Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019 i Stereophile

“Everything that earned Triton Reference Stereophile’s highest Class A Rating in a gorgeous, super sounding, more compact and even more affordable package!” “The powerful sense of atmosphere that the One.R speakers conveyed conjure up memories of my time with the Triton Reference.” –Al Griffin, Sound & Vision GoldenEar Technology is pleased to announce the introduction of the new Triton One.R. This extraordinary new reference quality loudspeaker is a smaller, less expensive follow up to the Triton Reference. The T Ref has been compared with speakers selling for over ten times its surprisingly affordable cost. It has had a remarkable response from both music and hifi enthusiasts as well as press and reviewers from around the world, who have bestowed upon it innumerable Speaker-of-the-Year and Product-of-the-Year awards. Now the T One.R…

For my experiments with using the Marantz’ AV8805’s equalization options to optimize the T2’s balance in my room, I restricted my efforts to the Bass control plus just three controls on the graphic equalizer: 63Hz, 125Hz, and 250Hz (each channel’s EQ can be individually adjusted). None of the alterations I made (apart from the 1dB boost in the Treble, which I retained) altered the frequency response above 450Hz, as measured at the main listening seat. The settings were determined by measurement, not by ear (I’ve found the latter to be a recipe for failure). I won’t provide the specifics here, as the specific settings are applicable only to my room. All the measurements were made at or near the listening position using the OmniMic measurement system from Parts Express. All…

In his review in the November 2015 issue, Herb Reichert wrote that Parasound’s Halo Integrated amplifier “has a recognizable sonic personality: easy flowing, mostly smooth, and decidedly mellow.… But don’t worry—it’s not milquetoast mellow or unwashed-hippy-stoner mellow. It is, instead, an everything’s-under-control, don’t-worry-now mellow.”8 I hoped to hear the Halo Integrated for myself. So when, for the March 2019 issue, I reviewed the Spendor Audio Systems A7 loudspeaker, which requires more power than my 20Wpc Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion amp can muster, I requested a loaner. Parasound sent me the revised version, the Halo Hint 6, with a revised list price of $2995—a $500 increase.9 Phil Jackson, Parasound’s product and sales specialist, explained via e-mail: “New changes from the original Halo Integrated include a Burr-Brown, analog resistor-ladder volume control; dimmable front-panel…

The Classé Sigma 2200i is a unique, Stereophile Class-A rated integrated amplifier that features USB and Network streaming, HDMI switching and bass management. The Sigma 2200i features a pure-digital signal path from input to output so the source remains in the digital domain all the way to the amplifier outputs to deliver the shortest and most direct path to great sound. A special nine-band parametric equalizer that allows you to tailor the sound for your listening room and tastes is also included. Front-panel touchscreen controls, Android and Apple Apps provide simple and intuitive control, while its 200 watts-per-channel amplifier drives virtually any pair of speakers. Whatever your source, the Classé Sigma 2200i remains faithful to the music. “…the Classé is an excellent amplifier that will give pricier separates and other…

Guitarist Francesco Diodati is one of the freshest voices to enter jazz in the new millennium. If this news comes as a surprise, you probably live in the US. A disproportionate amount of the innovation and energy within America’s only indigenous art form now comes out of Europe. Most of the American jazz community has not gotten the memo. Diodati’s breakout came in 2015, when he appeared on Enrico Rava’s Wild Dance (ECM) and began touring with Rava. At 79, Rava, Italy’s most revered jazz musician, went young on Wild Dance, introducing a quartet with three of Italy’s most talented new players. Rava had rarely worked with a guitarist. Diodati’s minimalism (with no piano present) suddenly allowed Rava to operate in wide-open space, where he thrived. Diodati almost never comped.…

JERRY GARCIA BAND Electric on the Eel Round JGFRR1021 (6 CDs). 1987–91/2019. Jerry Garcia, prod.; John Cutler, Fred Kevorkian, engs. AAD? TT: 5:38:20 PERFORMANCE SONICS Jerry Garcia suffered an extended diabetic coma in 1986. When he recovered, he had to endure a difficult rehabilitation that included having to learn to play guitar all over again. His improvisational brilliance was never fully restored, and the Grateful Dead’s last years were compromised by that loss. But Garcia’s solo work was somehow enhanced. His voice, always a haunting, world-weary instrument, took on an extra measure of soul following his brush with death, and his playing in the context of the more song-oriented JGB was much stronger than in the complexities of the Dead’s music. This set documents three California performances by the JGB…

For a phono cartridge to generate current and voltage, something must move: a coil of wire (as in a moving-coil cartridge), or a magnet (as in a moving-magnet type), or a tiny piece of iron (a moving-iron type). In those rare cartridges that depart from the electricity-generating principle of the ones described above, it can be a displacement-measuring device in which a moving shutter modulates a light source to vary a supplied voltage (as in an optical cartridge), or one in which voltage is modulated when a tiny chip of silicon crystal is squeezed by a moving element, which varies the chip’s electrical resistance (as in a strain-gauge cartridge). But regardless of what it is that moves in a cartridge, something has to. TOP WING SUZAKU (RED SPARROW) CORELESS STRAIGHT-FLUX…

Sometime near the turn of this century, I wandered into a demo room at a Consumer Electronics Show and discovered, in the exhibit of a company I’d never heard of, an integrated amplifier that sounded clean and refreshing. It was the only product Hegel Music Systems displayed at that CES, and I don’t recall its name or the associated equipment, but I’ve always remembered that model’s striking appearance and impressive sound quality. Hegel seemed to have little visibility in the US in the years immediately after, but that has changed. They now offer a full line of two-channel audio electronics, including more integrated amps,1 power amps, preamps, a DACstreamer, and a CD player.2 At the end of 2018, Hegel announced a new line of modular power amps, the Custom series,…

The good-sounding products that pass through a reviewer’s system fall into three categories: those he liked but felt little sense of loss about when they were sent back to the manufacturer or distributor; those he loved and could afford to purchase; and those he loved but that were financially out of reach. The Rossini Player from British company dCS, which I reviewed along with the Rossini Clock in our December 2016 issue,1 was an example of this last category: the Player costs $28,499, the Clock $7499. Even though I summed up my review findings with “The Rossini Player and Clock are a flexible, future-proof, superbly well-engineered, and equally superb-sounding complete digital source that, while still expensive, is more affordable than earlier dCS offerings,” more affordable didn’t mean actually affordable for…

I first encountered Verity Audio’s Monsalvat Amp-60 stereo power amplifier ($58,000) in October 2017, in one of the largest single-system rooms at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. After hearing the Amp-60 and Verity’s Monsalvat Pre-2 preamplifier drive Verity’s Lohengrin IIS loudspeakers ($133,000/pair), I enthused about the “most impressive range of colors and supreme sense of spaciousness” that contributed to the system’s “absolutely beguiling” sound.1 A year later, after John Atkinson and I had visited the same exhibit space and been deeply impressed by the sound of a much larger system—in which one Amp-60 drove the two bass towers of Verity’s $675,000 Monsalvat speaker system, and two more Amp-60s biamplified that system’s main tower speakers—I requested a review sample of the Monsalvat Amp-60. Amp-60 Whys and Wherefores After it arrived, I…

It hit me not long ago: I need more Mac in my life! I promptly purchased the current production version of McIntosh Laboratory’s time-honored MC275 tubed amplifier, to mate to the Mac C2300 tubed preamplifier I already owned. The recently reinvigorated debate in these pages comparing solid-state and single-ended tube designs got me to thinking. One thing led to another, and voilà! McIntosh’s latest solid-state stereo amplifier, the MC462 Quad Balanced ($9000), arrived, bolted to a shipping pallet and encased in two big, heavy, nested boxes. All that packaging weighs 33 lb—the amp inside weighs 115 lb. If you want to lift it onto a rack, you’ll need two people, a serious handcart, and a strong, deep shelf. Frank McIntosh and his company got off to a very strong start…

JEREMY DENK c.1300–c.2000 A Seven-Century Tour of European Classical Music Jeremy Denk, piano Nonesuch 563316 (24/96, 2 CDs). 2018. Adam Abeshouse, prod., eng., mastering. DDD. TT: 101:00 PERFORMANCE SONICS In responding to a commission from Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, pianist Jeremy Denk attempted to illustrate the history of Western classical music in a single continuous performance of 80 minutes. In fact, judging from the recording’s timing, he cheated a bit and added 41 minutes. He begins by laying bare the medieval counterpoint of Machaut’s short song “Doulz amis” (Sweet Friends), and progresses all the way to the counterpoint of Automne à Varsovie, from Ligeti’s Études, Book 1, No.6, before returning to his second selection, Binchois’s Triste plaisir. Music lovers who know vocal gems such as the Machaut, and “Zefiro…

GIOVANNI GUIDI Avec le temps Giovanni Guidi, piano; Francesco Bearzatti, tenor saxophone; Roberto Cecchetto, guitar; Thomas Morgan, bass; João Lobo, drums ECM 2604 (CD). 2019. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Gérard de Haro, eng. DDD. TT: 41:59 PERFORMANCE SONICS In Italy, a country that breeds worldclass jazz pianists, Giovanni Guidi has stood out since he was a teenager. Now 34, he’s already compiled a large, diverse, important discography. Avec le temps, which adds two players to his working trio, may be his best so far. Guidi has always juxtaposed lyrical Italian romanticism and jagged aggressive abstraction. He might attack the keyboard with the flat of his hand, then segue into single-note tracings of delicate wistfulness. His new quintet supports both modes. Two tracks are group improvisations that make music from noise (“Postludium…

UK: BRISTOL Paul Messenger This year, Audio T, organizers of the Bristol Hi-Fi Show, which took place February 22–25, celebrated 50 years in hi-fi, and have rebranded the event by omitting the tag “home cinema.” This change didn’t seem to shorten the long queues of attendees forming outside the Marriott City Centre Hotel Bristol each morning before the doors opened. An Audiojumble took place a week before this year’s Bristol Hi-Fi Show. I rarely report on such events—the English Audiojumble changes little from year to year—but while the event seemed busy as ever, this year I saw many more stalls selling new and used vinyl. This confirmed vinyl enthusiast was happy enough browsing the second-hand bins, but I thought it might be worth drawing readers’ attention to the continuing good…

There’s a noise I make when I’m having trouble with something inanimate: a deep, growly huff that starts in my diaphragm and comes out in one or two quick, staccato bursts. I huff this huff when I drop a tool or can’t budge a seized bolt or the bottom falls out of a trash bag. It annoys my family and scares my dog. I made that noise at least a half-dozen times while installing and setting up the Wand, a unipivot tonearm designed and manufactured by Design Build Listen Ltd., in Dunedin, New Zealand. That’s not to say the Wand is lacking in any way: It appears both well engineered and well made, and its thorough, eight-page installation manual is written with an evident zeal for perfectionism. Nevertheless, the Wand…

This is an unusual installment of “Recordings in the Round.” Rather than a few multichannel releases that have recently impressed me, I offer two excellent recordings whose very formats have done the selecting for me. The music on these Blu-ray discs is presented in 2.0-and 5.1-channel mixes, as well as in immersive formats that offer even greater listening pleasure: Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D, which require the addition of one or more pairs of speakers above the horizontal plane occupied by the speakers in a standard 5.1-channel array. I feel that there are still too few recordings available in Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D to justify the cost and effort of making room for and installing those extra speakers, and after this I’ll probably revert to my 5.1 system. But many have…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the KEF LSX’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone for the nearfield responses. After I connected the Master LSX to my network, it checked with KEF that its firmware was up to date—it was (v.3.0). I then opened the Roon app on my iPad Mini and the speaker was recognized by Roon as “KEF LSX” and successfully handled data sampled up to 192kHz via the network. The KEF’s volume control was active in Roon as well as in KEF’s own Control app, which I used to select inputs. The Master has both analog and digital inputs and I performed most of the measurements using its analog Aux input, which appears to have…

For logistical reasons, the sample of the Wilson Yvette I measured—serial no. 166, kindly loaned by Manhattan retailer Innovative Audio—was not one of the pair auditioned by Brian Damkroger. I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Yvette’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses. The Wilson’s specified sensitivity is 86dB/2.83V/m; my estimate was a little higher, at 87.6dB(B)/2.83V/m. Wilson specifies the Yvette’s nominal impedance as 4 ohms, with a minimum value of 2.94 ohms at 90Hz, which my measurement of the speaker’s impedance magnitude confirmed (fig.1, solid trace). The electrical phase angle (dotted trace) is generally low, though a combination of 5 ohms and –47° phase angle at 57Hz suggests that the Yvette…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Emotiva Airmotiv T2’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone for the nearfield responses. Emotiva specifies the Airmotiv T2’s sensitivity as a very high 91dB/2.83V/m; my estimate was within experimental error of that number, at 90.3dB(B)/2.83V/m. Props to Emotiva for an honest high-sensitivity spec, even if they incorrectly refer to it as “efficiency” in the speaker’s manual. The Airmotiv T2’s impedance is specified as 4 ohms. Fig.1 shows that the T2’s impedance magnitude does average close to 4 ohms, though the minimum value is 2.85 ohms at 112Hz, and there is an amplifier-taxing combination of 4 ohms and –53° electrical phase angle at 78Hz. The Airmotiv T2 will need to be used…

There are only two meaningful measurements of a disc transport’s output quality: how well it copes with disc errors, and the amount of timing uncertainty or jitter there is in the datastream it outputs. To assess the latter, I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 as a digital oscilloscope, overlaying successive snapshots of the dCS Rossini Transport’s datastream to show what’s called an “eye pattern.” With an ideal transmission system, all the pulse transitions in the datastream will overlay one another to produce an image of a wide-open “eye,” with apparently just one trace visible.1 Fig.1 shows the eye pattern of the dCS Rossini SACD transport’s single AES/EBU output, plotted over one “unit cycle” as it fed the Audio Precision a 16-bit AES/EBU datastream comprising the Miller/Dunn J-Test Signal for 60…

I measured the Verity Monsalvat Amp-60 using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). The Amp-60 has no heatsinks per se; instead, its massive aluminum chassis dissipates heat. Before I test an amplifier, I precondition it with both channels driving a 1kHz tone for an hour at one-third power into 8 ohms, which is the most thermally stressful condition for an amplifier with a class-AB output stage. At the end of that time, the Verity’s top panel was relatively cool at 79.3°F (26.3°C); its side panels were only a little warmer, at 92.1°F (33.4°C). The voltage gain at 1kHz from the speaker terminals into 8 ohms measured 31.7dB for both balanced and unbalanced signals, which is almost 5dB higher than the norm. Both sets…

I performed a full set of measurements on the McIntosh MC462, using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). Before doing any testing, I preconditioned the MC462 by running its 8 ohm output at one-third power for 30 minutes into 8 ohms—thermally the worst case for an amplifier with a class-AB or class-B output stage. At the end of that time the heatsinks were very hot, at 158.6°F (70.3°C). I usually precondition amplifiers for an hour, but I was concerned that the MC462 would get even hotter. The McIntosh’s voltage gain varied according to which output Autoformer tap was used and whether the balanced or unbalanced inputs were used. From the balanced inputs, the 8 ohm tap’s gain into 8 ohms was a lower-than-usual…

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