In Robert Harley's original review of the Levinson No.38, he commented that he found its technical performance "extraordinary." I found the same to be true of the No.38S. Its frequency response was flat within the audioband, 0.1dB down at 50kHz, which is a little better than the No.38, which was –0.4dB at this frequency. Crosstalk was lower than –106dB at all frequencies below 18kHz, this measured with the undriven input loaded by the source impedance of the Audio Precision generator. This is the best channel-separation I've seen in a preamp. The Levinson's output…
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Sidebar 4: Specifications
Description: Remote-controlled dual-mono line-stage preamplifier with programmable input level offsets, input labels, and mute. Gain: –73.1dB to +18.9dB plus "off." Inputs: two stereo balanced (XLR), four single-ended (RCA), one Mark Levinson Link communications connector, one 1/8" minijack for external IR repeater. Outputs: one balanced stereo main output pair (XLR), one single-ended stereo main output pair (RCA), two stereo record outputs (RCA), one Mark Levinson Link communication connector. Input impedance: 100k ohms. Output impedance: <6 ohms. Input…
Richard Sequerra was born in 1929 and raised in various parts of the US by his mother, who worked for the Department of State. By the time he was 20, he had launched a freelance career that has since spanned a wide range of technologies. During a stint at Marantz in the 1960s, he worked with Sidney Smith on that firm's famed Marantz 10B tuner, which was sold from 1964 through 1970. Subsequent products have included the Sequerra 1 tuner and the Metronome 7 loudspeaker, originally produced by Sequerra's firm Pyramid and now hand-assembled by its creator, who offers the most recent version via…
My friends at Hudson Radio pointed me toward Marantz. I had just invented this big strobe system and was trying to get funding to form a company, and I didn't know how long I'd be able to stay there if they wanted me. But I went, thinking it was just another little thing—I was doing some consulting on the side anyway—and I met Saul Marantz. Saul said, "Your background is fine; I'd like you to talk to Sid Smith." So I met Sid, who was his engineer and one of the great geniuses of audio, really far beyond anyone. He came with me to Saul, who said, "We want you to come here. When can you start…
Lander: Does Hybrid Digital radio, in which the digital information is contained within the analog FM signal, make sense to you?
Sequerra: Not at all. The current medium is the Internet. It's not there yet, but some stations are giving people fidelity that audiophiles will find acceptable. The quality you get is determined by the amount of bandwidth the station is willing to pay for, and that cost is eventually going to be passed on to listeners.
Lander: How many stations have you found that currently offer enough bandwidth for good sound?
Sequerra: Twenty, maybe thirty…
I had no idea, back when I set out to put together a music lover's stereo system in the $2500–$3750 range, that while I was beavering away the stock market would tank and credit markets would freeze up—or that the federal government would print money to bail out overextended investment banks, take equity interests in commercial banks, and become the lender of only resort for GM, Chrysler, and Ford. I usually avoid even the hint of political commentary in my audio writing, but I can't resist passing along a quip I'm very proud of: I told all my friends that, if they voted for John Kerry,…
I wonder if it's not essentially the same with stereo systems. Perhaps we can only learn the hard way that sound quality that draws you in and keeps you coming back for more is going to cost a certain, not very reducible amount of money. When I switched back to the budget systems described above after several weeks with the Luxmans and the Harbeth Compact 7s (admittedly, a 75% price cut), I was suddenly less interested in listening to recorded music for relaxation. Once I put something on, it sounded good enough, and I could respond to it, but I didn't have the same sense of wanting to hear…
"Glory to the genius of Edison!"—Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Once upon a time, a little girl named Kirsten was playing in the woods when she spotted a gleam of light on the forest floor. Bending down for a closer look, she saw an astonishing sight: a lump of gold that seemed to grow from the very Earth. Her games forgotten, Kirsten scraped at the loamy soil for hours until, at last, the prize was hers: not a stone at all, but a beautiful horn made of solid gold. It was larger than any drinking horn Kirsten had ever seen, and was engraved from end to end with pictures of he-goats, snakes, a…
(That raises an interesting subject: One can't directly compare the G-style SPU 90th Anniversary with any A-style pickup head—or "normal" phono cartridge, for that matter—in one key regard: inner-groove distortion. All other things being equal, a G-style pickup head, properly installed in a 12" tonearm that can be adjusted to take advantage of the extra stylus-to-collet length, will exhibit a less severe departure from tangency as the stylus approaches and/or passes the innermost "null" point. Even scientists know that.)
I used the SPU 90th Anniversary with all of the impedance-…
"Everybody, including myself, was astonished to find that it was impossible to distinguish between my own voice, and Mr. Edison's re-creation of it."—Anna Case, Metropolitan Opera Soprano, 1915
"It is my sincerest hope that our successors regard today's pronouncements of digital audio sound quality with the same combination of humor and incredulity with which we view Anna Case's assessment of Mr. Edison's machine."—Robert Harley, audio writer, 1990
When I wrote that conclusion to an editorial in the December 1990 issue of Stereophile, I expected that it would be years or even…