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Emotiva

All prices listed in this post are in US dollars.

What can you get for $4750? A lot, apparently.

That was the retail price of the whole system set up in the Emotiva room. The system was all-Emotiva: a pair of Airmotiv XT3 loudspeakers ($1999/pr), a 550Wpc XPA-DR2 power amplifier ($1899), an XDA-3 DAC/preamp ($699), and a CMX-6+ AC line filter with surge protection ($199). Cables were also by Emotiva but are not included in the $4750 price. They don’t add much to the price, however.

This may have been my biggest surprise of the show. The sound I heard didn't sound "…

Brilliant Corners #13: The EM/IA Remote Autoformer and Listening with Master Jazzman Jerome Sabbagh

Ever notice that the language we use to talk about sound can be pretty aggressive? Reviewers often write about amplifiers "taking control" of a speaker, possibly "ironfisted control," especially if the amplifier in question happens to be a "juggernaut." In this particular linguistic trash fire, we also find "razor-sharp transients," "hair-raising dynamics," and that ickiest of descriptors, "bass slam." If words could smell like hair gel and drugstore cologne, these might.

All this verbiage is describing brute force, which we might use to push open a heavy door. But there's another kind of…

Brilliant Corners #13: The EM/IA Remote Autoformer and Listening with Master Jazzman Jerome Sabbagh Page 2

In subsequent listening sessions, what stayed with me most was the remarkable coherence the EM/IA brought to my system. While there was a slight reduction in the first kind of force—sheer grunt and propulsion—there was a notable increase in the second: Music sounded more natural, present, and intentional, less like a collection of sounds and more like a real performance. And the EM/IA more consistently drew my attention to the music rather than the sound, always a wonderful development. It turns out that getting this kind of genuinely inspiring performance out of the EM/IA is dependent on…

Bliss Acoustics, AudioNec, Nagra, Gryphon Audio, Aurender, Playback Designs, Luna Cables, Computer Audio Design, Modulum Audio, Stillpoints

All prices in Canadian dollars.

If the AudioNec Evo 3 speakers ($125,000/pair) in the top photo look familiar, it's no accident. They're from the same company that made the Evo 1 speakers in my last Luna Cables / Thöress report. But this time, they have three more modules, so the Evo 3 is much taller than the Evo 1.

This was a high-level sounding system. It should be because of the exclusivity of its components. These included a Nagra Reference Anniversary turntable ($232,500) with a Nagra Reference MC cartridge ($24,500). Also, a tube, class-A Nagra HD phono stage ($115,000), a…

Wharfedale Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale loudspeaker

When I first got interested in audio in the UK, in the 1960s, four English brands dominated the domestic loudspeaker scene: Goodmans (founded in 1923), Celestion (whose first loudspeaker was launched in early 1925), Tannoy (which started making loudspeakers in 1928), and Wharfedale. Wharfedale was the youngest of these brands, founded in 1932 in Yorkshire—the land of the Dales—by Gilbert Briggs.

In 1968, following some failed experiments with home-brewed speakers, I was looking to buy a pair of "real" loudspeakers. I was attracted to the large Wharfedale Dovedale, with its 12" woofer, but…

Wharfedale Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale loudspeaker Page 2

After the experiments with speaker placement, the Dovedales cleanly reproduced the 1/3-octave warble tones on the Editor's Choice CD down to the 40Hz band. The 32Hz tone was significantly reinforced by the lowest room mode, and while the 25Hz tone was audible I couldn't hear the 20Hz tone. There was no wind noise from the ports with the 20Hz tone, and the warble tones sounded very clean, with no audible "doubling" (adding second-harmonic distortion). The half-step–spaced tonebursts on Editor's Choice spoke cleanly down to 32Hz, with those between 2kHz and 4kHz slightly accentuated. Listening…

Wharfedale Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, standmounted loudspeaker. Drive units: 10" (254mm) black, woven Kevlar cone woofer; 5" (135mm) black, woven Kevlar cone midrange unit; 1" (25.4mm) soft-dome tweeter. Crossover frequencies: 560Hz, 2.9kHz. Frequency response: 36Hz–20kHz ±3dB. Bass extension: –6dB at 25Hz. Nominal impedance: 6.5 ohms. Minimum impedance: 3.6 ohms. Sensitivity: 89dB/2.83V/m. Peak SPL: 112dB. Recommended amplifier power: 25–250W. Supplied accessories: handling gloves, carpet-piercing spikes, carbon-steel frame stands with black glass inserts.
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Wharfedale Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale loudspeaker Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital sources: Roon Nucleus+ file server; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; MBL N31 CD player/DAC; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 A/D converter; NetGear Nighthawk router.
Power amplifiers: Parasound Halo JC 1+ monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: KEF LS50.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Vodka (Ethernet), AudioQuest Coffee (USB), DH Labs (1m, AES3). Interconnect: Ayre/Cardas (balanced). Speaker: AudioQuest Robin Hood. AC: AudioQuest Dragon Source & High Current, manufacturers' own.
Accessories: 24"-high, single-pillar Celestion loudspeaker stands with…

Wharfedale Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Wharfedale Dovedale's quasi-anechoic frequency- and time-domain responses in the farfield. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses and Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system to measure the impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle.

I examined the farfield behavior on the tweeter axis, which, with the speaker on its stands and spikes, places the tweeter 35" from the floor. As designer Peter Comeau recommends…

TAD Laboratories, Synergistic Research, Modulum, Jocavi

All prices listed in US dollars.

TAD was demonstrating a beefy all-TAD system, beefy in looks and sound. It consisted of a 3-way, bass-reflex TAD-R1TX-BR/EB Ultimate Reference One TX speaker system ($160,000), a two-chassis TAD-C600 preamplifier ($45,000), a 175Wpc TAD-M700S stereo amplifier ($60,500), and a TAD-D1000TX-S SACD/CD player. Rounding out the system were Synergistic Research cables and line filters, Modulum equipment racks and shelves, and Jocavi acoustic panels.

The result? As I listened, "An iron fist in a velvet glove" came to mind. Napoleon coined the…