Sidebar 3: Measurements
To precondition an amplifier before testing, I run it at one-third power into 8 ohms for an hour, which thermally stresses an amplifier with a class-B output stage to the maximum extent. While the Yamaha's top panel was faintly warm to the touch after this period, the efficiency of its class-D output circuitry means that very little power was being wasted as heat.
Measuring the Yamaha MX-D1 was complicated by the fact that, even with an internal low-pass filter between each output stage and the speaker terminals, there will be a relatively high level of…
Our long-awaited laser-audio disc player (usually called the CD, for "Compact Disc") finally arrived, along with a real bonanza of software: two discs—a Polygram classical sampler of material from Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips, and a Japanese CBS recording of Bruckner's 4th Symphony, with Kubelik. The player is not the same one we saw in Chicago last summer. That unit was deep and had a square front, played the disc on edge, parallel to the front, and had a minimum of controls. This one is lower and wider, has a horizontal drawer that slides out to accept the disc, and has much…
When Sony first announced their upcoming CD several years ago, they were talking about a price of around $600. A couple of years later the anticipated price had escalated to $800 (for a basic CD player, without remote). The remote-controlled model which we received will sell for $1000 when it starts appearing in stores in March '83. This is a staggering cost for your John Q Public type record buyer, but a modest outlay for any audiophile accustomed to the idea of shelling out $1000 for a cartridge to put in a $1000 arm on a $1000 turntable and feed to a $1000 preamp. (The CD player's output…
Through the high-level inputs of the Conrad-Johnson PV-3 preamplifier (reviewed elsewhere in this issue), the sound was so opulently gorgeous it almost defied belief! It was a total incarnation of the perfectionist's wildest dreams: rich, velvety, airy, awesome, liquid, yet incredibly detailed. There were none of the analog disc's problems. No marginal mistracking, no subtle VTA-error distortions, no disc-resonance smearing, no feedback-induced low-end boom or mud, no ticks or pops or pressing grumbles even at the highest listening levels. And there was no analog-tape flutter or modulation…
As a footnote, I should add that, audiophile or otherwise, every serious music listener who heard this system fell instantly in love with the sound of it, even with the dubious program material supplied. Our Margaret Graham has declared her intention to buy one as soon as they become available, and will thus probably be one of the first reviewers in the country to be covering new CD releases from a perfectionist's viewpoint. (And I'll bet an impacted wisdom tooth that Bert Whyte will be another.) I will probably get one too, partly because I feel it can serve as a frame of reference for many…
Sidebar 1: Specifications Description: Horizontal front-loading CD player. No performance specification savailable.
Dimensions: 14" W by 12" D by 4" H.
Projected price: under $1000, including Remote Control Module.
Manufacturer: Sony of America, 1 Sony Drive, Park Ridge, NJ 07656.
A Follow-Up review appeared in August 1983, Vol.6 No.3 The five classical CDs I received [with a second sample of the Sony CDP-1O1 CD player] included a Decca, a Sony/CBS, and three Deutsche-Grammophons. The DGs sounded consistently rough and slightly veiled, rather like what I heard from the sampler disc supplied with our first player unit. The CBS, despite different mixing balances and perspectives, was remarkably similar to the DGs, suggesting that all four may have been mastered with the same digital system (probably the Sony PCM-1600). Sonically, the Decca was worth all the others…
J. Gordon Holt's comments on the first CDs also appeared in August 1983, Vol.6 No.3 We have now received our first shipment of Compact Discs for review, and have gotten commitments from CD producers to supply us with future releases. So, beginning with this issue, our usual reviews of conventional analog stereo discs will be supplemented by coverage of every CD we can lay our hands on...
I am delighted to report that I am finally able to listen to CBS recordings without getting a head ache or cringing at the shrill, steely high end. They have finally become reviewable again.…
A letter in response to Gordon's advocacy of CD appeared in October 1983, Vol.6 No.4 The Ugly Digital
I suggest you learn to hear the ugly quality added to winds, brasses, and strings solo or concerted in all audio signal passed through the A/D D/A process. Don't be beguiled by the lack of noise and the lower wow/flutter. Music is made ugly by the process, in my hearing experience.—Don Siveserid
We find it truly fascinating that digital sound has no middle ground. Those who like it believe, on the basis of their hearing experience, that it is the most accurate recording…
J. Gordon Holt then offered the following controversial thoughts in response to an article (linked here) from Doug Sax of Sheffield Labs and The Mastering Lab in December 1983, Vol.6 No.5: Run Right Out
I have never before done this, but I am going to recommend a product to all of our readers who can afford it. I am referring to the Compact Disc player.
One of the few things that our entire staff has ever agreed about is that the sound obtainable from digital audio can be better than the best that available from analog sources, particularly home analog sources. (Larry…
