Sometimes stock is simply not good enough. Reader "EG" would like to know how many readers have used an after-market component-modification service to improve standard high-end gear. If you have, have you been satisfied or not? Why?
A couple of weeks back, a staff writer from <a href="http://www.observer-reporter.com/OR/Story/08-15-turntables">the Observer Reporter</a> contacted me.
A couple of obvious errors here, but <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/aug2008/db20080822_… encouraging piece</a>, nevertheless. What I <i>especially</i> like, of course, is this little bit:
You can walk by 21 First Avenue on any given day to see some of our city's most beautiful and talented DJs spinning rare and wonderful vinyl. It's true! It's <a href="http://www.eastvillageradio.com/">East Village Radio</a>. There's a big glass window. Look in and you might see Queen Majesty or Melody Nelson or Mark Ronson or a few of the colorfully dressed peeps from The Fader, those taste-makers. In fact, East Village Radio provides more than 70 unique, and often excellent, two-hour shows, covering musical genres from rock and electronic to jazz and folk to roots and reggae. Lots of good stuff.
A while back, out of the blue, I was contacted by audio distributor May Audio Marketing. They wanted to know if I was interested in reviewing any models from the Genius line of German manufacturer ASW Loudspeakers. I have a lot of time for distributors such as May Audio, whose primary role is to promote lesser-known European audio products on this side of the pond. All of May's principal clients—Castle, Enigma, and Gradient speakers; Sonneteer and Sphinx electronics; and Roksan turntable systems—are much better known in their home countries than in the US.
Has any modern designer of high-performance speakers extracted more music from a two-way box than ProAc's Stewart Tyler? His early-1990s stand-mounted <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/792proac">Response 2</A> (later upgraded to the Response 2S) was an instant classic, and while his tiny <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/0484proac">Tablette</A> proved controversial for being bass-shy and relatively pricey, his track record of two-way speakers remains unassailable.
Holding them felt safe. Maybe they lacked that luxurious lifestyle appeal of the fancier cables with their shiny colors and intricate woven designs, but that's not what I was looking for. I wanted quality, I wanted sturdiness, I wanted comfort. Only to encourage these feelings of security were the locking banana plugs.
Here is the video that people are talking about:
With the popularity of home-theater systems, subwoofers have proliferated. Because multichannel AV receivers are designed to provide a properly filtered, line-level subwoofer, or low-frequency effects (LFE) signal, many subs no longer come with built-in high- and low-pass filters for insertion into two-channel audio systems. However, the PB13-Ultra subwoofer from SV Sound does include these, which is what piqued my interest in it. After Ed Mullen, SV Sound's director of sales, assured me that the PB13-Ultra was capable of reproducing solid 20Hz organ-pedal notes in my listening room, I asked for one to review.
<I>Snobbery is a disease of the imagination.</I>—Peter Straub, "Little Red's Tango"