search
The 'table's two-piece tonearm board, made from acrylic and Delrin, attaches to the plinth's rubber substrate from below with three bolts whose machined-alloy thumbscrews were easy to tighten by hand. An armboard suitable for tonearms of average effective length (ca 9") is included; boards for 12" arms are available for $300 each. In either case, a board for the arm of one's choice can be machined at the factory, and for this review I decided to rely exclusively on my longtime reference, the EMT 997. I sent a couple of spare EMT collets to George Merrill with a request for a board that would…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Tekton Design Impact Monitor's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. My estimate of the Impact's sensitivity was 87.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, considerably lower than the specified 94dB. (Speakers with true sensitivities greater than 90dB tend to be rare and expensive.) The impedance is specified as 4 ohms. My measurement of the impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) reveals that while the impedance does drop to 4 ohms in the lower midrange…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-speed, belt-driven turntable with outboard power supply. Speeds: 331/3 and 45rpm. Wow & flutter: <0.02%. Speed accuracy: 2 parts per million.
Dimensions: 17.25" (438mm) W by 8.25" (210mm) H (with clamp) by 13.75" (350mm) D. Weight: 40 lb 18.2kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: 3010.
Price: $7995 ($8295 as reviewed). Approximate number of dealers: 6. Warranty: 3 years.
Manufacturer: Merrill-Williams Audio LLC, 820 Herbert Road, Suite 109, Cordova, TN 38019. Tel: (901) 751-3337. Web: www.realturntable.com.
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301, Thorens TD 124 turntables; Audio-Creative GrooveMaster II, EMT 997 tonearms; EMT TSD 15, Shindo Laboratory SPU pickup heads; Miyajima Laboratory Saboten L cartridge.
Digital Sources: Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player; HoloAudio Spring "Kitsuné Tuned Edition" Level 3 DAC.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Hommage T1 & T2 step-up transformers; Sentec EQ11 phono preamplifier; Shindo Laboratory Monbrison (2017) preamplifier.
Integrated Amplifier: ASR Emitter II Exclusive.
Power Amplifier: Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion.…
Duo Noire's debut recording for New Focus Recordings, Night Triptych, covers so many bases, and speaks so clearly to contemporary realities, that it immediately qualifies for several gold stars. But once you hear the sheer musicality of its premiere recordings of six new works for duo guitar, and how wonderfully they are played, you may be tempted to award the album several more.
For starters, Duo Noire is composed of two African-American men, both graduates of the Yale School of Music. Transcending the old New Music polarities of East Coast/West Coast, Christopher Mallett teaches at the…
Before I spin this 23rd edition of "Gramophone Dreams," I must ask: How many of you are using zip-cord as your speaker cables? RadioShack interconnects? Those black universal 18/3 power cords that come standard with virtually every audio amplifier?
AudioQuest Storm Tornado/High-Current power cord
A few months after I wrote about AudioQuest's Niagara 1000 power-line conditioner ($1000), my friend Sphere asked if I'd ever then removed the Niagara from my system, listened, and still thought it improved the sound.
I had not. So next morning I removed the Niagara and plugged…
I befriended Marsh, and told him to ignore the naysayers and trust his ears. I explained that, for decades, Japanese designers of amplifiers had felt the same way about wires, resistors, even tube sockets. I told him that I thought the differences he heard were likely caused by combinations of electrical, atmospheric, and mechanical phenomena, just as in vacuum tubes. I imagined that alternating audio currents were pulsing electromagnetic shock waves emanating like periodic tremors from magnetic tape heads or phonograph cartridges. These pulsing waves impress themselves on the complete…
Sidebar: Contacts
AudioQuest, 2621 White Road, Irvine, CA 92614. Tel: (949) 585-0111. Web: www.audioquest.com
Triode Wire Labs, PO Box 32. Massapequa Park, NY 11762. Tel: (516) 659-6748. Web: www.triodewirelabs.com
It was almost seven years ago that Nelson Pass, whose talks and exhibits I'd covered at many a Bay Area Burning Amp DIY event and audio show, surprised me with a loan of two Pass Laboratories' XA 160.5 class-A monoblock amplifiers. Ten months later, after I'd commented that my system had challenged the XA 160.5s in the bass department, he sent me a pair of XA200.5 monos. I connected those bigger babies to Wilson Audio Sophia 3 loudspeakers and some now-discontinued digital components with Nordost Odin 1 interconnects and speaker cables. Then came my way, toward the end of 2016, the XA200.8…
Just as many inspired musicians invest their sound with a soulful glow that can grow in brilliance, the XA200.8s seemed to illuminate music from within in a way that complemented that artistic brilliance. In contrast with some tube amplification of my experience, the inner glow I heard with the XA200.8s sounded like something that arose organically from within the music. At the beginning of Mahler's Symphony 2, in the recording by Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra (SACD/CD, Channel Classics CCS SA 23506), the impact of the ominous march of cellos and double basses, the cries…