search

Now on Newsstands: <i>Stereophile</i>, Vol.35 No.5

Wabaam! Another month, another Stereophile. My how time flies when you are reviewing hi-fi.

Compared to the enormous April issue that hosts our chunky Recommended Components listing, May is petite but still packs a powerful punch loaded with insights and audio enhancers. Enhancers you ask? What might those be? Well how about bell bronze gongs! And magic fuses! And audio to make you cream…I mean, P.W.B.’s Electret Cream, which according to AD, just might work if you rub it in the right place.

In the office, we were expecting the April issue to really cause a hubbub on our…

"If it sounds good..."

"...and measures bad, then you're measuring the wrong thing!" If one motto could sum up this magazine's philosophy, this would be it. Too many times we have discovered components that sounded musically fabulous while offering measured performance that was, at best, merely competent. Yet recently, I'm starting to lose confidence in that old saw.

On a number of occasions, I or another of Stereophile's reviewing team has heard a product sounding flawed in ways later revealed by measurements. A closed story, you might think—but consider the NEAR-50M loudspeaker reviewed by Dick Olsher in this…

Recording of January 1988: <I>Renaissance</I>

Branford Marsalis: Renaissance
Branford Marsalis, tenor & soprano sax; Kenny Kirkland & Herbie Hancock, piano; Bob Hurst & Buster Williams, bass; Tony Williams, drums
CBS FC 40711 (LP). Dennis Ferrante, Bob Margoleff, Howard Siegel, engs.; Delfeayo Marsalis, prod. DDA. TT: 57:09

These are heady days for those who believe that jazz may have reached its height in the mid- to late '60s, before its disastrous 15-year romance with fusion. With such strong new talents as the Marsalis and Brecker brothers and Chico Freeman embracing the spirit of that time, and fusion-…

The Fifth Element #71

Music is love in search of a word.—Sidney Lanier

In 2009, I wrote about Luxman's entry-level solid-state integrated amplifier, the L-505u ($3700), and their near-universal (no Blu-ray) disc player, the DU-50 ($4990, now discontinued). I was very impressed by their performance and their quality at those prices. Indeed, I think I commented on these models in no fewer than five columns back then.

When I borrowed a pair of Vivid Audio's B1 loudspeakers ($15,000/pair), I asked Philip O'Hanlon, whose company On a Higher Note imports both brands, to send me some Luxman gear that made…

The Fifth Element #71 Page 2

Luxman's D-05 stereo SACD/CD player is built like a tank. It is listenable and sophisticated, a mite tubey and euphonic, and a real thoroughbred when playing SACDs. Furthermore, its internal DAC's ability to accept an external digital S/PDIF input might make it an optimal solution for some systems. Luxman's D-05 should be on your shopping list, especially if you have a large collection of SACDs and/or are serious about computer audio. Highly recommended.

Luxman MQ-88 tubed power amplifier
Luxman's MQ-88 ($8000) is a classic push-pull tetrode design based on the KT88 power tube; the…

The Fifth Element #71 Contacts

Sidebar: Contacts

Luxman, 1-3-1, Shin-Yokohama Kouhoku-ku, Yokohama 222-0033, Japan. Tel: 81 (45) 47-0-6980. Web: www.luxman.co.jp. US distributor: On a Higher Note, PO Box 698, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693. Tel: (949) 488-3004. Fax: (949) 488-3284. Web: www.onahighernote.com.
Behringer, Music Group Services USA, Inc., 18912 N. Creek Parkway, Suite 200, Bothell, WA 98011. Tel: (425) 672-0816. Fax: (425) 673-7647. Web: www.behringer.com.

Ed Meitner: Audio Maverick

Ed Meitner is one of those rare individuals who charts his own course in audio product design. From his platterless turntable of the mid-1980s to his new Intelligent Digital Audio Translator (IDAT, reviewed elsewhere in this issue), Ed Meitner's products have been distinguished by original thinking and innovative engineering. Although not all his designs have been commercially successful, in each he has attempted to advance the state of the art by rethinking fundamental principles.

Ed is also pursuing an ambitious project that would radically change the way recordings are made. It began…

Ed Meitner: Audio Maverick Page 2

Harley: Tell me about your design philosophy—how you think audio components should be built, and priced, and how they should function.

Meitner: If we want to advance the state of the art, we might be stuck initially with something that looks like it is more expensive than it should be. But if electronics are handled properly and the design is elegant, the product is just going to get cheaper and cheaper.

But the design has to be simple. I don't like band-aid designs with massive amounts of chips and all sorts of stuff hanging around. To me that means it doesn't work. That's my…

Ed Meitner: Audio Maverick Page 3

Meitner: When you record something as simple as an electric guitar with a standard microphone and you realize you can't even play it back through a 10" speaker when the sound was produced by a 10" speaker, it makes you wonder what is missing. That sound is a simple event. It doesn't take big technology to pick that up. There's nothing mysterious about what's coming out of this 10" speaker. There won't be anything fast in there. There won't be any complex events happening. It will probably be a bandpass of some kind. So why can't we get that back? Close-miked, far-miked, it doesn't make any…

Meitner IDAT D/A processor

There are as many ways of designing a digital-to-analog converter as there are engineers. One approach is to select parts from manufacturers' data books and build the product according to the "application notes" provided by the parts manufacturers. This is the electronic equivalent of a paint-by-numbers kit.

A more creative engineer may add a few tricks of his own to the standard brew. Bigger and better regulated power supplies, careful circuit-board layout, tweaky passive components, and attention to detail will likely make this designer's product sound better than the same basic…