Art Dudley

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Art Dudley | Aug 13, 2019 | 116 comments

This almost happened 13 years ago. Thinking the time was right for a Klipschorn review—2006 was the 60th anniversary of its design—I got in touch with a Klipsch representative, who requested photos of my room and details of its size and construction style. My reply was followed by a three-day lag in correspondence, after which came the disappointing news: "We're sorry: It won't work." The problem: There were baseboard radiators too near the corners of the room where the speakers would be installed; consequently, the Klipschorns couldn't be snugged all the way against those corner walls—an iron-clad requirement for their use.

HiFiction Thales TTT-Slim II turntable & Simplicity II tonearm

Tonearm Reviews Turntable Reviews

Art Dudley | Aug 01, 2019 | 6 comments

Money, that unreliable buyer of happiness, has at times proven effective at delivering good sound. It can buy other things, as well: Audiophiles can swap cash for products that function as objets d'art, as status symbols, or even as canny investments.

But—do you think money can buy peace of mind for the audio enthusiast who frets over binding voice-coils, leaking capacitors, drifting resistor values, oxidizing connectors, aging or incorrectly biased tubes, and that most pernicious worry of all, distortion and premature record wear from incorrectly aligned phono cartridges? Sadly, most of those neuroses, some quite reasonable, remain unaddressed by cash almighty.

Listening #200: Tzar DST1 & Shindo Montille CV 391

Art Dudley Listening Phono Cartridge Reviews Tube Power Amp Reviews

Art Dudley | Jul 25, 2019 | 4 comments

Products come and go. Some impress more than others, and in our little world, the ones that impress the most wind up in Class A of our semiannual "Recommended Components" feature.

After a product makes it to that list, if Stereophile's reviewers go more than a few years without hearing it again—in a home system or a dealer's showroom or even at an audio show—that product falls off the list, usually quietly. Thus, if a reviewer is maximally knocked out by a piece of playback gear, yet the fates allow neither a purchase nor an extended loan, he or she or someone else on staff must endeavor to borrow it again so it can stay recommended.

Listening #199: Falcon & Graham LS3/5A

Art Dudley Listening Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Art Dudley | Jun 27, 2019 | 24 comments

It all started when I moved my playback system from my 11' by 16' living room to my 12' by 17' family room: The latter has proven the better-sounding setting, and it's also sunnier and more accessible—and the floor is more level and stable. (The family room is a circa-2005 addition on a 1936 house.) And now that my speakers and my racks of gear have been removed from the living room, there's room for bookcases, books, and people who aren't me.

Exposure Electronics XM5 integrated amplifier

Integrated Amp Reviews

Art Dudley | May 21, 2019 | 8 comments

Audiophilia is nothing if not nostalgic—in fact, it's doubly so. Listening to recorded music is an act of looking back, often with the hope of re-creating some wistfully recalled wonder. On top of that, the zeal to perfect the playback experience, whether by means of better-quality recordings or better hardware, is far less common than it used to be among middle-class consumers. Although in recent years our pastime has surprised with its resilience, we're surely nearer the immolation scene than the Prelude to Act I.

Listening #198: IsoAcoustics & Audio-Creative

Art Dudley Listening Miscellaneous

Art Dudley | May 21, 2019 | 35 comments

It's a toss-up: The house where my family and I lived for 15 years was bigger than the one we have now, and had a much nicer view. On the other hand, we now live in a less economically depressed region, as suggested by the relative scarcity of inflatable lawn decorations. During the last year I saw in my neighborhood far fewer leprechauns, reindeer, Easter Bunnies, purple-and-green Draculas, and turkeys wearing pilgrim hats (which makes about as much sense as Russian soldiers wearing lederhosen). I find those things unspeakably sad, because they're horrible, cheap, gaudy wastes of money.

Listening #197: Simon Brown & The Wand tonearm

Art Dudley Listening Tonearm Reviews

Art Dudley | Apr 30, 2019 | 12 comments

There's a noise I make when I'm having trouble with something inanimate: a deep, growly huff that starts in my diaphragm and comes out in one or two quick, staccato bursts. I huff this huff when I drop a tool or can't budge a seized bolt or the bottom falls out of a trash bag. It annoys my family and scares my dog.

I made that noise at least a half-dozen times while installing and setting up the Wand, a unipivot tonearm designed and manufactured by Design Build Listen Ltd., in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Art's Montreal Wrap: How the Ouest Was Won

Montreal Audio Fest 2019

Art Dudley | Mar 27, 2019 | 11 comments

At the Montreal Audio Fest, Graham Audio's North American distributor, On A Higher Note, brought along the British speaker manufacturer's latest variation on the BBC-monitor theme: the LS5/9f ($US7995/pair in oak, as shown), described as a floorstanding version of the BBC-designed LS5/9 stand-mounter. According to On A Higher Note's Philip O'Hanlon, seen above, the LS5/9f was created by Derek Hughes, the son of the founders of Spendor (themselves once a BBC licensee—this is slightly complicated). Hughes reportedly intended the extra cabinetry to support the speaker without adding to its internal volume or otherwise altering the essential LS5/9 sound.

Listening #196

Art Dudley Listening

Art Dudley | Mar 26, 2019 | 31 comments

The world's a place of horrors
Because each man thinks he's right—Loudon Wainwright III

As a teen, I loved spending time in musical-instrument shops. Now, with exceptions, the experience is reliably depressing.

Last Saturday was exemplary: I walked into my local supermarket of sound to buy a set of guitar strings, and was at once assaulted by the racket of two gunslingers trying to outshoot each other. Combatant No.1, a fiftysomething male with an elaborate dye job, had hold of a new Martin dreadnought acoustic guitar, on which he aggressively demonstrated his repertoire of Stephen Stills licks.

Art's Sonic Saturday in Montreal

Montreal Audio Fest 2019

Art Dudley | Mar 25, 2019 | 7 comments

A few years ago, the Hotel Bonaventure (formerly the Hilton Bonaventure), long the site of the Montreal Audio Fest (formerly Salon Son et Image), turned its sprawling restaurant into a sprawling ballroom called the Ville-Marie salon. For the 2019 Montreal Audio Fest, that room was home to Focal Naim Canada (formerly the distributor known in Canada as Plurison, and in the US as Audio Plus Services.) Daniel Jacques (on the left, with me, in the photo above), who founded Plurison/Audio Plus in 1983, has now sold that company to Vervent Audio Group, which owns Focal and Naim; those brands, including a few others—namely IsoAcoustics, Cambridge Audio, Musical Fidelity, Siltech, Vicoustic, and Solid Tech—will now be handled in Canada by Focal Naim Canada, and, with the exception of Cambridge, in the US by Focal Naim America, also a Vervent subsidiary.

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