At our best, audiophiles are the selfless and generous custodians of a thousand small libraries, keeping alive not only music's greatest recorded moments but the art of listening itself. At our worst, we are self-absorbed, superannuated rich kids, locked in an endless turd-hurl over who has the best toys.
Sanctimonious though it sounds, I prefer things that, by whatever method, allow me the luxury of the former, sunnier view of myself. The newest product from Fi is one of those.
It is also, as far as I can tell, the first Fi to come with an instruction sheet. "You do…
Arguably the greatest circuit distinctions between the old and new Fi preamps are found in the 2b's outboard power supply. Incoming AC is still regulated by a pair of silicon diodes—"A tube would not make a difference," Garber says—and still conditioned by a 6AV5GA series regulator and other tubes. "I've tried using regulated power supplies in amps, but, to me, it tends to dry out the sound," he says; "whereas, in a preamp, it appears to do the opposite." But Garber says that the new design, "simpler and more straightforward than the older one," was the subject of many hours of his work in…
How did the 2b compare with the Shindo Masseto I've owned and used for exactly three years, alongside my original Fi? The huge-sounding Shindo is the more obviously tubeish device, with a richer, slightly darker character overall. Remarkably, the 2b had even greater scale than the original; just as remarkably, the Masseto is slightly bigger still. That said, the Fi 2b forgoes the heavier, more timbrally saturated sound of the Shindo for a more open sort of clarity and, almost certainly, greater degrees of timbral neutrality and textural cleanness.
It's also worth noting that the 2b was…
Klyne Audio Arts is such a low-profile outfit that I marvel at its continued existence. It is reliably absent from the Audio and Stereo Review annual equipment directories, and if Stan Klyne has ever run an advertisement for any of his products anywhere, I haven't seen it, Yet Klyne Audio Arts always manages to have an exhibit at CES, where they display some of the most beautiful preamps and head-amps we see there, only to go underground again for another six months.
Klyne's SK-2A head-amp is, as far as I know, the first such device to provide truly flexible, switchable…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Solid-state stereo preamplifier. Inputs: Phono (MM or MC), Aux, Tuner; Tape. Outputs: Main non-inverting, Main inverting, Tape out. Controls: Source, Tape, Mono/Stereo, Volume, Balance, Phase, Mute, AC power (rear panel).
Dimensions: 19" W by 12" D by 24" H.
Price: $2795 (1985); no longer available (2010).
Manufacturer: Klyne Audio Arts, Olympia, WA 98501. Tel: (360) 273-8477. Fax: (360) 273-6991. Web: www.klyne.com.
Considering that the crates they're shipped in are each as large as a Manhattan studio apartment, once they'd been set up in my listening room, Focal's Maestro Utopia III speakers weren't as visually overpowering as I'd anticipated. The elegant dark-gloss front baffles, the gloss-gray side panels, and the fact that the speaker's three subenclosures are vertically arrayed so that the top, midrange section is angled down, significantly reduced their apparent size.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Following a series of minimonitor reviews in 2009, I had decided to live for a while…
The lower woofer hands over to the upper at 90Hz, which in turn hands over to the midrange unit at 220Hz. The midrange/tweeter crossover is at 2.2kHz, but no details are provided for the crossover topology, other than that it uses what Focal terms Optimum Phase Crossover Plus (OPC+). This includes the three sets of jumpers mentioned above, one each for the subbass, midrange, and tweeter. Each set offers three choices of position, labeled "1," "2," and "3," to allow the speaker's balance to be optimized for specific room acoustics. The middle "2" jumper positions are for nominal flat response…
A CD that has been in heavy rotation since I returned from the 2010 Salon Son et Image at the end of March is an EP from the Montreal show's featured artist, the band Give. Recorded at Studio Reference in St. Caliste, Quebec, the four songs on this CD, titled SSi, epitomize what can be produced with a modern rock recording without having to resort to massive amounts of make-it-loud compression or in your-face equalization. The bass player uses a five-string instrument on the final song, "Mouths," and while every note was reproduced with impressive clarity and good weight, this recording did…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-and-a-half-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1.1" (27mm) inverted beryllium-dome tweeter, 6.5" (165mm) W-cone midrange, 11" (270mm) W-cone woofer, 11" (270mm) W-cone subwoofer with Damping Control System. Crossover frequencies: 90Hz, 220Hz, 2.2kHz. Frequency response: 25Hz–40kHz, ±3dB. Impedance: 4 ohms nominal, 3 ohms minimum. Sensitivity: 93dB/2.83V/m. Recommended amplifier power: 80–600W.
Dimensions: 57.9" (1470mm) H by 17.9" (455mm) W by 30.3" (770mm) D. Weight: 255.7 lbs (116kg).
Finishes: Gloss Black, Red…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre C-5xeMP universal player; Simaudio Moon Evolution 750D CD player; dCS Puccini SACD player & USB-input D/A converter with Apple Mac mini for media storage.
Preamplifier: Simaudio Moon Evolution P-8.
Power Amplifiers: Classé CTM-600 monoblocks, Simaudio Moon Evolution W-7.
Loudspeakers: Aerial Acoustics 20T V2.
Cables: Digital: Kimber Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU, Stereovox CV2 electrical S/PDIF, Belkin USB. Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild, Ayre Signature. Speaker: AudioQuest Wild. AC: PS Audio Lab,…
