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Recording of October 2021: <I>Kimbrough</I>

Various Artists: Kimbrough
Fred Hersch, Helen Sung, Craig Taborn, Dan Tepfer, Gary Versace, piano; Ben Allison, Jay Anderson, Rufus Reid, bass; Steve Cardenas, Ben Monder, guitar; Ted Nash, Joe Lovano, Danny McCaslin, Scott Robinson, Alexa Tarantino, Immanuel Wilkins, reeds; Dave Douglas, Kirk Knuffke, trumpets; Ryan Keberle, trombone; Olivia Chindamo, vocals; Billy Drummond, Clarence Penn, Matt Wilson, drums; 44 others.
Newvelle/Bandcamp. Elan Mehler, prod.; Marc Urselli, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

Frank Kimbrough was one of the most beloved figures in jazz and…

KLH Model Five loudspeaker

In May of 2019, I heard about a promising jazz vinyl and hi-fi estate sale happening on New York's Upper East Side. Little did I know then what treasures the dig would yield.

Jazz Record Center's Fred Cohen had called from the UES apartment, the former residence of late CBS Records and Sony Entertainment mastering engineer Harry N. Fein. Fred said, "The records are kind of beat, but the apartment is jammed with tape decks, turntables, cartridges, tubes, midcentury modern furniture—get up here."

I called NYC turntable technician Mike Trei, who's always up for a dig. Upon picking…

KLH Model Five loudspeaker Page 2

Geist believes that today's often bass-dense music formats are better reproduced with acoustic suspension speakers. "Today, recordings are ... not restricted below 50Hz," he proffered. "Bass-reflex designs really struggle with anything below the tuning frequency of the port. Their output falls off a cliff, and the system becomes unstable. The acoustic suspension design ... [relies] on the air spring the sealed enclosure provides. This air spring is never compromised, so the system output is more stable throughout the low-frequency spectrum."

Listening
In my system, an 8' pair of…

KLH Model Five loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Three-way, acoustic suspension, standmount loudspeaker with three-position Mid-HF attenuation switch and included metal-frame slant-riser base. Driver complement: 1" aluminum-dome tweeter; 4" pulp-paper cone midrange driver; 10" pulp-paper cone woofer. Crossover frequencies: 380Hz and 2850Hz (both 2nd-order). Frequency response: 42Hz–20kHz ±3dB. Low-frequency extension: –10dB at 32Hz. In-room sensitivity: 90.5dB/2.83V/m. Free-field sensitivity: 87.5dB/2.83V/m. Power handling: 200W, 800W peak. Recommended amplification: 20–200W. In-room maximum SPL:…

KLH Model Five loudspeaker Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog sources: Kuzma Stabi R turntable with 4Point tonearm, Denon DL-103 phono cartridge.
Preamplification: Tavish Audio Design Adagio phono.
Integrated amplifiers: Ayre EX-8 2.0, Parasound Hint 6 Halo, Schiit Audio Ragnarok 2.
Power amplifiers: LKV Research Veros PWR+.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity O/96, Spendor BC1.
Cables: Interconnect: Shindo Laboratory, Triode Laboratory Spirit II. Speaker: 8' pair AudioQuest Robin Hood. Digital: AudioQuest Forest USB. AC: Triode Wire Labs Obsession NCF, manufacturers' own.
Accessories: Pro-…

KLH Model Five loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the KLH Model Five's frequency response in the farfield. The manual doesn't specify a vertical listening axis, but with the loudspeaker sitting on its Slant Riser Base, it appears that the tweeter axis will be typical for a seated listener. My reference axis for the measurements was therefore in line with the tweeter. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses and Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system to measure the impedance.

KLH specifies the Model Five's free-field…

Analog Corner #314: OMA K3 turntable & Schröder tonearm

Photo: Vincent Dixon

If you're going to spend a year-plus in COVID lockdown, it doesn't hurt to have a million dollars' worth of turntables keeping you company, right? That's been my good fortune. Sounds like a roomful, but it's only three: the SAT XD1, the TechDAS Air Force Zero, and the OMA K3 ($360,000, footnote 1).

You'll find this issue's cover girl either strikingly beautiful or homely. Visitor reactions fall strongly into one of those two camps, with nothing in between. I love the looks. Whatever your opinion, the K3's visual distinctiveness cannot be denied. The innards…

Analog Corner #314: OMA K3 turntable & Schröder tonearm Page 2

Atmospheric pressure maintains a special grade of viscous oil at bearing height within the pressurized inverted bearing upon which the 14", 30lb platter rides.

The "high tech" bearing sleeve, which is fabricated from a newer, more advanced material related to PTFE (think Teflon), requires no lubrication. The bearing is not of the typical polished variety but instead has a microscopically rough surface, because the Teflon sleeve is designed to ablate under pressure and shed microscopic particles that then become embedded in the bearing shaft, producing a smooth, durable mating surface…

Antipodes Audio K50 music server

On the face of it, playing and streaming digital music files is a straightforward process. You direct data from various sources—some local, some "in the cloud"—perhaps via a reclocker/signal conditioner to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). "And the music comes out here."

Not so simple. Bits, it seems, aren't bits, or not only. A digital datastream is also an analog signal. Noise and other signal errors endemic to multi-function computers not designed primarily for music playback can affect how music sounds. And then there are the practical issues of setting up and connecting…

Antipodes Audio K50 music server Page 2

"It takes a K50 about 2 months to burn in properly," he told me. "It sounds too thin and sharp for the first 200 hours. If you turn it off for any length of time, it will take about 3 days to get back to optimum performance."

Ranking outputs in order of sound quality, Jenkins greatly prefers the K50's I2S, AES3 (aka AES/EBU), and S/PDIF digital outputs to USB. "You really don't want to use USB," he said. "I could bore you with why the sound quality of USB has been negatively impacted by the evolution of the USB standard, but I won't." What did not bore me was the prospect of comparing…