Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

The M-1sis were set up in Stereophile's 15.5' by 20' by 9' listening room. CD-based material was used for most of the auditioning, either original CDs or compilation CD-Rs dubbed from my own CD collection. The remainder of the system consisted of the Mark Levinson No.35 D/A converter, the Pioneer PD-65 CD player used as a transport from its coaxial digital output (and also, briefly, the C.E.C. TL 1 transport), the Rowland Consummate preamplifier, and the Bryston 7B monoblock amplifiers in their series mode. The digital interconnect was a Kimber KCAG coaxial, the processor to preamplifier link was TARA Labs' RSC Master, the preamplifier to amplifier Cardas Hexlink, and the loudspeaker leads were bi-wire TARA RSC. Also seeing brief service were the Krell KSA-250 and Hafler 9500 power amplifiers and the Arcam Delta 290 integrated amplifier (the latter used with Arcam's Delta 170.3 CD transport and Delta Black Box 5 D/A converter).—Thomas J. Norton