Two months ago, I ran out of space while covering the unsubtle sonic improvements of the passive CAD Ground Control system. Now that I've lived with the CAD for another couple of months, I can render my verdict: I…
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How goes your quarantining? Honestly, my life hasn't changed much here. I'm locked in the basement as usual, happy to have a good audio system and overwhelmed by my musical choices. Other than minimizing shopping expeditions and wearing a mask, the biggest change in my life is a spike in requests from readers for upgrade advice. I've never been so busy answering reader emails.
"Miyabi" in Japanese means "elegance." Fuuga means "elegance with flair." Nagao-san was friends with Miyabi designer Haruo Takeda; he was also Japan's exclusive Miyabi dealer. Nagao has also worked at Stax, Audio Craft, and other storied companies and was part of the team that created the Infinity Black Widow tonearm all those years ago.
After Takeda retired, taking with him the Miyabi secrets, Nagao decided to reverse-engineer the Miyabi with the help of Tetsuya Sukehiro, a young cartridge designer, but soon he found that in the interim better materials had become available. Also, the…
Loudspeaker manufacturer GoldenEar Technology was founded in 2010 by a team led by Sandy Gross, who over the decades was responsible for a succession of affordable high-performance loudspeakers from Polk and Definitive Technology (footnote 1). Gross continued that tradition with GoldenEar: Even the company's flagship, the Triton Reference, which I favorably reviewed in January 2018, was priced a couple of dollars short of $8500/pair. (GoldenEar was acquired by The Quest Group, the parent company of cable company AudioQuest, in January 2020; Gross continued with the brand as president…
Test tones are useful both for optimizing a pair of speakers' setup and the initial diagnosis of their sonic character. But music is what matters when it comes to judging sound quality.
In his book Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms, Floyd Toole discusses what he called "Circles of Confusion." Toole wrote that recording engineers sometimes make arbitrary choices that affect sound quality (footnote 3). When you insert a new component into your system and listen to a specific recording, therefore, you have no way of knowing whether what you hear…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: Reference High-Gauss High-Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter, 6" (152.4mm) polypropylene-cone woofer, two 6.5" (165mm) planar passive radiators. Frequency range: 40Hz–35kHz. Impedance: "Compatible with 8 ohms." Sensitivity: 90dB/W/m. Power handling: 12–250Wpc.
Dimensions: 12.125" (308mm) H × 8.1" (205mm) W × 12.25" (311mm) D. Weight: 12lb (5.44kg) each.
Finish: Hand-rubbed piano black lacquer.
Serial numbers of review samples: GKWA C1 1219 00006 & '00026, manufactured in…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge, Channel D Seta L phono preamplifier.
Digital sources: Roon Nucleus+ file server; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream, Weiss DAC502, and HoloAudio May D/A processors, Ayre Acoustics QA-9 A/D converter.
Power amplifiers: Parasound Halo JC 1+ monoblocks.
Integrated amplifier: NAD M10.
Loudspeakers: KEF LS50, Vimberg Mino.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Vodka (Ethernet), AudioQuest Coffee (USB),…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the GoldenEar BRX's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses.
GoldenEar specifies the BRX's sensitivity as 90dB/W/m; my estimate was somewhat lower, at 87.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. The BRX's impedance is specified as "compatible with 8 ohms." However, the impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) drops well below 8 ohms in the midrange and mid-treble region, with a minimum value of 3.24 ohms at 194Hz. There is also a…
Used copies of Sonny Rollins's classic 1957 record Way Out West are easy enough to find. The album has been reissued some 30 times on vinyl, most recently in 2018 on Craft Recordings (but read Michael Fremer's take on that reissue before buying). You can still buy Original Jazz Classics reissues from 1988—sealed —for about $20.
If you want an early pressing, though, your opportunities are limited. If you want an early pressing in collectable condition, expect to pay real money. And if you want that early pressing in pristine condition, good luck with that.
This is the niche the…
UPDATE: This webinar is now expired
NAD M33 DAC Amplifier Webinar Now Expired LIVE: Thursday, August 27, 2020 - 12:00PM ET
Join us when NAD Electronics presents a deep dive into the NAD M33 BluOS Streaming DAC Amplifier, with an overview of features and benefits, including an in-depth look at their novel Eigentakt amplification technology.
On hand to present the product and answer your questions during the live webinar:
Greg Stidsen, Chief Technology Officer for Lenbrook International
Cas Oostvogel, Product Manager, NAD
Bruno Putzeys, Co-founder,…
I am fascinated by DACs and the shifting sands of today's digital-audio marketplace. This month, I am reporting on two more DACs, both made by Denafrips: the $4498 Terminator, until recently their flagship DAC, and the $768 Ares II, the company's least expensive model. Like the HoloAudio May DAC I described last month, both Denafrips converters employ R-2R conversion schemes, and both render recordings into direct, unprocessed sound.
The Denafrips Terminator is not new. It has been around since March 2017 and has been reviewed and discussed (but not in Stereophile). When I checked,…