In fairness, I'm sure there exists almost no such conceit among the people behind the system in question, which was built around the commanding Domain Omni PX1 omnidirectional electrostatic loudspeaker ($CAD65,000/pair) from Ottawa-based Muraudio. At…
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"It's that million dollar bash"—or, at the very least, it's that half-million dollar, in Canadian funds, bash. Before setting foot out of our doors, we in the press were informed by SSI's sponsors that the 2015 show would feature "The World's Best Canadian Audio System," and we were all invited to "Meet the world's most brilliant designers."
An event at SSI 2015 that, to the best of my knowledge, was unique for an audio show, involved the setup of an "on location" recording studio, and the making of actual recordings. No, not a "Garage Band" App, not a "home recording studio," but a real professional studio, involving some $300k's worth of equipment, and the services of professional recording engineers. The project, called La VibZ Studio, was initiated by Stephan Rich, musician and sound technician, and brought together for the SSI 2015 event vocalist/pianist Anne Bisson, the Give Band (featuring vocalist Caroline St-Louis and…
Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No.6 Op.82
James Boyk, piano
Performance Recordings PR-3 (LP). James Boyk, prod., Michael Fraser, eng., Doug Sax, mastering eng.
James Boyk, piano
Performance Recordings PR-3 (LP). James Boyk, prod., Michael Fraser, eng., Doug Sax, mastering eng.
James Boyk has become something of a phenomenon. Not only is he a Professor of Music (at Cal Tech) who teaches how to listen to reproduced sound and writes articles about sound reproduction (for New West magazine), he is also a virtuosic pianist who produces perfectionist-caliber recordings of his own recitals. This recording, Mr. Boyk's third LP (footnote 1), is of one of Prokofiev's later works, and is a magnificent piano…
Despite the myriads of technological breakthroughs announced month after month with tedious regularity by manufacturers of pickups, amplifiers and loudspeakers, there are only five developments in the 101-year history of audio reproduction (footnote 1) that we would call truly revolutionary. We will doubtless offend many by stating that Edison's phonograph was not one of them. It was the starting point, it was not a turning point. Emile Berliner's disc was revolutionary, in that it changed the whole format of sound reproduction, and made possible true mass production of recordings (footnote…
Sidebar: Pulse Code Modulation
Digital PCM (Pulse-Code-Modulation) encodina converts the continuous energy fluctuations of the conventional (analog) audio signal into a series of pulses which are either completely On or completely Off. All of the analog information is retained as variations in either the duration or the repetition rate of the pulses. Thus, all subsequent amplification can be done by devices acting as switches, which are either On or Off. Signal degradation can occur only as a result of imperfections in the circuits which do the PCM encoding and subsequently, the decoding…
As a film title, Quantizing Hanson Hsu might not rank up there with Kissing Jessica Stein, but we work with what we have to work with. Hanson Hsu is the principal designer at Delta H Design, Inc., an acoustics and architecture firm based in Marina del Rey, California. Though he dabbles in some weird science, Hsu doesn't wear a white lab coat, literal or figurative. He's down-to-earth and personable, with a conversational style that evinces warm wit and a real love of music. At one point in our conversations, he exclaimed, "I get so much joy when things sound good."
Hsu's background…
I presented to Hsu a hypothetical case: a 19' by 13' post-and-beam room with 10'-high sidewalls and a peaked ceiling, housing a pair of Sonus Faber Amati Futura speakers driven by Audio Research electronics. Short of the 50% coverage target, Hsu believes that the Pareto-optimal (my phrase) ZR Technology installation for an ambitious home listening room of this size would cost between $15,000 and $25,000. However, he also said that the "ultimate experience" would require spending $50,000 or more. What spending more gets you is even more of the music as it was recorded, with fewer of the…
I was weak and easily led.
In 1978, after enduring four or five years of wretched music made by men with long hair and beards and tendencies toward eonic guitar solos, I suddenly discovered that the only music worth hearing was made by clean-shaven men of limited musical proficiency. I embraced the Clash, the Pistols, the New York Dolls, the Ramones, and the Buzzcocks. I cut my hair and gave away some of my old records. I even threw out my copy of Jethro Tull's A Passion Play—which, now that I think about it, wasn't that bad an idea.
Then I woke up and remembered: I'd left the…
Sidebar: Contacts
DHDI/Delta H Design Inc., 13900 Marquesas Way #6005, Marina del Rey, CA 90292. Tel: (310) 581-2331. Web: www.deltahdesign.com
Tellurium Q Ltd., The Willows, Bonds Pool, Langport, Somerset TA10 9QJ, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1458-251-997. Web: www.telluriumq.com. US distributor: Fidelis High-End Home Audio & Theater, 460 Amherst Street (Route 101A), Nashua, NH 03063. Tel: (603) 880-4434. Fax: (603) 880-4433. Web: www.fidelisav.com
A note about gain: According to Reinhard Thöress, the input sensitivity of his 300B amp is intentionally low, to prevent excessive preamp noise in systems that include the high-efficiency speakers with which most Thöress amps will surely be used. The amp's low input sensitivity has the additional benefit of allowing the user to operate his or her preamplifier volume control within a moderate to high portion of its range, where channel tracking is optimal—and that certainly proved true in my system.
Listening
The first thing that impressed me about the sound of the Thöress 300B was its…