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Listening #60

I don't want a symphony orchestra in my room: That's crazy. I want their music, played with enough realism that I can hear how it's done.

My room is 12' wide by 19' long, with an 8' ceiling, and it's made of wood and Sheetrock. There's no way any sane person would want to sit there and hear the same loudness level they'd hear in a concert hall, in the presence of a full orchestra. Count me among them.

I also wouldn't want to sit in that room and hear quite the same physical scale as a real orchestra —which is neither here nor there, since there doesn't appear to be any way of…

Listening #60 Page 2

The opportunity for my first in-home DeVore Fidelity experience came last summer, when John DeVore offered to deliver and install a pair of his brand-new Gibbon Nines ($6500/pair). Not every loudspeaker in the DeVore line is referred to as a Gibbon —the current exception is the flagship Silverback Reference ($15,000/pair), which Mikey raved about in the March 2006 Stereophile —but they all benefit from an evidently unique approach to crossover technology called the Gibbon Circuit, the precise workings of which are a closely guarded secret. "It isn't a first-order, second-order, or third-…

Listening #60 Jim Austin, May 2009

Jim Austin wrote about the Gibbon Nine in May 2009 (Vol.32 No.5):

Ambitious high-end audio designers face a difficult marketing challenge. On the one hand, to succeed, they have to get noticed. On the other hand, the qualities they must aspire to—in my opinion—do not attract attention. A fast, slick-looking car is easy to sell, but a really great loudspeaker is sonically retiring. Great audio gear is free of obvious sonic flaws, but the benefits of the very best, in my view, are not necessarily apparent with a brief audition. So how do you make an expensive product that sells well after…

Klaus Heymann: A 20th-Anniversary Chat with the Founder of Naxos

When Hong Kong–based music lover and electronics-equipment distributor Klaus Heymann (footnote 1), now 70, first began organizing classical-music concerts as a way to boost sales, he had no idea he would end up founding the world's leading classical-music label. But after starting a record-label import business and meeting his future wife, leading violinist Takako Nishizaki, the German-born entrepreneur sought a way to promote her artistry. First he founded the HK label, which specialized in Chinese symphonic music (including Nishizaki's recording of Butterfly Lovers, the famous violin…

Klaus Heymann: A 20th-Anniversary Chat with the Founder of Naxos Page 2

JVS: Let's talk about sound quality. I am finally posting clips from my whistling CD to my website, and spent some time listening to the sound. Even through my old, poor powered computer speakers, I could easily hear the difference between WAV files, MP3 at 320kbps, and MP3 at 192kbps. The smaller files really truncate my sound, rendering it much thinner, brighter, and lacking in overtones. If people are downloading clips that are less than 192kbps, they're hearing only a fraction of what was initially recorded. Have you considered posting lossless files and streaming at higher rates?

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Shure SE530 in-ear headphones

I first saw the Shure SE530 at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, when it was dubbed the E500. The '500 shared the current product's three-armature driver technology and in-ear, sound-isolating, sleeve fitting scheme, but that early prototype seemed almost crude in comparison with the SE530.

During the year or so it took Shure to bring the SE530 to market, it went through some changes, including its model designation. Shure added modular cables (different lengths are available), as well as a standard in-line volume attenuator and a Push To Hear (PTH) module ($50) that "allows you to…

Shure SE530 in-ear headphones Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Triple TruAcoustic in-ear earphones with tuned ports. Frequency range: 18Hz–19kHz. Sensitivity: 119dB/W/m at 1kHz. Impedance: 36 ohms at 1kHz. Input connector: 1/8" (3.5mm) gold-plated stereo plug.
Dimensions: Cord: 18" with extension. Weight: 1.1oz (31gm).
Finish: Black chrome.
Serial Number Of Unit Reviewed: none found.
Price: $449. Approximate number of dealers: sold direct. Warranty: 2 years, limited.
Manufacturer: Shure Inc., 5800 West Touhy Avenue, Niles, IL 60714-4608. Tel: (847) 600-2000, (800) 257-4873. Fax: (847) 600-1212.…

Shure SE530 in-ear headphones Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital Sources: Apple iPod Video (60GB), iPod Nano G1, iPod Shuffle G1 & G2.
Headphone Amplifiers: HeadRoom Desktop D/A, Ray Samuels Emmeline The Hornet & Emmeline Tomahawk.
Headphones: Etymotic ER-4S, Ultimate Ears UE-10 Pro.—Wes Phillips

Shure SE530 in-ear headphones Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

As I've written before, I have no means of assessing the frequency response of headphones—Keith Howard wrote an excellent article on this subject in the October 2007 issue of the British magazine Hi-Fi News—but I did measure the electrical impedance of the Shure SE530s with the headphones inserted in my ears. The measurements will thus include the acoustic loading of my ear canals, which I assume is not too different from the typical Stereophile reader's (though yes, the diameter of my "jumbo" ear canals is larger than average). The result is shown in fig.1. The…

Snell Type K/II loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Two-way, sealed-box, stand-mounted, dynamic loudspeaker. Driver complement: one 8" polypropylene-cone woofer, one 1" treated textile-dome tweeter. Crossover frequency: 2.7kHz, third-order slopes. Frequency response (measured in an anechoic chamber and corrected for half-space): 70–20kHz ±2dB. Sensitivity: 90dB 1W/1m (anechoic). Recommended amplifier power: 10–100W. Nominal impedance: 6 ohms.
Dimensions: 11" W by 18" H by 9" D. Shipping weight: 52 lbs/pair.
Finishes available: matched grain, hand-sanded and -oiled pairs in oak or walnut veneers…