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The first true high-end component I owned was an Audio Research SP-10. I reviewed this two-box, tubed preamplifier in the May 1984 issue of the English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review. "The SP-10 presented [recorded] information in a more coherent, less distorted manner than any preamp I've tried," I wrote in the review, concluding that "the SP-10 made me realize how many good records I owned." I purchased the SP-10 and brought the preamplifier with me when I moved to the US. Four decades later, I still have that SP-10. "Every now and again, when I want to be reminded of the magic it…
The midrange was now smooth- and natural-sounding. The imaging was precise on my late-1990s recordings of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the soundstage was reproduced with the appropriate depth. This was particularly the case with the KEFs, with which the Audio Research amplifier made a synergistic match. In "Decision Point" from Jerome Harris Quartet's Rendezvous (16/44.1 ALAC file, Stereophile STPH013-2, footnote 3), which I recorded in Chad Kassem's Blue Heaven Studio in Kansas, the pairing made palpable the delicate church acoustic around and behind Billy Drummond's drums…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Tubed integrated amplifier. Tubes: 2 pairs of matched 6550WE (output); 3 6922s (1 input, 2 driver). Inputs: 2 pairs single-ended line (RCA), 1 pair single-ended pass-through (RCA), 1 pair balanced (XLR). Optional input modules: MM Phono, DAC. Outputs: 4 ohm and 8 ohm transformer taps; ¼" headphone jack. Output power: 50Wpc (17dBW into 8 ohms, 14dBW into 4 ohms), continuous, 20Hz–20kHz. Total harmonic distortion at 1kHz: typically 1% per channel; <0.1% at 1W. Power bandwidth: 10Hz–22kHz, –3dB. Frequency response (at 1W): 7Hz–30kHz, –3dB. Input…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Roon Nucleus+ file server with HDPlex linear power supply; iPad mini running Roon; HiFi Rose 250A streaming D/A preamplifier; MBL N31 CD player/DAC; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP disc player; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 A/D converter; NetGear Nighthawk router.
Power amplifiers: Parasound Halo JC 1+ monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: GoldenEar BRX, KEF LS50.
Headphones: Audeze LCD-X with Nordost Heimdall cables.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest (Ethernet), DH Labs (AES3). Interconnect: Canare (unbalanced), Ayre/Cardas Signature (balanced). Speaker:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I performed the measurements of the Audio Research I/50 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, concentrating on the behavior of the balanced inputs and the 4 ohm output transformer tap, as that is what I mostly used in my auditioning. The I/50's maximum voltage gain at 1kHz from the 8 ohm output transformer tap into 8 ohms was 19.6dB for the balanced input and 25.6dB for all three single-ended inputs. (The phono module, which is used with the SE1 input, was not installed.) The voltage gains from the 4 ohm tap were 3.2dB lower than from the 8 ohm tap, with both…
If music reflects the life of the person who created it—if, for example, we can hear Mozart's inner turmoil in his operas—then Warren Zevon's song catalog is uncommonly revealing. Headless mercenaries, killer rapists, and yes, impeccably dressed werewolves with a taste for pina coladas are all part of the colorful world of WZ's twisted imagination and especially of his masterpiece, 1978's Excitable Boy.
As with all things Zevon, it's not quite that simple. Averse to doctors, Zevon, who famously admitted on the Late Show with David Letterman, "I might have made a tactical error not going…
Photo: Peter Luehr
This is Part 1 of a two-part article. Click here for Part 2.
If album sales, longevity of career, position on the leading edge of audio technology, reputation in the music business, and involvement in many of the most important albums in history are the measurements, Bob Ludwig is the GOAT (footnote 1) of music mastering.
"I'm an old goat, anyway," he joked during our multiday, many-hours conversation, centered around his recent retirement announcement and his five-plus decades as a mastering engineer.
If Bob Ludwig is the Michael Jordan of music…
Bob's bedroom in South Salem, New York, in 1962, before he headed to the Eastman School of Music. You can see his sound system: A Thorens turntable, Ampex 960, Bell tape recorder, Lafayette Radio preamplifier, and an FM tuner; he doesn't remember the brand. "That blue panel with a meter on the left was a direct line my folks got from the phone company," Bob says. "It went to my best friend’s house about 2 miles from me on Lake Waccabuc. We could send or receive to each other, talk, playing tapes!" .
In high school, Ludwig got serious with his trumpet studies. He joined the…
Bob and Gail Ludwig in Bob's studio at Gateway Mastering, August 21, 2023. Photo by Brian Lee.
Although he's eloquent and detail-oriented, generous with hard-learned information from the world of professional audio and music mastering, Bob Ludwig is a private person. Over 9 hours of conversation, he mentioned Gail, his wife since 1984, many times, but mainly in her role as business manager for Gateway Mastering Studios since shortly after its founding in 1992.
At the end of our conversation, it felt OK to ask for a few personal details.
Ludwig's first wife is the…
Here are some of Bob Ludwig's favorite albums he mastered through the years, with his comments:
1960s: The Band: The Band, "an iconic recording." Also Led Zeppelin II, "made 54 years ago and played on radio every single day since!" For historical perspective, Ludwig notes that 54 years prior to LZII, the state of the art was "acoustical recording into a horn!"
1970s: Metal Machine Music, "the first time I worked with Lou Reed" and Sheik Yerbouti, "my glorious days with Frank Zappa."
1980s: Journey's Escape: "Don't Stop Believing!"; Donald Fagen's The Nightfly: "3M…