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Fried R/4 loudspeaker Equipment

Sidebar 1: Equipment

Three power amplifiers were used in the course of this evaluation: the Threshold S/550e, the Mark Levinson No.23.5, and the Audio Research Classic 120 monoblocks. 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.)

Comparison loudspeakers were Paradigm Studio Monitors, B&W 804s and KEF Reference Series 103/4s. Interconnects were AudioQuest Lapis between CD and preamp and for the unbalanced link between preamp and power amp with the…

Gramophone Dreams #5

I believe in historical consensus. I believe in hi-fi gear that reveals its quality slowly and holds it value over time, irrespective of technology. I have never bought into the superiority of one technology over another. The art of audio engineering lies in the wisdom and vital energy of the designer's viewpoint within whatever technology he or she has chosen to work with. I call this the designer's qi or chi. Every audio product's most important specification is who created it, followed by the spirit in which it was fostered—and, of course, how it was made and what it is made of. These are…

Fried R/4 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements

The impedance plot of the Fried R/4 (fig.1) shows a single well-damped resonant peak at 50Hz, and an impedance magnitude which stays well above 5 ohms at any frequency. The speaker should be an easy load to drive. The small tick in the magnitude plot at just under 200Hz likely indicates a serious resonance somewhere in the system, something which the results below might shed some light on. The impulse response in fig.2 shows a clean decay with no serious aberrations or ringing, though the step response (fig.3) reveals that the midrange response lags the tweeter by…

Gramophone Dreams #5 Page 2

It did. With the Hegel driving the .7s, wired in parallel with a DWM bass panel (2 ohms average impedance below 200Hz, 4 ohms above), every type of music was delivered with ease and rock-steady confidence. But the Hegel H160 driving the .7s also delivered a big surprise. I always knew that Magnepan made nice-sounding speakers, but I'd never heard any Magnepans that I thought did delirious boogie or fierce, driving, forward momentum. That was always my main complaint about them. Well, the Hegel and Magnepan .7s proved me totally wrong. Think speeding trucks. Think twin-engine freight trains…

Fried R/4 loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 3: Specifications

Description: three-driver, three-way loudspeaker with "Line-Tunnel" bass loading. Drive-units: 10", vented pole-piece, polypropylene-cone woofer, 5.5" polypropylene-cone midrange, 1" fluid-damped tweeter. Crossover frequencies: 250Hz, 3kHz. Frequency response: 30Hz–20kHz, ±2dB. Sensitivity: 90dB. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms (5 ohms minimum). Amplifier requirements: 25–100W.
Dimensions: 34" H by 12" W by 11" D. Weight: 56 lbs.
Serial numbers of units tested: 01347/48.
Price: $1195/pair in walnut veneer (1992); no longer available (2015). Approximate…

<I>You're Surrounded</I> & Chesky Records Special Deal For Stereophile Readers

We've worked out a special deal for readers to celebrate the new Chesky You're Surrounded release.

From now until September 7, 2015, readers of this website will get a 25% discount on the new 24-bit high resolution You're Surrounded album and/or anything in Chesky's hi-res catalog on HDTracks.com.

To Get Your Discount:

Click on this link and then use STEREOPHILEHD25 for the offer code when you check out.

[This offer has expired.]

Some of the Other Releases Available in the Deal:

Anything from Chesky qualifies for the 25% off including these current…

A Visit To Abbey Road Studios

Call me a hopeless romantic but I could not get “Penny Lane” out of my head as I sat in the back of a black cab whizzing across a remarkably deserted London early one morning a couple weeks ago. “On the corner is a banker with a motorcar…” I was on a pilgrimage. More like THE pilgrimage. The one every serious fan of twentieth century music needs to make at least once. Out to St. John’s Wood and Abbey Road Studios.

Luckily, I had an in at Abbey Road, namely engineer and all around charming fellow Simon Gibson, who’d been a source in several stories I’d written in recent years,…

A Visit to the Magico Factory

Alon Wolf with the Magico M Project speakers. All photos: Jason Victor Serinus

Ever since 2013, when Alon Wolf's California-based Magico loudspeaker company consolidated its original 5000 sq. ft. Berkeley headquarters and 5000 sq. ft. San Jose warehouse into a single 20,000 ft. facility in Hayward, people have been telling me that I had to experience the company's "incredible" listening room. Ironically, it was only after I had relocated from the Bay Area to Port Townsend, WA, that the opportunity arose to take Alon Wolf up on his long-standing invitation to visit.

"It…

The California Audio Show Starts Friday

The sixth annual California Audio Show kicks off this Friday, August 14, 10am, at the Westin Hotel in Millbrae. In a lovely location facing the water and within walking distance of several restaurants, audiophiles and the equally curious will enjoy sound in 29 active exhibit rooms, a "Headmasters" room with 7 exhibits, and 5 more exhibits in the hallway.

This year, show organizer Constantine Soo has engaged as Show Manager Jim Arvantis, an industry veteran whose work with Kenwood and Sony led to a 10-year stint on the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) Audio Board and E-Learning…

Welcome, Intervention Records

There's a new audiophile-quality vinyl reissue endeavor on the scene: Intervention Records (IR). Dedicated to reissuing recordings that are "entirely new to the vinyl reissue market, particularly titles that never saw a vinyl release at all or only saw very limited release," Intervention Records' titles are sourced from the best available sources, primarily analog master tapes, and are mastered in the analog domain by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio.

IR's 180-gram pressings are manufactured at RTI in Camarillo, CA. Original album art is restored by Tom Vadakan, who currently works on the…