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Gramophone Dreams #89: Road Trip, Rare Audio Systems, and the First Watt SIT-4

Throughout my hundred years, I've told everyone who'd listen: If it's adventure you seek, the best way to find it is to stand on the right corner at the right time wearing the right hat, and when the limo pulls up and the driver says, "Get in," do not ask where it is going.

This strategy has served my life story well. It has placed me without striving in countless cinema-worthy locations, hanging with all types of legend-worthy characters.

Lately, that corner where I stand wearing the right hat is in front of the Polish newsstand at the intersection of Manhattan and Greenpoint…

Gramophone Dreams #89: Road Trip, Rare Audio Systems, and the First Watt SIT-4 Page 2

Cyrille's Farm
The next time I stood in front of that Polish newsstand, I ended up at a different country palace. This one I call the French Farm. All I knew when I climbed in was that we were scheduled to visit a "a French person" with a full, made-in-Japan Onken horn system and some fancy chickens. There might be a gang meetup, and possibly snacks.

This country palace was a restored brick farmhouse of modest proportions, built in 1789, with a wood stove or fireplace in every room. It had heavy wood floors like the Stick Palace but only 7' ceilings, with exposed beams. The…

ReDiscoveries #8: Louis Armstrong in London

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…

Burmester 218 power amplifier

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,…

Burmester 218 power amplifier Page 2

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…

Burmester 218 power amplifier Specifications

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.…

Burmester 218 power amplifier Associated Equipment

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.…

Burmester 218 power amplifier Measurements

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…

Celebrate 25 Years of High-End Audio at Audio Vision San Francisco

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…

Analog Corner #238: A Tale of Two Cartridges from Ikeda and Ortofon

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…