Analog Sources: VPI TNT IV, Rega Planar 3 turntables; Immedia, Syrinx PU-3 tonearms; Koetsu Urushi, Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridges.
Digital Sources: Lector CDP-7T, Creek Destiny CD players.
Preamplification: Vendetta Research SCP-2D phono stage, Audio Valve Eclipse line stage.
Power Amplifier: Audio Research Reference 75.
Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Excite X12, Epos Elan 10.
Cables: Interconnect (all MIT): Magnum M3, MI-350 CVTwin Terminator, MI-330SG Terminator. Speaker: Accent Speaker Technology Blue Thunder. AC: manufacturers' own.…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Components
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Dynaudio Excite X14's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 with its ¼" capsule for the nearfield responses. Though the Excite X14 is supplied with a grille, and an optional foam plug for its port, I performed the measurements without either. Dynaudio specifies the X14 as having a voltage sensitivity of 85dB/2.83V/m; my estimate was 83dB(B)/2.83V/m, which is both lower than the specified figure and 1dB lower than my estimate of the earlier Excite X12's…
Singer Howard Kaylan and guitarist/singer Mark Volman were part of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. They added their distinctive harmonies to T. Rex’s “Get It On (Bang a Gong)” and Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.” And they sued De La Soul over the use of uncleared samples and won a landmark decision in the history of sampling.
And yet Flo and Eddie, as they are more commonly known, gained their greatest fame via the late Sixties pop band, The Turtles, and their anthemic #1 hit, “Happy Together.” Now the pair, through their label FloEdCo/Manifesto, have released 2000 copies of the The…
No matter how intriguing it might look on paper, or in some manager or record label head’s fevered brain, the whole “supergroup” thing is usually a bust. I blame Asia, Gogmagog, and Bad English because let’s face it, Cream and Derek & the Dominos made fantastic music and weren’t around long enough to annoy anybody.
Today’s finest living/recording example of this alluring but often short–lived and unfruitful concept is The New Pornographers, who continue to defy the odds and produce power pop masterpieces every two or three years, the latest being Brill Bruisers. Most famous as the…
As with so many children who were raised in upstate New York in the 1950s and '60s, the first associations I forged with the word Brooklyn were not positive. Mine arrived through the transom of a novel called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I don't remember much about it, except everyone was poor and unhappy, and there was an angry milkman whose wife cleaned empty bottles with the same rag she used on the brow of a very sick baby. Oh dear.
That impression changed in the 1980s, when a co-worker at Scholastic invited me to a party at the Brooklyn Heights apartment he shared with his buddies. The…
The Brooklyn show offered a full program of seminars throughout the weekend, and one of the best-attended was "The Virtues of Vintage," which took place late Saturday afternoon. Chaired by Stereophile's Art Dudley (far left), a panel of expert anachrophiles comprising (L–R) Steve Rowell (Audio Classics), Mike Trei (Sound & Vision), Jonathan Halpern (Tone Imports), Joe Roberts (Silbatone and once Sound Practices) and Herb Reichert (Stereophile) started off by examining what great components from audio's past had to offer.
The discussion rapidly diverted into what was fueling…
Saturday dawned hot and bright—unnaturally so for the end of September—and showgoers showed up well before the 10:00am starting time: So much for my hopes of getting a jump on the crowds. Still I went for an early listen at the room shared by Volti Audio, Raven Audio, and Triode Wire Labs. The price of the three-way, fully-horn-loaded Volti Vittora loudspeaker ($21,500/pair without optional ELF subwoofer) has risen slightly since I wrote about it a year or so ago—yet it still endures as perhaps the best bargain in US-made hi-fi.
The Vittoras sounded as engaging as ever in a system with a…
Come Wednesday evening, October 1, at 7:30pm EDT, jazz lovers throughout the greater New York City environs—that includes Brooklyn—will flock to Jazz at Lincoln Center to groove to triple Grammy-nominated composer/pianist David Chesky's quintet, Jazz in the New Harmonic. Folks unable to join Stereophile editor John Atkinson and others in the audience for the first show, or the second at 9:30pm, can listen to a live stream of the initial set here.
Chesky and his two-year old ensemble—Javon Jackson, tenor saxophone; Jeremy Pelt, trumpet; Billy Drummond, drums (footnote 1); and Peter…
Halfway through the show I called home, and my wife informed me that the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom was clogged, and the dog had gone outside and rolled around in something dead. And she wondered: Was I having a nice time? It was time for me to pick up the pace.
Sony demonstrated a pair of their AR1 loudspeakers ($27,000/pair), driven with a pair of Sony's Nelson Pass-designed 40th Anniversary VFET monoblocks and hooked up with Kimber Kables; the source component was a sample of the Sony HAP-Z1ES media player ($1999.99) that so impressed Kal Rubinson. The system did a fine,…
Reliable readers of show reports will remember Robert Lighton as a successful designer and manufacturer of furniture who, a few years ago, turned his enthusiasm for domestic audio in general and Audio Note gear in particular into a side career by putting his own imprint on the basic Audio Note loudspeaker formula. Robert Lighton Audio of New York City has now progressed to designing and manufacturing its own high-efficiency loudspeakers, including the two-way RL5 ($10,000/pair)—the solid sapele mahogany enclosure of which is seen here in Robert's hands—and to having Audio Note UK co-design…