From 1972's Can't Buy a Thrill to 1980's closing act Gaucho, Bard sages Walter Becker (1950–2017) and Donald Fagen occupied a place in pop music as unique as their songs' references to "wild gamblers," "midnight cruisers," "bodacious cowboys," and a female protagonist who "prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire." Much later, Becker…
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In the 1970s, Steely Dan produced hit records for a listening public that could care less about the band's cryptic lyrics. Those early Dan fans responded to their songs' epic choruses and glistening hooks, awarding chart-topping success and a global audience.
Photo by Himanshu Ratnaka
In prior screeds, I have discussed the category of turntable designers I like to call deep thinkers, who twist their brains to come up with fresh thinking about how to approach the task of playing a vinyl record. If there is a poster boy for deep thinkers, it's got to be Simon Brown.
Brown is based on the South Island of New Zealand. I'm thinking that being in such a far-flung part of the world must have given his head plenty of space to get creative. First, in 2011 he created The Wand tonearm, a striking unipivot design that features a fat carbon-fiber…
Photos by Michael Trei.
A Visit to SME
It's no secret that I have long been a fan of SME turntables and tonearms. But despite having worked on, set up, or owned hundreds of their products over the last 40 years, I have never had an opportunity to visit the place where they are made. Until now.
Nestled in a sleepy village called Steyning in the south of England, SME still operates from the purpose-built factory they moved into more than 60 years ago (above), although it has been expanded several times.
What struck me first, as I approached the facility, is how the…
When Jim Austin offered the Plinius Reference A-150 stereo amplifier ($14,995) for review, it felt like a welcome blast from the past. Plinius has, lately, maintained a low profile in the US, likely due to several changes in US distributorship.
When was the last time I'd encountered a Plinius product? I found no talk of the 40-year-old New Zealand brand between a brief mention in a 2015 column by John Marks and 2022, when Robert Schryer spied a Plinius component at the Montréal Audio Fest. The most recent Stereophile review of a Plinius component was Erick Lichte's 2011 take on the SA-103…
Setup
Plinius may surround the Reference A-150's heatsinks with aesthetically pleasing curved metal, but their bottom edges are a little bit sharp. My friend Scott, who helped with installation, had no problem lifting with his hands on either side of the amp, but I kept mine toward the amp's center, where the edges are smoother. Having moved several behemoths lately, it was a pleasure to handle a powerful, full-sized audiophile-grade amp that weighs only 83lb.
Plinius may surround the Reference A-150's heatsinks with aesthetically pleasing curved metal, but their bottom edges are a little bit sharp. My friend Scott, who helped with installation, had no problem lifting with his hands on either side of the amp, but I kept mine toward the amp's center, where the edges are smoother. Having moved several behemoths lately, it was a pleasure to handle a powerful, full-sized audiophile-grade amp that weighs only 83lb.
We placed the amps on Grand Prix amplifier stands. In place of the RA-150's supplied two-piece height-adjustable feet, I used…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid state, class-A/AB stereo/bridged mono power amplifier. Inputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair balanced (XLR). Outputs: 2 pair loudspeaker binding posts. Rated output power, stereo: 150Wpc continuous into 8 ohms (21.8dBW), 250Wpc into 4 ohms (21dBW). Rated output power, mono: 450W continuous into 8 ohms (26.5dBW), 600W into 4 ohms (24.8dBW). Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz, ±0.5dB, –3dB at 70kHz. Distortion: <0.03% THD at rated output power. Output current: 50A per channel for short durations, fuse protected. Input impedance: 47k ohms. Hum…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: dCS Vivaldi Apex DAC, Vivaldi Upsampler Plus, Vivaldi Master Clock; Innuos Statement Next-Gen Music Server; Small Green Computer Sonore Deluxe opticalModule; Uptone Audio EtherRegen with SOtM sCLK-OCX10 Master Clock and sPS-500 power supply; Nordost QSource linear power supplies (2); HDPlex 300 linear power supply; Synology 5-bay 1019+ NAS powered by Ferrum Hypsos linear/switching hybrid power supply; Linksys mesh router and Arris modem; 2017 Apple iPad Pro, 2017 MacBook Pro laptop with 2.8GHz Intel i7, SSD, 16GB RAM.
Preamplifier: Dan…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system for the testing. I performed complete sets of measurements on one of the Plinius A-150s that had been auditioned by JVS (serial number 8797) in both class-AB and class-A stereo modes. I then repeated the testing with the A-150 in bridged-mono mode. I preconditioned the A-150 in class-AB mode by following the CEA's recommendation of running it at one-eighth the specified power into 8 ohms for 30 minutes. At the end of that time, the temperature of the top panel was 90.7°F (32.6°C) and that of the side-mounted heatsinks 90.1°F…
The review gear piles up, and it's time for a late spring cleaning—not that any dust has gathered on the uniformly excellent products covered in this column. I'll start with two very different phono cartridges.
Ikeda Sound Labs 9mono moving-coil cartridge: $4400
The Ikeda Sound Labs 9mono cartridge ($4400, above; footnote 1) is a dedicated mono design intended to integrate well into a modern stereo system. Within its curved body, made of solid aluminum alloy, is a low-output (0.22mV) moving-coil motor with a very low internal impedance (2.0 ohms). Generally, both specs mean fewer coil…
Sound: Once set up and loaded at about 200 ohms using the Ypsilon MC-10L step-up transformer, with no resistors in the Ypsilon's loading jacks, the Crimson XGW produced sound unlike that of any other vdH cartridge I've reviewed. I'm preconditioned to the lightning-fast—some would say threadbare—excitement of vdH's tightly sprung Colibri and Grasshopper cartridges; the sound of the Crimson XGW was precisely the opposite: it was a warm, sweet, and well textured performance—and yet, arguably because of the stylus profile, it was well-detailed, as well.
Rather than play familiar…