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Bob Stuart: The Prime Meridian

There are many colorful characters, many high-profile movers and shakers, in high-end audio, but there are only a few whose influence extends far beyond the promotion of their own brands. One of this exalted and mighty handful is Robert Stuart, chairman and technical director of the UK's Meridian Audio.

Softspoken, with a disarming smile and a puckish sense of humor, Bob Stuart has been at the helm of Meridian ever since he and the outstanding industrial designer Allen Boothroyd cofounded the company as Boothroyd-Stuart in 1977, and in the last 15 years has quietly taken on a…

Bob Stuart: The Prime Meridian Page 2

The reason that all happened is that Faroudja had ended up being owned by the semiconductor house Genesis Microchip, and Genesis no longer wanted to manufacture boxes. There's a huge difference in scale. The chip company was much bigger than the box company, and it's very hard to run a business like that. It's hard to provide the focus. Whereas, for Meridian, what Faroudja were doing was a perfect fit. Same kind of dealers, same kind of distributors, same goals—to make the very best home theater, and from home theater up to screening rooms. So we were very excited. The terms of the deal are…

Bob Stuart: The Prime Meridian Page 3

Now there are hundreds of DualDisc titles. But while this was all happening, the popular thing to do was to download the music, and something almost like the commoditization of music was going on.

Harris: And it took somebody outside the music industry, Apple, to pull that together.

Stuart: Yes. Masterstroke, fantastic. It's improved the sales of music, which is great, but it's done nothing to bring to people's attention the fact that it can sound a lot better than it does. And it sort of turns music into something that you consume on the fly instead of listen to.

Now, I…

Cary Audio Design SLP 05 preamplifier

RCA's time-honored 6SN7 may be the coolest tube of all. The octal-based dual-triode has its own Wikipedia entry—something not even the 2A3 or 300B can boast—along with its own website. The 6SN7 is chunky, rugged, and handsome. Best of all, it's available, probably because people keep coming up with very good uses for it. In that sense, the 6SN7 is the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup of the tube world.

Developed in 1939, the 6SN7 appeared just in time for America's involvement in World War II, and its use in a variety of military settings spurred a remarkable level of demand,…

Cary Audio Design SLP 05 preamplifier Page 2

That said, I do wish you all could have heard how utterly amazing the live Hot Rize album So Long of a Journey (CD, Sugar Hill SUG-CD 3943) sounded through my system with the Cary SLP 05 in place. The sheer presence of the performers went up a notch, even compared with the superb Lamm LL2, as did the sense of force behind the musical sounds. An example: A little way into the concert, when bassist Nick Forster is introducing the members of the group, banjoist Pete Wernick taps his fingers on the head of his instrument—and the sound was startlingly real. The Cary also demonstrated an excellent…

Cary Audio Design SLP 05 preamplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Line-level, remote-controlled stereo preamplifier with one tape loop, a Cinema Bypass mode, single-ended and balanced outputs, and a headphone output. Preamp inputs: 3 single-ended, 2 balanced. Input impedance: 50k ohms single-ended, 100k ohms balanced. Maximum gain: 10dB (16dB) single-ended, 8dB (12dB) balanced (see "Measurements" sidebar). Noise & hum: –90dB ref. full output. Frequency range: 5Hz–250kHz. Output impedance: 400 ohms.
Dimensions: Preamplifier: 17" (435mm) W by 6.25" (160mm) H by 12" (310mm) D. Weight: 16 lbs (7.25kg). Power…

Cary Audio Design SLP 05 preamplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog Sources: Linn LP12 turntable with Naim Armageddon power supply; Naim Aro tonearm; Linn Akiva, Lyra Helikon Mono cartridges; Linn Linto, Artemis PH-1 phono preamplifiers.
Digital Sources: Naim CD5x/Flatcap 2X CD player, Sony SCD-777ES SACD player.
Preamplifiers: Fi, Lamm LL2.
Power Amplifiers: Lamm ML2.1 monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL, Quad ESL-989.
Cables: Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Nordost Valhalla, Ayre. Speaker: Nordost Valhalla. AC: JPS Labs The Digital (CD players), Cardas Golden Reference (some other components).
…

Cary Audio Design SLP 05 preamplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

The SLP 05 offered slightly different maximum gains from the figures specified on Cary's website. However, the specified gain is different on the Specifications page—10dB single-ended, 8dB, balanced—from what it is on the Literature page—12dB. In a telephone conversation AD had with Cary's Dennis Had, Dennis said that the 10dB/8dB numbers were a misprint, the real numbers were 16dB unbalanced and 12dB balanced. With both input-level controls and the volume control at their maximum settings, I measured 15.3dB for unbalanced input to unbalanced output and 13.8dB for…

Portal Audio Paladin monoblock power amplifier

When most of us think about the folks who populate the high-end audio industry, we tend to conjure up the designers—the names above the titles, as it were. Or, in many cases, the names that are the titles: Richard Vandersteen, Jim Thiel, Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson, Mike Creek, to name just a few.

Of course, these are only a few of the folks who give high-end audio its special sauce—others include Kathy Gornik, who has played as big a role in growing Thiel as Jim did, and Roy Hall, who made Mike Creek a household name, at least over here in 'Murrica. They're lifers in the good…

Portal Audio Paladin monoblock power amplifier Page 2

What did the Paladins have that the other amps didn't? Clarity and focus, mainly, but along with those two big differences came a more subtle distinction. The clarity and focus were immediately apparent; bass was bolder and better differentiated from the overall thrum of the music, while different textures and timbres were, well, more different. Music sounded more like itself and less like a generic music product.

Jelly Roll Morton's "Shreveport," from Jelly Roll Morton: 1926–1930 (5 CDs, JSP CD 321–326), rollicked along, the clarinet and snare drum tumbling out of the Cantons as if…