[76]: Hafler DH-200 power amplifier
Stereophile review: November 1983 (Vol.6 No.5). With this high-powered kit, David Hafler attempted to do for solid-state amplifiers what he'd already done for tubed designs with the Dynaco Stereo 70. He almost succeeded—the DH-200 proved an excellent platform for almost unlimited tweaking (called "Poogeing" by cognoscenti). Still in production 20 years later from Smart Devices, who have added a small-signal tube! [75]: Spica TC50 loudspeaker
First Stereophile review: February 1984 (Vol.7 No.2; also Vol.9 No.5, Vol.11 No.1, Vol.12 No.10, Vol.14 No…
[59] (tie): Musical Fidelity Digilog, Arcam Delta Black Box, PS Audio Link D/A processors
First Stereophile reviews: Musical Fidelity, October 1989 (Vol.12 No.10); Arcam, February 1989 (Vol.12 Nos.2 & 10); PS Audio, no review. The first of many. Did standalone digital processors introduce more problems than they solved? Possibly. At least some of the time. But what they also did was make use of the CD's open-source data structure to trigger simultaneous explosions of design energy and hardware market expansion. Those intent on restricting outsiders' access to raw SACD and DVD-Audio…
[44]: The Graham tonearm
First Stereophile review: March 1991 (Vol.14 No.3; also Vol.14 No.8, Vol.18 No.6, Vol.21 No.2, Vol.24 Nos.1 & 10, Vol.25 No.7). "Simply the most practical, easy-to-use, and superb-sounding arm to be had today," enthuses Paul Bolin, adding that Bob Graham's masterpiece, now in its 2.2 incarnation, is "maybe the best all-'round tonearm ever." All I can add is to point out the Graham arm's impossibly elegant engineering and idiot-proof installation procedure. [43]: SME 3009 tonearm (original)
First Stereophile review: September 1965 (Vol.1 No.11; also Vol.…
[30]: Rega Planar 3 turntable with RB300 tonearm
First Stereophile review: January 1984 (Vol.7 No.1; also Vol.7 No.7, Vol.8 No.6, Vol.10 No.1, Vol.19 No.12). The Planar 3 was perhaps the plainest plain-Jane high-end turntable ever to sell in large numbers, though its glass platter was simple and ingeniously effective. But it was the RB300 tonearm that lifted the Planar 3 into the ranks of the great when it was added to the 'table in the early Reagan era. "The greatest bargain in the history of audio, and one of the 10 best tonearms you've ever been able to buy at any price," says…
[15]: Dynaco Stereo 70 power amplifier
First Stereophile review: January 1963 (Vol.1 No.3; also Vol.11 No.5, Vol.15 No.9). It was cheap and cheaply made, but David Hafler's simple little two-channel tube amp introduced the importance of good-sounding electronics to more audiophiles than any other product. It also spun off a pro-audio dynasty when the founders of Sunn used first the kit version, then OEM chassis supplied by Dynaco, for musical-instrument amplification. And it triggered an explosion in tube-amp design in the 1980s as a new generation of designers realized, "Hey, I can do…
It was one of those uncommonly warm late winter Sundays when you hardly need a coat. The fine weather had set aside any critical listening sessions, the door to the kitchen was open, and I was playing my audio system—then equipped with a pair of Spendor BC-1 loudspeakers—at moderate levels. Playing on the Linn turntable was an LP that the kids loved—"The Magic Garden Song," sung by the two female leads from the children's television show of the same name (footnote 1), My wife doesn't often comment positively on audio equipment, but that day she walked in from the kitchen to say, "Those…
Speaker cables connect to the Contour 3.0 via two knurled brass binding posts at the lowest part of the cabinet's back panel, making it a bit hard to see the polarity markings on the terminals—unless you use a flashlight and get down on your hands and knees. There is no provision for biwiring. Although the 3.0 is equipped with a single jack for OCOS speaker wire, eliminating the need for terminating adaptors, my biwired OCOS cables would have required two jacks. As a result, I just used the cable's twin spade lugs, leaving the external OCOS adaptors in place. Spikes are provided for…
All of these previous experiences—my wife's comments, the resolution of fine background detail, the dead-on reproduction of the male chorus in the Rutter Requiem—led me to expect outstanding midrange performance when playing vocal music over the Contour 3.0. I was not disappointed. Odetta's close-miked vocal on "America the Beautiful" (Strike a Deep Chord: Blues Guitars for the Homeless, Justice JR 0003-2) was particularly startling: the Contour 3.0s projected a clear, three-dimensional holographic image of the singer, slightly forward and raised, and centered between the two loudspeakers.…
Sidebar 1: Specifications Description: Three-way, floorstanding reflex-loaded loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1.1" (28mm) cloth-dome tweeter with Magnaflux-damped, aluminum-wire voice-coil; 5.25" (150mm) magnesium-silicate polymer (MSP) one-piece midrange driver with a 1ҥ" (38mm) aluminum voice-coil and a dual-magnet system; 8" (200mm) MSP one-piece woofer driver driven by a 3" (75mm) aluminum-wire Hexcoil/Kapton voice-coil in conjunction with dual magnets. Woofer reflex-loaded at 30Hz, foam port plugs provided. Crossover frequencies: 400Hz, 2.3Hz. Crossover slopes: first-order, 6dB/octave.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment Vinyl was played on a Linn Sondek/Lingo/Ittok/Sumiko setup. My digital source was an Adcom GDA-700 D/A processor driven by a Krell MD-1 transport via a 75 ohm Silver Starlight digital coaxial cable. The Day-Sequerra FM Reference Classic, Rotel RH-10, Magnum Dynalab MD-108, and Fanfare FM-1 stereo tuners provided music from WQXR, our local New York classical FM station. Preamplification was provided by a long-discontinued Krell KBL for CDs, and a Mark Levinson ML-7A with Duntech MX-10 head amplifier for LPs. Power amplifiers included a Bryston 4B-ST, a pair…
