Analog source: Heybrook TT2 turntable, SME III tonearm, Ortofon SME30H cartridge.
Digital sources: Meridian 508-24 CD player, Mark Levinson No.360 DAC, Perpetual Technology P-3A DAC, Sony SCD-XA777ES SACD player.
Preamplification: Sonic Frontiers Line-3 preamplifier, Audiolab 8000PPA phono stage.
Power amplifiers: Bel Canto EVo 200.2 monoblocks, McCormack DNA-1 (with SMc Rev.A mod), Sonic Frontiers Power-3.
Loudspeakers: Paradigm Reference Studio/20 and Studio/60, Revel Ultima Studio.
Cables: Interconnects: Cardas Golden Cross, Straight…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar 3: Measurements
My estimate of the Monsoon Audio FPF-1000's sensitivity was 88.5dB(B)/2.83V/m—fractionally but inconsequentially higher than specified, and a little higher than the average for all the speakers I have measured (footnote 1). The speaker's plot of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1), however, revealed it be quite current-hungry. The magnitude hovers around 4 ohms through the upper midrange and low treble, dropping to below 3 ohms in the top two octaves. Perhaps more important is a difficult-to-drive combination of 4.5 ohms and 46 degrees…
"My god. This was better than any hi-fi I had ever experienced—I actually had Sergei Rachmaninoff in the room, playing Mendelssohn just for me. I am not ashamed to say that I wept." I wrote those words in the January 2001 Stereophile, about hearing a piano-roll transcription of Rachmaninoff performing Mendelssohn's Spinning Song (Op.67 No.34) on a Bösendorfer Imperial 290SE reproducing piano. I was in the middle of recording Robert Silverman's cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas at the Maestro Foundation in Santa Monica, where there just happened to be a floppy disk with Wayne Stahnke's…
"It took long enough," as I said to Larry Fish and Roger Stockholm.
McIntosh Laboratory has waited nearly 40 years to introduce its first totally new tube preamp since the C22, which was in production from 1963 to 1972. I was in college in 1963—more or less penniless, drooling over Mac gear in the windows of a shop in Providence, Rhode Island. Better graduate. Get a job. Make some dough. Buy some Mac tube gear.
Oops. Too late.
By the time I could afford new Mac tube gear, in the mid-'70s, Mac was making only solid-state. I could have bought used, though. Probably…
I first met Roger five or six years ago, when he and Larry delivered a McIntosh C42 preamp for me to audition with the MC2000. Poor Roger. He was so proud of his preamp, which was quite nice and remains in production, but all I had eyes for was the tube amp. (By the way, Roger and Larry are new hires compared to Sidney, who has been with McIntosh Laboratory since its founding, in 1948.)
The C2200 retails for $4500, and I find it hard to imagine that any McIntosh enthusiast wouldn't want to own one—even fans of Mac's solid-state amps.
Tubes aren't as troublesome as they're…
I usually have trouble writing about preamps. Some designs—especially less expensive ones—have a tendency to intrude. If they're tube, they might be noisy. If they're transistor, they might impart a metallic haze. I've been big on passive preamps, especially for audiophiles on a tight budget.
Surprise, surprise—the C2200 was so quiet I thought I was listening to my Purest Sound Systems 500 dual-mono passive unit. I heard no noise at all through the line-level inputs, even with the volume cranked way up. (Of course, I heard some noise when I selected the phono input, but not much.)
…
In the C2200, a delay circuit mutes the preamp for about 30 seconds, during which "Tube Warmup" appears reassuringly in the digital display.
Larry Fish: "Electromagnetic switching has a good deal to do with the fact there are no clicks and pops. All switching capabilities of the preamplifier are electromagnetic. This is far more reliable than the usual mechanical switching because the switches themselves are in an inert atmosphere."
"Almost like a vacuum tube?"
"Not quite. The switches are in a glass chamber filled with nitrogen. Wires are suspended in the chamber, and…
Sidebar: Contact Information
McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., 2 Chambers Street, Binghamton, NY 13903. Tel: (607) 723-3515. Fax: (607) 723-1917. Web: www.mcintoshlabs.com .
MIKE GARSON: The Oxnard Sessions, Volume Two
Mike Garson, piano; Eric Marienthal, alto & soprano sax; Brian Bromberg, bass; Ralph Humphry, Bill Mintz, drums
Reference Recordings RR-53CD (CD, LP to come). Keith Johnson, eng.; J. Tamblyn Henderson, prod. DDD. TT: 73:50
Mike Garson, piano; Eric Marienthal, alto & soprano sax; Brian Bromberg, bass; Ralph Humphry, Bill Mintz, drums
Reference Recordings RR-53CD (CD, LP to come). Keith Johnson, eng.; J. Tamblyn Henderson, prod. DDD. TT: 73:50
Some listeners will remember Reference's first volume of Mike Garson, recorded in 1990 by Keith Johnson in the Oxnard Civic Auditorium. The Oxnard Sessions: Volume One was rapturously received by an audiophile press eager for substantial music in topnotch sound. This second volume, most of which was recorded in…
Revolutionary is a word that's tossed around all too lightly in the world of audio. The understandable impulse to tout every new development as a quantum leap forward in sound reproduction has made it difficult to sort out the evolutionary from the truly groundbreaking. And there's not that much left to do in amplifier design that is worthy of being described as "revolutionary," or so it seems. Vacuum-tube circuitry has been thoroughly understood since the late 1940s, and 40 years of development of solid-state has rendered it, in its finest implementations, a worthy competitor and…