Ah, the price. As good as the Tidal loudspeakers sounded…
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The priciest loudspeaker ever to have taken up residence in my listening room was the Akira from German company Tidal Audio (footnote 1), which I reviewed in the November 2018 issue of Stereophile. Designed by Tidal founder and CEO Jörn Janczak, the Akiras cost $215,000/pair! "The sheer resolution of the Akiras continued to astonish me throughout my auditioning," I wrote in my review, concluding that "The Akiras are the best-looking, best-built, best-sounding speakers I have had in my listening room—as they should be at the price."
The dual-mono pink noise track on Editor's Choice sounded hollow if I stood up but evenly balanced, uncolored, and smooth when I sat up straight with my ears level with the Minos' tweeters, which are 41" from the floor. The central image of the noise signal was extremely narrow, with no splashing to the sides at some frequencies.
The stereo imaging continued to impress me throughout my auditioning of the Minos. One of my 2020 "Records to Die For" was Stemmeklang's Tomba Sonora (DSD64 file ripped from SACD, 2L 2L-155-SABD). Although this extraordinary recording had been captured in full…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1.18" (30mm) ceramic-dome tweeter, 3.55" (90mm) ceramic–cone midrange unit, three 6.6" (168mm) aluminum honeycomb–cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: not specified. Frequency response: not specified. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Minimum impedance: 3.8 ohms at 100Hz. Sensitivity: 89dB/W/m.
Dimensions: 50.4" (1280mm) H × 16.7" (424mm) W × 21" (534mm) D (all with bases). Weight: 159lb (72kg) each. Shipping weight: 183lb (83kg) each or 238lb (108kg) each in optional flight cases.
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge, Channel D Seta L phono preamplifier.
Digital sources: Roon Nucleus+ file server; Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP universal player; PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream, Chord Electronics DAVE, and Mark Levinson No.30.6 D/A processors, Chord Electronics Hugo M Scaler upsampler, Ayre Acoustics QA-9 A/D converter.
Power amplifiers: Lamm Industries M1.2 Reference monoblocks.
Integrated amplifier: NAD M10.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Vodka (Ethernet),…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Vimberg Mino's frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses. The 159lb loudspeaker was too bulky for me to move it outside for the testing. I therefore had to do the quasi-anechoic measurements in my listening room, where the proximity of room boundaries necessarily led to aggressive windowing of the time-domain data, which reduced the graphs' resolution in the midrange.
Vimberg specifies the Mino's sensitivity as…
John Atkinson wrote about the Dutch & Dutch 8C in April 2020 (Vol.43 No.4):
Kalman Rubinson very favorably reviewed the three-way, active Dutch & Dutch 8c ($12,500/pair) in the August 2019 issue of Stereophile. "The D&D 8c demonstrates that active, DSP-empowered speakers are the future," he concluded, adding, "the Dutch & Dutch 8c might be the sweet spot in the new category of active speakers. It's a truly full-range system with enough dynamic range and power for almost any domestic situation."
I was impressed by what I found when measuring the Dutch & Dutch 8c…
You probably heard the news: record claims for unemployment benefits, indeed, five times the previous record from 1982. Our economy has never been shut down quite so completely and suddenly. Those most affected are service workers: cooks, waiters, retail clerks—and the people who make the music we love.
Every performance venue in New York City is shut down—and also in the rest of the state. There are no live gigs here for musicians--and that's true many other places in the US and across the world.
Studios, too, are shut down: "I really don't know of any [recording sessions] that…
When I was 11, my father brought home the voice of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) in a three-LP box set whose faux leather cover and sepia-tinted photos I admired over and over. When he put on the Sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor, I exclaimed, "Daddy, I've heard that before!"
"Yeah, you broke it when you were 2," he replied.
I was weaned on opera. With all that Italianate passion bubbling in my blood, reconnecting with the voices of Caruso and Galli-Curci felt like coming home. While Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and then Donovan soon joined them—I used…
Between the mid-1980s and late 2000s, Stereophile published 14 reviews of loudspeakers from England's ProAc Limited. First came Dick Olsher's review of the ProAc Tablette in 1984. The latest—until now—was in 2010, when John Marks wrote about the ProAc Response D Two.
Then, in 2016, came the passing of US ProAc distributor Richard Gerberg, of Modern Audio Consultants, and for some time the company's products weren't available stateside.
"We lost our importer in the USA a few years ago, and it took a little while to find a replacement," wrote ProAc's founder, CEO, and head designer…
At the urging of various audiophiles, I recently purchased a pair of 24" Sanus NF24B Natural Foundations wooden speaker stands as an alternative to my 24" nonfilled Atacama metal stands, which I lugged home from England in the mid-1990s. I used both stands with the ProAcs. The Sanus stands created better tone and more generous low-end warmth yet lacked the extreme image specificity and occasionally forward treble brought by the Atacama stands.
Listening
After two weeks of break-in, during which I streamed music from Tidal at a low level on my Asus laptop, the D2R impressed me…