Gramophone Dreams

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Gramophone DreamsStand Loudspeaker Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #71: Heretic AD614 loudspeaker
Herb Reichert  |  Mar 21, 2023  |  15 comments
The hegemony of the skinny-box orthodoxy had me worrying about our collective music-listening future—until a day in September 2022 at Jason Tavares's elegantly appointed HiFi Loft in Hell's Kitchen, NYC, where, after auditioning Klipsch's new, spectacularly dynamic, precise-imaging Jubilee horns (which have front baffles 52" wide) and Harbeth's latest not-skinny-but-consummately-coherent SHL5plus XD, I auditioned these stout, unpainted, unveneered-plywood box speakers.
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Gramophone DreamsPhono Cartridge ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #70: Sutherland Engineering SUTZ & Lounge Audio Copla headamps, Dynavector DV-20X2 & XX-2 MKII phono cartridges
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 23, 2023  |  3 comments
As an upstart journalist-flâneur, my basic urge is to step on the gas and let my '54 Buick careen down the freeway, crashing into guardrails on both sides. Old Buicks were built for that, and I would love to take readers on one of those kinds of rides.

But when I write this monthly column, I find myself aiming for a different feel, more like driving cross-country in a '70s Ford station wagon, documenting motels and gas stations. A trip where it's fun to roll easy, take in the views, and stop at every car museum, snake farm, and stalactite cave.

This month, I'm going to put some miles on the Ford's odometer as I investigate the effects of Ron Sutherland's newest current-drive creation: a $3800 transimpedance moving coil headamp called the SUTZ. Along the way, I will also re-review Dynavector's $1250 DV-20X2 moving coil cartridge and examine what might be the sweetest spot in Dynavector's cartridge lineup: the $2150 XX-2 MKII.

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Digital Processor ReviewsGramophone Dreams
Gramophone Dreams #69: Trance Dancing on Maxwell Street & the Rotel DT-6000 "DAC Transport"
Herb Reichert  |  Jan 24, 2023  |  7 comments
Everyone knows I'm a lucky guy. I was born in Chicago in nineteen-hundred and forty-nine, and as far as I can tell, that was the perfect year to be born. I missed the war, plague, and Depression horrors of the first half of the 20th century, and I witnessed the art, music, and cinema inventions of the second half.
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Gramophone DreamsTube Power Amp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #68: Lab12 Mighty power amplifier & Pre1 preamplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Dec 28, 2022  |  23 comments
In my realm, the most sophisticated, intelligent, difficult thing anyone can do is create something mysterious. It could be a poem, a photo, a movie, a song, a symphony, or a piece of painted wood. What's most important is the mystery—and that experiencing the mysterious creation inspires in the observer a desire to probe its hidden realms, to somehow figure it out. Human cultures are founded on mysteries: Mysteries incite art, inspire science, and facilitate dreaming.
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Gramophone DreamsPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #67: Grado Platinum3 and Goldring Eroica H phono cartridges; Herbie's Way Excellent II turntable mat
Herb Reichert  |  Nov 22, 2022  |  5 comments
In last month's Gramophone Dreams, I explained why doing any sort of empirical study of high-quality digital sources was extremely difficult. That any success I might achieve as a reporter would boil down to my ability to employ metaphors to describe a DAC's clarity and dynamic personality. Concocting metaphors for DAC reviews is risky because it assumes readers will be familiar with the sound of my amplifier and speakers and, ideally, with one of the DACs I'm using in the comparison. That's a lot to assume.
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Digital Processor ReviewsGramophone Dreams
Gramophone Dreams #66: Audio-GD R7HE MK2 D/A processor
Herb Reichert  |  Oct 26, 2022  |  8 comments
Whenever I install a new, in-for-review DAC, after some amount of spaced-out not-listening listening I find myself just sitting there, being happy I got the damn thing working. Once I recover from the stress of installation, my brain begins, without prompting, to examine the character of sound coming out of my speakers.
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Gramophone DreamsPhono Preamp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #65: Music Hall Analogue A3 phono preamplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Sep 20, 2022  |  9 comments
If I hear it, is it real?

If your ears see,
And your eyes hear,
Not a doubt you'll cherish—How naturally the rain drips
From the eyes!—Bujutsu Sosho

The more audio gear I review, the more fascinated I become by the fact that as I listen to recorded music, I can close my eyes and see musicians on the stage at Carnegie Hall, or djembe drummers in a desert by a tent, or a bass note penetrating the Milky Way. What a gift of consciousness. And what a great hobby it is that focuses my attentions in this manner.

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Gramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #64: Meze Audio Elite headphones & HeadAmp GS-X mini Balanced headphone amplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Aug 30, 2022  |  12 comments
I have a peephole in the door to my first-floor apartment. It looks down a straight hall to a glass wall framing the front door of my building. For 13 years, its job has been to let me see who is ringing my buzzer and who is making a racket in the hall.
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Cable ReviewsGramophone Dreams
Gramophone Dreams #63: Cardas Beyond interconnect & loudspeaker cable
Herb Reichert  |  Aug 11, 2022  |  25 comments
I was born an obsessive reader and a compulsive tinkerer. During the '60s, I subscribed to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Hot Rod, Car Craft, Motor Trend, Road & Track, and (of course) Stereo Review and High Fidelity. Every one of those magazines presented articles discussing the importance of upgrading stock wiring to better-quality "premium" wires, citing improved electrical performance and greater reliability.
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Gramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #62: Dan Clark Audio Stealth & Warwick Acoustics Bravura headphones
Herb Reichert  |  Jun 28, 2022  |  4 comments
I am an artist by trade. Saws and brushes and cameras are some of the tools I use. The aesthetic quality of the things I make is determined not by my skill with tools but by the dynamic relationships I establish among space, color, tone, and shape.

Of those elements, shapes are the most important because they are the first thing a viewer notices and the chief vehicles for transmitting sentiment and artistic intent. Stylized shapes, like those in popular art, may induce superficial responses in the viewer. Taut, Euclidian shapes suggest their author is of a higher mind; the Parthenon and Pantheon exemplify this type of shape making.

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Cable ReviewsGramophone DreamsSolid State Preamp Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #61: The Art of Cable: AudioQuest, Canare, Kondo & the HoloAudio Serene preamplifier
Herb Reichert  |  Jun 02, 2022  |  20 comments
I have this friend, a smart, good-looking young physicist from Argentina. Naturally, I call him "Gaucho." He lives in a glistening-white steel-and-glass apartment overlooking lower Manhattan. I visit him regularly, usually with a group of audio friends, mainly to compare recordings, drink wine, and talk hi-fi.
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Digital Processor ReviewsGramophone Dreams
Gramophone Dreams #60: Denafrips Terminator Plus, Denafrips Gaia, HoloAudio Spring 3
Herb Reichert  |  May 03, 2022  |  17 comments
The week before Christmas, I invited my artist friend Joe to visit my studio to see my 2021 paintings. To spice the invitation, I told Joe that while he was looking he could audition the newest flagship DAC from Denafrips, the Terminator Plus.
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Gramophone DreamsStand Loudspeaker Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #59: the Ojas System, EJ Jordan Marlow loudspeaker
Herb Reichert  |  Mar 22, 2022  |  35 comments
Look closely at the audio system in the photo. It belongs to my friend, and fellow audio seeker, Devon Turnbull (aka Ojas). Notice every object in the room, particularly the arrangement of amplifiers, and turntables, and that awesome herd of cartridges on the table in front of the listening chair.
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Gramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #58: Stax SR-X9000 headphones, EAR Phono Classic, Bob's Devices Sky 20 SUT
Herb Reichert  |  Mar 02, 2022  |  7 comments
A month ago, I ran into my Russian neighbor in the hall. As usual, he asked me what I was reviewing. (Vladimir likes to come over and listen, then find fault with everything I play.) When I told Vlad I had Stax's new top-of-the-line earspeaker, the SR-X9000, he lit up and exclaimed, "I need to hear it," adding that he has been a lifelong Stax fanatic and owns at least five different models, "dating way back."
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Gramophone DreamsHeadphone Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #57: Ferrum OOR headphone amplifier and HYPSOS power supply
Herb Reichert  |  Feb 01, 2022  |  8 comments
I'm deep into audio power amplifiers because they remind me of race car engines. Both power sources are wildly inefficient, converting only a small percentage of their stored energy into work while dissipating the rest as heat and vibration. Mainly though, I love how race car engines sound. How they shake the air. Just like amps and speakers.
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