KLH and acoustic suspension designs go hand in hand. Co-founder Henry Kloss helped introduce the concept in the mid-50s and established KLH in 1957. The key principle is to use the spring effect of air in a sealed cabinet to control the woofer's movement.
Although the Model Seven was shown as a prototype at AXPONA 2023, what I heard in Munich is the finished, ready-to-ship iteration.
Weighing in…
In 2010, the funky-eclectic New Orleans band Galactic—known today as much for being the owners of the city's storied Tipitina's club as for their music—cut their song "Heart of Steel" with singer Irma Thomas for their album, Ya-Ka-May. The band noticed that Thomas soon included the same tune in the sets that she played with her band. In 2022, Galactic decided to revisit the Thomas connection and came up with the idea of collaborating with her on an entire album of new music.
Thomas, now 84, cut her first single, "Don't Mess with My Man," for New Orleans–…
And being middle aged. Even the term is a con. At 54, I'm not in the middle of anything, and given the way my back feels in the mornings, the thought of living to 108 fills me with terror. There are things about this stage of life that arrive…
My first high-end purchase, in the mid-1990s, was from none other than Spin Doctor Michael Trei, who at the time was a dealer for Audio Note UK. (His partner in that venture was another Stereophile columnist, Herb Reichert.) The component was the Audio Note M2 Preamplifier. That exceptional piece was so dynamic and revealing that rolling its…
Understanding field coils
"Field-coil drive units—in laymen's terms, powered drive units, which use an electromagnet to generate the magnetic field with which the voice coil interacts (by Lorentz Force)—date from the earliest days of electrical music reproduction." That is from the Audio Note website. "Not long after the turn of the 20th century, permanent-magnet technology was not sufficiently advanced to make a conveniently sized, and priced, speaker drive unit."
Field coils reportedly offer a calmer, more relaxed and graceful sound, delivering more information and improved…
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded loudspeaker with field-coil electromagnets and external power supply. Drivers: 1" silk dome tweeter, 8" hemp-pulp mid/woofer. Sensitivity: 97dB/W/1m, specified at 6 ohms. Frequency response: 18Hz–23kHz, ±6dB, in-room. Minimum amplifier power: 8Wpc RMS. Cabinet construction: Birch ply with real wood veneer.
Dimensions: 31" (790mm) H × 14" (360mm) W × 10" (270mm) D. Weight 64lb (29kg).
Finishes: Real wood veneer in high-gloss finish. Olive, Palisander, Apple, Walnut, Makassa-Ebony, Black. High-gloss finish standard.
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Analog sources: Thorens TD 124 with Korf TA-SF9R tonearm/HS-A02 Ceramic Headshell/Kuzma CAR-30 MC cartridge. J.Sikora Standard Max Supreme turntable with KV Max 9" tonearm, Aidas Gold Web PL MC cartridge.
Digital source: Tascam CD-200 iL CD player, HoloAudio May DAC.
Preamplifiers: Tavish Audio Design Adagio, Allnic DT-5000 phono.
Integrated amplifiers: Unison Research S6, Riviera Labs Levante.
Power amplifier: Rogue Audio Stereo 100.
Cables: Interconnects: AudioQuest Pegasus and Firebird, Triode Wire Labs Spirit II (RCA). Speaker:…
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone with an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Audio Note AN-E/SPx Ltd. Field Coil's farfield frequency behavior and dispersion. I couldn't raise the loudspeaker as far off the ground as usual for the quasi-anechoic measurements, which meant that the first reflection from the floor occurred relatively early. I therefore placed the microphone at 1m rather than my usual 50". I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and corner-positioned responses. As instructed in the manual, I…