Innholdsfortegnelse for Jul-13 i Stereophile

In the wrap-up of his coverage of the 2013 Salon Son & Image show in Montreal, which took place at the end of March, Robert Deutsch asked if there were too many audio shows (see www.stereophile.com/content/too-many-shows). The Chicago AXPONA show was held two weeks before SSI, the New York Audio Show followed less than three weeks later. In May, there was the humongous High End 2013, in Munich, followed two weeks later by the third T.H.E. Show Newport Beach, followed by: the Capital AudioFest, in Washington, DC (July 26–28); the fourth California Audio Show, in the Bay Area (August 8–11); the ninth Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (October 8–11); and TAVES in Toronto (November 1–3). While this is no more shows than took place in 2011 or 2012, many exhibitors, manufacturers…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@vcable.us. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA Sunday, July 21, 1–4pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting in the Penthouse Ballroom of the Buena Park Holiday Inn (7000 Beach Boulevard). Dan Meinwald, US distributor for Marten and E.A.R., will present Marten Django XL and L loudspeakers powered by E.A.R. electronics. The system will also include a Townshend Audio Rock 7 turntable and Jorma Design cables. Eastwind Import will be…

The closest I’ve come to airing my thoughts about live vs recorded music was in the “As We See It” of the December 2005 Stereophile,1 in which I put as many miles between the two as I could. I described live performances as works of art that exist only at the time and place of their making, variables from which their ultimate impact can never be separated; and music recordings as works of art in their own right, albeit ones that require a great deal more from the listener in order to succeed to their fullest. People respond more positively to live music not because it sounds more real, but because they understand, consciously or not, that any performance is a oncein-a-lifetime event. Yet another quality that distinguishes the performing…

UNE THOSE YOUNG EARS, MR. ANDERSON! After a 30-year career in audio engineering that’s seen his name appear in the credits of over 1700 albums, Jim Anderson, who won the 2013 Grammy for Best Surround Sound Album, for his remastering of Patricia Barber’s Modern Cool, thinks education is the key to stemming the tide of degraded sound that threatens to swallow the recorded-music industry. Anderson, who’s taught for a decade in New York University’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, starts his students early. “In ear-training class, I try to get the students to hear and recognize and create a vocabulary, and articulate that vocabulary to describe what they are hearing. I make them listen to full-range, high-resolution stuff as much as possible. I take one of Patti’s recordings, 24[-bit]/96[kHz]…

LOUDSPEAKER I had been anticipating getting to audition a pair of TAD loudspeakers in my system since the introduction of the original TAD Model-1, in 2003. It was designed by Andrew Jones, who had recently assumed the mantle of chief designer at Technical Audio Devices Laboratories (TAD), at that time a subsidiary of Pioneer. Although TAD dates back to the mid-1970s, its research and development efforts had been focused on the professional sound market, something that continues. Jones came from a long line of speaker innovators at KEF and was assigned the goal of developing state-of-the-art speakers for the domestic market. The Model-1 was innovative with respect to both its drive-units and its enclosure construction. It used 52 layers of 3.4" plywood. More important, it sounded spectacularly natural and vivid.…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. For logistical reasons, the sample I measured, serial no. LFNV0082030C, was from a different pair from the ones auditioned by Bob Reina. Pioneer specifies the ’BS22’s voltage sensitivity as 85dB/2.83V/m. My B-weighted estimate was actually a little higher, at 86dB(B)/2.83V/m. Fig.1 shows how the Pioneer’s impedance magnitude and electrical phase vary with frequency. The minimum impedance is 4.5 ohms at 250Hz, and there is a combination of 6 ohms and–33° at 160Hz, but neither of these affects the fact that the speaker is relatively easy to drive. The specified impedance of 6 ohms is a little on the conservative side,…

THIS ISSUE: John Marks listens to the updated Bricasti M1 D/A processor; John Atkinson measures Music Hall’s Marimba loudspeaker. Bricasti M1 D/A processor If Stereophile has covered another product that has received as many upgrades in as brief a time as Bricasti’s M1 DAC ($8595)1, I missed it. I first wrote about the M1 in my August 2011 “Fifth Element” column; John Atkinson’s full review was the cover story of the February 2012 issue; in a Follow-Up (March 2012), I wrote about Bricasti’s expansion of the M1’s selectable filter options; and in another Follow-Up (September 2012), I reported that Bricasti had now included, via a firmware upgrade, so-called “minimum-phase” versions of M1’s existing filters, digital phase inversion, and digital volume control. I also noted the forthcoming availability of options for…

THIS ISSUE: “When Doc Watson’s doing ‘Tennessee Stud’ and I had headphones on,” says McEuen, “I felt like I was listening to an old record from the 1930’s or something.” In some ways, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, the 1972 collaboration between Jeff Hanna, Jim Ibbotson, Jimmie Fadden, and John McEuen, aka the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and a number of older country-music stars who’d recently fallen out of favor—among them Vassar Clements, Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, and Doc Watson—was all about hair. But long or gray, in the end, it all turned out to have the same roots. Just like the music. “This album looked in upon a space that hadn’t really yet existed; that had old American traditions and traditionalists mingling with, as Roy Acuff said,…

Rek-o-Pun Editor: Is Art Dudley going to write more about upgrading the motor on the Rek-o-Kut (“Listening,” January 2013), or was that just torque? —Ron Madigan ron.madigan@me.com Art needs help? Editor: I’m a 78-year-old audiophile who’s been involved with hi-fi over 50 years. Reading Art Dudley’s ecstatic review of 1966 Altec speakers (“Listening,” May, p.37) makes me think he is in serious need of medical help, or should ease up on the hallucinogens. —Harvey Fleischman Sf5823@aol.com Damned good, Art Editor: I hope [John Atkinson] will encourage Art Dudley to continue his fascinating ferreting-out of ancient audio arcana to renovate and review. For one who developed the fever in the 1950s, and who decades ago abandoned or traded out of my old gear, Art helps answer the question: just how does…

This year, 2013, marks the 30th anniversary of the Compact Disc in North America. Three decades ago, Sony and Philips launched the format that promised, as Sony’s slogan put it, “Perfect Sound Forever.” Who will join me in celebration? Mikey? Artie? John Marks? John Atkinson, who wants his music “liberated . . . from the tyranny of a physical medium”? In 1983, when I first started writing for this rag, I hailed the Compact Disc because a) I would no longer have to deal with clicks, pops, thumps, and surface noise; and b) I wouldn’t have to turn over the damned record. “All else is gaslight,” declared conductor Herbert von Karajan. Fast forward to High End ’99, the one and only Stereophile show held in Chicago, where Sony and Telarc…

When I lived entirely alone, with neither girlfriend nor pets, and had the luxury of a dedicated listening room, I felt no obligation to store away unused hi-fi equipment. Why should I? Life is so much simpler when everything one needs, or might potentially need, remains in plain sight, within arm’s reach. Pairs of loudspeakers, then, took residence beside bookshelves, speaker cables found homes atop throw pillows, assorted electronics posed as coffee tables. And, if on a whim I decided it was time to swap my NAD C316 BEE integrated amplifier with my Exposure 2010S, I’d simply pull the latter from beneath my feet and do it. Things change. When I moved into Ms. Little’s apartment, I made some space in a closet for gear that wouldn’t be regularly used.…

LOUDSPEAKER The advertisements run by Colorado manufacturer YG Acoustics in 2008, when it launched its flagship loudspeaker model, the Anat Reference II Professional, unequivocally claimed it to be “The best loudspeaker on Earth. Period.” They caused a stir. The YGA speaker cost $107,000/pair at the time of Wes Phillips’s review in the March 2009 issue (http://tinyurl.com/ ctdn6tv). Wes didn’t disagree with the claim, concluding that, “Like my pappy used to say, it ain’t braggin’ if you can actually do it.” To riff on Wes’s conclusion, “If it ain’t broke, it don’t need fixin’.” So I was somewhat puzzled when I first saw the Anat’s successor, the Sonja 1.3, at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. The Sonja 1.3 comprises the Sonja 1.1, the top module, which can be used on its…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the TAD Evolution One’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. For the farfield measurements, I left in place the grilles that cover the woofers and the coaxial midrange and high-frequency drivers. The Evolution One is specified as having a voltage sensitivity of 88dB/2.83V/m. My estimate was almost 1dB higher than this, at 88.9dB(B), which is usefully higher than average. The impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) remains between 4 and 6 ohms for most of the bass and middle ranges, and there is a demanding combination of 5 ohms and–50° electrical phase angle at 27Hz. A good 4 ohm-rated amplifier would be the best choice to drive the TAD. The…

D/A PROCESSOR For the audiophile modernist, a DAC with volume control is the straightest path between the music server or network stream and your amp and speakers. If you’ve fully embraced networked audio, there’s no need for fussy preamps with their analog inputs, analog volume controls, and [gasp!] phono stages. Find a digital source, a DAC with volume, and go. Several of the DACs I’ve recently reviewed include a high-performance volume control; three that spring to mind are the NAD M51 Direct Digital ($1999, July 2012), MSB Diamond DAC Plus ($21,995, October 2012), and Resolution Audio Cantata Music Center ($6495, November 2011). Each is an excellent-sounding DAC topped off with digital-domain attenuation. Other than the NAD, each also comes with a somewhat steep price tag. Enter Wadia At $1299, the…

Cross-cultural mashups are all the rage. There’s the BlueBrass mix of New Orleans brass band and bluegrass, reviewed in this issue. The Border Music project mixes David Hidalgo’s Norteño/East L.A. rock with Marc Ribot’s downtown New York jazz. Here, conguero Pedrito Martinez, born in Cuba but based in New York City, successfully crosses Afro-Cuban rumba with Andalusian flamenco to celebrate the work of flamenco composer and singer Camarón de la Isla. Born José Monje Cruz, de la Isla is probably best known outside Spain for his collaborations with guitarist Paco de Lucía; together they made nine records, and toured extensively throughout the 1970s. De la Isla died in 1992 at the age of 41. Spanish film director, music producer, and author Fernando Trueba, and film presenter and music producer Nat…

THE NETHERLANDS: EINDHOVEN Paul Messenger The Marantz Corporation was established 60 years ago in the US. The fact that today it is still a major, multinational audio specialist is remarkable in view of the dramatic changes that have occurred throughout its history: its purchase by Superscope (1965), the resignation of Saul Marantz (1967), the establishment of Marantz Japan (1975), and its acquisitions by Philips (1980) and then D&M Holdings Inc. (2002; since renamed D&M Group) One crucial event in this history was the arrival at Marantz Europe, in 1978, of Ken Ishiwata, whose single-minded drive as director of the development of Marantz products has done much to create and maintain the consistency and integrity of the Marantz brand. Though I’m sure he sometimes found himself at odds with the hierarchy…

I was in Seattle last February to take part in one of the popular “Music Matters” events promoted by retailer Definitive Audio. Definitive’s Mark Ormiston and Craig Abplanalp and their crew really know how to produce a memorable evening for both their customers and the manufacturers who fly in to demonstrate their gear. I was there to talk about . . . guess what? Rather than fly home the next morning, I stuck around for a few days to do some serious record shopping. My friend Shane Buettner, former editor of Home Theater magazine and currently AudioQuest’s VP of communications, had invited me to stay at his house for the weekend, and to drive me around Seattle to visit the city’s vinyl hot spots—not that I needed to twist his…

Sometimes, things happen so fast it’s almost unsettling. DSD is the highresolution recording format used on SACDs and I closed my May column with the expressed hope that the exaSound e18 multichannel DAC would eventually be able to decode DSD data, that Oppo would implement DSD streaming in its universal players, and that I’d be able to get my hands on a working trio of Mytek DSD DACs. I didn’t expect that, even before that issue went to press, I’d have to add a footnote (p.61) indicating that stereo DSD streaming was a reality for the exaSound e18, and that Oppo had made available “test” firmware to empower their universal Blu-ray players for stereo and multichannel DSD. On March 26, Oppo publicly announced that this DSD capability was part of…

Because of the YGA Sonja 1.3’s bulk and mass, I performed the farfield measurements, using DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, only on the Sonja 1.1 module. For the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses of all three modules, I used an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone. The Sonja’s voltage sensitivity is specified as 88dB/2.83V/m. However, my estimate was significantly less than that, at 85dB(B)/2.83V/m. The Sonja 1.3 needs a big amplifier to reach the appropriately high SPLs of which it is capable. The 1.3’s electrical impedance is specified as 4 ohms, with a minimum value of 3 ohms. Fig.1 show the measured impedance. It ranges between 3 and 6 ohms most of the time, with slightly greater values in the bass and in the upper midrange. However,…

I often receive letters from Stereophile readers. I’ve even gotten a few letters from female readers, one an attractive young lover of tube gear who sent me a picture of herself and [sigh] her boyfriend. But most are from people who are either thanking me for a specific review that resulted in a purchase and a satisfied buyer, or are suggesting products they’d like me to review. I frequently take the advice of writers of this second category; in fact, two of the inexpensive speakers I’ll review in the next year were recommended by readers. Only twice have I gotten a series of negative letters. The first was from readers complaining that, instead of comparing the Spendor S3/5R2 loudspeaker to other modern designs, as I did in my March 2013…

I examined the Wadia 121’s electrical performance with Stereophile’s loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 “As We See It,” http://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4); for some tests, I also used my vintage Audio Precision System One Dual Domain. To test the USB input, I played AIFF and WAV files with iTunes and Bias Peak Pro running on my MacBook Pro, using the AudioMIDI Set-up utility to ensure that the sample rate and bit depth were set correctly. Apple’s USB Prober utility identified the 121 as “Wadia USB Audio 2.0” and confirmed that it operated in isochronous asynchronous mode with a 24-bit word length. The Wadia’s USB input operated correctly at sample rates up to 192kHz, including 88.2kHz and 176.4kHz, as did the S/PDIF and AES/EBU…

THIS ISSUE: Parasound, NVO, Pioneer, and Wadia respond to our reviews of their products. Parasound Halo CD 1 Editor: What a splendid review of the Halo CD 1. Sam Tellig’s explanation of the CD 1’s raison d’être, its unusual design, and its undigital sound quality is succinct and thorough. We also appreciate that Stereophile offered its readers two writers’ distinct perspectives on the CD 1 in two issues. [John Marks wrote about the Halo CD 1 in June 2013—Ed.] We started selling the CD 1 after what has to be the most extensive field testing in audio history. Nine prototype CD 1s were used at shows, audio fairs, and many of KEF’s worldwide introductions of their Blade and LS50 speakers. CD 1s were roughed up in shipment, connected to nasty…