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Room 515: Every picture tells a story don't it? Well, not really. Like I mentioned earlier Capital Audiofest has been wrongly pegged by some as a "DIY gathering," not a big-time mainstream audio show. This is my first CAF but I have attended most of the audio shows in Europe and America and I did not see it like that. Clearly, this is not a show for Dave & Dan and the people at Sony probably never heard of CAF. What I saw and heard was something very unique and necessary—a show where a group of small manufacturers could pool their resources, make good sound, and maybe get connected to a…
Has it really been 30 years since an engineer named William H. Firebaugh unleashed on the audio world his radical and decidedly affordable Well Tempered Arm? (footnote 1) Indeed it has—and today, at 82, Bill Firebaugh seems busier than ever, with so many irons in the fire that he's been forced to give up the noble game of golf—an irony, as you'll see in a moment.
Firebaugh started down this road in the 1970s, while working at Ford Aerospace. "That was the time when FFT analyzers were appearing on the scene," he says. "We used a lot of Brüel & Kjaer gear in our work, so we received…
The penultimate distinction is Firebaugh's latest choice in drive belts: He has switched from a flat neoprene belt—which usually was installed with an intentional twist—to a polyester filament only 0.004" in diameter. (Human hairs range in diameter from 0.0003" to 0.007".) A thread of any sort must be knotted in order to make a belt. So it goes; Firebaugh says that the grooves in his motor pulley—one each for 33 1/3 and 45rpm—have been sized and shaped to account for that.
The final distinction: In recent years, Well Tempered Lab, which is now based in New Zealand, moved all of its…
The CD-200 is the new CD-only player from TASCAM, the professional-audio division of TEAC (footnote 1). It has unbalanced analog outputs, and RCA and optical digital outputs. The CD-200 also has a new transport, the CD-5020A, designed by TEAC for audio use.
Unlike many affordable disc-spinning devices with slot-loading transports (eg, inexpensive DVD players starting at $29.99), the CD-200 has a traditional drawer mechanism that has been upgraded to minimize the noise of loading and clamping a disc. TASCAM also claims improvements in the internal clock function, for smoother sound and…
Both Mahler and Anton Bruckner were Austrian. Both wrote symphonies that, to say the least, were not exemplars of Classical concision. However, to me, Bruckner's symphonies are one of the last outposts of Classical form, whereas for Mahler, formal structure had to give way to make room for Klezmer music, protracted intimations of eternity (or infinity), bundles of sticks, the kitchen sink, and the potato ricer.
I have always preferred the symphonies of Mahler to those of Bruckner. In my more dismissive moments, I have tended to regard Bruckner's more-popular symphonies as "…
Once, on a cold, dank, soundless day deep in the Eastern bloc, I watched a man spend over a million dollars on an audio system: a turntable, a fancy horn tweeter, a few wires, and some amplification for his modified Klipschorns. I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me he was a notary public.
Everyone there smirked and watched as he excitedly put the tonearm down on the first record, AC/DC's Back in Black. He laughed, he danced, he didn't sit down. He just skipped around the room, grinning and bouncing like a caffeinated child.
I thought, Does this man really need…
Whenever my system is suddenly producing copious amounts of tight bass, I feel a need to gorge myself on it until I can't stand it anymore. So I reached for Daft Punk's Homework (CD, Virgin) and played it through twice. Still bingeing, I played Sunn O)))'s Black One (CD, Southern Lord SUNN50) all the way through. Then I tried the bass orgy of Aphex Twin's I Care Because You Do (CD, Sire 61790-2). King Sunny Ade and His African Beats' Juju Music (LP, Island MLPS 9712) immersed me knee-deep in waves of pulsing bass guitar. The Sphinx supported the party mood, the low power of the talking drums…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Hybrid integrated amplifier. Power output: 100Wpc into 8 ohms (20dBW), 200Wpc into 4 ohms (20dBW). THD: <0.1% typical, <1% at rated power. Frequency response: 5Hz–20kHz, ±1dB. Phono section: 40dB. Input sensitivity: 1.0V RMS. Power requirements: 115/230V–50/60Hz.
Dimensions: 15.5" (400mm) W by 5" (130mm) H by 17" (435mm) D. Weight: 25 lbs (11.4kg) net, 30 lbs (13.6kg) shipping.
Serial number of unit reviewed: 0789.
Price: $1295, $1395 with remote volume control. Approximate number of dealers: 50. Warranty (with submission of…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: VPI Traveler turntable & tonearm, Thorens TD-124 turntable; SME 3009 II tonearm; Denon DL-103, Ortofon 2M Red & 2M Black cartridges.
Digital Sources: Puresound A-8000 CD player, Line Magnetic LM 502 CA DAC, Oppo DV-980H SACD/CD player, HiFiMan HM-101USB soundcard.
Preamplification: April Sound (MM), Fi Yph, Sentec EQ11 phono stages; Intact Audio (MC) step-up.
Integrated Amplifiers: Creek 4330, 47 Labs Gaincard, Grommes 24PG, Line Magnetic LM518 IA.
Headphone Amplifier: Schiit Asgard.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Rogue Audio Sphinx using my top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com, and the January 2008 "As We See It"). Before performing any measurements, I ran the Sphinx for an hour at one-third its specified maximum power of 100Wpc into 8 ohms. Thermally, this is the worst case for an amplifier with a class-B or -AB output stage, but it's irrelevant with an efficient class-D amplifier like the Rogue, which uses the well-regarded Hypex modules. By the end of that period the Sphinx's chassis was only mildly warm, but at least I could be…