Gramophone Dreams

It's important for readers to remember that I've spent my adult life as an artist and mechanic. Making things. Working as a tradesperson during the day then at an easel or workbench at night.

When I finished high school, all I wanted to do was work in a fancy, well-equipped shop building drag race engines. Engine building was something I had already shown a talent for, but my parents insisted I go to college. Unfortunately, my high school grade point average was so low I was turned down by every college I applied to. Consequently, my parents forced me to attend Wright Junior College in Chicago, a place where teachers rolled joints for their students. And I got straight A's. Those easy A's got me into Western Illinois University, a small state college in a tiny rural town called Macomb near the Mississippi River. My mother was so proud, she told everybody she knew that her son was accepted into "university," but she could never remember which one.

I enrolled at WIU as a physics/chemistry major, but during my first week of my first semester, I was banned from the physics department and put on disciplinary probation for allegedly assaulting a lab assistant with a red laser. And for parking my Camaro in the Dean's spot.

Around that time, a tall student with shoulder-length hair approached me after a performance of a Samuel Beckett play in the school's posh theater. His first words were, "Are you into plays?" I said, "I like reading plays. I read this one in high school. But I've never before seen a play in a real theater like this one." Then he asked, "What do you know about art?" Whereupon I explained, "My mother's an artist, and she took me to a lot of art museums. But I think art is stupid."

"That's perfect," he said, "Because I am the editor of the school newspaper, and I am appointing you to be the art and drama critic. Here's my office number—can you give me a short, written review of this play by tomorrow afternoon?" I told him, "I can't write, so I never write. I pay people to write my class papers. But I'll give this a try because I do have some thoughts about the performance."

I liked the vibe of this editor person, so I reread the Beckett play and described in my review how I thought the performance deviated from what I imagined its author had intended. My new pal Paul, the editor of the Western Courier, loved it. More than 50 years later, Paul and I are still friends, and I still hold him in high esteem for taking me into his realm and pointing me toward the arts.

While covering drama at WIU, I fell in with the fashionable gay crowd, and they taught me to think like an anarchist, dress like a poet, make art like a shaman, and party like a berserker.

The next editor to draft me was Joe Roberts of Sound Practices fame (footnote 1). Joe was rumored to have a PhD in Anthropology, but he presented more like a buccaneer or cult leader than a department chair. Joe advised me to "walk close to the river" (meaning remember where audio started) and warned me, "don't shill for the cartels" (meaning don't be a tool for "The Man"). The main thing Joe taught me was to view audiophile realms as global and tribal, populated by monks, hunters, wizards, and bandits, and that audio is much more than a hobby: It is something audiophiles commit their whole lives to.

I was living on a boat during my next gig, whereat I was writing art show reviews for an editor who became a convicted thieving pirate, while I was working for him. He told me which books I needed to read and refer to and how to socialize with tycoon art collectors.

Next, I was drafted by Art Dudley for Listener magazine (footnote 2). After working for the red-eyed art devil, writing for blue-eyed Art was heaven. I loved how Art presented as a bunny-petting awe-shucks bumpkin but was really a snarky sophisticate. I loved how Art fell in with the triode-horn believers and carried their message passionately to regiments of DIYers, black disc collectors, and audiophiles who mowed their own lawns.

Like Joe Roberts, Art taught me to remember my roots and stay true to my readers.

I just submitted three phono cartridge reviews, but I can't rest. My brain is stuck on spin cycle, and I can't stop playing records. So I thought maybe as a back-drop for my TEAC DAC review in this issue, I'll use this space to play some worthy black discs with a noteworthy cartridge as I describe the impact of an important new amplifier and preamp on my always-evolving reference system.

First Watt SIT-4, Redux
I bought my first LS3/5a (a Falcon Acoustics kit) in the late 1970s. Then I upgraded to a Rogers version in 1984, then the new Falcon versions in 2014. I've tried these 12"-tall monitors with every power amplifier that has passed through my world, including renowned models from Krell, Harman Kardon, Levinson, Dynaco, Fisher, Marantz, Western Electric, Audio Note Japan (Ongaku), Audio Note UK (Mishu), Tim de Paravicini's EAR Yoshino, plus OTLs from Futterman and New York Audio Labs.

Spending decades trying all those different amps through the same speaker has shown me how many different kinds of magic the LS3/5a is capable of. More recently, I've been alternating between Parasound's Halo A 21+ and the very different sounding Elekit TU-8900. I could live forever with either, but I pray I won't have to. Switching between them reminds me what each does that the other can't. The joy of using a speaker like my Falcon LS3/5a is that its 15 ohm impedance responds well to a wide range of amplifier types. Owning a '5a is proof you are on a journey, following a path beside a river where auditioning power amplifiers is like visiting temples and studying their creeds.

I've spent my life doing that, but now it feels like I've found a temple and an audio creed that suits my speakers and my spirit perfectly.

After months of listening, I have convinced myself that the Nelson Pass–designed First Watt SIT-4, which I first described in Gramophone Dreams #89, suits my Falcon Gold Badges perfectly. It doesn't make the sound luminescent like tubes can; but neither does my HoloAudio Serene preamp. What the Serene feeding the SIT-4 does is disappear. I put a high value on that.

The SIT-4 (footnote 3) is the first amplifier I've used that clarified the Falcon's response at both frequency extremes. No amp I've known has ever touched the '5a's voice coils as gingerly as the SIT-4. The cones feel neither underdamped nor overdamped. They feel supported and encouraged. That light touch makes the sound stronger but also more delicate and lifelike.

Typically but not exclusively, the amps that shine with the LS3/5a are low-power, low-feedback class-A designs like this 10W SIT-4 and my beloved Elekit TU-8900, which, with 300B tubes, maxes out at half that power.

Most remarkably, and most notably, before the SIT-4 I had never experienced bass from any speaker anywhere that was as natural and lifelike as what was coming out of these puny, sealed-box BBC monitors. I've had similar experiences where, with just the right amp, those original "bass challenged" Quad ESLs made jaw-dropping bass like my '5a's were doing with the SIT-4.

One day about a month ago, I tried to compare the SIT-4 to the Parasound A 21+ and the 300B Elekit. After a couple of discs with each amp, I went back to the SIT-4 because it felt the most complete and correct. For me, the only thing missing with the SIT-4 is the vibey luminosity of tubes, but that crazy-accurate SIT-4 bass was such a big, dramatic change for my Falcons that I forgot all about tube glow.

PrimaLuna EVO 100 Updated
I know from knowing him a long time that Upscale Audio proprietor Kevin Deal possesses a world-class understanding of vacuum tube history and manufacturing practice. He also knows what it takes to make beautiful, durable, exotic-sounding tube amps that will stand the test of time.

Since the days of Dynaco and Marantz, I've judged every amplifier manufacturer on how their preamps perform, both line level and phono. PrimaLuna's updated EVO 100 phono stage (footnote 4) is a flashing runway model with movie star chops. It's showing people how the most accurate thing to connect your moving coil cartridge to might be the grid of a vacuum tube, but only if it's the right tube. A quiet one.

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Footnote 1: There's an archive at worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Sound-Practices.

Footnote 2: A few issues are posted at enjoythemusic.com/listener.

Footnote 3: First Watt/Pass Laboratories, 13395 New Airport Rd., Suite G, Auburn, CA 95602. Tel: (530) 878-5350. Web: firstwatt.com, passlabs.com.

Footnote 4: PrimaLuna, Durob Audio BV, PO Box 109, 5250, AC Vlijmen, the Netherlands. Tel: (+31) 73-511-2555. Web: primaluna.nl. US distributor: PrimaLuna USA, 1712 Corrigan Ct., La Verne, CA 91750. Tel: (909) 310-8540. Web: primaluna-usa.com.