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Letters in response appeared in Vol.15 No.2, February 1992
Passive semantics
Editor:
My audiophile interest and activity date back to the time when a cactus thorn was the high-end stylus of choice, ca 1938. This predates the preamplifier by approximately ten years.
In its first embodiment, a preamp was just that: a self-powered extra stage of amplification between the phono cartridge and whatever amplifier was being used. This was made necessary by the very low voltage output of GE's new variable reluctance cartridge as it began to replace the crystal devices we…
Mo' Better Mods
Stereophile Vol.15 No.11, November 1992
Corey Greenberg revisits his Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier (footnote 1)
Stereophile Vol.15 No.11, November 1992
Corey Greenberg revisits his Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier (footnote 1)
"Dad-blamed Postal Service!" Elvis fumed, shooting up a Mitsubishi big-screen TV with his blue .357 and taking a pull off a Big Red. "Mah one chance tuh be awn a genyoowahn US stamp, an' they got me lookin' jes' like some cleenteen WIMP, man!" A smoking shard of the big-screen's control panel fell earthward. Elvis whirled, blew it into dust before it hit the ground.
Why was the King Of Rock And Roll in my dreams again? To holler about the…
People, people who need people
First things first: When I was wading through different pots from Penny & Giles, Bourns, Vishay, and Radio Shack, I thought I preferred the sound of the high-grade Alps pot Joe Grado sold me to the Penny & Giles pot I'd originally used. It's hard making direct comparisons between volume pots when you have to unsolder, remove, and resolder all the hookup wires each time you switch. However, Steve Giunta used the P&G in his preamp; since it appeared to be the only difference in parts between the two units, I put my P&G back in. Sure enough, the…
First things first: When I was wading through different pots from Penny & Giles, Bourns, Vishay, and Radio Shack, I thought I preferred the sound of the high-grade Alps pot Joe Grado sold me to the Penny & Giles pot I'd originally used. It's hard making direct comparisons between volume pots when you have to unsolder, remove, and resolder all the hookup wires each time you switch. However, Steve Giunta used the P&G in his preamp; since it appeared to be the only difference in parts between the two units, I put my P&G back in. Sure enough, the…
KCag & the sunshine band
I had originally wired up my preamp with Straight Wire LSI-Encore, an excellent reasonably priced cable. But now I was in the throes of Modkateer Fever; mere excellence wasn't good enough anymore.
I had originally wired up my preamp with Straight Wire LSI-Encore, an excellent reasonably priced cable. But now I was in the throes of Modkateer Fever; mere excellence wasn't good enough anymore.
I've always liked the various Kimber Kables (the AC cord on my preamp is a Kimber Power Kord), so I got hold of some of their silver KCAG interconnect; you know, that cool-looking white stuff with the three braided wires and no shield. Inside the preamp, I used it just like it's used for interconnect: one wire for signal, the other two tied together for ground. I…
Lather knows best
You want lather? I'll give you lather; when I changed the Alps pot out for the Penny & Giles, the preamp sounded more open on top. When I installed the high-speed rectifiers, the low-level detail became much clearer and the slight grain through the mids was banished. When I rewired the audio circuit with Kimber silver wire, the sound became even more alive.
You want lather? I'll give you lather; when I changed the Alps pot out for the Penny & Giles, the preamp sounded more open on top. When I installed the high-speed rectifiers, the low-level detail became much clearer and the slight grain through the mids was banished. When I rewired the audio circuit with Kimber silver wire, the sound became even more alive.
But when I installed the dual-regulated power supply, the preamp was transformed. Bass lines just bounced out of the BUFs, deeper and tighter than I'd ever heard them over the mighty Muse subwoofer; the sense…
Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Recording Session (with apologies to Wallace Stevens): Wes Phillips
I The chapel is quiet. Early morning sunlight, tinted by stained glass, glares through the gloom. Golden dust-motes leap up at our entrance, flashing crimson, then cerulean as they dance among our rattling footsteps.
Silence is not emptiness, I muse, sitting in the deserted sanctuary. Even when still, the space is full of itself. The walls and roof are but a skin; what they contain is the thing itself.
II Hyperion Knight, drawn to the Steinway, begins to play, and the…
VII A two-hour break separates the rehearsal and recording sessions. I sit in the chapel watching the dying daylight dull the stained glass. The roof creaks—heated by the afternoon sun, it has begun to cool. As the timbers shrink, they rub against one another and moan.
The chapel, even when quiet, is filled by its own sound. The rustling pops from the cooling boards pierce through it, simultaneously transforming and defining it. Is this what John Cage meant when he said, "There is no silence?"
VIII What sounds more hopeful than a stage-full of musicians honking, climbing scales,…
Notes on the Sound: John Atkinson
As can be seen from the diagram (fig.1), the piano and orchestra were laid out for the Rhapsody and Preludes sessions much as if we had been recording a Mozart concerto. This was appropriate, as pianist Hyperion Knight was directing the musicians—some of New Mexico's finest—from the piano for these performances. The 9' Steinway D piano had had its lid removed and was placed with the performer's back to the microphones. (Listeners should note that the bass notes of the piano will appear to come from left of center and the treble notes from the right, the…
The outputs of the microphones were amplified with solid-state Millennia Media HV-3B preamplifiers, which also supplied the mikes with the necessary 130V. The output of the omnis' preamplifier fed a Manley/ UltraAnalog 20-bit analog/digital converter running at 44.1kHz, and the cardioids' preamplifier fed a dCS 900D 24-bit A/D converter—both via 1m lengths of AudioTruth Lapis x3 balanced interconnect with passive splitters to send a second feed to the 96kHz recording setup. To get the maximal transparency, the mike preamplifiers and A/D converters were placed on stage as close as possible to…