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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…
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.
My self-imposed goals, which remain the same, are ambitious: I not only want to find a system or systems that a music lover can derive musical pleasure from, I also want to find a system that I can heartily recommend on the basis of "buy it once and buy it…
John Marks wrote again about the Imagine B in April 2009 (Vol.32 No.4)
All of the listening for this issue's column was done using PSB's Imagine B two-way bookshelf speakers ($1000/pair), which I profiled in my February column. The Imagine B offers exceptional value for money; I continue to be very impressed with it overall, even as I remain somewhat frustrated with its lack of deep bass extension—you can't have everything, I guess. In that respect, the Imagine B is the "poor relation" to Harbeth's HL-3P-ES2. The comparison is by no means absurd—at half the price, the PSB has many of the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: 2-way reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" titanium-dome, ferrofluid-cooled tweeter; 5.25" polypropylene-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 1.8kHz. Frequency response: 53Hz–23kHz, ±3dB (on axis); 55Hz–20kHz, ±1.5dB (on axis); 55Hz–10kHz, ±1.5dB (30° off axis). Low-frequency extension: –10dB at 35Hz. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Sensitivity: 87dB/2.8V/m anechoic, 88dB/2.8V/m in room.
Dimensions: 13" (330mm) H by 7.5" (191mm) W by 12" (305mm) D. Weight: 17.2 lbs (7.8kg) net, 38 lbs (17.3kg) shipping.
Serial Numbers Of Units…
Sidebar 2: Measurements (from June 2009, Vol.32 No.6)
The Imagine B is very similar to PSB's Imagine T tower model, which Kalman Rubinson reviews elsewhere in this issue. The B uses just one of the T's reflex-loaded 5.25" woofers instead of two, but appears to have the same titanium-dome tweeter, so it should be very similar to the larger speaker in most respects. The B's voltage sensitivity was to specification, at 87dB(B)/2.83V/m, or 1dB below that of the Imagine T. The B's impedance with its port open (fig.1) dipped to 3.3 ohms in the lower midrange, with a combination of 5.1 ohms…
What is it about a component that makes the blasé High Ender sit up and say, "Hey, this is special!"? What elements of its reproduction reach out to you and won't let go? How does the intrepid audio reviewer find a way to describe these hopefully recurring moments of musical discovery which define the high-end experience? How many times, after all, can you say, "Ooooo, ahhhhh, that's the best [insert some part of the frequency range here]," ad nauseam? How much difference is there, anyway? Therein lies the tale...
Our Lamm experience began auspiciously enough. The door buzzed. I…
Warmup time is a recommended 45 minutes, which I found right on the ruble—even though we left these guys running continuously (gulping their 300W idle current—oh well), to facilitate our hectic New York reviewing schedule. No whumps, bangs, or transients of any kind marred the performance of the amps. (Switch-off engages a special circuit which mutes the output.)
Both the power and the load selector switches employ a special mechanism which locks them securely into the chosen position. One pulls the actuator back to unlock the switch before moving it to the desired setting—just another…