The P21 EXD isn't all that heavy at 37.54 lb, and slid easily into the bottom shelf of my Salamander rack. The umbilical that links the P21 and its PSU is rather short, however. I ended up placing the PSU parallel to the P21, under the stubby bench my CD player sits on, perched on four Mapleshade Isoblocks. The PSU I plugged straight into the wall, no filter. I pressed the on/off switch on its faceplate and the games began.
Listening
As…
Description: Two-channel, tubed power amplifier with external power supply. Tube complement: amplifier, two Sovtek 6C45pi, four 300B; power supply, two 6AU4-GTA, two EZ80. Line-level inputs: 2 (RCA). Outputs: 2 pairs each of 3 binding posts—ground, 8 ohm tap, 4 ohm tap. Output power: 20Wpc into 8 ohms (13dBW). Input sensitivity: 1.2V RMS to full output. Input impedance: 100k ohms. Channel balance: 0.5dB. Frequency response: 10Hz–36kHz, –3dB. Minimum load impedance: 3 ohms. Gain: 10dB. Power consumption: 300W.
Dimensions: Amplifier: 17" (430mm) W by 13.5" (…
Analog Sources: Kuzma Stabi S turntable & Stogi tonearm; Thorens TD 124 Mk.I turntable, Jelco 350S tonearm; Denon DL-103, Hana EL, Ortofon 2M Bronze cartridges.
Digital Sources: Apple MacBook computer running Audirvana Plus; LG BD550 BD player (as transport); Halide DAC HD, Mytek HiFi Manhattan, PS Audio NuWave DACs; Western Digital T2 Mirror Drives (2).
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 A23 moving-coil step-up transformer, Heed Audio Quasar phono preamplifier, Shindo Laboratory Allegro preamplifier.
Power Amplifier: Shindo Laboratory Haut-…
I measured the BorderPatrol P21 EXD using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). I installed the numbered 300B tubes in the correct sockets, as identified in the manual, but I didn't adjust the bias for the two pairs of 300B output tubes, feeling that I should measure the amplifier in the condition it was auditioned by Ken Micallef.
The P21 EXD's voltage gain at 1kHz into 8 ohms was lower than the norm, at 17dB from the 8 ohm tap into 8 ohms, 15.9dB from the 4 ohm tap into 8 ohms, and 14.5dB from the 4 ohm tap into 4 ohms.…
Sometimes, great components enter our lives with little fanfare. Thus, by happenstance, did Lamm Industries' L2.1 Reference preamplifier ($22,790) end up in my reference system.
The story began at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, when John Atkinson and I visited Lamm's oversize suite on a high floor of the Venetian Hotel. Our intentions were twofold: to report on what we heard and saw, and to sniff out products for me to review. We found one likely candidate—AQ…
First there was the epithet, "Notorious RBG," which NYC law student Shana Knizhnik coined in 2013 (in a sly riff on the name of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fellow Brooklynite and rapper, The Notorious B.I.G.) as the name of her Tumblr site. Then came Derrick Wang's, Scalia/Ginsburg, an opera based on the odd-bedfellows friendship of two SCOTUS justices and opera lovers from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. During the same time period that the opera…
Powering the miniDSP U-DAC8
When I reviewed miniDSP's U-DAC8 multichannel USB DAC in September 2015, I found it well worth its price of $299. I used…
DigiBit, Madrid, Spain. Tel: (34) 915334250. Web: www.ariamusicserver.com. North American distributor: Goerner Audio, 91, 18th Avenue, Deux-Montagnes, Quebec J7R 4A6. Canada. Tel: (514) 833-1977. Web: www.goerneraudio.com
HDPLEX Ltd., 3972 Barranca Parkway, Suite J337, Irvine, CA 92606, Web: www.hdplex.com
Oppo Digital, Inc., 162 Constitution Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Tel: (650) 961-1118. Web: www.oppodigital.com
Schubert: Piano Trio 2, Notturno for Piano & Strings
Trio Alba
Audiomax 9032013 (SACD/CD).
I discovered the second movement of Schubert's Piano Trio 2 in E-flat, D.929, in 1975, when it was used as a stately and insistent motif throughout the film Barry Lyndon. Director Stanley Kubrick said that the piece had "just the right restrained balance between the tragic and the romantic without getting into the headier stuff of later Romanticism." Deeply affected by it, I ran from the theater and purchased a recording, though I no…