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Description: Solid-state integrated amplifier. Power output: 50Wpc into 8 ohms (17dBW). Total harmonic distortion: 0.01%, 20Hz–10kHz. Frequency response: 3Hz–26kHz, –1dB. Power amplifier rise time: 30V/µs. Input sensitivity: 350mV line-level. Input sensitivity on MM phono: 2.5mV. Input impedance on MM phono: 47k ohms. S/N ratio: –105dB. Channel separation: –90dB at 1kHz.
Dimensions: 16.5" W by 9" D by 2.4" H. Weight: 11 lbs.
Price: $600 plus $50 for moving-magnet board, $95 for moving-coil board (basic 4240 costs $595), 1995; no longer available (2013).…

For most of my Special Edition Creek listening I used a core system consisting of a Thorens TD160/SME 3009 III/Grado Signature 8MZ analog front end, CAL Icon II CD player, MIT Terminator 2 interconnects, and Acarian Systems Alón Petite loudspeakers driven by bi-wired Acarian Systems Black Orpheus speaker cable. Alternatively, the Alóns were replaced with Celestion 5 and NHT 1.3 speakers connected with MIT Terminator 2 speaker wire. All speakers stood on Celestion Si stands generously loaded with sand and lead shot. The following comments apply equally to the CD and…

I'm consumed by a passion for music that began at the age of three, when I became tall enough to reach the coin slot in the jukebox of my cousin's bar to play Lloyd Price's "Personality." My record-purchasing career began in 1958 when my godfather, touched by my performance as a crow in the kindergarten Christmas play, offered to buy me any gift I desired. My response: "Santo and Johnny's first album...the one with 'Sleep Walk' on it."

As for musical background, I'd describe myself as a "classically trained amateur new music composer and jazz…

Unless otherwise noted, all of the measurements on the Creek 4240 were taken from the CD line-level input to the loudspeaker outputs, with the volume control at maximum.

The Creek 4240 was hot following its one-hour, 1/3-power preconditioning test, but continued to function normally. The Creek's input impedance into its CD input measured 46.9k ohms, with insignificant variations at lower settings of the volume control. Maximum voltage gain into 8 ohms measured a high 35.7dB, and left/right volume control tracking was good, remaining within 0.1dB at all…

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Steve Guttenberg's "As We See It" in the September 2013 issue brings to mind John Philip Sousa's famous 1906 polemic, "The Menace of Mechanical Music," where the famed composer championed copyright reforms to shut down then-new recorded music industry. (Now in the public domain, and thus freely available through Google Books.) One of Sousa's main concerns was that the player piano (and recording technology in general) would destroy the culture of amateur musicianship that thrived in America in the 19th century. So it is particularly ironic to hear…