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The DB1's Room Acoustics Compensation program probes the listening room with a tone sent to the sub's input, then samples its audio output in the room with eight closely bunched measurements taken by the supplied mike. After analyzing the results, it applies four-band equalization to correct the four most prominent resonance room peaks in the sub's range by reducing its output in a narrow band around each peak. The procedure gathers information over a passband of 30–140Hz, and gathers additional information below 30Hz. However, the DB1's ability to adjust for more than one peak is inversely…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Powered subwoofer in sealed enclosure. Drive-units: two 12" long-throw Rohacell-cone woofers, each with 3.66" voice-coil and 11-lb magnet. Frequency response: 17–145Hz, ±3dB. Passband of automatic room compensation: not stated. Low-pass filter: 40–120Hz (adjustable), slope, phase. High-pass filter: no option. Total harmonic distortion: not specified. Amplifier: 1000W RMS. Rated power consumption: 300W. Input impedance: 15k ohms. Signal/noise ratio: >100dB. Inputs per channel: stereo, unbalanced (RCA); mono LFE, unbalanced (RCA), and mono balanced…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Ittok tonearm; Spectral cartridge; Day-Sequerra FM Reference Signature tuner.
Digital Sources: Bryston BCD-1 CD player, Bryston BDP-1 digital transport with USB-2 flash drives and external USB hard drive, "Bryston BDA-1 D/A converter, NetGear WN-350 wireless router connected to BDP-1 via Ethernet.
Preamplifier: Bryston BP-26.
Power Amplifiers: Mark Levinson ML-2 monoblocks, No.334, No.27.5, No.532H.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-989; Velodyne DD-18, JL Audio Fathom f113 subwoofers.…
Sidebar 3: B&W Room Acoustics Compensation
Testing subwoofers is not as lonely a business as I had thought. One Stereophile reader, Darren Gum, wrote to criticize my use in reviews of extra hardware to achieve more transportable subwoofer setups; eg, the virtual spectrum analyzer in my Velodyne DD-18 subwoofer (reviewed in June 2004), and Bryston's 10B-SUB outboard electronic crossover ($2395; reviewed in May 1994 and November 2005), which I used with subwoofers that didn't have high-pass feeds for the satellite speakers. Gum worried that most audiophiles wouldn't have access to the…
I’m in love with Eric Chenaux’s Guitar & Voice, to be released on CD and LP by Constellation Records on March 6.
The album’s nine tracks alternate between long, poetic ballads and shorter, bowed-guitar instrumentals. Interestingly, though these two styles initially seem very different, repeated listens reveal fascinating similarities in texture, tone, and mood. And whether Chenaux is delivering compelling images atop gentle guitar solos or producing long, airy drones, the sound throughout is intoxicating. Recorded by Radwan Moumneh at Six Saint V, a small Montreal apartment…
The March 2012 issue of Stereophile features the stunning Sonus Faber Amati Futura loudspeaker on the cover.
As we sent the March issue for delivery to the printing presses, the April issue sat in queue for multiple rounds of edits. At the same time, the editors, writers, and a lowly editorial assistant lay the building blocks for the May issue to be released two months away. With the constant influx of communication regarding dates present, future, and future’s future, it is hard to know what month we are ever really living in, and it is a time-bending wonder whenever the new…
D.o.A.: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle—I found this CD at a small shop in Paris, in April 2000, a few months before becoming Stereophile's editorial assistant.
Gah! I’m beginning to dread receiving these awesome updates from the mighty Princeton Record Exchange, simply because I can’t get down there fast enough! And, if I did get down to the store, the amount of money I’d wind up spending would make me sad.
But the records would make me so happy.
Being an addict is difficult.
Smegma, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic…
Lou Reed and audience members immerse themselves in waves of sound.
Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe is an exhibition currently running from January 27 - April 15, 2012 at the University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach (1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA). A recorded live performance from Reed’s band Metal Machine Trio is reproduced as a fully immersive 3D sound environment, recreated to simulate the experience as the musician surrounded by sound, rather than as the listener in front of it: “Reed himself mixed over-modulated…
We should all be so lucky. To be alive, creative, and thoroughly (and wonderfully) corrupt as 77-year-old Leonard Cohen is on his new record, Old Ideas. The irony here is that these are not old ideas for Cohen.
In fact they are the same one’s he’s been singing about for 40 years. And from the first lines (“I love to speak to Leonard/He’s a sportsman and a shepherd/He’s a lazy bastard/Living in a suit”), his sly voice, in its customary near croak, near whisper, full of self-knowledge and that inimitable wry edge, gives lines about lust (“You want to change the way I make love/I want to…
Headphone enthusiasts had a field day at Mountain View, CA retailer Audio High on January 25, when both Sankar Thiagasamudram, President and co-founder of Audeze, and Lorr Kramer, VP of North American Operations for Smyth Research, presented their latest and greatest. In a refreshing change of pace, both men dispensed with the usual canned presentations followed by group listening. Instead, they welcomed anyone who wished to partake to a generous personal audition.
Before the event began, I had an opportunity to speak with Thiagasamudram about the planar magnetic headphone company he…