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The Galatea's tonal warmth made listening to vintage jazz remasterings engrossing experiences, where normally they might have been tests of endurance: Sonny Rollins' epic early-'60s avant-garde forays (On the Outside, RCA 2496-2-RB), and Charles Mingus' equally remarkable 1957 band with pianist Bill Evans (East Coasting, Bethlehem Archives/Avenue Jazz/Rhino R2 79807). The digital glare that infects even the best analog transfers was air-brushed away, leaving me to glory in the rhythm and pacing of the performance. The single-ended glow of the midrange deciphered the complex inner character…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Polarity-inverting, single-ended, class-A triode line-stage preamplifier with dual-mono controls. Tube complement: two 6922. Each channel: Five line-level inputs, one tape input; two main outputs, one tape output. Maximum output: 25V RMS. Left/right volume-control tracking: better than 0.2dB. No other specifications given.
BCG3.1 power supply: Dual 40VA toroidal transformers, Hexfred rectifier diodes, Cardas internal wiring and DC power interconnect cable, integrated AC power-line conditioner.
Dimensions: BC3.1 preamp chassis: 17.5" W by 5.375…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Rega Planar 3 turntable, Grado Reference Master Cartridge.
Digital source: California Audio Labs CL-20 DVD/CD player.
Preamplifier: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista.
Power amplifier: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300, Mesa Baron.
Loudspeakers: Celestion A3, Joseph RM7si, Soliloquy S10 powered subwoofer.
Cables: Synergistic Research Resolution Reference Mark II, Designer's Reference biwires, Synergistic Research Resolution Reference Mk.II and Designer's Reference interconnects (with Discrete and Active Shielding); Synergistic Research…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I took off the cover to free the board suspension before measuring and was impressed by the neatness of the point-point wiring. Only one tag strip is used, most wiring consisting of the component lead-out wires. That other thing that impressed me was the two Shallco stepped attenuators behind the front panel: these appear to switch both the series and the shunt resistors, minimizing the number of components in the signal path.
What impressed me less was the sharing of the two 6922 tubes between the channels. While Blue Circle promotes the Galatea as being…
Art Dudley wrote about the BC3 Galatea Mk.II in December 2004 (Vol.27 No.12):
In western Virginia, where towns have names like Mouth of Wilson and Fancy Gap and Meadows of Dan, there lives a rural mail carrier named Wayne Henderson who has also spent much of the last 40 years hand-building guitars and mandolins in his home. With more than 200 instruments to his credit and a waiting list measured in years, Henderson is said to be looking forward to his retirement from the Postal Service, so he can increase production and maybe catch up on his backlog of orders. Among the people he's kept…
A musical highlight for us at Stereophile in 1995 was the opportunity to record several concerts at the world-famous Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The result was a Stereophile CD, Festival (STPH007-2), which features the original chamber version of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, Darius Milhaud's jazz-inspired La création du monde, and the premiere recording of the 1995 Festival commission, Tomiko Kohjiba's The Transmigration of the Soul (see Stereophile, January 1996, Vol.19 No.1, p.132). We were pleased, therefore, to be asked back by the Festival in 1996. Once again we have…
So, in late September, JA took a break from time-synching the performance tapes and allowed me to interview him on a wide range of subjects, including his recording practices, philosophy, and why one should always hearten horn players---this last a far cry from Richard Strauss's admonition, "Never look at the brass...it only encourages them." My first question was to ask John when he first got interested in recording.
John Atkinson: I've been making recordings since the mid-'60s, initially as an adjunct to my musical activities. I was playing bass guitar in bands, playing violin in the…
One thing that complicates these Festival recordings is they are of live concerts. A problem some listeners have with the documentary philosophy of recording classical music is that it preserves nonmusical sounds that are still part of the live experience. Music is made by human beings, who breathe, who have to turn over pages of the music. You can hear intakes of breath before a big climax. Some musicians even sing while they play---the late Glenn Gould was notorious for this, as is pianist Keith Jarrett. And even Robert Silverman can be faintly heard crooning at times on Stereophile's 1996…
One of the things that we couldn't do much about was the wind noise from the clarinets in the Dvorák. When we first started rolling tape, I was astonished to hear what sounded like tape modulation noise---on a live microphone feed! After checking out all the equipment, I went out into the hall and found that it was breath noise. One of the clarinetists, Franklin Cohen, principal clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra, was apparently having problems with a recalcitrant reed and air was escaping from his lips around the instrument's mouthpiece. We ended up moving the microphones back about 3' for…
Traditionally, the spaced-omni technique gives you a wonderful sense of bloom, as well as capturing very accurate tonal colors. However, it results in terrible stereo imaging. So I have two pairs of mikes---one which gives me a stereo signal with accurate soundstaging, and one which gives a stereo signal with the bloom typical of the live sound and with the accurate tonal colors of the instruments.
In post-production, the cardioids I use full-range to preserve their excellent imaging, but they do have a slightly rolled-off bass. The omnis have excellent bass but terrible stereo imaging,…