The main event...
When fed the right material in the right format, the DV-AX10's bass could be as slammin' as anything I'd heard anywhere, anytime. Depending on what mode I was running in, the deep, mid-, and upper bass, and up into the lower midrange, sounded excellent and in no way wanting. That was in 20 or 24 bits at 88.2 or 96kHz. With 16/44.1 CD, and especially SACD, the Pioneer's sound could turn rather soft and fat. Its midrange was the 'AX10's saving grace. You can't dislike an audio component that offers such a big-bosomed, cushy, liquid, round, palpable sound, with tonal…
Then I played with Florent Héau and Patrick Zygmanowski's hybrid SACD/CD, Musique Française pour clarinette et piano (Lyrinx LYR2195), which I've enjoyed for so long, and bit right down on the fly in the potage. Comparing the SACD layer with the 16/44.1 layer proved something of a chore, due to the need to stop the disc, change the mode, then start playing the other layer. But to change the mode, there no SACD/CD button! Instead, you have to enable the video output, turn on your onscreen menu device, find the correct e-page, and tell the machine what to do when presented with a hybrid SACD…
Mastering engineer Denny Purcell let out a long sigh. "Does anyone in this room believe that any of this is going to do any good?" he asked. Of the eight or nine people—each with decades of experience in the music and/or audio industries—hanging out at Georgetown Masters Studios for SDMI's Phase II listening tests this past October, not one said "Yes." The consensus: the watermarking issue will probably be dead and forgotten within a year.
Even those who believe that the music industry has legitimate justification for trying to protect its products have questioned the enormous amounts of…
CALAMUS: The Splendour of al-Andalus
Eduardo Paniagua, chabbada, flutes, salterio, târ, cymbals, voice; Luis Delgado, oud, citola, guimbri, doira, târ, handclaps, voice; Begoña Olavide, voice, quanun, salterio, caraqebs, târ, darûga; Rosa Olavide, voice, rabel, viola, portative organ, cymbals; Carlos Paniagua, darbûga, t'abila, pandero, campanillas, voice
M•A Recordings M026A (CD only). Todd Garfinkle, prod., eng. DDD. TT: 60:10 The emirate of al-Andalus (756-1031 AD), or Muslim Spain, was one of the world's great civilizations. Wealthy, stable, and tolerant (since taxes fell…
The subject was horses' fannies. You certainly are to be forgiven if you have jumped to the conclusion that Jonah Goldberg (footnote 1) and I were discussing Ted Turner and Alan Dershowitz, after consoling ourselves with overgenerous allotments of nature's amber-hued liquids. Strangely enough, that was not the case. (I'm not claiming that that has never happened, but it is a different horses'-fannies discussion I presently have in mind.)
Perhaps someone has forwarded to you the lengthy e-mail item that starts out by claiming that the U.S.-standard railroad-track gauge of 4' 8?"…
You will be shocked—shocked—to learn that the Monitor 40's dimensions are not likely to change soon—or ever, in fact. That is because Harbeth's Monitor 40 was engineered as a drop-in replacement for two horses' fannies. Strike that.
The Monitor 40 was engineered as a drop-in replacement for the British Broadcasting Corporation-standard LS5/8 recording studio and broadcast monitor. "BBC-standard monitor" is a phrase that can make true believers stand up and begin singing "God Save the Queen." I understand why.
I still recall—almost as clearly as if it were yesterday—the…
Harbeth still services original LS3/5As, but, under the management of designer Alan Shaw, refuses to be stuck in the past—a quick trip to their website, the best of any speaker manufacturer I have seen for completeness of information, shows this. Harbeth's "unique selling proposition" is their claim of significant materials improvements for their best midrange driver over the usual polypropylene—slightly ironical, in view of the fact that Harwood himself patented the use of polypropylene in speaker cones many years ago. Harbeth not only makes their own midrange driver, they formulated…
June is a always a perplexing time for me. The weather is lovely, the mountain wildflowers are blooming, things are pretty calm at work.....but it's Bonnie's birthday.
Like anyone searching for a gift, I struggle to balance the element of surprise with the security of getting her something I know she'll like and enjoy—something too predictable, like a replacement for a much-loved but worn-out accessory, is no fun. Err the other way, however, and you end up with a beautiful extravagance that collects dust on a spare-room shelf. What's really difficult, of course, is doing it on a budget.…
Speed and pace suffered a bit with the SuperTwo, and there wasn't a clear sense of air around bass instruments. On recordings like Classic Records' reissue of the Martinon/LSO recording of Shostakovich's The Age of Gold Suite (RCA/Classic LSCCD-2322), I noted that the lower strings sounded muddy and slow, and it was impossible to resolve individual instruments. The wonderful hall ambience was oddly discontinuous as well. It was certainly there surrounding the woodwinds, but didn't seem to reach down around the lower cellos and double bass, and the timpani sounded as if they'd been recorded…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding dynamic loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) fluid-cooled soft-dome tweeter, 6.5" (165mm) midrange/woofer, 6.5" (165mm) long-throw subwoofer with rear-firing port. Crossover frequencies/slopes: 120Hz, 12dB/octave; 2.2kHz, 12dB/octave high-pass, 6dB/octave low-pass. Frequency response: 35Hz-25kHz, ±3dB.. Phase response: not specified. Sensitivity: 87dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms (3.8 ohms minimum). Recommended power: 25-175W.
Dimensions: 39" (990mm) H by 7.25" (185mm) W by 10" (255mm) D. Weight: 39…
