Preamplifier-processors are terrifyingly complex, but their market is small and…
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As I write this, in early August, the global economy is in flux and the stock market gyrates, seeming in stark contrast with the gleaming, luxurious audio components that surround me. Perhaps there is some prescience in my rising interest in reasonably priced, high-performance products, as exemplified by the Oppo Digital BDP-95 universal Blu-ray player, which I reviewed in this column in September. Surely there must be other products that provide truly excellent sound at prices strikingly lower than expected.
I was quite taken with what I heard from my system with the XPA-5. Compared to the Bryston 9B, the Emotiva seemed to lack treble, yet that did not obtrude into my normal enjoyment of the music: all the treble was presented in proper balance. With the Paradigm Studio/60s, this may even have been a salubrious effect. At the bottom end, the XPA-5 seemed more full but less precise than the Bryston, but again, that distinction was largely erased by using good subwoofers and bass management. Neither amp ran out of power in this system, so no advantage was realized from Bryston's use of an…
Sidebar 1: Contacts
AcoustiSoft, 4 Lake Court, Belleville, Ontario K8P 5M8, Canada. Tel: (613) 242-0677. Web: www.etfacoustic.com/RPlusDSite/index.html.
Dayton Audio, PO Box 52, Springboro, OH 45066-052. Tel: (937) 743-8248. Fax: (937) 743-1678. Web: www.daytonaudio.com.
Emotiva Audio Corporation, 135 Southeast Parkway Court, Franklin, TN 37064. Tel: (877) 366-8324, (615) 790-6754. Web: emotiva.com.
RoomEQ Wizard, John Mulcahey, Home Theater Shack. Web: www.hometheatershack.com/roomeq/.
XTZ AB, Gamla Nissastigen 19, 314 41 Torup, Sweden. Tel: (46) (0)345-20049. Fax: (46…
Sidebar 2: Recordings In The Round
BARTÓK: Rhapsodies 1 & 2 for Violin & Orchestra, Violin Concerto 2
Includes alternative versions of movements.
Barnabás Kelemen, violin; Zoltán Kocsis, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Hungaroton HSACD 32509 (SACD)
Every time I hear of a new release in Hungaroton's "Bartók New Series" I expect something special, and this disc is further fulfillment of that expectation. Although these releases do not feature performers with the biggest names, the musicians recorded do come with unquestioned credentials for this music…
One of the most important sopranos of the early music movement—truly one of the great singers of our time—has died. Montserrat Figueras, who together with her husband, viola da gamba master Jordi Savall (left in photo), revivified vast amounts of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoire, succumbed to cancer at age 69.
Diagnosed over a year ago, Figueras continued to record and perform through August. She died at her home in Bellaterra, Spain, with her husband and children Arianna and Ferran at her side.
A strikingly beautiful woman, Figueras was possessed of a clear, shining…
On Thursday, November 17, Sound By Singer celebrated the grand opening of their new showroom with an evening of music and product demonstrations.
Occupying the entire second floor of 242 West 27th Street, Sound By Singer offers three listening rooms with gear from respected brands such as Clearaudio, Harbeth, LFD, Luxman, Musical Fidelity, VPI, Zanden, and more.
In the image above, we see Bluebird Music’s Jay Rein, in Singer’s largest listening room, providing a demonstration of a cost-no-object system incorporating Peak Consult loudspeakers.
Business hours are by…
I’ve quickly and deeply fallen in love with Sharon Van Etten’s album, Tramp, to be released by Jagjaguwar on February 7th. My review is scheduled to appear in our March issue, but I’ll tell you now that this is an album worth owning and playing again and again.
Van Etten’s voice is strong and provocative, her phrasing clever and compelling, the mood she conjures reminiscent of Chan Marshall’s early passion and longing, but more urgent, more dangerous. Van Etten sounds as though she’s been through some difficult, unhappy things, but has freed herself; she’s aware of her sadness, yet…
The Swiss Goldmund company (footnote 1) is perhaps best known for its turntables, but recent years have seen them introducing a line of amplification and digital playback components, as well as an idiosyncratic line of loudspeakers.
To judge from the $6400 Mimesis 8, Goldmund walks its own way when it comes to power amplifier design. High-end solid-state amplifiers from US companies like Krell, Mark Levinson, Threshold, and the Jeff Rowland Design Group marry massive power supplies to large numbers of output devices (these often heavily biased to run in class-A), built on chassis of such…
The same was true of a superbly real-sounding CD of the viola versions of the two Brahms clarinet sonatas that I bought on impulse from the Berkshire Record Outlet (Bridge BCD 9021, footnote 4). No way could the viola's characteristically weak-fundamentaled tone be mistaken for either a small cello or a large violin. And again, the Mimesis-driven WATT/Puppies hung the instrumental images unambiguously between and behind the loudspeakers with an excellent degree of palpability.
This sense of spatial realism was repeated with Stereophile's Intermezzo LP. Again the Steinway just hung at…
Sidebar 1: Review system context
Loudspeakers used during the evaluation of these amplifiers were mainly the Wilson WATTs and Puppies and KEF R107s, though Avalon Eclipses, Acoustat Spectra 1100s, MB Quart 490s, and Epos ES11s also made appearances. Front-end components consisted of a Linn Sondek/Lingo/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on an ArchiDee table to play LPs, a Revox PR99 to play 15ips master tapes, and, at various times, a Meridian 208 CD player, the Stax DAC-X1t and VTL Reference D/A processors driven by Meridian 602 and Wadia WT-3200 transports, or the Krell MD-1/SBP-64X combination…