Given RH's enthusiastic report on the sound of the Sonic Frontiers, I felt that I should also give it a listen. My system consisted of B&W Silver Signature speakers driven by a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.6 monoblock power amplifiers; the preamplifier was first the Sonic Frontiers SFL-2, then the remote-controlled Mark Levinson No.38S. The digital source was a Mark Levinson No.31 transport connected to the processor via either Madrigal AES/EBU cable or ASM Labs' Mamba ST-optical cable. For reference purposes, I too had the original SFD-2 and the…
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The aluminum-magnesium cones of the two 10" woofers are cast and machined for an optimal ratio of stiffness to mass. Each has a high-temperature, 2" voice-coil, a prominent T-shaped pole-piece, and heavy copper support rings and phase plug. A stiff, injection-molded alloy basket maintains complete structural stability while allowing air movement to reduce reflections, cavity resonances, and flow noise.The woofers' rear reflex ports open above the service panel.
The crossover frequencies are 250Hz and 2.5kHz. The crossover itself—a fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley filter network wired…
I continued my listening sessions by analyzing four recordings of Attention Screen made by JA at our favorite club, Otto's Shrunken Head, in New York City. (We plan to compile a selection of those performances' highlights for a disc to be released on the Stereophile label in early 2009.) I studied each piece from the nearly six hours of music to select the moments that showed us at our best while also providing the greatest variety of musical textures. The Aperion 6T made this an easy and enjoyable task, and put me in an analytical mood. So I cued up "Pachuco Cadaver," from Captain Beefheart…
The Home Entertainment 2004 East Show, held in New York City, May 20–23, at the New York Hilton & Towers, gave Show attendees a memorable weekend filled with live music, educational seminars, a special movie night, and a grand concert—all included with the price of admission to the Show.
Over the four days of the Show, the New York Hilton & Towers was filled with almost 15,000 home entertainment enthusiasts, 2500 members of the trade, and 450 journalists from all over the world, who came to demo the finest home audio, video, computer, and digital photography technology, as well as…
When I attend Stereophile's annual Home Entertainment show, I rarely sit and listen to music for very long. Instead, I try to hit every room, press the flesh, find out about new products, and play a little jazz.
But HE2006, in Los Angeles, was different. I must have spent three hours listening critically to the wonderful music and sound I heard in the three rooms occupied by the Audio Research Corporation, who'd hooked up their Reference line of electronics to speakers from Thiel, Vandersteen, and Wilson. The ARC gear included the Reference CD7 CD player, the Reference 3 line-…
The DAC's analog signal is fed to an output stage running in class-A and assembled from discrete components, which makes possible higher power outputs than are obtainable from integrated circuits. Bryston's extensive sorting and grading of the components comprising the analog output amplifiers are claimed to result in superior test-bench performance.
Listening
The BCD-1's shape and compactness allowed me to place it on one of my narrow equipment shelves, where it neatly replaced the Krell KPS-28c that had been returned to the manufacturer. Having reviewed and loved the sound of…
The resulting soundstage was the most realistic, palpable, and three-dimensional I'd ever heard in my room. Singers were enveloped in a 360° space that extended well behind them, as heard with the performance of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing," from the Chesky sampler. The first movement of the "Eroica" was spellbinding—I could hear subtle ambience cues I'd previously heard only at concerts.
Soundstages were also wider and deeper when I played CDs. There was an enhanced sense of three-dimensionality, with more precise images of the instruments in space, as heard during the percussion solo…
When I reviewed JBL's S38 loudspeaker for the June 2001 issue of Stereophile (Vol.24 No.6), I was impressed with the performance of this large, inexpensive ($599/pair) bookshelf speaker. When I received a press announcement at the end of 2005 announcing JBL's new affordable speakers, the Studio L series, which incorporates innovations developed for JBL's recording-studio monitors, I began a discussion with JBL's public-relations firm. They promised many significant design innovations and sonic improvements over the S series.
The Studio L series includes three bookshelf models (…
Integrated Amplifiers & Receivers
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Ayre Acoustics AX-5 Twenty: $12,950
In 2013, AD described the original Ayre AX-5—a $9950 integrated amplifier built around a recently rediscovered configuration of bipolar transistors known as the "diamond" circuit—as "one of the three best, most musical, most human-sounding solid-state amps I've ever heard." Then, in 2015, Ayre debuted a new version, the AX-5 Twenty—a nod to the company's 20th anniversary—promising even better sound. The AX-5 Twenty is built into the same foursquare aluminum case as the AX-5, and is controlled by…
Recently, I thought about all the audio shows I've attended over the last 27 years, looking for any pattern that all of them might have shared. I came up with a handful of audio manufacturers that have earned at shows a reputation for getting, year after year, consistently good sound—rooms in which I could reliably depend on being able to chill out and enjoy music in good, involving sound. Those companies include Audio Research, Music Hall (distributor of Creek and Epos), Vandersteen Audio—and Definitive Technology. Since their founding, in 1990, Maryland-based DefTech has been a major…