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Every year from 1963 to 1969 the Beatles recorded and released a Christmas single on flexi discs to be mailed free to members of their UK fan club. These singles have now been collected and reissued on vinyl in a singles boxed set by Universal Music, The Christmas Records. All seven are now in a different color of vinyl, from green to orange, and other than 1965, which is at 45rpm, the rest spin at 331/3rpm. As the liner notes in the 16-page booklet frankly state about the original flexi disc format: "This was not hi-fi." While the fidelity is still fairly rough, this is the Beatles being…
It's been more than seven years since the late Wes Phillips reviewed Vivid Audio's top-of-the-line loudspeaker, the Giya G1, for Stereophile, and since then the speaker has been seriously revised. At first glance you still notice the sui generis form; closer inspection reveals fundamental changes that make it, in most respects, an entirely new speaker.
The Giya G1 Spirit is slightly shorter and wider than the Giya G1—as if the latter's top had been gently pushed down a few inches and bulged out its bottom half. This change in shape was needed to accommodate the entirely new and larger…
We placed the Spirits approximately where my baseline references, MartinLogan's Prodigy electrostatics, had been in my largish listening space, and O'Hanlon began by using the title track of Shelby Lynne's Just a Little Lovin' (CD, Lost Highway B0009789-2) to distance the speakers from the front and side walls. He used the left channel of the recording, one speaker at a time, listening for the sound of the bass to make sure it met his approval at the listening position. He then had me sit down and close my eyes while he walked in front of the speaker from the left wall, repeating the phrase "…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Four-way, five-driver loudspeaker with exponentially-tapered-tube bass-reflex loading. Drive-units: HF: D26 1" (26mm) metal-dome tweeter, D50 2" (50mm) metal-dome tweeter, C125-75 4.9" (125mm) midrange with alloy-carbon diaphragm & 3" (75mm) voice-coil, two C225-100 8.9" (225mm) woofers with alloy diaphragms & 3.9" (100mm) voice-coils in 1.75" (45mm) gap. Crossover frequencies: 220Hz, 880Hz, 3.5kHz. Frequency response: 29Hz–33kHz, ±2dB on reference. Frequency range: –6dB at 25Hz and 36kHz. Sensitivity: 92dB/2.83V/m on axis. Impedance: 6 ohms…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Apple MacBook Pro computer (2.5GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) running OS 10.13, Roon v.1.3 build 262, JRiver Media Center 19, iTunes 12.7, Amarra Computer Music Player, VLC, Reaper 5.52, XLD; Western Digital 2TB NAS; Western Digital, Toshiba portable USB drives; Oppo BDP-103 universal BD player; Meridian Digital Media System (formerly Sooloos) Control 15, QNAP TS-669 Pro NAS; Apple iPad Air 2 & iPhone 6. Ayre Acoustics QB-9DSD, Benchmark Media Systems DAC1 USB & DAC2 HGC, Meridian Explorer2 DACs.
Analog Source: Oracle…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
With a loudspeaker as large and bulky and heavy as Vivid's Giya G1 Spirit, I decided to measure them at Jon Iverson's home on the California Central Coast rather than have them shipped to my Brooklyn lab. I therefore used a test setup different from my usual system of MLSSA software and hardware, which is not readily transportable. When I visited Jon, I took with me my MacBook Pro running SMUGSoftware's Fuzzmeasure 3 app, along with an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone and a FireWire-connected Metric Halo MIO2882 audio interface, the latter sampling at 96kHz.
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Back in January 2010, in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, I was prowling the corridors of the Venetian Hotel when I bumped into loudspeaker auteur Sandy Gross, cofounder first of Polk Audio and then of Definitive Technology. Knowing that Gross was no longer associated with Definitive, I asked him what he was getting up to in his retirement.
Retirement? He showed me a photo of a plain, cloth-covered, black tower speaker and promised to keep in touch. When next I heard from him, it was to announce that, along with his wife, Anne Conaway, and his former partner at DefTech, Don…
The Triton Reference is a lot more sensitive than other speakers I've had in my room in recent months, or even years—I had to turn down the volume control on the DACs I was using by 10dB or so to set the playback level to what I'm used to. I used the MBL Corona 15 monoblock amplifiers during Gross's visit, which he didn't feel were quite optimal for the Triton References. As I was scheduled to measure the Pass Laboratories XA60.8 monoblocks, to accompany Jim Austin's review of the Passes in the December 2017 issue, I hung on to them after the testing. My review findings are based on driving…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker with powered sub-bass section. Drive-units: High-Velocity Folded Ribbon (HVFR) tweeter, two 6" MVPP mid/bass drivers, three 10" by 6" sub-bass drivers, four 10.5" by 9.5" passive radiators. Subwoofer power amplifier: 1800W. Frequency range: 12Hz–35kHz. Sensitivity: 93.25dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: "compatible with 8 ohms." Recommended amplification: 20–750Wpc.
Dimensions: 58" (1473mm) H by 6.75" W (172mm) W front by 9.25" (235mm) W rear by 18.75" (476mm) D. Base: 13.5" (343mm) W by 22.25" (…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge.
Digital Sources: Aurender N10 music server, NAD Masters Series M50.2 digital music player; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A converter; AudioQuest JitterBug, UpTone Audio ReGen USB cleaner-uppers; Mac mini running Audirvana 1.5, Pure Music 3, Roon 1.3, Vinyl Studio; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter.
Phono Preamplifier: Channel D Seta L.
Power Amplifiers: MBL Corona C15, Pass Laboratories…