To measure the Harman Kardon HK 990, I used, as always, Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It" and www.ap.com). Before performing any measurements, I ran the HK 990 at one-third its maximum power into 8 ohms for one hour, which maximally stresses an amplifier's ability to shed heat. At the end of the hour the front panel was cool, but the exposed heatsinks on the top panel were at 130°F (54°C). My only problem measuring the HK 990 was the tiny legends above the front-panel pushbuttons,…
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You don’t have to spend a fortune to put together a great-sounding system. In fact, many of today’s most affordable hi-fi components offer greater bang for the buck than today’s more expensive products. If your room and/or your budget are small, you can still achieve outstanding sound while having a lot of fun. Here are my ten favorite budget components of 2011.
10. AudioQuest Rocket 33 loudspeaker cable: $299/10ft pair
The least expensive speaker cable in AudioQuest’s Rocket Series, the 33 produced a huge, exciting step up from my RadioShack Flat Megacable speaker…
Usually, when friends become book authors, you tend to fawn a little too much over their golden meanderings. In my case, the opposite unwittingly happened when I tacked a short mention onto a recent Aural Robert that did not begin to do justice to Stereophile Contributing Editor Robert Levine’s Weep, Shudder, Die, A Guide To Loving Opera (It!/Harper Collins, 2011)
What’s best about Bob’s new book—and I must admit right up front that he and I are old friends as well as our editor–writer relationship—is that through humor and his very readable writing style, he manages to defeat most of the…
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!
Sadly, I won't be able to get down to Princeton any time soon, but, if you're interested in 20th Century classical, experimental, avant-garde, drone, minimal synth, noise, and Fluxus-related stuff, now's the time to visit the Princeton Record Exchange!
We were saddened to hear of the passing, on December 10,of Audio Research founder William "Bill" Zane Johnson. Bill, who founded Audio Research in 1970 and became its Chairman Emeritus in 2008, is survived by his wife Nancy (left in photo) and family. We are preparing a tribute to Bill, to be published in the March 2012 issue of Stereophile, but meanwhile, we are reprinting here an interview Paul Messenger and I conducted with Bill that was originally published in the June 1983 issue of Hi-Fi News. (My thanks to HFN editor Paul Miller for permission. Stereophile's 1994 interview with Bill can…
Messenger: I think there was a crucial element behind the changeover from vacuum tube to solid-state: at last you could get rid of the output transformer, which was a known limiting factor in tube design. With the transistor, you at last have a device that you can directly couple to your loudspeakers, to control them better, if that's what you want to do. Alternatively, by coupling the transistor directly to the speaker, you're giving it a much harder time than ever the valve had with a transformer in the way.
Johnson: There are trade-offs with all technologies. For example, with a…
I've been reading a fascinating book, Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (New York: Viking, 1998). Shlain's thesis is that the invention of the alphabet was the cause of immense changes in primitive society, upsetting previously widespread norms of gender equality and horizontal (rather than hierarchical) social relations in general.
Shlain believes that the very way people thought was transformed by the alphabet's demands to break concepts down and express them reductively, linearly, and abstractly, rather than perceive them concretely…
The biggest news is that the m903 is not only a USB 2.0 device, and plug'n'play on a Macintosh up to 192kHz (to go above 96kHz with Windows requires installation of a driver, available free from Grace's website), but, equally as important, its USB module is an asynchronous-mode USB converter using technology licensed from Wavelength Audio that was developed by Gordon Rankin—the same technology behind Ayre Acoustics' well-regarded QB-9 USB-only DAC. As one would expect, Grace's implementation of the USB upgrade is impressive: the m903's USB port is isolated from the audio ground, to prevent…
Sidebar: Contacts
Arcam, Pembroke Avenue, Waterbeach, Cambridge CB25 9QR, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1223-203200. Fax: (44) (0)1223-863384. Web: www.arcam.co.uk. US distributor: American Audio & Video. Tel: (866) 916-4667. Web: www.americanaudiovideo.com.
Grace Design, 2434 30th Street, Boulder, CO 80301; PO Box 204, Boulder, CO 80306-0204. Tel: (303) 443-7454. Fax: (303) 444-4634. Web: www.gracedesign.com.
Howard Leight by Honeywell, Sperian Hearing Protection, LLC, 7828 Waterville Road, San Diego, CA 92154. Tel: (800) 430-5490. Fax: (401) 232-3110. Web: www.howardleight.com…
For the musically prolific, releasing too many records too close together can be problematic or worse. Just because you can make a record every week in your home studio doesn't mean you should. The impulse to commit every golden thought and performance to tape without self-editing or even pausing to reflect screams narcissism run amok. Asking listeners—even dedicated fans—to then buy and spend time listening to half-baked nonsense that might have become something, given more time and care, is a sure career destroyer. There's truth in the old saw about building demand, avoiding saturation,…