Twice each year, however, in Stereophile's April and October issues, the battle on the newsstands is…
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It's a jungle out there. The shrinking shelves of your neighborhood newsstand drip with the blood and corpses of magazines that have gone under in the intense battle for browsers' eyeballs. And only if we can make our latest issue's cover sufficiently eye-catching to get enough newsstand browsers to pick up and buy a copy do we get to play another round of the game. (Conventional publishing wisdom holds that, at most, a magazine's cover has six seconds to get its message across.)
Why don't you review affordable gear?
Readers always pose that question to Stereophile, and it doesn't matter what we think affordable means—to a large percentage of our readers (or at least of our letter-writers), we don't get it.
So when a Forums participant put the question to John Atkinson last winter our fearless leader responded along the lines of "Like what?"
"Like the $39 Sonic Impact power amplifier. It's surprisingly good—and not just for the money."
Well, $39 is affordable by any definition, and John's response was immediate. "I ordered one. I'll…
I was promptly amazed. Not that the Super T worked—I'd figured it would work. But the Super T wasn't too bad—in fact, I sort of forgot all about listening to the Super T and zoned out on Marty Ehrlich's alto-sax solos. "The Mooche" is pretty much trombonist Art Baron's showpiece, but for me, Ehrlich comes awfully close to stealing the show on his second set of variations at the end of the track.
That was good. Now how about some Manu Katché...?
But enough with this music stuff—what about the sound? Forcing myself back into my analytic mode, and despite being impressed that my…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Stereo power amplifier using TriPath TA2024 module with class-D output stage and volume control. Maximum output power (0.1% THD+N): 11W into 4 ohms (7.4dBW), 6W into 8 ohms (7.8dBW). Dynamic range: 98dB. No other specifications listed.
Dimensions: 7.5" (192mm) H by 3.25" (83mm) W by 7.5" (192mm) D. Weight: 2 lbs (0.9kg).
Serial Number Unit Reviewed: AIV050B049765.
Price: $159. Approximate number of dealers: sold direct. Warranty: 1 year parts & labor.
Manufacturer: Sonic Impact Technologies, 2555 State Street, San Diego, CA 92101.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Source: Ayre C5-xe universal player, Musical Fidelity X-RayV3 CD player.
Preamplifier: Conrad-Johnson CT-5.
Power Amplifiers: Portal Paladin, Channel Island Audio D100 (both monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: Canton Vento Reference 1 DC, Dynaudio Special Twenty-Five, Dynaudio Focus 140, Linn Tukan.
Cables: Interconnect: Audience Au24, Kimber PBJ, Shunyata Research Aries, Stereovox Colibri. Speaker: Kimber 8TC, Shunyata Research Lyra, Stereovox Firebird. AC: Shunyata Research Anaconda & Orion.
Accessories: Monolithic Audio Perpetual Power…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I preconditioned the Sonic Impact Super T amplifier with both channels running at one-third maximum output power for an hour into 8 ohms, but, as expected with an amplifier with a high-efficiency switching output stage, the chassis was as cold at the end of that period as it had been at the start. The THD+noise percentage was 0.0911% at the start and 0.0916% at the end; ie, no significant change. The maximum voltage gain into 8 ohms was a little lower than usual, at 25.1dB, and the amplifier inverted signal polarity.
The input impedance depended both on…
As you read this, are you listening to your stereo? Whatever the music, what you're actually hearing is your public utility's AC as modulated by your power amplifier. No matter how good the gear, the final result can be only as pure as the power feeding your components. Unfortunately, plenty of sonic schmutz usually comes along for the ride.
The purveyors of line conditioners, power regenerators, isolation transformers, and the like have been bombarding us with that message for years now, and it seems to have taken hold. Though the message comes larded with multiple helpings of…
In terms of operation, the ASR Emitter II Exclusive proved to be a thoroughly modern product that was convenient to use.
Deep sound
Your New York–based Stereophile flight crew was invited to hear a pair of Emitter II Exclusives in action at Lyric HiFi recently, driving the four-tower Nola Grand Reference loudspeaker system. In-store demos are notoriously tricky, unpredictable, and often unsatisfactory, but usually the experienced listener can come away with at least a general sense of a product's quality. Lyric's combo of Nolas and Emitter II Exclusives was bass-heavy, and produced…
Lovers of Italian wine, travelers to Italy, and, of course, Italians, may be familiar with this story. It seems that in the year 1111, Henry V was traveling to Rome to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. A member of his entourage, one Giovanni Defuc, was very fond of wine, and had the practice of sending ahead one of his servants to sample the wine in each place. When the servant found a wine that he particularly liked, he would write "Est!" on the door of the establishment, which was a signal to his master that the wine is (est) good. Having arrived at Montefiascone, the servant found a wine he…
Although PS Audio insists that the GCC-100 is not an integrated amplifier, it has an Auxiliary line-level output—just like an integrated. The Auxiliary output can be used to drive another power amp, connecting the speaker cables to that amp rather than to the GCC-100, in which case the GCC-100 functions essentially as a line-level preamp. (Leaving the output/amp section of the GCC-100 without a speaker load is apparently not a problem.) I used this connection to compare the GCC-100's output/amplifier section with two other amplifiers I had on hand.
Comparisons: HCA-2
PS Audio's HCA-…