More than half a century later, blind dates—now with review equipment—remain fraught. Sure, expectations and the frisson of unknowns heighten the experience, but if it isn't a good match, I'm stuck for the duration of our time together. If a component sounds so mediocre that I can't be sure what's on a recording, the review and my joy are compromised. When music's emotion…
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When I was a young man, blind dates were always laced with anxiety. (Proms were even worse. Once, when I arrived in a rented tux and my father's prized dress gloves, my date's father ordered me to take out the trash.)
"You can use our amplifiers with horns and high-efficiency loudspeakers and not hear any noise. When we introduced our 300B amplifiers, people were surprised that they didn't need a mute because there was no noise. People can't believe that it's possible to get rid of the old limitations."
Moderately biased impressions
At 145.5lb and close to 28" high and 19" deep and costing $80,000/pair, Octave's Jubilee Mono SE is the largest, most expensive amplifier I've ever reviewed—$32,500/pair more than my reference D'Agostino Progression M550 monoblocks ($47,500/pair).
With eight…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Tubed pentode push-pull monoblock power amplifier. Tube complement: 8 KT120, 3 ECC82. Inputs: 1 balanced (XLR), 1 single-ended (RCA). Outputs: 2 pair binding posts. Output power: 400W (23dBW) average and 450W (23.5dBW) peak power into 4 ohms. Minimum load impedance: 2 ohms. Voltage gain: 28dB; input sensitivity:1.5V at full output power. Frequency response: 10Hz–80kHz, +0/–0.5dB. THD: <0.1% at 10W into 4 ohms. S/N ratio: >103dB. Power consumption: 420W minimum, 800W at full power.
Dimensions: 27.8" (707mm) H × 11"(280mm) W × 19" (484mm) D…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: dCS Rossini SACD/CD transport, Rossini DAC, and Rossini Clock; EMM Labs DV2 Integrated DAC; Synology 5-bay 1019+ NAS, Roon Nucleus+ music server, Uptone Audio EtherRegen with AfterDark Giesemann Emperor Double Crown Master Clock, Small Green Computer Sonore opticalModules (2) and Deluxe opticalModule, Linksys router and Arris modem, all powered by HDPlex 300 (3) and HDPlex 200 linear power supplies (3); Nordost QNET Ethernet Switch; Apple 2017 iPad Pro and 2017 MacBook Pro laptop with 2.8GHz Intel i7, SSD, 16GB RAM.
Preamplifier: Dan D'…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system to examine the Octave Jubilee Mono SE's measured performance. (For logistical reasons, the sample I measured was not one of those auditioned by JVS but was borrowed from a Boston dealer.) I followed the instructions in the manual to check the bias of the eight output tubes after running the amplifier for 30 minutes to allow the operating conditions to stabilize. The pots that allow the bias for each tube to be optimized have a somewhat coarse action. The best I could arrange was for the bias for the tubes to lie between "…
Since 2007, Audio Advice Live has been an annual, one-night event, drawing enthusiastic audiophiles to the Audio Advice showrooms in Raleigh's Glenwood Avenue, next to Virgin Cigars, or to their location in Charlotte. But this year, Audio Advice Live was different: It was a fully fledged audio show, held like most such events at a conference hotel: the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, in that North Carolina city, with rooms sponsored and presented by a wide range of hi-fi (and home-theater) companies. The show's website listed 70 brands—58 home audio brands, the others video-related—followed by a…
I have a peephole in the door to my first-floor apartment. It looks down a straight hall to a glass wall framing the front door of my building. For 13 years, its job has been to let me see who is ringing my buzzer and who is making a racket in the hall.
Over time, however, the peephole's lens turned amber-yellow and frosted-foggy like those headlight protectors on cars. In recent years, it became so clouded that all I could make out were unidentifiable Sasquatch figures moving in a blurry space.
I was startled one day when I peered through the peephole and recognized my UPS…
With the hybrid pads, the first thing I noticed was reduced upper bass energy, which eliminated the slight bloom that shadowed the lower midrange with the shallower, all-leather cups. With less upper bass, more light was thrown on the mid and upper frequencies, highlighting vocals and instrumental details.
After listening to fewer than a dozen tunes with the hybrid pads, I played the dreamy drum-synth and poetry-reading tracks from Brian Eno and Rick Holland's 2011 collaboration Drums Between the Bells (16/44.1 FLAC, Warp Records/Tidal). That's when I realized that something…
Steely Dan's last two studio albums, Two Against Nature (2000) and Everything Must Go (2003), are anomalies. The music is stellar, at or near the level of the band's best early work, but it's almost unknown, even among fans. (Back in 2011, one night of a week-long gig at the Beacon in New York City was supposed to highlight songs from these two albums—the program was called "21st-Century Dan"—but the idea was dropped when almost nobody bought advance tickets.)
A shame. Two Against Nature, which marked the return of Steely Dan after a 20-year hiatus and won the Grammy that year for Best…
It would have been in the spring of 1967 that Tim Hardin's music first wafted in over my transom. I was 13. My older brother, who loved Hardin at least as much as I did and was something of a fetishist besides, forbade me to touch his copy of Hardin's debut album, Tim Hardin 1, not even the jacket. He had to be present when I auditioned it. Tim Hardin 2 didn't especially float my boat, so my brother had it to himself. But the moment I heard Tim Hardin 3 Live in Concert, I took matters into my own hands, so to speak, and plunked my own $5 down.
A singer, songwriter, guitarist and…