Of course, if my previous experience with universal players was blurred, obscured, and diminished by their lack of high-end cred, it behooved me to compare the $5995 Ayre C-5xe to something with higher aspirations. Fortunately, John Atkinson had a Linn Unidisk SC on hand. The SC, of course, is Linn's single-box, $4995 universal player, preamp, video switcher, and surround-sound processor. This means that it's designed with a lot of extras that will make it very attractive to someone who's combined his or her music system…
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Wes Phillips wrote about the Unidisk SC in July 2005 (Vol.28 No.7):
SHOSTAKOVICH: 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op.87
Keith Jarrett, piano
ECM New Series 1469/70 (437 189-2, 2 CDs only). Peter Laenger, eng.; Manfred Eicher, prod. DDD. TT: 2:15:21
Keith Jarrett, piano
ECM New Series 1469/70 (437 189-2, 2 CDs only). Peter Laenger, eng.; Manfred Eicher, prod. DDD. TT: 2:15:21
Not that many months have passed since I had the pleasure of reviewing (in April 1992, p.272) the Op.87 Preludes and Fugues in Tatiana Nikolayeva's three-CD Hyperion recording made in 1990, the third time that she had recorded this important set. I write pleasure, because this compendium, written for Nikolayeva in 1951 after a Leipzig Bach competition in which that pianist won first prize, is an extraordinary…
Henry David Thoreau once wrote that "The eye is the first circle; the horizon it forms is the second." A profound observation, indeed: The horizon exists only in being perceived. Kind of like music, in fact.
But you can't take everything ol' H.D. said at face value. For instance, Thoreau also gave the famous advice "Simplify, simplify." Would it not have been simpler merely to have said "Simplify"? (Thanks, Jonah.)
Anyway, as my lead suggests, this installment of "The Fifth Element" attempts to reconcile the conflicting demands of sensation and cognition, while simplifying your…
More expensive but more effective and elegant is to include an art-supply store in your rounds, and buy wooden canvas stretchers to make panel frames of the requisite sizes. You can usually get stretchers in Golden Ratio proportions, which might look better than squares anyway. (Single women: You could do a lot worse on a Friday night than go to an art-supply store and look capable.) Use a staple gun to stretch the quilting over the stretcher frame, then cover the face with fabric. Hang the panels like pictures, but—and this is really important—hot-glue or otherwise affix a champagne cork…
It's only a CD-R with a self-adhesive label and computer-generated inserts, but it's what the major record labels are really scared of.
No, I'm not talking about downloaded MP3s of the latest pop hits, or pirated music stolen by offshore crooks and manufactured in the tens of millions. It's an "instant record," recorded in an afternoon at a professional studio and released a week later by the artist him- or herself. It will never qualify as platinum—or even gold—and it scares the pants off the major labels. But if truly is the future, then the majors aren't needed.
This all…
As mentioned by two readers in this month's "Letters," amplifiers are used to drive loudspeakers but are almost exclusively measured into resistive loads. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) real loudspeakers both produce neighbor-annoying sound levels and tend to break when driven with typical amplifier test signals; and 2) the question as to which "standard" loudspeaker should be used is impossible to answer---at least the conventional resistive loads are consistent and repeatable.
However, the general point that an amplifier should be measured into a load similar to that of a real…
However, the rising impedance above 5kHz, coupled with a positive phase angle---intended, I assume, to be equivalent to the tweeter voice-coil inductance---is almost never found in a real speaker. I modified the Kantor circuit by adding a Zobel network---a resistor and capacitor in series---across the input terminals (fig.3). The impedance magnitude and phase of the modified simulator are shown in fig.4---the load is now moderately demanding but not untypical. All Stereophile amplifier reviews will now include measurements made with this load. We shall see if significant differences emerge.…
What makes a phono cartridge worth $3500 or $4000? Pride of ownership? Snob appeal? Sound? Tracking ability? Exotic materials? Styling? Labor cost for skilled artisans? Special ether? Cool wooden box? All of the above?
Can you really get your money's worth from cartridges that cost more than non-Stereophile readers spend on an entire stereo system? From ones that cost twice as much? They're out there. Is it worth having to handle something so pricey you have an anxiety attack every time you want to play a record?
Unfortunately, yes—assuming the rest of your system, especially…
Sidebar 1: Cartridge FAQs
In preparation for this review, I sat down with Scan-Tech's Jonathan Carr to ask him some general questions about cartridges, and about the Parnassus D.C.t in particular.
I was curious to know how these tiny, perfectly shaped and polished diamond styli are fabricated. Carr told me that the rough diamond is bonded to a larger piece of metal and that the entire assembly is then carved away, taking metal and diamond. Finally, the polished diamond is removed from the metal carrier and inserted in the cantilever's laser-bored hole using a microscope and a…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-box SACD/DVD-Audio/DVD-Video/CD/CD-R with onboard Dolby Digital, DTS, and two-channel SACD decoders. Chipsets: Analog Devices Multi-bit 24-bit/192kHz D/A converters (front L/R), Analog Devices 24/96 D/A converters (center, surround, subwoofer) with Hi-Bit Legato Link Conversion. Digital outputs: 24/96 S/PDIF (not for SACD). Frequency response: 4Hz-88kHz (DVD-Audio at 192kHz sample rate). S/N ratio: <115dB. Dynamic range: <108dB. Power consumption: 58W.
Dimensions: 17 1/6" (440mm) W by 6" (150mm) H by 15 9/16" (394mm) D. Weight: 53…