I touched on the subject of reviews in my Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture, "Where Did the Negative Frequencies Go?," which I was invited to give on October 21, 2011, at the 131st Audio Engineering Society…
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It's been 30 years since I began work on my very first equipment report, of the Goldbug Brier moving-coil phono cartridge, for Hi-Fi News & Record Review. That review appeared in the British magazine's May 1983 issue; I have lost track of how many equipment reviews I've written since then, but my review of the Vandersteen Treo loudspeaker in this issue is at least my 500th.
In one sense, Richard Vandersteen has been the victim of his own success. His Model 2 loudspeaker (footnote 1), introduced at the 1977 Consumer Electronics Show, put his company on the map but proved a hard product to improve on. Based on the idea that the HF and midrange drive-units should have the minimal baffle area in their acoustic vicinity, both to optimize lateral dispersion and to eliminate the effects of diffraction from the baffle edges, the Model 2 also used a combination of a sloped-back driver array and first-order crossover filters to give a time-coincident wavefront launch.…
The Vandersteen Treo was noticeably insensitive compared with the 85dB-sensitive KEF LS50 that preceded it in my room; I recommend at least a 100Wpc amplifier to drive it. The benefit of a truly time-coincident speaker is that a pair can give superb stereo imaging. That benefit is sometimes offset by compromises in dispersion, but the close-as-practicable vertical spacing of the Treo's drive-units means that it's not as fussy about the exact listening axis as might be expected. However, you still need to sit with your ears close to the optimal listening axis. Pink noise revealed a hollow…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Four-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) ceramic-coated alloy-dome tweeter, 4.5" (110mm) tri-woven composite midrange cone, 6.5" (165mm) tri-woven fiber-cone woofer, 8" (203mm) carbon-loaded cellulose-cone subwoofer. Crossover frequencies: 80Hz, 900Hz, 5kHz. Crossover slopes: 6dB/octave, first-order. Frequency response: 36Hz–30kHz, ±3dB. Sensitivity: 85dB/2.83V/m. Impedance: 6 ohms, ±3 ohms.
Dimensions: 43" (1092mm) H by 10" (254mm) W by 15" (381mm) D. Weight: 80 lbs (36.4kg).
Finish: Wood veneer.
Serial…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B phono cartridge.
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP & DX-5 universal players; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.7, iTunes 10, Pure Music 1.86; Shuttle PC with Lynx AES16 soundcard & dual-core AMD Athlon processor running Windows 7, Foobar 2000, Adobe Audition 3.0; Logitech Transporter, dCS Debussy, Arcam FMJ D33 D/A converters; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter.
Preamplification: Liberty B2B-1 phono preamplifier; BSG Qøl Signal…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Vandersteen Treo's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. As I suspected from my auditioning, the Treo is relatively insensitive. My estimate of the Treo's voltage sensitivity was a low 82.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, the same as the BBC LS3/5a. However, the impedance remains between 6 and 10 ohms for almost the entire audioband (fig.1), with a benign electrical phase angle. The minimum magnitude is 5.5 ohms, at 26 and…
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Cassettivity, the new cassette-only distribution site. At the time, Cassettivity had 10 labels on its roster; now it has 14. You can also now sort Cassettivity’s offerings by “ease of listening." I think that’s cool. Currently, Cassettivity’s easiest listening experience can be found in Manchester’s The Potomac (Sixteen Tambourines), while the hardest comes via Yvonne Lovejoy’s Voice Studies 8: This is Yvonne Lovejoy (My Dance the Skull).
Interestingly (to me, at least), a day later I heard from David Crookes, a reporter for The Independent, who was working…
Tales of a GrassWidow, CocoRosie’s fifth full-length album and first since 2010’s excellent Grey Oceans, is scheduled to be released on May 28th. The album is being self-released, features appearances by Antony Hegarty, and was produced by CocoRosie with extraordinary Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurdsson—so I expect greatness in sound and music.
If the first single, “Gravediggress,” serves as an indication, I think expectations will be met. The song, like my favorite work from CocoRosie, utilizes jazz, folk, pop, and experimental elements to match an uninhibited, childlike…
London-based Vondelpark is Lewis Rainsbury (vocals, production, bass, guitar, keys), Alex Bailey (bass), and Matt Law (keys). Their debut album, Seabed, will be released by R&S Records (In Order to Dance) on April 2nd.
Their sound is surprisingly mature for such a young band—all of the members are in their very early 20s—but I really shouldn’t be surprised: Listening to their aptly titled “California Analog Dream,” I’m reminded of fellow Londoners SBTRKT, the XX, and James Blake, all of whom have cultivated distinct, sophisticated sounds that belie their age. This…
I would be ashamed of myself if I did not share this with you.
With cooing vocals rich with longing guided by a gentle stream of tape hiss, a recently unearthed batch of recordings from Molly Drake elicits memories real and imaginary.
I've touched on the subject of the collision of music and memories—how music can transfer the listener from one space and time to the next affirming Kurt Vonnegut's theories of Trafalmadorian time travel, which proclaim each moment of time is interconnected. One can transfer in and out of moments, both past, present, and future. In this case, the…