I have now had the opportunity to live with the Acoustat 2+2s in my usual listening room, which is more like a typical listening environment (19' by 24' by 9' and moderately padded), and I am more than a little…
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While I refuse to admit publicly how long I have been sitting on these loudspeakers before doing the report on them, I must say that it is probably a good thing I wasn't in all that of a hurry to get around to it. They did not sound very good in the room where I had initially installed them, and had I written the report on that basis, it would have been lukewarm, to say the least.
The user can, however, exercise some control over this problem by judicious orientation of the speakers. The suckout is minimized by toeing-in the speakers so their axes converge right at the listening seat, but this may add a slightly hard, steely edge to the sound. Somewhere between this toed-in position and that with the speakers parallel to the back wall, you'll find the optimal combination on tonal correctness and imaging specificity.
The only real caveat about this speaker is one that applies to all systems with an electrostatic high end: it is shamelessly revealing of its source…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Full-range electrostatic loudspeaker. Frequency response: 28Hz–20kHz ±2dB. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Power capability: 500W. Maximum output: 115dB at 20' in a 16'x24' room. Minimum power requirement: 50Wpc. AC power consumption: 5W.
Dimensions: 94" H by 20"W by 3.5" D.
Price: $2100/pair (1984); no longer available (2012).
Manufacturer: Acoustat Corp., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33315 (1984); Rockford Fosgate, 600 South Rockford Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281 (1990s); company no longer in existence (2012) but see www.audiocircuit.com/Home-Audio/Acoustat…
A few weeks ago, I finally got around to the Vijay Iyer trio's new CD, Accelerando (on the ACT label), and I've listened to at least a few tracks of it almost every day since. This is a stunningly good album: monastically intricate, but also a rousing head-shaker, it's even danceable, I give it a 96.
I must confess that I hadn't warmed much to Iyer until this album. His music has struck me as overly schematic, perhaps the result of his training in theoretical physics and math: the concepts are intriguing; the delivery, a bit stiff.
But this one is very different. His ideas boil…
In recent conversations with myself and with others, I’ve been trying to explain my addiction—and I truly do believe it’s an addiction—to music, new and old. A lot of times, when I’ve got an unfamiliar album in my hand, I feel like I just need to hear it. I just need to know what it sounds like. Why? I think I’m searching for connections between different times, places, and musical styles and artists. Why? I don’t know, exactly. I imagine there’s some magnificent story to be told through music, that all recorded music is somehow connected, and, if I can just trace those…
Tord Gustavsen Quartet: The Well
Tord Gustavsen, piano; Tore Brunborg, tenor saxophone; Mats Eilertsen, bass; Jarle Vespestad, drums
ECM 2237 (CD). 2012. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Jan Erik Kongshaug, eng. DDD. TT: 53:19
Performance *****
Sonics *****
Tord Gustavsen, piano; Tore Brunborg, tenor saxophone; Mats Eilertsen, bass; Jarle Vespestad, drums
ECM 2237 (CD). 2012. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Jan Erik Kongshaug, eng. DDD. TT: 53:19
Performance *****
Sonics *****
The first time I heard J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier, I heard an endless sameness, lovely but undifferentiated. Only over many hearings did each pairing of prelude and fugue begin to emerge from the background, as what Bach did in each iteration of the same received form began to be revealed as an inexhaustible richness of…
Every time I stepped from the slow elevator onto the casino floor at Harrah's, where Stereophile's editors spent their sleepless nights, my hatred for Las Vegas was revitalized. It felt like some kind of bad joke: Oh god, I'm still here. I would turn right and see the same flashing lights, the same low ceilings, the same people—still sitting, still smoking, still hoping, still staring blank-faced into spinning screens of cherries, spades, and jokers—and I would wonder why.
And later, after navigating the long lines and crowded elevators at the Venetian, which housed most of the annual…
2L, the Norwegian label that made audiophile history in 2006 when one their early high-resolution SACDs, Immortal NYSTEDT, received Grammy Award nominations for "Best Surround Sound Album" and "Best Choral Performance," has taken a big step back to the future. After releasing a number of recordings packages that feature both hybrid SACD and hi-resolution Blu-ray discs, as well as making their DXD (352.8kHz/24-bit) recordings available for download, 2L has just ventured into the black hole known as vinyl.
The company's first LP, Souvenir Part 1, has just been released in the US. Also…
The April NYC edition of Classic Album Sundays will take place on Sunday, April 8, 5–8pm, at Bellwether (594 Union Avenue, Brooklyn). As a bit of solace to fans that couldn’t get tickets to the upcoming Kraftwerk performances at the Museum of Modern Art, Classic Album Sundays will present Kraftwerk’s Autobahn in its entirety. Cool.
The system: Rega P9 turntable with Rega Apheta MC phono cartridge, Simaudio Moon 310 phono preamplifier, Simaudio Moon Evolution P7 preamplifier, Mark Levinson No.334 power amplifier, and four mighty Klipschorn loudspeakers.
For more info, visit…
Nine hundred sixty individually cut LPs were used to create the video for Benga’s “I Will Never Change.”
Emma Tucker of CreativeReview quotes the directors, Christopher Barrett and Luke Taylor: “To animate the wave form, we built it and then carefully removed each individual record. This had to be done very gently as any shift in the position of the sculpture would result in the failure of the animation and as we had to literally destroy each piece of vinyl to get it off, there was only one chance to get it right. Once the sculpture was finally built, the animation process took about 30…