Everything? After a quarter century of measuring the performance of audio components for this magazine, I'm not so sure that we have a firm handle on what makes audio products sound different from one another. Even when it comes to measuring loudspeakers, it can be difficult to characterize their performance in an objective manner. For a case in point, see my review of…
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A comment by "cgh" in an online reprint of a Stereophile review caught my attention: "The [1990s] were probably the last real decade that we could reasonably bend the truth. Everything since is verifiable electronically."
As an audiophile, I've come to associate the size, weight, and price of a subwoofer as quick'n'dirty indicators of its quality. The subwoofers that have worked best in my large listening room—the Velodyne ULD-18 and DD-18+, Muse Model 18, REL Studio III, JL Audio Fathom f113, and Revel Sub30—each weigh more than 130 lbs and cost more than $2500. With some of my reference recordings, all of them have achieved what Robert Harley described in the April 1991 issue of Stereophile as the goals of a quality subwoofer: "seamless integration, quickness, no bloat, and unbelievable bass extension." Yet…
Sidebar: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.9.3, iTunes 11, Pure Music 2.0, Audirvana Plus 1.5.10; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processor; dCS Vivaldi upsampling D/A system.
Preamplification: Ayre Acoustics KX-R Twenty line preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Coffee, Belkin Gold USB, Kubala-Sosna Elation! AES/EBU, Transparent USB (with dCS Vivaldi). FireWire: AudioQuest FireWire 400 (prototype). Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild…
For final tuning, I played Stevie Nicks's smoky rendition of "Silver Springs," from Fleetwood Mac's The Dance (CD, Reprise 46702-2). Surprisingly, her voice was thicker, with a chestier timbre, than when played through the Quads alone. Resetting the crossover-filter corner frequencies to 40Hz didn't help.
I turned to SVS's Merlin. When the setup advisor asked for my satellite speakers, I typed in "Quad ESL-989." It recommended running the Quads full range and setting the SB13-Ultra's low-pass corner frequency to 40Hz, 24dB/octave.
Voilà! Nicks's voice lost the coloration, and…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Front-firing, sealed-box, powered subwoofer. Drive-unit: 13.5" Rohacell composite cone with 3", bifilar-wound aluminum voice-coil and underhung motor structure. Inputs: balanced (XLR) and unbalanced (RCA) for two channels, trigger. Outputs: balanced (XLR) for each channel to additional subwoofer. Controls: input level (High/Low); Power; Integrated Function Controller (IFC) knob with 2-line display to control volume level, high- and low-pass filter (Enable, Slope, Frequency), phase, high-pass delay (milliseconds), room gain compensation (Enable, 40,…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Linn Sondek turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ittok tonearm; Spectral MC cartridge; Day-Sequerra 25 Year Reference FM tuner.
Digital Sources: Bryston BCD-1 CD player & BDP-2 media player & BDA-1 DAC.
Preamplifier: Bryston BP-26.
Power Amplifiers: Theta Digital Prometheus monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-989; JL Audio Fathom f113, Velodyne DD-18+, B&W DB1, Revel Rhythm2 subwoofers.
Cables: Digital: WireWorld Starlight Coaxial. Interconnect: Mark Levinson Silver, Red Rose Silver One, Totem Acoustic Sinew…
On Monday January 5, Naxos rings in the New Year with the worldwide launch of their ClassicsOnline HDLLclassical music streaming and download site. ClassicsOnline HDLL streams music in both "high-definition"—Naxos' term for high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/192kHz sampling rate—and full CD quality (lossless, or, in Naxos' lingo, LL). The site also sells high-def, lossless, and MP3 downloads in FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, and 320kbps MP3 formats.
Naxos claims that its service, which costs $14.99/month, is the first in the US to use "adaptive bitrate streaming technology." They further…
It's cold in New York City, but don't expect that to keep jazz fans from dashing through the streets of Greenwich Village this weekend, darting in out of various clubs and theaters, to see a dozen or more topflight musicians playing in the 2015 Winter Jazzfest.
An annual event now for 11 years, Winter Jazzfest has evolved into a more-than-worthy successor to the festival sponsored in the 1990s by the now-defunct TriBeCa club called the Knitting Factory as a downtown-laced alternative to the staid morass into which the uptown Kool Jazz Festival had degenerated at the time.
This…
Almost everyone has their own unique lens through which to view the alternate reality which some call "Lost Vegas." Without wishing to put my own prejudicial stamp on the site of the annual Consumer Electronics Show—would I ever?—I instead offer you this view from the 16th floor of the Mirage Hotel, across the Strip from the Venetian Resort, where the high-end audio exhibits are housed. You tell me what's going down, and where the true mirage lies.
For our part, Jon Iverson is poised to cover new products digital, Herb Reichert "affordable" products in all categories (go easy on us, boys…
Bridging the gap between your network players or NAS drives and your DAC, the new Bel Canto REF Stream plugs into your ethernet network, appearing as a node with IP, and then outputs SPDIF, AES or Toslink. Company president Michael McCormick says it can accept both DSD or PCM streams and outputs the PCM at the native sample rate, but converts DSD to 24/176 PCM.
McCormick was demonstrating the REF Stream using JRiver Media Center software on his phone and tablet. Price will be $2,495 and is available now. McCormick adds that "it takes patience to set up a networked audio system, but it's…