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Not so with Karin Winther conducting the Taby Church Chamber Choir on Hush! The Angels Are Singing (CD, First Impressions Music CD 001). The choir had a seductively angelic quality, and it was easy to delineate the individual layers of voices within the ensemble. The integration of the choir with the room acoustic was also extremely natural. But my single favorite vocal recording is of men's choir Cantus's performance of Eric Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, from While You Are Alive (CD, Cantus CTS-1208). The Jazz captured the perfect integration of the voices with an extraordinarily linear…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Tubed line preamplifier. Tube complement: two 12AX7, one 12AT7. Frequency response: 10Hz–50kHz, +0/–0.5dB. Input impedance: >75k ohms. Output impedance: 50 ohms. Signal/noise ratio (ref. 1V): 105dB (ASA-A weighting). Dynamic range: >112dB, gain at +12dB. Total harmonic distortion: <0.02% 1V RMS, gain at 0dB. Channel separation: >78dB.
Dimensions: 12" (310mm) W by 3" (75mm) H by 10" (255mm) D. Weight 7 lbs (3.2kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: 55025166156025.
Price: $12,250. Approximate number of dealers: 10.
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: VPI TNT IV, Rega Planar 3 turntables; Immedia, Syrinx PU-3 tonearms; Koetsu Urushi, Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridges.
Digital Sources: Lector CDP-7T, Creek Destiny CD players.
Preamplification: Audio Valve Eclipse, Audio Research Reference 5SE line stages; Vendetta Research SCP-2D phono stage.
Power Amplifiers: Audio Research Reference 110 & Reference 75.
Loudspeakers: Epos M16i, Monitor Audio Silver RX6, Nola Viper Reference III.
Cables: Interconnect (all MIT): Magnum M3, MI-350 CVTwin Terminator, MI-330SG…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Nagra Jazz preamplifier with Stereophile's loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"). The review sample had only unbalanced inputs but was fitted with the optional balanced output transformers. I therefore performed a complete suite of measurements from both the unbalanced and balanced outputs, though in the following text I have concentrated on the balanced outputs, as that is how Bob Reina used the Jazz for his auditioning.
The voltage gain at 1kHz was 11.65dB…
Follow-Up, April 2013, the “Reis Test” (Vol.36 No.4):
In 1972, the late biologist Stephen Jay Gould made a convincing case for what he called "punctuated equilibrium": long periods of evolutionary stasis interrupted by brief periods of rapid evolutionary change in response to major environmental changes. (If you don't believe in evolution, you can jump to the next paragraph.) The same is true of this magazine's measurement regime, which we began in 1989. Every component is subjected to a standardized set of tests that remains the same for years. But occasionally, a new test device or my…
What, another audio show? Yes, barely three weeks after the close of Salon Son et Image in Montreal, and five weeks after AXPONA Chicago, the UK-based Chester Group's New York Audio Show gets underway. Running April 12–14 in the New York Palace Hotel (455 Madison Avenue at 50th Street), the show promises perhaps the largest numbers of seminars and live music events of any current audio show in the US.
The NYAS promises 40 display rooms from 13 dealers and 27 manufacturers/distributors, a Headzone filled with gear from nine companies, one marketplace room with lots of goodies, and two…
I scuttled furiously from bedroom to living room. DVDs without cases, puzzles with missing pieces, and random pairs long Ragnell scissors (why do we even have these???) strewed across a cascade of coffee tinted MDF shelves. This hand-me-down Brobdingnagian entertainment center would be the new home for my hi-fi, chipped away but yearning for gear. Like any man on a mission, I needed my soundtrack, my “Eye of the Tiger”, my “Don’t Stop Believing”, my “Bootylicious”, but what would be my source?
My laptop’s internal speakers lacked the oomph(!) I needed to propel my body into motion.…
Beethoven understood the pathos of the gap between idea and realization, and the sense of strain put on the listener's imagination is essential.—Charles Rosen
Bass, like sex, is something most young men desire in excess: To the novice, quantity trumps quality, and as long as he can hear from his playback system the deepest sounds of an orchestral bass drum or five-string electric bass (low string tuned to B-0 or C-1), he is completely satisfied. Meanwhile, bass texture, bass color, bass momentum, bass nuance, bass tension, and, especially, bass feel have now joined the short-nosed…
The thing is: There are a lot of bass-reflex loudspeakers out there, but not a whole lot of musical instruments that propagate soundwaves by pumping away at the air with such extreme excursions that the naked eye can follow them. The other thing is: There are a whole lot of musical instruments out there that propagate soundwaves by means of large resonating surfaces and very minute excitations, but not a whole lot of loudspeakers that mimic those same qualities.
Is it just me, or is there some sort of disconnect here?
They all compress and rarify but they don't all suck
…
Sidebar 1: Contents Expired
10 pop albums that sounded fresh in the 1970s but stink out loud today:
1) David Bowie: Diamond Dogs
2) Jethro Tull: War Child
3) Lou Reed: Rock n Roll Animal
4) Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin' Simon
5) Eric Clapton: 461 Ocean Boulevard
6) Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
7) Neil Young Band: On the Beach
8) James Taylor: Gorilla
9) Alice Cooper: Billion Dollar Babies
10) The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope
11) Oasis: (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (Honorable Mention: it might as well have been made in the '70s)