I measured the Wharfedale Diamond 10.1's frequency response in the farfield with DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone. For the nearfield measurements, I used an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone. The Diamond 10.1 is of below-average voltage sensitivity, at an estimated 86dB/2.83V/m, though this agrees with the specified figure. The impedance drops below 4 ohms in the lower midrange, reaching a minimum value of 3.6 ohms at 190Hz (fig.1), but the speaker is otherwise fairly easy for the partnering amplifier to drive. An amplifier or receiver rated…
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Clearly, more and more people—young and old, male and female—are choosing to enjoy their favorite music on vinyl, a decidedly old-fashioned format. Every time I walk into a record store, I see more vinyl. And more people. The new record bins are growing, the used record bins are growing, LPs are taking up space previously occupied by CDs, and people are shopping enthusiastically, getting in between me and all that precious vinyl. But why?
Photographer Ben Meadors and writer Owen McCafferty are wondering the same thing. They hope to travel to several US cities,…
The August 2011 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. On the cover, we feature the lovely Voxativ Ampeggio.
Made in Germany and imported by NYC’s newest audio salon, Audioarts (1 Astor Place), the beautiful Ampeggio uses a single proprietary 7" dual-cone driver with a large, convex surround, designed to accommodate a much greater excursion than the typical Lowther driver. The complex cabinet, designed and voiced in collaboration with Schimmel Pianos, incorporates a series of facet boards for optimal radiation resistance and houses a twice-folded horn, nearly 9-feet long…
San Francisco is just as I remember it: Misty and gray, but smiling nonetheless.
The 2011 California Audio Show, sponsored by Dagogo, is being held Friday through Sunday, July 15 through 17, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Burlingame, CA, just minutes away from the San Francisco International Airport.
I arrived moments ago and have settled into my clean, quiet room. Actually, I should say I’ve settled into my fairly quiet room—I’m directly across from the Amarra suite and someone’s playing large-scale orchestral music in there. (It sounds pretty good, too!)
I’ll be…
Confession: I judge albums by their covers. I do it all the time. And when I saw the cover for Amon Tobin’s ISAM, I decided it would be beautiful, I decided it would be mine.
Because it’s been haunting me lately, satisfying me lately, because it’s found its way into my column and into my mind, because it’s beautiful, because it’s strange, and even at the risk of it becoming inextricably tied to thoughts of uncomfortable seats and smelly hotel rooms, I’ll be using Amon Tobin’s ISAM as a “reference disc” during the 2011 California Audio Show.
Purists (some of my closest colleagues…
I had no idea that the very first room I’d enter would offer such exquisite sound and music. I was in Bob Hodas’s Acoustic Analysis room and The Tape Project was spinning the Bill Evans Trio, the Sonny Rollins Quartet, Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane, and so much soul.
It was a packed room of bobbing heads and tapping toes, unable to resist the smooth, smooth flow. Here was a lively sound, a vibrant sound, a sweet, flowing, blooming, effortless sound, marked by so much body and heart and an absolutely wonderful sense of timing.
The system: Focal Diablo Utopia 2-way monitors…
From down the hall, I heard The Doors. Inside the Wells Audio room, a VPI Scout turntable (still just $1800 after all these years) was spinning “Riders on the Storm.”
The system: Usher Mini II loudspeakers ($4999/pair), Dynavector XX-2 phono cartridge ($1950), Wells Audio Innamorata power amplifier ($5500), ModWright LS100 preamp (modified by Audible Arts; stock price: $3500), Wells Audio Model PH10 phono stage ($3295), Music Hall 25.4 DAC (modified by Audible Arts; stock price: $600), Wells Audio power conditioner ($3995), MIT Z Stabilizer ($700), JPS Labs loudspeaker cables and…
In the Amarra room, we listened to the great Cat Stevens singing “Wild World” through Focal floorstanders, Parasound amplification, Amarra’s Model 4 digital-to-analog converter ($4000), and Amarra Mini playback software ($295), which supports up to 192kHz sample rates.
The system’s overall sound was clean, detailed, and transparent, while Cat Stevens’s voice was lovely, full of wonder and pain—just as it should be.
Napa Acoustic seemed to have a million and one pretty little things on display.
We listened to the Mistral 35Wpc MT-34 tubed integrated amplifier ($1199) and Mistral BOW-A3 loudspeakers ($1699/pair). Delivering a violin piece, the system created a thrilling sound, full of speed and sibilance.
Moving to the larger, 4-way BOW-A2 loudspeakers ($2299/pair) and 150Wpc MM6 hybrid integrated amplifier resulted in a darker tonal balance, with just as much speed and better image focus.
At a hi-fi show, the halls, stairwells, and elevators talk. If you listen closely, they’ll tell you where the show’s best sound can be found. On the show’s first day, I kept hearing whispers about Jonathan Tinn’s Blue Light Audio room.
Inside, I was greeted by Channel D’s smiling Rob Robinson, manning the controls of a Pure Music/Pure Vinyl-equipped Mac, sending high-resolution music files to a Playback Designs MPS-3 CD player ($8500) via USB. The sleek MPS-3 handles up to 384kHZ PCM and 6.1MHz DSD.
The small, attractive speakers were Evolution Acoustics’ MMMicroOne ($2500/pair…