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Versa Dynamics 2.0 LP player January 1988

J.Gordon Holt wrote again about the Versa in January 1988 (VOl.11 No.1):

Now that I've had a chance to live with the Versa for a few more weeks, I've turned up a few relatively minor problems that hadn't surfaced as of my initial review in Vol.10 No.8.

Although rather effectively damped, the spring suspension is still somewhat unstable; once it gets rocking, it takes a second or so to stop. I found that the rocking, if in the plane of cartridge motion, can cause the latter to skip a couple of grooves. This does no harm with today's light-tracking, high-compliance cartridges, but…

Versa Dynamics 2.0 LP player Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Description: Three-unit integrated turntable/tonearm with air bearings and vacuum disc hold-down. Tonearm adjustments: Tracking force, height and VTA, cartridge tilt, tangency. Effective headshell mass: 10-18gm vertical, 56-66gm lateral (depending on counterweight and use or not of eddy-current dampers).
Dimensions and weights: Phono unit 18 1/8" W by 17 5/8" D by 9¼" H, 41 lbs; Controller 6" W by 17" D by 4" H, 10 lbs; Pump module with noise reduction enclosure 22¾" W by 11" D by 13" H, 50 lbs. (Standard pump is 2" smaller in all dimensions and 10 lbs less in…

Of Digital Audio and Lettuce Leaves

The year was 1948. As a six-year-old, I haunted record stores with my Uncle Stan. A quiet bank teller from Manchester, England, childless himself and quite overpowered by my Aunt Emily, Uncle Stan shared with me his love of music and movies.

Thanks to Uncle Stan, I remember well the introduction of the long-playing record, in the fall of 1948. Every Saturday, we would visit the C.F. Wing Company, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and look at the week's new arrivals of LPs. Uncle Stan couldn't stand waiting—but he waited. Good thing, too. In January 1949, RCA introduced the 45rpm record. And…

Of Digital Audio and Lettuce Leaves Page 2

DVD-Audio is another story. It seems DVD-A releases from the so-called "major" record labels will be watermarked. Do you want these crippled discs? I sure as hell don't.

That's not the only reason I'm hoping format confusion kills off both new digital audio formats. I don't want multichannel sound, either, and that seems to be a good part of what DVD-A—and, probably, SACD—are about. (SACD was designed as a six-channel format, and Sony is said to be archiving new recordings in six channels. So, for that matter, are other labels, including Naxos.)

Would Sony have us adopt two-…

Of Digital Audio and Lettuce Leaves Letters

One letter on this subject, from Jeff Ziesmann, also appeared in February 2001. Letters in response to Sam's rant appeared in the April 2001 issue:

The most likely outcome?

Editor: I agree with John Howard's contention in November's "Letters" (Vol.23 No.11, p.12) that failure is the most likely outcome for the SACD and DVD-A format introductions.

History teaches us things, if we are willing to look back and study. The reason the introduction of the CD was so successful is that the average consumer received great benefits by personally adopting the medium. This is not the…

Of Digital Audio and Lettuce Leaves Letters part 2

Sam hit the nail on the head

Editor: As usual, Sam Tellig hit the nail on the head in his February treatise on digital audio software ("Of Digital Audio and Lettuce Leaves"). As I write this, I am listening to the Columbia/Legacy remaster of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. To quote Sam from an excellent disc review in the same issue, "buy this CD...and you'll know why I don't give a shit about SACD or DVD-Audio."—Jim Huebner, jmhuebne@att.net

The best he's read

Editor: Sam Tellig's discussion about format changes and about the possible improvements to the current CD format—"…

The Truth Should Out

This issue contains a report on a truly ingenious little device called the ABX Comparator, which takes the fraud out of subjective testing. It does this by making its own selection of source A or source B for each listening trial, without telling you which was selected. Only after all the tests will it reveal what you were listening to each time. "Score" sheets are provided so you can list your guesses, compare them with the cold, uncompromising truth, and file the results for posterity. Or better still, for the first hard evidence that has ever been presented that a lot of people can hear…

The Truth Should Out Page 2

There is no way the ABX comparator can be used to prove or disprove the existence of a caring God. But it does offer hope of proving, for the first time, whether some of the less-credible observations of perfectionists have any basis in reality or are magnificently-conceived self-deceptions. That is why, even though I feel that the device itself needs further implementation, as the jargoncrats would put it, I also feel it is the most significant contribution to audio that has come upon us in years.

But it has to be used. Few audiophiles would pay $500 for a gadget that might do no more…

The Truth Should Out Page 3

Two remote devices are connected to the main ABX black box by 25!0 cables. One is the button module which allows you to select A, B, or X for each trial. The other contains two relays plus six audio-cable receptacles. The relays connect one receptacle (per channel) to either one of the other two receptacles, which means that the switching can feed one source (per channel) to either of two external-device inputs, or can feed two external-device outputs to a single (per channel) input.

The ABX cannot, however, switch a device's inputs and outputs simultaneously. If you are comparing…

The Truth Should Out Page 4

The only remaining question some purists may have about this is: Do its relay contacts affect the sound? I could not detect any sonic degradation whatsoever when I inserted the ABX between my Revox A-77 and the power amp it was feeding (sans preamp), but then it is impossible to make such a substitution instantaneously, for a direct comparison. So, I treated the ABX like a signal processor, and connected it into the Tape Monitor loop of my Berning TF-10 preamp. This allowed me to go either straight through the preamp, or insert the ABX's switches into the signal path. I could not hear the…