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Looking forward to the review of the Vimberg Mino loudspeakers ........ They are in the same price range as Wilson Sasha DAW :-) ........
Steve visited my place in Brooklyn just before the New Year, and we spent an afternoon talking about audio, magazines, measurements, and music. I must have been feeling particularly chatty, as Steve ended up with four interviews, though it is fair to credit Steve's skill as an interviewer. The interviews are linked below.
In the first I talk about my history as an audiophile and my 37-year career as the editor-in-chief of two leading audio magazines, Hi-Fi News & Record Review and Stereophile:
In the second interview, I discuss why I believe audio magazines should publish measurements of the products they review:
Next, I invite Steve into the dedicated room in my basement, where I perform the measurements of amplifiers and digital products and show off my array of test gear:
Finally, Steve and I talk about the explosion of rock music in the late 1960s and how live music became so important in my life as an audiophile:
For the gearheads among you, in three of the videos I am sitting in front of one of the Vimberg Mino loudspeakers I am reviewing in the April 2020 issue of Stereophile, while behind the Mino is my digital-source rack. From top to bottom, you can see a PS Audio DirectStream DAC; a Mark Levinson No.30.6 DAC; a QNAP NAS; an Ayre Acoustics C-5xe
Looking forward to the review of the Vimberg Mino loudspeakers ........ They are in the same price range as Wilson Sasha DAW :-) ........
After reviewing the Vimberg Mino speakers, JA1 could keep them for a while and review the new Rotel Michi S5 stereo amp ($7,000) :-) ........
Great ...... Looking forward to reading those reviews ..... Parasound JC-5 costs about $1k less than Michi S5 ...... S5 is slightly more powerful, according to the manufacturer's specs :-) ......
Several components made by Gato Audio got very positive reviews by Hi-Fi news ....... Gato audio products also look ultra-modern ....... Ken Kessler, who usually likes tube equipment, said Gato Audio mono-blocks sound 'silkiest sounds I've ever heard', reviewing them for Hi-Fi News ...... May be JA1 could review them? :-) .........
Well ...... That is unfortunate ....... Gato Audio uses a new kind of technology which is used in electric vehicles ........ It is not Class-D, but has efficiency like Class-D ........ Some type of current switching technology which uses MOSFETs ........ Paul Miller describes it in Hi-Fi News :-) ........
Excellent series of videos!
I was most intrigued by the first one concerning speaker measurements.
JA, if you are here:
I'm wondering about your experience testing speaker imaging characteristics with dual mono pink noise, when it comes to time/phase coherent speakers vs the rest. (E.g. for time/phase coherent designs: Thiel or other passives, or active speakers that achieve TPC via DSP etc).
Do you find that a speaker that seems to be doing time/phase behavior well translates to particularly precise subjective results when listening to dual pink noise? And if so are the characteristics conferred by time/phase coherence detectable/distinguished when comparing the narrow-focused pink noise vs non-time/phase coherent designs...even when the non-time/phase coherent designs "image well?"
I know that the audible consequences of time/phase coherence remains controversial.
Anecdotally it seems a lot of people talk about similar sonic attributes when listening to time/phase coherent speakers.
I've owned many different types of speakers, often at the same time (from MBL omnis, to old BBC school designs, to electrostatics, to much in between), and I have owned a number of Thiel speakers as well (I had the 3.7s and still own the Thiel 2.7s).
An absolutely consistent impression I have whenever I have listened to other speakers, even ones that seem to image very well and very precisely, is that switching to the Thiels gives the impression the imaging has become even more precise. In comparison, the imaging of the other speakers tends to sound a bit more diffuse and swimmy, where the Thiels give the impression of taking stray sound and "lining up and organizing" things to that sonic images just sound more precisely delineated, more solid and dense.
Given the controversy as to the sonic effects of time/phase coherence, I have no idea if this attribute is actually due to the time/phase coherency or to some other aspects of the design.
But it's such a distinct, overriding impression in any case.
I'm just wondering whether, IF time/phase coherence actually contributes to this effect, whether those attributes show up on the pink noise tests. If so, I'd expect the band of pink noise between the speakers to be very narrow and particularly "dense" and solid sounding on the time/phase coherent designs vs other designs. (?)
Thanks.
My 2 cents ....... Most of the Thiel speaker designs are 'time-coincident' ........ Vandersteen is another speaker designer, whose speakers are also 'time-coincident' :-) .......
JA1 mentioned favorably about Thiel CS2.7 in his RMAF 2012 report :-) .......
Revel is one of the speaker designers, who routinely uses 4th order crossovers :-) .........
Joseph Audio uses patented 'Infinite Slope' crossovers ........ They should work similar to 4th order crossovers ....... Joseph Audio speakers are usually easier to drive than Thiel speakers :-) .........
As it happens I own both Thiel 2.7 and Joseph Perspective speakers. (Currently Thiel 2.7). Both have essentially the same frequency range specs. The Thiels have a nominal 4ohm impedance, 87dB sensitivity. The Josephs a nominal 8 ohm impedance, unrated sensitivity though JA measured estimated 84dB.
Subjective impressions are that my CJ Premier 12 140W monos seem to drive each speaker similarly well, if anything the Thiels giving the impression of being "easier" to drive (IIRC go a bit louder with less power, feel effortless). Similar impression with both speakers powered, just to try, with a 14W Eico HF81 tube amp.
(Both are stellar-sounding speakers IMO!!!)
You may already be aware of this ........ JA1 reviewed both the original Perspective and the newer model Perspective2 Graphene ......... JA1 liked the newer model even better :-) ........
BTW ..... Joseph Audio describes their patented crossovers as 'passive-aggressive' crossovers :-) ........
Thanks for sharing all of this. This is what all families should be doing with their relatives and making videos of all the family members to enjoy their stories and their history for generations to come.
My grandparents were born in 1899 and 1901 and I still remember their stories of all the technology they saw, experiences and the fast paced changes that came into their lives that we take for granted. I wish I had one of my Zoom cameras back them to archive this stuff.
I'm not into the SG channel much, but his interviews are usually well done. As is this series with JA.
It's refreshing to see JA keep using older gear (Win XP computer, etc) because it works and works well and time spent learning new gear/software can be a net loss (i.e., time sink).
About Measurements ...
Something I'd like to see are longitudinal metrics and graphs. For example, how digital-gear noise spectrum, or jitter (as in recent post), or linearity, etc, have improved/changed over the years.
If JA has his past Measurements data in spreadsheet format, it may not be too much of a fuss to crunch the longitudinal numbers.
JA1 uses them to protect his lab from intruders, by giving them shock treatment :-) ......
Great info in the video's. Thanks SG & JA.
That is an extremely nice and informative series of videos I enjoyed immensely. Thank you so much for sharing!! I truly appreciate your work, learnt a lot from it, and hope to get to read a lot in the future, too, both measurements and your subjective impressions.
Greetings from Europe
hb