Audioengine. Tel: (877) 853-4477. Web: www.audioengineusa.com.
Bright Star Audio, 22647 Ventura Blvd., Suite 366, Woodland Hills, CA 91364-1416. Tel: (818) 577-7924. Fax: (818) 704-1978. Web: www.brightstaraudio.com.
Klipsch Group, Inc., 3502 Woodview Trace, Suite 200, Indianapolis, IN 46268. Tel: (800) 544-1482, (317) 860-8100. Fax: (317) 860-9170. Web: www.klipsch.com.
Music Hall, 108 Station Road, Great Neck, NY 11023. Tel: (516) 487-3663. Web: www.musichallaudio.com.
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Sidebar: Contacts
Enticing more music lovers to try vinyl requires a foolproof, plug'n'play solution. Asking a member of the digital generation to install a cartridge in a tonearm and then set up the VTA, SRA, VTF, etc. is asking too much. It's easier to make such a request of someone already bitten by the analog bug, but with turntables, wishing someone beginner's luck will not guarantee success.
With that in mind, companies from Pro-Ject to Rega to Clearaudio have produced such products. A few years ago, Marantz commissioned Clearaudio to build one for them. The Marantz TT-15S1 ($1700) was essentially an…
My review sample came equipped with Clearaudio's Concept MC moving-coil cartridge already installed. The MC weighs 8gm and has a moderately high output of 0.4mV at 5cm/s. Its body is made of an alloy of aluminum and magnesium coated with a layer of ceramic, and its boron cantilever is fitted with a Micro Line stylus. The suggested vertical tracking force (VTF) is 2gm, ±0.2gm; the recommended loading is 100 ohms.
Setup and Use
The Concept was really easy to set up. Leveling the turntable was a simple matter of placing the included spirit level on the platter and turning the three…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Belt-driven turntable with decoupled DC motor and integral Clearaudio Verify tonearm. Speeds: 33.33, 45, 78rpm, ±0.04%. Bearing: polished, tempered-steel shaft in polished-bronze sintered bushing, mirror-polished Teflon thrust pad. Platter: polyoxymethylene, 1.1" (30mm) thick. Signal/noise: not specified. Tonearm: effective length: 239.31 mm. Overhang: 17.31mm. Offset angle: 23°. Null points: inner, 66.0mm; Outer, 120.9 mm.
Dimensions: 16.54" (420mm) W by 5.51" (140mm) H by 13.78" (350mm) D. Weight: 16.5 lbs (7.5kg).
Serial Number Of Unit…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn, Cobra, and Castellon turntable, tonearm, and stand; Graham Phantom II, Kuzma 4Point tonearms; Ortofon A90 cartridge.
Digital Sources: Playback Designs MPS-5 SACD/CD player–DAC, BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder, Sooloos music server, Pure Music software.
Preamplification: Ypsilon VPS-100, Einstein Turntable's Choice, Lejonklou Kinki & Kinki 3 phono preamplifiers; darTZeel NHB-18NS preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Musical Fidelity Titan.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties…
Throw your hands in the air!
In our July issue, I open “The Entry Level” by discussing some recent nights spent with my dear friends, Natalie and Nicole, dancing and drinking and laughing at our favorite local bar, Lucky 7, in downtown Jersey City. I go on to discuss the loneliness I sometimes feel when the night is over and the time has come to walk back home, beneath the pale yellow light of streetlamps and through the neon-puddled streets.
I know that sounds sad and all, but, come on, I’m writing about music. I’m trying to be evocative, emotional, musical. When I go on to…
Getting on two years ago, in an effort to identify the best bargains for music lovers on a budget, I wrote a series of columns exploring the field of affordable loudspeakers and CD receivers (footnote1). I hadn't planned to revisiting that topic so soon, but two developments have convinced me to: first, my encounter with one of the most idiosyncratic budget loudspeakers ever to grace my listening space, and in some ways is a new benchmark for performance vs price, especially for classical-music fans; and second, the advent of a new product category: Affordable Internet-Radio-Capable CD…
Glenn Gould's two commercial recordings of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations should be in every educated person's store of cultural literacy. Gould recorded the Goldbergs as his major-label début in 1955, and revisited (having apparently reconsidered) them in 1981, shortly before his death. The received wisdom has long been that Gould repented of the brisk tempos, détaché phrasing, and percussive dynamics of his 1955 début, and veered to the polar opposites in his 1981 farewell.
However, that applecart of received wisdom not only has been upset, it now must be broken up and sold for…
The Sonab had four leaf tweeters arranged in a square pointing up at about 45° from the top of a rectangular woofer enclosure. I heard a pair ca 1976 and was thoroughly gobsmacked—their sound was so much more dimensional, vivid, and tactile than from the Klipschorns the dealer had in the same room. (Of course, it's possible that the dealer had intentionally set up the K-horns poorly.)
Shahinian's Arc, still in production at $5500/pair, looks quite similar to the Silent Speaker II, except that it's much more complicated. The Arc is a three-way design with the woofer, midrange, and…
A useful test CD has recently come my way, courtesy of the Stereophile editorial staff in Santa Fe (a copy was provided to each of the contributing equipment editors). Digital Test was produced in France by Pierre Verany (PV.788031/788032, 2 CDs), and is distributed in the USA by Harmonia Mundi. It provides a wide variety of tests and useful musical selections, but the subject of special interest here is its test bands for evaluation of laser-tracking and error-correction capability.
There are two interrelated parameters which, in the absence of drop-outs or information gaps—we'll get to…