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Compared to the HoloAudio Serene
For this next part, I connected the HE1 to my solid state reference power amplifier, the Parasound Halo A 21+. This and all subsequent comparisons were made single-ended because the Lab 12 Pre 1 has only single-ended inputs and outputs and I wanted to use the same Cardas Clear Beyond cables for all comparisons.

Driving the Falcon Gold Badge speakers, the powerful Parasound offers a more balanced, evenly rendered contrast structure, never too soft or hard. Music does not get loose or blurred at the frequency extremes.

With the Parasound…

Description: Fully balanced stereo, tube-rectified, line-level preamplifier with 11dB maximum gain, a regenerative power supply, and a 100-step volume control with an exponential characteristic. Tube complement: six 6H2N-EB twin triodes, four 6U4N-EB half-wave rectifiers, all Russian. Inputs: 3 balanced (XLR), 2 single-ended (RCA). Outputs: 2 balanced (XLR), 1 single-ended (RCA). S/N ratio: >96dB (2V input, 2V RMS output, unweighted). Output impedance: <300 ohms (RCA). Power consumption: 40W.
Dimensions: 17" (430mm) W × 5" (132mm) H × 18" (450mm) D incl…

Analog sources: Dr. Feickert Analog Blackbird turntable with My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent Ex moving coil cartridge. Sutherland Engineering SUTZ transimpedance step-up device. Tavish Design Adagio phono stage.
Digital sources: Roon Nucleus+ music server; Denafrips Terminator Plus DAC.
Preamplifiers: HoloAudio Serene, Lab 12 Pre 1, PrimaLuna EVO400.
Power amplifiers: Parasound Halo A 21+, Elekit TU-8900.
Loudspeakers: Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a Gold Badge.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Diamond USB. Tonearm and interconnect: Cardas Clear Beyond.…

I measured the performance of the Audio-GD Vacuum HE1 XLR with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system, checking some of the results with the magazine's APx500 analyzer. Although this preamplifier has both balanced and single-ended inputs and outputs, HR told me he exclusively used the single-ended input and output so he could use the same unbalanced interconnects with the HE1 XLR that he used with his other preamplifiers. I focused primarily on the preamp's single-ended performance, therefore.

The HE1 XLR preserved absolute polarity (ie, was noninverting) with…

In SPU cartridges, which have been around since the late 1950s, the cartridge is integrated with a plug-in headshell, usually with an output-pin arrangement in the SME or "international" (as opposed to EMT) pattern. There are many variants of the basic, iconic SPU design, but most are high-mass, low-…

Most of what seemed to be missing were playback artifacts that ride along with the detail, along with the "visual" elements that help produce spatial context, including reverberant trails, initial transients, decay elements, etc. What was left were vivid, generously sized, richly drawn aural images laden with textures and harmonic vitality. Whether you hear this as thick and slow or as rich and full is a matter of sonic perspective.

Getz's breathy tenor saxophone was less in the clouds and more down on the ground, while the drummer Milton Banana's rim shots attained levels of…

The band was new, had played its first concert just the year…

Last weekend, I visited an old friend who lives near Walden Pond of Henry Thoreau fame. I hadn't visited him since before the pandemic. He had just finished adding a wing to his house that included a dedicated hi-fi listening room the size and shape of a small church. Below a cathedral ceiling, the sweet spot featured seating for no fewer than 30 guests. Besides serving as his main listening room—he has another one that's smaller—it serves as a large residential parlor with a baby grand piano for use in…

As a life-long film-photo shooter with a darkroom since I was 12, I am particularly disturbed by an aesthetic trend I see in contemporary digital photography: excessive edge sharpening and amped-up contrast structures. These Photoshop/Lightroom tools render captured light into something as unsubtle and blatantly artificial as a Vegas show girl. (There's a real person under there somewhere, but she's hidden.)

Shadows are the connective tissue of our visual reality. The chief effect of artificial edge sharpening is to disrupt our perception of realness.

It seems that those…

Exhausted, I walked back into town and descended stairs into a conveniently located corner restaurant. I had to eat fast because my…