Friday and Saturday, March 8, 4–7pm, and March 9, 11am–4pm, Command Performance AV (115 Park Avenue, Suite 2, Falls Church, VA 22046) will host two Luxman events with special…
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Friday March 8 at 6pm, Audio Element (117 E. Union St, Pasadena, CA 91103) is presenting the next in their 2019 Monthly Music Series—Ae LIVE! Each event takes place at Audio Element and will showcase a local musician/band, Audio Element brand, and local food vendor. Friday's event will feature country blues guitar from Barry Big B Brenner and delicious BBQ from Gus's BBQ. Space is limited so be sure to RSVP.
Ask anyone in the street what they think of when they hear the word "loudspeaker" and odds are they'll describe a wooden box with moving-coil drivers sitting in its front. But ask a Stereophile reader and it's quite possible that he or she'll describe a large, flat panel reminiscent of a room divider: in our 1989 reader survey, the most widely represented brand of loudspeaker was Magnepan, with a significant lead over Infinity and Vandersteen, the second and third most common speaker brands. This represents considerable commercial success in a generally conservative marketplace for a company…
Nevertheless, with all the amplifiers I used, there was a delicious smoothness to the MG2.6's overall midrange presentation, a seamless quality in the transition region between the two drivers, that enabled individual instrumental textures to be easily differentiated. In JGH's recording of the Járnefelt Praeludium, again from the Stereophile Test CD, there is a passage after the bridge where oboe, clarinet, bassoon, clarinet again, flute, then French horn all toss around the same little rising fragment of tune. The MG2.6's lack of coloration allowed the differences between those…
Sidebar 1: Review System
Equipment used during the auditioning of the Maggies included Mark Levinson No.23.5, Audio Research Classic 60, and YBA 2 HC power amplifiers, hooked up to the speakers with 2m lengths of AudioQuest Dragon or YBA Diamond cable. The main preamplifier used was the French YBA 2, with the latest version of the Mod Squad's Line Drive Deluxe occasionally pressed into service, both feeding the power amplifier via 15' lengths of AudioQuest Lapis unbalanced interconnect.
Source components included a Linn Sondek/Lingo/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on an ArchiDee table…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Two-way floor-standing planar loudspeaker. Drive-units: 40"-long, ¼"-wide ribbon tweeter, "Magneplanar" midrange/woofer measuring approximately 58" by 10.5" (609in2 area). Crossover frequency: approximately 1kHz. Frequency response: 37Hz–40kHz ±3dB. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (3 ohms minimum). Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m. Recommended minimum amplifier power: 50W.
Dimensions: 71.5" H (including feet) by 22" W by 2" D. Weight: 50 lb.
Serial numbers of units tested: 124978-1 & -2.
Price: $1950/pair (1991); no longer available (2019).…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Fig.1 shows the MG2.6's electrical impedance magnitude (solid line) and phase (dashed line). With a value averaging 5 ohms in the bass and 3.5 ohms in the treble, with a rise in between due to the crossover, the speaker is a reasonably demanding load in terms of current draw, though the phase curve indicates it to be resistive—ie, not significantly departing from a 0° phase angle—over much of the audio band. The MG2.6s shouldn't give good tube amps any problems as long as they're driven from the 4 ohm output taps. The very slight wrinkles at 50 and 60Hz presumably…
Publisher's note: The following article, from the early days of Compact Disc, is presented with no claim for absoluteness. (In fact, just as we go to press in the spring of 1986, we received a manuscript from Philip Greenspun, Product Review Editor of Computer Music Journal (Cambridge, MA), who had precisely the opposite result when comparing CD to analog versions of the same recording, though it was unclear that his test procedures were as thorough as in the tests by these authors, footnote 1.) The tests described are neither single- nor double-blind, and the author's decision to forego…
The Music
We chose four selections that would allow us to examine different aspects of sound reproduction, and obtained identical material in three forms: Nakamichi cassettes recorded on TDK metal tape using Dolby-C and made from a composite master tape (footnote 4); original Sheffield direct-to-disc vinyl records; and compact discs produced from the same composite master tape used for the Nakamichi cassettes (footnote 5). We cleaned the records with a VPI-16 record cleaning machine, and immediately treated them with LAST record preservative. We also used Stylast on the cartridge during…
We chose four selections that would allow us to examine different aspects of sound reproduction, and obtained identical material in three forms: Nakamichi cassettes recorded on TDK metal tape using Dolby-C and made from a composite master tape (footnote 4); original Sheffield direct-to-disc vinyl records; and compact discs produced from the same composite master tape used for the Nakamichi cassettes (footnote 5). We cleaned the records with a VPI-16 record cleaning machine, and immediately treated them with LAST record preservative. We also used Stylast on the cartridge during…
Amanda McBroom, "Gossamer": This selection's direct-to-disc recording session used a digital recorder as a safety backup. This was the only selection in our comparisons that was truly digital from recording to playback media. We included it in an attempt to quantitatively compare differences between CDs made from original analog or digital master tapes with their D-to-D counterparts. The CD version of "Gossamer" definitely contained more high-frequency information and overall clarity than the record. The piano accompaniment, in particular, sounded more "alive." The CD also conveyed more…
Given its engrossing, frequently radiant score, unflinching look at its timely subject matter, and superb cast of singing actors, Pentatone's live hi-rez recording of the premiere of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, fully deserves the Grammy recently bestowed upon it by the Recording Academy.
I auditioned the recording after first enthusiastically reviewing the 2017 Santa Fe Opera world premiere, then cheered the differently cast 2019 Seattle Opera production (whose second cast is completing its run as this review appears on-line). I have no question…