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Recording of May 2016: <I>Rainbow Ends</I>

Emitt Rhodes: Rainbow Ends Omnivore OVLP-163 (LP). 2016. Chris Price, prod., eng.; Pierre de Reeder, Kyle Frederickson, engs.; Nathan Flom, Emitt Rhodes, Emeen Zarookian, add'l. engs. ADA? TT: 37:01 Performance **** Sonics ****

"A few shows here, a few shows there—Emitt eventually found himself without a label, and his career came to a halt," reads the biography on EmittRhodesMusic.net. "He had had enough. He was 24."

Go on, admit it: Everyone loves a disappearing act—the plight of the unjustly snakebit, the ghostly casualties of a business that markets creativity but doesn't…

The Fallacy of Accuracy

I was in a strange mood last January when I posted this on Facebook: "Do speaker designers strive for accuracy, or for a 'sound' they think potential buyers want?" I doubted that any designer with two working ears would even attempt to design speakers that merely measured well—there must be at least some subjectivity in their process. I also assumed that few designers would go on record about where they stand on the accuracy question, so I was thrilled when Elac Americas' speaker designer, Andrew Jones, responded:

Accuracy in terms of closest approach to the original performance is…

RIP Prince

Sad, sad news - and he did the best SuperBowl Show evah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NN3gsSf-Ys

Prince Rogers Nelson (1958-2016)

Unreal. Forget about the year punk broke, or the day the music died, 2016 is shaping up to be an annus horribilis for musicians. Prince dead at age 57? It simply cannot be true.

Yes, when he was young he learned much from James Brown, a fact he always admitted, but from there Prince certainly created his own very powerful and influential body of pop/rock/funk, that will undoubtedly stand the test of time and is almost incalculably influential. While albums like Sign ‘O’ the Times, Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain and Crystal Ball rank as essential and he often thought of himself as an album…

Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrina loudspeaker

I first encountered the work of Dave Wilson in the late 1970s. He was then a recording engineer responsible for some great-sounding records, including pianist Mark P. Wetch's Ragtime Razzmatazz (LP, Wilson Audio W-808), which quickly became one of my favorite system-demo records.

Then Wilson turned his attention to designing loudspeakers. His first model was the Wilson Audio Modular Monitor, reviewed for Stereophile by its then-publisher, Larry Archibald, in August 1983, who described it as "the most enjoyable speaker system I've listened to, and significantly valuable as a diagnostic…

Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrina loudspeaker Page 2

The Sabrina comes with a deluxe three-ring binder that includes detailed unpacking and setup instructions, but Wilson Audio strongly advises that you leave these tasks to an authorized dealer "trained in the art and science of the Wilson Audio Setup Procedure." In my case, this involved the Toronto area's Wilson dealer, Audio Excellence, and the setup expertise of Wilson's director of sales, Peter McGrath. Given McGrath's long experience in setting up Wilson speakers, I was content to leave the Sabrinas' initial setup to him—with input from me. Like me, McGrath likes to set up speakers to…

Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrina loudspeaker Page 3

Having recently upgraded my phono system, I've been playing LPs more frequently. As a kind of tribute, one of the first recordings I played through the Sabrinas was Concert, Dave Wilson's first recording of a pipe organ (Wilson H-1-77). I started with Johann Gottfried Walter's Concerto 3, played by James Welch on a tracker-action organ. There was a great sense of space, the sound of the organ filling the venue in a manner both powerful and delicate. I think of the pipe organ as a "slow" instrument, with no real transients—compared to, say, a piano—but with this recording played through the…

Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrina loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Three-way, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25.4mm) doped-silk dome tweeter, 5.7" (146.1mm) paper–pulp-cone midrange unit, 7.9" (203.2mm) paper–pulp-cone woofer. Impedance: 4 ohms nominal, 2.53 ohms minimum at 139Hz. Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m at 1kHz. Frequency response: 31Hz–21kHz, ±3dB, Room Average Response. Minimum amplification: 50Wpc.
Dimensions: 37.6" (964.8mm) H (38.9"/998mm H with spikes) by 11.9" (304.8mm) W by 15" (385.5mm) D. Weight: 93.8 lbs (42.64kg) net each; 221.5 lbs (100.7kg) shipping per pair.
Finishes: Desert…

Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrina loudspeaker Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Digital Source: PS Audio PerfectWave Memory CD transport & DirectStream DAC.
Analog Source: Acoustic Signature WOW XXL turntable & TA-1000 tonearm, Soundsmith MIMC cartridge.
Preamplifier: Convergent Audio Technology SL1 Renaissance Black Path Edition.
Power Amplifiers: McIntosh Laboratories MC275LE (stereo), Theta Digital Prometheus (monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: Avantgarde Uno Nano.
Cables: Interconnect, Speaker, AC: Nordost Valhalla 2.
Accessories: PS Audio PerfectWave P5 Power Plant power supply; Nordost QB8 AC power-outlet…

Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrina loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Wilson Sabrina's frequency response in the farfield; for the nearfield frequency responses, I used an Earthworks QTC-40, which has a ¼" capsule and thus presents no significant obstacle to the sound. For logistical reasons, I measured a different sample (serial no.0485) from those auditioned by Robert Deutsch (0375 and 0376). For the measurements, I hoisted this surprisingly heavy speaker onto my Outline speaker turntable—oh, my achin' back—and to avoid the possibility of damaging…