What finally put the entirety of the Absolute Tower's performance together for me was Tomiko Kohjiba's The Transmigration of the Soul, from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival's Festival (CD, Stereophile STPH007-2). I reveled in the detailed and delicate…
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Reflecting again on Byrne's comment that the Absolute Tower was designed to be primarily a home-theater speaker, I cranked up the pilot episode of Lost (Blu-ray, ABC 100834). In the dramatic plane-crash sequences, all of the thundering effects were delivered without compression or distortion—again, I never felt the need for a subwoofer.
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, acoustic-suspension loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" aluminum-dome tweeter, 5.25" polypropylene-cone midrange (in separate chamber), two 5.25" polypropylene-cone woofers. Crossover: third-order low-pass and high-pass at 450Hz, second-order low-pass and high-pass at 2.2kHz. Frequency range: 58Hz–20kHz. Impedance: 8 ohms average, 4 ohms minimum. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Distortion: 0.3%, 150Hz–20kHz; 1% at 60Hz (1W).
Dimensions: 36" (920mm) H by 5.7" (145mm) W by 7.25" (185mm) D. Base: 10.63" (270mm) W by 1.9" (50mm) H by 12" (305mm) D.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: VPI TNT IV, Rega Planar 3 turntables; Immedia, Syrinx PU-3 tonearms; Koetsu Urushi, Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridges.
Digital Sources: Lector CDP-7T, Creek Destiny CD players.
Preamplification: Vendetta Research SCP-2D phono stage, Audio Valve Eclipse line stage.
Power Amplifier: Audio Research Reference 110.
Integrated Amplifier: Creek Destiny.
Loudspeakers: Alán Circe, Dynaudio Excite X12, Monitor Audio Silver RS6, NHT Classic Three.
Cables: Interconnect (all MIT): Magnum M3, MI-350 CVTwin Terminator, MI-330SG…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the NHT's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. NHT specifies the Classic Absolute Tower as having a sensitivity of 86dB/W/m. My estimate was within experimental error of this figure, at 85.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. The impedance lies above 6 ohms for much of the audioband, dropping below 5 ohms in just two regions, with minimum magnitudes of 4.56 ohms at 133Hz and 4.27 ohms at 550Hz (fig.1). The speaker is a relatively easy load for the…
Attention, last-minute Christmas shoppers: No gift could be more welcome to a jazz lover than a copy of Herman Leonard’s last book of photographs, titled, simply, Jazz (Bloomsbury, 320pp., $40 retail).
Leonard was the consummate jazz photographer, a true artist as well as a chronicler, whose black-and-white pictures—most of them taken between the late 1940s and the early ’60s (though with a remarkable reprise in the late ’80s and ’90s)—captured, even visually defined, the passion of the music, the intimacy between the musicians and the moment, the spirit of the times.
He…
Ron Sutherland has devised the Timeline, a device for testing the 33.33 and 45rpm speeds of turntables. It's housed in a disc of aluminum and Delrin that fits over the platter spindle. Turn it on, and an LED shoots a red dash of light at the wall (if there is one) behind your turntable. If the dash doesn't move, the speed is correct. If it drifts to left or right, you'll need to adjust the 'table's speed. Unless your wall has hash marks, there's a bit of subjectivity involved, and at $399 the Timeline isn't cheap, but Sutherland says he's not making much money at that price, and that it will…
Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: Thank you for introducing the Timeline. The Timeline is all about precision. Two things make that claim come true.
First is the accuracy of the time base. It is incredibly accurate—to within two parts per million. At that level, it must be considered that the resonant frequency of a crystal changes with temperature. Usually, time bases of that precision use a temperature-regulated oven to keep the crystal temperature constant. Instead, the Timeline circuitry takes a measurement of the crystal's temperature every 64 seconds. Using that information,…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Record weight with stroboscopic speed check.
Dimensions: Diameter: 3". Weight: 9.7oz (275gm)
Price: $399.
Manufacturer: Sutherland Engineering, 455 E. 79th Terrace, Kansas City, MO 64131. Tel: (816) 822-1881. Web: www.sutherlandengineering.com.
The folks at Rhino Records have just released a 180-gram vinyl reissue of The Shape of Jazz to Come, Ornette Coleman’s groundbreaking (and still riveting) album of 1959, mastered at RTI from the original stereo tapes. It sounds in every way better than the original pressing, which itself sounds quite good.
Everything is clearer, highs are extended, bass is more defined, dynamics are wider. Ornette’s white plastic alto sax has more of that palpable whoosh through the reed and horn. Don Cherry’s pocket trumpet has an airier mouthpiece. Charlie Haden’s bass—you can hear the wood vibrate. And…
"Puer natus est!"
Of course, the Latinists among my readers (all three of them) already know that the ancient Romans would have carved this column's title "PUERNATUSEST." (Not that the Romans gave a fig about that particular puer until much later . . . ) All in capital letters, because lower-case (ie, minuscule) letters were not invented until scribes in the Middle Ages wanted to write faster by not having to lift their pens so often between strokes. Spaces between words also came after Roman times.
Similarly, the exclamation mark was not invented until the Middle Ages. There is…