Sidebar 1: 1996 System Context
I drove the Wadia 2000 with both the Wadia 7 transport and the Mark Levinson No.31 transport. The former was connected with the Wadia-recommended glass-fiber optical (ST-Type) cable. Other digital links included the Illuminati coaxial and AES/EBU cables.
Loudspeakers were Genesis II.5 dynamic/ribbon hybrids. The upgraded 2000 saw action driving the Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 preamplifier as well as with a direct connection to the Audio Research VT150 power amplifiers.
The long balanced interconnect between the 2000 and VT150s was WireWorld Gold…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Stereo digital processor intended to take a standard SPDIF multiplexed L/R, serial digital datastream. Sampling frequencies: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz. DigiLink 30 unit converts coaxial digital signal to optical format for feeding the decoding computer. Maximum analog output level: 5V RMS (balanced), 2.5V RMS (unbalanced). Analog output impedance: 3.5 ohms.
Dimensions: 17" W by 2.5" H by 12" D (main unit), 8" by 4.5" by 13.75" (main unit power supply), 8.5" W by 2.5" H by 10" D including psu connector (DigiLink 30), 5" W by 2.75" H by 11" D…
Because this is an unusual and controversial tonearm design, and has had astonishing claims made for its performance by the manufacturer, this in-depth report goes deeper and is longer than is usual for Stereophile. We will return to a reasonable balance of reportage in the next issue.
The manufacturer's initial advertisement for their mis-named "Vestigal" arm (footnote 1) was so laced with nonsense that we will admit to having been skeptical about the product from the outset.
For example: Transcriptors claims that the "Perfect Arm" should have zero mass. If it did, the low-…
A pickup's output is produced by movements of its stylus relative to the body of the cartridge (which contains the sensing elements). At frequencies above a certain point, the inertia of the cartridge and the arm tends to hold the cartridge still while the stylus vibrates independently of it, thus producing signal output. Below a certain point, the cartridge-and-arm frequency response of a relatively undamped tonearm-pickup combination resonating at 10Hz (fig.1), inertia is insufficient to stabilize the cartridge, and it starts to follow the groove "modulations." Relative stylus/cartridge…
Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: To put forward to your readers a doctrine of low-compliance cartridges in the required high-mass tonearms is offering advice that a technology 20 years out of date should be followed. I am not able to argue at such a level, as such thinking indicates only an utter lack of knowledge on this subject Whilst in no way would I fault lack of knowledge, I do fault unqualified journalists writing about highly complex subjects such as tonearms, when in reality their vocation is that of a greengrocer, garbage worker or whatever.
Contrary to your comments, no…
Reviewer's Addendum
Okay, we admit it. We probably were guilty of oldthink in our reaction to the Vestigial arm. There is no doubt but that tracking cleanness and record life are enhanced by reducing total system mass (or inertia) as much as possible, and that in this respect the Vestigial arm represents a substantial advance in the state of the phono art. It is also true of course that the compliance must be very high (as it is in the KLM) in order to place the resonance of the system at the optimum frequency (or frequencies when vertical and lateral mass are different).
But the…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Low-mass arm for use with high-compliance cartridges.
Price: $100 (1975); no longer available (2015).
Serial number of review sample: Un-numbered sample loaned by Music & Sound, Ltd., Willow Grove, PA.
Manufacturer: Transcriptors, Ireland. US Distributor: Transcriptors, 330 West 58th St., New York, NY 10019 (1975); Transcriptors Limited, Unit 10, Daybrook Business Centre, Daybrook, Notts. NG5 6AT, UK. Web: www.transcriptors.eu (2015).
Could it be that Jim James and My Morning Jacket are becoming a sly soul band? Hold on: make that a psychedelic rock outfit? Or is it orchestral jam pop this time out? And what about all those persistent prog-rock leanings?
The Waterfall is all that and yet it’s not. Well beyond becoming a moving target, MMJ have now solidly framed a house called singular. Here the Louisville band that started out as southern indie rockers, have gone all left coast sweeping and melodic which is appropriate for an album recorded in the Panoramic House above Stinson Beach in Marin County, an environment…
It's been almost exactly a year since I reported on the opening of a new store dedicated to high-performance audio and video in Unionville, Ontario. To mark the first anniversary of the store's opening, they had a party to celebrate the occasion.
Trevor Wong and Stacey Sniderman (right to left in the photo), owners of Update TV & Stereo Elevated (which I will just refer to as Update), have two more stores in the Greater Toronto Area, but these are more oriented toward home theater, whereas the Unionville store, while not slighting video and home theater, has a strong emphasis…
Paul Winter: Callings
The Paul Winter Consort: Paul Winter, soprano sax, E-flat contrabass sarrusophone, conch shell; Nancy Rumbel, oboe, English horn, C contrabass sarrusophone, double ocarina; Eugene Friesen, cello; Jim Scott, classical and 12-string guitars; Ted Moore, timpani, surdos, berimbau, caixixi, pao de chuva, ganza, gongs, cymbals, triangles, handbells, whistles; Paul Halley, pipe organ, harpsichord, piano.
Recorded with the 3M Digital System in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City. Paul Winter, prod., Dixon Van Winkle, Chris Brown, engs. Additional…
