A few weeks ago my store got in a knob-surfer's dream of a signal processor, and it reminded me, disturbingly, of that long-forgotten article. You see, after I'd listened to it carefully for a couple days, I began to question the no-knobs-is-good-knobs philosophy that underpins high-end audio---and what I have been calling audio…
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Five or six years ago I wrote a breezy, introductory-type piece on mid-fi "knob-surfing," winding up with a reprise on the old line that the number of the knobs, lights, and tattoos on the faceplate is often inversely proportional to the quality behind them.
Amounting to a stream of ones and zeroes, or on and off pulses, a digital signal can readily be manipulated without generating any untoward side effects---no blurring, distorting, skewing, smudging, corrupting, nothing. Apply a mathematical formula or algorithm to that bit stream and what you get is just a different stream of ones and zeroes; note carefully that in digital there is no such thing as a two or a three or anything else that could be considered an unintended byproduct. The new stream of ones and zeroes is converted into analog and the operation is complete. Surely, with digital…
Does high-end audio have a future? High-end audio most definitely does have a future. So do the Latin mass, chess, leather-bound books, and wooden boats. But the future will not be like the past, and I think we must face the fact that high-end audio's future, both for hardware and software, will be as a minority enthusiasm. We should plan and act accordingly.
High-end audio has won the battle, but has become the first victim of its own victory. The sound quality of car stereos and of most of the components you can buy at retail stores is substantially better than it was 20 years ago.…
In the middle, independent record labels with high artistic and sonic goals are being squeezed to death. Chain retailers across the country are cutting back on CD rack space for independent labels, and they certainly don't want to hear about hi-rez audio on DVD or SACD. As the fate of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab shows, you can't support a label on the few hundred early adopters who have embraced SACD. On my own label, John Marks Records, the 20-bit DTS discrete surround CD of Nathaniel Rosen's Reverie is a perfect example. With the huge installed base of DTS-capable home theaters, you'd think…
John Atkinson, you were right the first time ("Letters," Stereophile, December 1997, p.17, footnote 1): Jeremy Bentham is, indeed, the famous English philosopher and legal theorist whose mummified remains are preserved at the University of London. Sitting in a large glass display case, Bentham has been holding court since his death in 1832. As you noted, Bentham looks deceptively like a waxwork. But this is because his head, in fact, is made of wax. The original, rumor has it, suffered through one very macabre rugby game played long ago by mischievous students.
Yet Bentham's head was…
Last month I wrote about lasers of various pedigrees, so useful in marking walls to the sides and behind the listening position to ensure that your loudspeakers are toed-in, level, and equidistant from the sweet spot for best soundstage, imaging and focus. Using small Avery stick-'em labels makes this a snap. I've converged the tweeter axes of my JMlab Utopias somewhere about a foot into the wall behind the rearmost of our two listening chairs, and use two Studio Traps and a single Argent RoomLens between the speakers to cancel and damp the near-rear-wall reflections. With just a jiggle of…
Audio Research's long-promised "final statement" phono preamplifier has finally arrived, and its price is $3500 less than the originally rumored $10,000. That's a pleasant deviation from the audiophile norm, but at $6495, the Reference phono still boasts a steep ticket. That's more than twice the price of the $2495 PH3 SE, AR's previous best—a class sonic act itself.
The cost-no-object company kept the Reference's sticker price down not by skimping on the parts or build quality of its original vision, but by leaving out the variable equalization feature it intended to include…
With separate Low Gain and High Gain inputs selectable via a switch mounted between the two, you can have two turntables connected to the Reference simultaneously. Of course, there's an IEC jack, so you can play with power cords. (I used an Electra Glide Reference Fatboy.) Front-panel controls include On/Off, Operate/Standby, Stereo/Mono, and Operate/Mute.
It takes at least an hour from power up for the Reference to sound its best, so leaving the unit On and in Standby mode is a good way to go if you don't want to wait the hour. In that position, voltage is applied only to the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Vacuum-tube phono preamplifier. Tube complement: eleven 6922/E88CC, one 5AR4, one 6L6GC, one 6992 in power supply. Frequency response/RIAA accuracy: ±0.15dB of RIAA, 10Hz–60kHz; 3dB points below 1Hz and above 250kHz. Voltage gain: 48dB (low), 69dB (high) at 1kHz. Input impedance: 280 ohms (High Gain); 47k ohms (Low Gain). Hum and noise: 0.56µV equivalent input noise, IHF weighted, shorted (low gain) input (65dB ref. 1mV 1kHz input); 0.055µV equivalent input noise (high gain) (65dB ref. 0.1mV 1kHz input). Distortion: 0.005% at 500mV RMS output at…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Simon Yorke, Basis Debut turntables; Graham 2.0, Immedia RPM-2, Simon Yorke tonearms; Crown Jewel SE, EMT TU2, Lyra Clavis D.C., Parnassus D.C.t, Transfiguration Temper Supreme, Grado Statement cartridges.
Preamplifier: Ayre K-1.
Power amplifiers: Ayre V-1, KR Enterprise VT8000MK, Musical Fidelity NuVista 300.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Amati Homage, Audio Physic Virgo, Audio Physic Rhea subwoofer.
Cables: Hovland phono cable (on Graham arm). Interconnects: Yamamura Millennium 6000, Cardas Neutral Reference and Golden Reference,…