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<I>It's a Vinyl World After All</I>

It's a Vinyl World, After All: Michael Fremer's Guide to Record Cleaning, Storage, Handling, Collecting, & Manufacturing in the 21st Century
MF Productions mxangle3 (DVD). 2008. Michael Fremer, prod.; Joe Shelesky, Andre Kruger, Jeff Wilerth, dirs.; Joe Shelesky, editor. $30; available from Stereophile's secure e-commerce page.

Michael Fremer comes walking down the long, vinyl-lined hall that leads to his cluttered listening room, a tall stack of compact discs balanced awkwardly in his arms. He looks up to find that we are there, too, waiting for him. Caught by surprise, he…

<I>Live at Otto's</I>: a New Stereophile Jazz CD

Released in July, Live at Otto's Shrunken Head (STPH020-2) is the latest Stereophile CD from reviewer Bob Reina's jazz quartet, Attention Screen. Unlike the group's first CD, Live at Merkin Hall (STPH018-2, released in 2007), which was recorded with multiple microphones, I captured the eight improvisations on Live at Otto's using a single pair of mikes.

Otto's Shrunken Head, of course, is nothing like Merkin Hall. Near Lincoln Center, Merkin is a proper concert hall with plush seating for about 450 people. It features a stage large enough for an entire orchestra, and is known…

Icon Parsec loudspeaker

"My vision for the future is one where all manufacturers sell their products directly to the end user. In this way, even the audiophiles in Dead Horse, Alaska can have access to all the audio manufacturing community has to offer." Thus wrote loudspeaker designer David Fokos in a letter introducing his new company Icon Acoustics to the press at Stereophile's High End Hi-Fi show in San Mateo, CA last April (footnote 1). Mr. Fokos, a Cornell graduate who for some years worked for Conrad-Johnson Design and designed that company's well-regarded Synthesis and Sonographe loudspeaker models, feels…

Icon Parsec loudspeaker Page 2

All things considered, the standard of construction and quality of parts are outstanding for what still must be regarded as an affordable loudspeaker. Without a dealer's margin to be allowed for in the price, Dave Fokos has apparently passed on all the saving to his customers. Cool, Dave! (Are we babyboomers still allowed to say "cool" in the '90s?)

Sound
The Parsec Owner's Manual advises that the speakers sound best after 50–100 hours of use to break in the drive-unit suspensions. Accordingly, I ran them in with pink noise at a high level for two days. (The speakers were wired in…

Icon Parsec loudspeaker Page 3

Having satisfied myself that the speaker's low bass was excellent, in absolute terms, I felt the Parsec to have too much mid- and upper-bass energy. While this added a quite exciting degree of impact to typical rock recordings—the Stygian synth just purred in Simple Minds' "Let it all come down," from the band's The Amsterdam EP (Virgin SMXCD 6)—it was a little too good to be true. Not that I'm complaining, mind. But I should point it out, particularly as this midbass balance will make finding the optimum placement in rooms smaller than mine more difficult than usual.

It was only when I…

Icon Parsec loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Review context

Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floor-standing loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" metal-dome tweeter, 6.5" polypropylene-cone midrange, 10" graphite-impregnated cone woofer. Crossover frequencies: 350Hz, 1500Hz. Crossover slopes: first-order, 6dB/octave, high-pass, second-order, 12dB/octave, bandpass and low-pass. Frequency response: 25Hz–22kHz, no limits given. Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m (2.83V). Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Amplifier requirements: 50–300W (120W continuous).
Dimensions: 47" (1194mm) H by 12" (305mm) W by 16" (406mm) D. Weight: 92 lbs (42kg) each.…

Icon Parsec loudspeaker Review context

Sidebar 2: Review context

Source components used in the preparation of this review consisted of a Revox PR99 to play 15ips master tapes, a Linn Sondek/Lingo/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on an ArchiDee table to play LPs, and the Meridian 208 (Bitstream) CD player. Amplification consisted of a Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS hooked into one of the line-level inputs of the Meridian 208 CD player, which in turn drove either an Audio Research Classic 60 or a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.5 monoblocks via 15' lengths of AudioQuest Lapis unbalanced or balanced interconnect, respectively. Speaker cable was…

Icon Parsec loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I use a mixture of nearfield, in-room, and quasi-anechoic FFT measurement techniques (using primarily DRA Labs' MLSSA system with a B&K (DPA) 4006 microphone, but also an Audio Control Industrial SA-3050A 1/3-octave spectrum analyzer with its calibrated microphone) to investigate objective factors that might explain the sound heard. The speaker's nearfield low-frequency responses and impedance phase and amplitude were measured using the magazine's Audio Precision System One.

The Parsec's plot of electrical impedance magnitude and phase is shown in fig.…

Manley Laboratories 175 monoblock power amplifier

Neither its rather pedestrian name nor Manley Labs' own literature gives much of a clue as to the 175 monoblock's special pedigree. Where are the bands, the fanfare?! After all, the rolling-out of a 6L6–based high-power audiophile-grade tube amplifier definitely qualifies in my book as a momentous occasion. Deplorably, such happenings are rare indeed; the 6L6 has been unjustly neglected in high-end circles.

The 6L6 was the first-ever beam power tube to be designed, and a certifiable American classic. Thousands upon thousands of guitar amplifiers, from Fenders to Mesa Boogies,…

Manley Laboratories 175 monoblock power amplifier Page 2

Then I sobered up enough to form a more objective picture of the 175's performance with the Audiostatics. Stage lighting was darker than with either the Music Reference RM-9 Mk.II or the Pass Labs Aleph Zero amplifiers. The presence and lower-treble regions were a bit subdued, such that violin overtones lacked a full measure of sweetness. Specifically, while the extreme treble sounded open and reasonably airy for a tube amp, the 5–10kHz octave seemed deficient in brilliance. Bass lines weren't fleshed out with convincing definition, sounding a bit full and bloated. More seriously, bass-line…