Description: Low-output moving-coil phono cartridge. Internal impedance: 1 ohm. Output voltage: 0.2mV (3.54cm/s, 1kHz). Channel separation: >30dB (200Hz–1kHz). Channel balance: 0.5dB at 1kHz. Compliance: 13 x 10–6cm/dyne. Recommended vertical tracking force: 2.0gm. Recommended resistive load: >10 ohms.
Weight: 7.8gm.
Price: $6000.
Manufacturer: Immutable Music/Transfiguration. US distributor: Profundo, 2051 Gattis School Road, Suite 540/123, Round Rock, TX 78664. Tel: (510) 375-8651. Web: www.profundo.us.
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Sidebar: Specifications
Streaming has taken over the world. Not so fast, at least to Sony’s way of thinking. With the release of their new Walkman A17, they are clearly betting there’s still demand for a portable stand alone, non-Wi-Fi capable high resolution audio player and so have revived their venerable Walkman brand and jumped into the market with the release of the A17. This latest addition to the Walkman legacy supports files up to 192kHz/24-bit and plays all popular formats, from MP3 WMA, AAC, WAV, ALAC, FLAC, AIFF and yet strangely enough not those in Sony’s own high resolution DSD format, which are…
"The Guitars of Rachel Rosenkrantz" is perhaps not quite as evocative a title as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Nevertheless, there are parallels. I met the young, French luthier through mutual friends, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she is very serious about her art, and rather obsessive about her craft. Rosenkrantz studied art, architecture, and industrial design, and worked for some years designing commercial lighting fixtures and furniture. However, she let go of that career to start over from scratch as an apprentice to Daniel Collins, a builder of classical guitars. She…
Hovhaness's Guitar Concerto is a major work lasting nearly 32 minutes, and it's hard to do it justice in a few short paragraphs. The largely self-taught composer not so much solves the central problem of the genre—balancing one of the quietest instruments with an orchestra larger than a handful of players—as ignores it. The concerto begins with a thrillingly grandiose orchestral declamation reminiscent of the climax of Bloch's Schelomo, except with more chimes, glockenspiel, and so on—and, for that, is perhaps also indebted to Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Great! What comes next?
…
Among the biggest buzzes at the January 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, and at Munich's High End Show the following May, was the sound in the room of Siltech BV, a Dutch company best known for its high-end cables. Siltech was demonstrating an innovative new power amplifier, and using it to drive the company's glass-cabineted Arabesque loudspeakers ($90,000/pair). The sound was unmistakably lush yet also remarkably linear, notably dynamic, and seemingly free of electronic artifacts. It sounded like the sound of "nothing"—which was really something!—and so much of a something that it caught…
The balance of transient speed, precision of attack, and instrumental sustain produced some startling moments from very familiar recordings—for instance, from John Renbourn's Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & ye Grene Knyghte (LP, Transatlantic TRA 167), an album I've been playing for 45 years. The image of Renbourn's guitar was farther forward than I'm used to hearing it, and less of the space behind the instrument was apparent—but the guitar itself, and the percussion and recorder, sounded more transparent, coherent, and believable than I'd ever heard them, particularly…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Hybrid stereo power amplifier with battery-powered voltage-gain and mains-powered current-gain sections in separate housings.
V1 Voltage-Gain Amplifier: Tube complement: two E80CC, two 18042. Inputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair single ended (XLR, pins 1 and 3 tied to ground). Outputs: 1 pair single-ended (RCA), 1 pair single-ended (XLR, pins 1 and 3 tied to ground). Frequency response: 1Hz–110kHz, –1dB. Voltage gain: triode circuit, 28dB; pentode circuit, 34dB. Signal/noise, IHF-A: 128dB (triode). Dynamic range: 130dB (triode). THD: 0.08%…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn, Cobra, & Castellon turntable, tonearm, & stand; Kuzma 4Point tonearm; Lyra Atlas & Etna, Ortofon Anna, Transfiguration Proteus, Miyajima Labs Zero (mono) cartridges.
Digital Sources: dCS Vivaldi> transport, DAC, clock, upsampler; Simaudio Evolution Moon 650D transport-DAC & 820 power supply; BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder; Meridian Digital Media System; Pure Music, Vinyl Studio software.
Preamplification: Ypsilon MC-10L & MC-16L step-up transformers; Ypsilon…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Siltech SAGA using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com, and the January 2008 "As We See It"). When I received from Michael Fremer the Siltech SAGA V1 voltage amplifier and P1 current amplifier, I hoisted the two chassis up onto my test bench—easier to write than to do, given that each weighs 53 lbs—and linked them with a pair of XLR interconnects. Although the SAGA's XLR jacks are wired for single-ended operation, with pins 1 and 3 shorted, Siltech recommends using cables fitted with XLRs, presumably due to the fact that these, when…
Friday night, I saw one of the finest, most intimate jazz sets I'd seen in a while: Ethan Iverson and Ron Carter playing duets at Mezzrow, a small new jazz club in Manhattan's West Village, across the street from Smalls, an even smaller, somewhat older jazz club (both of which are operated by Spike Willner, a considerable pianist himself, mainly in the stride style).
Those in the jammed club who knew Iverson only as the pianist for The Bad Plus, or as a sideman (and a rather backseat one, at that) in Billy Hart's quartet, may have gasped, or at least raised their eyebrows, at his…