Although in the recording studio the loudness war has been lost, if only for the moment (though that may be my naïveté talking), what most concerns Moby is the far larger issue of humanity's current path. The multi-talented musician, songwriter, remixer, and deejay became one of the biggest names in dance music in the 1990s, when his albums Play (1999) and 18 became…
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"As for worst there are two albums, 18 [2002] and Hotel [2005]. They're not technically bad, but boy, there's sterility to the way in which they were mixed and edited and processed. I wish they had a little more space."
I've found that some audio amplifiers have sonic signatures so subtle that they emerge only over weeks of listening; yet other amps sound so distinctive—more vivid, more transparent, more dynamic—that their signatures are immediately apparent. Can those latter qualities really be inherent in the recording, or are they colorations produced in the amplifier?
The question arose soon after I moved from New York to San Rafael, California. My New York listening room had been big—25' by 13', with a 12' semi-cathedral ceiling. I now listen to music in a room only 11' by 11.5', with a flat…
It was. The Stereo 1.0's manual (p.8) reveals that, as with the Levinson, the user must wait at least three seconds between activations of the power switches. In fact, the Constellation's Power/Standby bar must be held down all that time, until an internal relay clicks as it triggers the turn-on sequence, during which the bar's LED shifts from glowing steady red (Standby) to flashing green (Warmup). That flashing-green phase, too, is inviolate—pressing the bar again won't bypass it. At the end of that long minute, the relay clicks again, the LED glows steady blue, and the Stereo 1.0 is…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-channel solid-state power amplifier. Inputs: 2 single-ended (RCA), 2 balanced (XLR), 2 Constellation Direct (XLR). Outputs: 2 pairs speaker binding posts. Power output (1kHz at 1% THD+N): 200Wpc into 8 ohms (23dBW), 400Wpc into 4 ohms (23dBW). Voltage gain: 26dB (14dB, Constellation Direct). Frequency response: 10Hz–80kHz, +0/–0.5dB. THD+N: <0.05% (1kHz at up to 90% of rated power). Output noise: <70µV, 500kHz bandwidth, –116dB ref. 250W. Signal/noise: >95dB, A-weighted. Input impedance: 20k ohms (Constellation Direct, balanced), 10k…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ittok tonearm, Spectral MC cartridge; Day-Sequerra 25th Anniversary FM Reference, McIntosh Laboratory MR-78, Sony XDR-F2HD FM/AM tuners.
Digital Sources: Bryston BCD-1 CD player & BDP-3 media player with IAD soundboard & BDA-3 DAC; Oppo Digital BPD-103 universal player; Lenovo P50 computer running Windows 10 Pro (64-bit), Bryston Windows USB driver, JRiver Media Center 22, Roon Core.
Preamplification: Bryston BP-26, Mark Levinson ML-7 preamplifiers; Sutherland…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Constellation Inspiration Stereo 1.0 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 As We See It"). Before performing any tests, I ran it at one-third its specified clipping power into 8 ohms for an hour. At the end of that time, both the top panel and the perforated side panels were warm, at 106.4°F (41.4°C); the gain at the speaker terminals was 25.1dB for both the balanced and single-ended inputs—slightly below the specified 26dB; and the output inverted absolute polarity with both inputs.
The Constellation amplifier's input…
I started my Sunday by visiting Plurison, the Canadian distributor for Focal, Naim, Rega, Musical Fidelity, Devialet, Music Hall, Wharfedale, Cambridge, Astell&Kern, and others (and, under the name Audio Plus Services, the US distributor for some of those same brands). As they did last year, Plurison set up shop in the Ville-Marie room—one of the Bonaventure's largest, having been carved out of what used to be the hotel's main restaurant—and presented their products in a mix of active and static displays, with a degree of visual refinement that few other exhibitors matched, and none…
Along with those other nerdy qualities I love about sound reproduction, I love a good soundstage. That's because a good soundstage, like a clever Hollywood movie effect, can provide the push needed to make me believe that someone who can't possibly be there in front of me singing or playing an instrument actually is and that I've missed nothing.
I bring up the soundstage thing not because I think hearing a good soundstage during playback is essential to one's enjoyment of a recording, but because the soundstage thing is the aspect of playback I was most wowed by of the system I heard in…
Quebec-based Solen—which distributes parts from a number of different manufacturers, as well as manufacturing their own well-regarded capacitors and other components—has a talent for filling their exhibit rooms with scores of items, including finished products made from the parts they sell. Among the latter at this year's Montreal show was a single-ended triode amp that will soon be available as the Coffin Audio 2A3 SE. Using new-old stock 6SL7 tubes to drive its nominal 2A3 directly heated output tubes, the nicely made Coffin amp uses Solen Teflon coupling caps, and the stereo amp's retail…
I would love Art Dudley even if I had never met him, listened to bluegrass with him, or swapped stories about aliens near a campfire under a milky-way-filled Cherry Valley sky. I would love him because he's Art D. and his audio writings are so I-am-there intimate and engrossing. Unfortunately, every time I read his stuff I want more. It is one thing to read audio porn but, for me, audio porn really needs sight and sound. In print form it is not fully satisfying. Forget MQA and DSD, I want POV. I want to see Art sitting on his new couch listening to Shindo-powered Altecs. Likewise, when I…