Larry Greenhill

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Burmester B25 loudspeaker
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 25, 2009  |  1 comments
It's always fun to visit the Burmester Audio suite at the annual Consumer Electronic Show. Founder Dieter Burmester and CEO Udo Besser are upbeat, fun-loving personalities who enjoy demonstrating their latest home audio gear—that is, when they're not working on the latest updates to their sound system for the $2.1 million Bugatti Veyron 16.4 supercar. This past year they introduced their new B25 loudspeaker, an 88-lb floorstander. This "baby" Burmester's suggested retail price of $12,000/pair is only one-sixth that of Burmester's flagship speaker, the B100, only one-fourth its weight, and half its height. The design goals for the B25 were a less expensive, lighter speaker that was easier to set up, while retaining Burmester products' high-quality sound and good looks. Playing my own CDs through the B25s at the 2008 CES, I found them notably smooth and detailed; they also imaged well, and were particularly good at reproducing male voices.
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Burmester's B100 Speaker
CES 2006
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 06, 2006  |  4 comments
Dieter Burmester, president of Berlin-based Burmester Electronics, beamed as we listened to Madeleine Peyroux's Billy-Holiday-like rendition of "Dance Me to the End of Love" (CD, Careless Love, Rounder, 1161-3192-2) being played over his new full-range loudspeaker, the B-100. I felt that it was the most holographic, three-dimensional reproduction of this song (a personal favorite of both mine and Dieter B.'s) that I have yet heard. Although the price has not been announced, the B-100 is taller and 40kg heavier than its predecessor, the B-99 and should exceed, by a proportional amount, that speaker's $49k/pair price. The B-100 features a new double-ribbon tweeter/horn arrangement that I feel accounts at least in part for the new speaker's jaw-dropping transparency and effortless highs.
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Burmester's New Loudspeakers
CES 2015
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 13, 2015  |  0 comments
Burmester's upbeat and gregarious CEO, Dieter Burmester, was eager to give a live demonstration of his two newest loudspeakers, the $60,000/pair BA-71 and the smaller $30,000/pair BA 31 (above). The larger BA-71 uses four 160mm woofers while the BA-31 employs two woofers.
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California Audio Technology
CES 2013
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 15, 2013  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
California Audio Technology showed their new 300.2 FD (Fully Differential) solid-state, 300Wpc, amplifier ($8800) that utilizes a bridged output stage. Like Theta Digital, the CAT 300.2 amplifier is another product designed and manufactured by Morris Kessler's ATI company in California.
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Candy for Your Skull?
CES 2012
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 16, 2012  |  0 comments
Skullcandy, a manufacturer of trendy headphones, put up a huge multi-level exhibit in CES's Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall. In general, I was surprised at the large amount of exhibit area purchased at the Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall by headphone manufacturers this year at the CES. It dwarfed the spaced occupied by audio manufacturers of home quality equipment, taking many times the space occupied by home audio amplifiers and loudspeakers.
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Cary & the Tannoy Kingdom Royals
CES 2013
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 13, 2013  |  0 comments
Cary Audio demonstrated its CAD-211 ($20,000/pair) 150W tube amplifiers, two-chassis piece SLP-05 tube preamplifier ($8500), and CD-303T SACD player ($6500), with Tannoy's flagship floorstander, the Kingdom Royal ($55,000/pair). All cabling was by WyWires. The Tannoy is a four-way speaker design, with a 15" woofer handling music below 150Hz, the midrange handling up to 700Hz, the tweeter up to 17kHz, and the super-tweeter up to 65kHz. The Kingdom Royal is very sensitive at 94dB/W/m —the resulting sonics were clear, delicate, and musically involving. And as John Atkinson said when he listened to this system, “there’s no substitute for horsepower.”
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CES: The Stereophile Blogger's Lament
CES 2006
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 11, 2006  |  1 comments
Climb the AP's stairs day by day,
Push on through the screaming fray,
Get those pictures anyway.
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Chario Academy One loudspeaker
Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
Larry Greenhill  |  Sep 28, 2008  |  First Published: Mar 28, 1998  |  0 comments
I first auditioned a pair of Chario Academy One minimonitors five years ago, but the review was aborted when the Italian Chario company lost its US distribution. When I reheard the Chario Academy Ones at the 1997 WCES, I found their elegant cabinetwork appealing and their sound listenable and involving. I therefore requested a pair for review from the new US importers.
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Classé Audio DR-3 power amplifier
Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Larry Greenhill  |  May 06, 2020  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1985  |  13 comments
Classé Audio's DR-3 once again brings to the fore the issues of class-A vs class-AB, weighty vs small and efficient, and brute-force expensive vs clever and inexpensive.

A well-worn, if unproven, audiophile rule of thumb says that a small, quick amplifier will sound better than a very powerful one. Among low-powered amps, those that operate in "pure" class-A are thought to be sonically superior. Pure class-A means the amplifier must run a constant high bias (more than one ampere), so the output devices never turn off.

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Classé Audio Fifteen power amplifier
Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Larry Greenhill  |  Mar 26, 2008  |  First Published: Nov 26, 1994  |  0 comments
I think every audio reviewer hopes for a surprise—when a good, but not outstanding, product is refined by the manufacturer into something special. The review then becomes an exciting discovery, reaffirming the pleasure one takes in good audio, and in listening to music being reproduced as it should be. It makes the listening exciting and the writing easier. The Classé Fifteen solid-state stereo amplifier is just such a surprise.
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