However, that applecart of received wisdom not only has been upset, it now must be broken up and sold for…
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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.
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…
"Push it gently in the foam to correct." It sounds like a line from The Dairyman's Guide to BDSM, but it's actually a quote from the installation manual for Linn's latest upgrade for the Sondek LP12 turntable. The kit in question—a DC motor, plus an outboard power supply/control unit—is probably the most extreme to arrive from the Scottish firm, thus earning one of the company's least abstract name in ages: It is, indeed, the Linn Radikal. And along with a newly designed onboard phono stage called the Urika, the Radikal is the latest of what Linn calls their SE-series upgrades (footnote 1…
Linn's recent upgrades for the LP12 have, in some ways, streamlined and demystified the setup process, and the Radikal continues in that direction. By eliminating the need for an onboard PCB, it undercuts those setup gurus who would waste time getting all the nylon standoff clips pointing in the "correct" direction, or other such silliness. And, like the Lingo kit before it, the Radikal doesn't require running an AC ground lead to one of the main crossmember bolts. (In fairness, I should point out that Naim Armageddon fans, in whose formation I used to march, would say that the ganging of…
When people feel passionately about something—whether books, golf, auto racing, dog breeding, or music—there is an understandable impulse to create rankings, hierarchies, and lists. Such lists can be helpful. I am quite likely to read someone's list of The 100 Most Important Jazz Recordings, or of The 100 Greatest Novels in the English Language. Engaging with such rankings and lists has several benefits. First, we all like to see our prejudices validated. When I discover that someone else is also a fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams's An Oxford Elegy, or of Herbert Howells's Master Tallis's…
The rapidly evolving world of the late 20th century is the source of much stress. Changes in the status quo, whether wrought by social, political, or technological forces, are often accompanied by anxiety brought on by the struggle to assimilate new patterns of thought. New ideas necessitate abandoning or modifying one's old ideas, thus creating conflict (footnote 1). However, these periods of rapid change can also be exciting, allowing one to chart a course of discovery and growth.
These ideas are particularly relevant to digital audio. The proliferation of digital audio technology in…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: D/A converter with 4x-oversampling dual DACs. Features: 44.1kHz and 48kHz decoding, polarity-inversion switch. Inputs/Outputs: Coaxial digital input (S/PDIF format) and EIAJ optical input, analog output. Specifications: not provided.
Dimensions: 10½" (265mm) W by 10½" (265mm) D by 2½" (63.5mm) H.
Price: $995 (1989); no longer available (2011). Approximate number of dealers: 50.
Manufacturer: Musical Fidelity Ltd., 15-17 Fulton Road, Wembley, Middlesex HA9 0TF, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)181-900-2866. Fax: (44) (0)181-900-2983. Web: www.…
Sidebar 2: RH's 1988 System
The system used for evaluating the three components consisted of a PS Audio 5.5 preamp (in Straightwire mode exclusively), Vortex Screen loudspeakers driven by Prodigy OTL tube power amplifiers, and Stax Pro Lambda Signature headphones. Included in the source material was a live recording I had just made as part of an appraisal of the Nakamichi 1000 DAT machine. I recorded acoustic guitar and acoustic bass duets in a church using tube microphones to fully explore the Nakamichi's capabilities (watch for a full report, as well as a review of the 1000, next month…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Measured using the Audio Precision System One with a swept bandpass filter, both units exhibited a slight negative deviation from linearity, the amplitude of a dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFS not quite reaching the –90dB level. While the Black Box 2's small 120Hz peak at –110dB is indicative of a full-wave rectified power supply whose ripple frequency is double the line frequency, with harmonics evident at 2kHz, 3kHz, 5kHz, and 7kHz (fig.1 in that review's measurements), attempting to measure the same thing with the Digilog resulted in a severe ground loop, the…