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It's no secret that brick-and-mortar stores have had a rough time lately, with closures at an alarming rate. It's rare to encounter a new store that is devoted to high-performance audio and video. A store that fits this description opened recently in the picturesque village of Unionville, just outside Toronto. Unionville is one of the most affluent areas in the Greater Toronto Area, with an average household income of $127,900. Distinguished from the other two Toronto suburban Update TV & Stereo stores by the "Elevated" moniker, the Unionville store is in a converted church, right on Main…
It's no secret that brick-and-mortar stores have had a rough time lately, with closures at an alarming rate. It's rare to encounter a new store that is devoted to high-performance audio and video. A store that fits this description opened recently in the picturesque village of Unionville, just outside Toronto. Unionville is one of the most affluent areas in the Greater Toronto Area, with an average household income of $127,900. Distinguished from the other two Toronto suburban Update TV & Stereo stores by the "Elevated" moniker, the Unionville store is in a converted church, right on Main…
Making a recording is always a personal journey—everyone has a story to tell. Jazz violinist Regina Carter's latest, Southern Comfort, is an eloquent musical expression of Carter tracing the roots of her paternal lineage back five generations. For the project's sound engineer, Joe Ferla, it's the final project of a engineering career, and the beginning point of his new life as a practicing musician. The entwining of these journeys gives the album's music and sound a rare honesty.
Released by Sony Masterworks, Southern Comfort began as a Web addiction. "I got hooked on this Ancestry.com…
I'm sure that the larger manufacturers were displaying new audio/video receivers and preamplifier-processors at the Las Vegas Convention Center last January, during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show—but except for dinner, I didn't get out of the Mirage, where I slept, or the Venetian Tower Suites, where the high-end audio displays were concentrated. Still, there were new developments to report; see Stereophile's almost live on-line coverage.
Most interesting was the demonstration of a new approach to room equalization, presented by the canny folks from Dirac Research. Using a 7.2-channel…
Krell Foundation preamplifier-processor
I've been waiting for the Foundation, Krell Industries' lowest-priced preamplifier-processor, ever since its first appearance, at the 2013 CES. Krell announced at the New York Audio Show in April 2013 that they had started shipping Foundations, but apparently sales were so brisk that no review sample could be shaken loose—I was left to envy happy users posting their joys on the Internet.
I've been waiting for the Foundation, Krell Industries' lowest-priced preamplifier-processor, ever since its first appearance, at the 2013 CES. Krell announced at the New York Audio Show in April 2013 that they had started shipping Foundations, but apparently sales were so brisk that no review sample could be shaken loose—I was left to envy happy users posting their joys on the Internet.
At $6500, the Foundation is priced significantly above the range occupied by pre-pros from Integra, Marantz, Onkyo, and Yamaha. In common with $10,000+…
Sidebar: Contacts
Dirac Research, Fålhagsleden 57, 753 23 Uppsala, Sweden. Tel: (46) (0)18-18-56-40. Fax: (46) (0)18-18-56-49. Web: www.dirac.se. US: Dirac Research, 1265 Rosecrans Street, San Diego, CA 92106. Tel: (619) 200-9429.
Krell Industries, LLC, 45 Connair Road, Orange, CT 06477-3650. Tel: (203) 799-9954. Fax: (203) 799-9796. Web: www.krellonline.com.
Laurie Anderson: United States Live
Warner Bros. 2519201 (5 LPs). Bob Bielecki, eng. AAA.
Warner Bros. 2519201 (5 LPs). Bob Bielecki, eng. AAA.
Anyone who thinks the ultra-chic New York progressive music scene lacks a sense of humor hasn't heard Laurie Anderson. Her last album, Mister Heartbreak, proved to be the most listenable and entertaining example of the genre on years. It also provided a sound quality that put most "audiophile" discs to shame.
Anderson's style has elements of Philip Glass, Peter Gabriel, Japanese koto music, and George Carlin, but in United States Live the result is a unique and fascinating form of multi-…
McIntosh's President Charlie Randall, pictured outside the company's Binghamton HQ. (Photo: John Atkinson)
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,…
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…