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The subjective results with the PBK-1 were very good and satisfying, but, while easier to use and significantly less expensive, they were no better or worse than with the SVSound or Audyssey devices. Of course, the SUB 15 already contains the real guts of the Paradigm EQ system, so there should be no reason to even consider buying one of the other EQs. Measurement of the actual performance of the SUB 15 with PBK-1, using the XTZ Room Analyzer, revealed that: 1) there was no correctable modal behavior, 2) the response was flat within ±2dB from about 100Hz down to 15Hz (which is absolutely…
Sidebar 1: Contacts
Audyssey Laboratories, Inc., 350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 233, Los Angeles, CA 90071. Tel: (213) 625-4300. Fax: (213) 625-4383. Web: www.audyssey.com.
Paradigm Electronics Inc., 205 Annagem Blvd., Mississauga, Ontario L5T 2V1, Canada. Tel: (905) 564-1994. Fax: (905) 564-8726. Web: www.paradigm.com.
SVSound, 6420 Belmont Avenue, Girard, OH 44420. Tel: (877) 626-5623, (703) 845-1472. Fax: (585) 486-1787. Web: www.svsound.com.
Sidebar 2: Recordings In The Round
JOHN HAMMOND: Rough & Tough
Chesky SACD346 (SACD)
John Hammond is a one-man acoustic blues show, and you might not expect that Chesky needed more than two channels to give us everything we need to hear him. Well, that ain't so. First, the ambience of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, in New York City's Chelsea, where Chesky has recorded for many years, is very friendly. Without obscuring any detail, it cradles the music in subtle reverberation so that you can savor the sounds as they fade. As would any experienced musician, Hammond seems to…
Although it was Thomas Edison who set the tone for technological development in the 20th century, with his intellectual sweatshop in New Jersey, it is the lone inventor who has always had a special place in the heart of the American public. Since the days of Samuel Colt, Eli Whitney, and Nikola Tesla, fortune and fame have awaited the genius tinkerer who emerges from his back yard with a better mousetrap, cotton gin, etc., etc.
Which brings me to 46-year-old Robert W. Carver: a physicist by training; the founder of two successful multi-million dollar consumer electronics companies, Phase…
Atkinson: To return to loudspeakers, it came as quite a shock when I saw that the first Carver speaker was a planar design. Have you always been attracted to planars?
Carver: I've been attracted to a particular kind of soundstage that was described brilliantly by Harry Pearson years ago in The Absolute Sound. It was a soundstage that had front-to-back depth, extended in a large arc behind and around the speakers, and from time to time could actually produce sound images outside of the limits of the loudspeaker edges. It seemed, when I read that essay, that that was so absolutely correct.…
Atkinson: Do you have many other engineers working with you at Lynnwood?
Carver: I wish. There are only two engineers: myself and Vic Richardson, who's been with me eight or nine years. Since right after the inception of the Carver Corporation.
Atkinson: That's not many creative people for a $25 million company.
Carver: Yeah. We should have more.
Atkinson: A change of subject: The last time you appeared in Stereophile's pages was in response to the amplifier challenge. What was the legacy of that whole business?
Carver: When I started that transfer-function…
DVORÁK: Symphony 9, "From the New World"
WAGNER: Flying Dutchman Overture, Siegfried-Idyll
Jascha Horenstein, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Chesky Records CD 31 (CD only). Bob Katz, remastering eng.; David & Norman Chesky, executive prods. (Original 1962 recordings: K. E. Wilkinson, eng.; Charles Gerhardt, prod.) ADD. TT: 67:30
WAGNER: Flying Dutchman Overture, Siegfried-Idyll
Jascha Horenstein, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Chesky Records CD 31 (CD only). Bob Katz, remastering eng.; David & Norman Chesky, executive prods. (Original 1962 recordings: K. E. Wilkinson, eng.; Charles Gerhardt, prod.) ADD. TT: 67:30
There are over 50 "New Worlds" in the catalog. Whether you have every one of them or none of them, buy this one. It is fat with passion. The great conductor Jascha Horenstein had it; original engineer Kenneth Wilkinson had it; the Chesky Records…
"A reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. An unreasonable man expects the world to adapt to him. All progress, therefore, is made by unreasonable men."
Although George Bernard Shaw didn't have Naim Audio's founder Julian Vereker in mind when he wrote those words, they seem tailor-made for Julian's audio design style. Rather than make products that conform to what the rest of the audio world is doing, Julian builds them the way he thinks they should be. The result is often, shall we say, idiosyncratic.
Nothing exemplifies this thinking more than the Naim…
In the first release of the CDS, the digital and transport/servo supply rails were regulated only in the player itself with TO-220 regulators. The second iteration of the CDS added four TO-3 regulators inside the power-supply box (footnote 2).
Overall, the CDS's massive and elaborate power supply is impressive. Further, the execution is superb, with a high level of craftsmanship. At Naim Audio, assemblers build an entire component themselves rather than repeating the same operation on an assembly line. This is a more expensive way to build electronics, but the CDS's beautiful, meticulous…
More specifically, the CDS had a natural smoothness and sense of ease, particularly in the treble. This is one player I could listen to for hours without fatigue. The upper treble had a nice sense of air, with cymbals sounding delicate yet not rolled-off. In the lower treble and upper midrange, the CDS was extremely smooth, lacking the glare and grain often heard from digital. Consequently, instrumental textures were well portrayed, with a sense of natural timbres. There was, however, a slight "darkness" in the upper mids and lower treble rather than a crystalline clarity, a characteristic…