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With so many great studio and live recordings of Mahler's three song cycles for solo voice readily available, any new contender has to offer something very special. On their new Pentatone hybrid SACD, Mahler Song Cycles, which is also available as a hi-rez PCM or DSD download in both stereo and surround here and here, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under Marc Albrecht present interpretations of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), the five Rückert-Lieder (settings of poems by Friedrich Rückert), and Kindertotenlieder (Songs to Dead…
There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of amplifiers; it's hard to choose which ones to review. Big-name operators are difficult to ignore, while smaller outfits often complain of neglect. In the case of a new and moderately priced introduction from Krell there's no need to find excuses: it's available, it's likely to be important judging from this company's track record, and we'd all like to see just how well it performs.
This review features the KST-100 stereo power amplifier. Initially this product was differentiated from the more expensive Krell components by having an all-black…
Martin Colloms returned to the KST-100 in October 1992 (Vol.15 No.10):
My plea to the industry to adopt a more conservative approach to product launches and upgrades leads into a "Follow-Up" on the sound of the current KST-100 power amplifier, a model on which I first reported in Stereophile Vol.14 No.7 (July 1991), together with the Krell KSL line controller. Since that review the $2950 KST has evolved; what has been at the dealers for the past nine months is in fact a significantly improved model.
One danger for this amplifier is its relationship to the rest of the Krell range…
Sidebar 1: System Context
A well-judged assessment of equipment of this quality requires several conditions to be satisfied. First, the equipment must be conditioned, run-in for several days, and well warmed up. Second, its mode of use and the chosen interfaces should be carefully selected, with allowance made for some experimentation to determine the optimum arrangement. This area includes balanced and unbalanced operation, and the choice of cables. Third, it's valuable to have a handful of comparable and reference components with which to compare. Units available included the Krell KSA…
I'll give the Giant Japanese Conglomerates one thing: they build their CD players like Humvees. The Sony CDP-X555ES ($900) exudes pride in ownership; from the simulated-wood side panels to the copper-shielded chassis, the Sony is a very impressive-looking player. Typically, however, Sony chose to marry a very sophisticated digital section with what appears to be a standard mid-fi analog section featuring Texas Instruments 5532 dual op-amps, carbon composition resistors, and inexpensive electrolytic coupling caps. The 555ES has both fixed and variable outputs, and a Toslink optical output.…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Rated at a straight 100W, 20dBW into 8 ohms, and supplied with standard line voltage (50Hz supply in the UK), the amplifier delivered a continuous 136W (21.35dBW) into 8 ohms, with a single channel driven. At both 4 and 8 ohms the power bandwidth was superb, with maximum falloff of only 0.25dB at the 20Hz and 20kHz frequency extremes. The flat-out maximum power (using a 10ms 1kHz toneburst) was 138Wpc into 8 ohms (21.4dBW) with 246W available into 4 ohms (20.9dBW) and 418W into 2 ohms (20.2dBW), comfortably meeting Krell's specification. This was backed by a peak-…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: "Pulse Converter" CD player. Frequency response: 2Hz–20kHz !X0.3dB. S/N ratio: 117dB. Separation: >110dB. Output level: 2V RMS.
Dimensions: 18.5" (470mm) W by 4.9" (125mm) H by 14.75" (375mm) D. Weight: 28 lbs (12.8kg).
Price: $900 (1992); no longer available (2017). Approximate number of dealers: 250.
Manufacturer: Sony Corporation of America, Park Ridge, NJ 07656 (1992). Sony Electronics, Inc., 16530 Via Esprillo, San Diego, CA 92127-1708 (2017). Tel: (858) 942-2400. Web: www.sony.com.
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: stereo power amplifier. Output power: 100Wpc/8 ohms (20dBW), 200Wpc/4 ohms (20dBW), 400Wpc/2 ohms (20dBW), 800Wpc/1 ohm (20dBW). Output impedance: 0.125 ohms. Damping factor: 150. THD & IMD: less than 0.1% under all conditions. S/N ratio: 96dB A-weighted. Slew rate: 50V/µs. Input sensitivity: 1.5V for full output. Input impedance: 47k ohms.
Dimensions: 6.4" H by 18" W by 14.8" D.
Serial number of unit tested: 14-16564.
Price: $2500 (1991); no longer available (2017). Approximate number of dealers: 55. Warranty: 5 years.
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Sidebar 2: Review System
The players reviewed in this issue were broken-in for roughly a month before I sat down to listen. I fed them CDs, set 'em for infinite repeat, and hooked their fixed outputs to a 10k load (you can make this by soldering a 10k resistor between the signal and ground of an RCA plug, or alternately, you can just hook the player up to an input on your preamp, turned all the way down), which ensured that signal would flow through the audio circuitry, output coupling caps, wire, etc. If you leave the output jacks unterminated there's no signal flow, and all you…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The Sony joined the Denon DCD-2560 and the JVC XL-Z1050 as one of the three best test-bench performers reviewed in this issue. Its frequency response (fig.1) is practically a straight line, as is its de-emphasis curve (fig.2). The Sony's 0dB squarewave response (fig.3) is similar to the others, with a bit more discernible clipping of the ripple typical of its linear-phase filter. (This clipping is merely due to a conscious design choice concerning operation of the filter.) The crosstalk graph (fig.4) requires no comment.
Fig.1 Sony CDP-X555ES…