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Listening #119 List of the month

Sidebar 1: List of the month

Most rock-band reunions are the proverbial eggs that shouldn't be cooked. The five original members of the Byrds shouldn't have made the awful Byrds in 1972. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young shouldn't have made the awful Looking Forward in 1999, with its awful hippie-baby cover photo. The surviving members of the Who shouldn't have played that awful Super Bowl half-time show in 2010. And every time someone mentions the possibility of a reunion of the Smiths, God kills a kitten.

But there have been exceptions—seven, in fact. Here are the greatest rock…

Listening #119 Contacts

Sidebar 2: Contacts

Klipsch, 3502 Woodview Trace, Suite 200, Indianapolis, IN 46268. Tel: (800) 544-1482, (317) 860-8100. Fax: (317) 860-9170. Web: www.klipsch.com.

Line Magnetic Audio Co. Ltd., 4th Floor, Building No.2, Ping Xi Road No.6, Nanping Industry Park, Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. Tel: (86) 0756-3911927. Fax: (86) 0756-3911933. US distributor: Tone Imports. Web: www.toneimports.com

Music in the Round #57

I'm writing this in the dog days of a hot August. Over the past few months, a couple of interesting devices have accumulated, but were bumped from the column in favor of bigger things, as it should be. So this column is an end-of-season close-out.

Atlantic Technology WA-5030 Wireless Transmitter/Amplifier-Receiver System
Its name is a mouthful, but this useful device is based on a simple concept. Atlantic Technology has added a power amplifier to a wireless audio transmitter and receiver and called it the WA-5030 Wireless Transmitter/Amplifier-Receiver System ($399; additional WA-5030…

Music in the Round #57 Page 2

Using the Anti-Mode 2.0 mostly as a room equalizer with a pair of full-range loudspeakers, the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamonds, I tried a number of ways of inserting it into the system. Most obvious and useful was to put it between preamp and power amp, using the XLR ins/outs and full A/D/A conversions. I also tried it between the Oppo BDP-95 universal Blu-ray player's TosLink S/PDIF output and the Meridian 861's TosLink input. This meant no A/D conversions, but confined the EQ's effect to the Oppo. I also tried, briefly, the Anti-Mode 2.0's digital input and analog XLR outputs, thereby…

Music in the Round #57 Contacts

Sidebar: Contacts

Atlantic Technology, 343 Vanderbilt Avenue, Norwood, MA 02062. Tel: (781) 762-6300. Fax: (781) 762-6868. Web: www.atlantictechnology.com.

DSPeaker, Hermiankatu 8G, 33720 Tampere, Finland. Tel: (358) 3-3140-8221. Fax: (358) 3-3140-8288. Web: www.dspeaker.com. US distributor: www.simplifiaudio.com.

MSR Acoustics, Inc., 61 Galli Drive, Suite B, Novato, CA 94949. Tel: (800) 497-2087, (415) 883-1476. Fax: (415) 883-8147. Web: www.msr-inc.com.

A Collaborative Playlist: Greatest Guitar Solos

Three weeks ago, I published my top five guitar solos, a subjective list based entirely on the guitarists’ ability to move my soul through their combination of note selection and technical wizardry. These self-imposed standards led to many obvious guitarists being left off the list in favor of some less-spoken for guitar heroes with a penchant for inspiration and resourcefulness. Now I’m putting the power in your hands. Using my original list plus your suggestions in the comments section, I created a collaborative Spotify playlist titled “Stereophile - Greatest Guitar Solos Ever”. You are all…

Petition for Better Sound

“A change is gonna come, oh yes it is,” said once the wise prophet Samuel. What the prophet failed to foretell was that change never just comes, change is made. Well audiophiles, this is your opportunity to make a change. Valiant Stereophile forum poster sometimesuk2012 started a petition on Change.org to “Stop the Loudness Wars and Release High Definition Music Downloads”. You can find out more about the petition and sign your name here. Here’s your chance to stop whining about that over-compressed pap—see Jason Victor Serinus' report from the 133rd AES Convention—and start enjoying some…

Jadis JPL line preamplifier

In its comparatively few years in the marketplace, the line-level preamplifier appears to have established commercial parity with its full-function big brother. That this was inevitable was clear as far back as the mid-'80s. The advent of the CD and the proliferation of digital sources argued for a modular approach to preamp design. In such an environment, line-level sources (eg, DAT, CD, even analog tape) deserve special attention.

After a yearlong scrutiny of the state of the art of line-stage design, two underlying principles suggest themselves. First, the Gods, in having decreed that…

Jadis JPL line preamplifier Page 2

The most startling aspect of the Jadis's performance was how it re-created the dynamic range of live music. Whether it was a solo instrument such as Taj Mahal's National steel-bodied guitar (Recycling the Blues & Other Related Stuff, Columbia 31605) erupting in full force from soft to loud, or a full orchestra revving up in a crescendo of orgasmic proportions, the energy release was sudden and startingly real—volcanic, if you will. I never felt that the Jadis was holding back or blunting the power and rise-time of orchestral peaks. I've never heard a preamp so convincingly delineate the…

Jadis JPL line preamplifier Measurements

Sidebar 1: Measurements

The output impedance of the Jadis JPL at its line output measured 990 ohms left, 1000 ohms right, with the level control at maximum; lower settings of the control changed this measurement by only a few ohms. The input impedance at the CD input was very high—this is generally desirable, as it minimizes the effect of the source's output impedance—measuring 750k ohms in the left channel at maximum gain, somewhat higher in the right channel and at lower settings of the level control. At such high readings, the absolute accuracy of the measurement is rather unreliable…