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Back in the 1950s, Cesare Sanavio, then a new electronics graduate with a specialty in output transformers for tube amplifiers, began his career in radio and television, traveling to various locations outside his native Italy to apply his expertise. Eventually he settled in Paraguay and started designing tubed sound systems for public installations, teaching his son Luciano the art. A few years later, Sanavio and his family returned to Italy. There, he worked as a consultant to several hi-fi companies. Finally, in 1994, drawing on decades of accumulated knowledge of tube-amplifier design and…
The 845–O/96 combination
I began my audition with the two-way DeVore Fidelity O/96 loudspeaker (footnote 1), a rich, warm, incisive speaker that uses a 1" silk-dome tweeter and a 10" paper-cone woofer and sounds good with every amplifier and in every room I've heard it in. It was a natural fit for the Mastersound.
I began my audition with the two-way DeVore Fidelity O/96 loudspeaker (footnote 1), a rich, warm, incisive speaker that uses a 1" silk-dome tweeter and a 10" paper-cone woofer and sounds good with every amplifier and in every room I've heard it in. It was a natural fit for the Mastersound.
I had to push my reference DeVore Fidelity O/96 loudspeakers back 6" to optimize coherence and clarity; once I did that, the system sang. The 845 wowed me with its immense soundstage, which I attribute partly to its aforementioned silence: the long decay of reverb tails…
Sidebar 1: Mastersound's Vicenza Conservatory Project
In late 2021, after "two years of contacts and exchanges," Mastersound and the Conservatory of Vicenza "Arrigo Pedrollo" inaugurated a new listening room at the conservatory, which was founded in 1867 within a 13th-century monastery. The project, which was conducted in partnership with the conservatory's director, yielded a listening room equipped with Mastersound amplification and Sonus Faber Olympica Nova II loudspeakers (footnote 1). (Sonus Faber is based in the province of Vicenza.) Advantages flow both ways: Students get to enjoy…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Tubed integrated amplifier with single-ended, class-A output stage and auto bias. Tube complement: two Psvane HiFi Series 845B, two JJ ECC802, two TungSol 6SN7GTB. Inputs: two pairs XLR (balanced), four pairs RCA (unbalanced). Outputs: two sets of speaker binding posts corresponding to 4 and 8 ohm transformer taps. Negative feedback: 0dB.Power output: 30Wpc into 8 or 4 ohms (14.8dBW, 11.8dBW). Frequency response: 8Hz–40kHz (±0dB). Output impedance: 4, 8 ohms. Input impedance: 50k ohms. Input sensitivity: 1.0V RMS for full output. Power consumption:…
Sidebar 3: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Acoustic Signature Maximus Neo turntable with Acoustic Signature Neo TA 1000 tonearm and Maximus MCX3 MC cartridge; Kuzma Stabi R turntable, Kuzma 4Point tonearm, and Luxman LMC-5 MC cartridge; Thorens TD 124 turntable with Jelco 350 S tonearm and EMT TSD15 N MC cartridge.
Digital sources: HoloAudio May DAC, Sonore opticalRendu, Roon Nucleus+, Small Green Computer power supply, TRENDnet switch, Apple iPad mini.
Preamplifier: Tavish Design Adagio phono stage, Shindo Allegro line stage.
Power amplifier: Shindo Haut-Brion.
…
Sidebar 4: Measurements
I performed the measurements of the Mastersound Compact 845 amplifier with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system. The tubes were installed when I received the review sample, and I waited for an hour after powering up the amplifier before starting the testing. The Mastersound runs hot—after an hour the temperature of the top panel in front of the line-stage tubes was 115.9°F/46.6°C.
The Compact 845 inverted polarity from both the 4 ohm and 8 ohm output transformer taps with the balanced and single-ended inputs but preserved absolute polarity from its Direct…
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, also known as Jaws, was a self-taught originator of soul jazz. He recorded the first records that blend Hammond organ and tenor sax, with Bill Doggett at the B3, for Roost Records in May 1952. He continued to develop his blues-based, jukebox-friendly style of jazz and, in 1955, joined forces with a young organ player from Philadelphia named Shirley Scott. They recorded together for King and Prestige Records and formed a gigging band with drums and bass.
In three 1958 sessions at Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack, New Jersey, "living room" studio, Davis and Scott recorded…
Before I can get to what the Arvus H2-4D does and how well it does it, I have to explain why I think it's an important product. I spent years as an advocate for multichannel audio for music, based on discrete, lossless sources such as DVD-A, SACD, and high-quality downloads. All of these were either PCM or DSD and were accessible via a wide range of disc players, DACs, and local file playback apps.
I am well aware that the majority of Stereophile readers are not (yet) into multichannel, but two-channel and multichannel audiophiles have long relied on similar media and components. Some of…
Moving to music that is already familiar in multichannel, Morten Lindberg's magnificent recording of Arnesen's Magnificat (2L-106, SACD/Blu-ray), the Atmos rendition adds, in my recently revised system, four height channels to the SACD's already immersive mix, but it lacks the fine-spun detail of the SACD. Yet the streamed Atmos rendition delivered through the H2-4D was even more breathtaking than the SACD due entirely to its superior recreation of the Nidaros Cathedral acoustic. While the SACD presents chorus, orchestra, and organ all around, the Atmos version fills the listening space with…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Oppo Digital UDP-105 universal disc player, Apple TV 4K, Custom Intel/Win11 music server running JRiver Media Center v30. exaSound s88 Mark II, Okto DAC8 Pro, Mytek Brooklyn+ D/A processors. Marantz VS3003 3 in/1 out HDMI Switch, QNAP TVS-873 NAS.
Preamplifiers: Coleman Audio 7.1SW for balanced source switching. Topping Pre90 preamps for buffer/line drivers.
Power amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, Paradigm Zamp.
Loudspeakers: KEF Blade 2 Meta (L, R), Revel Ultima2 Studio (C). Revel Performa3 f206 (SL/SR), PSB Imagine XA (FH), Atlantic…