Description: Solid-state stereo amplifier. Rated output power, 20Hz–20kHz, with no more than 0.5% THD (FTC): 100Wpc minimum continuous into 8 ohms (20dBW); 200Wpc minimum continuous into 4 ohms (20dBW); 400Wpc continuous into 2 ohms (20dBW). Peak output voltage at rated line voltage: 48V into 8 ohms. Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz ±1dB. S/N ratio (main output): <–80dB (ref. 1W). Input impedance: 100k ohms balanced, 50k ohms single-ended. Voltage gain: 26.8dB. Input sensitivity (for 2.8V output): 130mV. Input sensitivity (for full output): 1.3V. Output…
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Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Stereo dipole subwoofer system with active electronic crossover. Driver complement: two 8" woofers per side in free-air enclosure. Includes protection for ESL and the facility to adjust the ESL level with a series resistor. Active electronic crossover with two midrange adjustment curves, stereo or mono-sum signal outputs, and continuously variable subwoofer output; available with single-ended RCA inputs and outputs, or balanced XLR configuration. Crossover frequency: 150Hz. Input impedance: 22k ohms. Output impedance: 1k ohm for the Quad ESL…
Sidebar 2: System
I used the following equipment for this review: Analog source was a Thorens/Chadwick TD-125 Mk.II turntable mounted with a Graham 1.5 tonearm, with armtubes fitted with Denon DL-103 C/van den Hul, EMT/van den Hul, Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk.3/van den Hul, van den Hul MC-1, and AudioQuest BH-200 cartridges.
Digital Sources were a SOTA Vanguard CD player and a Magnavox CDB-582 with Boulder SoundWorks analog section. Preamplifiers were the Dennesen JC-80 Mk.II gold in balanced and single-ended configurations, the Atma-Sphere MP-1 music preamp (balanced only), and the…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
With its two drive-units in parallel, the SW-57's impedance (fig.1) drops to 3.75 ohms in the upper bass. However, this shouldn't present the amplifier with any problems, since the phase angle is benign in this frequency region. The 16 ohm peak at 32Hz indicates the drive-units' resonant frequency, below which their output will roll off. The wrinkle in both magnitude and phase traces at 320Hz indicates some sort of resonant problem at this frequency.
Fig.1 Gradient SW-57, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed) (2 ohms/vertical div.).…
If you've followed their story here and elsewhere, you probably know that Tokyo's Shindo Laboratory (footnote 1) has a reputation for defying the two most monolithic of all high-end audio commandments.
First, designer and builder Ken Shindo isn't willing to tailor his amps, preamps, loudspeakers, and other playback gear to produce only those sounds that might be heard from a single, mythically perfect concert-hall seat, or to highlight spatial effects for the entertainment of those who know much about sound but little or nothing about music. (Some day, listeners who respond to…
At the other end of the chassis, short pieces of Shindo's own silver interconnect take the signal from a 250k ohm Cosmos volume pot to the signal grid of a Telefunken EF800: an industrial-grade pentode tube that's operated here as a triode, with its secondary and tertiary grids bridged to the plate. The Vosne-Romanee uses just one EF800 per channel, both tubes mounted in spring-loaded sockets to help resist vibrations.
The output of that Telefunken tube is capacitively coupled—through a Sprague Vitamin Q cap—to a Siemens C3m pentode. The C3m is a metal-can tube designed for the German…
Have you outgrown your doctor?
Speaking of noise, when I first installed the Shindo Vosne-Romanee preamplifier in my system—alongside my Thorens TD-124 turntable, EMT 997 tonearm, various EMT and Ortofon pickup heads, Shindo Corton-Charlemagne amplifiers, and Audio Note AN-E/Spe H/E loudspeakers—the most remarkable thing I heard was: nothing. I nonetheless left the volume control turned up about a quarter of the way, and went ahead and put a record on the Thorens. When I lowered the needle to the groove, the sound it made startled the hell out of me. I put the tonearm back in its…
Speaking of noise, when I first installed the Shindo Vosne-Romanee preamplifier in my system—alongside my Thorens TD-124 turntable, EMT 997 tonearm, various EMT and Ortofon pickup heads, Shindo Corton-Charlemagne amplifiers, and Audio Note AN-E/Spe H/E loudspeakers—the most remarkable thing I heard was: nothing. I nonetheless left the volume control turned up about a quarter of the way, and went ahead and put a record on the Thorens. When I lowered the needle to the groove, the sound it made startled the hell out of me. I put the tonearm back in its…
It doesn't take a moroon to appreciate the audacity of naming a company after Albert Einstein, the iconic science and math whiz. Clearly, company founder and owner Volker Bohlmeier knew what he was doing—this German brand of boutique electronics has enjoyed worldwide critical and marketplace success since its founding more than 20 years ago.
In fact, Bohlmeier has done far better than Albert Einstein's father. In the late 19th century, when Hermann Einstein opened an electronics company in Munich, he bet on direct current. Fourteen years later, by which time alternating current…
However, The Tube Mk.II's unique circuitry makes hearing the effects of different input tubes incredibly easy. Change the stock pair of tubes associated with a given input to some pricey new-old stock (NOS)—for example, the gold-pinned Telefunkens I tried (supplied by Einstein importer Brian Ackerman)—and, by switching a particular component between two inputs, you can easily hear the differences, although another idiosyncrasy of The Tube's circuitry makes instantaneous A/B comparisons impossible. All five inputs are always "live" and in-circuit. Rather than routing the input to a common…
A spectacular new three-disc reissue of Elvis Presley's 24 Karat Hits! (45rpm LPs, RCA Victor Living Stereo/Analogue Productions AAPP 2040) was made for the Telefunken tubes. Although Elvis, backup singers the Jordanaires, and guitarist Scotty Moore, et al, sounded eerily in the building through the NOS tubes, and the black backdrops were dead quiet, I thought the intensification of instrumental textures and physical touch were more the pleasing artifacts of even-order harmonic distortion than a greater level of transparency. While switching back to the input with the stock tubes reduced…