Where Measurements and Performance Meet featuring Andrew Jones

Electrocompaniet + Ø Audio at High End Munich 2025

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SSI 2013

Telecaster God on Blu-ray

Art Dudley Mar 22, 2013

Mark Waldrep of AIX Records was on hand with Tearing it Up, the Albert Lee performance film that was recently featured in Stereophile’s pages. Waldrep also showed off a processor called the Realiser (ca $3000), from Smyth Research, a listener-adaptive device that, in this demonstration, allowed me to hear surround effects just as Mark Waldrep hears them in his own installation. Even this headphone-phobic monophile was impressed.

SSI 2013

Plug and play

Art Dudley Mar 21, 2013

Meredith Gabor shows off a Qv2 “harmonizer,” manufactured in Massachusetts by QRT and distributed by Nordost. The Qv2, which contains both passive and active components, is meant to be plugged into an available AC socket in the user’s listening room, as (electrically) close as possible to the system itself, and is claimed to effectively “clean up” the soundstage and improve detail and resolution. Qv2s, the effects of which are said to be cumulative, sell for $350 each.

SSI 2013

BIS: simple and good

Art Dudley Mar 21, 2013

When Bernard Brien started his company BIS a number of years ago, the refurbishing of vintage electronics comprised the bulk of his businessbut over time, he says, he was struck by the sonic weaknesses of older wiring, and the potential for improvement by swapping it for new. A peripheral involvement in aeronautics led Brien to discover the suitability of that industry’s cabling for audio purposes: “It has low mass, low resistance, high bandwidth, and, especially, low mass,” he says, “and it isn’t very expensive.” Brien also touted the simplicity of his products with a phrase, the alliteration of which is lost in translation: “C’est un fil, pas un filtre.” Bien sur!

SSI 2013

CanJam be damned

Art Dudley Mar 21, 2013

Michel Plante, the President of Salon Son et Image, offered a pre-show glimpse of something new: the Personal Audio Zone, where visitors are free to try any of over 150 different pairs of headphones, representing nearly 30 different brands. During this morning’s setup, the ‘phones were being arranged on their tables in order of expense, from the $22 pair nearest the door to the $1600 pair at the far end of the room. Michel Plante said that he’s “trying to create a buzz about headphones, in order to attract younger listeners to the show,” and that he has made it as affordable as possible for headphone manufacturers to participate. (The Personal Audio Zone is staffed by SSI volunteers, not manufacturers or their reps.)

SSI 2013

And they’re off!

Art Dudley Mar 21, 2013

The wigs, that is: The reliably beautiful women of Montreal’s annual Salon Son et Image have, for 2013, traded their signature blue wigs for blue slacks and a trace of blue hair dye. This morning they showed off their fetching new look while looking for and fetching my press badge, just two hours before the start of the show’s trade day. Salon Son et Image, at the Montreal Hilton Bonaventure, opens to the public on Friday, March 22, and runs through Sunday.

Ariel Bitran

Passion of the Hi-Fi: Part I - Unlistenable

Ariel Bitran Mar 21, 2013

Photo by Lalupa, Wikimedia Commons

There sat the hi-fi. Untouched. Unplayed. Unlistenable. Bass resonances continued to torment my sound. Geddy Lee, Paul McCartney, and Sting all produced loose and exaggerated bass energies in unnatural ways. I was constantly perplexed with the unevenness in my bass response. Despite hours of tinkering with speaker placement hindered by random obstructions, namely a queen-size bed, a poorly positioned radiator, and stacks of guitar amps, the bass resonances remained.

Integrated Amp Reviews

Bel Canto Design C7R D/A receiver

Erick Lichte Mar 20, 2013

As a young music lover, I never knew there were such things as separate preamplifiers, amplifiers, and FM tuners. All I knew was that if I wanted to play music from my CD player, hook up my VCR to my stereo, or listen to the radio, I needed that magical device: a receiver. It was all I ever wanted.

Subwoofer Reviews

Velodyne Digital Drive Plus 18 subwoofer

Larry Greenhill Mar 20, 2013

Subwoofer technology is moving fast, with automated room equalization and system integration now a reality. A wave of new products has appeared in the past five years, all using different approaches to solving the problems of optimizing subwoofer response in listening rooms.

Ariel Bitran

Snake Ears!

Ariel Bitran Mar 20, 2013

Advertising Manager Ed DiBenedetto models the Viper Head.

JA tapped my shoulder: “Do you like headphones?”

“You know I do!” I enthused.

“OK. Give me just a second.”

John Atkinson is never this mysterious. It must be something awesome.

The Entry Level

The Entry Level #27

Stephen Mejias Mar 19, 2013

If there's an audio company that has it all, it's Jade Design, parent of Emotiva, Emotiva Pro, and Sherbourn. Before my visit to the company headquarters, in Franklin, Tennessee, I had invariably seen in the company's founder, Dan Laufman, a special kind of contentment, an ease, a happiness. Or was he merely arrogant? I couldn't be sure.