If you follow jazz, you know that Ella & Louis, the 1956 Verve album of duets with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, is one of the most delightful vocal recordings ever.
If you're an audiophile, you've read that Chad Kassem, proprietor of Acoustic Sounds, in Salina, Kansas, has bought the finest vinyl-pressing equipment, hired some of the hottest engineers to modify and operate it, and come up with a new line of LPs called QRP, for Quality Records Pressings.
One of his first QRP products is a 45rpm, 200-gram pressing of Ella & Louis. If you're a jazz-following…
I must admit that, for a long time, I found it difficult to accept the idea that a major portion of one's audio budget should be spent on the preamplifier. Speakers, yes—they produce the sound; amps drive the speakers, so they're important. And source components? Well, everyone knows it's garbage in/garbage out. But a preamp? Even the name suggests something that's not quite the real thing, like pre-school, pre-med, or premature. Unlike amplifiers, they don't have to contend with loads that sometimes approach a short circuit, and heat dissipation is not normally a problem. What's the big deal…
The phono stage was particularly outstanding, allowing the audiophile favorite "Tiden Bara Gär" from the Opus 3 Depth of Image disc to be reproduced with a great deal of presence and a minimum of sibilant (over)emphasis. (The LP comparisons were done with the Bryston TF-1 in the system. With the AQ 7000 running straight into the phono input, there was just enough volume at maximum gain, but the noise level was too high for it to be listenable. I know that the phono stage in general is getting to be an endangered species, but I still wonder why Conrad-Johnson doesn't make this preamp in a…
Sidebar 1: System and setup
My audio system has evolved somewhat since I described it in "A Matter of Taste" (Vol.12 No.6). The analog front end consists of a Linn LP12, now with Lingo power supply, Ittok, AudioQuest AQ 7000 replacing the Talisman S, and a Bryston TF-1 stepup. Digital source is a Philips CD650 (internally damped and otherwise messed-around-with), now feeding an Aragon D2A via MAS masTER LINK digital interconnect.
My PV5 has been re-tubed; the phono-stage tubes have AudioQuest tube dampers on them; the balance pot and mode switch have been bypassed, and the unused…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Fig.1 shows the PV11's frequency response. The top curve (which becomes the lower curve below about 75Hz) shows the phono RIAA response taken from the tape outputs. Note the expanded scale. The RIAA EQ is accurate to within ±0.2dB from about 28Hz to 42kHz. The rise in the phono response above 1kHz may be audible as a slight brightening of the sound, but at less than 0.2dB it is insignificant when mated with the response of any phono cartridge that I know of. The same may be said of the small rolloff in the bass. Both channels are shown (solid and dotted lines),…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: Tube preamplifier: Frequency range: 2Hz to more than 100kHz, RIAA equalization ±0.25dB (20Hz–20kHz). Distortion: THD less than 0.15%, IMD less than 0.15%. Gain: phono stage, 47dB, high-level, 18dB. Phono overload: 200mV at 1kHz. Hum and noise: phono stage, –78dB ref. 10mV input; line stage, –92dB ref. 2.5V output. Maximum output: 20V. Output impedance: less than 500 ohms. Absolute polarity: line stage inverts polarity of all inputs.
Dimensions: 19" W by 3.5" H by 12.5" D. Weight: 13 lbs.
Prices: $1895, $1495 for Model PV11-Line (line-stage…
Ry Cooder: Get Rhythm
Warner Bros. 25639 (LP). Ed Cherney, eng.; Ry Cooder, prod. TT: 40:43
John Hiatt: Bring the Family
A&M SP5158 (LP). Larry Hirsch, eng.; John Chelew, prod. TT: 45:26
There are a few white men in American music—Delbert McClinton, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Fogarty, Van Morrison, Joe Ely, and Steve Earle all come to mind—whose music is consistently true, believable, honorable, and unpretentious. Ry Cooder has been one of those names since his solo debut in 1970; with Bring the Family, John Hiatt's must now be added to the list.
Bring the Family is…
Tom Waits Bad As Me
Anti- 87151-1 (LP). 2011. Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, prods.; Julianne Deery, prod. coord.; Karl Derfler, eng.; Zack Summer, asst. eng. ADA? TT: 44:37
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
They only come out at night. Or when recession, wars, and gridlock rule. On Bad As Me, Tom Waits's first record of new material since 2004's Real Gone, things having gone bad all over gives his uniquely American narratives a fresh resonance: "Well we bailed out all the millionaires / they got the fruit, we got the rind / and everybody's talking at the same time / everybody's…
You know about them: audio products or tweaks that fall outside the standard definition of audio component. They're not source components like CD players, not amplifiers or preamplifiers, not loudspeakers, not power-line conditioners or cables—and, if aimed at modifying room acoustics, they're not the standard devices that absorb or disperse sound. Let's call them Unorthodox Audio Products (UAPs). They promise a kind of audio panacea: something that fixes whatever's wrong with the sound of your system.
The first such product to create a controversy among audiophiles was the Tice Clock, an…
High-end audio is in some ways a dynastic beast, though without as many "begats." One of the world's most successful loudspeaker manufacturers in the years following World War II was the Wharfedale company, from Yorkshire in the North of England. Wharfedale was founded by Gilbert Briggs in 1932, who in the 1950s handed over the reins of Technical Director to fellow Yorkshireman Raymond Cooke. Cooke left Wharfedale in 1961 to found KEF Electronics Ltd., where he subsequently appointed Goodmans designer Laurie Fincham as Chief Engineer in 1968. Fincham led a team of young engineers, including…
