Thomas J. Norton, March 1993 (Vol.16 No.3)
I teamed up the PS Audio Ultralink with the Pioneer PD-65 discussed by Sam Tellig in the January issue. The latter was used as a transport only. A Kimber KCAG digital interconnect linked the PD-65 and the Ultralink (footnote 1). This combination was not arrived at through any exhaustive process, but did turn out to be an attractive match. The price of the Pioneer/Kimber/PS Audio playback system was roughly the same as that of the Proceed PCD 3, which was, by a small margin, the most expensive player I reviewed this month.
I did note one…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The UltraLink was as impressive on the test bench as it was in the listening room; its measured performance was excellent. Unless noted, the following measurements were taken from the balanced outputs. Testing was performed on both balanced and single-ended outputs; any large deviation between the two is noted.
The UltraLink's output voltage when decoding a full-scale, 1kHz sinewave was 3.525V (left channel) and 3.568 (right) from the unbalanced outputs. This is nearly 5dB higher than the CD standard of 2V. At the balanced outputs, the voltage was 7.049V (…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: Digital to Analog Converter. Inputs: two coaxial on RCA jacks, one Toslink optical (AT&T ST-type optical available as a $200 option). Outputs: one digital (coaxial RCA jack), unbalanced analog on RCA jacks, balanced analog on XLR jacks. Digital filter: 8x-oversampling 20-bit output. Analog filtering: three-pole modified Bessel. Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz ±0.5dB. THD: <0.01%, 20Hz–20kHz.
Dimensions: 17" W by 2½" H by 9" D.
Price: $1995 (1992); no longer available (2016). Approximate number of dealers: 160.
Manufacturer: PS…
Our mail, in recent months, has brought a number of comments (some of them printed in this issue) from professional audio men who decry the fact that developments in the audio field seem to have come to a screeching halt.
There would seem to be some justification for believing this, too. There hasn't been a new kind of loudspeaker, amplifier, pickup, or tuner for the past five years or so. The professional engineering journals, once loaded with juicy articles about research and developments in music reproduction, are now devoted largely to public-address techniques and new methods for…
In conversation with Bonnie Raitt these days, one word continually jumps out: groove. She's speaking of her music, of course, but the blues singer and guitarist—her gifts as commanding as ever on her latest, Dig In Deep—has also survived some family struggles in the past decade that nearly forced her out of her personal groove.
In 2004, Raitt lost her mother, Marjorie; a year later, her father, Broadway luminary John Raitt, died. Four years after that, her brother Steve died of brain cancer at 61. After a seven-year sabbatical that many fans worried might become permanent, Raitt returned…
"If those two worlds were gonna be on the same record," Freeland said in a recent interview with me, "I guess they thought it would be a good idea to keep the engineer the same, so that the sonic perspective would have some cohesion to it."
Asked about his mission on Dig In Deep, and about what he and Raitt discuss when it comes to recording, Freeland is direct. "Her relationship with the engineer and the sound of her records has always been a very, very important part of the process to her. It's no small thing. The sonics of the record is no small part of the impact it has on the…
We’ve lost Hag. On his birthday no less. Now the only original outlaws of country music left alive are Billy Joe Shaver and Willie, with whom Merle Haggard made his final record, Django and Jimmie.
What stands out most about the man and his music, in contrast to today’s country music, is how real he was. His ballads, in which he was usually at fault for his troubles, pulled no punches. The fact that he hated welfare but sang songs about “living off the fat of this great land,” and knowing where to get a handout while “bumming through Chicago in the afternoon,” was always puzzling but…
If this doesn't wind up as the year's archival jazz find, I can't wait for the treasure that beats it. In Paris: The ORTF Recordings (on the Resonance Records label) is dazzling, riveting stuff—previously unissued sessions by Larry Young, made during a brief stay in Paris, from December 1964 to February 1965, just before his string of Blue Note albums established him as the modern innovator on the Hammond B-3 organ.
A two-disc set (available on CDs and LPs), it documents the innovation already underway, with Young more upfront, his solos more elaborate and daring, than the future Blue…
Bluegrass/folk music pickers making an audiophile record? When you think about it however, it all makes sense. Except for the much improved microphones and recording gear—no more disc cutters and single ribbon mikes—sitting in a circle, playing off each other is exactly how most of the great old bluegrass records were made. On Wednesday, the day Merle Haggard passed, I ventured to Greenpoint, Brooklyn to watch David Chesky and his engineers/gear operators make a record of mostly Felice and Boudleaux Bryant tunes with a group of acoustic string music heavyweights that included Jay Ungar, John…
Prediction: The visionary new music, system-testing percussion, and virtual rainbow of colors that distinguish Dawn to Dust, the latest hybrid SACD in Reference Recordings' Fresh! series, guarantee that it will become a hit among music-loving audiophiles who dare play tracks beyond 3 minutes in length. The inventive genius that courses through the recording's three compositions—Control (Five Landscapes for Orchestra) by Nico Muhly, 34; Switch by Andrew Norman, 37; and Eos (Goddess of the Dawn), a ballet for orchestra by Augusta Read Thomas, 52—is, in and of itself, enrapturing, formidable,…
