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Book Review: <I>Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life & Times of Doc Pomus</I>

Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life & Times of Doc Pomus
by Alex Halberstadt. Da Capo Press, 2007. Paperback, 272 pp., $16. Available as eBook.

Many people, after seeing him repeatedly at Manhattan's Forrest Hotel in the early 1960s, might have described the lyricist and songwriter Doc Pomus as the narrator of a Damon Runyon short story depicts himself: as someone "who is just around." Pomus lived for years in lackluster hotels like the Forrest, which Runyon himself had once called home, and his cronies could be just as colorful as Runyon's creations, including the gamblers—for a…

Guys' Night Out in Atlanta Thursday

Thursday, April 28, 5–8pm, HiFi Buys (3157 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta) will host its inaugural Guys' Night Out event—an evening of cars, cigars, craft whiskeys, hi-fi presentations, and luxury showcases, with a focus on creating unforgettable, high-quality experiences.

Featured hi-fi brands include Audio Research Corporation, Ayre Acoustics, Brinkmann Audio, PrimaLuna, and AudioQuest. Participating luxury brands and establishments include Buckhead Cigar, Groomed Buckhead Barber, Hennessy Jaguar of Atlanta, Land Rover of Buckhead, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars of Atlanta, Hublot Watches, and…

Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier

I still remember how difficult it was for me to transition from mass-market to high-end audio. The former, for all its flaws, gave me things to do: switches to flip, buttons to push, knobs to turn, meters to watch. I was in control—and if my attention happened to stray from the music or the liner notes, I still had something to keep me busy. By contrast, the first perfectionist-quality amplifier I bought—an Amber Series 70—was an oblong box with an on/off switch. Where's the fun in that?

Maybe that's why high-end audio enthusiasts spend so much money on atom sharpeners and quantum-field…

Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier Page 2

I did no listening for a few hours, leaving the Lux to warm up—then returned and put on Ravi Shankar's Sitar Concerto, with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra accompanying the composer (LP, EMI ASD 2752). It was a true Wow! moment, my attention at once captured by the believable force with which co-soloist Terence Emery attacked—no other word for it when listening through this phono stage—the bongos, used instead of tablas for this recording. But there was more to it than just that: note attacks from the violins, violas, and cellos, bowed and plucked, had delicious tactile…

Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Tubed phono preamplifier. Tube complement: four ECC83/12AX7, two ECC82/12AU7, one EZ81. Inputs: 3 (RCA). Outputs: 2 single-ended (RCA), 1 balanced (XLR). Input impedance: 2.5 ohms (MC Low), 40 ohms (MC High), 30–100k ohms (variable, MM). Output impedance: 850 ohms (single-ended or balanced). Signal/noise (IHF, A-weighted): 74dB (MC Low), 75dB (MC High), 76dB (MM). Total harmonic distortion: 0.07% at 1kHz for 1V output with active gain set to 36dB.
Dimensions: 17.2" (440mm) W by 3.6" (92mm) H by 15.5" (397mm) D. Weight: 27.5 lbs (12.5kg).
…

Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog Sources: Garrard 301 turntable; EMT 997 tonearm; EMT OFD 15 & TSD 15, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads; Miyajima Premium BE Mono II cartridge.
Digital Sources: Halide Designs DAC HD USB D/A converter; Apple iMac G5 computer running Audirvana Plus 1.5.12; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Hommage T2 step-up transformer, Shindo Laboratory Masseto preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Shindo Laboratory Corton-Charlemagne (monoblocks) & Haut-Brion (stereo).
Loudspeakers: Altec Valencia, DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96.…

Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I measured the Luxman EQ-500 phono preamplifier using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com, and the January 2008 "As We See It."). As always with phono stages, I experimented with the grounding between the Luxman and the Audio Precision system to get the lowest level of noise.

The output level was the same from the Luxman's balanced and unbalanced output jacks. With the EQ-500 set to MM (moving-magnet), the voltage gain at 1kHz was 36.4dB with the gain set to "36," 38.4dB with it set to "38," and 40.5dB with it set to "40." (A 1mV input signal…

"Music Talks" in La Jolla, Saturday and Sunday

Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1, at 11am, Alma Music and Audio (5759 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla, CA 92037) will be celebrating its one-year anniversary with a special "Music Talks" event featuring darTZeel and Evolution Acoustics products. Guests will include darTZeel's Hervé Deletraz and Jonathan Tinn and Kevin Malmgren, the team behind Evolution Acoustics.

The event will be the world premier of the Evolution Acoustics MMThree EXACT loudspeaker and Jonathan Tinn will present the Wave Kinetics NVS turntable, along with the Durand Kairos tonearm and Ortofon MC-Anna cartridge. Attendees…

PS Audio NuWave DSD D/A processor

Researchers at MIT recently discovered a "music channel" in the human brain. These neural pathways respond to all kinds of music—and only to music. "A listener may relish the sampled genre or revile it," Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times. "No matter. When a musical passage is played, a distinct set of neurons tucked inside a furrow of a listener's auditory cortex will fire in response" (footnote 1).

"Why do we have music?" Nancy Kanwisher, one of the scientists behind the research, asked in an interview with Angier. Is our "sensitivity to music . . . tunable with experience?…

PS Audio NuWave DSD D/A processor Page 2

Most audio reviewers praise long-term listening as the gold standard for auditioning an audio component. I agree, but there's no better time to notice a difference in the sound than just after you've made a change in a familiar system. When I plugged in the NuWave DSD, hooked it up to my early-2015 MacBook Pro, and began playing music via the playback application Roon, the most striking and immediate changes were rhythmic. Drums thwacked. A woodblock sounded like a woodblock, not a recording of one. When I put on one of my favorite classical CDs, Clifford Curzon's 1962 recording of Brahms's…