If one accepts that, just like careful speaker positioning and acoustic treatments, room equalization exists…
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Stereophile seldom reviews A/V receivers. We made an exception for Arcam's FMJ SR250 ($3600) because it's that unusual two-channel device: one that includes room-correction software, in this case Dirac Live. Many of us who listen in multichannel are comfortable with room correction, but a week doesn't pass without my hearing or reading someone say that they bypass room correction when listening to music in stereo. Spock-like, I find that illogical and, from experience, pointless.
Taking over in Connecticut
The Arcam FMJ SR250 served as the hub of my New England system, replacing my Marantz AV8802a preamplifier-processor and Bryston 9BST power amp, and fed source signals via HDMI, analog, Ethernet, and S/PDIF. The speaker terminals were cabled to my Monitor Silver 8s, and the two subwoofer outputs to my pair of JL Audio E-Sub e110 subs. A HDMI TV monitor is required for initial setup of the SR250 and Dirac Live, but not for daily use—the SR250's front-panel display is clear and communicative. Setup was relatively easy.
The Arcam FMJ SR250 served as the hub of my New England system, replacing my Marantz AV8802a preamplifier-processor and Bryston 9BST power amp, and fed source signals via HDMI, analog, Ethernet, and S/PDIF. The speaker terminals were cabled to my Monitor Silver 8s, and the two subwoofer outputs to my pair of JL Audio E-Sub e110 subs. A HDMI TV monitor is required for initial setup of the SR250 and Dirac Live, but not for daily use—the SR250's front-panel display is clear and communicative. Setup was relatively easy.
Arcam's remote control is illuminated and…
Sidebar 1: A Fly in the Ointment?
I decided to use the same music files to compare the sound of the Arcam FMJ SR250 with Dirac Live room correction to the Dirac Live filtering in my server. It was a fair fight, as long as I set the server to downsample to 24/96 and used the same target curves for both implementations. In this face-off, the Dirac Suite on my server seemed marginally but consistently more successful than did the Arcam implementation. Yeah, the microphone positions couldn't possibly have been exactly the same, but the purpose of the multiple positions is to create a…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Solid-state, class-G integrated audio-visual receiver with FM/DAB tuner, analog & digital inputs, Dirac Live room correction. Analog audio inputs: 6 unbalanced (RCA), 1 auxiliary (3.5mm). Digital audio inputs: 7 HDMI, 4 S/PDIF (RCA), 2 S/PDIF (TosLink), USB, Ethernet (RJ-45). Preamplifier outputs: 2.1-channel unbalanced Left/Right/SW1/SW2, Zone 2 Left/Right (RCA). Communication: Ethernet RJ-45 control interface; Spotify, vTuner enabled. Digital input sample rates: USB & Ethernet, 24-bit/48kHz; HDMI & S/PDIF, up to 24/192. DACs: Cirrus…
Sidebar 3: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Oppo BDP-103 universal BD player, Apple Mac mini running BootCamp, Windows 7, JRiver Music.
Preamplifier: Marantz AV8802a.
Power Amplifiers: Bryston 9BST, Classé Sigma Mono (2).
Loudspeakers: Bowers & Wilkins 802 D3, Monitor Audio Silver 8, JL Audio E-Sub e110 subwoofers (2).
Cables: Interconnect: AudioQuest Vodka (HDMI), Kubala-Sosna Anticipation (RCA) & Fascination (XLR). Speaker: Kubala-Sosna Anticipation & Fascination. AC: Kubala-Sosna Emotion.
Accessory: BrickWall 8RAUD power conditioner.—Kalman…
Sidebar 4: Measurements
I measured the Arcam FMJ SR250 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 "As We See It"). Before performing any tests, I ran it at 40Wpc into 8 ohms for an hour. At the end of that time, the louvers on the top panel were warm, at 110.6°F (43.7°C).
Looking first at the Arcam as a conventional integrated amplifier, I performed all the measurements in Stereo Direct mode, which bypasses the digitization and DSP effects. With the volume control set to "99," the maximum gain at the loudspeaker terminals was 43.8dB. At the headphone outputs, the…
At the opening ceremony (left–right): Chip Moore (Executive Vice President Programming, LAOCAS), David Robinson (PFO), John Atkinson, and Marine Presson (LAAS).
Attendees were already moving from exhibit to exhibit on the first five floors of the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Friday morning when the opening ribbon-cutting ceremony began to take form. First slowly appeared a red barrier, then a blue Mylar ribbon, and finally an oversize pair of scissors. By the time the official opening began, at something like 10:25, the show was well underway.
Joining Bob Levi of the Los Angeles…
As the second wave of registrants stood in multiple lines in the lobby of the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles on the morning of Friday, June 2, the Los Angeles Audio Show was already off to a promising start. And what a promise it was. The night before show's open, when I encountered the force behind LAAS, Bob Levi of the Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society, in a hotel elevator, he told me that pre-registration had already topped 7500 people. That number, it seems, has set new records for attendance at an audio show in Southern California. It also undoubtedly sets a pre-registration…
Industry veterans EveAnna Manley (left) and Mary Cardas (right) were in a particularly ebullient mood when I encountered them in the second-floor hallway. "We just got mansplained," laughed EveAnna. "Whatever you do, man, don't mansplain us," she continued, as the two women recounted the tale of entering an exhibit incognito—they were judges for the "Alfies," the LAAS awards—and discovering some salesman talking down to them.
"This guy did not know who we are. As in we have almost 60 years of audio geek experience between us," she continued. "We were trying so hard to not burst out…
Approaching the Los Angeles Audio Show, two curious things happened: 1) I left my beloved Fisher 800-C in the good hands of Blackie Pagano: New York based vintage hi-fi repairman, a couple weeks prior. It was in desperate need of inspection. And, 2) I received an impromptu ear cleaning from local audiologist Ann Mundell-Noel just two days prior, whilst embarking on my first custom in-ear journey at Ultimate Ears' factory in Irvine. The amount of earwax my ears produce is simply remarkable at times.
To reference the phrase, "don't shop on an empty stomach", my ears were starved wild beasts…