LATEST ADDITIONS

Until about a week ago, I thought Classé Audio was out of business. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Classé was not just alive but also kicking, with a new line of high-end electronics, which were being showcased, along with flagship products from Marantz and Polk Audio, at Montreal audio-video importer Sherpa Group's offices. What's more, it was happening tomorrow–that is, the day after I found out about Classé's resurgence.

Making digital audio sound good appears to be a much more difficult job than its developers first realized. When digital audio was in its infancy, there was a tendency to think that digital either worked perfectly, or didn't work at all. This belief led the engineering community to devise ill-considered and flawed standards that affect the musical quality of digitally reproduced music today.

A couple of issues back, we mentioned in passing that the Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk.3F was the only moving-coil cartridge we had heard (as of then) that we would give house room to. (The others had frequency-response problems which so colored the sound that their other strong points were not worth the tradeoff.) That first observation about the FR-1 was based on a couple of hours' listening. Now that we have had an opportunity to live with one of them for a while, we can essentially confirm that first reaction, but with a few added qualifications.