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KEF Reference Series 103/4 loudspeaker Equipment

Sidebar 1: Equipment

Four power amplifiers were used in the course of this evaluation: the Threshold S/550e, the Mark Levinson No.23.5, the Audio Research Classic 120 monoblocks, and the PS Audio 100 Delta. The preamplifier was the Rowland Consummate, and the CD player was the Wadia WT-3200 driving the Audio Research DAC1-20 converter. (CD was the primary source in this audition.)

Interconnects were AudioQuest Lapis between CD and preamp and for the unbalanced link between preamp and power amp with the ARC and PS Audio amps. For balanced hookup to the Threshold and Levinson…

KEF Reference Series 103/4 loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 3: Specifications

Description: four-driver, three-way, floorstanding loudspeaker with "Conjugate Load Matching," "Coupled-Cavity" bass loading, and optional, line-level equalizer. Drive-units: two 6.5" (160mm) fiberglass-reinforced, pulp-cone woofers, one 6.5" (160mm) "Uni-Q" midrange/tweeter with concentric 1" (25mm) soft-dome tweeter. Crossover frequencies: 3rd-order at 160Hz, 5th-order at 2.5kHz. Frequency response: 50Hz–20kHz, ±2.5dB, –6dB at 38Hz (measured at 2m on reference axis). Sensitivity: 91dB/W/m (2.83V RMS input, band-limited 50Hz–20kHz, anechoic conditions).…

KEF Reference Series 103/4 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements

All of the measurements were taken with the Kube out of the circuit. The impedance of the KEF 103/4 is shown in fig.1. The minimum at about 85Hz is actually the tuning of the port; the large rise at the bottom of the range (around 10Hz) appears to be due to a large, DC blocking capacitor in series with the network. Note also that the Conjugate Load Matching crossover, while keeping the response's magnitude reasonably linear above about 60Hz, is not as effective as that in the more expensive KEF R107/2 (Vol.13 No.5, p.114). The impulse response (fig.2) is rather…

Ran Blake & Singers

Ran Blake may be the most unjustly obscure jazz pianist out there, so it's worth noting—shouting, even—that he has three new albums that rank in the top tier of his career: Cocktails at Dusk (Impulse!), The Road Keeps Winding (Red Piano), and Kitano Noir (Sunnyside).

All three discs feature female singers—two of them are tribute albums to famously smoky singers (The Road Keeps Winding to Abbey Lincoln, Cocktails at Dusk to Chris Connor)—and that may account in part for Blake's revitalization at the age of 80.

Bonus for those in New York: Saturday night, June 20, he and Sara Serpa…

Rip It Up

It’s an old story, told by many, which starts appropriately enough…Many years ago, when the Riot House on Sunset Boulevard was still the Riot House, an impressionable young journalist, in the midst of a vodka chased with Merlot bout of over-romanticizing the orgiastic glory days of the Continental Hyatt House, was wandering the floors trying to imagine Keith Richards joyously chucking TV’s out windows, John Bonham riding his motorcycle down the halls and the dismal rooftop party in This is Spinal Tap when who should appear dressed in a baby blue tuxedo, but Little Richard surrounded by large…

Palisades

Writing about music and the music business is one thing. Actually being a part of the business is another. Years ago I subscribed to the policy that if I ever begin to utter phrases like “I want to manage a band” or “I want to own a club,” then my loved ones are to assume I have slipped into some sort of dangerous delusionary haze and act accordingly. The music business is, in a phrase, a young man’s game. And in that game I recently found one of my favorite intrepid young men, former Stereophile editorial assistant, Ariel Bitran who is now running a music venue in the gentrifying before-your…

Acoustic Sounds' Major Vinyl Expansion

Just three months after buying 13 vintage record presses, Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds (above) has purchased The Mastering Lab (TML), the legendary facility of Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer, Doug Sax. Sax, who died of cancer on April 2 at the age of 78, opened TML in Hollywood on December 27, 1965 with his older brother, Sherwood, and his music arranger/pianist friend from high school, Lincoln Mayorga.

Using handcrafted tube electronics designed by his brother, Sax soon became known for mastering The Doors' debut album. By 1972, he was mastering 20% of Billboard magazine's top…

Bricasti & Aurender in Illinois This Weekend

This is the front end of the system Essential Audio of Barrington, IL be using on Saturday June 27 and Sunday, June 28, 2015 to demonstrate Bricasti Design's M1 DAC (top right) and M28 monoblock amplifiers. Guest of honor will be Bricasti Design president Brian Zolner, who will be demonstrating and talking about his products. Essential Audio is the first US dealer to have the new Aurender N10 music server (top left), which will be on demonstration with the Bricasti components.

The event takes place 1pm to 5pm each day and refreshments will be provided. RSVPs are recommended. For details…

Recording of the Month: Vivaldi: <I>L'Estro Armonico</I>

Vivaldi: L'Estro Armonico: 12 Concertos for Violins, Op.3
Rachel Podger, Bojan Cicic, Johannes Pramsohler, violin; Brecon Baroque, Rachel Podger
Channel Classics CCS SA 36515 (2 SACD/CDs). 2015. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, prod.; Jared Sacks, eng.; Ernst Coutinho, asst. eng. DDD. TT: 96:54
Performance *****
Sonics *****

It's no big secret that classical music is in trouble. At a time when selling a few hundred CDs will land you squarely in the upper reaches of the classical music chart, and the venerable New York Philharmonic faces an unsettled future in terms of its…

Are you still into that sound stuff?

A decade ago, my mother, on noticing a copy of Stereophile on my kitchen counter, asked me, "Are you still into that sound stuff?" Her tone had a touch of exasperation.

"Geez, Mom. I've been an audiophile for 15 years. This isn't a phase I'm going to outgrow."

Instead of motherly empathy, I got a slight smirk and a retort: "But it's always the same thing."

Until recently, I'd begun to think that Mom may have had a point: The audiophile pursuit—mine, at least—was beginning to feel a bit samey: Get tired of component A, buy a possibly better-sounding, likely more expensive…