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The business of high-end audio can fascinate me almost as much as does high-end audio itself. Designers and entrepreneurs such as Frank McIntosh, Avery Fisher, Saul Marantz, Edgar Villchur (AR), David Hafler (Dynaco), and Henry Kloss (AR, KLH, Advent, Advent Video, Cambridge Soundworks, Tivoli Audio) combined technical brilliance and varying levels of business skill with flairs for publicity and marketing. Many of their products became objects of desire, and some became household names in the post-WWII era. Of that list, only McIntosh and Marantz are still in business as high-end audio…
A product listed in Class A of Stereophile's "Recommended Components" has the "[b]est attainable sound for a component of its kind, almost without practical considerations." Channel Islands Audio's E200S amplifier is not quite that good, but its sound quality puts it well above the line that separates Class C from Class B: "the next best thing to the very best sound reproduction." The E200S also deserves our "$$$" mark of distinction, for a product that performs "much better than might be expected from its price."
Well done, and recommended for audition if your power needs stretch up…
"I don't know what I think on that one. I haven't written about it yet."—Walter Lippmann (attributed)
As sometimes happens, this started out to be a very different column. But by the time I was a thousand words into it, I found that my point of view had changed.
A number of months ago, I received from a Canadian company called BIS Audio a review sample of their Expression interconnect: a shielded, unbalanced interconnect terminated with Eichmann BulletPlugs (RCA). Priced at $480 Canadian per 1m pair, the Expression falls squarely in the middle of BIS's interconnect line: a lowish…
Sidebar: Contacts
Channel Islands Audio, 567 W. Channel Islands Boulevard, PMB #300, Port Hueneme, CA 93041. Tel: (805) 984-8282. Web: www.ciaudio.com.
Luxman Corporation, 1-3-1 Shinyokohama Kouhoku Ku, Yokohama, Japan. Web: www.luxman.co.jp. US distributor: On a Higher Note, PO Box 698, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92765. Tel: (949) 488-3004. Fax: (949) 612-0201. Web: www.onahighernote.com.
Accept only one product because you can judge with accuracy only one system variable at a time, and because you are not a publicist but a journalist, and because a reviewer should not allow her or his home to be used as a storage facility for expensive, high-markup accessories that will, within a year or two, be replaced by second-generation versions of same (footnote 2).
Step 3: Before installing the new cable or interconnect, play a few selections on your music system as is, paying attention both to the way the system sounds and to the success with which it does or does not…
For decades, I read all the British and American audio magazines, and I pretty much believed everything written therein—with one exception. The equipment reviews published in Stereo Review had an off-puttingly disingenuous quality. I learned a lot from the magazine's reviews of recordings and loudspeakers, but every time senior editor Julian Hirsch wrote that any amp with sufficiently high power, low measured distortion, and high damping factor would sound the same as any other with similar qualifications, I felt estranged from my favorite hobby. Stereo Review's arrogance came off as…
Because I've been reviewing mostly class-D amplifiers and the Hegel is a more traditional class-A/B bipolar type, I was curious about any potential audible differences. All of those digital amps have driven low-impedance speakers with gratifying authority, but I've harbored suspicions about their capabilities into speakers of higher impedance—such as my 15-ohm Falcon and Rogers LS3/5As and 10-ohm DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93s. Sometimes, the class-D amps have sounded somewhat flat or slightly gray into these high-impedance loads. But now, after several weeks of listening with the Hegel, I…
For me, the highlights of any audio show are finding a room with great sound and visiting it often throughout the show, to relax and absorb a wide range of great music. At the NY Audio Show in April 2012 in New York City, it was the room occupied by the Valve Amplification Company. There, I fell in love with the sound coming through the Signature Mk IIa line-stage preamplifier, and remembered that while I'd heard many VAC products at audio shows over the past two decades, and had enjoyed the sound every time, I'd never had a VAC product in my house. I requested a review sample.
A saga…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Integrated amplifier. Analog inputs: one pair balanced (XLR), one pair unbalanced (RCA), one pair home theater (RCA). Digital inputs: 1 coaxial, 3 optical, 1 USB, 1 Ethernet (RJ45). Analog outputs (line level): fixed (RCA), variable (RCA). Headphone output: 6.3mm jack (front). Maximum output power: 150Wpc into 8 ohms (21.75dBW), 250Wpc into 4 ohms (21dBW). Maximum headphone output power, 270mWpc into 64 ohms. Frequency range: 5Hz–100kHz. S/N ratio: >100dB (no reference level given). Channel separation: >100dB. THD: <0.005%, 1kHz at 50W into…
3) Detailed, revealing, extended, uncolored reproduction of high frequencies with no loss of delicacy.
The Signature SE was the holy grail of high-frequency reproduction. Every region of the highs was detailed, undistorted, uncolored, and delicate. Normally, when I play a recording through a component with good HF reproduction, at some point, the music hits a frequency where the highs lose some of their delicacy or airiness, or take on a subtle brittleness. Not with the VAC. From the lower highs through the top of the audioband, the highs were detailed, extended, and "right," every bit…