Description: Three-way reflex-loaded, floor-standing loudspeaker. Frequency response: 30Hz–23kHz, ±2dB. Sensitivity: 91dB/W/m. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 5 ohms minimum.
Dimensions: 48" H by 10.5" W by 12" D (base). Weight: 55 lbs each net.
Serial numbers of review samples: 14021/14022 & E015263/015264.
Price: $1550/pair in "black oak" laminate, $1850/pair in walnut, oak, or black oak veneer; upgrade to 50-ML crossover, $200 (1992); no longer available (2017). Approximate number of dealers: 103. Warranty: 10 years against defects in workmanship…
search
Sidebar 2: Specifications
The power-amp saga continues. For months, I've been plowing through the market, searching for something to drive my three front speakers. (I use a two-channel amp for the surrounds.) It can be a three-channel amp or three monoblocks—it just has to sound great with my speakers, and be light enough that I can lift it by myself when I need to rearrange my system. I'd finally settled on Classé's Sigma Monos for their transparency, and because I can manage their weight, one at a time. At the CEDIA Expo in September 2016, I saw two more candidates worthy of consideration. Review samples of both…
In direct comparisons with Parasound's Halo A 31 three-channel amp, the AT543nc seemed to offer more lower midrange, less treble, marginally more richness, and a slight tilt in balance. The ATI seemed to present a bit less air and space, but I can't say whether the Parasound is any more accurate in this regard. However, all that was noted only briefly upon switching from one amp to the other. The ATI and Parasound both had smoother, more enjoyable sound with Focal's Sopra No3 speakers than did the Classé Sigma Monos, which unsympathetically revealed some upper-midrange glare in some…
The path of an audiophile is one of arduous sonic pursuit. Such a worthy cause is often accompanied by an unquenchable aesthetic thirst.
With this video we introduce the "1 Minute Audiophile Escape": the first of many in our series of experiential segments purely dedicated to audiophile eye candy.
This video features a system that John Atkinson and I listened to last month in Chicago at the Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirit loudspeaker debut.
The system features:
TechDAS Airforce 3 turntable ($29,750)
Graham Elite 9" tonearm ($12,000)
Koetsu Jade Platinum…
Call me perverse, or perhaps I've just been around too many musicians for too long, but the part of Exhibitionism, The Rolling Stones traveling show that I liked best was the very opening display in which you walk into a facsimile of the apartment that the five band members once shared in London when they were starting out.
Disheveled would be a compliment. "Dump" or "hovel" would be a significant step up from this rat trap. It was so realistic that I was watching for mice and bugs running between the rubbish piles in the kitchen. You could almost smell the rotting garbage and unwashed…
You may never before have heard of Flemish composer Giaches de Wert (b. 1535 somewhere in the region of Antwerp or Ghent), nor listened to his sacred motets, which I auditioned as a native DSD64 download from NativeDSD. Regardless, his music's supreme beauty, captured in convincingly natural spaciousness on Harmonia Mundi's latest DSD-native hybrid SACD from the 13-member, English vocal ensemble, Stile Antico, will likely sweep you away.
De Wert spent most his life in Mantua, Italy, where he served as maestro di cappella in Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga's chapel of Santa Barbara. Known mainly as…
Labor of Love is one of the most pleasurable albums you're likely to hear all year—and it sounds amazing, too.
In the late 1990s, Tim Duffy, proprietor of the Music Makers Foundation, lured Taj Mahal to go on a 42-city tour with a group of old-time blues musicians. Taj, of course, had his roots in these blues, but he'd long ago strayed into R&B, even rock, earning fame and fortune without selling his soul, and this re-immersion rekindled a passion for the real deal.
As the liner notes to this album tell it, Duffy dragged along some sound gear on the tour, high-end stuff, lent…
Thursday March 9, 5–9:00pm, Seattle retailer Definitive Audio (6206 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115) is presenting their 12th annual Music Matters event. Making their public debut Thursday will be Classé's Delta Pre and Delta Stereo and Bowers & Wilkins DB series subwoofers; making their debuts at Definitive will the Audio Research Foundation Series, the dCS Vivaldi reference digital audio playback system: DAC, Upsampler, Master Clock and Transport, the European Audio Team B-Sharp Turntable, Focal's Sopra 3 loudspeaker, which is featured on the cover of Stereophile's April issue, Naim…
I like Brooklyn. I even got married under the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge! (Almost the exact spot where Cher's grandfather let his dogs howl at the moon in Moonstruck. And if you're ever in the Park Slope area, check out McFeeley's for brunch.) I could be forgiven, therefore, for having a soft spot for any Brooklyn manufacturer, including Ohm Acoustics. Except that the only Ohm model I have heard was the omnidirectional Ohm Walsh 5 (favorably reviewed by Dick Olsher in Stereophile in 1987, Vol.10 No.4, and 1988, Vol.11 No.8), and the omni principle is something that I have never found to…
Sidebar 1: Review Context
The Ohm loudspeakers were used with a pair of VTL 100W Compact monoblocks, connected with Monster M1 speaker cable, while the preamplifier was a combination of the Mod Squad Line Drive Deluxe AGT and Vendetta Research SCP2 phono preamp. Source components consisted of a Marantz CD-94 CD player used to drive a Sony DAS-R1 D/A converter, a 1975-vintage Revox A77 to play my own 15ips master tapes, and a Linn Linn Sondek/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on a Sound Organisation table to play LPs. Interconnect was Audioquest LiveWire Lapis.
The speakers sat either on…