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It was a "Wow!" audio moment I'll never forget. It happened just after Ladies Who Lunch, our regular Friday afternoon lunch-n-chat for audio poobahs at the Grand Sichuan restaurant in Chelsea. It was dark at 4 o'clock, and the first snow of winter looked enchanting under the 24th Street streetlamps. Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg and I were accompanying our turntable setter–upper friend Michael Trei to Bob Visintainer's Rhapsody Music and Cinema, where Trei was scheduled to install a Lyra Etna SL cartridge on a TechDAS Air Force III turntable. I tagged along to chatter with Bob and listen…
To assess the Alyssas' upper bass and lower midrange clarity, I used my favorite Astor Piazzolla album Tango: Zero Hour (16/44.1 FLAC Nonesuch/Qobuz). Although there are only five musicians, this incredible piece of dark nuevo tango offers thick, difficult-to-sort masses of complex information in the octaves below 1kHz, making it a perfect recording for my speaker placement and focusing operation. With the album playing, I moved the speakers first forward and backward, then a little right and left, until the soundstage and instruments achieved their most transparent focus. They ended up…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Hybrid ported/ transmission-line stand-mounted speaker. Driver complement: One 6" mid/ woofer with a 3" voice-coil with titanium former, one 2.5" aluminum ribbon tweeter with a neodymium magnet. Crossover frequency: 2.2kHz. Crossover type: 3rd order. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Sensitivity: 87.5dB/2.83V/m. Recommended amplifier power: 50–150Wpc. Peak power handling: 200Wpc.
Dimensions: 14.5" (368.3mm) H × 9.6" (244mm) W (at bottom) × 14.25" (362mm) D (at bottom). Cabinet volume: 0.47 cubic feet (13 liters). Weight 28lb (12.7kg).
Finish: gloss…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Dr. Feickert Analogue Blackbird turntable; Jelco TK-850L tonearm; Grado Aeon3 (moving-iron), Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum, and My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent Ex moving-coil cartridges.
Digital sources: MacBook Air laptop, Mac mini running Audirvana Plus, HoloAudio May (Kitsuné Edition), and Denafrips Terminator DACs, Integra DPS-7.2 used as CD transport.
Preamplification: Musical Surroundings Phonomena II+, Tavish Design Adagio; Parasound Halo JC 3+ and Sunvalley SV-EQ1616D phono preamplifiers; EMIA and Bob's Devices SKY 20 step-…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the Alta Audio Alyssa's farfield behavior with DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the speaker's nearfield responses. A full set of measurements was performed with serial number ALY4004. I repeated some of the tests with serial number ALY4003. Other than when noted, the magnetically attached grille was left off for the measurements.
Alta specifies the Alyssa's sensitivity as 87.5dB/2.83V/m. My estimate was significantly lower at 81.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, and the Alta did sound a little…
Manufacturer's Comment
Alta Audio is about the sound and feel of live music. To this end, while we use all the metrics commonly applied throughout the audio industry, our final take is based on listening for confirmation.
One thing we know is that designing by the rules often results in sterile sound, because a microphone hears sound in a completely different way from the human ear. Designing a speaker only to create a smooth, flat response leads to overuse of padding to damp down resonances. While resonances have sonic attributes we do not want, so does padding. Padding changes…
Last month, I received so few vinyl reissues that I had to invite a guest writer—jazz critic and political commentator Fred Kaplan—to fill in. Fred had managed to grab an early copy of the excellent Analogue Productions 45rpm reissue of Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I didn't get mine until a week or so after his review was submitted.
This month, I have a tall stack to choose from, so I'll mention several.
On most celebratory Friday evenings at my New York City apartment, an album or two by New Orleans musicians finds its way onto my 'table: Professor Longhair, Tuts…
Ever since I stopped using my Audio Research SP10 preamplifier in the early 1990s—its eight phono-stage tubes used to get too noisy too quickly—I tried a variety of standalone phono preamplifiers. Seeing the most service through the 1990s and 2000s were, first, a Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS, then a Linn Linto, both of which I purchased. But when I measured Channel D's Seta Model L, which Michael Fremer reviewed in the August 2010 issue, the Linto was pushed to one side. The battery-powered Seta L (footnote 1) had the lowest noise and distortion I had encountered in a phono preamplifier, and I…
"As long as you're happy."
That's the line long uttered by the most dreaded members of my family, and their friends, whenever they tried to pry into my personal affairs. Often the last word, "happy," was uttered with a downward cadence and accompanied by a shrug.
Then came the kicker. "You are happy, aren't you?" said with eyes boring into my soul. "Well, as long as you're happy."
Cue the telltale shrug. With disapproval voiced and points scored, it was time for the obligatory peck on the cheek, handshake, or—worse—mutual male hug disguised as burp assistance.
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After switching among all four preamps, noting sonic differences, and filling 3 pages of notes with superlatives, I was forced to take a break of several days. During that time, I kept asking every wine connoisseur I knew, including the 42 members of the San Francisco Audiophile Society who logged in to our prescheduled 2.5 hour chat—Michael Fremer, Herb Reichert, and I are doing another Zoom event with SFAS close to Thanksgiving—if they could tell me what particular wine in what special wine glass might serve as a metaphor for the clear, shiny, polished sound I was hearing. SFAS member…