We received the following press release on May 7.—Ed.
Mauro Grange, CEO of Fine Sounds SpA, and Charlie Randall, longtime President of McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., have announced their plans for a management buyout of Fine Sounds Group in partnership with LBO France and Yarpa. The acquisition will facilitate greater opportunities for global collaborations amongst the product development, marketing, distribution and finance teams of each of the Group's portfolio of brands,…
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McIntosh's President Charlie Randall, pictured outside the company's Binghamton HQ. (Photo: John Atkinson)
It has been my experience that $400 or thereabouts is about the least one can pay for a pair of speakers with the expectation of audiophile-calibre sound.
Design constraints are quite serious in this price range. Cabinet size is kept modest so that lumber and finishing costs are kept to a minimum. Driver quality and crossover complexity must be juggled so that no one design parameter is favored over the others. All of the speakers reviewed here use two drivers because two good drivers are better and usually cheaper than three mediocre ones-not to mention the simpler crossover required…
Sidebar 1: Review System
Listening tests were carried out in my 14' by 20' living room. The soundsource was primarily analog records played on my Pink Triangle turntable, and the cartridge was a Sao Win strain-gauge model fed directly to the power amplifiers. I have found this cartridge to be tonally neutral-in fact, one of the most neutral I've heard-as well as very fast, but lacking the somewhat "zingy" top end of many moving-coils.
I used a variety of power amplifiers to audition the speakers, all of them likely candidates (from a cost standpoint) to be used with $300–$500…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Two-way, sealed-enclosure, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Driver complement: one 6½" solid flat-piston driver, one 1" soft-dome tweeter. Crossover frequency: 2kHz. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms.
Dimensions: 8 13¼" H by 8" W by 8" D. Weight: 12.5 lbs each.
Serial numbers of units tested: 3801, first samples; not noted, secon samples.
Price: $400/pair (1984); reissued as the PC60 CA at $1400/pair (2014).
Manufacturer: Phase Technology, Jacksonville, FL 32244 (1984). Phase Technology, 8005 W. 110th Street, Overland Park, KS 66210 (2014). Tel: (…
So audiophiles are all effete snobs right? Hanging out in their mansions, listening to $500,000 speaker systems, sipping something expensive, noses in the air, with the occasional sniff that maybe this isn’t the best performed or pressed Beethoven Symphony Cycle after all?
Ahhh, No. While that portrait may fit a rarified few, there are a whole lot more audiophiles or audiophile–leaning music fans who are home, using their Class B through E gear, listening to, shall we say, less dignified tunes. Either that or several audiophile and major record labels are completely out of their minds…
Bill Parrish of GTT Audio calls it "the best." Jonathan Halpern of Tone Imports describes it as "the most well-organized, well-attended show, with the greatest number of products I've never heard or seen before." Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio says "It has risen to be the most significant showcase of high-end technologies: a major, major show." And our own Michael Fremer says it's "where you go to confirm that audio is a serious, healthy, and growing business."
The object of their praise is the Munich High End show, which takes place every year at the MOC Veranstaltungscenter München.…
Stephen Mejias wrote about the LS50 in June 2014 (Vol.37 No.6):
In December 2013, the KEF LS50 loudspeaker ($1499.99/pair) was named Stereophile's Budget Product and Overall Component of the Year, marking the first time in 22 years of voting that any component had earned this strange double distinction. Consider the achievement: The former award is typically granted to products that provide outstanding value but may nevertheless exhibit some obvious, albeit carefully considered, compromise(s); the latter, loftier award is often won by cost-no-object, flagship designs that shun even the…
It was the summer of 2000. We had closed Stereophile's office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the City Different in the Land of Enchantment, where the magazine had been headquartered since 1978, and moved lock, stock, and audio systems to New York City. Other than myself, the only full-time staff to move to New York were music editor Robert Baird and advertising sales representative Laura LoVecchio, so I was faced with hiring a new editorial team. My new managing editor, Nerissa Dominguez-Vales, and production manager Pip Tannenbaum had been hired before the move, but once I got to New York, I…
Poor Jimmy Page. After listening to eight tracks from the newly remastered Led Zeppelin studio albums from Atlantic/Swan Song/Rhino, the first three of which, I, II, III, will be released on June 3, the guitar great graciously opened himself to questions. Were the alternate takes, that are the meat of the “companion audio” disc that accompanies each original album, pieced together from a number of alternate takes? “No!” he said, not quite believing what he was being asked. A newspaper critic perceptively asked if recording a number of takes was Page’s way of deciding what he wanted a song to…
Our June 2014 issue is now on newsstands, with MBL's cool-running, hot-sounding Corona C15 amplifier on its cover. The C15 combines a class-D output stage with a hefty linear power supply to produce performance that finally convinced John Atkinson that class-D designs need not produce compromised sound quality. JA also outs his hearing ability on the line by reviewing EnigmAcoustics' cost-no-object electrostatic supertweeter. The bulk of the Sopranino's output lies above the venerable JA's hearing limit, so did he hear any improvement? Read the review to find out.
Michael Fremer…