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PS Audio's Power Plant Premier is a high-end product that takes the regeneration approach in providing audio/video gear with the cleanest AC possible. But not everyone can afford to spend $2195 on such a product, and although the new amplifier design that forms the basis of the Premier is relatively efficient, it does use power, and concern about conservation of the planet's energy resources might lead one to prefer a passive approach to power-line treatment. PS Audio's line of Power Centers provides such an alternative. The model I had for review was the Quintet Power Center, which differs…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Microprocessor-controlled AC filter with 5 pairs of AC outlets, surge and spike protection, electrical isolation of each pair of receptacles, 12V trigger.
Price: $495. Approximate number of dealers: 147.
Manufacturer: PS Audio, 4826 Sterling Drive, Boulder, CO 80301. Tel: (720) 406-8946. Fax: (720) 406-8967. Web: www.psaudio.com.
A hot topic for discussion in recent issues of Stereophile has been the impact Home Theater has had on the High End. Some of the magazine's contributors—J. Gordon Holt and Corey Greenberg, for example—have written that the advent of Home Theater means that we should expand the audio context of the magazine to include reviews of video components (footnote 1). Others, including Bob Harley, Tom Norton, and myself, feel that we should stick to what we know and love—audio—and enter the new field only to advise Stereophile's readers on how to achieve the best sound from a Home Theater system.…
Corey Greenberg Responds
After reading Ken Gould's anti–Home Theater "As We See It" in August (Vol.16 No.8, p.7), I feel I must clarify my position regarding Home Theater coverage in the pages of Stereophile.
With all due respect, JA mischaracterizes my position in his introduction to Mr. Gould's essay. In fact, I have never stated—privately or publicly, as JA implied that I had on the CEFORUM section of Compuserve—that I felt Stereophile should be reviewing video components. Never have, never will. Because, like JA, I think Stereophile should stick to covering what it knows…
Letters
Video vs the high-end dinosaurs
Editor: I have been following the ongoing debate among your staff over Home Theater and Stereophile's review policy regarding video equipment. Long a connoisseur of high-definition audio, I am also a movie aficionado. I found video a natural addition to my existing audio system.
While the outcome of your review-or-not-to-review debate will have no impact on me, I believe it may have an impact on the future economic viability of your publication. With the advent of digital HDTV, the future of audio will become inextricably tied to…
There is something especially exciting about a new loudspeaker design, if only because speakers are the component where one constantly hopes for the sonic miracle that will suddenly make it all sound real. No other component has the same overall impact in coloring the system, presents more room problems, or inspires more frustration on the road to the perfect system.
The Eminent Technology LFT-III also clearly qualifies as a new design by any standard. Like the Apogee Ribbons, it is one of the few new speaker systems since the appearance of the Magneplanars and Quads to…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Planar doublet loudspeaker system. HF level switchable with flat, –3, and –6dB positions. Diaphragm area: 580 sq.in. Foil thickness: 0.00033". Mylar thickness: 0.0005". Laminate adhesive thickness: 0.00015". Gap between conductors: 0.03". Peak-to-peak diaphragm displacement: 0.2". Frequency response: 35Hz–20kHz, ±4dB. Claimed phase response: ±20 degrees, 100Hz–31kHz. Sensitivity: 81dB/W/m. Diaphragm resonance: 34 & 38Hz. Power requirement: 50–200W. Impedance: 8–22 ohms. Maximum spl: 104dB at 1m.
Dimensions: 27" W by 54" H by 1" D (3" at base).…
I've been chipping away for some time at the task of trying to put together a music lover's stereo system for about half the money of my last such effort: $2500 to $3750 now, vs around $7500 back in 2005. My timing was good: CD and DVD receivers are a hot product category, with several attractive new entries at various prices.
A CD receiver is a single chassis comprising a CD or DVD player, a terrestrial radio tuner (often AM/FM, but usually only FM), a preamplifier, and a power amplifier, all operated by a single remote control. All you need to provide are speaker cables and speakers,…
Since then, Primare has changed their US distributor to the Sound Organisation of Dallas, Texas, who also import Rega equipment, which must keep them hopping, and Wilson Benesch, which, sad to say, probably doesn't. The good news is that, in the switchover, the US retail price of the DVDI10 dropped from $3000 to $2500.
Even outside—or perhaps especially outside—the boundaries of my little project, the 75Wpc DVDI10 is an immensely attractive product that could be the ideal solution for apartment dwellers or empty-nesters who don't want separate audio and video systems. The DVDI10…
The DVDI10 could play way loud and go plenty deep. Driven by the Primare, the LFT-16s were nostalgically punchy with The Best of Sade (CD, Epic EK 66686), and grandly opulent with organist James Busby's performance of Herbert Howells' Master Tallis's Testament, from Pipes Rhode Island (CD, Riago 101). Despite containing a digital amplifier, the Primare ran warmer than the Carat, though not hugely hot.
For much of the time I just listened to music, enjoying the Primare for what it offered. Only when I switched between them did the differences between the Primare and the Carat become…