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In my coverage of Bricasti Design's $7795 M1 D/A converter in the August 2011 issue (the M1 also graced the cover of the February 2012 issue, which contained John Atkinson's impressions of it), I wrote:

"Violinist Arturo Delmoni's debut recording, Songs My Mother Taught Me, on the aluminum-CD edition remastered by Bob Ludwig (John Marks JMR 1), has never sounded better—sweet, yet realistically resiny. This was one of the albums I relied on as I scrolled through the M1's digital-filter options. I thought that…

In my coverage of Bricasti Design's $7795 M1 D/A converter in the August 2011 issue (the M1 also graced the cover of the February 2012 issue, which contained John Atkinson's impressions of it), I wrote:

"Violinist Arturo Delmoni's debut recording, Songs My Mother Taught Me, on the aluminum-CD edition remastered by Bob Ludwig (John Marks JMR 1), has never sounded better—sweet, yet realistically resiny. This was one of the albums I relied on as I scrolled through the M1's digital-filter options. I thought that…

Friday–Sunday, April 13–15, 10am–8pm: Stereo Exchange (627 Broadway, New York, NY) will host a weekend-long series of demonstrations from key players in the hi-fi industry including but not limited to an Einstein-haired speaker designer, young gun salesman, and the king of kables. Stereo Exchange will reward attendees with sale prices on new, demo, and used gear.

Curiously, this event falls on the same weekend as the Chester Group’s New York Audio & AV Show at the Waldorf=Astoria. Also occurring on those same days is the Show at Lyric, another series of demos held at an…

Sonics
I began my auditioning with the BBC LS3/5a's, which are…

Description: Hybrid monoblock power amplifier with solid-state input stage, tubed driver stage, MOSFET output stage, comprehensive short-circuit protection, and high- and low-impedance bias settings. Tube complement: one 6922. Inputs: balanced on XLR with pin 2 wired hot; 2 single-ended on RCA connectors in parallel with pins 2 and 3 of XLR; 12V trigger. Outputs: 2 sets brass, gold-plated binding posts. Rated output power, high-impedance setting (minimum continuous sinewave power, 20Hz–20kHz): 110W into 8 ohms (20.4dBW) at <0.3% THD, 220W into 4 ohms (20.4dBW…

Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP & DX-5 universal players; Apple G4 Mac mini running OS10.5.8, iTunes 10, Pure Music 1.85; Shuttle PC with Lynx AES16 soundcard & dual-core AMD Athlon processor running Windows 7, Foobar 2000, Adobe Audition 3.0; dCS Debussy, Logitech Transporter, Mark Levinson No.30.6 D/A converters; Halide S/PDIF Bridge, Empirical Audio Off-Ramp4 USB-S/PDIF converters.
Preamplifier: Ayre Acoustics K-5xeMP.
Power Amplifiers: Classé CT-M600, MBL Reference 9007 (both monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: BBC LS3/5a, Sonus…

To perform measurements on the Lamm M1.2 Reference, I used Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"). Before testing one of the monoblocks, I ran it at 1/3 its rated power into 8 ohms for 60 minutes, which thermally is the worst case for an amplifier with a class-A/B output stage. The output-stage bias switch was set to "1–6 ohms," which was how I had found the amplifier to sound best. At the end of that period the chassis was hot, with a temperature of 109.6°F (43.1°C), and…

Since reviewing the…

Cables
Anyone who's spent a lot of money assembling a system but who gets casual about cabling is missing the point. At the level of performance of the MBLs and my system, cables will spell the difference between supreme satisfaction and disappointment. MBL internally wires the 101E Mk.II with Wireworld cable. Jeremy Bryan had supplied me with a…