Vivid Audio Ltd., 3 Marlborough Rd., Lancing Business Park, Lancing, West Sussex BN15 8UF, England, UK. Vivid Audio (PTY) Ltd., PO Box 343, Kloof 3640, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. Tel: (27) 31-705-4168. US distributor: On a Higher Note LLC, PO Box 698, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693. Tel: (949) 488-3004. Fax: (949) 488-3284. Web: www.onahighernote.com.
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Sidebar 2: Vivid Measurements
As John Marks mentions, as I was visiting him to both check out his new listening room and listen to the two pairs of Vivid loudspeakers, I took the opportunity to measure each speaker's spatially averaged response in his room. I perform this measurement by averaging twenty 1/6-octave–smoothed responses taken, for each speaker individually, in a rectangular grid measuring 36" by 18" and centered on the positions of the listener's ears in the listening chair. (I used an Earthworks QTC-40 omni microphone and a Metric Halo ULN-2 FireWire audio interface, in…
Now I remember why I'm no longer a car enthusiast. I haven't got the time.
In my youth, when I wasn't driving my beloved car, I was washing it. Polishing it. Waxing its engine compartment. Spraying Armor All on its hoses and bushings. Cleaning its interior vents with cotton swabs, and its shifter boot with Lexol. I did all of my own maintenance and some of my own repairs—those of the latter that didn't require specialized tools, at least—and I kept the car covered with a car cover I bought from a mail-order house, along with lots of other crazy junk.
But after my daughter was born…
That grease bearing is an astoundingly well-made thing in its own right: an alloy well, enduringly hammertoned, fitted with two phosphor-bronze sleeves designed to accommodate an astoundingly well-machined spindle about 0.5" in diameter and 5" long. The grease fitting itself—a technical detail of no small nostalgia for those of us who have owned automobiles made before the days of "permanently lubricated" ball joints—sports an extra-long cap intended to be tightened gradually, over time, thus squishing ever more grease into the bearing, as needed. Interestingly, the flat bottom of the…
Now then: My Garrard 301 came mounted on a large, boxy plinth, the top surface of which is spring-suspended, which is how G.R. Koonce bought it back in 1958; for that reason, and because a number of photos on the Internet show Garrard 301s in identical plinths, I assume that this was made either by Garrard in England or was commissioned by one of the company's US distributors. Because I intend to make my own plinth later on, and because I'm not presently interested in the Shure M232 Transcription Tone Arm that accompanied my 301, I decided to begin by concentrating on the motor unit only.…
BJR compared the Marantz PM5003 & PM5004 in March 2011 (Vol.34 No.3):
In the context of reviewing the CD5004 CD player ($349.99), I thought it would be useful to also listen to its sister component, Marantz's PM5004 integrated amplifier ($449.99), and compare it with its predecessor, the PM5003 integrated (also $449.99), which I reviewed in the January 2010 Stereophile.
It took a good deal of scrutiny to see any differences between the PM5003 and PM 5004. The only thing I found is that the Speaker A and B terminals are reversed on the PM5004. Marantz told me that this is…
When US audiophiles think of the oldest firms still making high-performance audio equipment, they usually think of McIntosh Labs, founded in 1948. The UK's Quad traces its corporate origins back to 1936. Japan's Luxman, however, has them both beat: Luxman began making transformers and switches for radio sets in 1925. This is to the good; the company obviously has a sense of history. The iffy part is that Luxman's product line, which blends modern and heritage products, is a bit quirkily confusing. Luxman is by no means alone in having a product line that does not make intuitive sense to the…
The Tallis Scholars' re-recording of Allegri's Miserere (CD, Gimell CDGIM 041) was startlingly clear and crisp through the Aerial-Luxman chain. There was no trace of the muddiness that can result from an overported enclosure, or from an excessively self-damping polypropylene driver. The 5Bs (with the expensive Luxman combo, but not with the affordable Carat) decoded the Miserere's distant semi-chorus and high soprano as well as has any pair of speakers I can remember hearing that track through, and better than most. Quick listens to Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony's recording of Brahms…
The Islandsmoen Requiem was similarly impressive overall. The double-bass pizzicati were very nice, as was the harp. An engaging presentation.
To give one last example, I played the SACD-only version of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue with ATC's excellent SCM 11 loudspeakers driven by the Luxman combo, the string bass was robust, the trumpet clear and smooth, there was no tape hiss, the edgy yelps from Coltrane's tenor sax had bite, and the music in general sounded very lively, with great forward propulsion.
Going directly from the Peachtree Nova to Luxman's thrice-as-expensive L-505u…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-box universal disc player (doesn't play Blu-ray discs). Compatible Formats: DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, SACD (multichannel, stereo), CD, MP3, Dolby Digital, DTS. Audio DACs: Shannon: CS4392 dual-use (192KHz/24bit) stereo & multi-channel. Fluency (FE DAC): FN1242A dual-use (192KHz/24bit) stereo only. DSD: CS4392 dual-use (2.82MHz/1-bit). Frequency range: 4Hz~–45kHz (DVD-Audio, SACD), 4Hz~–20kHz (CD). Harmonic Distortion: 0.001% (DVD-Audio, CD), 0.002% (SACD). Dynamic Range: 115dB (DVD-audio, SACD), 106dB (CD). Signal/Noise Ratio: 123dB. Power…