Hors d'oeuvres and refreshments will be served. Space is limited so RSVP early. You can register by sending an email to info@davidmichaelaudio.com.
search
Friday, December 11, 5pm–9pm, David Michael Audio (4341 Delemere Court, Royal Oak, MI 48073) will host an event showcasing and demonstrating the Naim Statement amplification components. Confirmed presenters will include Emmanuel Le Quéré and Francois Cauchon of Naim distributor AudioPlus Services.
"I'm still in shock," Reference Recordings recording engineer Sean Martin blurted out during a conference call with his recording engineer stepfather, Keith O. Johnson. "When Jan Mancuso woke me up at 5:30 or 6 to tell me the news, I couldn't imagine who would be calling so early," was Johnson's follow up.
Reference Recordings and Johnson have been nominated multiple times for Grammys over the years. ("I hate to say how many times I've been nominated for the Engineering Award," quips Johnson, "although I only won it once, in 2010, for Best Engineered Surround Sound on Britten's Young…
Register to win a pair of Aiaiai Studio Modular Headphone Preset headphones ($225.00 Retail Value) we are giving away.
According to the company:
AIAIAI is an audio design company dedicated to developing high quality audio products for everyday use. AIAIAI’s modern, minimalist headphones and earphones deliver clear, amplified sound.
Headquartered in Copenhagen, AIAIAI is proud to contribute to Denmark’s worldwide reputation as leader in acoustic and electro-acoustic design and engineering. Informed by a heritage of Scandinavian design, AIAIAI strives to create high…
Thursday, December 10, from 5–10pm New York retailer In Living Stereo (2 Great Jones Street, New York City) is having a “Dynaudio Night.” Mike Manousselis from Dynaudio will be demonstrating some new Dynaudio speakers and answering questions. We will have the Confidence C1 platinum and the Contour 1.4 LE loudspeakers (above) on demonstration. We will also have Dynaudio’s new Xeo 2 wireless loudspeakers playing in the lobby. Snacks and beverages will be served.
It's easy for reviewers to become jaded by the high prices of some audio products. We get the products in our listening rooms—albeit temporarily—without having to part with our own money. Consequently, we get enthusiastic about products that offer real breakthroughs without, perhaps, fully considering their cost.
Reviewers should consciously try to avoid this tendency. Although we should report on cost-no-object components, the bulk of our readers want high musical performance at an affordable price. That's why I get most excited about reviewing sensibly priced components that offer sonic…
This is an electrostatic column speaker, 6' tall and costing $6000/pair. An integral, fan-cooled amplifier is located in the base (footnote 1). The 2SW is said to cover almost the entire frequency range and is based on a patent, number 3,668,335, issued to manufacturer/designer Harold Beveridge on June 6, 1972. Internal acoustic lenses in front of the electrostatic panels widen the speaker's dispersion: In the Beveridge literature, it says "This 6-foot high device consolidated the entire frequency range into a vertical line source, and uniformly disperses it over a horizontal pattern, 180…
Sidebar 1: Review System
I auditioned the Lambda driving PS Audio's new Reference Link digital processor and "preamp" (see review elsewhere in this issue), a Mark Levinson No.30 Reference Digital Processor, and the Meitner IDAT. Digital interconnects included an AudioQuest Optical Pro II glass fiber, and Aural Symphonics and WonderLink coaxial types. My review sample was fitted with ST-type glass fiber, but not with AES/EBU output.
An Audio Research LS2B line-stage drove VTL 225W monoblocks via a 20' run of AudioQuest Lapis. Alternately, the power amplifier was a Mark Levinson No.…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Electrostatic line-source loudspeaker with integral tube amplifier. Drive-units: three 24"-high transducers, and three 24"-high lenses per speaker. Frequency response: 40Hz–15kHz ±2dB over 180°. Lowest useable output: 35Hz. Maximum spl in-room circa 110dB.
Dimensions: 78" H by 24" W wide by 16" D.
Price: $6000/pair (1978), $7000/pair (1979).
Manufacturer: Harold Beveridge Inc., Santa Barbara, CA 93103 (1978). Web: bevaudio.com.
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The four transports held in highest sonic regard (the Mark Levinson No.31, the C.E.C. TL 1, the PS Audio Lambda, and the Proceed PDT 3) all had low jitter. I thought the PS Audio Lambda was slightly better-sounding than the PDT 3——and the Lambda had slightly lower jitter.
Fig.1 is the PS Audio Lambda's jitter spectrum with digital silence (track 4 on the CBS Test CD), the heavy dotted trace is the jitter spectrum when the transport is transmitting a –90dB, 1kHz sinewave, and the lightest (top) trace is made with a 1kHz, 0dB sinewave. The RMS jitter level…
RH compared the Lambda with the Theta Data Basic in March 1994 (Vol.17 No.3):
A natural point of comparison for the Theta Data Basic was the similarly priced PS Audio Lambda transport. The auditioning was restricted to coaxial and AES/EBU.
I wondered just how similar—or different—the Data Basic would sound compared with the nearly identical Lambda. In my review of the Lambda last October, I concluded that it offered terrific performance for the money. From the listening, it was clear that the Lambda and Data Basic resembled each other in their musical presentations yet were…