Manufacturer's Comment Editor, your review of the SS-1A is certainly one of the most detailed and complete reviews I have had the pleasure to read. Furthermore, most of your conclusions about the SS-1A itself concur with our own remarkably well. I do however have a few comments concerning some other points in the review.
A) We appreciate your candor and fairness in presenting an admitted sticky situation concerning the midrange modules tor the SS-1A. It should be said that, for a period of over three months, we did not ship any of these systems (even facing an enormously…
Sidebar 1: What If You Lose a Midrange Panel? Failure of a midrange panel in the SS-1A is an annoyance but by no means a disaster. If you have a mental image of pryotechnics reminiscent of starship Enterprise taking Klingon fire, forget it. Yes, there's 4000 volts DC on those panels, but it is only a static charge, with no more potential for violence than the charge you build up walking on a carpet in dry weather. When a midrange panel goes out, it may cause clicks or distortion in the sound, but in most instances, that's all there is to it. The panel is easily replaced, and you can even…
Sidebar 2: Specifications Description: Three-way stereo loudspeaker system consisting of two electrostatic screens and a single common-bass woofer "commode" (18" cone drive-unit), with a separate line-level crossover/100W amplifier (1968), a separate line-level crossover (1975). Crossover frequency: 100Hz (1968); 70Hz, 2kHz (1975). Nominal impedance: 16 ohms.
Dimensions: Screens, 36" H by 28" W by by 7" D; woofer 24" H x 24" W x 24" D (1968); Screens 60" H by 22" W x 8" D; woofer 19" H x 22" W x 22" D (1975).
Price: $2000, including crossover and bass amplifier (1968); $4000,…
EDWARD ELGAR: Enigma Variations, In the South, Coronation March
George Hurst, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Naxos 8.553564 (CD). 1997. Paul Myers, prod.; Dave Harries, eng. DDD. TT: 58:47
Performance ****
Sonics **** In a letter to his parents in 1930, a 17-year-old Benjamin Britten described his attendance at a London concert. The first half of the program consisted of works by Humperdinck, Mozart, and Mahler; but since the second half was to be "all Elgar," Britten and his friend left at intermission. This little anecdote vividly illustrates the clear division that had…
That was the question asked by a reader who was perfectly happy with his CD-based system. He was using the gain control provided by the variable output of his CD player and was apparently in no need of phono playback or greater flexibility. He asked us to answer this question, ignoring for the moment the obvious functions of switching, volume and tone control, and phono preamplification. With those hardly trivial qualifiers—and bearing in mind the high output available from many of today's line sources, CD players in particular—do you really need the added expense and complexity of a…
Thirty-one flavors may work for an ice-cream chain, but a speaker manufacturer who sets out to please every sonic palate ends up with a serious identity crisis, pleasing no-one. From its inception in 1985, Audio Physic, based in Brilon, Germany, has been an event-oriented speaker company. Founder and original chief designer Joachim Gerhard focused much of his attention on providing listeners with the sensation of "live" by emphasizing coherent three-dimensional imaging and soundstaging—though not to the exclusion of timbral accuracy. Except for the Medea, based on a Manger driver (a…
The crossover control's five positions adjust the woofers' low-pass frequency between 250Hz and 300Hz, allowing you to make subtle distinctions between bass that's lean and tight and bass that's somewhat warmer. You can also disable the crossover, if you want to insert an external crossover between the two modules. Also included are: a Phase button, to invert the subwoofer polarity; a Subsonic button, for LP playback, if needed; and three presets, for Small (25m2), Medium (40m2), and Large (>40m2) rooms. With the presets, you can set all parameters "in the ballpark," so you can have a…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Four-way, floorstanding loudspeaker with powered woofer module. Drive-units: 1" ring-radiator tweeter; 6.5" ceramic-coated aluminum-cone midrange driver; two 6" side-firing, ceramic-coated, aluminum-cone lower-midrange drivers; four 10" long-throw plastic-cone woofers. Frequency range: 10Hz-50kHz. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Sensitivity: 91dB/W/m.
Dimensions: 51" H by 14" W by 24" D. Weight: 265 lbs each.
Finishes: Maple veneer; ebony, add $5000/pair.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: 007A/B.
Price: $64,995/pair. Approximate number of…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Simon Yorke S7, Clearaudio Emotion turntables; Immedia RPM-2, Graham 2.2, ClearAudio Satisfy tonearms; Lyra Titan, Graham Nightingale, Red Rose Rose Petal, Clearaudio Aurum Wood Classic cartridges.
Digital source: Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista SACD player, Alesis Masterlink CD-R recorder.
Preamplification: Musical Fidelity kWP preamplifier, Manley Steelhead phono preamp.
Power amplifiers: Musical Fidelity kW monoblocks, Music Reference RM-200.
Cables: Phono: Hovland Music Groove, Graham IC-70. Interconnect: AudioQuest Cheetah…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The Kronos offered a little higher sensitivity than the norm, at an estimated 89dB(B)/2.83V/m, though this is 2dB below the specified figure. Note that this is the sensitivity of the midrange-treble head unit, as the woofer section is powered. Similarly, the speaker's impedance graph (fig.1) shows the behavior of the head unit only. The magnitude stays close to 5 ohms throughout the unit's passband. However, the combination of 4.9 ohms and a -46 degree electrical phase angle at 250Hz will cause problems for amplifiers that can't deliver much in the way of current…
