What makes someone a good hi-fi reviewer? A fine critical sensibility? A good technical background? Ears? Eyes? Nose? Throat? So many different people are reviewing audio gear these days that it's downright impossible to characterize a good reviewer. But I <I>do</I> know that Beavis and Butt-head would make <I>killer</I> hi-fi reviewers!
Lee de Forest filed for a US patent on his "Audion"—the first triode—on October 25, 1906, but never could explain why it worked (footnote 1). It was up to Armstrong and Langmuir, in their pioneering work, to place the hard-vacuum triode on firm scientific ground. When the US entered World War I in April 1917, the Army had to rely on French tubes. Six months later, Western Electric was mass-producing the VT-1 receiving tube and the VT-2 transmitting tube. However, it was only in the decade following World War I, as designers became conversant with the triode amplifier, that many of the crucial elements of tube amplification were nailed down. Technical issues such as coupling two gain stages and selection of optimal coupling impedance were already resolved by the mid-1920s. The triode ruled supreme until the tetrode came along in 1926, followed in 1929 by the pentode from Philips's research laboratories in Holland.
When the Compact Disc was first introduced nearly ten years ago, many were critical of the sound quality from this medium that promised "Perfect Sound Forever." To many sensitive listeners digital playback was a travesty that paled by comparison to even modestly priced turntable/arm/cartridge combinations. Ironically, those listeners who first praised CD sound have been forced to recant when confronted by the huge improvements in digital to analog conversion (and A/D conversion) seen in the past few years.
Anyone who's ever looked for it knows how rare audio-friendly living space is. Perhaps someday an enterprising developer will build Audiophile Acres---a whole <I>subdivision</I> of audio houses or soundproofed condos that'll meet these needs---then stand by while hordes of long-suffering audiophiles stampede the sales office, frantically waving down-payments in their sweaty hands.
Our long-awaited laser-audio disc player (usually called the CD, for "Compact Disc") finally arrived, along with a real bonanza of software: two discs—a Polygram classical sampler of material from Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips, and a Japanese CBS recording of Bruckner's 4th Symphony, with Kubelik.
<B>ELVIS COSTELLO: <I>2½ Years</I></B><BR> Including: <I>My Aim Is True</I> (RCD 90271. Bazza, eng. TT: 60:22), <I>This Year's Model</I> (RCD 90272. TT: 52:46), <I>Armed Forces</I> (RCD 90273. TT: 63:29), all available separately, and <I>Live at El Mocambo</I><BR> Rykodisc RCD 90271/74 (4 CDs). TT: 3:45:33<BR> <I>All above (except as noted):</I> CD only. Nick Lowe, prod.; Roger Bechirian, eng. & re-mastering. AAD.
"Boy, that's flat!" I whistled. I was looking at a quasi-anechoic TDS response Avalon Acoustics' Charles Hansen had produced for his latest brainchild, the two-way Eclipse loudspeaker that he was setting up in my listening room.
What did you on your wedding night? I know what I did. All three times. But Casey McKee? He spent his wedding night at the end of October installing the new Lingo power supply on his Linn LP12. I know. I was there.
"Uhh! What is it?" I was being prodded on the arm. Admittedly it was gentle, almost polite prodding, but prodding it still was, a rude disturbance of the cocoon I had woven around myself in seat 31J of the American Airlines MD-11 winging its way across the North Atlantic. I pushed Pause on the Discman, insensitively not waiting for an opportune cadence in the Brahms Piano Quintet that had been my erstwhile virtual reality.
<B>GILBERT & SULLIVAN: <I>H.M.S. Pinafore</I></B><BR> Richard Suart, The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.; Thomas Allen, Captain Corcoran; Michael Schade, Ralph Rackstraw; Rebecca Evans, Josephine; Felicity Palmer, Little Buttercup; Donald Adams, Dick Deadeye; Richard Van Allan, Bill Bobstay; Welsh National Opera Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Charles Mackerras<BR> Telarc CD-80374 (CD only). James Mallinson, prod.; Jack Renner, eng. DDD. TT: 73:42