search
Crossing over at approximately 2kHz, the HF driver is a well-established 1" dome from the French Focal company. Two points are of interest here: This cloth dome has a hard-cured impregnation and performs as a piston to quite high frequencies, in contrast to the early breakup behavior of the soft-dome tweeters almost universally used by other manufacturers. (Generally speaking, these are operating in well-damped resonant modes from 4kHz upward.) A hard-cloth dome resonance, however, may lie in the 15–25kHz range, though potentially it could still be audible (see the test results for the…
Sidebar 1: Measurements
Given the 1 ohm value for the impedance indicated by the specification, I first looked at the impedance characteristic to see whether it was really as difficult as indicated. On the normal chart my bottom line is 1 ohm; on the first run, the pen fell way below the line at 2kHz, impacting the limit stop. I then up-ranged by 10dB to set the base line at 0.32 ohms, and the WATT loading just kissed the 0.33 ohm level at 2kHz (fig.1). In some disbelief I felt the need to recalibrate the system and go for a manual static measurement; however, the same result was…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded (quasi third-order Butterworth tuning) loudspeaker system. Recommended placement: free space, on 24" stands. Drive-units: 1" inverted-dome tweeter, 6.5" doped pulp-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: around 2kHz. Frequency response: 58Hz–16kHz ±3dB. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (but with a minimum of 1 ohm at 2kHz). Sensitivity: 89dB/W/m. Minimum amplifier power required: 50W.
Dimensions: 14" H by 12" W by 16.5" D. Internal volume: around 9 liters. Weight: 120lb/pair.
Standard finishes: white or black lacquer, black…
Singer/actress Nancy Priddy's sole commercial recording, a 1968 album titled You've Come This Way Before—originally issued on Dot Records and now reissued by Sundazed Music/Modern Harmonic (Dot/Modern Harmonic MH-8044)—is a period piece. The arrangements, in which strings, flutes, Herb Alpert–esque trumpets, a harpsichord, a Vox Continental organ, and New Christy Minstrel–style backing singers all appear, are somewhat dated. (Indeed, the opening bars of the title song sound like the sort of cheesy electric pop that the producers of This American Life use as incidental music, apparently to…
In his review of the three-way, active Dutch & Dutch 8c loudspeaker in the August 2019 issue of Stereophile, Kalman Rubinson concluded that "The D&D 8c demonstrates that active, DSP-empowered speakers are the future." I was equally impressed by the 8c's measured performance—a superbly flat on-axis response and an unmatched control of dispersion over the entire audioband—and asked to borrow a pair so I could experience the speakers in my own listening room.
My follow-up review was published in the magazine's April 2020 issue, where I agreed with Kal's praise for the 8c's sound…
Atkinson: The Stereophile review's measurements showed that the 8c has a time-coincident step response, which again is extremely unusual. While there are passive dynamic speakers that achieve this on the listening axis with sloped-back front baffles and first-order crossover filters, there are very often compromises as you move away from that axis.
Mensink: Yes. You need a DSP to do that properly . . . As the tweeter and the midrange driver are on the front baffle, the woofers on the back, this introduces a problem. Normally the tweeter and midrange signals would arrive at your ears…
John Atkinson wrote about the Innuos Statement in May 2020 (Vol.43 No.5):
When Jason Victor Serinus reviewed the expensive Statement server from Portuguese company Innuos (footnote 1) in the April 2020 issue of Stereophile, he concluded that "Innuos has created a transparent instrument that scores big in soundstage size and depth, dynamics, and bass reach." Comparing the Statement and a sample of the more affordable Roon Nucleus + (footnote 2) (fed by a linear power supply)—both servers feeding his dCS Rossini and EMM DV2 D/A processors via USB—he found that via the Statement "the treble…
The hi-fi world has lost a giant, and we at Stereophile have lost a brother.
Art Dudley passed peacefully this morning around 4am after a short illness. The cause was metastatic cancer.
Art bought his first record—Roger Miller's "King of the Road," the single—at age 8 or 9. He picked up the guitar at 16 and played throughout his life. When he was young, he had a band, The Norm.
Starting in the late '70s, Art worked at Backpacker magazine. In 1985, he joined The Absolute Sound as its managing editor, quitting that gig after precisely a year. After that, he earned his…
AXPONA, the largest high-end audio event in North America, has rescheduled from April to August for 2020, but you can get a sneak peek at the new products audio manufacturers have in store by watching the show's Facebook Live event this Friday, April 17 starting at 10am Central Time—the day AXPONA 2020 was originally scheduled to open at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center in Chicago, IL.
Sponsored by Stereophile and Music Direct, AXPONA Livestream will feature 25 of the leading audio manufacturers who will update music lovers and the global audio community with timely…
Located outside Glasgow, in a geographical area that's also home to Linn Products and Tannoy Ltd.—and also near the storied whisky distilleries of Aberfeldy and Blair Atholl—Fyne Audio got off to a fast start. A mere three years after the company's 2017 founding, Fyne already has distribution deals in 50 countries and offers 24 products in seven series.
How did they do it? There's a clue on the company's homepage, which claims "more than 200 years of experience" among Fyne employees: The founders are a core group of former senior managers from Tannoy Ltd.—including former Tannoy…