Whatever this imbalance may say about American audiophiles, it speaks well for the British attitude toward good sound; home construction offers the audiophile a ticket to kilobuck sound quality at a fraction of the cost. Generally, there's a…
search
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) loudspeaker projects are quite common in the UK, where details about several excellent designs, including a recent one by Martin Colloms, have been published for public domain consumption. Stateside, the situation is rather grim, where only an occasional subwoofer project (always popular) makes it into the commercial magazines.
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description (Bolero): Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" hard-dome tweeter, 5.25" plastic-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: approximately 3kHz. Frequency response: 50Hz–19kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity: 90dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Amplifier requirements: 10–60W.
Dimensions: 14.125" H by 7.75" W by 9.4" D. Weight: 17 lbs each.
Price: $1580/pair (1989); no longer available (2018).
Description (Forte): Drive-unit: 6.5" doped paper-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: approximately 150Hz. Measured –6dB point: 32Hz.…
J. Gordon Holt reviews the Dahlia, from February 1986 (Vol.9 No.1):
Visibly, there is nothing to distinguish Dick Olsher's Dahlia design (see later) from hundreds of other small speakers—except, that is, that it's uglier than most such. Although our samples were superbly finished (Dick Olsher bought them from a professional cabinet maker), the enclosures' dimensions were apparently chosen according to acoustical dictates rather than aesthetic considerations. The resulting shape is rather squat, like a kneeling dwarf.
Since I haven't tried putting one of these together according…
The Dahlia Debra: Dick Olsher updates his DIY loudspeaker design, from June 1987 (Vol.10 No.4):
Since the publication of the Dahlia do-it-yourself speaker article in February 1986 (Vol.9 No.1), I've been inundated with requests for clarification of construction details and additional information. I'm very pleased that the Dahlia has been received so favorably and wish I could personally acknowledge each and every one of your letters. To have done so, however, would have kept me very busy for a long time, and would have precluded additional research work on my part. Instead, let me take…
Martin Colloms offered a different tuning of the Dahlia in August 1987 (Vol.10 No.6):
In Vol.9 No.1, Dick Olsher offered a neat two-way loudspeaker design which exploited the virtues of the Son Audax 8" bass/mid unit, a TPX-coned unit which I also favor. As Dick could not avail himself of measurement facilities to determine the flatness and balance, his crossover was more or less to "book." Having tried his network, I found the resultant sound rather forward and lightweight compared with neutral, commercial, BBC-balanced references, while the bass, in my opinion, was not fully…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Two-way, do-it-yourself dynamic bookshelf system with 1" soft-dome tweeter and 8" TPX-cone woofer in vented enclosure. Impedance: 8 ohms. Rated frequency range: 60Hz–18kHz. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Rated power: 50W maximum.
Dimensions: 14.5" W by 20" H by 12" D.
Price: approx. $200 for parts (1986).
But maybe not so hot in the listening room, where you can get absorbed reading the latest issue of Stereophile. The expensive but superb-sounding Wilson Alexia 2 speaker is featured on the cover and reviewed inside, but also inside this issue is a review of the least expensive amplifier we have reviewed in decades, AkitikA's GT-102, which costs just $314 as a kit and $488 assembled and tested.
Other amplifiers reviewed in this issue come from Anthem, Border Patrol, and Bricasti, Mikey Fremer lives with the Bergmann Galder turntable and Odin tonearm, while our review team offers second…
Why should you or anyone care about a 24/192 download reissue of recordings of two Mahler song cycles that were made in Vienna and New York in 1968 by conductor Leonard Bernstein and three of his favorite singers, mezzo Christa Ludwig, her bass-baritone husband Walter Berry, and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau? After all, the recordings are "old" and the music much older, all but one of the artists is dead, the language is German, and the reissue lacks lyrics and translations.
Because anyone who cares about the terrible costs of war, and the suffering it engenders, must hear the pain,…
Sidebar 3: Measurements, from July 2018 (Vol.41 No.7)
When Jason Victor Serinus reviewed LG's MQA-capable V30 smartphone in our May issue, he was mightily impressed. "LG's implementation of its Hi-Fi Quad DAC is a work of genius," he wrote, concluding that "If ever there were a device that could bring the experience of high-end sound to millions of music lovers, the hi-rez V30 with MQA is it. It's more than a game-changer." JVS added that the V30's combination of audiophile sound quality and smartphone portability "may prove unbeatable." However, our publishing schedule didn't include…
Steve Tibbetts: Life Of
Steve Tibbetts, 12-string guitar, piano; Michelle Kinney, cello, drones; Marc Anderson, percussion, handpan
ECM 2599 (CD). 2018. An ECM production; Steve Tibbetts, eng.; Greg Reierson, eng., mastering. DDD. TT: 50:40
Performance *****
Sonics *****
Steve Tibbetts, 12-string guitar, piano; Michelle Kinney, cello, drones; Marc Anderson, percussion, handpan
ECM 2599 (CD). 2018. An ECM production; Steve Tibbetts, eng.; Greg Reierson, eng., mastering. DDD. TT: 50:40
Performance *****
Sonics *****
The sound of Steve Tibbetts's guitar music is unique—one need hear only a measure or two of his new album to identify the distinct tang of his playing. Common wisdom is that a guitarist's sound is in the hands and fingers, but Tibbetts has another trick: his weathered, 50-year-old Martin D12-20 12-string…