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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.
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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…
Although this is difficult to verify, detachable headshells probably add a degree of hesitation and imprecision to a record player's sound. My worried brain says, where a removable headshell is attached/detached must be a soft, stretchy spot in the groove-measuring system. My old SME 3009s seemed slowed and dulled at the frequency extremes; in contrast, the M2-9 excels at the frequency extremes. The precision of the new M2-9's coupling of headshell to armtube seemed to eliminate a significant amount of stretchiness. Simultaneously, the M2-9's combination of magnesium, damped stainless…
Sidebar Contacts
Linn Products Ltd., Floors Road, Waterfoot, Glasgow G76 0EP, Scotland, UK. Tel: (44) 141-307-7777. Web: www.linn.co.uk
Dynavector, 3-2-7 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0031, Japan. Tel: (81) (0)3-3861-4341. Fax: (81) (0)3-3862-1650. Web: www.dynavector.co.jp. Dynavector USA, 8116 Gravois Road, St. Louis, MO 63123. Web: www.dynavector-usa.com
SME Ltd., Mill Road, Steyning, West Sussex BN44 3GY, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1903-814321. Fax: (44) (0)1903-814269. Web: www.sme-audio.com. SME USA, Acoustic Sounds, Inc., PO Box 1905, 605 W. North Street,…
T.H.E. Show Newport returns to its new venue at Hotel Irvine this Friday–Sunday, June 3–5, starting at 10am. By far the largest high-end consumer show on the West Coast of North America, T.H.E. Show promises 149 active exhibit rooms, with 19 of those big and even bigger than big rooms; 68 exhibit tables in the Marketplace and Marketplace foyer, including perhaps 16 headphone exhibitors in separate areas within the Marketplace. Outside in the hotel's pavilion will be T.H.E. Lounge, a re-envisioned, fully enclosed tented space that will include live music, a pared down series of 8 "Audio…
Though Westchester County, New York, seems a likelier locale for Bikram yoga studios, pet psychologists, and pricey restaurants specializing in "grain bowls" and fermented vegetables, the idea of manufacturing audio gear there is not without precedent. Cartridge manufacturer Micro-Acoustics (Elmsford, NY) thrived there for over two decades. George Kaye and Harvey Rosenberg's New York Audio Laboratories (Croton-on-Hudson, NY) assembled Moscode amplifiers there. Even the notorious loudspeaker manufacturer Fourier Systems (Yonkers, NY and Cocytus, Hell) got their start in the county that Hillary…
Given a more generously forceful recording, the combination of Shindo SPU and Tavish Adagio did not disappoint; so it was when I listened to Charles Mingus's wonderful Oh Yeah (LP, Atlantic 1377), in which the composer and bandleader plays piano, sings, shouts, and leaves the bass playing to someone else: Doug Watkins, late of Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus. I found the Adagio thoroughly satisfying—praise that isn't the least bit faint. Watkins's string bass had force and snap, especially in "Hog Callin' Blues"—and in that same number, the very present sound of Roland Kirk's tenor sax…
"Bass—the final frontier," declared Captain James T. Kirk. I have no doubt: The biggest problem in nearly every listening room is getting the bass to sound right. Today, we voyage to the frontier of bass response.
A Brief History of Time
Because my listening room is also a mastering room, it has to be as accurate as possible (see photo 1). The floor is a concrete slab, with solid-block wall construction and a cathedral ceiling 23' high at the rear—there are no floor-to-ceiling resonances. A bay window hidden behind the curtains disperses the lengthwise room mode by varying it…
"Blackbird," from my mastering of Cassandra Wilson's Silver Pony (CD, Blue Note 6297522), recorded and produced by the great John Fischbach, has a warm, liquid quality and Reginald Veal's deep, luscious Fender bass. Herlin Riley's snare drum should knock you in the chest. Without the AVAAs, I could easily detect a disturbing overhang in the back of the room, and the bass, up through the midrange, lost focus, beauty, and definition.
"Do You Remember," Jill Scott's seminal hip-hop/neo-soul hit from Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds, Vol.1 (CD, Hidden Beach 62137), was engineered…