It started off as an innocent question about room-tuning devices ("How do these things work?") and transformed into a holy war or something ("When you stop being surprised by what might be, you might as well climb in a hole and die.") Wow. It's almost as if their…
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The Stereophile forum has been hot. I don't even know what's happening—I'm only the Administrator—but two members are really going at it. It's been going on for days. One dude sees things one way, and the other dude sees things in a very different way, and neither wants to meet anywhere near the middle.
Right about now, I suppose John Atkinson and Wes Phillips are pulling into a rest stop, somewhere off the New York State Thruway. The sky is Sinatra blue and the air whispers secrets of spring. The doors to the Land Cruiser shut with a gentle thud, and the guys stroll into a 7-11 for some black peppered beef jerky, Nacho Cheesier Doritos, and a couple of tall Mountain Dews.
Ah, sweet road trips!
They're on their way to Montreal. Ah, sweet Montreal! I remember your red and green staircases, spiraling forever into the cold, blurry night. I remember your soft, white scarves…
Mrlowry sends along this tantalizing snippet about Muji's cardboard speakers. They're cheap (ish) and efficient, but do they sound good?
Anybody out there actually heard these?
Kevin Wolff, Vienna Acoustics' new international sales manager, poses next to the new $25,000/pair The Music loudspeakers.That rotating section of the cabinet contains Vienna Acoustics' revolutionary (hah!) new, flat, concentric 7" tweeter-midrange unit, which handles frequencies from 200Hz to 20kHz. A separate super-tweeter takes over above the audioband.
Called "The Point," the coaxial driver uses a single layer of TPX polymer, reinforced by radial ribs, to create a driver of unusual rigidity without adding mass. The "bass module," which is to say everything up to 200Hz, is first…
A closer look at Vienna Acoustics' coaxial tweeter-midrange unit. The central dome is supported by the magnet pole-piece of the flat midrange driver—and the strengthening ribs are said to dissipate standing waves on the surface of the driver.
"Wes," Perry Pecker exclaimed as we passed each other in the 10th-floor corridor. "We have something you might enjoy."
Such as?
"I make drivers for OEM, but I have put together some DIY kits for audiophiles who are up for a little fun."
Pecker is president of marketing and sales at HempAcoustics, which makes drivers from hemp, a wonderfully stiff natural material. Pecker's Timefield kits are affordable and impressive. The $300USD TF4.5 employs a single 4.5" driver in a CNC-cut cabinet (you assemble and finish it yourself It claims 95.5dB sensitivity and 55Hz–20kHz…
Mutine's Pascal Ravach was demonstrating the small, but striking, Duevel Planets omnidirectional speakers (CDN$1495/pair), The Planets consist of a floorstanding vented cabinet with an upward-firing 5" woofer and 1" horn-loaded tweeter. The drivers fire against reflective spheres, which disperse the sound.
The Planets sounded remarkably robust for a 5" two-way, so I asked Canadian distributor Ravach about them. "You know," he said, "I don't really believe in people reading about loudspeakers. No offense, but people should listen to loudspeakers and decide for themselves whether or…
I've worked at Stereophile for eight years, and, in a time when people change jobs as often as they change cars or television sets, eight years is a pretty good stretch. In that time, I've taken part in some exciting and memorable things, from Home Entertainment Shows and Consumer Electronics Shows to the live recording of Attention Screen at Merkin Hall. But Stereophile is fifteen years older than me, and I missed so much.
Every now and then, John Atkinson and Robert Baird will talk of the days in Santa Fe—riotous days of leather panties and long parties, days that JA…