When I say you, of course, I mean I. When I first saw The Kiss ($16…
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Almost every assumption you might make about Vienna Acoustics' Klimt The Kiss loudspeaker by looking at it would be wrong. It is not a stand-mounted two-way loudspeaker. It's a three-way, with a coincident tweeter-midrange. And that ain't no stand—it's an integral part of the speaker. It does not have a conventional cabinet—there are two separate enclosures, complete with micrometer control of both vertical and horizontal axes. And those sure aren't plain-vanilla drive-units—they're about as unique as they come.
Although The Kiss is (sort of) a stand-mounted speaker, dainty it ain't. Almost 2' deep, it occupies about the same footprint as many floorstanders. Also, despite a higher-than-average specified sensitivity of 89dB, it wants a bit of welly from accompanying amplifiers.
My only other setup-related thought is that the asymmetrical stands may not anchor The Kiss as well as a less stylish solution might. Even with meticulous leveling, mine rocked a bit, until I placed 25-lb York barbell plates on their bases—inelegant but effective.
Kill then, and bliss me / But first come kiss me…
However, Zappa also leavened all his studio tinkering with substantial sections of essentially unaltered live recordings. "Little House" includes some of the most extended such passages, and, as The Kisses reminded me, is an awfully good example of how excellent the Mothers could sound on the right night in a good hall. But back to those drums: they really knocked me out through the Vienna Acoustics. They were alive and in the hall, with loads of air and crunch.
I'm pretty sure, based on the lack of fancy drum flourishes, that it's Jimmy Carl Black bashing the skins, and I have to…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, stand-mounted loudspeaker with integral stand. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) enter-vented silk-dome tweeter coincident with 7" (180mm) proprietary Flat-Spider-Cone midrange; 9" (230mm) proprietary Spider-Cone woofer. Frequency range: 36Hz–20kHz. Sensitivity: 89dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended amplification: 50–180W.
Dimensions: Loudspeaker: 21.3" (540mm) H by 10.75" (273mm) W by 21.3" (540mm) D. Weight: 95 lbs (43kg). Stand: 29" (730mm) H (including spikes) by 10.75" (273mm) W by 21" (530mm) D. Weight: 50 lbs (23kg) each.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 1.33GHz iBook (2GB RAM) with 250GB LaCie external hard drive & 3TB Infrant Technologies NAS drive; Ayre QB-9, Bel Canto e.One DAC3 D/A converters; Bel Canto USB Link 24/96 USB-S/PDIF converter.
Preamplifiers: Aesthetix Calypso, Ayre K-1xe.
Power Amplifiers: Aesthetix Atlas, Balanced Audio Technologies VK-55SE, Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300.
Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Special Twenty-Five, Klipsch Palladium P-39F, Thiel CS3.7.
Cables: USB: USB: EntreQ Discover. Interconnects: Shunyata Research…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Other than the in-room and nearfield measurements, for which I used an Earthworks QTC-40, the quasi-anechoic measurements of Vienna Acoustics' Klimt The Kiss were all performed using DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone. The Kiss's voltage sensitivity is specified as 89.0dB/2.83V/m; my estimate of this was significantly lower, at 86.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. This was not unexpected, as the speaker didn't play appreciably louder (at the same drive level) as the Denon SC-CX303, which has a measured sensitivity of 85.6dB (and which I write about…
Playback Designs was founded less than three years ago. However, with the release in 2008 of its MPS-5 Music Playback System—a slim, full-featured SACD/CD player and DAC that costs $15,000 and is built in the US—the company has since established itself as a significant player in high-performance digital audio.
It's probably a prejudice, but in audio, we tend to associate individual design achievement with analog equipment (phono cartridges, loudspeakers), and anonymous group effort with digital gear. How many enthusiasts of SACD are familiar with Playback Designs' Andreas Koch…
The upper one of the MPS-5's two well-lit, generously sized front-panel screens displays the sample-rate and input status; the lower displays the disc track and time information. However, neither displays the track text information that is included on SACDs. The backlit remote control of milled aluminum is equally ergonomic. From it you can select among the various inputs, eject a disc, mute the output, invert absolute phase, dim the displays, switch between a hybrid disc's SACD and CD layers (after first pressing Stop), switch from two- to multichannel output, change the transport's time-…
Between the departure of the dCS and the arrival of the Playback Designs, I paired the Sooloos with the DAC section of the Musical Fidelity DM25 CD player. Not surprisingly, given the Scarlatti's stellar sound, this was a big disappointment. The sound was warmed-over, smooth, and somewhat distant: inoffensive, but bland and uninvolving.
The MPS-5 doesn't let you choose the upsampling rate: You're locked into double DSD. Would that produce an even more lush, less detailed sound than the dCS at DSD resolution? That was what I expected, and, right out of the box, that was generally how the…
While it's impossible to know for sure, I think the MPS-5's SACD playback is even more transparent and spacious than the Scarlatti's. Kenneth E. Wilkinson's recording of Artur Rubinstein, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and the New Symphony Orchestra performing Chopin's Piano Concertos 1 and 2 (SACD/CD, RCA Red Seal 67902-2; originally LP, RCA Living Stereo LSC-2575) sounded more spacious, and the piano seemed more solid and better focused than I remembered. The image of the piano projected farther forward in space in front of the orchestra through both the Vandersteen 7 (currently under review)…