Want to break the lease? Try Grandmaster Flash's The Message (Sugar Hill SH-584) at about 100dB. "Hey you youngsters, stop listening to that crap music! You wanna hear…
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Rock? The acid test for bombastic bass reproduction is "Behind the Veil," from Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop (Epic OE 44313). In one passage, Tony Hymas plays the melody on a bass synthesizer that descends lower in frequency than Terry Bozzio's thundering bass drum. The Virtuoso Wood reproduced the melody with perfect clarity—fast, tuneful, with no sense of overhang—and left the bass-drum line intact with no trace of muddiness.
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Moving-magnet phono cartridge. Stylus profile: Not specified. Frequency range: 20Hz-20kHz. Output voltage (1kHz, 5cm/s): 3.6mV. Channel separation (1kHz): >30dB. Channel balance (1kHz): <0.2dB. Trackability: >90µm. Recommended tracking force: 2.0-2.5gm. Electrical impedance (1kHz): 660 ohms. Coil inductivity: 0.42mH. Load resistance 47k ohms. Load capacitance: 100pF. Cantilever: aluminum.
Weight: 6.0gm.
Serial number of unit reviewed: V00873.
Price: $750. Approximate number of dealers: 160.
Manufacturer: Clearaudio International…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Rega Planar 3 turntable, Syrinx PU-3 tonearm.
Integrated amplifier: Creek 5350SE.
Loudspeakers: Acarian Systems Alón Petite, NHT SB-3.
Cables: Speaker: Acarian Systems Black Orpheus.
Accessories: Various by ASC, Bright Star, Ringmat Developments, Salamander Designs, Simply Physics, Sound Anchor, VPI.—Robert J. Reina
Geffen B0005345-02 (CD). 2005. Sigur Rós, prods.; Birgir Jon Birgisson, Kenneth Vaughan Thomas, engs. AAD. TT: 65:34
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Hey, I like things that are grand as much as the next guy. Grand opera is good, any kind of baked good with "grand" in the title is cool—even the sainted subway I ride stops every morn and eve at Grand Street.
But grand rock music is another story, one filled with ego bloat, overripe string sections—er, I mean, "soundscapes"—and (suppress that gag reflex) soaring voices. I blame Richard Wagner filtered through Coldplay for the…
First Watt isn't a real company, and the F1 power amplifier isn't a real product. Consequently, this isn't a real review.
Nelson Pass, who founded the Threshold Corporation in the 1970s and continues to operate the successful Pass Labs, also likes to indulge his more radical side as an audio designer. For some years, his outlet for doing so was Pass DIY", a sort of an online think tank that encourages audio hobbyists to build and elaborate on recent Pass designs that are more niche than needful: ultra-simple and generally low-powered solid-state amplifiers. But the appeal of Pass DIY has…
The F1's power supply is nothing if not simple—and elegant. Apart from its Plitron toroidal power trannie, it's virtually all dual-mono, with separate rectifier bridges and a quartet of sane, nontesticular reservoir caps for each channel. A few supporting bits aside, that's just about all there is to it.
The F1 amplifier as a whole is built logically and well, but it isn't overwrought. Each channel has a single, slender, audio-section printed circuit board, with five P-type MOSFETs fastened to the adjacent heatsink extrusions—which themselves comprise the two sides of the chassis. The F1…
How to integrate a computer into a high-end audio system is a hot topic these days. I'm getting more and more e-mails from readers asking for advice, Wes Phillips wrote about transferring his LPs to audio files in his October and November newsletters, and a lively thread on this topic ran on the forum at www.stereophile.com.
With my production work for the Stereophile recordings, I early got into playing back music files on a computer, when the magazine purchased a Sonic Solutions Digital Audio Workstation at the end of 1993. I now smile when I see 160GB hard drives selling for…
This aspect of the Symphony works well. At one point, I had the unit playing one song in my listening room while simultaneously streaming four different songs to all four computers in the house—two PCs running XP, two Macs—all without a glitch or a network stall. (The Symphony is specified as being able to simultaneously stream up to five different audio programs.)
When connected to a network, the Symphony can also play audio files streamed to it from other computers on the network, provided the files are organized in an iTunes-like library or using UpnP-compatible software. The jog…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: CD player with 80GB hard drive, CD ripping and song/playlist management software, and Wi-Fi hub. File formats supported: MP3 and MP3 VBR, AIFF, PCM, WAV, OGG/Vorbis, FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), and AAC (MPEG4). Sample rates supported: 11.025, 22.05, 32, 44.1, and 48kHz. Analog inputs: 1 pair RCA. Analog outputs: 1 pair RCA. Digital audio outputs: S/PDIF optical (Toslink) and electrical (RCA). Other comms ports: Ethernet, USB. Energy consumption: 0.6 Watt in Standby, 7W in Play.
Dimensions: 17.13" W x 11.42" D x 3.35" H. Weight: 13.2 lbs.…
Sidebar 2: Review System
Digital Sources: Mark Levinson No.30.6, Benchmark DAC 1
Preamplifier: Mark Levinson No.326S.
Power Amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: NHT Xd, Genesis 5.2, Snell LCR7.
Cables: Digital: Kimber Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU, AudioQuest SVD-4 S/PDIF. Interconnect: AudioQuest Cheetah, Madrigal CZ Gel-1, Ayre Signature Series, Crystalconnect, Canare (balanced); DiMarzio, Canare (unbalanced). Speaker: AudioQuest Kilimanjaro. AC: PS Audio Lab, manufacturer's own.
Accessories: Target TT-5 equipment racks, Ayre Myrtle Wood Blocks; ASC…