Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

The speakers were positioned for the best sound (with only one pair of loudspeakers in the 21' by 16' by 9' listening room at a time), some 4' from the longer rear wall (which is faced with books and LPs) and approximately 5' from the shorter side walls (which also have bookshelves covering some of their surfaces). Source components consisted of a Revox A77 to play my own and others' 15ips master tapes, a Linn Sondek/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on an ArchiDee table to play LPs, and Kinergetics KCD-40 and Meridian 208 (Bitstream) CD players. (The latter also saw some service as the system preamplifier.) Amplification consisted of a Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS and a Mark Levinson No.26 line-level preamplifier driving either an Audio Research Classic 60 or a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.5 monoblocks via 15' lengths of Audio Research unbalanced interconnect or AudioQuest LiveWire Lapis balanced interconnect, respectively. Speaker cable was 5' lengths of AudioQuest Clear Hyperlitz, doubled-up for biwiring.—John Atkinson