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There's an old Woody Allen bit about his mother running the family's food through a "deflavorizing machine" a couple of times, just to make sure dinner was completely tasteless. Well, that's what a lot of contemporary music sounds like to me. Booker T. Jones's recent album The Road from Memphis has some great tunes, but the sound of the album pales in comparison with his seriously funky work with Booker T. & the MG's in the 1960s. It's not just that the new CD is maximally compressed and processed to a fare-thee-well—it's a totally lifeless recording. But this isn't just another analog…
Photos by Mark Sheldon
Last week, I had the honor and the pleasure of interviewing Bill Frisell in front of an audience—in what’s called a “Jazz Conversation,”—at this year’s edition of the Portland Jazz Festival. Held at the Art Bar in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts (PCPA), our chat was podcast by the Oregonmusicnews.com and can be heard here.
The PDX fest, programmed and very ably run by executive director Don Lucoff (who in full disclosure is a dear friend), is a classy event that presents both local and national jazz talent for 9 days every February. It takes…
The two-way Energy CB-10 ($269.99/pair) is a bass-reflex design. A large rear-firing port has an internal diameter of 2" and flares out to 2.75". The speaker uses a 1" aluminum-dome tweeter and a 5.5" woofer with a ribbed elliptical surround, the latter said to increase excursion, decrease distortion, and create a larger piston area for greater efficiency, making the CB-10 an easy match for amplifiers. The CB-10's frequency range is listed as 66Hz–20kHz, its in-room sensitivity as 90dB, and its nominal impedance as 8 ohms. In Energy's Convergent Source Module design, the tweeter and woofer…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted, loudpeaker. Drive-units: 1" aluminum-dome tweeter, 5.5" woofer. Frequency range: 66Hz–20kHz. Sensitivity: 90dB/2.83V/m (in-room). Nominal impedance: 8 ohms.
Dimensions: 11.4" H by 7.1" W by 8.5" D. Weight: just under 9 lbs each.
Price: $269.99/pair.
Energy Speakers, Klipsch Group, Inc., 3502 Woodview Trace, Suite 200, Indianapolis, IN 46268. Tel: (800) 544-1482, (317) 860-8100. Fax: (317) 860-9170. Web: www.klipsch.com.
Sidebar 2: System
I did all of my listening using my Rega P3-24 turntable, Exposure 2010S CD player, NAD C 316BEE integrated amplifier and PP 3 USB phono preamplifier, AudioQuest Rocket 33 speaker cables, and Sidewinder interconnects. The speakers were secured with small globs of Blu-Tack to 24" Target stands, while the components rested within my PolyCrystal equipment rack. Source components and amplifiers were plugged into a Furutech e-TP60 power conditioner and then into a Furutech GTX wall receptacle. Comparison speakers included the Pioneer SP-BS41-LR ($150/pair), which Bob Reina…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
My estimate of the Energy CB-10's B-weighted sensitivity on its tweeter axis was 88dB/2.83V/m, which is slightly higher than that of the Boston Acoustics A 25. The electrical impedance (fig.1) drops below 6 ohms for most of the midrange, reaching a minimum value of 3.8 ohms at 200Hz. Even so, the speaker should present no drive difficulties to the partnering amplifier or receiver.
Fig.1 Energy Connoisseur CB-10, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.)
Although SM wrote that "knocking on the cabinet's side…
While listening to Boston Acoustics' A 25 loudspeaker ($299.98/pair), I kept thinking about magic.
Paul Messenger introduced Boston Acoustics' A Series in the April 2011 "Industry Update." With the creation of the A Series, Paul reported, BA wanted to create a "global loudspeaker," one that would be appreciated by music lovers worldwide.
I asked BA's director of program management, Stephen Shenefield, to tell me more about what had inspired the A Series. He explained that while Boston Acoustics products have gained a reputation for offering an "American" sound, one better suited…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted, loudpeaker. Drive-units: 1" Kortec soft-dome tweeter, 5.25" ceramic and glass-fiber polymer-cone mid/woofer. Frequency range: 55Hz–25kHz. Sensitivity: 89dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms.
Dimensions: 10.7" H by 7.25" W by 8.9" D. Weight: 10 lbs each.
Price: $299.98/pair.
Boston Acoustics, 300 Jubilee Drive, Peabody, MA 01960. Tel: (201) 762-6429, (508) 538-5000. Web: www.bostonacoustics.com.
Sidebar 2: System
I did all of my listening using my Rega P3-24 turntable, Exposure 2010S CD player, NAD C 316BEE integrated amplifier and PP 3 USB phono preamplifier, AudioQuest Rocket 33 speaker cables, and Sidewinder interconnects. The speakers were secured with small globs of Blu-Tack to 24" Target stands, while the components rested within my PolyCrystal equipment rack. Source components and amplifiers were plugged into a Furutech e-TP60 power conditioner and then into a Furutech GTX wall receptacle. Comparison speakers included the Pioneer SP-BS41-LR ($150/pair), which Bob Reina…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The A 25's B-weighted sensitivity on its tweeter axis was 87.5dB/2.83V/m, which was higher than I expected for such a small loudspeaker. The electrical impedance (fig.1) remained at or above 6 ohms for much of the audioband, and though it dropped to 4.3 ohms just above 200Hz, the A 25 will be a relatively easy load for the partnering amplifier to drive. There is a suspicious-looking wrinkle in the impedance traces at 300Hz; investigation of the enclosure's vibrational behavior with a plastic-tape accelerometer revealed a major resonant mode at this frequency that…