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Let's go back a few years. Well, more than a few, actually. The electronics end of high-end audio consisted of two companies—Marantz and McIntosh. If you were not up to shopping at their stratospheric price level—even though the industry hadn't yet invented components priced to compete with automobiles—you could always fall back on Dynaco, the poor man's high end in kit form. You hooked all this together with two-dollar connecting cables and 16-gauge zip cord purchased from the local electrical supply house, or—if you felt particularly flush—you'd spend a few (very few) bucks more at Fred's…
Sam Tellig reviewed the Marantz CD-94 in September 1988 (Vol.11 No.9):
In the rest of the Free World, outside North America, Marantz International is part of Philips. Under product manager Ken Ishiwata and his team—Ken being a Japanese who has resided for some years in Belgium—International has made an audiophile name for itself. The best Marantz products (seldom seen on this side of the Atlantic until now) combine European sound quality with Japanese build quality.
Now under new ownership, Marantz Company, Inc. (USA) is bringing in some of these products: the upmarket "94" series…
Sidebar: Specifications
CD-94: Solid-state compact disc player. Frequency response: 4Hz–20kHz –0.5dB. Dynamic range: 96dB. S/N ratio: 96dB. Total harmonic distortion: 0.003% (1kHz). D/A conversion: 16-bit 4x oversampling. Audio output level: 2V RMS.
Dimensions: 3.5" H by 18.125" W by 13.125" D. Weight: 27.5 lbs.
Price: $1800; no longer available.
CDA-94: Outboard digital/analog converter. Sampling rate: Compatible with 32kHz, 44.1kHz, and 48kHz (automatic selection). Frequency response (44.1kHz rate): 2Hz–10kHz –0.1dB (fixed outputs and variable outputs at max level); 20Hz…
Saturday, November 14, 1–6pm: VPI Industries (10 Riverside Lane, Holmdel) will host an Open House/Listening Party. Guests will be able to enjoy four rooms, each furnished with a system that has been carefully optimized for the specific listening environment. The event will highlight two new pieces of electronics: the Luminous Audio Arion Phonostage (above) and the Fern & Roby Integrated Amplifier, both engineered by Mike Bettinger of Bettinger Audio. Manufacturer representatives from all three companies will be on hand to answer questions and demonstrate the products.
Other featured…
"Is the Artist in the Room?" is the title of two recorded-music seminars being presented November 14 by Philip O’Hanlon of high-end audio distributor On A Higher Note at Florida dealer Audio Elegance (3435 Galt Ocean Drive, Fort Lauderdale) from 1pm–6pm. Philip will be presenting a live demonstration of high-resolution digital formats vs analog recordings.
There are two sessions: 1pm–3pm and 4pm–6pm. For more information click here.
Tricker tweets? I know, Halloween has already come and gone, but I just had to use that because this little speaker has a trick about its tweeter. The Spectrum Audio 108cd is constructed of ¾" MDF for the baffle and ½" MDF for the sides, with a very–high-quality black ash vinyl covering all the way around. (A brown ash finish is also available.) Rapping on the cabinet results in a hollow bonk, rather than a solid thud. All the corners are squared—no radiused edges, which is probably one of the things that helps them keep the price down. The quality of workmanship isn't up to the fine…
Sidebar 1: Review System
"Lonnie, how'd you like to review some speakers?" It was John Atkinson.
"Sure, but send me some stands, too, would you? I don't have any."
"Not a problem."
Stands and speakers showed up together in one massive display of sticking-together-thru-UPS solidarity. The stands were from Lovan, with four spiked feet and a column you can fill with sand, which I did. Without sand, they rang like bells when tapped; though the sound was lovely, it probably wasn't conducive to good performance. Once sandbagged, they just went thunk when rapped.
…
The EAD DSP-1000 III is housed in a 2.5" high, U-shaped chassis with a brushed-aluminum front panel. The cover is made of solid, 1/10"-thick steel with a nice "powder" finish, giving the unit an expensive feel. A pushbutton standby switch sitting below a green LED indicator sits at the panel's left. Even when set to Off, power is maintained for the decoder's circuits, but the digital inputs and analog outputs are muted. To the right, three pushbuttons allow selection of one of the three digital input sources (TosLink, 750 ohm coaxial, or glass optical interface). Like the EAD DSP-7000 unit…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The Spectrum's plot of impedance magnitude and phase (fig.1) indicates that it is a very easy load for an amplifier to drive, only dropping below 8 ohms in the midrange and then only by a small fraction of an ohm. The 108cd is also sensitive, 2.83V raising 88.5dB (B-weighted) at 1m.
The tuning of the 3"-diameter port is revealed by the impedance saddle at 55Hz. Note, however, the wrinkles in the traces at 180Hz and 220Hz, indicating the presence of resonances of some kind. And listening to the 108cd's panels with a stethoscope while sweeping a sinewave up…
Sidebar 1: System
For this review, I compared the EAD DSP-1000 and the Adcom GFA-700 with the Audio Alchemy DDE v3.0 HDCD decoder fed through its I2S bus by a DTI 2.0 digital jitter reduction unit.
Both standard and HDCD-encoded CDs were played on a Krell MD-1 turntable. For an overall collection of superbly recorded HDCD-encoded music, I used the HDCD Sampler Volume 2 (Reference RR-90CD), which includes classical, jazz, and a selection of three musical samples recorded with and without HDCD for comparison. A single 75 ohm digital-specific Silver Starlight coaxial cable was run…