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Conrad-Johnson Premier Seven preamplifier

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:27:00 EDT

Whenever an audio high-ender thinks about tubes, he usually thinks about Audio Research. This is only natural, because Audio Research Corporation was almost single-handedly responsible for saving tubes from oblivion in the early '70s when everyone else switched to solid-state. But ARC was soon joined in its heroic endeavor by an upstart company called Conrad-Johnson, which entered the fray in 1977 with its PV-1 preamp, priced at an affordable (even then) $500.

Revel's Kevin Voecks

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:57:00 EDT

The Fifth Element #48

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:16:00 EDT

One of my 2008 Records To Die For picks was the 1991 compilation Time for Love: The Best of Julie London (CD, Rhino R2 70737). The source material runs from London's mono 1955 debut LP to her last stereo album, of 1967. Originally a Hollywood B-movie actress who had to be cajoled into singing in public, London (1926–2000) later enjoyed a successful third career as a television actress in the late 1960s and '70s, and played Nurse Dixie McCall in the drama series Emergency!

Energy Connoisseur C-2 loudspeaker

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:27:00 EDT

Reality check number one. Tired of reading about the latest and greatest $65,000 loudspeakers? Or even the current hot ticket at $2500? Such loudspeakers promise to bring you the audio truth, or the golly-gee-whiz, honest-to-gosh, absolutely positively real sound. And some of them do seem to come awfully close, though truth be told, we're still a long way from replicating reality—and will never do it with just two channels.

Bel Canto e.One S300iu integrated amplifier

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:10:00 EDT

The S300iu looks remarkably similar to the DAC3. As members of Bel Canto's e.One line, they share the same shape and appearance: a half-width front panel, a central green display, and, on the right, a single black knob for controlling the volume and selecting the source, framed within the faceplate's radiused recess.

Exposure 3010S integrated amplifier

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:09:00 EDT

Exposure Electronics, Ltd., which confounds yet another trend by assembling their products in England while running the business from the Far East, has now unveiled a follow-up, of sorts, to the 2010S: an upmarket integrated amp called the 3010S ($2295, or $2790 with onboard phono preamp), itself a refinement of the Exposure 3010, itself derived from that humbler model we know and love.

Listening #66

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:55:00 EDT

The subject comes up every now and then: Audio reviewers don't write nearly enough negative reviews. One old attention-seeker on Audio Asylum went so far as to characterize Stereophile and our would-be competitors as "happy face" magazines—a joke in which he seemed to take tremendous pride—simply because we hand out a lot of As and Bs. By that logic, assuming that a certain percentage of underachievers is inevitable in any population, our schools aren't handing out nearly enough Fs. (I have a suggestion for where they can begin.)

Tony Schwartz Dies at 84

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:34:00 EDT

Tony Schwartz, who died on June 14 in Manhattan at age 84, understood that listening is inexorable. "People don't have earlids," he once observed.

Category Audacious Audio

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:15:00 EDT

Cabasse La Sphère powered loudspeaker

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:51:00 EDT

Uncrated, and minus the cold fog, the large, accurately named Sphères bore more than a passing resemblance to that flick's crawling-eye monsters. Indeed, the Cabasses' unusual presence in my listening room creeped out more than a few visitors. The ones who didn't recoil—count me among them—embraced the speaker's retro sci-fi looks.

Epos M16i loudspeaker

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:59:00 EDT

Last year, when Epos importer Music Hall contacted me about reviewing the then-new M16 floorstanding loudspeaker, I hesitated. I had been very impressed with the M16's little bookshelf brother, the M5 in the April 2005 Stereophile, Vol.28 No.4), which I found uncolored, detailed, and a great value. Most of all, the M5 had an incredible balance of performance. But several times in the past, having been seduced by a wonderfully balanced bookshelf speaker, I've then been disappointed by one of its costlier, floorstanding brethren. The larger speaker might share the bookshelf's overall character, have deeper bass, and play louder with less strain, but too often that magical sense of balance that I had so enjoyed in the smaller speaker would be absent.

Fourier 6 loudspeaker

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:01:00 EDT

The Fourier 6 has the special ability to generate large coherent sonic fields, from a box small enough to slip into an ordinary shopping bag. At $499/pair, the 6 competes directly with another remarkable-imaging, compact American speaker, the Spica TC-50 ($420/pair).

Revel Ultima Salon2 loudspeaker

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:22:00 EDT

The Salon1 and Salon2 are both tall, heavy, floorstanding, four-way, ported dynamic loudspeakers bristling with Revel-designed drivers: a 1" dome tweeter, a 4" inverted titanium-dome midrange unit, a 6.5" midwoofer, and three 8" woofers. Their enclosures are constructed from 45mm-thick, nine-layer MDF molded into a gracefully curved form. Then, instead of the flat front panel and mitered sides of a typical box speaker, a thick, curved front baffle designed to minimize cabinet resonances is attached.

Conrad-Johnson PV9 preamplifier

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:13:00 EDT

As I write, it is garage-sale season here again in Santa Fe, and a recent sign near my home advertised Over 3000 LPs, good condition, low prices. To my surprise, the seller wasn't a yuppie enamored of his new CD player but a true collector discarding the duplicates and dogs from his collection. 30 minutes later, many LPs heavier—including a mint Flanders & Swan At the Drop of a Hat (footnote 1)—and not too many dollars lighter, I returned to a great night's listening courtesy of the black vinyl disc.

"Making Available": It's All Over—or Is It?

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:43:00 EDT

Decisions, Decisions

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:57:00 EDT

Thiel CS3 loudspeaker

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:47:00 EDT

Thiel is one of those loudspeaker manufacturers, like Spica and Dahiquist, among others, that pay close attention to detail.

A Bad Idea That Would Make a Worse Law

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:40:00 EDT

As the May issue was being put to bed, the Internet was all aflutter over a proposal by digital strategy consultant Jim Griffin to have Internet Service Providers (ISPs) levy a $5 surcharge—a "network licensing model"—on all broadband users. Under this model, Griffin proposes that ISPs collect the fee, which would then be paid into a pool to "compensate music-copyright holders." Griffin says that consumers who do not download digital music files would not be forced to pay the surcharge, but that he anticipates "70–80% would pay" for all the content they could download.

Recording of June 2008: Jenny Scheinman

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:55:00 EDT

Out in Brooklyn, New York, the place where all of New York's musicians not named Marsalis or Hewson now live, and the up-and-coming band capital of the western world, there's a little hole-in-the wall club called Barbès. Depending on your need for space, Barbès is either a cramped dump with low ceilings that has no business hosting live music, or a dauntless melting pot where the skills of players from different genres often collide and make wondrous multicultural music together.

Westlake BBSM-6F loudspeaker

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:21:00 EDT

I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's As We See It where I asked a representative group of Stereophile writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the nature of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the level of what it does wrong: 1% of one kind of distortion can be innocuous, even musically appropriate, whereas 0.01% of a different kind of distortion can be musical anathema.