Swanbon is founder and president of Fidelis Premium Audio, a longstanding audio dealership in "tax-free" New Hampshire that serves a broad swath of New England, from Greater Boston to Maine. He also handles US distribution for several lines and sells records at his Nashua showroom, a 35–40-minute drive from Boston. During a conversation via Skype, Swanbon expressed concerns and even a few grievances about the state of our industry…
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Walter Swanbon has had a lot on his mind lately. Like many dealers, he's been busy adapting to changes, but the pandemic has also offered time for reflection.
Haniwa's Dr. Tetsuo Kubo is an interesting fellow. If you go to shows, domestic or overseas, you've possibly encountered him in his room a space known for being strewn, shrine-like, with LPs that once belonged to The Absolute Sound's founder, the late Harry Pearson: Dr. Kubo was a fan.
He is also a fan of phase coherency and flat frequency response. Indeed, Dr. Kubo—an engineer and a medical doctor—claims both of those qualities for Haniwa's HDSA01 integrated amplifier and HSP01 single-driver "full-range" loudspeaker (footnote 1): Despite his being an analog fan, Kubo's integrated…
The arm comes with the headshell's overhang—in this case, it's actually "underhang," since the stylus is intended to fall short of the center of the spindle rather than extend beyond it—preset for the HCTR-CO cartridge, which also makes cartridge setup easy. All you have to do is install the counterweight and set the tracking force: There are no other adjustments. It's as close to plug'n'play analog as it gets. I'm not going to go into too much detail on the arm other than to write that I think the lack of an offset angle and an "underhung" arc to avoid skating issues—and thus admittedly…
Sidebar: In Heavy Rotation
Berlin Philharmonic: Bruckner's 7th Symphony
BPM D2D 2 LP test pressing
Raconteurs: Help Us Stranger
Third Man LP
Sasha Cooke/The Colburn Orchestra: If You Love For Beauty
Yarlung LP
Teodross Avery: After the Rain: A Night For Coltrane
Tompkins Square LP
Tyler, The Creator: IGOR
Tidal, Qobuz until vinyl arrives
Betty Carter: The Music Never Stops
Blue Engine Records 2 LPs
Michel Legrand: Legrand Jazz
Impex 45rpm 2 LPs
…
This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com
I spend a lot of time measuring headphones and talking about the measurements. Well ... why hog all the fun? Below you'll find a step by step run-through of InnerFidelity's headphone measurement procedure for InnerFidelity's headphone measurements, which can be found here.
Enjoy!
Headphone Measurement Proceedures - Introduction and Equipment
Headphone Objective Measurements Overview
There are two camps in the world of audio: objectivists and subjectivists. In an oversimplified summary, objectivists believe…
This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com
Headphone measurements are complicated and relatively difficult to interpret. The following is written to help you understand InnerFidelity's headphone measurements, which can be found here.
Frequency Response
Understanding the Problem
Headphone frequency response measurements are not only difficult to make, but also quite difficult to interpret. Headphones can't be measured with normal measurement microphones, they have to be measured like they are used—coupled to a microphone that mimics the acoustic…
Tyl Hertsens created a large database of over a thousand headphone and amplifier measurements while writing for InnerFidelity.com, where these files originally appeared.
All current headphone amplifier measurements can be downloaded in a single PDF book here.
Updated to fix links and add sheets: February, 2016
Clicking on a link below will allow you to download one datasheet at a time.
Single-Ended Solid-State Amplifiers
AURALiC Taurus MkII
Antelope Zodiac Platinum
Bakoon HPA21 Current Output
Bakoon HPA21 Voltage Output
Burson Audio…
Tyl Hertsens created a large database of over a thousand headphone and amplifier measurements while writing for InnerFidelity.com, where these files originally appeared.
Explanations about what the measurements mean can be found here.
A description of the equipment and how the measurements are taken can be found here.
All current measurements can be downloaded in a single PDF book from 2016 here.
Updated to fix links and add sheets: July 11, 2017
Clicking on a link below will allow you to download one datasheet at a time.
Full-Size Open…
I remember when I first heard that David Bowie had died. I was half-listening to the radio as I prepared for work. I was stunned. I just looked at my partner. To my surprise, a tear ran down my cheek. I had always been rather sniffy about people who got emotional when famous people died, people they had never met, who had never heard of them, who had lived lives of wealth. But, as we drove to work in silence, there was real grief in the car. Bowie was gone. Bowie had always been in my life. It was a single of his that introduced me to the power of vinyl. "The Laughing Gnome" (1967) may now…
Unlike some rock singers who fancy going a bit soul, Bowie was steeped in the genre. He had the feel, the love, and the voice to bring it off. With backing singers such as Vandross and Ava Cherry, this is the real McCoy. Occasionally, it gets a tad muffled around Carlos Alomar's and Earl Slick's guitar (in "1984," for example), but they can be heard clearly enough in a barnstorming "Moonage Daydream." The (then) new songs from the not-yet-released Young Americans, such as "Can You Hear Me," are sublime. This is genuine soul, and he sounds as if he is loving it. Often, it's playful, such as…