The best result of mathematics is to not need it.—Oliver Heaviside, 1850–1925
The world is full of bad dentists and singers and cops. Bad teachers abound, as do bad nurses, bad farmhands, bad sociologists, and very bad investment bankers. The news, often presented by bad reporters, is full of bad clergy, bad soldiers, bad babysitters, bad shift supervisors of air-traffic controllers, and more bad legislators and lobbyists than you can count. Long ago, in the space of one summer, I was a bad busboy and a bad forklift driver.
And it isn't enough to say the world is full of bad…
A head-to-head comparison between the Shindo/Lundahl and Bob Sattin's CineMag proved less than straightforward: The latter, in its preferred setting, had audibly more gain than the former. That said, even after careful matching of listening levels, the CineMag was noticeably more colorful and punchy, with better timbral distinctions between instruments: The back-line woodwinds that play such an important role in the Sir Adrian Boult/LSO recording of Vaughan Williams's Job (LP, EMI ASD2673) weren't only spatially more distant than the other instruments in that group; they were physically,…
Inspired by fig.2 on p.54 of "Arc Angles"—it portrays the record center, tonearm pivot center, and stylus location as three points of a triangle, and models that triangle in two different ways, using two different zero-error radii, and is reprinted here as fig.1—I set about plotting the Schick arm's known dimensions, intending to use the law of cosines (footnote 1) to see if Keith's nulls could possibly work with this arm. Of course, I knew the size of only one angle: 72.89 degrees (°), which I arrived at by subtracting the Schick's specified 17.11° offset from 90°. But because the law of…
For the past few years, PSB Speakers International has been replacing its older lines with new models designed in Canada, and assembled in China from Chinese-made components. Judging from the reception here of PSB's Synchrony One and Imagine T, it's clear that the new models combine advanced performance with true economy. Now, with the new Image line, we see the result of trickling all this down to less expensive products.
As is my wont, I asked for three Image T6 tower speakers to test in my weekend multichannel system, in Connecticut. The T6 is a true three-way design for a…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, port-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" titanium-dome tweeter, 5.25" clay/ceramic-filled polypropylene-cone midrange unit, two 6.5" woofers. Crossover frequencies: 500Hz, 2.2kHz. Sensitivity: is 89dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 6 ohms, 4 ohms minimum.
Dimensions: 40.2" (1031mm) H by 9" (231mm) W by 14.8" (380mm). Weight: 48.6 lbs (22.1kg).
Finishes: Black Ash, Dark Cherry vinyl.
Serial Numbers Of Units Reviewed: 901423, 901427, 901319.
Price: $1199/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 250.
Manufacturer: PSB…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Kalman Rubinson waxed lyrical about PSB's surprisingly affordable Image T6 tower loudspeaker in the March 2010 issue of Stereophile. For $1199/pair, you get a well-finished, superb-sounding speaker. "With much more massive music, such as Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra's performance of Mahler's Symphony 6 (SACD/CD, Ondine ODE1084-5D)," Kal wrote, "the T6s offered the same deep, spacious, detailed soundstage as they had with the chamber recordings, but on a larger scale. There was such a feeling of effortlessness that I was encouraged to turn up…
Call me shallow, but what first attracted me to Audience's Au24 cables when I reviewed them in August 2002 was their looks. In contrast to superstiff cables as thick as garden hoses, the Au24s were slender and elegant. They were wonderfully flexible, too, and even their custom-made RCA plugs were slim and easy to handle. Instead of having to fiddle with a system of locking collet and barrel, merely slipping them on resulted in a tight, solid connection. Compared to the Au24s, a sizable number of audiophile cables seemed excessive, even a little foolish.
Fortunately for shallow,…
It took about five seconds for the Au24e setup to completely upend my neat cataloging system of attributes and sliding scales. The "e" versions were still tonally neutral, and still hit just the right balance across all my scales, but they were revealing a much finer level of detail than had the originals. The overall sound was powerful and immediate, with dynamics and transients that were huge, fast, and clean. Most noticeably, the Au24e's were as transparent as any cable I'd heard, with nothing between images but the recording venue's ambience—or, in the case of a studio recording, crystal…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Updated versions of Au24 interconnect and speaker cable. Interconnect terminations: Audience RCA (unbalanced) or Neutrik XLR (balanced). Speaker-cable terminations: copper-rhodium–plated spades.
Serial Numbers Of Units Reviewed: N/A.
Prices: New (Upgrade): Interconnect: 1m pair, unbalanced, $877 ($195); 1m pair, balanced, $1523 ($225). Speaker: 2m pair, $1375 ($300). Approximate number of dealers: 110.
Manufacturer: Audience, LLC, 120 N. Pacific Street #K9, San Marcos, CA 92069. Tel: (800) 565-4390, (760) 471-0202. Fax: (760) 471-0282. Web…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: VPI HR-X turntable & tonearm; Lyra Titan i, Grado Signature Reference cartridges.
Digital Source: Primare CD31 CD player.
Preamplification: Sutherland Engineering PhD phono preamplifier, Placette Active Line Stage.
Power Amplifier: VTL MB750 Signature.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties Sophia II.
Cables: Stereovox, Nordost Valhalla, Nirvana SL interconnects and speaker cables. AC: Audience powerChord, Synergistic Research Designer's Reference.
Accessories: Audience adeptResponse aR-12T & aR-2T power…
