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Now On Newsstands: <i>Stereophile</i>, Vol.34 No.5

The May 2011 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. I’m sorry: I don’t remember anything about the making of this issue. It seems like it happened a million years ago. It must have been traumatic. (I do remember making meatloaf. That was a lot of work, too.) But I can tell you what’s inside this issue.

Let’s take a look:

Features
Attention Screen Takes Flight at Yamaha: This is very cool. Jason Victor Serinus interviews the guys in Attention Screen and John Atkinson discusses the making of the band’s latest album. Musicians, music lovers, recording engineers, and…

VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier

The VTL MB-450 series began life in the late 1980s as the Deluxe 300, a pair of which I once owned. Over the years the basic design has been improved and modified, in the forms of the MB-450 (1996) and the MB-450 Series II (which I reviewed in January 2008). The tube complement remains the same: eight 6550s in the push-pull output stage, a 12AT7 input tube, and a 12BH7 driver. Into a 5 ohm load, the MB-450 III is claimed to produce 425W in tetrode mode or 225W in triode, from 20Hz to 20kHz.

The Series II added VTL's Smart Tube technology, also found in the company's flagship Siegfried…

VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier Page 2

VTL's CEO, Luke Manley, told me that the manual was written by his wife, Bea Lam, who feared that a more direct tone would sound bossy. I say go for it, girl! Don't be afraid to write: "Remove the covers and insert output tubes into the eight sockets." We'll know not to insert more than one in each socket. Of course, the auto-biasing circuit makes matching the tubes irrelevant, a point Manley reiterated when he visited my listening room to make sure everything was going well. Why even mention the socket numbers?

Manley had brought along four spare B+ fuses, and extra input and driver…

VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier Page 3

Switching back to the Titan produced more satisfying bass weight and drive, but nothing seemed to be missing from the MB-450 III's reproduction of a recent AAA reissue of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Axis: Bold As Love, mastered by George Marino for 180gm vinyl (Legacy Records). In fact, the shimmer of Mitch Mitchell's cymbals seemed to extend more cleanly and with greater clarity further into the stratosphere than I'd ever heard it. The decay of that shimmer was notably more clean and graceful than the Titan's somewhat darker rendering. However, the big solid-state amp produced more…

VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Tubed monoblock power amplifier with switch selectable Damping Factor (four levels available). Tube complement: one 12AT7, one 12BH7, eight 6550C. Inputs: 1 pair unbalanced (RCA), 1 pair balanced (XLR). Outputs: 1 pair binding posts. Rated power output at <2.5% distortion into 5 ohms: 425W (24.25dBW), tetrode; 225W (21.5dBW) triode. Frequency range: 20Hz–20kHz at 450W (tetrode) or 200W (triode). Optimal load range: 4–8 ohms. Input impedance: 42k ohms. Input sensitivity: 775mV–2.0V for full output, depending on DF setting. Power consumption: 30W…

VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn, Cobra, Castellon turntable, tonearm, stand; Graham Phantom II tonearm; Ortofon A90 cartridge.
Digital Sources: Playback Designs MPS-5 SACD/CD player–DAC; BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder; Sooloos music server.
Preamplification: Ypsilon VPS-100, Einstein Turntable's Choice phono preamplifiers; darTZeel NHB-18NS preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Musical Fidelity Titan.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties MAXX 3.
Cables: Phono: Hovland/Graham MG2 Music Groove. Interconnect:…

VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

To perform the measurements on the VTL MB-450 Series III Signature, I mostly used 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); for some tests, I also used my vintage Audio Precision System One Dual Domain.

Though the MB-450 offers just one output transformer tap, it can be operated with single-ended or balanced inputs, in triode or tetrode output mode, and with four different levels of negative feedback/damping factor for each mode. Measurement-wise, it is therefore 16…

The Fifth Element #65

This month I am writing about the Loudness Wars! But first a DVD, They Came to Play. The quest, or the hero's journey, has been a major theme of literature for as long as there has been literature. From the epic of Gilgamesh to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Moby-Dick to The Lord of the Rings, the quest's plot trajectory has remained pretty much consistent: be confronted by a challenge; leave home; bond with a new friend; survive climactic showdown; discover true self.

That last one is the payoff. Great literature allows us to benefit vicariously from the hero's hard-won self-…

The Fifth Element #65 Page 2

I have no inside knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the compression used on Everything Must Go was digital, whereas the compression on The Nightfly had to have been of the more benign analog kind, because digital compressors were not yet available in 1982. Indeed, The Nightfly was one of the first digitally recorded rock albums. (The first one was Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop, in 1979.) Digital recording was comparatively new, and there were as yet no digital effects boxes (footnote 5). (Trivia: The Nightfly, perhaps for its feeling tone of bittersweet but optimistic…

Helado Negro: <i>Canta Lechuza</i>

My review of Helado Negro’s Canta Lechuza will appear in our June issue, and the album hits stores on May 10th, but you can listen to the hazy, languorous tunes right now on NPR’s First Listen. Helado Negro (Roberto Carlos Lange, son of Ecuadorian immigrants) is interested in sound, texture, color, rhythm, and you can hear all of that stuff swirling around and bubbling about in Canta Lechuza.

It’s great fun to listen to on the hi-fi, even better through a good set of headphones, and perfect for the warmer weather. Hello, spring.

Helado Negro performed recently at Union Pool in…