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I'd been told that the review samples had been used at a show, and had also been played at MoFi's headquarters; nonetheless, their sound benefited from break-in. Over a period of several weeks, playing music as well as various speaker-break-in CDs, I found that the ESL-2912s sounded more open and more dynamic. I also felt that there was some warm-up effect: Before a listening session, the Quads benefited from my playing through them the five-minute "Rejuvenation (rapid refresher)" track from Full System Enhancer & Rejuvenation Disc (CD, IsoTek IBD-CD1).
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Full-range, floorstanding electrostatic loudspeaker. Drive-units: 6 electrostatic panels with total height 54". Frequency response: 32Hz–21kHz, –6dB. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Impedance variation: 4–20 ohms. Maximum output: 2N/m2 at 2m on axis. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Maximum input, continuous input: 10V RMS. Program peak for undistorted output: 40V. Permitted peak input: 55V. Distortion: <0.15% above 1kHz, <0.5% above 100Hz, <1% above 50Hz. AC input: 110–120V, 220–240V. Power consumption: 6W.
Dimensions: 57.9" (1470mm) H by 27.2" (…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: Acoustic Signature WOW XXL TA-1000 turntable & tonearm, Soundsmith moving-iron cartridge.
Digital Source: PS Audio PerfectWave Memory Player & DirectStream DAC.
Preamplifier: Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Renaissance Black Path Edition.
Power Amplifiers: McIntosh Laboratory MC275 LE, Theta Digital Prometheus (monoblocks).
Loudspeakers: Monitor Audio Platinum PL300 II.
Cables: Interconnect, speaker, AC: Nordost Valhalla 2.
Accessories: PS Audio PerfectWave Power Plant 5 power conditioner, Nordost QB8 power…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Quad ESL-2912's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. My estimate of the Quad's voltage sensitivity was approximately 84dB/2.83V/m, somewhat lower than the specified 86dB. Fig.1 shows how the ESL-2912's impedance magnitude and electrical phase angle vary with frequency. It's basically identical to that of the ESL-2912's predecessor, the ESL-989 (reviewed by Larry Greenhill in November 2002), with a high value in the bass dropping…
Rachmaninoff: Piano Sonata 2, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Six Moments Musicaux
Evelina Vorontsova, piano
STH Quality Classics CD1416092 (CD). 2017. Paul Steverink, Boudwijn Zwart, prods.; Jaco van Houselt, eng. DDD. TT: 74:42
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Evelina Vorontsova, piano
STH Quality Classics CD1416092 (CD). 2017. Paul Steverink, Boudwijn Zwart, prods.; Jaco van Houselt, eng. DDD. TT: 74:42
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
This is Russian-Dutch pianist Evelina Vorontsova's second recording; the first was in 2002. Born in 1972, she took fourth prize in the Rachmaninoff Competition at 18, and second prize at the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition two years later; in 2006, she won second prize in the International Piano and…
For the longest time, I've found the label "hobby" inadequate to describe the audiophile goal of better sound reproduction. Yes, for some, the mechanics of the High End have become an end in themselves—a way to tinker and tweak, build and rebuild in classic hobby fashion. But for many others, specifically earbud listeners, folks with whole-house systems, and those who'd rather push a button on a remote and sit back or dance rather than roll tubes or tinker, the descriptor hobby falls woefully short.
Recent conversations with high-resolution advocate Marc Finer, of the Digital…
Steve Coleman, 61, is one of the most creative alto saxophonists, conceptualists, composers, and bandleaders—and certainly the most influential of all those identities—in jazz today. His latest album, Morphogenesis (on the Pi Recordings label), doesn't quite equal his last two—his breakthrough, Functional Arrhythmia (2013), or his masterpiece, Synovial Joints (2015)—but it's a rouser by any measure: on close listening, a heady sweat-drencher.
Coleman has long been fascinated with patterns of motion in nature, and his brilliance is rooted in having solved how to translate this into music.…
In this video, we visit Stereophile's Deputy Editor, Art Dudley, in his home in Cherry Valley, NY.
Who is Art Dudley? A devout Listener, a friend to all bunnies—and some humans—John Atkinson's right-hand man, and an invaluable voice, not just within Stereophile, but within the industry as a whole.
Herb Reichert puts it best: "People would love reading Art even if he wrote about lice creams. He thinks he's writing about cartridges and bunnies—he is too humble to realize that he is mentoring a large part of our industry."
That is the allure of Art. And that is the Art we…
One of my favorite South by Southwest moments over the 28 years I have attended was the early-1990s performance of Arthur Alexander who was literally sobbing before his set was done.
A sweet soul singer from Alabama, Alexander was not an inspired shouter like Otis Redding nor a super-charged urban strutter like Wilson Pickett. His voice had a lighter, gentler quality. He was a careful enunciator of every word even though his music was deeply southern fried soul. Most distinctive of all, Alexander had a way with a heartbroken ballad—as in his heart was broken—that was above and beyond.…
It is undoubtedly far more romantic for us to imagine young Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) spending his last weeks on earth writing four chamber cantatas in a Franciscan monastery on the Bay of Naples than it was for him to write feverishly while dying of tuberculosis. Had he experienced a miracle cure, he would have lived to discover that his Stabat Mater was fast becoming one of the most widely disseminated and frequently printed musical manuscripts of the 18th century.
281 years after Pergolesi's death, the beauty and freshness of his 12-movement work for two high voices with…