Dudamel's conducting of one of the world's greatest symphony orchestras certainly delivers the goods. Heard as a 24/96 download from HDTracks, which offers greater…
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What better way to say goodbye to 2016 than to pop the champagne and blast your way through to the Trump Years with the latest version of a double-whammy warhorse pairing, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain, from Gustavo Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon)? After all, there's no getting around the fact that fireworks are fireworks, and that New Year's Eve is a night for same.
When I requested the Snell Music and Cinema Reference System for review, plus the new Snell Type A Music Reference System for evaluation, little did I know what I was letting myself in for. I lost count of the number of large shipping cartons delivered to my garage—though I'm sure the delivery man didn't. Except for the subwoofers, all the individual pieces are relatively small. But together they form a system that definitely demands both attention and a large room to sound its best and to keep it from visually overpowering the space.
Nine separate pieces comprise the Snell M&C…
The left and right Towers flanked the screen, which for much of the review consisted of various rear-projection televisions under test for issue 2 of the Stereophile Guide to Home Theater (footnote 2). The layout of the room allowed these sets to be recessed flush into the wall behind the loudspeakers so that there was no large, bulky TV cabinet in the center to interfere with the imaging. The fronts of the left and right Towers were about 2' from the front wall, toed-in to face the center seat. The subwoofers, left and right, were located just to the outside of the main Towers. The LCR…
As with the B&W system, I found myself preferring THX playback on some soundtracks and straight Pro Logic on others over the Snells. More often than not I would make my decision based on how the soundtrack music sounded, which sometimes resulted in having to accept a less-than-optimum balance with dialog and effects—these things are mixed separately and not always with identical spectral content.
I observed once that, in my opinion, the best music recording for film can be near, if not quite at, the state of the art, while dialog and effects trail well behind. I still believe that.…
Sidebar 1: Associated Equipment
The principal equipment used with the Snell system consisted of a Denon LA 3500 laserdisc/CD player, Proceed PAV surround-sound preamplifier, and Proceed AMP 2 and AMP 3 amplifiers. An NAD 208 amplifier was used to drive the two subwoofers, with one channel driving each of the two subs. A Mark Levinson No.36 was also used briefly as a D/A converter in the system, with a Rowland Consummate preamp, and Proceed AMP 2 amplifier, late in the review period with the arrival of the new Pioneer CLD-D704 laserdisc player. The latter could feed the No.36 from a…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
John Atkinson measured the Type MC Reference Tower, Type MC Reference 2800 LCR center channel, and Type MC Reference SUR 2800 Tower surround loudspeakers and gave me the results after my auditioning was complete and the text of the review written and turned in. I also investigated the low-frequency tuning of the Type MC SUB 1800.
The sensitivity of the Type MC Reference Tower measured 85dB/W/m (B-weighted). By a significant margin, this is the lowest sensitivity we have yet obtained for a home THX-certified front loudspeaker. The B&W FCM8, in…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: Five-loudspeaker surround-sound loudspeaker array composed of: two Music & Cinema Reference Towers, one LCR 2800 center loudspeaker, two SUR 2800 dipole surround loudspeakers, and two SUB 1800 reflex-loaded subwoofers.
Wood finishes available: black, walnut, light oak, dark oak.
System price: $29,993 (1995); no longer available (2016).
Music & Cinema Reference Tower: three-way, acoustic suspension (sealed) system. Drive-units: four 6.5" mineral-filled polypropylene-cone woofers with 32mm voice-coils, cast-magnesium baskets,…
The Danish Bang & Olufsen firm is the undisputed leader in audio when it comes to dramatic product styling and ease and versatility of use. Their designs have won more design awards than those of any other audio firm, and each new lineup of B&O models seems to offer even more control convenience than the last batch. Sonically, none of their components to date has been any better than "very good," and some have done significantly less well than that. In reviewing them, we have had to compare them with their pricewise competition among the brands we normally think of as "high-end," and…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Top-loading, programmable CD player. Maximum output level: 2V. Power consumption: 25W.
Dimensions: 16.5" W x 3" H x 12.25" D. Weight: 12.4 lbs.
Price: $699 (1986); no longer available (2016).
Manufacturer: Bang & Olufsen A/S, Peter Bangs Vej 15, DK-7600 Struer, Denmark. Tel: (45) 9684-1122. Web: www.bang-olufsen.com. US distributor: Bang & Olufsen, Mt. Prospect, IL 60056 (1986). Bang & Olufsen America, Inc., 1751 Lake Cook Road, Suite 620, Deerfield, IL 60015 (2016).
My 0.56mV-output Lyra Atlas moving-coil cartridge ($11,995) has put in four years of heavy-duty use. But not long ago I began to hear some problems with sibilants from records that previously hadn't given me trouble in that department. Lyra's Jonathan Carr and Stig Bjorge suggested I bring my Atlas to the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, held last January in Las Vegas, where they would exchange it for a new one.
I was doubly grateful because, while Lyra's top models are expensive, demand is high and regularly outstrips supply. This is because every Lyra cartridge is handmade by the same…