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Even as the gulf narrows between the sounds of the best solid-state and the best tubed amplifiers, most listeners remain staunch members of one or the other camp. Similarly, when it comes to video displays, the plasma and liquid-crystal technologies each has its partisans, though that conflict's intensity is relatively mild, perhaps because video performance, unlike audio, is based on a mastering standard that establishes color temperature, gray-scale tracking, color points, and the like (I'm deeply in the plasma camp). But in audio, the "standard" is whatever monitoring loudspeaker and sonic…
The album I always played for visitors was a spectacular reissue of Aaron Neville's 1991 breakout solo album, Warm Your Heart (2 45rpm LPs, A&M/ORG 141), coproduced by Linda Ronstadt and George Massenburg. The reaction to "Everybody Plays the Fool," even from hardened audiophiles, was always visceral and accompanied by "Oh wow!"s as the amps produced a soundstage limitless in width and depth, on which three-dimensional instruments, both acoustical and synthetic, appeared out of pitch blackness. Neville's voice—vividly drawn, free of artifacts, and 3D—hovered in space well in front of the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Tubed monoblock power amplifier (ML3) with outboard power supply (ML3-PS). Tube complement: one 12AX7, four 6N30P-DR, one GM-70 (ML3); six 12AX3 (ML3-PS). Output power: 32W into 4, 8, or 16 ohms at 3% THD (32dBW). Frequency response at 30W into 16 ohms: 20Hz–20kHz, +0, –1.5dB. Input impedance: 41k ohms. Input sensitivity: 850mV for maximum output. Slew rate (61.96V peak–peak): 5V/µs. Signal/noise ratio, ref. 4V RMS into 16 ohms: typically 92dB, A-weighted.
Dimensions: ML3 and MLS-PS (each): 15.8" (406mm) W by 8.2" (210mm) H by 20.2" (518mm) D.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn, Cobra, & Castellon turntable, tonearm, & stand; Kuzma 4Point tonearm; Lyra Atlas & Titan i, Ortofon Anna, Miyajima Labs Focus mono cartridges.
Digital Sources: Simaudio Moon Evolution 650D DAC/CD transport; dCS Vivaldi DAC, transport, clock, upsampler; BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder; Meridian Digital Media System; Pure Music software running on a Macintosh computer.
Preamplifier: darTZeel NHB-18ns.
Power Amplifiers: darTZeel NHB-458 monoblocks.
Loudspeakers:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Before performing any measurements, I ran one of the Lamm ML3 Signature amplifiers (serial no. G10029) for an hour at 1W into 8 ohms from its 4 ohm tap. At the end of that period, I muted the input signal and checked the plate current of the GM70 output tube using the two test points on the top panel and Lamm's recommended Fluke 87 multimeter. The wall voltage was 119.3V; the test-point reading was 1.172V DC, which is out of the recommended range of 1.078–1.122V. Using the multi-turn potentiometer that's visible through a circular cutout in the top panel, I…
The worlds of creating and selling music have never been in such a dramatic state of change. While the CD declines, the LP is resurrected. As piracy charges along undiminished, downloads continue to increase in sales. And then there’s streaming….
As we learned at a press conference this week, Sony, Universal, and Warner Music, the last three major labels, have now banded together to launch a push for consumers to purchase High Resolution Audio downloads. They say that the Consumer Electronics Association [CEA] has survey results that prove that 90% of music consumers want better sound…
Register to win a VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine from Soundstage Direct (MSRP $649.99) we are giving away.
According to the company:
The HW-16.5 is the standard in affordable record cleaning machines but neither its build quality nor its cleaning power has been compromised. Its high-torque, 18 RPM turntable motor is more than capable of withstanding the pressure of heavy scrubbing during extended cleaning sessions, and its 35-second cleaning cycle per side makes quick work of even the dirtiest records. Now with self aligning vacuum suction tubes for even more accurate…
Volcano Choir’s sophomore record, Repave, was released by Jagjaguwar on September 3rd. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver returns as lead vocalist.
I was disappointed by the band’s 2009 debut, Unmap, which felt more like a Bon Iver side project, made of fragments and sketches that promised greatness—and had some great moments—but rarely delivered the kind of focused and resolved songs that I had hope for. I liked Unmap, but I wanted to love it—and I didn’t.
Repave, though, is something different. If Unmap was the sound of a band finding its way, Repave is a band…
Photo: Dolby Laboratories
We are saddened to learn of the passing of inventor and audio entrepreneur Ray Dolby. Other sites have published full obituaries; I'd like simply to offer my memory of interviewing Ray back in the spring of 1977 for the English magazine Hi-Fi News, when Dolby Laboratories were trying to get the BBC interested in using Dolby noise reduction in FM broadcasting. Despite my being a neophyte audio writer, I was treated with courtesy and respect by a man who had forgotten more about audio engineering than I knew.
It was Ray Dolby's invention of Dolby-A noise…
Julianna Barwick has released a live video for “The Harbinger,” from her new album, Nepenthe.
Curiously, the album version always—always—reminds me of the opening chorus to The Rolling Stones’ 1969 hit, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Here, though, whatever hint of triumphant rock’n’roll that may exist in “The Harbinger” is replaced by the impressionistic strokes of cold, windblown colors and sheer textures. We hear the crunch of gravel beneath footsteps, the lapping of waves, sniffles, the chimes of an iPhone—all of these elements are captured, looped, and…