Description: Three-way vented-box loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) diamond-dome tweeter, 6" (150mm) Continuum-cone FST midrange driver, two 8" (200mm) Aerofoil-cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: 350Hz, 4kHz. Frequency range: 14Hz–35kHz. Frequency response on reference axis: 17Hz–28kHz, ±3dB. Sensitivity: 90dB/2.83V/m. Harmonic distortion (second and third harmonics, 90dB, 1m): <1%, 80Hz–20kHz; <0.3%, 100Hz–20kHz. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 3.0 ohms minimum. Recommended amplification: 50–500W into 8 ohms on unclipped program. Maximum recommended cable…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Oppo Digital BDP-105 universal BD player; Baetis XR2 PC-based music server; exaSound e28, Merging Technologies NADAC-8 multichannel D/A processors; QNAP TS569L NAS.
Preamplifiers: Audio Research MP1, Parasound Halo P 7.
Power Amplifiers: McIntosh Laboratories MC303, Parasound Halo A 31, Theta Digital Dreadnaught D.
Loudspeakers: Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamond.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Vodka (HDMI) & Carbon (USB). Analog Interconnects: AudioQuest Earth/DBS balanced, Kubala-Sosna Anticipation (RCA, XLR). Speaker:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Bowers & Wilkins 802 D3 Diamond's frequency response in the farfield; I used an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield frequency responses. (For logistical reasons, I measured a different sample from those auditioned by KR.) As with the Marten Coltrane 3, reviewed elsewhere in this issue, the 802 D3 was too bulky to be lifted off the ground. The earlier-than-usual reflections of the drive-units' output from the ground thus compromised the measurements' resolution in the midrange.…
If you're looking for unusual, viscerally thrilling music guaranteed to give your system a run for its money, then Leos Janácek's Glagolitic Mass is for you. Recorded in Norway last summer by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs, conducted by Edward Gardner, this gargantuan mass is the centerpiece of Janácek Orchestral Works, Vol.3, a new, extremely well-recorded hybrid SACD from Chandos.
If the term "mass" brings to mind what you might typically hear in church or at a performance of sacred music by Palestrina and other Renaissance masters, think again. Janácek's 40-minute…
Matt Wilson is one of the most versatile and inventive jazz drummers on the scene, and Beginning of a Memory (on the Palmetto label) is, I think, his best album in his 20 years as a leader.
It's a memorial album to his wife, Felicia, a violinist, who died two years ago of leukemia. To deepen the tribute, Matt assembled a dozen bandmates from over the years to join in, calling the resulting ensemble (trumpeter Terell Stafford, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, and keyboardists Gary Versace and Larry Goldings, among others) Matt Wilson's Big Happy Family.
As a leader and composer, Wilson has…
In August 2015, I visited loudspeaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins in England (footnote 1). It was an exciting prospect to see the factory, and meet the people who designed and built the speakers I've been using for years. Of course, as the time of my visit approached, it was impossible not to speculate that something important was afoot—there was growing Internet buzz that it was time for B&W to update its 800-series speakers. Nonetheless, B&W remained tight-lipped.
I arrived in Brighton in the morning and took the afternoon to tour the town. I hadn't been there in over 40…
Photo: Michele Canova
"Punch me."
"What?"
Conversations with Tim Lefebvre are often like this. That was backstage at the Jazz Standard last week after the Donny McCaslin Group's final set. I later realized that Tim wanted me to be in a compilation of timelapse video clips involving slow motion punches. Naturally, I gladly obliged.
My friendship with Tim has always been-—for lack of better words—really weird. We first met a few years ago when David Binney and I were bored and decided to send humorous videos of ourselves to friends, Tim included. Our friendship…
This tale might have been scripted by Barry Levinson, the Baltimore-bred filmmaker who has set four pictures in his hometown, where much of the Sandy Gross story has also taken place. The young Sanford Gross moved there to attend Johns Hopkins University, and subsequently, in one of the city's Civil War–era houses, got Polk Audio rolling with fellow alumni Matthew Polk and George Klopfer. The company flourished, but Gross, who had minored in film at Hopkins, had an itch for Hollywood. He moved to Los Angeles, only to find the movie business tinged with illusion—much as Billy Wilder and…
Lander: Polk marketed a few audiophile products other than speakers, an undertaking you championed.
Gross: It kind of let my audiophilia run free. We marketed the Formula 4 fluid-damped unipivot tonearm, very popular in its day, and attempted to market the Oasis fluid-drive turntable. We had the first commercially successful purpose-designed speaker wire, originally called CobraCable, then SoundCable. This was 144-strand Litz wire, woven at right angles. Unfortunately, we were a little early in the cable game, and many, including the high-end publications, thought it was a farce.
…
This Gramophone Dream is about my continuing adventures as I slowly scale the pyramid of analog audio. I'm still too close to the sandy earth to see the mythical gold tip or enjoy a six-figure super-turntable. However, in this month's episode, I do reach a level where I can relax, play some eternally beautiful music, and peer out over the vast desert of record-player mediocrity.
While writing about the Pioneer PLX-1000 turntable in my March 2015 column, I decided to acquire a Linn Sondek LP12 and hear how this notoriously musical, belt-driven, audiophile 'table might compare to that…