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No jazz-centric visit to New York City is complete without a trek out to Queens. At 46th Street in Sunnyside stands the apartment building where famed cornetist Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke's alcoholism finally killed him in 1931. Farther out, in Corona, is the newly enlarged and expanded Louis Armstrong House Museum. The actual house Armstrong bought in 1943 and lived in until his death in 1971 is just the way it was when his fourth wife, Lucille, died there in 1983. The long white couches, bright blue kitchen cabinets, and wall-mounted reel-to-reel tape decks behind his desk in the…
As much as I tinkered with a little crystal radio as a child and started reading stereo magazines in high school, it wasn't until my early 30s that I half-stumbled into the higher end of the hi-fi sphere. As I progressed from used Advents to used Spicas and began to experiment with speaker cables, more and more names of high-end brands entered my consciousness. Burmester (founded in 1977), and some of the other higher-priced components from overseas whose looks seemed commensurate with their prices, held an outsized fascination for me. What about them, other than their visual appearance,…
Setup considerations
Given the dimensions of my Grand Prix Monza amp stands and the 218's lack of protruding support feet—it only has four thin round (presumably felt) pads beneath it—I placed the 218 atop the Wilson Audio Pedestals I customarily use. This was essential because without the Pedestals or other suitable equipment supports, the corners of the amps would not have cleared the corners of the stands. I could have placed the amps on the floor without support feet, but that would have left them exposed to vibrations from my bamboo floor, putting them at a disadvantage to my…
Given the dimensions of my Grand Prix Monza amp stands and the 218's lack of protruding support feet—it only has four thin round (presumably felt) pads beneath it—I placed the 218 atop the Wilson Audio Pedestals I customarily use. This was essential because without the Pedestals or other suitable equipment supports, the corners of the amps would not have cleared the corners of the stands. I could have placed the amps on the floor without support feet, but that would have left them exposed to vibrations from my bamboo floor, putting them at a disadvantage to my…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Stereo power amplifier configurable as monoblock. Inputs: Stereo XLR (balanced); unbalanced possible via supplied adapters, mono bridging via supplied adapter. Proprietary BurLink interface. Outputs: Two pair spade-lug binding posts. 20A IEC power inlet (C20). Maximum power output, stereo: 165Wpc into 8 ohms (22.2dBW), 275Wpc into 4 ohms (21.4dBW), 400Wpc into 2 ohms (20dBW); in mono, 565W into 8 ohms (27.5dBW), 785W into 4 ohms (25.95dBW); stable into any load at all frequencies. Damping factor (100Hz into 4 ohms): >1500. Gain (stereo, mono): 34.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: dCS Vivaldi Apex DAC, Vivaldi Upsampler Plus, and Vivaldi Master Clock; Innuos Statement Next-Gen Music Server and PhoenixNET network switch; Small Green Computer Sonore Deluxe opticalModule (2); Broadcom/Avago AFBR-5718PZ 1GB SX-SFP, Gen 5 Fiber Optic modules; Nordost QNet and QSource switch and linear power supply (2); Sonore Audiophile Linear Power Supply; Synology 5-bay 1019+ NAS with Ferrum Hypsos linear/switching hybrid power supply; Linksys MR9000 mesh router and Arris modem; Apple 2023 iPad Pro and 2017 MacBook Pro laptop with 2.…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Like the lower-power Burmester 216, which Jim Austin reviewed in January 2024, the Burmester 218 can be operated as a conventional two-channel amplifier or, by bridging the two output stages with the supplied adapter cable, as a monoblock. I performed a complete set of measurements in both modes on one of the review samples (serial number 2180142) with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, repeating some of the testing with the magazine's higher-performance APx555 system. I preconditioned the 218 by following the CEA's recommendation of running it in stereo mode at…
Please join us for a Weekend of celebration of our 25 years in high end audio in San Francisco.
Dates and times:
Friday, October 25th: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM Saturday, October 26th: 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM Sunday, October 27th: 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM Featuring premieres from: Technics Stenheim Audeze Woo Audio Ideon Audio Dynaudio Chord Electronics Audiovector Nordost YG Acoustics Luckily, we have been fortunate enough to have people like you support us, this Celebration is for you, thank you! The Celebration will start with our Friday Night Party (25th) with…
But first, the blowback I expected following my February 2014 column on Synergistic Research's Uniform Energy Field Technology room treatments never arrived—in fact, quite the opposite. My own positive experience of the UEF devices was confirmed by e-mails from readers who'd already used them, and from those who'd taken up Synergistic's offer of a money-back guarantee. Skeptics will charge that what I and these readers heard is evidence of confirmation bias, but people say this about any positive remarks made about audio components priced above $500.
The other day, I received an…
While stage size, transient clarity—and, especially, transient speed—were noted when I played my usual reference LPs recorded in concert at Carnegie Hall (Tony, Harry, the Weavers; footnote 2), it was two recordings of solo piano that demonstrated the Kai's dynamic and tracking abilities: Vol.1 of a series of direct-to-disc recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas by Bernard Roberts (LP, Nimbus D/C 901; does anyone have a spare Vol.2 they'd care to send me?—footnote 3)—and John Lill performing works by Schumann on a restored 1964 Steinway: the Fantasy in C, Op.17; Faschingsschwank aus…
Editor's Note: This article is in part about depression and suicide. If you think of harming yourself, the National Suicide Hotline is there to help: 1-800-273-TALK.
When German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774, he intended for readers to finish it, but not, you know, to end it. To Goethe's disbelief, his novel sparked a spate of suicides. The title character, whose obsessive love for a married woman was unrequited, ended up shooting himself, and soon the copycatting started. Young men of the era would dress just as the fictional Werther had…