DIYers are invited to bring their own amplifiers for a shoot-out against “the big boys,” and, for an entirely different kind…
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Saturday, February 23, 1–6pm: The Capital Audiofest and DCAudioDIY will hold a listening party at Capital Audiofest founder Gary Gill’s home, in Fells Point, Baltimore. (The complete address will be provided later to those who are interested in attending.) There will be at least two demo rooms, and David Berning (The David Berning Company), Gary Dewes (Border Patrol), Ralph Helmer (Surreal Sound Audio), and Scot Hull (Part-Time Audiophile) will be in attendance.
The OMA Imperia loudspeaker at the Oswaldsmill Audio showroom in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY. Photo: Oswaldsmill Audio.
Jonathan Weiss’ fabulous Oswaldsmill Audio Dumbo showroom was featured in a recent episode of “The Blueprint” on Jay-Z’s Life+Times.
Art Dudley visited the showroom back in May 2012, and I hope to visit sometime this year.
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Zellaton loudspeakers can be heard at Audioarts, in NYC's Flatiron District.
A second NYC boutique audio salon, Gideon Schwartz's Audioarts, was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal. Read "Money's…
Her voice aches like a memory.
In her video for "Sweet Dreams", Angel Olsen pays tribute to the mournful passages of psychedelia, with colors and sounds swimming upwards and sideways like technicolor beads of oils, reds, blues, and purples, across a projection screen. Flashing colors and photographs in this video make you yearn for something more, a girl, the lake, or an angel. Something old, something new, something you do no not have, maybe something only attainable through the malleability of perception.
While the initial bass line steers the song dangerously close…
Ever since I became a Stereophile contributing editor, people have asked me, "How do you determine what equipment you're going to review? Do you get to pick your own, or does John Atkinson tell you what to do?"
I've chosen roughly 85% of the components I've reviewed for Stereophile, those choices made on the bases of what I find interesting, and what I think readers would like to know about. It's as simple as that.
I'd never heard of Octave Audio until JA e-mailed to ask if I'd like to review one of their amps. The RE 290 intrigued me because it was built around the new KT120…
The singers of the PSU Chamber Choir poured their souls into every take, and Steve and Ethan got some great singing out of them. During the mixing and mastering phases, I used the Octave RE 290 and my Revel Performa F30 speakers to make all of my final decisions. I found the RE 290 to be a very neutral tool as I tried to combine the various microphone arrays used on this album to produce an acceptable mix. With the Octave, I was able to clearly hear the separate qualities and positions of the pairs of Schoeps cardioid mikes (in an ORTF array) and the Schoeps omnidirectional mikes spaced…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Tubed stereo power amplifier with push-pull pentode, class-A/B output stage and adjustable bias for each tube. Tube complement: four KT120 or KT88, three ECC82. Inputs: 1 RCA, 1 XLR. Outputs: 1 speaker terminal suitable for 4mm banana connectors and spades. Maximum output power: High Power mode: 100Wpc into 4 ohms (17dBW); Low Power mode: 70Wpc into 4 ohms (15.5dBW); (power output decreases by 20% into 8 ohms). Power bandwidth: 25Hz–70kHz, –3dB at full power; frequency response 5Hz–80kHz, –3dB. Total harmonic distortion: <0.1% at 10W into 4 ohms…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Benchmark DAC1 HDR D/A processor/headphone amplifier; Bel Canto Design e.One DAC 3.5 VB Mk.II DAC & e.One CD 2 CD transport with e.One VB-1 power supply; Sony Vaio laptop computer running JRiver Media Center 17, Bel Canto Design Light Link USB-optical bridge.
Analog Sources: Clearaudio Ovation turntable/tonearm, Talisman V2 cartridge.
Preamplification: Clearaudio Basic+ phono preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Rogue Audio M180 monoblocks, Audio Research Reference 150.
Loudspeakers: Revel Performa F30.
Headphones:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Octave Audio RE 290 using Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It" and www.ap.com). As Erick Lichte reviewed the RE 290 with KT120 tubes and the Super Black Box capacitor bank, that's how I measured it, with its rear-panel switch set to High Power, as recommended for these tubes. After warming up the amplifier for an hour, I checked the bias for each of the four output tubes using the central LED array and the right-hand rotary switch on the front panel. All the tubes were…
In late 1996, as Listener magazine entered its third year of existence, the Spendor SP100 became my reference loudspeaker, and would remain so for a considerable time. My decision to try the SP100 was influenced by John Atkinson's review of its antecedent, the nearly identical Spendor S100, in the December 1991 issue of Stereophile. But my purchase decision came down to two things: The SP100 did virtually everything one could ask a modern loudspeaker to do, requiring in the process far less amplifier power than usual. Just as important at the time, it sold for only $3300/pair—which explains…
For review purposes, Spendor distributor Bluebird Music arranged the loan of a pair of Skylan 4P18 loudspeaker stands ($510 Canadian, footnote 2), which raise the height of the SP100R2 cabinet by about 18" when used with threaded spikes or blunt-bottomed feet (both are included). The Skylans, whose painted MDF platforms are fastened to extruded PVC posts by means of long, threaded rods, must be assembled by the user—a bit of a hassle, especially since the threads on those rods were rather sharp in places—but that wasn't hard to do, and I came away impressed with the stands' appearance and…