Editor: I began skimming the Harmonic Technology review in August (p.123) without first noting who was doing the reviewing. As the article poured on more and more accolades and finally got to the business of claiming "most significant single technological breakthrough," I was thinking, Okay, who is doing all this gushing? I flipped back a few pages, expecting to see some guest contributor, because no one at Stereophile puts their coconuts that far out on the chopping block and then dares the technical community to feed him…
search
The following letter was published in October 2005 (Vol.28 No.10):
Psychological tests in other areas of human perception—vision, touch, taste, smell—have proven how unreliable they are, and how much they can be influenced by expectation or suggestion. There's no reason to believe aural perception is the sole exception to this. I am sure this is why so many audiophiles still hear brashness and stridency in Japanese audio products five years after nearly all of them ceased to sound that way.
For self-styled golden ears to be claiming, and trying, to be "objective" is to deny reality, because perception is not like instrumentation. Everything we perceive…
GEORGE JONES: Cold Hard Truth
Asylum 62368-2 (CD). 1999. Keith Stegall, prod.; John Kelton, eng.; Mark Nevers, Brady Barnett, Steven Crowder, John Stolpe, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 34:16
Performance ****?
Sonics ****?
Asylum 62368-2 (CD). 1999. Keith Stegall, prod.; John Kelton, eng.; Mark Nevers, Brady Barnett, Steven Crowder, John Stolpe, asst. engs. AAD? TT: 34:16
Performance ****?
Sonics ****?
Bogey's career ended with The Harder They Fall. Marilyn Monroe's final film was The Misfits. Marlene Dietrich finished with Just a Gigolo. An artist's final work often has a way of cutting to the heart of his or her talent.
Cold Hard Truth—something George Jones avoided during much of his tumultuous life of drinking, drugging, and making classic…
Power-line conditioning and exotic power cords, once considered the lunatic fringe of tweaking, have become normal parts of audiophile life. Over the last several years Shunyata Research, founded by former NSA research scientist Caelin Gabriel, has established itself as a leading innovator in the area. The company's latest efforts include the Hydra Model 8 power-distribution center ($1995), for use with whole systems or front ends; the two-outlet "mini" Hydra Model 2 ($395), intended for use with power amplifiers; and the Anaconda Alpha and Anaconda vX power cords ($1995), the new top models…
Michael Fremer wrote about the Shunyata Research Hydra 8 in January 2004 (Vol.27 No.1):
Despite the Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista kW's choke-regulated power supplies, and perhaps because of the amount of current these amplifiers pull, their performance was enhanced to an enormous and quite surprising degree by plugging them into Shunyata Research's entirely passive Hydra 8 power-distribution device ($1995).
During my first month of auditioning the kWs, they drew power from the original Hydra. When I was ready to check out the new Hydra 8, I unplugged the original Hydra and plugged…
TERRY EVANS: Puttin' It Down
AudioQuest Music AQ-CD1038 (CD), AQ1038 (LP*). Joe Harley, Terry Evans, Jorge Calderon, prods.; Michael C. Ross, eng. AAD/AAA. TTs: 53:25, 46:03*
AudioQuest Music AQ-CD1038 (CD), AQ1038 (LP*). Joe Harley, Terry Evans, Jorge Calderon, prods.; Michael C. Ross, eng. AAD/AAA. TTs: 53:25, 46:03*
The day after we received Puttin 'It Down, RL and I were enthusing over what a superb disc it was—performance, material, and sound quality as well. "I guess we've got our next Recording of the Month," I said.
"I don't know. Blues for Thought [Evans's last album] made RotM. Maybe we should find something else."
"Why should we penalize the man for consistency? Besides, this one's even better!"…
Let me take you back some 40 years to the mono days of the early 1950s. It's unlikely that the minimonitor genus of loudspeakers, of which this French JMlab is a prime example, would have survived back then. There was the practical problem of available amplifier power. The average amp could squeeze out no more than 10 to 15W into an 8 ohm load—far less power than the typically insensitive minimonitor demands for adequate dynamic headroom. But that in itself would not have sufficed to displace the minimonitor from the marketplace. After all, "high-power" amps (50-watters) could be had at a…
Preliminaries
The phono front-end consisted of the Aura turntable, Graham Model 1.5 tonearm, Rowland Complement cartridge, and the Threshold FET-ten/e preamp. The Theta DS Pre and Cary Audio processors were used with all digital program material. A bridged pair of Classé Audio DR-8 amps were used most of the time. The Microns were positioned atop 24" Chicago Speaker Stands and located about a third of the way into the listening room from the rear wall—at what has proven to be the optimal minimonitor imaging location.
The phono front-end consisted of the Aura turntable, Graham Model 1.5 tonearm, Rowland Complement cartridge, and the Threshold FET-ten/e preamp. The Theta DS Pre and Cary Audio processors were used with all digital program material. A bridged pair of Classé Audio DR-8 amps were used most of the time. The Microns were positioned atop 24" Chicago Speaker Stands and located about a third of the way into the listening room from the rear wall—at what has proven to be the optimal minimonitor imaging location.
It did not prove necessary to listen to the Micron considerably…
My 1990 Focal Aria 5 review made my feelings about Focal's T90K tweeter a matter of public record. The main thrust of my objections to the sound of this tweeter had to do with what it did wrong in the lower treble and upper mids, where I felt that its sound had the textural equivalent of sandpaper. That Focal was determined to do something about the situation became evident from discussions I'd had with both Joe D'Appolito and Kimon Bellas of Focal America. I was told of forthcoming factory improvements to the T90K, which was to be recycled with at least a couple of internal modifications.…
Finally, the Lesley Test (track 13) was reproduced with very good focus and timbral accuracy. Lesley's upper registers sounded a bit dry, but that's exactly how the CD compares to the master tape. Although the recording was made in a fairly dry acoustic (Stereophile's listening room, with additional Sonex panels around the mike position), the master tape possesses a much greater sense of immediacy and warmth by comparison with the CD.
The Micron was able to punch through the soundstage veiling that I find endemic to inexpensive loudspeakers, making the resolution of hall sound quite easy…