Analog sources: VPI Avenger Direct turntable, VPI Fatboy tonearm, VPI Shyla MC cartridge.
Digital sources: HoloAudio May DAC, Sonore opticalRendu, Roon Nucleus+, Small Green Computer power supply, TRENDnet switch, Apple iPad mini.
Integrated amplifier: PrimaLuna EVO 400.
Preamplifier: Sugden LA-4.
Power amplifiers: Ayre VX-8, LKV Research PWR-3.
Loudspeakers: Spendor BC-1.
Cables: Interconnects: AudioQuest Pegasus, Triode Wire Labs Spirit II. Speaker: Analysis Plus Silver Apex Speaker. AC: Triode Wire Labs Obsession NCF.
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system with a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Harbeth Super HL5plus XD's behavior in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I measured the speaker without the aluminum-frame grille and performed the primary response measurements on the super-tweeter axis. I measured the speaker's impedance magnitude and phase with Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system, but for consistency with Stereophile's presentation of impedance graphs, I plotted the impedance measurement with the Audio Precision System One software…
Something has happened in jazz culture in the new millennium. There is more emphasis on original composition than ever before. There has been remarkably little discussion and analysis of this phenomenon, perhaps because many assume it is a positive development. Jazz, after all, prioritizes originality.
There is a counterargument. It goes like this: Jazz today is vital and dynamic because great players keep popping up, all over the world. Very few of those great players are also great composers. Yet they apparently feel obliged to be. A large proportion of new jazz albums contain all or…
The next time you're preparing to play a record, try doing a little experiment. Once you have the record mounted and spinning but before you lower the stylus into the groove, lower your gaze to just below record level and look for a gap between the platter and the record. It helps if there's a light source or a brightly colored wall behind the platter. You may discover a gap—that very little of the record's playing area is making true contact with the platter mat or (if there is no mat) the platter. Another way to test this is to take a record you don't care much about, put it on the platter…
Going to the mat
An important question to ask is whether you need a record hold-down at all. Some turntable manufacturers are adamant that best performance is achieved by letting the record lie in its natural state, coupled only by its own mass and gravity, in conjunction, usually, with some type of compliant mat or interface. Felt mats are sometimes dismissed as cheap and static prone, but several serious turntable manufacturers continue to use them: Linn, Rega, Roksan. Over the decades, I've noticed, the mats supplied by all three companies have become progressively thinner, which I…
An important question to ask is whether you need a record hold-down at all. Some turntable manufacturers are adamant that best performance is achieved by letting the record lie in its natural state, coupled only by its own mass and gravity, in conjunction, usually, with some type of compliant mat or interface. Felt mats are sometimes dismissed as cheap and static prone, but several serious turntable manufacturers continue to use them: Linn, Rega, Roksan. Over the decades, I've noticed, the mats supplied by all three companies have become progressively thinner, which I…
Her first professional recording became a career-defining global hit, changed the culture, and helped make bossa nova a worldwide phenomenon. but there's a dark side to the success of "The Girl From Ipanema," which followed the Brazilian chanteuse until her recent death.
In 1966, French rock star Serge Gainsbourg, a party-hearty lothario, asked a teenage protégé named France Gall to sing a new song he had written. "Les Sucettes" was ostensibly about lollipops, but the lyrics contained multiple heavy innuendos. One line claimed that "lollipop juice" flowing down a girl's throat could…
Flawed
Bucketloads of complimentary things can be said about Astrud Gilberto's voice, but she wasn't technically a great singer. Her range was barely two octaves, her performances often shaky. In pop music, a certain degree of (let's say) limited vocal competence is not necessarily a hindrance to a successful interpretation. When Nico sang "All Tomorrow's Parties," or whenever Bob Dylan got nasal and mumbly, it didn't kill the song; in some ways, the flaws are an enhancement: Imperfections bring out the performer's humanity. But in classical music and to a lesser extent in jazz,…
I should have trusted my ears. When I first encountered Infigo (pronounced In-FEE'-go) electronics, paired with Alta Audio's Adam loudspeaker, at T.H.E. Show 2022 in Long Beach, California, I wrote, "Timbres were beautiful on bass and high-pitched percussion. The chimes and vibes sounded special and clean, colors were plentiful, and deep bass was all of one piece." Nor was I exaggerating. In that system, Infigo's Method 3 monoblocks ($55,000/pair) pleased my ears as much as their blue-illumined interiors delighted my eyes.
Rather quickly, Editor Jim Austin suggested I review the Method 3…
A transparent plate covers the electronics, a blue light illuminating its innards. For users who wish to listen in the dark, a solid metal top plate is provided, secured by a single thumbscrew. The plate has no effect on sound quality, Looman said. I love the blue light and never attached the plate. "I design solid state amplifiers because it's the technology I'm most familiar with," Looman said, "but I've always wanted to capture the musicality that's associated with tubes. We took a line for our Method 3 publicity from someone in an all-tube group who once exclaimed at my demo, 'I can't…
Sidebar 1: Classy
Whenever a designer claims to be doing something fundamentally new—like "low-temperature class-A"—it makes one suspicious. True class-A is hot and wastes a lot of power, more than 50% of the total; there's no way around it. So how can you do class-A without heating up the room?
Variations on class-A that aim to derive some (or all) of class-A's benefits do exist. The variations that come immediately to mind are old-fashioned class-AB and various "sliding-bias" topologies, which typically track input (but sometimes output) and keep the bias current as large as it…