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Recording of February 2004: <I>Let It Be...Naked</I>

THE BEATLES: Let It Be...Naked
Apple/Capitol CDP 5 95227 2 (2 CDs). 2003. George Martin, orig. prod.; Glyn Johns, orig. eng.; Paul Hicks, Guy Massey, Allen Rouse, reissue prods., mix; Steve Rooke, reissue mastering. AAD. TT: 57:00
Performance *****
Sonics *****

No doubt it's the key audiophile question: Which way will the Beatles catalog go, SACD, DVD-Audio, or both?

As it turns out, neither, at least for now—instead we get a CD rethink, remix, and remastering that cleans up the sloppiest slice of Beatle audio history.

Here's the quick recap: In early 1969, The…

Paul McGowan: High-End Survivor

"I don't believe it!"

I had just unplugged my preamplifier from the PS Audio Power Plant P300 and powered it from the wall socket, and was reacting to the resultant "grayness" that had been reimposed on my music. We seem to be more sensitive to hearing subtle but ultimately important sonic effects when they are removed than when they are introduced—as I describe in this issue's "Follow-Up," the AC regeneration offered by the Power Plant strips away a veil from the sound of my system and increases the saturation, the contrast of instrumental colors. It does this in a way that proved…

Paul McGowan: High-End Survivor Page 2

Atkinson: The British term for "vacuum tube" directly reflects that reality because it behaves as a valve . . .

McGowan: It's a valve that controls the power supply. So it's logical to assume that the power supply is critical. Absolutely critical. If you can't get it right there . . . as Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn used to say, if you can't get it right at the very beginning, the rest of it doesn't mean squat. And he's right. I can't argue with the man.

So yes, I've been thinking about this for years. I always had this Rube Goldberg idea of a product of taking a motor, plugging it…

Paul McGowan: High-End Survivor Page 3

McGowan: Exactly. It doesn't. It's like anything else that's connected through a resistance, in that some voltage is generated [across that resistance]. If that's the point where you're shunting off these harmonics and the other things you don't want, then they will actually reappear on that ground point. And if those harmonics are going up and down in time with the music, which will happen as the power amp draws current from the wall to the music, then you get a funny kind of modulation that contributes to the way things sound, a tinny quality or a glassy glare.

This is only a guess.…

Paul McGowan: High-End Survivor Page 4

Atkinson: The Power Plant delivers a constant, regulated AC voltage to the components plugged into it, but the current waveform is still very irregular. I believe you're working on a PS Audio product using power-factor correction to address the fact that the current waveform is both nonsinusoidal and perhaps out of phase with the voltage waveform.

McGowan: Yes. As you saw when we monitored a device's current waveform with the Fluke meter, it drew current in a nonsinusoidal way. A power-factor correction device actually stores energy every cycle in an inductor. As the device suddenly…

Paul McGowan: High-End Survivor Page 5

McGowan: They're unusual. One of the dilemmas that I ran into designing an amplifier involved the Power Plant. Since we're not using anything like Bob Carver's "tracking downconverters," or switching power supplies, which I don't particularly like, a conventional class-AB power amplifier is 40% to 50%, maybe 60% efficient. So for an amplifier to produce, let's say, 150W per channel, I've got to be able to have a 600W Power Plant to supply it.

So there's the dilemma: For every power amplifier that I sell, I've got to sell a twice-as-expensive Power Plant to go with it. That gives no real…

Paul McGowan: High-End Survivor Page 6

McGowan: [laughs] I was one of the worst! But we all come around full circle, and before I ride off into the sunset, I would like to make a beautiful, limited-production, all-in-one box that was done right. That's what I would like to have at home. I'd like to have a one-box wonder that properly incorporated everything I needed. I hit a button, a door opens, I put my DVD in, I close it, and it sounds better than anything that I've heard.

If you think about it, it would be easier from a number of standpoints to do such a thing in one box. You've eliminated all the interconnects, you've…

DTS & Data Compression

In the October 1994 Stereophile (Vol.17 No.10, p.39), I discussed my experiences with the DTS audio data-reduction code/decode switch box, which, briefly, is a two-channel box that makes use of the algorithm DTS has proposed for their version of discrete multichannel sound for laserdiscs.

Unlike the proposed Dolby AC-3 system which has been adopted by Pioneer, which will be located in the data space now reserved for one of the existing laserdisc analog tracks, the DTS proposal is to put the multichannel signal on the existing digital-track space. The Pioneer/Dolby arrangement retains the…

DTS & Data Compression Measurements

Sidebar: Measurements

The DTS demonstration coder/decoder (codec) is a slim rack-mount unit with both analog and AES/EBU digital input and output jacks. A menu system allows the user to select inputs and outputs, data reduction or bypass, and the effective data rate—706 kilobits/second/channel (the same as the CD standard), 240kb/s/ch (the proposed rate for a 5.1-channel laserdisc system using the PCM stereo tracks), or 128kb/s. A label on the rear proclaims that it was made by Algo Rhythmic Technology of Northern Ireland.

As well as auditioning the unit—I basically agree with…

B&W 802D loudspeaker

Back in the 1970s, I used to hang out at an audio store on Northern Boulevard's Miracle Mile. After business hours—and sometimes during them—a group of us audiophiles would put every new product through the wringer. One of the most anticipated was the original B&W 801, which appeared in 1979. The 801 was simply unflappable. Fed enough power, a pair of them played louder and cleaner than anything we had ever heard, including the mammoth, multimodule Fultons that were the pride of that shop. But—and this was a big but—the 801 lacked immediacy and engagement, and I soon fell back to…