable. It is in the
midrange that this phono preamp shines.
If her tone was less warm than we like,
she still sounded captivating.
So did the accompanying instruments, including the accordion and the
percussion.
The LP3 did equally well with a male
voice, that of Bluesman Doug McLeod
on Master’s Plan from the LP version of
Come to Find (Audioquest AQ1027). The
song opens with a beautiful introduction on the acoustic guitar. The very
good clarity let us hear the touch of
McLeod’s fingers on individual strings.
“It’s difficult to reproduce a real guitar
realistically,” said Toby, “so it isn’t as
natural as with our own preamp, but
what you do get is the music.”
As we have already noted, a broad
dynamic range is one of the touchstones
of this phono preamplifier, and McLeod’s
voice, especially in this song, requires
strong performance at both ends of the
dynamic spectrum. His final syllables
are so soft that you can easily lose them
in the fog, and if you do, then the song
won’t work for you. When he sings
(much) louder, on the other hand, that
can be a problem too. On many systems,
rising volume gives the impression that
the artist has taken a couple of menacing
steps toward you. That’s wrong, and this
LP is good enough that you should never
be left with that illusion. The LP3 gets
this right.
We ended with I’m Scared, a classic
rock piece from Burton Cummings,
recorded (can it be?) over three decades
ago. It’s a busy piece, with piano, bass
and strings, as well as Cummings’ own
powerful voice.
Toby praised the roundness of the
bottom end, but there seemed to be a
little less of it, and that brought our
focus back to the voice. “You hear he has
a good voice.” said Toby. “The strength
of this preamp is in the midrange, and
it is warm, extending into the mid-bass.
If you have to sacrifice something, this
isn’t a bad way.”
Surprisingly, then, the lyrics were
actually easier to follow. “The intention
of the song is well served,” commented
Gerard.
Albert didn’t write much. Usually
that’s because he is too captivated by the
music, so in this case nothing particular
struck him.
But we were unanimous about one
thing: Simaudio has done a fine job
of shoehorning most of its expensive
technology into a product for the lower
economic range that seems so much in
fashion currently. The LP3 serves the
cause of music better than we normally
expect from phono preamps of this price
category. The flaws — and they aren’t
many — affect secondary aspects of
sound.
But good as it is, could it be better
yet?
Toby’s eyes turned to the wall wart
that supplies the electricity for this
device, one of the smallest you’re ever
likely to see, so tiny you need a magnifying glass to read the label. “I see it’s
12 volts,” he said. “Do you suppose it
would work on 13.8 volts?” We understood what he was driving at. That’s the
voltage of a car battery charger, capable,
of course, of much more current.
“Why not a car battery?” suggested
Gerard.
“That would be overk ill,” said
Toby, but
the conversation turned to
interesting possibilities. You can buy
12 volt batteries to fit motorcycles,
burglar alarms, or even those (supposedly) uninterruptible power supplies for
computers. They’re cheap, too. Top it up
with a charger now and then.
Of course, a number of designers
have built amplifiers, and especially preamplifiers, that were battery-powered.
The advantages are evident. There’s lots
of current when needed (try shorting one
out with a screwdriver and see what hap-
pens!). It’s
inherently noisefree. A nd it’s separated
from ground, which sidesteps a lot of
potential problems. The LP3 has a
standard power plug, and upgrades are
definitely possible.
To put this into perspective, Simaudio
makes an expensive outboard supply for
its LP5.3 phono preamp, and we listened
to it with the optional cord allowing us
to run it from the huge power supply in
our P-8 preamplifier. Yes, a bigger, better
power supply makes a difference.
But even without some sort of DIY
upgrade, he LP3 is a killer product. It can
be a god match for a turntable costing
many times more than its own modest
price.
CROSSTALK
I felt wonderfully comfortable during the
listening tests. Everything sounded so right,
so balanced, that I often forgot they were
tests and ended up flowing freely with the
music. There were no noticeable excesses,
no flagrant problem signs. Just good sound
and lovely music.
No, it wasn’t perfect (what is?), but what it
did, it did equally well throughout the whole
spectrum. Was the energy too obvious on the
highs, in some recordings? Perhaps. Did it
bother me? Not in the least.
Would I consider repeating the tests, just
in case I was too busy enjoying the music?
Anytime.
—Albert Simon
I know I’ve said this before, but there
was a time when Simaudio (and Sima Audio
before it) couldn’t build a good phono section
to save its life. Its forte — and it was quite a
forte — was power amplifiers, big iron that
could handle big signals, and render them
with a mix of big muscle and gentleness. Even
its preamplifiers weren’t in the same class.
Need I add that this was a long time ago?
Its flagship preamplifier, the Moon P-8 is in
one of our reference systems, and we didn’t
get it because it was cheap (it wasn’t). And
when we listened to the LP5.3, well…you
know the rest.
But building a phono stage for $1600 is
one thing, building one for a thousand bucks
less is another pair of sleeves, as the French
say. Mission accomplished! I’ve heard a lot
of phono stages in this price category, some
with famous names, but they don’t do what
this one does.
What does it do? It gives life to the music.
That’s despite some obvious flaws, details
of which you’ll find in our review. What
I appreciate from vinyl, over and above
smoothness of highs, body and all that stuff,
is the feeling that there are people breathing
behind that invisible wall of sound.
The LP3 lets that through. There is
nothing more important.
—Gerard Rejskind
Room
Listening
Feedback
Have you fallen in love with a moving
coil cartridge for the first time? Looking to
move up from an entry-level phono stage?
Have a good integrated and now a yen for
vinyl?
The LP3 is bound to please. It’s tweakable via its power supply, and the warm
feeling you get as you listen to it play will
be reinforced by the warm feeling in your
wallet pocket.
The reference is still the reference, but
both phono preamps come from families that
really get music. The LP3 played the heart of
every piece we listened to. It swings, it sings,
it scampers, it rocks. I wouldn’t hesitate if it
were anywhere within reach of my budget.
—Toby Earp
PowerBIS Maestro
The first recording is a familiar one,
the SACD version of the choral recording Now the Green Blade Riseth (Proprius
PRSACD9093). With the StingRay it
sounded way better than it would have
hat
with an ordinary power bar, but it was a
is this device
come-down from our Inouye filter. The
really? It appears to be
flute introduction was thinner, but with
a power bar, with six
more of an emphasis on the middle tones.
outlets and the usual IEC 320 jack for cheaper) hospiBoth Albert and Toby found the sound
use with a standard power cord. Or is it tal-grade outlets, these are
initially quite acceptable, but then began
a power line filter?
designed to stay tight and grip
noticing what was wrong. “There’s
BIS Audio is a small Montreal-area the plug solidly.
roughness on the syllables by the male
company that once did modifications
The IEC jack is from Furutech. singers,” said Toby, “and the sound was
to older electronic equipment, such as The inside of the box is damped with flatter and somewhat confused, with less
Quad amplifiers. But don’t ask, because an asphalt-based material, to prevent warmth in the final crescendo.” Said
that was then and this is now. The vibrations that can generate electrical Gerard, “it actually sounds louder, but
company now makes cables, all kinds noise. Brien says that even in an extreme not for the right reasons.”
of them, including power cables. And case — if you plug a wall wart with a
We continued with the Reference
filters.
transformer directly into the Maestro — Recordings SACD of Bruckner’s SymWe have often warned against trust- its vibration won’t shake up anything phony No. 9 (from Tutti, RR-906SACD).
ing a design entirely to one’s instru- else.
Albert was impressed by how well the
ments, however sophisticated. Actually
You can get a version with the IEC Scherzo movement’s impact was prelistening to the product you’ve designed jack on the top, if that’s more convenient, served. “It’s better than I had feared,”
(what a concept!) tells you whether and there is also a version with eight he said.
you’ve measured the right things. BIS outlets instead of six. “Have it your way,”
But that didn’t mean it was right.
Audio’s Bernard Brien tunes his products as they say in a restaurant chain that is The spaciousness that is characteristic
by ear. And there’s a lot of tuning to do, not on our list of favorites.
of Keith O. Johnson’s productions was
because he’s not fond of buying cable
Yes, it is a line filter as well as a power shallower, or — more likely — the depth
off the shelf. He’ll actually purchase bar. Included in the housing is a parallel was hidden by a lack of clarity. The
individual conductors, dielectrics and filter that shunts high-frequency noise impression left was that the sound field,
sleeves, and put together something that to ground. There are no series ele- normally very large, was compressed.
sounds the way he wants.
ments that could compromise current But there was worse. Toby described
And the most expensive is not always transmission.
the trumpets as “zippy,” and Gerard as
the best. Considering the name of this
How to test a product like this? We “hard and artificial.” There was a certain
product, you would think he would rec- have, in some filter tests, run our Alpha cacophony we had not heard with our
ommend the use of his top cable, which system
bareback,
withisnonot
filtering
at all,though
filteryou
in place,
we got
the feeling once
No, this
free version
complete,
couldand
spend
a couple
is also called Maestro. Not so. Brien says of but
thereading
result isit.not
too pleasant,
and we more that we were playing the music a
hours
Want
the full version?
he has voiced the PowerBIS Maestro to shy
bad experiences.
Instead
little
too we
loud…even
though we had not
Youaway
can, from
of course,
order the print
version,
which
have published
go with the AC20WG, which we had forwe
designed
test.can get it fromtouched
theissues
volume.
a quarter
of aa two-stage
century. You
our back
page.
reviewed earlier in UHF No. 82.
system’s
is filtered
We ended
withthis
Thelonius
Monk’s
ButThe
we Alpha
also have
a paidpower
electronic
version, which
is just like
one,
You can imagine that, with this sort except
by an
Inouye
Synergistic
line filter,
Midnight,
by Carmen Lundy
that
it doesn’t
have annoying
banners ’Round
like this
one, andsung
it doesn’t
of hand manufacturing, these products have
which
we tailing
have owned
forfaux
many
years.
(thethe
song
is from version
the JVCis album
Selfarticles
off into
Latin.
Getting
electronic
of
can’t be sold at mass market prices, and course
We began
our three
test just
Portrait).
faster, by
andlistening
it is alsotocheaper.
It costs
$4.30 (Canadian) anywhere
that is of course true. We’ll get to the in recordings
with if
that
We then are included.
Once again Albert found it better
the world. Taxes,
theyfilter.
are applicable,
pricing shortly.
a GutWire
StingRay power than he had feared (the StingRay really is
substituted
It’s available
from MagZee.com.
First, let’s see what’s inside. There’s bar, a $385 device that has no pretensions pretty good), but everything was smaller,
no mystery concerning the duplex out- to filtering, but is built from Hubbell shallower. The emotional tension of this
lets, since they are clearly labelled. They hospital-grade parts with a shielded song of disappointed love dissipated. “It’s
are Wattgate 381’s, whose innards are captive cord. Its well-shielded cord has squared instead of cubed,” said Toby.
copper with a triple plating of gold. What enough capacitance to do some filtering. There seemed to be more energy shifted
looks like plastic is actually a mix of glass Finally we listened to the Maestro with to the upper midrange, but it wasn’t real
and nylon. Like the more familiar (and its AC20WG power cord.
information.
Room
Feedback
Listening
W
We disconnected the StingRay,
substituted the PowerBIS Maestro, and
listened again.
We needed only the first recording
to know that the improvement was truly
huge. From the first notes there was a
“rightness” to the flute introduction,
and to the gorgeous women’s voices.
The confusion was gone, and the tonal
spectrum was in better balance. Textures
of both voices and instruments were rich
and fine. “Everything is in its place,” said
Albert, “and there’s nothing to irritate
you.”
Rhythm was very good as well, and
that bode well for the Bruckner.
That worked too. From the start
there was an emotional tension as we
anticipated the orchestral explosion that
was surely coming. When it came, with
brass blazing, it was bright but not harsh.
Odd how such music can be at once
strongly rhythmic and lyrical, but then
Bruckner was a pretty good composer!
“I’m a believer,” said Toby enthusiastically. Even so he thought there was a
little less dynamic range than with the
Inouye. “It’s doing something artificial,”
he said, “but it’s not at all unpleasant.
Quite the contrary, it directs your attention to the color and the harmonics.”
We ended with the Carmen Lundy
song, and you would have needed to
be deaf not to hear the improvement.
“What richness in the oboe, the strings
and the voice!” exclaimed Albert. “You
get the whole message, from sadness to
the glimmer of hope.”
“Wow!” said Toby. “Some details
that bothered me were still there, but
they didn’t disturb me in the same way.
The sibilance, for instance. So the sound
supports the music.”
All right…you probably want to know
what the damages are going to be.
Well, it won’t be cheap, as you will
have guessed by the way it’s built. The
basic unit we reviewed costs C$990 —
you can get an eight-outlet version for
$200 more. And remember that it has no
power cord. The AC20WG cord that BIS
recommends (because it’s been “voiced”
for it) is C$700. A lower-cost version, the
AC20, is $400. We don’t have the heart
to add it all up.
You may be wondering whether the
idea of “voicing” audio gear is legitimate.
The term is borrowed from the vocabulary of the organ builder. Indeed, there
are organ tuners, and there are organ
voicers, those who fine-tune the sound
of each pipe to give the instrument its
distinctive character. So why not voice
audio equipment?
The obvious difference is that organs
produce music and hi-fi systems reproduce
it. Creative input is not what you’re looking for.
But as we hope we’ve made clear, you
can’t design a system entirely by trusting
your instruments, because if you do you
will make horrible mistakes — examples
of this abound. So you calculate, you
hypothesize, you measure, and then you
listen. You listen a lot.
A good designer will be honest and
admit that, sometimes, he doesn’t know
why two elements go together…or fail to.
The final judge is the ear. That is why
audio design is science, sure enough, but
it is also an art.
CROSSTALK
You’ll never know how good your system
really is until you feed it clean power. And
no tweak or upgrade will ever reveal its
true value until then. If you can’t wait to UHF’s panel for a session, I am asked for my
get started on that path but haven’t allowed impressions of…power bars!
Well, it’s not as if they all sounded the
for it in your immediate budget, you might
want to consider the difference the GutWire same. The GutWire provides serious AC
distribution,
but ita doesn’t
provides —
fromaudio
a wider
sense of do
Stingray
You know
how most
magazines
their reviews:
numbertreat
of the power
much,
and
the
music
loses
appeal
space
to
clearer
lyrics.
reviewers, some with doubtful “reference” systems, are assigned reviews compared
of
And when
you are ready for it, you’ll to the reference Inouye. There is a harshness
individual
components.
on voices,
and detail
sounds
the joy
trying
BISAudio
unit. actual
haveUHF,
onof
the
otherthe
hand,
maintains
reference
systems,
onartificial.
which It’s not
the
GutWire’s
fault,
raw
AC
is
Music
will
never
sound
the
same.
You’ll
find
all reviews are done. All our reviewers participate in each review. Thejust bad mojo
no excesses,
nobased
sudden
surges,if there
and there
is still
that is impressive,
but
main
article is
onirritating
the concensus,
is one,
butlots
sometimes
on
everything
will
be
quietly
controlled
by
a
I
would
use
this
bar
to
give
a
conditioning
divergence.
purereviewer
power. gets to write a device
more power
outlets.comhealthy
Anddose
thenofeach
“Crosstalk,”
a personal
Say
the
composer
wanted
his
music
to
The
BIS
Maestro…this
is really just a
ment, which may even disagree with the others.
sound
ominous
at
a
specific
section,
the
power
bar?
It’s
certainly
nice
There is no pressure to confirm. What you read is really what we to the music.
conductor
insisted
on theUHF
intensity
Harshness and artificial detail are gone.
think.
Andthen
that is
what makes
unique.
rising out of the strings, then shifting onto Harmonic relationships and tonal colors, key
the brass and percussion, and the musicians points for me, are satisfying with the BIS.
responded and delivered wonderfully. With The choral crescendo at the end of Now the
this unit you’ll get to hear the result of all Green Blade Riseth got back the heart it lost
that collaboration and you’ll hear the music when we used the simpler unit. There’s not
rising relentlessly, filling the space around the air or the neutrality of the Inouye but
you, shattering the silence.
the overall effect is remarkably pleasant.
—Albert Simon
I wouldn’t feel I needed another conditioner if I had one of these.
Greatly honored by an invitation to join
—Toby Earp
Another unique feature!
Room
Feedback
Listening
It’s the current fashion for a power filter
to do all sorts of stuff you don’t need done,
up to and including protecting gear against
a lightning strike, or perhaps a bombing raid
on your house. It needs breakers, lights, an
LCD screen, Ethernet and USB connections. Or does it?
With a product like this I want only two
things done.
First, I want whatever electrical current
the power company deigns to give me to
get to my system with as little taken away as
possible, from plug to plug to plug.
Second, I want to clean out the horrible
gunk that the utility sends down its wires
along with its expensive current, and I don’t
want more gunk either generated or spread
around.
That’s it. This product does exactly that,
and you can hear it.
—Gerard Rejskind
Do Connectors Matter? (Part II)
Room
Listening
Feedback
T
he first part of this evaluation, in UHF No. 85, caused
a sensation, and frankly it
perturbed us too. We took a
very good economy loudspeaker cable,
the Atlas Hyper 2, and listened to it
with four different sets of connectors:
the original equipment Z Plugs, traditional gold-over-brass WBT spades and
bananas, WBT’s new nextgen bananas,
and finally the ETI Bayonet Bananas.
The differences were astounding, far
greater that we had imagined they could
be. The winners by far were the two
newest connectors, the WBT nextgen
and the ETI. Both use the strict minimum of metal, and that metal is copper,
not the usual brass.
It wasn’t long after the issue was
published that we got a worried e-mail
from a Mavros owner in Europe. Should
he think about changing the connectors
on his cables for nextgens? Our reply: we
didn’t know, but we would find out.
We admit to having hesitated before
deciding to do this test. Our Mavros
cables came with the optional (and
expensive) spade connectors made from
single-crystal copper. Like the Z-Plugs
(which are the standard issue on the
Mavros) they are “cold welded” under
pressure, which means we couldn’t take
them off without destroying them.
Gulp!
So what if it should turn out they
made no difference? Indeed, what if the
nextgens actually sounded worse? There
would be no going back.
However we had another reason to
want bananas, and we had figured that
out when we first adopted this cable.
We plug and unplug things a lot in our
business. Our reference speakers and
amplifier have good binding posts, and
fasten tightly on the spades, but some
gear we test have those posts that seem
to loosen if you stare at them. Bananas
are a better tool for us.
So we decided to go ahead. We pulled
out three CDs that sound particularly
good, and set up our Linn Unidisk
player in the Alpha room. We prepared
everything we would need for the surgery: the three sets of WBT nextgen
bananas, a dozen 6 mm gold sleeves, the
WBT crimping tool, and everything we
needed to cut and bare the wire ends of
the Mavros.
We made sure all the binding posts
were good and tight, and we proceeded
to the first listen. How did it sound?
Fabulous. Steve Bourke was especially
impressed, because it was the first time
he had heard the Alpha system, in our
remarkable acoustics.
A nd then to the operation. We
took a deep breath and reached for the
cutters.
The wires were cut back as close as
possible to the rigid cold-weld spade
shanks. The decorative mesh Atlas uses
in its finishing is all too fragile, and we
made a mental note to replace it with
shrink tubing later. For the moment,
however, everyone was waiting. Once
the ends were bare, we slipped on the
sleeves, fused them with the wire under
the pressure of the crimping tool, and
slipped the finished ends into their
waiting WBT bananas (shown on the
next page). Incidentally, the operation
was carried out by unplugging the cables
from the amplifier first, so that the amp
did not need to be turned off. It was nice
and toasty when we tightened on fresh
bananas, and got ready to listen again.
The first selection was a guitar duo,
De Luna, from Strunz and Farah’s album
Zona Torrida. We still had misgivings,
fearing we had sacrificed expensive connectors for nothing. We hadn’t.
We were unanimous that the sound
of these dazzling guitars had changed,
entirely in the right way, which is to
say in the direction of naturalness.
The sound was more limpid, with more
body in the bass and lower midrange,
with more detail but more substance as
well. The enhanced 3-D effect revealed
additional layers of sound, right down to
the subtle little reverberation at the end
of a chord. Albert noticed a background
instrument he had never noticed before,
which turned out to be Carlitos del
Puerto’s bass.
Steve was nonplussed. During the
first listen he had pronounced the system
the best he had ever heard. This was
something else again.
We continued with a rare recording
by South African jazz trumpetist and
singer Hugh Masekela. His composition
Stimela is often heard at international
shows. Recorded in an overheated
Washington night club before the fall
of the apartheid régime, it’s about the
coal train which once brought migrant
workers from varied African countries to
work the mines of South Africa as slaves
in all but name. Masekela provides the
monolog, evokes the train with his voice,
and plays an extended score that is always
worth listening to.
A warning: you have to play it loud to
get the whole effect.
Good as it was the first time, it had
an extra dimension the second time
around, and all three of us had a lot to
say. “It isn’t just more attractive,” said
Albert, “it’s also more interesting. Take
the synths in the opening section. They
set up the texture of the music, but now
that texture is gorgeous. The saxophone
is more realistic, and the cymbals too —
listen to the way they shimmer.” Gerard
had noted much the same things.
Of course Masekela’s voice is the
key to this piece, and it was noticeably
improved, less thick. At the same time
the very bottom end was cleaner, though
no less energetic, and that gave extra
body to both the electric bass and the
kick drum. All this from connectors?
Steve commented on the added
depth — this is a live recording after all,
done in a real space. He thought that the
sound was less harsh, particularly that of
Masekela’s voice when he imitates the
whistle of the coal train.
Of course we wanted another human
voice in the mix, and preferably a female
voice. Cable connections, we have
already mentioned, cause problems
in the highs. Some years back one of
our (then) reference speakers had what
appeared to be a cracked tweeter — you
could practically hear the dome bend
with the music. In fact it was a bad connection. In that instance, the connection
was inside the speaker (between the wire
and the inside of the WBT binding post
in fact), but of course a “subprime” connection between cable and binding post
will do the same thing. Tightening it had
fixed the problem.
But on w it h t he voice, Margie
Gibson’s The Best Thing For You from
her album Say It with Music (Sheffield
CD-36). This time, we had less to say.
Oh, it wasn’t because we heard no
difference, because we did. From the first
notes of Lincoln Mayorga’s piano, the
resonances were more complex, and the
sound more revealing. The percussion
had also become clearer. As for Margie’s
remarkable voice, she was present as
never before.
“The best t hing for you,” said
Steve, echoing the song, “would be the
nextgens.”
And so we have the answer for our
European reader, but the experience may
leave you with some questions.
One question we’re anticipating is:
seeing that the ETI Bayonet Bananas did
so well in Part I of this test, why didn’t
we save a few dollars and adopt them
instead? In fact the ETI products have
risen in price since then, but it’s true
that they cost less than the nextgens.
Remember, however, that we’re a magazine, and we are constantly connecting
and reconnecting products. The WBT
bananas are built to take a beating, and
we figure they’re a better choice for us.
Your needs may be different.
Finally — we can’t resist this — a
word for those who think that all this
stuff about cables and connectors is bosh,
that it’s all marketing hype. We sincerely
wish that were true, because if it were,
our working tools would have cost us a
lot less. We wish all amplifiers, at least
above a certain price, sounded exactly
the same, because we’ve spent a lot of
money for ours. Without gear of this
quality, we would not be in a position
to give you valid advice on how to go
about doing your own research, in order
to build a system that will give you years
of pleasure.
As always, that is our goal. We suspect other people have other goals, but
the sun shines for everyone.
CROSSTALK
Like some other UHF readers, I have
often wondered about the importance of
cables and connectors, and their influence
on hi-fi sound. So after hearing the Alpha
system’s stupendous performance using the
reference connectors, I expected no great
difference from the WBT nextgens.
Even so, they improved every aspect of
the sound I heard. What had been already
super great became greater. Truly threedimensional realism seemed to shimmer
with life.
Without doubt, a superb connector is
what WBT has created.
—Steve Bourke
Will you forgive me if I seem to go offtopic for a bit?
I had not bought winter tires for years,
because I’m not obliged to be in difficult
traffic the morning after a storm. But it’s
now the law where I live.
I’m not pleased. Nearly all of my winter
driving is actually on bare pavement, and
with these tires the handling of my car has
gone south. It’s difficult to take a long curve
without concentrating on it. Same car, different tires, much worse experience.
So what’s my point? Connectors are to
cables what tires are to a car, the contact
point. That may explain the surprising
results we heard.
Yes, those single-crystal spades already
seemed outstandingly good. But having
heard what connectors could do even with a
low-cost cable, where you would expect the
cable to be the limiting factor, I was sure we
were in for a big change in this case.
And so it came to pass. The Mavros is
a great cable, but even the best one can be
improved. This is no minor tweak.
—Gerard Rejskind
Room
Listening
Feedback
I wasn’t prepared for what I heard.
I thought it was going to be one of those
vague and undefinable differences, something I’d have to think about really hard,
and decide if it was meaningful or if it was
just another color added to the music.
K now ing how good our reference
system already sounded with the first piece,
I was relaxed, but — just like a cat — I soon
found myself sitting up, totally focused on
the music. Everything had become so much
more interesting. It had been very good
before, it actually sounded great with the
reference, but now it was so much…more.
Vague? No, but subtle and delicately
complex in the differences it revealed.
Undefinable? Not at all, as it added even
more precision and clarity to what I thought
was already so clear. And, above all, it added
beauty.
—Albert Simon
A Recording Studio in your Pocket
Room
Listening
Feedback
T
ired of paying for recordings
other people have made?
Want to make your own? In
an early issue of this magazine we reviewed the Sony Walkman
Professional, which was of course a
cassette recorder, complete with manual
recording levels and Dolby noise reduction, and we dubbed it The Bootlegger’s
Recording Tool. Today, when we look at
the Zoom H2, that sure seems a long
time ago!
The H2 is a complete all-in-one
recording device. It contains four
microphones and it has four-track
recording facilities. The front microphones are angled at 90° to each other,
and the rear at 120° (the so-called
“ORTF” format, named for the French
broadcasting system). You can use one
pair or the other, or all four for surround sound. You can record in MP3,
or in the familiar 16-bit/44.1 kHz CD
format (actually WAV format), or in
full 24/96. Put it all onto an SD card,
and transfer it all to your computer so
you can have your way with what you’ve
recorded.
The H2 run on two AA batteries, but it comes with a wall wart
power supply for fixed use. It also
comes with that little three-legged stand,
as shown, which has the same thread as
a photo tripod. We’ve noticed broadcast
journalists using these, in some cases
duct-taped to a handle, for picking
up news clips. A foam wind screen is
included.
But could you actually tell the record
companies to shove it, because from now
on you’ll be rolling your own? Naturally
you’ll have to do your own work getting familiar with the ins and outs of
copyright and contracts, but we’re here
to help with the techie stuff.
The H2 is not the only, nor the best,
such product from Zoom, and we’ll get
to that in a moment. However it has
tremendous potential. At least it does if
it does what you want, with the quality
you want.
There’s quite a lot included in the
package, including a 512 MB secure
Digital Card. That won’t stretch very far
at high resolution, however, since
even a Red Book CD
has a capacity of 700 MB. T h e H 2
does accept the higher density SDHC
cards, which are currently available with
as much as 32 MB capacity.
However we ran into a problem.
Though Zoom claims the H2 is Macintosh compatible in fact it is not, and
plugging it into the USB connection
does not allow it to mount on our Mac’s
desktop. We were able to transfer data
only by using a card reader. However
card readers mostly don’t work with
SDHC.
The tiny monochrome LCD screen
is difficult to read even when it’s lit, and
the user interface could benefit from a
complete rewrite. For example, to move
up or down a selection list you use the
left and right buttons. It takes a while to
get used to this, though anyone who has
ever dealt with MS-DOS will just shrug
it off.
How to test the fidelity of this device?
Though the human voice is often listed
as a non-critical source (“voice quality”
is always taken to mean the lowest possible quality), in fact it is a challenge.
Not only does the voice have a wide
range of frequencies, wider than
that of most musical instruments in
fact, its sound is familiar, and we can
easily spot deviations from accuracy.
And what voice is more familiar than
your own?
Well no, let’s correct that. You
hear your own voice through flesh
and bone, which means you hear too
much bass and not enough top end.
But a friend’s voice, once recorded,
should sound perfectly natural. And
so we decided to use our own voices
for this comparison.
The three panelists were Toby Earp,
Gerard Rejskind and Albert Simon.
Each was asked to bring a short poem
that could be used in the recording. Of
course we would need to have a reference
of some sort.
And we knew just what to use. We
are lucky enough to own a pair of Earthworks condenser microphones, similar
to those that are used by such recording
labels as Harmonia Mundi and Analekta
(actually, luck had nothing to do with it).
We plugged them into an Edirol UA-25
box, and plugged the Edirol into the
USB connection on a MacBook Pro.
The recording software was the open
source Audacity. We then recorded the
same poems, at the same microphone
distance, with the Zoom H2 mounted
on a camera tripod. The sessions took
place in our Alpha room, which — you
may recall — was originally designed to
be a broadcast production studio.
www.magzee.com.
elenisi.
luptat.
iustie magna core.
Room
Feedback
Listening
Latin.
tisi.
Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis
ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis
ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse
eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla
tat.
Three Headphones
Room
Listening
Feedback
A
t one time people who bought
One surprise is that these are active
headphones but did not have
phones, with their own amplification
amateur radio licenses were
stage, and also a noise-cancellation
considered suspect. Clearly,
circuit. There are two AAA alkaline
they were solitary, if not downright anticells behind the left earpiece, and the
social. The Walkman revolution of the
phones won’t run without power. The
70’s changed that. Since then, the iPod
cable is detachable, and two of them are
revolution has accelerated the change.
included. One includes a microphone,
And because, potentially, a digital player
which can be used with an iPhone or
can be made to sound so much better
a Blackberry. Pushing on the back of
than a cassette, the demand for upscale
the right earpiece interrupts the music
headphones is growing.
so you can hear the flight attendant
We reviewed three of them, the
ask you whether you want merlot or
over-the-ear Beats phones shown here,
chardonnay.
and two way upscale in-ear models from
Full list price is US$400 and
Shure.
C$450, but we’ve seen it in the US
We did most of the listening with
for $300.
our Omega system, running the very
There was an immediate consensus
good (but long discontinued) headaround the comfort of these phones.
phone amplifier from Audio Alchemy.
They are light, rather lighter than they
We used three recordings.
look in fact, and the cushions fit well on
The first, Fantasies on a Theme by
the ears of all three of us. The excellent
Haydn, from the wind band recording
usual in fit made for excellent bass, too. Some
Norman Dello Joio (he’s the composer) on
o u r h e a d p h o n e phones have trouble delivering lower
Klavier K11138. It includes not only an reviews, our reference was our very old, frequencies unless you press the earpiece
attractive mix of woodwinds and brass, but very good, Koss Pro/4AAA phones. against your ear.
but also some percussion work that goes They are sealed over-the-ear phones
For that reason, the Beats did very
right for the solar plexus.
meant for studio use.
well with the tympani solo in the Dello
The second is Esther Ofarim’s song
Joio wind band piece, outpointing our
La Vezina Catina, available in SACD Beats by Dr. Dre
reference phones in several respects.
form on FIM’s Audiophile Reference IV
“Beats” is the touted brand name The tympani seemed to roll on forever,
(SACD 029). Her voice is clear and pow- here, but you’ll also see, more discreetly with great impact. Both Steve and Albert
erful, with a not-quite-natural reverber- on the inside of the headband, the name liked the natural way the woodwinds
ant setting that is definitely arresting.
of the marketing organization behind were reproduced. “There was better
The third is the romantic ballad the phones, namely Monster. Yes, the unity in the orchestra,” said Steve.
Soft Lights and Sweet Music from Margie cable people, though it no longer calls “The reference phones tend to isolate
We don’t
mean thisCable.
version, because you already
how it works.
a PDF,
Gibson’s Sheffield album Say It With
itself Monster
theknow
instruments.”
TheIt’s
stereo
image was
and
you
open
it
with
Adobe
reader,
etc.
Music (CD-36).
“Dr. Dre” (pronounced “doctor dray,” particularly good, as you expect with
But we
have a paidname
electronic
version,
is complete,
without
banners like
Of course we also wanted to include
thealso
professional
of rapper
andwhich
headphones,
though
sometimes
subtle
this
one,
or
articles
in
fluent
gibberish.
an actual iPod. We played the Bratsch producer Andre Young) is the front man clues get obscured. On the other hand
Thatfor
one,
because
it isand
complete,
has toatbe
with
a creditthat
card.
Todepth
open seemed
song Fratelli from the group’s Corthese
phones,
was present
theordered
Gerard
thought
the
it,
you
also
have
to
download
a
plugin
for
your
copy
of
Adobe
Reader
or
Acrobat.
respondance album, playing in Apple pre-launch of the phones at CES 2008. shallower.
a user name
andispassword
to allow you In
to download
your the
full Beats
copy of
Lossless form from an iPod touch.You’ll
We receive
He explained
that he
a perfectionist,
listening with
we had
the
magazine.
You’ll
need
the
same
user
name
and
password
the
first
time
you
also included a second Margie Gibson getting the best out of his artists, such to turn down the volume onopen
our Audio
the
on Dogg
your computer,
but and
onlyhethe
time. After
that, itbecause
works like
song, A Song For You from her album
Allmagazine
as Snoop
and Eminem,
wasfirstAlchemy
amplifier,
it isany
so sensiother
PDF.
We Need to Know. This solid state iPod is concerned that you might not be able tive. The down side was that we could
For details,
our Electronic
page. To
buy
an issue
or subscribe,
so slim that one wonders whether it can
to hear visit
at home
everythingEdition
he put into
hear
a small
amount
of hiss,visit
and even
MagZee.
possibly sound any good. It does in fact the music in the studio. Since Dr. Dre a very distant hum when the volume
sound considerably better than our older is into gangsta rap (one of his labels was control neared its minimum.
(and many times thicker and heavier) called Death Row Records), that made
These phones really do deliver a lot
iPod Photo, with its 60 GB hard disc.
us fear the worst. These would surely be of bass, and lower midrange too, and
We can’t do a comparative test with- zingy, bass heavy, and almost certainly possibly for that reason Esther seemed
out a reference we can compare to. As unlistenable. Umm…no.
less close to the microphones. The flute
The Shure ES530
There is an alternative to active sound
cancellation, and that is using earphones
that actually block your ear, not letting
any sound in other than that emerging
from the phones themselves. There are
more and more upscale in-ear phones,
including — from Shure, Etymotic and
some lesser-known companies — phones
that are tiny but cost more than the
product you’re likely to plug them into.
The Shure ES530’s are the company’s
flagship, and they contain, incredibly
enough, three-way transducers. That’s
right, each one holds, encased in its tiny
body, a woofer, midrange and tweeter.
Their list price is C$470.
The trick to making a phone like this
work is getting a perfect fit between tip
and ear. If there’s air leakage, you won’t
get full bass response. The Shures come
with a little bag full of interchangeable
tips, including some stepped wedges
that look as though they have to be the
answer. They’re not. All three of us
preferred the half-globe foam tips, which
can be crushed to fit the ear.
We were curious to hear whether
these tiny three-way headphones could
reproduce the sound of tympani being
played as tympani should be. Well, no,
but we quickly forgot about that, because
the Shures tok us on a thrill ride!
“I had a visceral reaction to the
dynamics,” said Steve. “I was in the
middle of the orchestra, next to each
instrument.” Gerard noted with pleasure
the extremely low level of distorsion, and
the very extended top end. The smaller
percussion instruments were downright
startling in their realism, and took our
breath away.
But were the instrumental timbres
right, and not just flashy? Gerard thought
they were spot on. So did Albert, though
he had questions about the orchestral
textures. A nd what about the bass?
“Sometimes you have to make sacrifices,”
said Gerard.
With Esther’s song we also noticed
right off that the bass was less solid than
with either the Beats or our reference
phones, and that bothered us for…
oh, maybe ten seconds. We were there!
“Her voice is inside me, not outside,”
said Steve. That was echoed by Albert:
“We’re in the music, even without turning up the volume. Her voice is more
attractive, the words clearer, and the
image is better too.” Gerard came out
of the song shaken.
We turned to Soft Lights and Sweet
Music, and we weren’t disappointed.
“The clarity is exemplary,” said Albert.
“It doesn’t ‘underline’ the details, but it
gives a good result. When the piano is
playing at the beginning, you can already
hear Margie preparing to deliver her first
line.”
“The song is more refined with these
headphones,” Said Steve. He paused.
“I know that’s contradictory, it’s the
opposite of what I said on the last song.”
For Margie he preferred the Beats, with
their more solid bottom end.
We then plugged the little phones
Room
Listening
Feedback
accompaniment was excellent, and we
had good comments about the voice as
well. The sense of space might have been
reduced, thought Gerard, but that was
far from the most important aspect.
We were less enthusiastic about Soft
Lights and Sweet Music. The apparent
hump in the lower midrange gave the
cello and the bass more of a “woody”
quality, but it altered the sound of
both the piano and Margie’s voice. Oh,
it didn’t spoil it, and we thoroughly
enjoyed the song anyway.
We then switched to the iPod, where
the Beats’ built-in amplification gave it
an obvious advantage. No need to turn
the volume way up this time.
On Fratelli, the sound from the Beats
was nothing less than spectacular. The
fuller bass sound gave richness and body
both to the accordion and the close-in
voices at the opening. The voices in
harmony at the end of the piece were
formidable, despite a touch of upper-end
distortion we hadn’t noticed with the
reference phones. “Dr. Dre all the way,”
enthused Steve.
On A Song For You we admired the
impressive richness of the bowed double
bass introduction. “Margie’s voice was
very good with the reference,” said
Albert. “With these phones it is also very
expressive, but it is rounder.”
Steve wasn’t so sure anymore. “Maybe
I exaggerated on the previous recording,”
he said. “I prefer the reference phones for
soft and delicate music like this.”
We didn’t take the Beats out in traffic,
nor on a plane, but the noise cancellation
can nicely take out household rumble,
such as those from refrigerators and
heating. It is surprising to hear noisecancelling phones sound this good,
because most are horrible, and even the
famous Bose phones are far from top
grade. You can hear the music better
with them, but you won’t want to.
But there’s one down side that some
may consider a dealbreaker. Our reference phones keep the music in so your
neighbors won’t hear it. The Beats
don’t. You won’t want to use them in
bed next to your Significant Other, or
perhaps even on public transportation.
That caveat aside, their comfort, their
versatility and their sonic quality fully
justify their cost.
Room
Listening
Feedback
into the iPod, which is how, we suspect,
most purchasers will use them. We
played Fratelli, with its accordion and
voices in harmony.
We didn’t quite agree. In the introduction to this faux Gypsy song, the
lower octaves are really important, and
both Albert and Steve would have liked
them to be more prominent. Instead,
Steve found the highs too prominent.
Albert didn’t go that far. “You can see
everything,” he said. Gerard shrugged
off the (relative) lack of bottom end.
“Less bass?” he asked. “So?”
Gerard was also thrilled with A Song
For You. “The piano and the subtle per-
cussion are fantastic,” he said, “but the
song… The song!” Albert largely agreed.
Though the bowed double bass sounded
more like a cello, he admired the finesse
of the reproduction, and he was taken
with Margie Gibson’s voice.
Steve found the sound harsher than
with our reference, but better than with
the Beats.
The Shure ES420
Don’t need three drivers? Will you
settle for just two? Want to save $110?
We thought that was a good plan, but we
quickly changed our minds.
“It’s not even close. They have shrill
highs and poor dynamics,” said Steve.
A lbert deplored the lack of impact
and the loss of detail in the Dello Joio.
“There’s less space, because everything
is closer,” he said. Added Gerard, “They
cost a hundred bucks less, and they’re
worth five hundred bucks less.”
The Esther song was little better.
“It’s not tinny,” said Steve, “it’s more
aluminum, but not organic.” Margie
Gibson’s song was better, but not sufficiently. “The detail is there in quantity,
but not in quality,” said Steve. Once
again the lack of finesse was notable,
compared to the ES530’s.
Would these phones sound better
with the iPod? Both Albert and Steve
thought they did. “I was reconciled
with them,” said Albert after listening
to Fratelli. “There’s a fine clarity from
the start, the minor reverberation is well
reproduced, and there’s no confusion
when they sing in harmony.” He was
similarly impressed with A Song For You.
Steve thought he might want to save
the $110 if he were buying iPod phones.
“The cheaper ones don’t reveal as clearly
the weakness of the iPod,” he said.
Gerard disagreed. Both iPod songs
had left him cold.
We know many people will ask why
anyone would make phones as expensive
as the ES530’s. Listen to the second-best
model, and you’ll know.
CROSSTALK
I was so enthused with the Beats that I
was ready to lay out the cash and pick them
up. Then I imagined using them on the
plane, and getting punched out by a neighbor
with musical taste different from mine.
Besides, I like the Shure SE530’s a lot,
even if they don’t have that nice comfy
headband to hold them in. They’re thrilling
to listen to, nothing less, and I’m seriously
considering them.
I expected to like the SE420’s more than I
did. They’re not really bad, but when they’re
up against phones that are really good for not
that much more, the choice is an easy one.
— Gerard Rejskind
Both the reference and the Dr. Dre
make long-term listening a comfortable
experience. The Dre is light, compact and
good-looking, and it presents a fully-blended
soundscape with very good tonal realism.
The Shure SE530 gives a dense authenticity
to the music, and instrument timbres are
believable, but I had trouble accepting the
in-the-ear effect.
Though none of the contenders held a
Christmas candle to the reference’s nuance
and subtlety, if I had to choose one to use
with both an iPod and a stereo system, it
would be the Shure ES530.
— Steve Bourke
To be in the ear or on the ear, for now
that is the question.
Good speakers have a striking ability to
become transparent after a while, dissolving
into the background and leaving the music
intact. The Beats managed almost that good
a disappearing act. The comfort factor was
the first thing I noticed (and the last, as I
removed them at the end, casually, without
the slightest sigh of relief). And as soon as the
music started, I knew there was something
very true about the sound. It was as deep and
as naturally rich as I remembered it on our
reference speakers.
Some prefer earphones, however, and the
three-way Shure SE530 were a delight to use.
They expanded the space wonderfully and lit
the music brightly (in the best sense of that
word).
Yet I couldn’t help wishing for the fullness of sound that I knew was there.
—Albert Simon
THE AUDIOPHILE STORE
53
MAVROS INTERCONNECTS
INTERCONNECTS
Truly terrific, a pair of these connects our phono preamp to the
preamp of our Omega system
ATLAS NAVIGATOR
Oxygen-free continuous
cast (OCC) cable: each
strand is a single copper
crystal. Two internal
conductors, plus double
shielding. The double shielding is copper mylar plus close-lapped
99.997% pure OCC copper multi-stranded screen providing 100%
RFI protection. The premium “All-Cu” version (shown here)
uses solid copper connectors that are also continuous cast. The
copper is then silver-plated and double-shielded.We use two in our
reference systems. Special-order lengths from the factory.
ORDER: AN-1 pair, 1m, $300, AN-2 pair, 2m, $350
ORDER: ANA-1 All-Cu, 1m, $405, ANA-2 All-Cu, 2m, $495
ORDER: ANAB-1 All-Cu balanced, single crystal XLR, 1m, $675
ATLAS VOYAGER
A cable with superior performance at an
economical price. Oxygen-free copper,
continuously cast, double-shielded with conductive
PVC plus close lapped 99.9997% pure OCC copper
multi-stranded screen, for 100% coverage against
RFI. Direct gold-plated, non compressing, doublescreened, self cleaning RCA plugs. Also available
with the All-Cu connectors like those of the
Navigator (above).
ORDER: AV-1, Voyager 1m pair, $285, AV-2, 2m pair, $325
ORDER: AVA-1, All-Cu 1m pair, $375, AVA-2 2m pair, $420
ORDER: AMI-1, 1 m Mavros interconnect pair, $1195
ORDER: AMI-2, 2 m Mavros interconnect pair, $1895
ATLAS OPUS DIGITAL
We dumped our reference cable for this one! And to be at its very
best, it has to be this length.
ORDER: AOD-1.5 digital cable, 1.5m, $399
TWO CABLES INTO ONE JACK
Need to feed two preamps into two
amps? This solid Y-adapter (two
jacks into one phono plug) is gold
over brass, with Teflon dielectric.
ORDER: FYA, one pair Y adapters, $20
CONNECTORS
EICHMANN BAYONET BANANAS
ATLAS MAVROS CABLES
We’ve adopted them for our Alpha system, which sounds better
than ever before. This is a four-wire monocrystal cable with
porous Teflon dielectric. We are not recommending them with
standard bananas or spaces, but we offer them either with ETI
Bayonet Bananas, at no extra cost, or WBT nextgen..
ATLAS QUESTOR
ORDER: AMBCu-3, 3 m pair, Bayonet bananas, $2150
ORDER: AMBCu-5, 5 m pair, Bayonet bananas, $3850
ORDER: AMSCu-3, 3 m pair, WBT nextgen bananas, $2390
ORDER: AMSCu-5, 5 m pair, WBT nextgen bananas, $4090
ATLAS EQUATOR
Perhaps the best $150
interconnect cable you could
buy. Only it costs just $90. And
yes, that’s in Canadian funds.
Other lengths on order.
ORDER: AE-1, 1 m pair Atlas Equator, $90
ORDER: AE-2, 2 m pair Atlas Equator, $125
ATLAS HYPER SPEAKER CABLES
A big winner in one of UHF’s blind tests of speaker cables is
Hyper 2, an oxygen free stranded wire in Teflon dielectric.
Inexpensive too. Plus connectors (we recommend Eichmann
Bayonet Bananas, $99.95/set, two sets needed for AH2, three for
biwire).
ORDER: AH2, Hyper 2 cable, $29.95/metre
ORDER: AHB, Hyper Biwire cable, $49.95/metre
PRISMAL DUAL INTERCONNECT
This Swiss-made cable has especially solid connectors. Teflon
dielectric. oxygen-free copper Toss your “free” interconnects!
ORDER: PD-1, 1 meter pair Prisma Dual Interconnect, $34.95
ATLAS QUADSTAR
Terrific in our blind test.
With Eichmann Bullet plugs,
or balanced with Neutrik
XLR's. Silver solder included with kit.
ORDER: AQS-1 pair Quadstar kit, 1m $124.95
ORDER: AQS-1A pair Quadstar assembled, 1m $199.95
ORDER: AQS-X pair Quadstar balanced kit, 1m $95.95
ORDER: AQS-XA pair Quadstar balanced, assembled, 1m $169.95
ORDER ON LINE
www.uhfmag.com
ATLAS COMPASS DIGITAL
Excellent performance at an affordable price. Single crystal pure
copper. The 1.5m version sounds way better than a 1m.
ORDER: ACD-1.5 digital cable, 1.5m, $160
SPEAKER CABLES
This could be the world’s lowest-cost
interconnect with single-crystal copper. It has
the same connectors as the Equator (below),
and we thought it sounded like a much more
expensive cable.
ORDER: AQ-1, 1 m pair Atlas Questor, $140
ORDER: AQ-2, 2 m pair Atlas Questor, $180
DIGITAL CABLES
ATLAS ICHOR SPEAKER CABLE
Continuous-cast single-crystal cable, ready for biwiring. It costs
just $235 per meter of double cable (a 2 m pair has 4 meters of
wire). We suggest adding the Eichmann Bayonet bananas, $99.95
per set of 4, or Furutech connectors, $70 a set of 4..
SINGLE CRYSTAL JUMPERS
Not biwiring? Dump the free jumpers that
with your speakers. Atlas jumpers are
made from single-crystal copper,
goldplated spades.
ORDER: ACJ, four single crystal
jumpers,
$99.95
www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html
came
The Eichmann Bayonet
Banana uses a minimum of
metal, and tellurium copper
at that, but clicks tightly into
any binding post with spring
action. For soldering or crimping, or both.
ORDER: EBB kit 4 bayonet bananas, $99.95
EICHMANN SPADES
Ready to solder, in
gold-plated copper, or
pure silver. Two sizes,
plus extra narrow for
barrier strips (McIntosh,
Vandersteen, etc.). Price for sets of four.
A. ORDER: EXB, set of 4, barrier strips, (now discontinued)
B. ORDER: EXQ, set of 4, 1/4" (6.3 mm), $32
C. ORDER: EXQA, set of 4, 1/4" (6.3 mm), silver, $55
D. ORDER: EXF, set of 4, 5/16" (8 mm), $44
E. ORDER: EXF,A set of 4, 5/16" (8 mm), silver, $67
EICHMANN BULLET PLUGS
The first phono plug to maintain
the impedance of the cable by using
metal only as an extension of the
wire. Hollow tube centre pin, tiny
spring for ground. Two contacts for
soldering, two-screw strain relief.
Gold over copper. Got silver cable? Get the unique Silver Bullets!
ORDER: EBP kit 4 Bullet Plugs, $77.95
ORDER: EBPA kit 4 Silver Bullets, $154.95
EICHMANN CABLE PODS
Minimum metal, gold over tellurium
copper. Unique clamp system: the back
button turns but the clamp doesn’t.
Solder to it, or plug an Eichmann
banana into it, even from inside!
ORDER: ECP, set of four posts, $119.95
CONNECTOR TREATMENT
DeOxit (formerly ProGold)
cleans connections and
promotes conductivity. Small
wipes for cleaning accessible
contacts, or a squirt bottle for connections you can’t reach.
ORDER: PGW box 25 DeOxit wipes, $35
ORDER: PGS, can DeOxit fluid, $35
ORDER: PGB, both when ordered at the same time, $56
54
MORE CONNECTORS
ANALOG PRODUCTS
For crimping connections to certain connectors from WBT or
Furutech, we recommend the gold crimping sleeves from WBT,
and the special crimping tool.
Buy the tool at the same time as appropriate WBT or Furutech
connectors, and we’ll buy it back at the price you paid when
you’re through.
ORDER: WBT-0403 crimping tool (refundable), $125.
The sleeves are shown here, actual size.
WBT-0431
WBT-0432
WBT-0433
WBT-0434
WBT-0435
WBT-0436
WBT-0437
WBT-0438
0.75 mm sleeve
1 mm sleeve
1.5 mm sleeve
2.5 mm sleeve
4 mm sleeve
6 mm sleeve
10 mm sleeve
15 mm sleeve
$0.50
$0.50
$0.50
$0.50
$0.60
$0.70
$0.85
$0.95
MORE ANALOG…
EXSTATIC RECORD BRUSH
LONDON REFERENCE
the Goldring
Super eXstatic.
Includes a hard
velvet pad to get
into the grooves,
two sets of carbon
fibre tufts. We use it every time!
ORDER: GSX record brush, $36
Yes we can supply the awesome London
Reference phono cartridge that we have
adopted for ourselves. Other models on
special order. this unique cartridge has
a line contact stylus, and an output of
5 mV…right for an MM preamp.
ORDER: LRC cartridge, $4695
GOLDRING ELITE
If you have limited funds and
want an MC cartridge with
line contact stylus, this is a great
choice. It's a detuned version of the
very expensive (but discontinued)
Excel we still own.
ORDER: GEC cartridge, $745
J. A. MICHELL RECORD CLAMP
you
a
MOON PHONO PREAMPS
Simaudio has done it:
come up with a worldclass phono preamp that
does magic. The LP5.3 is
one of the best available.
Adjustable MM/MC.
ORDER: Moon LP5.3,
silver (black available on
special order), $1599.
WBT NEXTGEN CONNECTORS
Special price on interconnect, one with an LP5.3 order.
ORDER: ANA-1 Navigator All-Cu, 1m, $405, for $260
ORDER: ANA-2 Navigator All-Cu, 2m, $495 for $350
ORDER: ANAB-1 Navigator balanced, 1m, $675, for $475
ORDER: AMI-1, 1 meter Mavros, $1195, for $895
ORDER: AMI-2, 2 meter Mavros, $1895, for $1495
WBT makes banana plugs and spades for speaker cables, all of
which lock tightly into any post. All use crimping technology.
These nextgen connectors are far superior to previous versions
ORDER: WBT-0610 Kit 4 angled nextgen bananas, $130
ORDER: WBT-0610Ag Kit 4 nextgen silver bananas, $290
ORDER: WBT-0681 Kit 4 nextgen spades, $130
ORDER: WBT-0681Ag Kit 4 nextgen silver spades, $220
The high-tech minimum metal “nextgen” phono plugs. Easy to
solder, with locking collar. Silver version available.
ORDER: WBT-0110, kit 4 nextgen copper plugs, $170
ORDER: WBT-0110Ag, kit 4 nextgen silver plugs, $280
Even more
astonishing: the LP3
includes much of the
LP5.3 technology, still
offers MM/MC, but
costs only a fraction.
Lively and musical, it’s
difficult to match.
ORDER: Moon LP3,
$599
Special price on interconnect, one with an LP3 order.
ORDER AQS-1, Kit ,1 m Quadstar, $124.95, for $59.95
ORDER AQS-1A, Fully assembled Quadstar, $199.95, for $99.95
NOTE: The Moon preamps are shipped set for moving magnet
setting. We’ll reset it to your specification so you won’t have to.
LP RECORD CLEANER
Clamp your LP to the turntable
platter. We use the J. A.
Michell clamp, machined
from nearly weightless
aluminum. Drop it on,
press down, tighten
the knob.
ORDER: MRC Michell
record clamp, $75
ORDER: MRC-R clamp for
Rega and short spindles, $85
ATLAS QUADSTAR PHONO BOX
Got a tone arm with a 5-pin DIN
plug. Substitute this Quadstar cable
and box, and add the interconnect
of your choice. straight DIN (shown)
needs 7 cm clearance. If you have
less, get the version with an angled
DIN plug.
ORDER: AQPS, Quadstar phono
box, $248
ORDER: AQPA, Quadstar phono box, angled DIN, $248
TITAN STYLUS LUBRICANT
Amazing, but true: dabbing
a bit of this stuff on your
stylus every 2 or 3 LPs makes
it glide through the groove
instead of scraping. Fine artist’s brush not included, but readily
available in many stores.
ORDER: TSO-1 Titan stylus oil, $39.95
ZEROSTAT ANTISTATIC PISTOL
A classic
adjunct to
the brush is
the Zerostat
anti-static
gun. Squeeze
the trigger
and release: it
ionizes the air,
which becomes
conductive and drains off the static charge. By the way, it works
for a lot more than LP’s. No batteries needed.
ORDER: Z-1 Zerostat antistatic pistol, $94..95
LP SLEEVES
FURUTECH CONNECTORS
Rhodium-plated banana tightens under pressure. Installs like
WBT-0645 banana. The spade installs the same way too..
ORDER: FTB-R, set of four bananas, $70
ORDER: FTS-R, set of four spades, $70
Concentrated cleaner for LP vacuum cleaning machines.
Much safer than some formulas we’ve seen! Half litre, mix with
demineralized or distilled water to make 4 litres.
ORDER: LPC, $19.95
PRICES CAN CHANGE AFTER WE GO TO PRESS.
WE WILL ALWAYS GIVE YOU THE BEST PRICE
Keep your records clean and
scratch free. Replace dirty,
torn or missing inner sleeves
with soft-plastic-in-paper Nitty
Gritty sleeves.
ORDER: PDI, package of 30
sleeves, $30
IF WE DON’T LIKE IT YOU WON’T SEE IT HERE
VINYL ESSENTIALS TEST LP
This precision-made German test record lets you check out channel
identification, correct phase, crosstalk, the tracking ability of your
cartridge (it’s a tougher test than the old Shure disc was, and the
resonance of your tone arm and cartridge. When we need to test a
turntable, this is the one we reach for.
ORDER: LP 003, Image Hifi Test LP, $48.95
TURNTABLE BELT TREATMENT
What this is not
is a sticky goo for
belts on their last
legs. Rubber Renue
removes oxidation
from rubber belts,
giving them a new
lease on life. But what astonished us is what it does to even a brand
new belt. Wipe down your belt every 3 months, and make analog
sound better than ever.
ORDER: RRU-100 drive belt
treatment, $14.95
SUPER ANTENNA
MkIII
Ours has no stupid rotary switch to muck
things up, and with a 1.8m low-loss 75
ohm cable and gold-plated push-on F
connector, it has low internal loss. Covers
analog and digital TV bands as well as FM.
ORDER: FM-S Super Antenna, MkIII, $55
CLEANER POWER
AUDIOPRISM POWER FILTER
The Power
Foundation III is
a bargain, and
does a wonderful
job of cleaning
the gunk from
the power line.
Requires 20A power cord (it has a different IEC connector. We
recommend the G Clef.
ORDER: APF, Audioprism power line filter, $849
ORDER: GGC-20 G Clef, Square 1.7m, 20A, $385
ENACOM LINE FILTER
Economy price, but astonishingly effective, we wouldn’t run our
system with less. It actually shorts out the hash on the power line.
ORDER: EAC Enacom line filter, $105
STINGRAY POWER BAR
Most power bars knock
voltage to your equipment
way down, and generate more
noise than a kindergarten
class. The Gutwire Stingray
Squared doesn’t. 12 gauge
double-shielded cable,
Hubbell hospital grade
connectors at both ends. Indispensable!
ORDER: GSR-2 Stingray Squared power bar, $285
EICHMANN POWER STRIP
We dumped our
cheap power
strip, added a
GutWire 16 power
cord, and made
our system sound better, even though no major component was
plugged into it. ORDER: EPS power strip, $48
MORE POWER TO YOU
Better access to
electrical power.
Change your 77-cent
duplex outlets for
these Hubbell hospital
grade outlets. Insert a
plug and it just snaps
in. A tighter internal
connection as well.
The cheapest improvement you can make to your system.
ORDER: AC-DA Hubbell duplex outlet, $23.95
ORDER: AC-D20 20A duplex, red color, $28.95
GUTWIRE G CLEF POWER CABLE
Multiple shielding, including external electrostatic shield
connected to a clip. Used by UHF. Now in an upgraded version,
with performance “squared.” Length 1.7 m, longer cords on order.
G Clef 2 has 195 conductors, 3 shields providing 98% shielding.
Available with 20A IEC plug (for amplifiers requiring special plug)
ORDER: GGC G Clef, Square 1.7m, $385
55
INSTANT CIRCUIT CHECKER
Plug it into an AC outlet, and the three lights can
indicate a missing ground, incorrect polarity,
switched wires — five problems in all. Some of these
problems can be fatal, but none of them is good for
feeding your music or home theatre system. The
first thing we did after getting ours was phone the
electrician.
ORDER: ACA-1, Instant Circuit Checker, $21
IEC ON YOUR DVD PLAYER
Why do big name DVD players come with those tiny two-prong
plugs for their cords? A
good shielded power cable
will do wonders! Take $18
off if you order an adapter
at the same time as a G
Clef or B12 cable, or $8
off if you order one with a
GutWire 16.
ORDER: DVD-A, GutWire adapter, $39
HOSPITAL GRADE CONNECTION
When we put a quality
AC plug on our kettle,
boiling time dropped by
90 seconds! The best AC
plug we have ever seen is
the Hubbell 8215 hospital
grade plug. It connects to wires under high pressure, and it
should last forever.
ORDER: AC-P2 Hubbell cord plug, $25.95
GUTWIRE/UHF B12
Amazingly good at a much lower price are these two cord plugs
from Eagle. No hospital rating, but a rather good mechanical
connection. Male and female versions.
Gutwire’s B12 is a fat pipe, well-shielded, to which we’ve added a
Hubbell 8215 hospital grade wall plug and the Furutech IEC copper
connector. We use a couple of these ourselves, and we love them!
Optionally available as an easy-to-assemble kit, with the blue jacket
pre-stripped and shrink-wrapped at one end.
ORDER: GWB12, 1.5 m B12 power cord, $285
ORDER: GWB12K, 1.5 m B12 power cord kit, $240
Need it longer? Add $95 per metre extra
ORDER: AC-P1 Eagle male cord plug, $5.95
ORDER: AC-PF Eagle female cord plug, $5.95
Making your own power cords for your equipment? You’ll need
the hard-to-get IEC 320 connector to fit the gear. We have two
sizes.
UHF 14 POWER CORD
ORDER: AC-P3 10 ampere IEC 320 plug, $9.95
ORDER: AC-P4 15 ampere Schurter IEC 320 plug, $18.95
No budget for a premium cable? Make your own! We use several
ourselves, and they even
make our computers
run better! Shielded,
to avoid picking up or
transmitting noise. Our
own UHF14, assembled
or as a kit. With the
Hubbell 8215 hospital
grade plug and the
Schurter 15 A IEC 320
connector. For digital
players, preamplifiers,
tuners, and even medium-powered amplifiers.
ORDER: UHF14-1.5K, 14 gauge power cable kit, $74.95
ORDER: UHF14-1.5 14 cable, assembled, $110.95
Need it longer? Add $20 per metre extra
SEE EVEN MORE PRODUCTS
IN OUR ON-LINE CATALOG
www,uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html
SILVER SOLDER
This is a lovely solder, from the
company that makes Enacom
line filters (which we also like).
Wakø-Tech solder contains 4%
silver, no lead.
ORDER: SR-4N, 100 g solder
roll, $59.95
SHIPPIN CHARGES?
THEY CAN BE AS LOW AS
$0.00
See the order coupon for details
56
BETTER DIGITAL
ISOBEARINGS ARE BACK!!!
See them on line at The Audiophile Store
Do you prefer spikes for your speakers? Target spikes and sockets
mount in wood. Available with or without tools.
ORDER: S4W kit, 8 spikes, sockets and tools, $39
ORDER: S4WS kit, 8 spikes and sockets, $30
IMPROVED CD WITH FINYL
This is the most famous of all the treatments for
Compact Discs. The maker of Finyl claims it reduces
surface reflections and provides a higher contrast
image for the laser cell of your player. Use it just
once. We get a lot of repeat orders on it. One kit can
treat over 200 discs. Or order the refill.
ORDER: F-1 Finyl kit, $40.00
ORDER: F-1R Finyl refill, $35.00
THE SUPERSPIKE
CLEAN YOUR PLAYER
After as little as three
months, your new
player will have more
trouble reading your
CD’s. Why? Dust on
the lens. We’re happy
to have found the
new Milty CD lens
cleaner. Unlike some
commonly-available
discs, the Milty is nonabrasive, so we use it and rest easy. Can be used wet or dry.
ORDER: 2021 Milty CD lens cleaner, $35
This is unique: a sealed unit containing a spike and a cup to
receive it. It won’t scratch even hardwood floors. For speakers
or equipment stands, on bare floors only. Four sizes of threaded
shanks are available to fit speakers or stands.
ORDER: SSKQ, 4 Superspikes, 1/4” shank, $75
ORDER: SSKT, 4 Superspikes, 5/16” shank, $75
ORDER: SSKS, 4 Superspikes, 6 mm shank, $75
ORDER: SSKH, 4 Superspikes, 8 mm shank, $75
SUPPORT SYSTEMS
WHAT SIZE SUPERSPIKE?
TENDERFEET
Machined cones are wonderful
things to put under speakers or
other audio equipment. They anchor
it mechanically and decouple it
acoustically at the same time.
Tenderfeet come in various versions:
tall (as shown) or flattened, in either
anodized silver or black. Tall Tenderfeet have threaded holes for
a machine screw, or for the optional hanger bolt, which lets you
screw it into wood. If you have a fragile hardwood floor, add the
optional Tendercup (shown above) to protect it.
ORDER: TFG, tall silver Tenderfoot, $15
ORDER: TFGN, tall black Tenderfoot, $16.50
ORDER: TFP, flat silver Tenderfoot, $10
ORDER: TCP, silver Tendercup, $10
ORDER: THB, hanger bolt for Tenderfeet, each $0.80
AN ON-THE-WALL IDEA
Need to fasten a speaker
securely to the wall? Nothing
beats the Smarter Speaker
Support for ease of installation
or for sheer strength. And
it holds the speaker off the
wall, so it can be used even
with rear-ported speakers.
Easily adjustable with two
hands, not three, tested to an
incredible 23 kg! Glass-filled
polycarbonate is unbreakable.
Screws and anchors included,
available in two colors.
ORDER: SSPS, pair of black speaker supports, $29.95
ORDER: SSPS-W, pair of white speaker supports, $29.95
TARGET WALL STANDS
We keep our turntables on these, secure from floor vibrations,
wonderful for CD players, amplifiers, and all components.
A good ruler will let you figure it out. The stated size is the outer
diameter of the threaded shank. Then count the threads:
1/4” shank: 20 threads/inch
5/16” shank: 18 threads/inch
M6 (6mm) shank: 10 threads/cm
M8 (8mm) shank: 8 threads/cm
OTHER
SUPERSPIKES
ORDER: VW-1 Target single-shelf wall stand, $199
We have also have a Superspike foot
(at right) that replaces those useless
feet on CD players, amps, etc., using
the same screws to fasten them. And
there’s a stick-on version (not shown) for other components.
ORDER: SSKF, 4 Superspike replacement feet, $80
ORDER: SSKA, 3 stick-on Superspike feet, $50
ORDER: VW-2 Target dual-shelf wall stand, $259
AUDIOPHILE RECORDINGS, RECOMMENDED BY UHF STAFF
REFERENCE RECORDINGS
Tutti (HDCD, SACD)
A terrific symphonic sampler from Reference, with dazzling music
by Bruckner, Stravinsky, etc. Also available as RR’s very first SACD
release. Wow!
30th Anniversary Sampler (HDCD)
A collection of excerpts from recent Reference albums.
Yerba Buena Bounce (HDCD)
The (terrific) Hot Club of San Francisco is back, with great music,
well-played, wonderfully recorded by “Profesor” Johnson!
Crown Imperial (HDCD)
The second chapter of the famous Pomp&Pipes saga, with the Dallas
Wind Symphony, in a set of perfectly recorded pieces in glorious
HDCD.
Organ Odyssey (HDCD)
Mary Preston, the organist of Crown Imperial, in a dazzling program
of Widor, Mendelssohn, Vierne, and others.
Serenade (HDCD)
A collection of choral pieces, wonderfully sung by the Turtle Creek
Chorale, with perhaps the best sound Keith has given them yet.
Nojima Plays Liszt (HDCD)
The famous 1986 recording of Minoru Nojima playing the B Minor
Sonata and other works is back…in HDCD this time!
Nojima Plays Ravel (HDCD)
Nojima’s other hit disc, now also in glorious HDCD.
Garden of Dreams (HDCD)
David Maslanka’s evocative music for wind band.
Beachcomber (HDCD) �
Fennell and the Dallas Wind Ensemble.Includes Tico Tico, A Chorus
line, and a version of 76 Trombones you’ll remember for a long time.
Holst (LP) �
From the composer of The Planets, 3 suites for wind band, plus the
Hammersmith Prelude and Scherzo.
Trittico (HDCD) �
Large helping of wind band leader Frederick Fennell doing powerhouse music by Grieg, Albeniz, Nelhybel, etc. Complex and energetic.
Fennell Favorites (LP)
The Dallas Wind Symphony: Bach, Brahms, Prokofiev and more.
Fireworks on this rare Reference LP.
Jazz Hat (HDCD) �
Pianist Michael Garson, in re-releases of some of his famous recordings
Blazing Redheads (LP)
Not all redheads, this all-female salsa-flavored big band adds a lot of
red pepper to its music.
Felix Hell (HDCD)
The young organ prodigy turns in mature versions of organ music of
Liszt, Vierne, Rheinberger and Guilmant. Huge bottom end!
American Requiem (HDCD)
Richard Danielpour's awesome Requiem mass is all about war, and
about the hope for peace too, with a dedication tied to 9/11.
World Keys (HDCD)
Astonishing young pianist Joel Fan amazes with music from all the
world, including that of Prokofiev and Liszt
Ikon of Eros (HDCD)
Huge suite for orchestra and chorus, by John Tavener. Inspired by
Greek Orthodox tradition. Overwhelming HDCD sound.
ued classical guitar LPs. Terrific!
Beyond (SACD)
The second recording by the versatile guitarist Peder af Ugglas (who
also did Autumn Shuffle, below), who plays every instrument there is:
jazz, rock, blues, country. From Sweden???
Autumn Shuffle (SACD/LP)
Ugglas plays a number of different guitars, and borrows from jazz,
Blues, and (yes!) country. Piano, organ, trombone, bowed saw, etc.
Showcase 2005 (SACD)
The latest Opus 3 sampler, with Eric Bibb, Mattias Wager, the Erik
Westberg Vocal Ensemble and lots more, in glorious SACD.
Organ Treasures (SACD) �
All those showpieces for big organ you remember hearing through
huge systems…only with all of the power and the clarity of Super
Audio. 4.1 channels, plus 2-channel CD.
Just Like Love (SACD/LP) �
The newest from Eric Bibb, less oriented to Gospel and more to Blues.
Bibb’s group, Needed Time, is not here, but he’s surrounded by half a
dozen fine musicians. A nice recording. Hybrid SACD.
PLUS THESE HDCD RECORDINGS:
Pomp&Pipes (HDCD) �
Requiem (HDCD) �
From the Age of Swing (HDCD) �
Swing is Here (HDCD) �
Copland Symphony No. 3 (HDCD) �
Medinah Sessions, two CDs for one (HDCD)
Ports of Call (HDCD)
Bruckner Symphony No. 9 (HDCD) �
Ein Heldenleben (HDCD) �
Comes Love (HDCD) �
Another disc by the terrific Swedish Jazz Kings, led by saxophonist
Tomas Ornberg, proving again Sweden understands jazz. The sound
is luminous, sometimes dazzling.
SHEFFIELD
Say It With Music (CD) �
Margie Gibson sings Irving Berlin in what may be one the greatest
jazz vocal recordings of all time. And she’s right in your living room!
Growing Up in Hollywood Town (XRCD) �
The Amanda Albums (CD) �
How did they do it? The two complete McBroom recordings, Growing
Up in Hollywood Town and West of Oz, on one terrific CD
I’ve Got the Music in Me (CD) �
This was originally Sheffield’s LAB-2 release. If you haven’t heard
Thelma Houston belt out a song, you’re in for a treat.
Kodo (CD)
A Japanese neo-folk group plays astonishing music, including a 400pound drum that can take out a woofer. Or a wall!
Harry James & His Big Band (Gold CD)
Harry said he would have done this recording for free, because he
sounded better than ever.
It’s Right Here For You (HDCD) �
Is there, anywhere, a better swing band than The Swedish Jazz Kings
(formerly Tömas Ormberg’s Blue Five)? Closer to Kansas City than to
Stockholm, they are captivating.
Test CD 4 (SACD)
A sampler of Opus 3 performers, clearer than you’ve ever heard them
before. Hybrid disc.
Test CD 5 (HDCD) �
Another of Opus 3’s wonderful samplers, including blues, jazz, and
classical music. A number of fine artists, captured with the usual pure
Blumlein stereo setup. A treat.
Showcase (SACD/LP) �
Available as a hybrid SACD/CD disc, or a gorgeously-cut LP, with
selections from Opus 3 releases.
Good Stuff (DOUBLE 45 LP/HDCD/SACD) �
As soothing as a summer breeze, this disc features singer Eric Bibb
(son of Leon), singing and playing guitar along with his group. Subtle
weaving of instrumentation, vivid sound.
Spirit and the Blues (DOUBLE 45 LP/CD/SACD) �
Like his father, Leon Bibb, Eric Bibb understands the blues. He and
the other musicians, all playing strictly acoustic instruments, have
done a fine recording, and Opus 3 has made it sound exceptional.
The King James Version (CD)
Harry James and his big band, live from the chapel!
Drum/Track Record (XRCD2) �
OPUS 3
Tiny Island (SACD)
If you like Eric Bibb and his group Good Stuff as much as we do, pick
this one up.
Test Records 1, 2 & 3 (SACD)
A blast from the past! Here are 14 cuts from the samplers that
launched Opus 3. They sound better than ever, too
Swingcerely Yours (SACD)
An SACD re-re-release of tracks from superb vibraphonist Lars
Erstrand, from 1983 to 1995. Long overdue!
20th Anniversary Celebration Disc (HDCD) �
A great sampler from Opus 3. Includes some exceptional fine pieces,
jazz, folk and classical. The sound pickup is as good as it gets, and the
HDCD transfer is luminous.
Unique Classical Guitar Collection (SACD)
An SACD, mastered from analog, of some of Opus 3’s long-discontin-
Levande (CD) �
The full recording from which “Tiden Bara Går” on Test Record No.1
57
is taken. Believe it or not, this great song isn’t even the best on the
album! A fine singer, doing folklike material…and who cares about
understanding the words?
Concertos for Double Bass (CD/SACD) �
This album of modern and 19th Century music is a favorite for its
deep, sensuous sound. And the music is worth discovering. It is sensuous and lyrical, a delight in every way.
Across the Bridge of Hope (SACD)
An astonishing choral recording by the Erik Westberg Ensemble,
famous for its Musica Sacra choral recording.
Musica Sacra (HDCD/SACD) �
Test Record No.4 (LP) �
PROPRIUS
Antiphone Blues (CD) �
This famous disc offers an unusual mix: sax and organ! The disc
includes Ellington, Negro spirituals, and some folk music. Electrifying performance, and the recording quality is unequalled.
Antiphone Blues (SACD/HDCD) �
This is the Super Audio version, with a Red Book layer that is HDCDencoded. The best of both worlds!
Now the Green Blade Riseth (CD/SACD) �
Religious music done a new way: organ, chorus and modern orchestra. Stunning music, arranged and performed by masters, and the
effect is joyous. The sound is clear, and the sheer depth is unequalled
on CD. The new SACD version is the very best SACD we have yet heard!
Jazz at the Pawnshop Set (SACD) �
The entire set oin glorious SACD, plus a video DVD with interviews
with the set’s creators.
Jazz at the Pawnshop 2 (CD/SACD) �
From the original master, another disc of jazz from this Swedish pub,
with its lifelike 3-D sound. Now a classic in its own right.
Good Vibes (CD)
The third volume of Jazz at the Pawnshop. And just as good!
Cantate Domino (CD/SACD) �
This choral record is a classic of audiophile records. The title selection is stunningly beautiful. The second half is Christmas music, and
includes the most stunning version of O Holy Night we’ve ever heard.
Sketches of Standard (CD)
ANALEKTA
Violonchello Español (CD) �
I Musici de Montréal comes to Analekta, with a stunning album of
Spanish and Spanish-like pieces for cello and orchestra.
Vivace (CD) �
Classical or rock? Claude Lamothe plays two cellos at the same time
in an amazing recording of modern compositions.
Pauline Viardot-Garcia (CD) �
Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian steps into the role of 19th Century
singer and composer Pauline Viardot so convincingly that listening
to her is like going back in time. One of the best classical recordings
of all time!
Romantic Pieces (CD) �
How does James Ehnes manage to get such a sweet sound from his
Stradivarius? Czech pieces from Smetana, Dvorak and Janacek. The
playing is as glorious as the tone, and the sound is sumptuous.
58
Cantabile (CD)
The Duo Similia is made up of striking blonde twins, who play flute
and guitar. Familiar airs from Mozart, Fauré, Elgar, Ravel, lots more.
Fine listening.
Nota del Sol (CD) �
The Labrie twins are back, with a delightful recording of flute and
guitar music by Piazzola, Pujol and Machado. Joyous works, wonderfully played and recorded
Camara died just before the disc was released. A long-time best-seller
worldwide
Styles (CD)
Is this ever a surprising disc! Violinist Marc Bélanger worked up these
string études for his music students, but they actually deserve to be
put out on a gold audiophile disc! The more strings he adds, the better
it gets.
Fable (CD)
Easygoing modern jazz by Rémi Bolduc and his quartet, on this gold
disc. Some exceptional guitar and bass solos.
Fantasia (CD)
A third, gorgeous, recording by the twins, on flute and guitar.
Fritz Kreisler (CD)
Possibly the best recording of Kreisler’s delightful violin music: James
Ehnes and his Strad bring a new magic to this fine disc.
French Showpieces (CD) �
Awesome violinist James Ehnes, with the Quebec City Symph. takes on
Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Chausson, Massenet, and more.
Handel (CD) �
Superb soprano Karina Gauvin is joined by the Toronto chamber
ensemble Tafelmusik in a series of glowing excerpts from Handel’s
“Alcina” and “Agrippina.” The sound is smooth and lifelike, with an
acute sense of place.
Little Notebook of Anna Magdalana Bach (CD) �
Over 30 delightful pieces, most by Bach himself. Soprano Karina
Gauvin’s voice is mated to Luc Beauséjour’s harpsichord work. The
sound is deep, detailed and warm, truly of audiophile quality.
Vivaldi: Motets for Soprano (CD) �
The wonderful soprano Karina Gauvin tackles the gorgeous but very
difficult vocal music of Vivaldi: two motets and a psalm.
AUDIOQUEST
Mississipi Magic (CD/SACD)
The legendary Blues, Gospel, rock and world beat singer and musician Terry Evans, in an energetic recording we loved.
Come to Find (CD) �
The first by Bluesman Doug McLeod, as impressive as the second, and
no Blues fan should resist it.
You Can’t Take My Blues (CD) �
Singer/songwriter Doug MacLeod and colleagues present one of the
most satisfying Blues records ever made.
Unmarked Road (SACD)
The third disc from the great blues singer and guitarist Doug McLeod
is every bit as good as the first two.
Musique Guy St-Onge (CD)
One-man band St-Onge plays dozens of instruments — scores for
fourteen films which never existed outside of his imagination. Fun
pretext, clever, attractive music that makes you wish you could see
the films!
HI-RES MUSIC (FOR DVD PLAYERS)
Brazilian Soul (24/96 DVD)
Guitarists Laurindo Almeida and Charlie Byrd, plus percussion and
bass, in an intimate yet explosive recording of samba and bossa nova
music. Great!
Jazz/Concord (24/96 DVD)
It's 1972, and you have tickets to hear Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown
and Jake Hanna at the Concord Jazz Festival. You won’t ever forget it.
You can be there, with this high resolution disc that goes in your DVD.
Rhythm Willie (24/96DVD) �
Guitarists Herb Ellis and Freddie Green, With bassist Ray Brown and
others. This is an uncompressed 24 bit 96 kHz disc that can be played
on any video DVD player. Awesome!
Trio (24/96 DVD) �
Pianist Monty Alexander with Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. “Makes CD
sound seem as if it’s coming through a drinking straw.” Playable on
any DVD player, uncompressed.
Seven Come Eleven (24/96 DVD)
Herb Ellis and Ray Brown again, but this time with guitarist Joe
Pass (he and Ellis alternate playing lead and rhythm), and a third
guitarist, Jake Hanna. This is a live recording from the 1974 Concord
Jazz Festival.
Soular Energy (24-96 DVD/ 24-192 DVD-Audio) �
Perhaps the world’s greatest bassist, the late Ray Brown, playing with
pianist Gene Harris, whom Brown called one of the greats. The proof
is right on this 24/96 recording, made from the analog master. Side 2
has a 24/192 DVD-A version.
KLAVIER
Whose Truth, Whose Lies (SACD) �
The third disc from the great blues singer and guitarist Doug McLeod
is t as good as the first. These songs have powerful rhythm, and can
make you smile and cry at the same time.
Evolution (CD)
Lowell Graham and the USAF wind band, with two superb suites by
Holst, plus music by Nelhybel, Hanson, etc. Lively, tactile sound with
impact by Bruce Leek..
Bluesquest sampler (CD)
Poetics (CD) �
A superb wind band recording which includes a breathtaking
concerto for percussion.
SILENCE
Tres Americas (CD)
A gold audiophile disc of lively Latin fusion music. Irka Mateo and
Tadeo de Marco sing and play, drawing their influence from Africa as
well as their native Brazil. Clear, close-in sound.
Djembé Tigui (CD)
This gold disc features the voice and percussion of African artist
Sekou Camara, captured by the famous Soundfield microphone.
Ghosts (CD) �
This haunting(!) wind band recording features a suite of music that
could be the soundtrack to a film that will keep you awake nights. A
recording of astonishing dynamics and depth
Caprice (CD) �
Can harp be spectacular? Believe it! This famous Klavier recording
features Susann McDonald playing Fauré, Glinka and Liszt, is a
powerhouse! Engineered by Keith O. Johnson, with a great transfer by
Bruce Leek.
Sonatas for Flute and Harp
These same great artists with sonatas by Krumpholz and Damase, as
well as Spohr and Glinka. Oh yes, and a spectacular solo harp version
of Ibert’s hilarious Entr’acte .
Norman Dello Joio (CD) �
This contemporary composer delights in the tactile sound of the wind
band, and the Keystone Wind Ensemble does his music justice. So
does the sound, of astonishing quality!
Carmina Burana (CD)
The celebrated Carl Orff oratorio sends chills down your spine, thanks
to the huge orchestra, gigantic choir, and of course the clarity and
depth of the Klavier sound.
Obseción (CD)
The Trio Amadé plays Piazzola, Berstein, Copland, and Emilion
Cólon…who is the trio cellist. The Colón and Piazzola is definitely
worth the price of admission. Lifelike sound.
Misbehavin’ (CD)
The superb Denver Brass does Gershwin (Cuban Overture, Porgy and
Bess), plus On the Town, Sweet Georgia Brown, and of course Ain’t
Misbehavin’. Great sound.
Hemispheres (CD)
The North Texas Wind Symphony with new music by contemporary
composers who know how to thrill. Some of the best wind band sound
available.
Illuminations (CD)
Absolutely great chamber musicians take on music by Villa-Lobos,
Malcolm Arnold, and some composers you may not know but you’ll
wish you did. Sublime sound, nothing less.
Kickin’ the Clouds Away (CD)
Gershwin died more than 60 years ago, but you can hear him playing
piano in glowing stereo. Nineteen of his pieces are on this fine CD,
including a solo piano version of the Rhapsody in Blue.
FIRST/LAST IMPRESSIONS
La Fille Mal Gardée (XRCD)
A fine ballet with the Royal Ballet Company orchestra, from the
original 1962 Decca recording. Exceptional
Film Spectacular II (XRCD)
The orchestra of Stanley Black plays some of the greatest film music
of bygone years. From the original Decca Phase 4 tape.
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante (XRCD)
Igor and David Oistrakh with the Moscow Philharmonic, in a glorious
1963 recording, from the original master tape
Artistry oi Linda Rosenthal (HDCD) �
The great violinist Rosenthal plays favorites: Hora Staccato, Perpetuum Mobile, Debussy’s Beau Soir, etc.
Suite Española (XRCD) �
The Albéniz suite, gorgeously orchestrated by Rafael Frühbeck de
Burgos, who conducts the New Philharmonia. Beautifully remastered
from the original 1963 tape.
Audiophile Reference IV (SACD) �
A stunning sampler, with recognizable audiophile selections you have
never heard sound this good!
59
Audiophile (XRCD) �
A fine jazz recording, including Secret of the Andes. We never test a
speaker without it.
La mémoire du vent (CD)
The original recording by Bïa, in French, Portuguese and English. If
you love her second one, don’t hesitate.
A Time for Us (HDCD)
Orchestral versions of music from great movies. Easy to love!.
Blues for the Saxophone Club (HDCD) �
Swing jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro, with guest artists, including
saxophonist Ernie Watts. The HDCD sound is explosive!
Carmin (CD) �
The third by Bïa. Different this time, with more money for production,
but it has been spent wisely. Superb songs, gloriously sung in Portuguese, French and the ancient Aymara language.
Café Blue (HDCD/CD) �
Gold HDCD version of jazz singer Patricia Barber’s 1994 classic, an
audiophile underground favorite. Or get the original CD, at lower cost.
My Foolish Heart (CD)
A collection of live and atudio pieces by Monteiro and other musicians, notably saxophonist Eernie Watts
MISCELLANEOUS
Neil Diamond: Serenade (CD)
Just eight songs on this European CBS disc, but what songs! I’ve Been
This Way Before, Lady Magdalene, Reggae Strut, The Gift of Song,
and more. Glowing sound too.
Songs My Dad Taught Me (HDCD)
Jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro and three other musicians, with a retro
collection of unforgettable tunes.
Pipes Rhode Island �
John Marks recorded this tour of the organs of the tiny state, with
amazing tones, captured in astonishing sound
All We Need to Know �
Jazz singer Margie Gibson’s first album since Say It With Music, on
Sheffield. No one sings the way she does!
Classica d’Oro (CD)
All of the classical world’s most important heritage, on 50 audiophilequality gold CDs, at under $4 per CD. Fine artists from Germany,
Austria, the UK, Eastern Europe. Listen to excerpts on line.
Coeur vagabond (CD)
Bïa sings French songs in Portuguese, Brazilian songs in French. A
delight, as usual from this astonishing singer
Harry Belafonte (CD)
We haven’t heard Belafonte sound like this except on analog. The 16
songs include Island in the Sun, Jamaica Farewell, Midnight Special,
Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Brown Skin Girl, etc.
Sources (CD) �
A wonderful recording by Bïa (pronounced Bee-yah). She’s Brazilian,
lives in France, recorded this terrific album (in 5 languages!) in
Montreal. Just her warm voice and guitar,
Nocturno (CD)
Some are saying that this is Bïa’s best and most touching album since
Sources. See if you agree. You won’t be disappointed.
Nightclub (CD) �
Patricia Barber, doing nightclub standards rather than her own
songs. But can she do them!
Modern Cool (CD)
The previous release from Patricia Barber, including songs she does
live on the Companion live disc.
Payment by VISA or MasterCard, cheque or money order (in Canada). All merchandise is guaranteed unless explicitly sold “as
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Beethoven/Mendelssohn
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Brazilian Soul (DVD)
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Conc. for Double Bass (SACD) CD8522
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Good Stuff (SACD)
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HRM2005
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Spirit & the Blues (SACD)
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Swingcerely Yours
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Antiphone Blues
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A Time for Us
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Beachcomber
Best of Chesky & Test, vol.3
Best of the Red Army Chorus
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Blues for the Saxophone Club
Bluesquest
Bossa Nova
Bruckner: Symph. No.9
Café Blue
Café Blue (HDCD gold)
Cantabile
Cantate Domino
Caprice
Carmin
Carmina Burana
Classica d’Oro (50 CDs)
Come to Find
Come Love
Companion
Coeur vagabond
Concertos for Double Bass
Copland Symphony No.3
Djembé Tigui
Drum/Track Record
Ein Heldenleben
Evolution
Eybler Quartets
Fable
Fantasia
Felix Hell
Flm Spectacular II
French Showpieces
Fritz Kreisler
From the Age of Swing
Garden of Dreams
Ghosts
Gitans
Good Stuff
Good Vibes
Growing up in Hollywood Town
Handel
Harry Belafonte
Harry James & His Big Band
Hemispheres
Illuminations
Infernal Violins
It’s Right Here For You
I’ve Got the Music in Me
Jazz at the Pawnshop
Jazz at the Pawnshop 2
Jazz Hat
Jazz/Vol.1
Keep on Movin’
Kickin’ the Clouds Away
Kodo
La Fille Mal Gardée
La mémoire du vent
Les matins habitables
Levande
FL 2 3133
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LIM XR 001 38.95
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Misbehavin’
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My Foolish Heart
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Neil Diamond: Serenade
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Nightclub
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Nocturno
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Songs My Dad Taught Me
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Software
of the most appreciated musical forms of
the Classical and Romantic eras. Over
several centuries it underwent numerous transformations. The concerto has
been defined as a symphony written for
a musical instrument, with the backing
of other instruments whose role it is to
enhance it.
In the early Renaissance Giovanni
Gabrieli, born around 1553, the principal organist of St. Mark’s, is believed
to have originated the concertante form,
and he was at the root of the transition
from the Renaissance to the Baroque.
Faithful to the techniques developed by
his uncle Andrea, he used voices and instruments to set up a sort of dialog.
A large variety of instruments have
been employed in concertos: piano,
harpsichord, organ, violin, viola, cello,
flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, mandolin,
French horn, trumpet, tuba, harp, guitar, etc. Some even wrote double or triple concertos, with more than one solo
instrument, among them Telemann,
Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.
The Concerto
F
irm attacks, lively rhythms,
pleasant timbres…the audience is
dazzled by a scintillating introduction. Suddenly, authoritative
sounds arise and take command. What is
happening? The sumptuous sound of the
piano challenges those other instruments,
and undertakes a competition, a cordial discussion. The concert hall has been projected
into a musical style that, since its birth in
the 17th Century, has not ceased to inspire
composers and virtuosos.
by Reine Lessard
It is the concerto.
Libraries worldwide overflow with books
about this musical form. Musicologists,
composers, music lovers, students preparing
their theses are countless. It is not these few
pages that can settle any arguments. I shall,
instead, present to you a few concertos that I
class among my favorites.
Born in Italy, the concerto developed
during the Baroque era, and became one
The Baroque
Corelli: Concerto Grosso No. 6 in F Major
The concerto grosso is marked by
the presence of numerous movements
of contrasting tempos, in which a small
group of instruments alternates with a
larger group. Arcangelo Corelli (16531713) was one of its precursors, along
with Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709), but
Corelli came first and made the form
popular. It is he to whom we owe the
structure of the concerto for solo violin
and orchestra. Without these two pioneers, we might never have had Vivaldi,
Handel and Bach. The 16th Century
saw the development of the church concerto, da chiesa, and in the 17th Century
the chamber concerto, da camera, meant
to be performed in private.
Musicologists tell us Corelli was just
20 when he began writing concertos.
It is said that, eternally dissatisfied, he
would spend years rewriting them again
and again. That is no doubt the reason
he left us a relatively small body of work,
and also the difficulty in determining
the dates of his compositions. At his re- gna and Antonio Vivaldi in Venice.
once again.
quest, the concerto I have cited was not The solo concerto includes three In a lower tone, the Largo is moving,
published in his lifetime. Himself a su- movements, two of them lively, to show evoking a flower-strewn field in which
perb violinist, Corelli gave the violin a off the virtuosity of the musician, and a shepherd has fallen asleep next to his
major role, and he was the innovator of between them a slow movement that dog. It ends with an Allegro, a sprightly
exemplary violin techniques. Along with brings out his sensitivity.
dance of shepherds and nymphs, underLocatelli, Geminiani and Tartini, he in- Let me begin with the most popu- lined by the bagpipes and, in the forespired Leopold Mozart — the father of lar of these Baroque concertos, Vivaldi’s ground, a fiery violin.
Wolfgang — to publish a treatise on the Four Seasons. Lost for two and a half Here is the accompanying sonnet.
violin, which was translated into all the centuries, they turned up miraculously
languages of Europe.
in 1926. Let me underline that Vivaldi Springtime is upon us.
In the concerto grosso, the smaller was first to cater to the solo musician’s The birds celebrate her return with festive
song,
and larger instrument groups alternate, craving to show off his technique.
in a back-and-forth conversation. The The four concertos — one per sea- and murmuring streams are softly caressed by
smaller group is the concertino, typi- son — are orchestrated for violino princi- the breezes.
cally consisting of three instruments — pale, first and second violins, violas, cel- Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,
Corelli used two violins and a cello. los and double basses, with a continuo, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
The larger group, the ripieno or grosso, and sometimes even horns and bagpipes! Then they die away to silence, and the birds take
up their charming songs once more.
includes the rest of For
the years
orchestra.
The
popular
is this music
it has
now, we
haveSo
been
publishing,
on ourthat
Web
site,been
a free PDF
work I’ve noted version
is idealoffor
getting
to
used
in
films
and
even
TV
commercials.
our magazine.
know Corelli. I once
heard
a comment
I leave it to you to continue the
It seems
thatfor
Vivaldi
wrote and
The
reason
is simple. We
know astonishing
you’re looking
information,
that musicians who
could
get
to
underin consultation with the sonprogram
music
to
suit
the
text
of
a
set
of
that is almost certainly why you’ve come to visit our site. And that’s analysis,
why
stand the soul of we
Corelli
could
ascend
to
nets.
You
can find the complete set
sonnets.
It
is
nonetheless
true
that
in
the
give away what some competitors consider to be a startlingly large
the status of supermusicians.
on
our
Web
site, at www.uhfmag.com/
first
edition,
published
in
Amsterdam
in
amount of information…for free.
The short but energetic
Adagio
Overresources/vivaldi.
Your pleasure will be
1716
or
1717,
the
sonnets
are
included
We would give it all away for free, if we could still stay in business.
ture featuring the cello
is
followed
by
an
redoubled…nay,
tripled.
before
the
score
for
each
season.
If
VivRecent figures indicate that each issue is getting downloaded as many
Allegro, with magnificent
be-thataldi
didkeeps
not write
the sonnets himself, In comparing Corelli and Vivaldi, it
as 100,000contrasts
times, and
figure
growing.
tween the cello and
the
orchestra.
I
very
they
were
certainly
written for his ben- is evident what distinguishes them one
Yes, we know, if we had a nickel for each download…
much appreciated
the
sprightly
climate
from the other. In the concerto grosso
efit.
I
adopted
them
when
I came
across
Truth is, we’re in the business of helping you
enjoy
music
at home
that requires great
virtuosity
on
the
part
two
groups of instruments answer each
the
translation
from
Italian.
under the best possible conditions. And movies too. We’ll do what we
need
of the string players.
The
almost
reliother.
In the solo concerto the soloist(s)
Each
of
the
sonnets,
then,
correto do in order to get the information to you.
gious ambience of
the
Largo
leads
one
to
and
the
orchestra engage in a dialog.
sponds
to
a
concerto
whose
themes
de Of course, we also want you to read our published editions too. We
In
the
music of Vivaldi both conintrospection. The
cello
and
the
orchesvelop
across
three
movements.
To
douhope that, having read this far, you’ll want to read on.
tra alternate, and at the very end, unex- ble your pleasure, read the sonnets while trasts and alternations are dazzling.
pectedly, the violin enters with a brief listening to the corresponding music, Certain violin melodies, which demand
melody, backed in the final measures by for the two are inseparably linked. For the most perfect virtuosity, are irresistthe cello. The Vivace is guaranteed to me, the two are always worth revisiting. ible. We cannot escape noticing how the
keep you awake. It begins with the violin The Concerto No. 1, Opus 3, titled composer places the soloist in a starring
accompanied by the cello, who then al- Spring, has lost none of its charm since role, where he can shine.
ternate in the style favored by this great its first publication. The continuity of Also characteristic of Vivaldi are his
Baroque composer. Notice how the vio- the opening Allegro is a succession of dazzling musical effects and his ability
lin now becomes the star. The final Al- quavers with a pair of semiquavers. The to mimic in sound such natural phelegro II closes in magnificent fashion this theme, with the fortes and the pianos nomena as storms, wind, rain and birds.
concerto grosso, which gratifies us with echoing, add a sort of impulsion typia range of sounds and colors that allow cal of the Vivaldi style. A solo violin is The Classical period
us to appreciate Corelli fully.
joined by the first and second violins of Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 in C
the orchestra produce bird calls with Is it even necessary to introduce
Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four short and long trills and repeated qua- that supernova among the vast galaxy
Seasons), a set of four concertos for violin
vers. Then, delicate waves from the vio- of composers of the Classical era, and
While in Rome Alessandro Stradella lins in rapid semiquavers are followed indeed of all eras?
(possibly the inventor of the concerto by the double basses, which call up the He was 29 in the Spring of 1785
grosso) and Corelli (the first to get a image of windswept streams. Suddenly when he wrote this concerto. It was a
concerto grosso published) were work- comes the storm. Repeated semidemi- bleak period in his life, when he was osing on this new genre, two other com- quavers alternate with rapid ascending cillating between a precarious happiness
posers were elaborating a form that scales, followed by the solo violin in and unbearable financial worries. For all
would more precisely spotlight one or triplets that recall thunder. Finally we that, it was also a period of sublime promore soloists: Giuseppe Torelli in Bolo- return to the leitmotiv, and the birds sing ductivity, which saw him create some of
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piano. He makes this Mozart jewel a
pure joy.
However I cannot help recalling
the version — overly sentimental in
the view of some — of Geza Anda. He
manages to plunge the listener into a remarkably involving ambience. Though
his interpretation is rejected by some
eminent pianists, his is the one you will
hear when — and if — you see the Widerberg’s film.
The Romantic Period
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E Flat,
Op. 73, “The Emperor”
It was Beethoven (1770-1827) who
inaugurated the Romantic concerto
with his three last piano concertos and
his monumental concerto for violin.
This composer — exceptional, impossible to categorize, free and independent — was born in Bonn and died
in Vienna. He expressed himself in all
musical genres: overtures, a Fantasy
for piano, chorale and orchestra (one
of whose themes will be reused in the
Ode to Joy), a bouquet of lyrical Bagatelles, fine quartets, music for the stage,
the Diabelli Variations (which many consider to be Beethoven’s true testament
as a pianist), an opera, a ballet, 32 piano
sonatas, a few more for violin and piano,
and five more for cello and piano.
And then there are his magnificent
piano concertos. He was the first to
compose exclusively for the pianoforte,
and also the first to impose his cadenzas
on pianists, rather than letting them improvise.
In short he excelled in all styles, and
his eclectic nature has never been cast
into doubt. It is, however, above all his
symphonic music that gave him his immortality and his lasting worldwide celebrity.
As one can imagine the Emperor
Concerto (his final one) was written at
a time greatly perturbed by political
battles. Need I add that this independent, pro-democratic revolutionary was
most sensible to these struggles (not to
say much has been accomplished since
then)? By the time he wrote this concerto his deafness had so progressed
that he asked his pupil, Carl Czerny,
to play the solo role in his stead. The
event occurred a few years later, possibly in February 1812 in Vienna. The
delay in premiering the concerto can be
explained by the monstrous economic
problems then faced by the musical
capital and ordinary people (sound familiar?). The cool reception accorded it
in no way presaged the importance the
concerto would take on in the years to
come.
It is the piano that launches the first
measures of the work with a brief cadenza, followed by the orchestra, which
announces with authority the first
movement, an Allegro that is energetic,
almost military.
From there the soloist and the orchestra are equal partners, despite piano
passages presenting enormous difficulty.
It should be noted that this manner of
proceeding indicates clearly Beethoven’s
refusal to give the virtuoso pianist too
much importance. There is no pause
between the very slow Adagio and the
dance-like Rondo Allegro, though there
is a transition of abiding melancholy.
I listened to the version by pianist
Claudio Arrau, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam under
Bernard Haitink.
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor,
Op. 64
This famous work by the brilliant
German composer and conductor Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 - 1847)
was his last for large orchestra. The son
of a moneyed family, he had few material concerns and was of great refinement.
Because his works were so perfect, because he was emotionally so balanced,
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the greatest of his immortal works.
This concerto became famous not
only because of its intrinsic beauty, but
for a reason no one could have anticipated. In 1967 Swedish filmmaker Bo
Widerberg used the concertos’ Andante
movement in his popular film Elvira
Madigan. It is an impossible love story
that, as all such love stories must, ends
badly for both lover. The characters are
a young tightrope walker and a an army
lieutenant who is also a Count. The
count is much older, married with two
children, and he is a deserter besides.
The affair cannot last, and it will not.
It was because of the film that the
concerto took on the anachronistic
name of The Elvira Madigan Concerto.
Taken by surprise, Deutsche Grammophon, whose recording was used in the
film, quickly replaced its generic record
sleeve with one showing a scene from
the film. Elvira Madigan is impossible
to find today, and it is largely forgotten,
but the concerto is not, and it continues
to bear the name of the ill-starred heroine.
The music suits the story, that of the
ruined lovers living from picnic to picnic in bucolic scenes: fields of grain, under changeable skies on the seashore, or
aboard a rowboat on the mirror surface
of a still pond. It all works.
On a tempo that is at once slow and
joyous, the Allegro Maestoso begins with
a march introduced by the lower strings,
with the higher strings, the brass and the
woodwinds entering into a dialog. After
some gorgeous trills by the orchestra,
the violins enter, followed by the other instruments. The piano enters next,
leading into a mini-cadenza ending in
a trill with the magnificent final tutti
by the orchestra. The famous Andante
opens with triplets in the piano’s lower
register, with the orchestra joining in. It
is a most romantic melody. But for some
melancholy passages, the tone is serene
and radiant. The final Allegro Vivace
rondo is initiated by the orchestra with
a lively rhythm, until the limpid arpeggios of the piano expose the themes. A
brief cadenza brings back to the opening motif.
I spent time listening to a (probably
impossible to find) Angel version with
Daniel Barenboim conducting from the
he has been accused of lacking sensitiv- ing the Boston Symphony. It is available in his pocket that this charmer sweeps
ity. As if beauty was not in and of itself a on the RCA label.
into the literary salons, where he pervehicle for emotion and sensitivity.
forms his music. They are in demand by
At the age of 15 Felix conducted
the bright lights of art, music and literahis first opera, and a year later he had
ture. Among them is Franz Liszt, who
already signed works of some imporhas known many a genius, and becomes
tance — symphonies for string orchesan admirer and a friend of Chopin.
tra, a string octet, and concertos for
The Concerto No. 1 is a teenage
piano and for violin. By the time he
work — he was but 19 when he wrote
was 17 he had written his unforgettable
it — at a time when he was consumed
overture to Shakespeare’s Midsummer
with love for the young soprano KonNight’s Dream.
stancja Gladkowska. The Adagio is said
His very Romantic violin concerto,
to be dedicated to her. It seems evident
which I adore, had been commissioned
that his romantic sentiments are reflectby his good friend and celebrated vioed in this music, particularly in the slow
linist Ferdinand David. Busy with other
movements, which are full of peaceful
projects Felix took six years to fulfill his Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E melancholy, a reverie suited to a mooncommission, to the frustration of David, Minor, Opus 11
lit Spring night.
who was pressuring his friend to fin- Chopin’s name is inseparably linked Chopin’s two concertos are often
ish it. It was long considered the most to the piano, to musical poetry, to gentle said to be modest in their orchestration,
perfect concerto of the century after melancholy, to tenderness, to love, to with the orchestra playing merely a role
the Beethoven concerto I have already the delicate things of the soul. A pianist of accompaniment to the piano. Cermentioned. David, who was himself an above all else, a composer who went be- tainly the piano is the star, but the other
excellent composer, doubtless wrote yond the constraints of his era, he never musicians are not mere walk-ons.
certain solo parts of the concerto, nota- composed a page that did not throw The first movement, the Allegro
bly the cadenza. The three movements, light on the instrument whose full po- Maestoso, opens with a rich string tutti
Allegro molto appassionato, Andante and tential he had mastered at a very young of great lyricism. It is when the piano
Rondo are played without a pause.
age. Rare are his works for piano and enters with its virtuoso trills that the
Mendelssohn often gave the lie orchestra. He was a miniaturist, and the music achieves its full momentum. The
to claims his music was passionless two concertos he left us are mere excep- orchestra then rejoins the piano. The
and merely followed convention. Re- tions to that rule.
delicate motif that Chopin embroiders
ally? Did he not challenge the long- Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) at- returns, here and there in a myriad of
established convention that a concerto tends high school in Warsaw, all the notes and flourishes. Toward the end of
should begin with the orchestra rather while studying piano with Wojciech the movement, after a delicate rubato,
than the soloist? Yes, and his opening (Adalberg) Zwyny, who tells his father there is a powerful apotheosis.
for the violin alone caused much gnash- that there is nothing more he can teach The Larghetto begins with the oring of teeth. These are among the most the young man…at the ripe old age of chestra playing in the lower register.
No, this free version is not complete, though you could spend a couple
beautiful pages of the violin literature, a 12! When he is 15 Frédéric performs Across this canvas, the piano scatters
of hours reading it. Want the full version?
violin that is as ardent as one could wish. twice for the Tsar and publishes his first notes that seem to come from a land
You can, of course, order the print version, which we have published
His friend, the composer Robert Schu- composition, a Rondo, followed by a Ma- where dream and nostalgia are wedded
for a quarter of a century. You can get it from our back issues page.
mann, called him the Mozart of the 19th zurka, a Nocturne, and variations on Mo- in a kind of bel canto. Until then the or But we also have a paid electronic version, which is just like this one,
zart’s opera Don Giovanni.
Century.
chestra plays in restrained fashion, exexcept that it doesn’t have annoying banners like this one, and it doesn’t
This concerto is remarkable for its He exiles himself to the City of ploding at the same time as the piano.
have articles tailing off into faux Latin. Getting the electronic version is of
warmth, its lyricism, its elegance, and Light, Paris, a natural choice to seek The piano is front and centre in the
course faster, and it is also cheaper. It costs just $4.30 (Canadian) anywhere
the perfect harmony between the or- fame in musical or literary spheres. He Rondo Vivace, in a lively passage backed
in the world. Taxes, if they are applicable, are included.
chestra and solo parts. Speaking of el- is aware that, to be well received by the by the strings. The orchestra then
It’s available from MagZee.com.
egance, the adjective is perfectly suit- Paris musical intelligentsia, he will need builds, with powerful measures, before
able to describe this man, who never at least a couple of samples of the musi- settling into a passage colored by hearthesitated to recognize talent in others.
cal genre then at the zenith of popular- rending melancholy. There is a remark The first movement is filled, in al- ity, the concerto. Before leaving, then, able coda, which follows a veritable fireternation, with fervor and reverie.. The he composes two concertos for piano works show by the pianist.
second movement is a romance, and the and orchestra, and the press pronounces The version I listened to for you
final movement is remarkable for its him a genius. He plays his Piano Con- featured the formidable pianist Charles
lines bordering on the fantastic.
certo No. 1 at a farewell concert before Rosen, with British maestro John Prit The version I listened to for you is his departure for France, where a great chard conducting the New Philharmothat of the legendary violinist Jascha destiny awaits him.
nia Orchestra.
Heifetz, with Charles Munch conduct- It is, then, with these two concertos
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Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C
Minor
This great Russian composer is born
in 1873 on the sumptuous family property of Onega, near Novgorod. As a
youth he is registered at the Conservatory, where he makes his mark mainly
for his poor attendance record.
Worried about the young Sergei’s future, his cousin, pianist Alexander Siloti,
suggests he come to study in Moscow.
There he is taken in hand by Nikolai
Zverev, one of the best music teachers
of his time, who teaches him his formidable technique. He also learns counterpoint from Sergei Taneyev and harmony from Anton Arensky, and earns
the Moscow Conservatory’s medal for
the 1891 piano competition.
And that is a mere prelude. For his
final exam in 1892 he presents a oneact opera based on a poem by Pushkin,
composed in just 17 days, earning him
the gold medal. Thanks to the support of Tchaikovsky this opera, Aleko,
is produced at the Bolshoi a year later.
With his career as a pianist, composer
and conductor firmly launched, he finds
a post at a private Russian opera company.
In 1897 his Symphony No. 1 is a failure blamed, rightly or wrongly, on a
lacklustre premiere conducted by Glazunov. Rachmaninov falls into a severe
depression, accompanied by writer’s
block. He is treated by Dr. Nikolai
Dahl, who follows him for some time,
and re-establishes his self-confidence
with the use of hypnosis. In the Autumn
of 1900 he is ready to undertake the cre-
ation of the piano concerto in question.
He completes it the following April.
Oddly enough, its famous first movement is composed after the other two.
Rachmaninov himself premieres the second and third movements in December
1900, and it is only in October 1901 that
he plays the complete concerto, with his
cousin Alexander Siloti on the podium.
The Concerto No. 2 re-establishes Rachmaninov’s reputation as a composer, and
takes its place in the repertoire of many
a virtuoso pianist.
The Allegro Moderato opens with
a series of bell-like chords in octaves
from the piano, like a knell, building
to a powerful crescendo. (I mention in
passing that Rachmaninov was fond of
octave chords, made easy by his large
hands whose fingers could span two octaves! A similar technique is used in the
Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, better known
as The Burning of Moscow, commemorating the scorched-earth retreat before
the advancing Grand Army of Napoleon.) The orchestra adds an equallyimpressive tutti, affronting a formidable
torrent of piano arpeggios. What a
wonderful example of a concerto for a
star soloist!
Among this hail of notes and orchestral effects is a recurring theme of great
lyricism and sadness. It is a jewel, overwhelming by its sheer beauty, which
touches one’s very soul.
Then suddenly the main theme returns against a soft continuo by the piano, to end furiously in an apotheosis of
notes with a fortissimo.
The second movement, the Adagio
Sostenuto, begins with a series of chords
from the strings. The piano enters with
a simple motif in arpeggios. A flute introduces the main theme. The music accelerates and intensifies toward its culmination, before dying out in a tender
passage.
The final Moderato Allegro or Allegro
Scherzando begins with a brief orchestral
conduction followed by a magnificent
piano solo. A melodious theme is introduced by the oboes and violas.
The concerto marks a turning point
in the composer’s career, accompanying
his new found confidence. The warm
pubic reception afforded it leads to a
fruitful period for Rachmaninov.
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Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B
Flat Major
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (18401893) was one of the greatest Russian
composers of the second half of the 19th
Century, and certainly the most popular. This masterwork of 1875 underwent two revisions, in 1879 and 1888.
We should not be surprised by the hesitations on the part of a tormented soul
who sailed constantly between the twin
ports of exaltation and depression.
Eclectic, an exceptional orchestrator, a magnificent melodist, he excelled
in his symphonies, suites, concertos,
and such deathless ballets as The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. Carried by
an orchestration as rich as it is varied,
his music reveals his hypersensitive and
tormented nature.
In the original version of the concerto — before its two revisions — it
included two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, three trombones, tympani,
strings, and of course the piano.
The masterful introduction of the
first movement is instantly pleasing,
with the first measures, superb and authoritative, literally pushing you back
into your seat. I am still seeking to
understand what makes them so bewitching. It seems simple enough —
an abrupt entrance by the strings followed by hammerlike chords from the
pianist — and yet from that simplicity
emanates a beauty so intense, so incomparable, almost unreal. It is, I think, a
mystery how sounds can have such an
effect.
The second movement establishes a
simple melody, pizzicato at first, which
seems to evoke the music of an antique
merry-go-round.
In the third movement the orchestral tutti is extraordinary, and then the
strings enter for a brief passage that goes
straight to the heart — the composer is
torn, and you can feel it. It is difficult to
hold back one’s tears. Its finale is awesome.
I listened for you to the celebrated
Russian virtuoso Emil Gilels (19161985), with the New York Philharmonic
under the baton of Zubin Mehta. A rare
listening pleasure that lasts 40 minutes,
and not a second too long.
The concerto has been used in a
number of films, and it is perhaps significant that Rachmaninov died, in 1943,
in Hollywood.
strings bring back the theme against a es. Among them are the Frenchman
continuo by the piano, which in turn Ravel and one of his greatest admirers,
the American Gershwin.
takes it up and develops it.
The Intermezzo: Andantino Grazioso
opens with recurring staccato chords by Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in D Major
Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto in A the piano, which launches an irrepress- for the Left Hand
Minor, Op. 54
ible flow of piano notes with the sup- Though the celebrated Austrian pia This is the only piano concerto port of a brilliant orchestral score. It is nist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm
Schumann ever completed, and even so in such dazzling passages that the virtu- in the Great War, he could not envisage
it nearly never existed. We know that osity of the performer is truly revealed. abandoning his art, and asked Maurice
the radical hand exercises he undertook The final measures end with a bouncy Ravel to write him a concerto for his
so damaged his articulations that he had rhythm that however never strays far remaining hand. We are in 1929, and
to abandon his ambitions as a pianist.
from the tender melancholy that char- Ravel (1875-1937) enjoys worldwide
In 1841 he wrote an Allegro Affettuo- acterizes this work.
fame. His Boléro has established him as a
so or Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra, It Without a pause the concerto moves genius. He rewards Wittgenstein with a
is a sublime piece, premiered in Leipzig into the Allegro Vivace, an eloquent dia- masterpiece.
by his dear wife Clara, with Ferdinand log for piano and orchestra, a model of It should be said that Ravel was not
David conducting. It is difficult to ex- the genre. It too contains a deluge of the only composer Wittgenstein applain why no publisher took any interest notes that stupefies the listener.
proached. He also solicited Benjamin
in it, unless it was because a concerto, The lyrical qualities of the concerto Britten, Richard Strauss and Sergei
the “in” genre at the time, would have have often been praised, as has its the- Prokofiev. Prokofiev did in fact write
been easier to market than a mere alle- matic richness.
him a piece for left hand, his Concerto
gro. It was, then, for financial reasons This remarkable composer, who No. 4 in B-Flat Major. That concerto,
that, in 1845, Schumann fleshed out the suffered from a thousand troubles, in- running across four movements over 25
Allegro with an Intermezzo and Finale to cluding a future father-in-law from hell, minutes is not uninteresting. However
form a complete concerto.
and humiliations that drove him to an Wittgenstein considered it technically
The concerto was premiered in asylum, married to the greatest piano too difficult, and preferred the Ravel
Dresden in 1845 by Clara, by then rec- virtuoso of his age whom he had long work. Prokofiev’s concerto, as a result,
ognized as the greatest virtuoso pianist loved, who so loved desperately the was never performed in his lifetime.
of her time. The orchestra was con- piano, one day knew another love: the It’s not clear why Wittgenstein
ducted by Ferdinand Hiller, to whom violin family. He offered this new love chose the Ravel, because it too presents
the concerto is dedicated. Clara played remarkable pieces, including a concerto enormous technical difficulties. I have
it again in Leipzig the following year, for cello, and another for violin, plus selected it because I am more sensitive
this time with the orchestra conducted two violin sonatas. Still to come also to Ravel’s music, which once again enby none other than Felix Mendelssohn. were two pieces for piano and orchestra, chanted me in the highest sense of that
earlier
What long-time
readers and
tell us
they most
like aboutterm.
UHFIf isyou
thatknow
it Ravel’s La Valse, you
It should be said that a decade
the Introduction
Allegro
Appassionato
does
more
than
review
amplifiers
and
speakers.
Mendelssohn had premiered Clara’s in G Major and the Introduction and Al- will understand me, for in several reIn every legro
issue,Concertante
we discuss in
ideas.
own Concerto in A Minor. It is a magnifiD Minor. Schumann gards you will find echoes of it in this
We
try
to
tell
you
what
you
know, besides what
CD player to
cent gift he has left us, one of the great also worked on solo need
concerto.
violintoarrangements
buy.
concertos of the Romantic period, a of some of the great works of Bach and However Ravel never heard it in its
It’s one ofPaganini.
the features that makes UHF Magazine final
unlike
any other
masterpiece, a half hour of tenderness
form.
It was premiered in Vienna
audio
magazine.
and passion, of absolute pleasure. It is
in 1932 by Wittgenstein, who chose to
believed that Grieg took inspiration From the 19th to the 20th Century
arrange it for twin pianos rather than pifrom it in the creation of his own con- Throughout the 19th Century, the ano and orchestra. “I’m an old pianist,”
piano and the violin were the favored Wittgenstein told the crestfallen Ravel,
certo.
The Allegro Affettuoso, opens with a instruments of composers who were “and this doesn’t work.” Replied Ravel,
single powerful measure by the orches- themselves virtuoso musicians. Think “I’m an old orchestrator, and it does
tra. The piano enters immediately with of Franz Liszt, of Frédéric Chopin, or work.” Ravel abruptly left Vienna, and
energetic chords, and the orchestra re- of the sorcerer of the violin, Niccolò used his influence to prevent Wittgenturns to take up the dialog. The strings Paganini. Their skill expressed itself stein from performing it in France. By
introduce a melody of great beauty in the cadenza, once an improvised the time Jacques Février played it in
tinged with melancholy, and the piano segment like those that would later be Paris with Charles Munch on the podevelops it with the accompaniment of common in jazz, but since Beethoven dium, in 1937, Ravel was dead.
the strings and the rest of the orchestra. mostly written out explicitly, to avoid Much later, Wittgenstein expressed
regrets. “It always takes me a certain
The superb theme is never far away, and distasteful flights of fancy.
it returns regularly, amid fiery passages The 20th Century produced remark- time to get into a piece of music,” he
that set up captivating tension. The able composers who left us masterpiec- said. “I suppose Ravel was bitterly dis-
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Not just hardware…
the Gershwin manner.
In listening to this concerto, you
must let yourself be swept up in a
maelstrom of notes that yields the illusion that there are two hands on the
keyboard. And especially, you must let
yourself be intoxicated by the perfection
of the counterpoints that contributed to
Ravel’s reputation as a master of orchestration.
This concerto, I believe, illustrates
perfectly the battle that a solo instrument can wage against a large orchestra. A suggestion: listen to La Valse just
before settling into the Concerto for the
Left Hand. It is today a favorite of piano
virtuosos.
George Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F
What an extraordinary life is that
of George Gershwin (1898-1937), and
what a musical heritage he left us: a
jazz-classical fusion, eternal melodies
that are part of the American soul, and
such works as the Rhapsody in Blue and
the Concerto in F.
This last work was composed in
1925 for the New York Symphony Society, commissioned by the conductor
Walter Damrosch. He had been present
the previous year at New York’s Aeolian
Hall at the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue,
with its long, troubling opening clarinet
glissando, which literally mesmerizes
the listeners.
Energetic, audacious, classical but
with a Blues flavor, the single-movement Rhapsody marked the beginning of
what was to be called sophisticated jazz.
At the premiere Gershwin himself was
at the piano, with Paul Whiteman conducting. There was wild applause when
it was over.
The next day it was Damrosch’s turn
to be excited and insistent, and he con-
tacted Gershwin to ask him for a concerto in the classical style for the New
York Symphony Orchestra.
Quite aware of his limitations as an
orchestrator (his Rhapsody had been orchestrated by Ferde Grofé), Gershwin
rushed out to buy all the treatises he
could on theory, the concerto form, and
orchestration. Tied by contracts to create three Broadway musical comedies,
Gershwin was not able to begin work
until his return from London. In July he
wrote the first movement of what was
initially dubbed the New York Concerto.
The second movement came in August,
the third in September. He completed
the orchestration by November 10th.
For the 1925 premiere Gershwin
hired 60 musicians. Damrosch was
there to offer suggestions, leading to
last-moment revisions. Damrosch of
course conducted the New York Symphony, with the composer at the piano.
They played to a sold-out house, and
the public greeted the work with enthusiasm. One cannot say the same of
the professional critics, who couldn’t
decide whether the concerto was classical music or jazz. As for Gershwin’s colleagues, Igor Stravinsky found the concerto inspired, while Sergei Prokofiev,
apparently unable to accept that much
novelty, detested it.
There are three movements, an Allegro, an Adagio/Andante con moto, and
an Allegro Agitato. There are some
similarities between the first and third
movements, but the second is decidedly
jazzy.
What about the orchestration? British composer William Walton, known
not only for his talent but also for his
modernism, said he adored Gerhwin’s
orchestration, which included two flutes
and a piccolo, two oboes, a French horn,
two B-Flat clarinets, a bass clarinet, two
bassoons, four horns in A, three B-Flat
trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, tympani, three percussionists, strings, and
of course the piano.
George Gershwin was a phenomenal melodist and a composer of genius,
arguably one of the greatest of the New
World. His Concerto in F is one of the
truly great masterpieces for piano, and
it has an eternal place in the world repertoire.
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appointed, and I’m truly sorry. But no
one ever taught me to hide my feelings.
It was only later, after studying the concerto during long months, that I became
fascinated with it, and realized what a
great work it was.”
Ravel, having been himself a soldier,
and saddened by what had happened to
Wittgenstein, expressed through the
concerto all of the horror that war inspired in him. I can add not a word to
this appreciation by the eminent French
pianist and teacher Marguerite Long.
Everything here is grandiose, monumental, in keeping with the flamboyant
horizons, the monstrous holocausts, which
consume the body and engulfs the spirit, vast
human herds grimacing with suffering and
anguish. This colossal fresco, on the scale of
a burnt-out world, is the five fingers of the
left hand, queen of ill omens, which sketch
its tart lines.
Lasting some 20 minutes, this concerto is a veritable challenge for the
virtuoso. It begins with the orchestra in
the lower register for the cellos, against
which the contrabassoon and the horns
develop the melody. This first theme,
exalting but tinged with resignation,
will return frequently. The piano bursts
forth with violent chords that overwhelm the orchestra. Then comes the
first of two cadenzas, both fraught with
difficulty.
A complex accompaniment in the
middle register lends support to the
melody, and then the full orchestra returns, amplifying the theme exposed by
the piano.
One is reduced to silence when, in
an atmosphere of apocalypse, the piano
rains notes down on the orchestral instruments. One is suffused with a sentiment of mystery, unexplainable, as we
approach an increasingly worrisome
paroxysm. Suddenly the brass explodes
into a march tempo as the second part of
the concerto opens. Against this martial
rhythm the piano introduces a colorful
dance clearly inspired by jazz. Ravel, it
should be said, loved jazz and greatly
admired George Gershwin, whom he
considered a genius. The two composers in fact had a reciprocal influence.
The result was that Gershwin gained in
refinement of his orchestrations thanks
to Ravel, while Ravel was inspired by
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and Albert Simon
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hear the flutes of Beethoven’s Pastoral
Symphony.) After a superb bird duo of
f lute and voice, the piece ends on a
breathtaking (yes, I know, it’s an easy
one) solo flute.
My jaw dropped.
Handel Arias
Karina Gauvin/Tempo Rubato
Atma ACD2 2589
Simon: Handel must have written his
arias for Karina Gauvin! I can almost
see him smiling in the shadows, eyes
shut, eyebrows raised, as she opens her
poignant rendition of his sublime Lascia
ch’io pianga.
If you know this famous melody
that Handel originally wrote for his
opera Rinaldo, you’ll want to hear
how Gauvin reaches into the depths
of sorrow, her voice riding a wave of
melancholy, richer and warmer than I’ve
ever heard it, easily reaching now into
the mezzo range. The period strings of
the Tempo Rubato ensemble seem to
sigh and weep along, under the skilful
conducting of Alexander Weimann at
the harpsichord.
If you don’t know this aria, what
can I say? Only that I envy you for the
revelation that awaits you.
All through this recording, Karina
Gauvin’s color has the warmth and depth
of a finely-polished string instrument,
and at times the rich glow of a brass
instrument — as in Ah! think what ills
from the oratorio Hercules, in which she
easily rises and shines way above the
stage.
Brace yourself for track 16, a
wonderfully intricate and elaborate
nightingale aria, introduced by a flute
and the harpsichord, and soon joined
by Karina’s controlled fluttering voice.
(Listen carefully and you’ll almost
Bach: Goldberg Variations
Crow, McNabney, Haimovitz
Oxingale OX2014
Rejskind: These famous Bach variations
weren’t written for a string trio, but Bach
himself was nothing if not pragmatic
when it came to instrumentation. Some
of his best-known large-scale pieces
were for “klavier,” which then meant
either the harpsichord or the pipe
organ, instruments so different that the
keyboard was all they had in common.
Even so, Bach would sometimes play
his keyboard works on the guitar, more
portable than either of the other two
instruments. The music is what counts.
Indeed, the most famous recordings
of the Goldbergs are those of Glenn
Gould (his very first recording was
of the Goldbergs, and so was his last).
Gould played them on the piano, and
always argued that if Bach lived today
he would too. Over the years Bach has
been rendered by jazz bands, scat singers
and saxophones. All considered, then, a
string trio cannot truly be considered
outrageous.
The stor y of the Goldbergs is
well k nown, though, like all good
stories, it could easily be mere legend.
The variations were commissioned by
Count Keyserlingk, who suffered from
insomnia. He would go to sleep to the
sound of the Variations played by his
court composer and harpsichordist,
Johann Goldberg. So it is said.
Some of the music is not exactly
soporific (the Variation V is downright
frenzied), and I’m not sure how effective
the set would have been as a lullaby.
The work is, however, a monument —
one more — in the collection of Bach’s
music. It begins and ends with the Aria,
which is of course the melody which
serves as the basis of the variations. It is a
beautiful air, which is no surprise, but the
variations that follow are breathtaking in
their freshness and inventiveness. Even
for Bach, they are astonishing.
This work lends itself well to
complex instrumentation, because Bach
relied on canons in its development. A
canon is a melody in parts (like Frère
Jacques), and it can be played on the
keyboard, since the musician has two
hands, but using a string trio opens
new possibilities. This arrangement was
created by the Russian-born violinist
Dmitri Sitkovetsky, who by the way
dedicated the arrangement to Glenn
Gould.
The trio includes Canadian violinist
Jonathan Crow, former first violin of the
Montreal Symphony, and the youngest
ever to hold that position, violist Douglas
McNabney and cellist Matt Haimovitz.
Their playing is clear and coherent,
as it must be in order for the complex
musical structure of Bach’s music to
make sense. Both the arrangement and
the performance throw new light on this
beloved Bach work.
My only reservation, but it’s a
major one, concerns the recording,
which sounds like a throwback to the
early era of digital recording, with an
overly-crystalline, tipped-up top end.
Even on our Linn Unidisk player,
Crow’s violin was disturbingly sharp,
bordering on shrill. I shudder to think
how it would sound on a lesser player.
Too bad, because both the music and
the musicians deserve better.
Immortal Nystedt
Ensemble96 & Bærum Vokalensemble
2L 04 1888 510321
Rejskind: Why is this vocal group called
Ensemble96? Its founding members
were the chamber choir of the Oslo
Philharmonic Orchestra, which was
disbanded in the year 1996. Since then
they have been performing and recording
as an independent group, under Øystein
Fevang, who was a soloist with the
original choir. Ensemble96 is joined
in this recording by a female choir, the
Bærum Vocal Ensemble, whose original
conductor was none other than Fevang
himself (it is now conducted by Anine
Kruse).
Composer K nut Nystedt, born
in 1916, draws his inspiration from
philosophy (the opening work on this
recording is titled Prayers of Kierkegaard,
after Søren K ierkegaard) but also
Christian perspectives. In the latter
Nystedt of course does as Bach did,
and indeed Nystedt lists Bach among
his influences. Another influence he
lists is Palestrina, and the complex
polyphonic music, with no instrumental
accompaniment, does recall Palestrina.
However the often dissonant vocal
streams are at the same time decidedly
modern. But then Nystedt also lists
among h is inf luences St rav insk y,
Honneger, Messiaen and Ligeti, the
who’s who of what used to be called
contemporary music.
Most of the pieces on this disc are for
mixed choir. Salve Regina is for the rich
male voice of Ensemble96. Nytt er livet is
for female choir, and was commissioned
by the Bærum Vocal Ensemble when
Favang was its conductor. Particularly
notable is the solo soprano, Gea Aartun,
whose soaring voice is a delight.
The recording ends with Immortal
Bach, a Nystedt arrangement of Bach’s
Komm, süsser Tod (“Come, sweet Death”).
Here the choirs are divided into five
groups, with each line of text passed
among them. The spatial effect in this
brief piece is surprising. If you can listen
to this hybrid multichannel SACD, it
gets even more surprising.
Unaccompanied choral music may
not seem to be for everyone, but the
album did garner Grammy nominations
for both best choral album and best
surround sound album.
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Sullivan/Sibelius: The Tempest
Stern/Kansas City Symph.
Reference Recordings RR-115
Simon: The mysterious opening of
Sir A rthur Sullivan’s introduction
has that beckoning way of drawing
you right into the music and creating
great expectations for what follows. It
is also its main problem. I mean about
expectations.
K n o w i n g S u l l i v a n’s f a m o u s
collaboration with librettist William
Shwenck Gilbert (yes, of Gilbert and
Sullivan fame) I expected so much
more, and yet I don’t know in what way.
The music is superbly played and finely
recorded (24-bit HDCD), yet it left me
waiting for something more. This score
was Sullivan’s first orchestral work. He
was 19 when he wrote it in 1861 during
his graduation year. Maybe that explains
some of it. Not sure.
Here is an interesting contrast.
Jean Sibelius wrote his music for The
Tempest in 1925, when he was 60. And,
with Tapiola, that was his last orchestral
composition. (Incidentally, The Tempest
was also Shakespeare’s last major work.)
Sibelius was then the absolute master of
orchestration and, trust me, it shows in
every section of the two concert suites
presented here. The Prelude explodes in
depicting the terrifying violence of the
storm at sea that Prospero magically
su m mons f rom t he shores of t he
enchanted island where he is exiled. The
charming inventiveness of the music and
the fascinating orchestration continues
to delight throughout the scenes. Each
character is depicted with his own aura of
grace, mischief or mystery, and I found
myself happily transported from a song
to a dance to a lullaby.
I felt as if Sibelius hadn’t just written
incidental music for the play, as he was
commissioned to do, but was inspired by
the play to write his own music.
And perhaps that is the difference
from Sullivan’s approach. Sullivan’s is a
good accompaniment to the play, while
Sibelius’ composition (in these two
concert suites) lives on and transcends
it.
By the way, Reference Recordings
released a CD in 1988 (RR-10), recorded
in 1981, prior to HDCD, also entitled
The Tempest. It is the ballet music for the
same play composed by Paul Shihara,
also known for his movie scores such as
Prince of the City and Crossing Delancey.
Nordheim
Arne Nordheim
2L 39 SACD
Simon: Turning over the SACD booklet
I noticed a warning on the back: Extreme
Surround Sound! Wow, said I, maybe
they’re onto something, could it be a
sign of things to come? Marketing for
budding 12-year old audiophiles, taking
a breather from video games? Hold the
sarcasm, I decided, as I sat to listen to
it.
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And I was floored. This is good
stuff.
W here I expected undefinable
pieces with an emphasis on overdone
special effects, I found remarkable music
and an exceptional recording. Norwegian
composer Arne Nordheim’s music is
a constantly changing combination
of textures and atmosphere, perfectly
suited to organ, synthesizer, electronic
processes and an inf inite array of
percussion. You might not find tunes
to whistle along on your way to work,
but if you allow yourself to be carried
away by the sound, you might discover,
in Colorazione, worlds of fantasy rising
from a slow, mysterious beginning and
broadening in waves of sound you can
almost touch. I listened, smiling, as the
subtle weaving filled the space totally,
at times, and as a dark silence suddenly
followed, sprinkled with the tinkling
of bright, tiny bells suspended in space.
(The booklet accurately explains the
electronic process in this piece, whereby
the music played by the Cikada Duo is
continuously recorded and played back
with a 15 seconds delay, but, I prefer
to leave technical information where it
belongs and just share my impressions
in this text.)
A gong proudly opens the five-part
composition Fem Kryptofonier, and in
the ensuing avalanche of percussion
Elisabeth Holmertz’s soprano voice rises
from the chaos, surrounded by delicate
rustles and rich carillon bells. Surprises
at every turn, intriguing, dripping
sounds and mysterious groans appearing
in a huge space all around you, shrouded
in mystery; a soundscape labyrinth, not
always pleasant, even irritating at times
and yet riveting — if you are willing to
let go of conventions and embrace the
new.
And, suddenly, there is Den Første
Sommerfugl (The First Butterf ly) a
lovely song for soprano, synthesizer and
percussion, based on a charming poem
by Henryk Wiergeland.
The sunshine is but winter smiling.
And warmth the equinox beguiling.
Wr a p p e d i n a n e n c h a nt i n g
melody, it is a surprisingly conventional
conclusion to this fascinating insight
into the contemporary world of Arne
Nordheim.
stories at sea were sung in mournful
laments.
Yes, the uniquely evocative character
of this recording is its main appeal for
me. No need to close your eyes. It is so
well recorded that everything is palpable,
right there in front and around the
speakers. Bon voyage.
The Miraculous Crossing
La Nef/Les Charonniers de l’Enfer
Atma ACD2 2588
Simon: Hey dom, ta ri dom, ta ri le la le
ri dom, ta ri le la ri dey di…
Out of the void rises a single man’s
voice singing a quiet tune, as if to
himself, on a large stage surrounded
by darkness. And then slowly, almost
timidly, the low voices of a cello and a
double bass join in from the recessed
right corner, creating that wonderfully
satisfying support. Soon after, the stage
lights up as more male voices join in
with gentle harmonies, and as layers
and layers of flute, guitar, cittern and
percussion dance in with smiles and
joy.
Les Charbon niers de l’Enfer,
Quebec’s a capella group of five, have
been sharing their passion for the oral
tradition with audiences for the last
ten years. They are joined here by La
Nef, a musical group well known for
its production of early music (it has
previously recorded with Analekta and
Dorian). There are plenty of Baroque
music recordings featuring authentic
instruments, but to me they often sound
cold and overly well-behaved, a polished
memory of times long gone. In this case,
however, it felt as if I walked through
a wall and stepped right into a 17th or
18th Century tavern. The songs took me
to a world of crowded, dimly lit rooms,
wooden tables and red wine poured from
earthenware jugs. It smelled of smoke,
food and burning oil. Muddy feet tapped
on the dusty floors and spoons danced
lightly on the knees. And from time to
time, mainly late into the night or early
morning, the silence settled in as tragic
The Best of Audiophile Classics
Various artists
Opus 3 CD22080
Rejskind: Opus 3 co-founder Jan-Eric
Persson is still turning out new releases
more than three decades after the launch
of his audiophile label, but he has wisely
been dipping into his rich vaults and
pulling out treasures of the past. Recent
releases included selections from the first
three “test records” (actually samplers),
and also swing jazz performances from
vibraphonist Lars Erstrand (Swingcerely
Yours, CD22081). Now he has a disc full
of his early classical releases, plus some
more recent ones.
Fortunately he was using a brand
of analog tape not overly prone to rapid
deterioration — not all audiophile
record producers were as lucky. I have
access to a number of the original LPs
that made Jan-Eric famous, and I can say
that the transfer to SACD is well done.
Especially notable is Lars-Erik
Larsson’s Concertino for Double Bass and
Strings, which, against all odds, turned
into onto one of the label’s best-sellers.
The rich resonance of Thorval Fredin’s
giant instrument has a visceral effect on
the listener. There is a part of a Brahms
clarinet trio, and the Larghetto from
Beethoven’s pre-Romantic Symphony
No. 2. There is an amazing arrangement
of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte
in a surprising but wholly successful
arrangement for guitar quartet. There
is a lovely Andante from a Schubert
Trio, and there is even music by Frank
Zappa.
Persson has also thrown in some
more recent releases. The album opens
with the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D
Minor from Organ Treasures (CD22031).
And there is the all-too-brief Candlelight
Carol by the Erik Westberg Vocal
Ensemble. By the way, if you want to
demonstrate how well your system can
simulate the illusion of great depth, look
no further.
I heartily recommend this album,
but beware! You’ll be ordering the
full albums by the time this SACD is
through.
Le piano et la voix
Martin Deschamps
MDI PMD2-3685
Rejsk ind: This new recording by
Deschamps is something of a change of
pace. Known as a rocker, he breaks new
ground in this recording, in which he
sings his songs, some of them ballads
some of them not, with a constellation
of star pianists, including Vic Vogel,
Lorraine Desmarais, “Mégo” (Céline
Dion’s pianist), and Guy St-Onge.
Deschamps says he wanted to do an
album with only piano accompaniment
so that he could leave the way clear for
the more “theatrical” aspects of his
singing voice.
This is Deschamps’ sixth album, but
for those who don’t know him, I shall add
a detail that is obvious neither from the
recording nor from the booklet photos.
He was born grievously handicapped,
with but one leg, and with a vestigial
arm whose hand is not fully formed. He
had an electric bass modified so he could
play it. “You need two fingers to play the
bass,” he says, “and that’s just how many
I have.” He used to wear a prosthetic leg,
but has abandoned it “because it made
it impossible for me to dance,” he says.
He gets about with crutches attached
to his arms, and commonly finishes a
number by raising them high in the air.
Do people stare? “Yes, but it’s better than
before I was famous, because then they
wouldn’t dare look at me.”
But I mention all this only in
case you don’t know him, because his
awesome talent has nothing to do with
any handicap. He has become popular
because his music is powerful, joyous,
appealing.
In the title song that opens this new
album, he explains why he doesn’t need
a big orchestra to dazzle you.
Pas besoin d’un grand orchestre
Ni de grandes paraboles
Pour trouver une façon
De te donner des frissons.
Those words are from Deschamps
himself, but he has enrolled other artists
for other songs. Dans ta peau is from Paul
Baillargeon, who also supplies the music
from some of the songs. Pas grand chose
was composed by famed singer Daniel
Lavoie, on lyrics by Brice Homs. La voix
que j’ai (literally “the voice I’ve got”)
is from the late gravel-voiced Quebec
rocker Gerry Boulet.
Entirely from Deschamps’ pen is
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A Fragile Balance
Ray Montford
Softail AFB07LP
Rejskind: Ray Montford is a Torontobased guitarist one of whose major
influences is rock music, though it is easy
to hear that another source is the vast
catchall called World music. No pure
acoustic instruments here. Montford
plays electric guitar and is also credited
on the jacket with “textures,” which I
presume refers to the sonic effects that
make the sound of his instrument float in
the vast space. He is backed up by other
musicians, including brilliantfish (Rob
Greenway, who adds percussion, more
textures, his voice on Honour This Land,
and who also designed the jacket), bassist
John Dymond, cellist George Koller, and
pianist and B3 organist Steve O’Connor.
There are plenty of electronic effects,
from reverberation to vibrato.
How would one classify Montford’s
music? Jazz? No doubt, though it’s a long
way from classic jazz. Blues? Possibly.
Rock? Not really, notwithstanding the
obvious influences. New Age? That’s
become an awfully broad descriptive
today, but it might fit too.
The album’s sound doesn’t vary
enormously, which makes the titles (The
Healing, Blind to Beauty, I Hear You Now,
etc.) seem superfluous, but I don’t mean
to suggest that it is either monotonous or
repetitive, and the sound of Montford’s
guitar is not always the same from track
to track. The space sometimes grows,
sometimes contracts to become more
intimate. Each piece seems to hand off
logically from the preceding one, with
inventive melodic development that
opens up new textures. Yes, textures. By
the time you arrive at the end the term
makes perfect sense.
This LP, which is also available on
CD, includes thanks to Vince Bruzzese
and Totem Acoustic for encouragement.
It’s difficult to speak of fidelity in rating
this album, because it is largely a pure
sonic creation, and not any sort of
faithful reproduction, but by the last
track I was totally won over. A second
listen left me even more delighted.
Though mastering of both the LP
and the CD were done in California,
the jacket says the record was “made in
Canada,” which may or may not include
the pressing. Except for a slight cyclic
swish that mars the final seconds of the
last track on side two, it is exemplary.
There is a fascinating game to be
have the family photo taken if Michael is not in it. He tells Johnny Fontaine played, because so many of the characters
that “a man who doesn’t spend time seem to be based on real persons. Roth
with his family can never be a real man.” is clearly based on Meyer Lansky, for
The second most important is respect, instance. Singer Johnny Fontaine is
and Don Vito explains the concept to inspired by Frank Sinatra, who was also
Bonasera in clear terms. The third is a trapped in a contract with a bandleader
certain code of honor. When Bonasera until somehow he got out of it, and
(presumably) whispers to Don Vito that who was easily persuaded to become a
he wants those who beat his daughter headliner at the casinos of his friends and
killed, Don Vito replies, “that I cannot benefactors. The Senate Commission
do.” That is not justice, he says, because into organized crime, which subpoenas
Bonasera’s daughter still lives. Don Vito Michael to appear before it, is of course
later says that “we are not murderers.” the Kefauver Commission (Kefauver
Well, he and his family are in fact himself would use the commission as
murderers, but there are nuances that a ramp to an unsuccessful bid for the
the Mafia considers important, even if Vice-Presidency).
For many admirers of The Godfather,
the criminal justice system does not.
So awesomely plausible is Marlon the third film is an anomaly that should
Brando’s depiction of the Mafia chieftain not have been made, unfit to be part of
that we quickly feel that we are part of the trilogy. I firmly disagree with this
his family, even if we view with dismay view. Francis Ford Coppola did pack his
the amputation of equine heads. It is, productions with members of his family
however, in the second film that we (Talia Shire, who plays Connie, is his
come to understand how Vito Corleone sister). It can be argued that his daughter
became what he became, and why Sofia was an unfortunate last-moment
The Godfather Trilogy (Blu-ray)
his life is the perfect bridge between choice as Mary Corleone, and indeed she
Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane
the centuries-old ethos of Sicily and would later make her mark as a director
Keaton
southern Italy and the free-market rather than as an actress. However the
Paramount 13864
Rejskind: In the early days of Blu-ray I capitalism of the New World. Though rest of the cast is strong, with Andy Garcia
wondered when — if ever — the great Godfather II was much criticized for its as Sonny’s illegitimate son Vincent being
movies would come out. So many of the flashbacks when it first came out, those particularly excellent. In one of the film’s
first releases seemed to be based on video flashbacks are the key to understanding powerful scenes, Vincent dispatches a
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for det
isaithe
that I look forward to even the most
Michael and a corrupt senator. There each of the characters is based on, the
familiar scenes with relish.
Start with the remarkable opening is the extended Cuban sequence, which third, set in more recent times, really
segment in Don Vito’s dark office, with implicitly condemns the US policy on moves into realistic territory. Several of
Bonasera asking for vengeance for the Cuba since 1959. There are the delicious the characters are clearly identifiable,
mutilation of his daughter. The sequence scenes involving the Jewish mobster including Pope John Paul I, whom the
tells us much of what we need to know Hyman Roth (superbly played by Lee film clearly shows as the victim of an
about the mindset of the Mafia. The Strasberg), ending with his shooting assassination. Did this happen? Many
most valued aspect of life is family: Don in a scene that is a perfect duplicate of people believe it did. Was a VaticanVito cannot refuse a favor the day of Jack Ruby’s public assassination of Lee connected financier, “God’s banker,”
found hanged from a London bridge?
his daughter’s wedding, and he will not Oswald.
Ma petite douceur, a love hymn to his
five-year old daughter. Moving and
gorgeous!
Depending on where you live this
recording may not be available except on
line. I recommend making the effort.
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A
e
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r
F
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Indeed he was, and mere months ago
this apparent suicide case was reopened,
because police now believe he did not
commit suicide after all (perhaps one
of the detectives saw the movie). Best
of all, we follow what happens to the
characters we have grown to care about
after the end of the second film. We see
Michael, “respectable” now, striving to
lead his family toward the light, as he
once promised Kay he would. We see
Kay, remarried, still repulsed by the
ancient murderous traditions of Sicily,
but haunted by an abiding love for her
former husband. And we see how it
all ends. Who could ask for anything
Rick his dossier, but purrs reassuringly,
more?
“Don’t worry, we are not going to
This new version of the trilogy,
broadcast it.” But what could be worse
released in both conventional DVD
than the Germans knowing about his
and Blu-ray, has been cleaned up and
record? In the Paris f lashback, Sam
remastered. The first film, being the
oldest, required the most work, and
remarks that the invading Germans
it shows. The original film was dark,
will come looking for Rick first thing.
often deliberately underexposed, and
Right…as they marched into Paris the
the years have not been kind to it. The
Germans wouldn’t be busy with other
restoration was done by punching up its
matters or anything! We see Captain
contrast in order to make the dark scenes
Renault ostensibly meeting Ilsa for the
first time, even though earlier he told
black rather than brownish-grey. The
Rick that “I have seen the lady.” In the
result is, however, that the highlights get
opening scene we meet what seem to be
alarmingly blown out. At the outdoor
a pair of British tourists. How likely is it
wedding party, anything white, such
that, when their country is at war with
as Connie’s wedding dress, has not a
Germany, and while Germany occupies
shred of detail in it. Perhaps that was
France, they would be vacationing in
unavoidable. The second and third films
French Morocco? A nd what would
have fewer problems, and look and sound
bankers from Amsterdam and Berlin be
Casablanca (Blu-ray)
gorgeous.
doing in that city?
Contrast notwithstanding, Blu-ray Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman
And yet, and yet!
offers a broader tonal scale than lesser Warner 3000018304
Casablanca is widely admired as one
video processes, and that lets you see Rejskind: Is Casablanca the best film ever and understand some scenes better, made? In fact its flaws are all too evident. of the most perfect films ever made, and
because you can follow small details Let’s begin with the “McGuffin,” the certainly the one that lends itself best to
even when bright lights are not trained script’s motivational device. Why do repeated viewing. There are numerous
reasons
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like the
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story of a family and indeed an important
MagZee. too. Major Strasser arrives on what is most beautiful women to be sure, but
part of North American social history. purported to be the plane from Lisbon, also arguably the greatest actress of her
When it is over, we are ready to begin rather than one from Germany or one time. Sam seems irreplaceable as well.
of the occupied countries. Strasser shows Who but Claude Rains could project the
again.
Feedback
Software
suave cynicism of Renault, along with
the warmth of his friendship for Rick?
Even the minor characters — Karl,
Sacha, Yvonne, Ugarte, Ferrari, and
the unnamed elderly couple headed for
America — are memorable, and their
performances are part of the pleasure
of seeing the film again and again.
There is the skilful direction of
Michael Curtiz, who wove frequent
reaction shots into the flow of the story.
The eyes of the actors tell us as much as
the dialog.
But oh, the dialog! I cannot think of
another film that can be so enjoyed for
what is said as much as what is shown on
the screen. The documentary which has
accompanied several versions of the film
tells the story of the script development,
but I am not sure it tells the whole tale. It
is widely known that even once shooting
had begun there were script problems,
and the studio brought in a “script
doctor,” Howard Koch. In his early
20’s Koch had been writing for Orson
Welles’ Mercury Theater, and it was he
who caused a continent-wide panic with
his all-too-plausible script for The War of
the Worlds. I suspect it was also he who
was responsible for some of Casablanca’s
most memorable lines.
Consider how much of the dialog
is universally recognizable even outside
its context. When we hear someone say
that “I am shocked, shocked,” we know
he isn’t shocked at all, and we understand
why. How many times have you heard
the line “round up the usual suspects”?
Or “Here’s looking at you, kid”? You
can quote whole sections of the text,
and everyone will know the reference.
Example: “ Of all the gin joints in all
the towns in all the world, she walks into
mine.” Or “You’ll regret it, maybe not
today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon,
and for the rest of your life.” Or “We’ll
always have Paris.” Or “I think this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Beyond all that, there is Casablanca
as a real place in a real time. Curtiz
set this up wonderfully. At the very
start of the film we see the incoming
plane arriving behind the sign of Rick’s
Café Américain. In a few lines we are
introduced to it. “I have already heard
about this café, and about Monsieur Rick
himself,” says Major Strasser. Renault
even utters the line “Everybody comes
to Rick’s,” which was the title of the
unproduced play on which the film is
based. And then watch carefully what
happens. We see several persons enter
Rick’s, and we ourselves sweep past the
doorman into the increasingly familiar
place. We feel as though we can always
cross space and time and return to that
smoky saloon in Morocco as time goes
by.
I am still a little disturbed by the
way Sam is treated. Though he is a
major character, the actor who plays
him, Dooley Wilson, is well down in
the credits. Ilsa refers to him as “the boy
who’s playing the piano.” And at the end
Rick is willing to go off with his nemesis
Renault, but when he sells his café to
Ferrari he throws Sam in apparently as
a bonus (so much for his statement that
“I don’t buy or sell human beings”).
The re-release of Casablanca in Bluray is good news, but does the higher
definition add anything to the already
superb DVD? It does. Though many
older movies look fuzzy despite extensive
restoration, Casablanca looks as though
the film stock has just returned from
the lab, with a rich range of tones. You
can see how Curtiz has managed to
keep much of Rick’s in focus despite the
slower film formulations of the day (and
even one brief scene in which Ilsa is in
the foreground but not quite in focus, a
mistake not detectable in the DVD).
Most of all, you can look clearly
into the shadows. When we first see
Sam at the piano, there is a woman on
a stool just to the piano’s right (see the
picture on this page). I had always been
aware of her, but on the Blu-ray version
I could see she finds Sam to her taste,
and she overreacts to every line of his
song hoping he will notice her. In every
scene, the huge dynamic range throws
the spotlight on fleeting moments that
might otherwise go unnoticed,
I was amused to see that, in this
elaborate re-release, the producers
failed to correct an absurdity in the
subtitles. Both the English and Spanish
subtitles tells us that the famous letters
of transit were signed by General De
Gaulle. This makes no sense, since De
Gaulle’s signature would be respected
neither by the Germans nor by the Vichy
government, which had condemned him
to death in absentia. The soundtrack
and the French subtitles get it right: the
letters bear the signature of General
Weygand, then France’s Minister of
Defense, whatever that means in an
occupied country.
Yes, Casablanca is one of the best
movies ever made. Its appearance in the
Blu-ray format is yet another reason to
buy a Blu-ray player.
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Gossip&News
Mastering Studio in the Countryside
W
h ere i s St- Ca l i x te ,
anyway? Better bring
you r GPS, bec au se
there aren’t any neon
signs to guide your way. But don’t be
surprised that musician and producer
Guy St-Onge didn’t build his Studio
Référence, or his new mastering lab, in
Montreal next to the autoroute. Not for
naught was his own record label called
Silence.
That’s St-Onge at right, next to UHF
editor Gerard Rejskind, behind the
console of the room that will be used
for mastering his productions, and of
course those of his clients. St-Onge is
the compleat musician if ever there was
one, a Renaissance man who somehow
was born in the era of digital multitrack.
Need someone to compose and conduct
a score for a stage show or a movie? He’s
your man. Someone to do an orchestration for Céline Dion? No problem. In
one of his recordings (titled Musique
Guy St-Onge), he plays every one of the
instruments of several large orchestras.
Indeed, for the launch of the new
digs, called Pure Mastering, he had composed a fugue for the occasion, with an
instrument in each of the four channels.
That’s it at right, with the waveforms on
a giant Macintosh ProTools monitor. It
was the next best thing to inviting Bach
over to play his latest.
The mastering room is right next
to the main studio, with its panoramic
window overlooking a tranquil lake, in
what used to be a storage space. It’s no
closet, however, nor does it feel narrow
or closed in. Sit in the central stool
behind the console, surrounded by the
four giant custom-designed monitors,
and the walls seem to fall away. There
is only the music.
And there was enough space to apply
heavy-duty techniques for sound control.
St-Onge brought in Sylvain Barrette and
François Cardinal of Boréal Acoustics to
do the design. There are 430 suspended
panels at the rear, to absorb low frequen76   ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
cies. The front shell of the room weighs
two and a half tonnes, and was created
specially for Pure Mastering.
The loudspeakers (one large one in
each of the four corners of the room,
plus a smaller centre speaker for video
projects) were also from Boréal, as are
their associated electronic crossovers.
They are driven by Simaudio’s Moon
amplifiers. The large mixing console is
an H.M. Weiss 102. Other gear includes
such brands as emmLabs, Focusrite and
Manley. Though there are actual digital
tape recorders available (a pair of Sony
PCM-7050’s and a PCM-7030), the main
recorder is a Macintosh G5 equipped
with ProTools HD software.
But a studio and a mastering lab are
more than software. The small gravel
road leading to the nondescript build-
be played on conventional players too.
But that advantage never materialized,
because, as far as we can determine, only
four hybrid titles were ever produced.
But that’s the past. What about the
possibility of putting a DVD layer on a
Blu-ray disc? After all, there are Blu-ray
discs with a large number of layers. Can’t
one of them be dedicated to a red laser
instead of a blue-violet one?
This month such a disc is being
released in Japan by Pony/Canon
(Pony???). It looks a lot like a Blu-ray
and a DVD glued back to back.
Drawbacks? Hmm, yes. The Blu-ray
side will need extra compression. And it
will cost maybe five times the already
high Blu-ray price.
Keep working, people!
The UHF Reference Systems
Equipment reviews are done on at least one of
UHF’s reference systems, selected as working
tools. They are changed as infrequently as
possible.
ing (and St-Onge’s house next to it) is
difficult to negotiate, and even harder
to find. Artists and producers using the
facility don’t want crowds or paparazzi,
so that is a feature, not a bug. So is the
bucolic milieu. The lake, which you can
see in the picture above, is gorgeous in
all seasons, and it is not a source of noise.
“They don’t allow motorboats on it,” says
Guy St-Onge. Considering the size of
the studio window overlooking it, that’s
a major advantage.
W
hat is slowing the adoption of Blu-ray? No, it’s
not the sickly encroachment of high-definition
downloadable formats. It’s the (still)
huge price disparity between Blu-ray and
DVD versions of film releases.
But wait a minute. The reason there’s
a price difference is that studios are still
launching separate versions of their
films. Keeping double inventory is always
expensive, and the extra expense is being
borne by Blu-ray adopters. What if there
were no more double inventory?
One of the advantages claimed for the
defunct HD DVD format was that it was
possible to make a hybrid disc that could
Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1
Additional CD player: CEC TL-51X
belt-driven transport, Counterpoint
DA-10A converter with HDCD card.
Digital cable: Atlas Opus 1.5m
Digital portable: Apple iPod 60 Gb
Turntable: Audiomeca J-1
Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5
Pickup: Goldring Excel
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5
Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-5LE
Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar
OBX-R
Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1,
Atlas Navigator All-Cu
Loudspeaker cables: Atlas Mavros with
WBT nextgen banana connectors
Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld Aurora
AC filters: Foundation Research LC-2
(power amp), Inouye SPLC.
The Omega system
It serves for reviews of gear that cannot
easily fit into the Alpha system, with its small
room.
Digital players: shared with the Alpha
system
Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II
Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS
Pickup: London Reference
Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5
Preamplifier: Simaudio Moon P-8
The Kappa system
This is our home theatre system. As with the
original Alpha system, we had limited space,
and that pretty much ruled out huge projectors and two-metre screens. We did, however,
finally come up with a system whose performance gladdens both eye and ear, with the
needed resolution for reviews.
HDTV monitor: Samsung PN50A550
plasma screen
DVD player (provisional): Sony BDPS300 Blu-Ray player
Preamplifier/processor: Simaudio Moon
Attraction, 5.1 channel version
Power amplifiers: Simaudio Moon W-3
(main speakers), bridged Celeste 4070se
(centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear)
Main speakers: Energy Reference
Connoisseur
Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1
Rear speakers: Elipson 1400
Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics
Cables: Atlas, Van den Hul, MIT,
GutWire, Wireworld
Line filter: GutWire MaxCon Squared
All three systems have dedicated power lines,
with Hubbell hospital grade outlets. Extensions
and power bars are equipped with hospitalgrade connectors.
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Blu-ray and
DVD Make Nice?
The Alpha system
Our original reference is in a room with special
acoustics, originally a recording studio, letting
us hear what we can’t hear elsewhere.
Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-8
Loudspeakers: Reference 3a Suprema II
Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1,
Atlas Navigator All-Cu
Loudspeaker cables: Pierre Gabriel ML1 for most of the range, Wireworld Polaris
for the twin subwoofers.
Power cords: BIS Audio Maestro,
GutWire B-12, Wireworld
AC filters: GutWire MaxCon Squared,
Foundation Research LC-1
Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art panels
Goodbye Kuro
Gossip&News
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I
t’s well k nown t hat Pioneer’s
Kuro plasma TV’s were among
the best in the world. True, they
didn’t benefit from cutting-edge
research (you can’t get one with a 120
Hz frame rate, for example), but the
rich, deep blacks and excellent shadow
detail made them a favorite with serious
videophiles.
Only time and economics were
catching up to Pioneer. Panasonic’s
plasma screens also had deep blacks,
and it looked like a bad sign, last March,
when Pioneer announced it would close
its plasma plant, and buy its plasma
displays from…oh yes, Panasonic. Only
Pioneer’s TV sets cost double those of
Panasonic.
And now it’s all over. Pioneer is
abandoning TV sets altogether. You still
have time to get one, because they’ll be
around through 2010 and service will
be maintained after that. We’ve already
seen blowouts on Pioneer plasmas,
though not on the more desirable Elite
series.
What will Pioneer do now? It will
continue to make audio products and
even Blu-ray players, but it plans to
concentrate henceforth on 12V. Yes, that
stands for 12 volts, meaning car products. Hmm, yes, car sales are booming
now, aren’t they? Does Pioneer know
something we don’t?
Vizio says goodbye plasma
Over the past three years or so LCD
televisions have been getting better and
better. True, they had a long way to go.
The dread “screen door effect” is largely
gone, blacks are no longer light grey,
and the color palette is now suitable for
more than just Sunday morning cartoons. They’ll get better yet once LED
backlighting finally replaces fluorescent
tubes, as it has on some smaller sets.
Is that the reason that Vizio has
announced that it will stop making
plasmas and will focus on LCD panels?
Vizio bills itself as “America’s HDTV
company,” by which it means it is not
called Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba. It
likes to put the emphasis on value, which
in TV sets means low price. It has been
the go-to company if you wanted a
plasma TV but you couldn’t afford one
of the high-profile brands.
Only now it will stop selling plasmas,
and offer only LCD sets.
Why? Vizio says plasma sets are at
a disadvantage in overlit big-box stores,
because LCD sets can be cranked up to
be much, much brighter. The result, it
says, is that LCD’s sell faster. They are
no doubt right, though we have observed
that Cheez Whiz sells faster than Camembert. And your point is…?
Oh yes, Vizio is also suing a competitor, the Japanese company Funai
Electric, for “acting alone and in concert
with others, unlawfully restrained trade
and monopolized the market for the
licensing of technology used to interpret
and retrieve information from a digital
television broadcast signal, as well as
the market for digital television sets and
receivers.”
This is a complicated matter, and
that is why God made lawyers, but if we
understand correctly Funai had filed a
complaint for patent infringement. That
relevant patent was ultimately ruled
invalid, but — Vizio claims — Funai
then discriminated against Vizio in the
licensing of its technology.
Got that?
Laser TV sets on hold
Plasma and LCD are all very well,
but isn’t there some other, even better
technology coming?
There is indeed. And Mitsubishi’s
LaserVue sets seemed to be it.
The LaserVue set are bright, with
excellent contrast and a huge luminosity
range. They are, to sum it up in a single
word, spectacular. What’s not to like?
Well, there is the little matter of price,
some $7000 for the 65-inch (165 mm) set
shown here. Still, even in a major recession some people still have money.
But for now production of the LaserVue is on hold, and will remain that way
for the next few months. We’ll have to
soldier on with plasma.
Or LCD.
Anyone remember SED?
Sure you do. Three years ago, at the
Consumer Electronics Show, Toshiba
and Canon announced and showed off
a radically-different type of HDTV
panel, the SED (for surface-conduction
electron-emitter display). Think of a
cathode ray tube with a separate electron
gun for every single pixel.
of Canon, Tsuneji Uchida, “At times
like this, new display products are not
introduced much, because people would
laugh at them.”
But who can afford to laugh?
The great television switchoff
The present NTSC television system,
with images transmitted in amplitude
modulation and sound in frequency
modulation, was set up in 1941, though
it didn’t really take off until 1948 (four
years later in Canada). Now those venerable stations are beginning to leave the
airwaves.
converter boxes that would turn digital
signal into analog ones a conventional
TV could understand. Only it ran out
of them. And the makers of the boxes,
figuring anyone who needed one had
probably already bought one, shut down
production. In a panic, the US Congress
passed an emergency bill pushing off the
fatal date until June.
But not for everyone. The bill didn’t
force stations to stay on the analog airwaves, and many of them began switching off on the 18th anyway. A half million
watt transmitter burns through a lot of
electricity, and these days everyone is
looking to save money.
In Canada, the big switchoff doesn’t
come until 2011, but many viewers living
near the US border do watch American
stations, and the Canadian government
hasn’t been handing out coupons. To
make matters worse, electronics companies are still dumping onto the Canadian
market DVD recorders containing only
analog tuners.
As for us, we do, of course, have a
modern HDTV, with digital tuner, in
our Kappa reference system. But we
did need a converter for our Sony DVD
recorder. Where did we get one? At
Radio Shack…in the United States.
Not just hardware…
Gossip&News
Feedback
Now it’s easy to make claims, but
this was for real. The demo panel had
only 780-line resolution, but the huge
range of tones and colors was beyond
anything that had been shown in video
before. The prototype was from Canon,
which invented the system, but the new
company, SED Inc., was a partnership
between Canon and Toshiba. Tosh
Why? Because analog TV is being
promised the first SED sets in 2008, “at replaced by digital TV. Now, you know
competitive prices.”
us on the questions of analog versus
But then came the lawyers (remem- digital, but digital TV is a much more Selling the spectrum
Governments could just have let
ber them?). For its design, Canon had efficient way of transmitting, and it is the
stations decide what band to broadcast
obtained a license to use the technology carrier for HDTV. No contest.
of a company called Applied Nanotech.
Of course many households get their on, but in fact there’s a buck to be made
But that company insisted that the TV programs from cable or satellite, in the switchover. Analog TV channels
license was not given to Toshiba. Could and they don’t much care what’s being eat up lot of bandwidth, and with the
Tosh then get its own license? Sure, but broadcast over the air. But there are still explosive growth of wireless services
the Applied Nanotech people had seen millions of people across North America bandwidth can be sold.
What
readers
tellsets
us they
like about UHF
is that
it companies that bought
the same demo we had, and…the
pricelong-time
with analog
TV
tied most
to antennas.
Among
the
does
more
than
review
amplifiers
and
speakers.
of a license had gone up. Way up!
For many of them it’s now game over.
the soon-to-be-liberated bandwidth is
Inbut
every
wehaving
discussan
ideas.
And so Canon was all by itself,
it issue,
And
HDTV is not a guar- Qualcomm. It paid more than half a bil WeAnd
try toantee
tell you
what you need
to know,
besides what
player
has never been in the TV business.
of anything.
For years,
expensive
lionCD
dollars
toto
use the channel 55 space
buy.
while SED might be competitive against HDTV sets were billed as “digital- for 15 mobile video channels. It expected
wouldn’t
It’s one ofready.”
the features
makes
any to
other
the $8000 plasma of the time, it
All youthat
would
needUHF
to doMagazine
in order unlike
to be able
get its hands on what it had
audio
magazine.
be as competitive against $1000 plasmas, to get off-air HDTV would be to add a bought on February 18th, only suddenly
or $600 LCD’s.
digital tuner. Except that no one ever it couldn’t.
The lawyers fought it out anyway, did manufacture such tuners. Cable or
We presume that Qualcomm, and
and Canon finally got a judgment it satellite? No problem. An antenna? Five the other successful bidders for televiliked, allowing it to use the license in hundred channels of snow.
sion spectrum, have lawyers (remember
In the US the date for switching off them?).
a partnership with another company.
analog TV was February 17th. But a lot
Applied Nanotech declined to appeal.
M ind you, perhaps no one has
And for good reason. The red hot of people weren’t ready (with only three noticed this. TV waves don’t know about
SED had cooled considerably, and a years’ warning, how could they be?), and national boundaries, and Canada is still
license was no longer worth what it had actually neither was the US government. occupying those frequencies through
been worth before. Says the president It had been handing out $40 coupons for 2011. Could get interesting!
Still More News
Circuit City Says So Long
It was once one of the largest electronics chains in the US, but these are
not ordinary times. And the Circuit City
stores have had the smell of death about
them for a couple of years: poor stock,
poor store upkeep, clearly demoralized
staff unable even to find the energy to
play with the Wii.
In January the chain closed its doors,
and liquidation began. Over at Best Buy,
they weren’t about to rub salt in the
wound. Much.
at the show site, www.salonsonimage.
com.
At CES we ran across Salon CEO
Michel Plante, who was promoting his
show in the company of three delightfully blue-haired ladies.
They certainly got attention, and we
bet it worked, too. See you there?
Feedback
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Sad news from another show
The closest American equivalent
to the Montreal show was the Rocky
Mountain Audio Fest, over in Denver.
It began small, as do we all, but it was
growing every year.
Of course Circuit City does have
a Canadian branch. It owns InterTan,
which once had hundreds of Radio Shack
stores which later got rebranded as The
Source by Circuit City. These stores are
much smaller, and are in fact the size of
Radio Shacks.
And InterTan is for sale. Want to get
into the electronics retailing business?
Recession, what recession?
The next high end show
Yes, the long-running Montreal
Salon Son & Image is coming back the
first weekend in April. To answer what
we anticipate in the way of questions,
no we won’t be exhibiting (as we did for
many years), but yes we will be there. We
will have a preview of the show online,
and we will be filing daily reports from
the three official days of the show, plus
the trade-only preview day.
You can check out the exhibitor list
But fate has a way of taking a hand.
On January 27th, show founder Al Stiefel
died suddenly. We send our condolences,
and we wish all the best in a difficult
time.
The show is still expected to continue, under the direction of Al’s widow
Marjorie, with the aid of a board of
directors and the Colorado Audiophile
Society. It is scheduled for October 2nd
through 4th.
Amazon could have made you a star
Prett y well everyone knows the
names of the stars of Casablanca, consid-
ered by many to be one of the best films
ever made. So we were puzzled to go
over to Amazon and find that the film’s
stars are Mischa Auer and Leon Belasco.
Who?
No, it’s not a remake of the classic
film. It seems that Amazon thought it
was a good idea to list film casts alphabetically, and both Auer and Belasco are
in the alphabet before Ingrid Bergman.
Belasco, by the way, was the
croupier at Rick’s. And Auer?
He got an Oscar nomination
a half dozen years before for
his supporting role in My
Man Godfrey, but here he
was one of the bartenders
(no, not Sacha). Even imdb.
com doesn’t mention him.
Amazon also lists among the
“stars” Oliver Blake, briefly
seen as a waiter at the Blue
Parrot.
But notice we’ve been
using the past tense. Perhaps the Bogart
succession called them up, because since
we noticed nearly all of the cast lists
have been pulled from the Canadian site
(though the one for Chicago is still up, and
still wrong). The cast list for Casablanca
on the US site now lists Humphrey
Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid,
and Claude Rains.
Apple moving to CES?
Probably not, but consider this.
For more years than we care to recall,
Macworld — the Apple-themed show
organized by the publishers of the
magazine of the same name — has been
held in San Francisco at the same time as
CES in Vegas. It’s a pain for journalists
who would like to cover both, and it’s a
pain for CES when it gets upstaged (the
iPhone was announced at Macworld, not
at CES).
Only Apple has made it clear that the
2009 Macworld was the last one it would
ever attend, and it is widely believed that
this announcement is the death knell for
the show. But might it mean that Apple
will finally join the rest of the electronics industry in Vegas? Might there be a
keynote by Steve Jobs rather than Steve
Ballmer or Bill Gates?
CEA, which organizes CES, is probably hoping so. For the 2010 edition of
the show, it is launching iLounge, a
show-within-a-show, featuring Apple
products. The sponsor, also called
iLounge, has a Web site reviewing Apple
products, with an emphasis on the portable ones. CEA says the planned space
sold out in a week, with such exhibitors
as Griffin Technology, Mobis Technology, Pro Clip USA, Scosche, Incase
Designs, Incipio Technologies, iSkin
and GelaSkin. The planned space has
now been quadrupled, and CEA invites
other exhibitors to join in.
No mention of Apple. But then Steve
Jobs says shows are old-school anyway.
We shall see.
As an aside, at CES we ran into Victor
Tiscareno, co-founder of AudioPrism.
Only now he works for Apple, and he’s
the man behind the upgraded iPod ear
buds (he suggests we try them). Among
other things, Victor used to market his
own tube electronics.
Apple with a hi-fi guy? That can only
be good news.
The day the Muzak died
Oh, everyone else has made that bad
pun, so why shouldn’t we?
A Steinway, but not a piano
Remember when Bösendorfer tried
to market speakers? It didn’t work out.
Now Steinway thinks it can do better.
Muzak is often used generically to
mean ersatz music, but in fact it’s a US
company, responsible for many years of
annoying imitation “music” in elevators,
supermarkets and the like. Only now an
iPod in shuffle mode will do what Muzak
did, but better, and the company has filed
for protection from its creditors while it
reorganizes.
But how likely is a reorganization?
Early reports say it owes between 100
ADVERTISERS
Allnic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
April Music. . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Audiophileboutique.com . . . . Cover 4
Audio Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Audio Eden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Audiophile Store. . . . . . . . . . . 53-60
Audio Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
BIS Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Blue Circle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Charisma Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Codell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Cyrus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Diamond Groove. . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Entre’acte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
ETI (Eichmann). . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Europroducts International . . 10, 13, 17
Hammertone Audio. . . . . . . . . . . 16
Harbeth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Justice Audio. . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Lavardin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Leema Acoustics. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
MagZee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Marchand Electronics. . . . . . . . . 75
Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Planet of Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Roksan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
Salon Son & Image . . . . . . . Cover 3
Scheu Analog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Simaudio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Signature Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
UHF Back Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . 21
They are the Steinway Model C’s.
Just $148,000, and they’re yours.
UHF Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Feedback
Gossip&News
and 500 million (if it’s not sure, that
could be its problem right there), with a
mere $150 thousand in assets. Not a lot
of wriggle room there.
Public comments so far have been
universally scathing, though not scathing enough in our view. Muzak likes to
point to a study showing that, when its
“music” was piped through a factory,
productivity went up. That has been a
case study in first year sociology classes
for decades. What Muzak doesn’t say is
that productivity gradually settled back
down, and when the music was removed
productivity rose higher than before.
What has always bothered us about
Muzak was the implied insult to our
intelligence, the assumption that we are
so dim culturally we would be disturbed
by real music. Not only were the dynamics compressed until they squeaked —
something common on current FM
radio as well — but we were noticing
that the range of notes was compressed
as well: key changes were commonly
introduced to prevent the highest and
lowest notes from being too far apart.
Muzak has been described as “easy
listening,” but we would characterize it
more as “easy not listening.”
And that’s the problem with Muzak,
the constant presence of low-value
music, taking away the taste for the
genuine article. You would lose appetite
for the finest meal if you were force-fed
Cracker Jack all day.
We’re with Lily Tomlin, who once said
she worried that the inventor of Muzak
was working on something else.
I
State of the Art
s it important for audio system
components to work well together?
It certainly can be. I’m talking
about synergy, the phenomenon in
which the whole is more than merely the
sum of its parts. And if it is important,
where do we at UHF get off reviewing
amplifiers and speakers individually,
rather than in conjunction with products
designed to work with them in optimum
fashion?
Some of the claims of synergy are
of course self-ser ving. A maker of
interconnect cables warns you that you
won’t hear them at their best unless you
also buy his “matching” speaker cables.
A preamp maker says you must use the
power amplifier of the same brand.
In one notorious case, an amplifier
manufacturer threatened not to honor
its warranty unless you used approved
cables.
Yet sy nerg y can be more t han
an anti-competitive construct. Some
components really do work with certain
products better than they do with other
competing products. These “synergistic”
combinations may be brand-mates, or
they may not. Their affinity may be
due to one of several quite different
phenomena.
In some cases you need only read the
spec sheets to know a couple of products
are not a match made in Heaven. Got
speakers with a sensitivity rating of
86 dB (that’s low, incidentally)? You can
forget about that 10-watt single-ended
tube amp. In other cases choosing a
particular component will seriously
unbalance your system. If your source
cost you $300, you’d be foolish to linger
too long over a pair of $7000 speakers.
Then there is the possibilit y of
choosing components that are seriously
flawed, but whose flaws are supposed
to cancel out. If you have speakers that
give screechiness a bad name, you might
be delighted to find cables that roll off
those dreadful highs. I’m always horrified to hear manufacturers and salespeople actually recommend this approach,
because experience tells me that flaws
actually add up, they don’t cancel out.
by Gerard Rejskind
Matching a system in this way may
make it sound bearable, but “bearable”
is probably not the goal you had in mind
when you began budgeting for a music
system, and you will note that the name
of this magazine is not BHF.
Yet in other cases the reasons for the
synergy are mysterious. A particular
speaker yield magic with one very good
amplifier, yet sounds less magical with
some other amplifier. But substitute
some other speaker, and perhaps the
second amplifier will be the one that
shines. What’s going on? Often we don’t
know, and we can’t count on test instruments to tell us.
And I must acknowledge that this
makes things difficult for reviewers like
us. We maintain three reference systems
(two for audio, one for home theatre),
and we drop whatever we are testing into
one or other of these systems. Will the
product under review sound its very best
under those conditions? Perhaps not.
This is, in fact, the very reason we
have two audio reference systems instead
of just one. The large speakers in our
Omega system go down extremely low
STATE OF THE ART:
THE BOOK
Get the 258-page book
containing the State of the Art
columns from the first 60 issues
of UHF, with all-new introductions.
See page 6.
with great accuracy, and can handle huge
power, enabling us to review top tier
speakers and amplifiers. We need that for
some tests, but we wouldn’t try driving
them with a 20 watt integrated amplifier.
Such an amplifier may however be at
home in our Alpha system, with its easyto-drive speakers and the room’s smaller
acoustically-controlled environment.
What’s more, the components in each
system were selected for their versatility.
Products reviewed are given the best
possible chance to shine.
Yet that still doesn’t mean they will
be at their very best.
Some dealers know this, because they
have built a clientele around their efforts
to put together systems that sound just
a little better than you might expect.
They may not be sure just why particular
components sound better together, but
long experience has taught them that
they do. That same experience may tell
them that what seems like minor tweaks
or variations in installation can add a
touch of magic that can readily be heard.
True, finding such a dealer is like finding
a family doctor who has time to listen to
you, but they exist, even if not everyone
is fortunate enough to find one.
Where does that leave us, with our
reviews of single components?
We have regularly been encouraged — “pressured” would be too strong
a word — to review a distributor or
manufacturer’s complete system rather
than just one or two components of
that system. We have mainly resisted,
though I know some other magazines do
in fact feature such reviews. However I
have never figured out what use system
reviews are. Oh, they’re useful for the
seller, but if you’re a buyer and you don’t
plan to buy that exact system, what will
you learn from reading the review?
The way we choose to review components maintains a point of reference,
which is important in evaluating a component. We can generally tell whether a
component is likely to be satisfying.
Can a good dealer take things a step
further? Of course…at least one who
knows about synergy.
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This amazing entry-level turntable was a bargain at its original $499.95 price,
but now the price is even lower, just $399. This Rega-designed table includes
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audiophileboutique.com
a division of Broadcast Canada, publisher of UHF Magazine
[email protected]
(450) 651-5720

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