Four Interviews with John Atkinson

Occasional Stereophile contributor Steve Guttenberg publishes a YouTube channel about audio that has achieved an impressive reach. As Steve told me in a conversation I had with him last December, 22% of his 98,000 subscribers (at the time we talked) are under 34 years old, and, to judge from the comments, most of them don't read Stereophile!!!! "It would nice to introduce you to them!" said Steve, and proposed he interview me and post the video to his channel when it hit the magic 100k number, which it did on January 9.

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-5xeMP SACD/CD player; a Digital Domain VSP jitter filter; a Z-Systems RDP-1 digital preamplifier/equalizer; a Mytek Brooklyn DAC; and a Logitech Transporter DAC. With the exception of the VSP and Mytek, these are all products I have purchased to use as references. There is also a DAVE DAC and Hugo M Scaler from Chord Electronics, both hidden behind the loudspeaker, and both of which I write about in our March 2020 issue.

COMMENTS
Bogolu Haranath's picture

Looking forward to the review of the Vimberg Mino loudspeakers ........ They are in the same price range as Wilson Sasha DAW :-) ........

Bogolu Haranath's picture

After reviewing the Vimberg Mino speakers, JA1 could keep them for a while and review the new Rotel Michi S5 stereo amp ($7,000) :-) ........

John Atkinson's picture
Bogolu Haranath wrote:
After reviewing the Vimberg Mino speakers, JA1 could keep them for a while and review the new Rotel Michi S5 stereo amp ($7,000) :-)

I will be using the Vimbergs for forthcoming reviews of amplifiers from Parasound and Classe. The Rotel does sound interesting.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Bogolu Haranath's picture

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 :-) ......

Bogolu Haranath's picture

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? :-) .........

John Atkinson's picture
Bogolu Haranath wrote:
Several components made by Gato Audio got very positive reviews by Hi-Fi news ... May be JA1 could review them? :-)

I checked out the company's website. At present their products are only available from 2 dealers in the US, so Gato doesn't qualify for a full review in Stereophile.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Bogolu Haranath's picture

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 :-) ........

RH's picture

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.

Bogolu Haranath's picture

My 2 cents ....... Most of the Thiel speaker designs are 'time-coincident' ........ Vandersteen is another speaker designer, whose speakers are also 'time-coincident' :-) .......

John Atkinson's picture
RH wrote:
Excellent series of videos!

Thank you.

RH wrote:
I'm just wondering whether, IF time/phase coherence actually contributes to this effect, whether those attributes show up on the pink noise tests.

Good time-coincident loudspeakers do perform well on this test, but so do speakers using, for example, properly implemented 4th-order crossovers. And pink noise, unlike an impulse or step signal, does not tell you anything about a speaker's performance in the time domain.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

RH's picture

Thanks John!

Bogolu Haranath's picture

JA1 mentioned favorably about Thiel CS2.7 in his RMAF 2012 report :-) .......

Bogolu Haranath's picture

Revel is one of the speaker designers, who routinely uses 4th order crossovers :-) .........

Bogolu Haranath's picture

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 :-) .........

RH's picture

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!!!)

Bogolu Haranath's picture

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 :-) ........

RH's picture

Stop tempting me to spend more money! ;-)

(Yeah, I know about JA's Perspective Graphene review and if I can swing it I'll probably send mine in to be updated in the future).

Bogolu Haranath's picture

BTW ..... Joseph Audio describes their patented crossovers as 'passive-aggressive' crossovers :-) ........

jimtavegia's picture

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.

hollowman's picture

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.

Herb Reichert's picture

were POWER resistors . . . omg!

Bogolu Haranath's picture

JA1 uses them to protect his lab from intruders, by giving them shock treatment :-) ......

dc_bruce's picture

I've watched two of these interviews, so far; and they are just excellent. I can't thank you, JA, enough for doing them and making them available to us here. I'm looking forward to completing the series!

John Atkinson's picture
dc_bruce wrote:
I've watched two of these interviews, so far; and they are just excellent. I can't thank you, JA, enough for doing them and making them available to us here.

You're welcome dc_bruce. As I mentioned, Steve Guttenberg is an excellent interviewer.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

tmslc's picture

Great info in the video's. Thanks SG & JA.

hb72's picture

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

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