Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2019 i Stereophile

THIS ISSUE: Kal decides he’s ready to settle down with amps from Benchmark and new/old speakers from Revel—five of them!—then continues to play the field with a multichannel DAC and streamer from exaSound. There is necessity as well as comfort in having a long-term reference system. The necessity derives from the familiarity with the reference that allows for comparisons and contrasts with the equipment being tested. The comfort that comes from the familiarity lets me relax and enjoy recreational music, relieved from the need to focus my attention intently on the sound. I do relish getting my hands on lots of interesting audio equipment and getting to play it in my own home, but it’s like a two-month one-night stand: The new stuff usually goes back even if I am…

Because of the Klipschorn AK6’s bulk—each weighs 220lb—I drove my test gear the 177 miles to Art’s place and measured the speaker sitting on a furniture dolly in his driveway. I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Klipschorn’s behavior in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. Klipsch specifies the Klipschorn’s sensitivity as 105dB/2.83V/m, which is extraordinarily high. My estimate was lower, at 101.1dB(B)/2.83V/m, but this is still the second-highest sensitivity of all the speakers I have measured over the past 30 years. (The highest was the Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema, which features a measured voltage sensitivity of 102dB(B)/2.83V/m.1) The Klipschorn’s sensitivity is a whopping 18.6dB higher than the sensitivity of the BBC LS3/5a I always measure at…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Wharfedale Linton Heritage’s frequency response in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I usually leave a loudspeaker’s grille off for the measurements. However, as the Linton’s front baffle is set into the enclosure and the grille frame provides some acoustic profiling around the driveunits, I left the grille in place for most of the measurements. Interestingly, the labels on the boxes suggested that the speakers being reviewed were the exact same samples that had impressed me at the 2019 AXPONA last April.1 Wharfedale specifies the Linton’s sensitivity as 90dB at 1m for 2.0V input rather than 2.83V, the latter equivalent to 1W with an 8 ohm speaker. My estimate with…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Callisto 6 C’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses. I fed the test signals to one of the speaker’s analog inputs. The volume control is deactivated with the analog input, and the DALI’s specified sensitivity with analog signals is 1.85V for maximum output. Pink noise with a level of 100mV RMS gave a sound pressure level of 91dB(B) at 1m on the supertweeter axis. The volume control is active with digital input signals fed via the Sound Hub; with the volume set to two-thirds (33 out of the maximum of 50), which is the level I used for most of my classical-music auditioning, pink noise…

Unless a truly budget-priced Air Force model is in the works, the TechDAS turntable lineup now seems complete: The recently introduced Air Force Zero ($450,000) is at the top, and the “affordable” Air Force V ($19,500) is at the bottom. The Air Force One, Two, and III turntables, all available in both standard and Premium versions, sit in the costly middle. There’s no Air Force IV because in East Asia that number is considered bad luck—which also explains why Japanese golfers shout “Six!” when someone hooks a shot into an adjacent fairway (joke alert). Yes, the Air Force V still costs a great deal, but consider the price difference between it and the Air Force One Premium ($145,000)—which, until recently, was the company’s flagship: Despite costing about ⅛ the price,…

A DAC/preamp/headphone amp from Class A of Stereophile’s list of Recommended Components, updated with streaming and network-server capabilities—and it still sells for less than $3000? If you believe that, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. (Har, har!) Most Americans have heard that line before, but many may not know the story behind it—I didn’t. George C. Parker, a real American person born in 1860, is famous for perpetrating audacious frauds, specifically sales of property he did not own and could not possibly have owned. He is reported to have sold the Statue of Liberty, Grant’s Tomb, the original Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and—most famously—the Brooklyn Bridge, that last one twice a week for several years, at prices ranging from $75 to $5000. Or…

Ever go on a blind date? If you’ve been on more than one, you know what it’s like to encounter an entirely new product at an audio show: Sometimes it’s love at first listen, your only question being, “When can we get together again?” Other times, you can’t wait to say goodbye. My blind date with the Dragonfire Acoustics Mini Dragon DFA 2.1 nearfield monitor system ($10,000), accessorized with its Kimber Kable Axios Goliath cable upgrade ($1500), took place during its coming-out reception at the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) in Denver.1 After listening to a 24/96 file of Cassandra Wilson’s “Dance to the Drummer Again” on the Dragonfire system, I scribbled in my notebook, “totally absolutely impressive … musical flow reigned supreme.” Astonished by what I had heard,…

During these tests, the high-pass filter of my JL Audio CR-1 crossover was set to 70Hz, 24dB/octave (Quads) or to 50Hz, 24dB/octave (KEFs). Alternatively, I set the CR-1’s high-pass filter down to 20Hz to allow the LS50s to run full range with SB-3000 reinforcement. For all satellite setups, the SB-3000’s filter remained at 70Hz, 24dB/octave and its built-in room compensation filter was set to 25Hz, 24dB/octave to reduce room overload. For all measurements, I used the SPL Meter module of Studio Six Digital’s AudioTools (version 10.5.6), A-weighting on, plus that company’s iTestMic microphone for the iPhone. I matched the outputs of the satellites and subs by turning off the subs, playing a recording of uncorrelated pink noise, and setting (via my preamp’s remote) the satellite’s output, run full range, to…

THIS ISSUE: Art Dudley tries a new platter bearing for his Garrard 301, loosens some screws, and contemplates 21st-century shopping. This is a story about a $1375 commercial turntable accessory and a free tweak—the latter discovered while installing the former, although the two things exist quite independently of one another. Here’s how it all went down: Earlier this year, I was sent a review sample of a perfectionist-quality platter bearing called the Buddha Bearing, intended for Garrard 301 and 401 turntables. I was happy to receive such an interesting product but slow in trying it, partly because my record player sounded so good at the time that I didn’t want to go tearing it all apart, and partly because there were other review samples in line ahead of the Buddha…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Dragonfire Mini Dragon Satellite’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses of that and the SB-8P powered subwoofer. I measured the performance of the Dragonfire MD-4 power amplifier with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). Because the MD-4 uses a class-D output stage, around 320mV of ultrasonic switching noise was present on its outputs. As this noise might overload the SYS2722’s input circuitry, I used the Audio Precision auxiliary AUX-0025 passive high-power filter, which eliminates noise above 200kHz, for the amplifier testing. Although Dragonfire recommends that purchasers of the Mini Dragon Satellites use them with their MD-4 amplifier, which is how…

As a singer and writer, Patricia Barber has never been easy to define. In the audiophile world, she’s too often defined—and her brilliance obscured—by her ubiquity at audio shows and her regrettable membership in a sorority of generic, well-recorded “female vocalists.” But in what idiom? Most of Barber’s early work was obviously jazz, and today she continues to perform straight-ahead jazz on Monday nights at Chicago’s Green Mill, where she has appeared for decades. Over time, though, her studio work has shifted toward meticulously accompanied poetry, especially on the albums Verse and Mythologies, and she has been keeping company with opera singers and classical music scholars. It seems natural that a writer and performer of such songs would eventually choose to compose art songs suitable for either jazz or classical…

GOOD AND BAD, I DEFINE THESE TERMS QUITE CLEAR...—BOB DYLAN THIS ISSUE: Not quite Relaxin’ with Miles Davis … more like Droppin’ In. My Journey to Jazz Like most older teens growing up in the South in the late 1970s, I had two poles of rock and roll heroes: The Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top on one side, Yes and King Crimson on the other. But big sister Diane lived on 78th Street at Columbus Avenue in New York City—and when I moved north, her apartment floor became my bed. One day, as we walked down Amsterdam Avenue, Diane said, “Miles Davis lives down that block.” “That block” was 77th Street. I’d read that Miles was the founding father of the jazz-rock music I was devouring, but I didn’t…