One constant throughout the show was the appearance of Canadian cellist Vincent Bélanger in many rooms, allowing showgoers to compare the live sound…
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Before I conclude our coverage of last weekend’s New York Audio Show, let me say that it was a pleasant surprise to find the Marriott’s corridors still busy before the show ended 5pm Sunday. While the show had a smaller number of exhibitors than I would have wished, the venue was excellent and the show was definitely a success and those manufacturers, distributors, and dealers who exhibited all had excellent traffic. Well done, Chester Group.
My best old friend, "David Ray of Today," dropped out of school when he was 15 so that he could stock vegetables on the night shift at the IGA in a small Illinois farm town. By the time he'd turned 25, he owned five houses, 25 Cadillacs, and a barn full of knickknacks.
David chose to work nights so his days would be free to buy objets d'art at the local Salvation Army store. He bought Fiesta Ware, Bakelite radios, homemade quilts, and locally fashioned tin chicken-feeders. The quilts had to be hand-sewn and in perfect condition, with no stains. The radios had to work, have all their…
". . . with faithfully replicated artwork."
That's how a press release, dated June 16 of this year, described the manner in which the next wave of Beatles LPs—mono releases claimed to be mastered direct from the original analog mixdown tapes, and not the 44.1kHz digital files that Apple Records and Universal Music Enterprises (which now owns EMI) considered good enough for their last wave of Beatles LPs—are being packaged for sale. Hope, as Emily Dickinson once observed, is that thing with the feathers. Which, as we all know, evolved from the dinosaurs.
Those new mono LPs,…
I wish you could feel what I felt when I played Little Richard's first 78rpm hit, "Tutti Frutti" (Specialty XSP561) with the Shure M44-78, or listened to my new copy of Andrés Segovia's Recital (US Decca DL 9633) via the Miyajima Spirit. One moment, I witnessed the dawn of rock'n'roll; the next, I was living in Spain and reading in Spanish. On eBay, I bought "100 paper & 100 plastic (3 mil) 45rpm record sleeves"—the new game of old discs was on.
The Spirit Mono ($850) is the lowest-priced cartridge in the distinguished Miyajima family, which includes the Premium Mono, reviewed by…
Speaking of which, the 9W2's azimuth is adjustable, by means of a setscrew that contacts the top of the innermost vertical bearing wire, allowing that side of the armtube to move minutely up or down relative to the side that hinges on the outermost bearing wire. (A dedicated locking screw preserves the azimuth adjustment, which is set to neutral at the factory.) Equally clever is the AMG arm's antiskating mechanism, which is similar to that of the classic Decca International Pick-Up Arm. Both use a pair of opposed magnets: a stationary one in the armtube's bearing housing vs a movable one…
Sidebar Contacts
Miyajima Laboratory/Otono-Edison, 1-45-111, Katae 5-chome, Jounan-ku, Fufuoka, 814-0142, Japan. Web: www.miyajima-lab.com. US distributor: Robyatt Audio, Web: www.robyattaudio.com.
Sentec, Sweden. US distributor: Tone Imports. Web: www.toneimports.com.
Sidebar: Contacts
Analog Manufaktur Germany, High-Fidelity StudioDominikanergasse 7, 86150 Augsburg, Germany. Tel: (49) 08-21-37-25. Web: www.amg-turntables.com. US distributor: Musical Surroundings. Tel: (510) 547-5006. Fax: (510) 547-5009. Web: www.musicalsurroundings.com.
The Electric Recording Company, 123 Westbourne Studios, 242 Acklam Road, London W10 5JJ, England, UK. Fax: (44) 207-575-3047. Web: electricrecordingco.com.
I like big bass, but I cannot lie
Tubby thumpers need not apply
And when a speaker drops in with itty-bitty bass
It puts a frown upon my face
I get bummed . . .
—Sir BassaLot, first audiophile rapper, 1992
Tubby thumpers need not apply
And when a speaker drops in with itty-bitty bass
It puts a frown upon my face
I get bummed . . .
—Sir BassaLot, first audiophile rapper, 1992
Some folks put a pair of bookshelf speakers on stands in their room and are happy as clams. I imagine that they imagine the missing bass and never give it another thought. Not me, and perhaps not you. Some of us want to hear it and feel it, just as we would real instruments. We want sex in the room.
My quest for realistic bass began a quarter of a century…
We listened to several more cuts, only adjusting the overall sub levels a tad, and decided that, out of the box, the BF212s sounded great. We'd been listening at fairly loud levels; only later, when I went upstairs, did I realize how deeply the BF212s had been shaking the house: all the pictures on the second floor were crooked and had to be re-leveled—a process that occurred regularly throughout the listening period, and forced us to Blu-Tack the things to the walls.
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sub
Back in my Velodyne ULD-15 days, I had a big volume knob to play with, and…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Powered subwoofer with sealed, nonresonant, asymmetrical chamber. Drive-units: two 12" (305mm), high-excursion aluminum-cone woofers with cast baskets. Amplifiers: two, each 850W class-D. Frequency response: 18–120Hz, ±3dB; anechoic through LFE input. Low-pass filter frequencies: 30–80Hz. Phase settings: 0°, 90°, 180°, 270°. 25Hz level control: ±10dB at 25Hz. Power control: On, Auto (12V trigger), Off. Inputs: Left, Right, LFE (balanced, XLR); Left, Right, LFE (unbalanced, RCA); Left, Right (speaker level, banana). 12V Trigger: 3.5mm mini-USB (for…