Analog Sources: Turntables & record players: AMG Giro G9, Linn Sondek LP12 Valhalla (with SME M2-9 tonearm), Pioneer PLX-1000. Cartridges: AMG Teatro; Denon DL-102, Zu Denon DL-103; EMT TSD 75 SFL; Etsuro Urushi Cobalt Blue; SL, SL Mono; Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum; My Sonic Lab Eminent Ex; Shure SC35C.
Digital Sources: HoloAudio Spring "Kitsuné Tuned Edition" Level 3, Schiit Audio Yggdrasil Analog 2 DACs; JVC XL-Z1010 CD player (used as transport).
Preamplification: Bob's Devices CineMag 1131, Dynavector SUP-200, Emia Phono, My Sonic…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Legacy Studio HD's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield responses. My estimate of the Studio HD's voltage sensitivity was 85.6dB/2.83V/m, slightly below the specified 86.5dB/2.83V/m.
The Legacy is specified as a 6 ohm load; with both its rear-panel toggle switches in the upward position, its impedance dropped below 6 ohms in the midbass and mid-treble, with a minimum magnitude of 2.64 ohms at 81Hz, and a demanding combination of 5…
Manufacturer's Comments
Editor: Thanks to Herb Reichert and John Atkinson for the thorough write-up of the Studio HD. It is stimulating to see measurements in a review once again. Stereophile's online archives provide a great service to the audiophile largely owing to your consistent measurements over the years.
Stereophile's measurements of the Studio HD rang a familiar bell for me. Recalling remarkably similar frequency-response contours and spectral-decay plots from the various versions of the longstanding www.stereophile.com/content/bbc-ls35a-loudspeaker-stirling-measurements…
Friday October 5, at 6pm, to coincide with the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Soundings Fine Audio Video (8101 East Belleview Avenue, Suite X-1, Denver, CO 80237), a few blocks away from the Denver Tech Center Marriott, is having an open house. Rich Maez from Boulder Amplifiers, Terry Medalen, Jon Derda, and Norbert Schmied from MoFi (Primare, Isotek, and Dr. Feickert), and Bob Graham from Graham Engineering and TechDas will be on hand to answer questions throughout the evening. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be supplied by Great Northern.
Quality Audio Video (14697 E Easter Avenue, Suite A, Centennial, CO 80112) is presenting an evening with legendary audio engineer John Curl on Saturday night, October 6 at 7pm.
John Curl is one of the most-respected circuit designers of all time and, since 1989, the creative genius behind Parasound's high-end audio amplifiers and preamplifiers. Since the mid 1970s, Curl has left a trail of landmark hardware across the industry . . . the classic Mark Levinson JC-2, the SOTA head amplifier, and his own Vendetta preamplifier.
Topics of conversation may include: Curl's involvement…
I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was to finally get a hold of the 24/96 files for There's a Place for Us, soprano Nadine Sierra's debut album on Deutsche Grammophon/Decca Gold. Just three years after Sierra won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2009, at the age of 20, she journeyed to San Francisco where I heard her, first, in San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program, then as an Adler Fellow, and finally a star on the main stage of the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. I was immediately taken by the beauty of her voice and her total ease onstage. Serious one…
Trio Flauto Dolce: Music at the Court of King Henry VII
Jacobean Fantasias; Kleine Geistliche Konzerte (Schutz): Elizabethan Ayres; Sonata in e (Boismortier); Domine, Dominus Noster (Campra).
Martha Bixler (recorders), Eric Leber (recorders, harpsichord), Morris Newman (recorders, bassoon), Robert White (tenor).
Posthorn Recordings (footnote) TFD-1 (LP). Jerry Bruck, eng.
Jacobean Fantasias; Kleine Geistliche Konzerte (Schutz): Elizabethan Ayres; Sonata in e (Boismortier); Domine, Dominus Noster (Campra).
Martha Bixler (recorders), Eric Leber (recorders, harpsichord), Morris Newman (recorders, bassoon), Robert White (tenor).
Posthorn Recordings (footnote) TFD-1 (LP). Jerry Bruck, eng.
This is another disc that was submitted for review on the basis of our bitter complaints in the August 1964 issue about unmusical gimmickry in commercial recordings. Like the Phoenix disc reviewed elsewhere…
The most notable aspect of Benchmark Media Systems' DAC3 HGC ($2195), which I favorably reviewed in the November 2017 Stereophile (footnote 1), is its low noise floor. John Atkinson's measurements corroborated Benchmark's claim that the DAC3 is capable of "at least" 21-bit performance. While significantly less than the theoretical potential of a 24-bit data format, 21 bits is still the state of the art, and corresponds to a dynamic range—the ratio of the highest achievable digital-domain volume to the DAC's internal noise—of 128dB. That's well above the dynamic range that most power…
Isn't that a problem for the design goals of an amplifier like the Benchmark AHB2? Can such excellent noise and distortion performance be realized in the real world, including my Manhattan apartment? I'll have more to say about noise and distortion later. For now, let's just listen.
A Distortion of Love
In reviewing the Benchmark AHB2, Kal Rubinson played Gerald Finzi's song "Come away, death" (the text is from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night), from the album of that title by mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland and pianist Sergej Osadchuk. I own that recording, too, in several versions…
Sidebar: Resolution and Dynamic Range
When you add more bits to a digital format, you add more potential volume levels. A 16-bit system has 65,536 unique levels; a 24-bit system increases that 256 times, to 16,777,216 levels. It seems reasonable, then, to use the word resolution to describe what you gain when you add more bits.
Apparently, though, it isn't. Benchmark's John Siau told me in an e-mail exchange that if a digital system is properly dithered, those discrete levels don't really exist—and on further thought, it makes sense. "If the digital audio is TPDF dithered"—TPDF…