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A Babel, a Babble . . . Page 9

Holt: I think the stress must be on the state-of-the-art stuff.

Norton: I think the mix we've had over the past couple of years has been fine.

Atkinson: Peter [Mitchell] has offered to write a column on inexpensive equipment and I think that that's something we should definitely publish.

Mitchell: I do think Stereophile needs a clearer focus on the middle of the market than it has at present. Since we lost the Audio Cheapskate column, you need to replace it with something. Because an occasional review of an Adcom preamp is not sufficiently visible emphasis on the…

A Babel, a Babble . . . Page 10

This is the perspective I come from. The hardware is fine, but it's what I hear with my ears that's the most important determining factor for me. Again, we come back to the subjective vs the objective. It's difficult. People want to be told. "This is what you should buy." "Editor's choice: five stars, four stars, three stars..."—let's not fall into that trap.

Lipnick: I think it's important that we try to find a way how we can get more visibility for high-end audio. The average John Q. Public doesn't know that the American high-fidelity industry is the finest in the world.

Holt:…

A Babel, a Babble . . . Letters

Letters in response appeared in February 1990 issue.

Our direction

Editor:
Thank you for sharing your conversation on the direction Stereophile is headed ("As We All See It," November 1989). Be assured that at least one reader is pleased with that direction, for the most part...Give us credit for enough intelligence to skip over the parts of reviews that fail to interest us.

Continue to demystify! Audio is fun, exhilarating, at times paradoxical, but not magic. The silly notion that publishing graphs of equipment performance will take away the mystery is, I suppose,…

A Babel, a Babble . . . Letters part 2

More. You've reported that Stereophile's distribution has outpaced TAS's. True. Because Stereophile has persistently covered the mid-fi markets, it ought to have this wider appeal...and it does. Likewise, Sansui's sales surpass Goldmund's; and Ford's that of Ferrari's. While the pyramid is wide in the middle, it is even wider at the base. And so, not surprisingly, Stereo Review's subscription list is even larger than Stereophile's (granted that SR covers mostly imported, mass-produced appliances). The lowest common denominator always wins. In contrast to Stereophile, TAS is expressly aimed…

A Babel, a Babble . . . Letters part 3

And where did all this religious imagery come from? There's nothing particularly religious at all about the contents of The Abso!ute Sound. And certainly nothing occult.

What mystifies your staff, and what underlies most of their resentment, since Stereophile is in the driver's seat, is why The Abso!ute Sound is still setting the pace for the industry and giving it direction toward more musical-sounding gear? That's what all the name-calling is about, and nothing more.

The Abso!ute Sound is still by far the more influential of the two journals. Gordon Holt's opening remarks were…

Ikonoklast: Linn's Ivor Tiefenbrun

In July 1877, Thomas Edison wrote that he was sure he would "be able to store up & reproduce at any future time the human voice perfectly," and the word phonograph soon began showing up in his lab notes. By the time Ivor Tiefenbrun stepped onto the audio industry soundstage, nearly a century had passed, and even discriminating listeners took the record player for granted. But Tiefenbrun had discerned sonic differences among players, and he knew that his LP12—he had built a prototype for personal use—was a superior performer. When people told him that turntables do no more than go 'round…

Ikonoklast: Linn's Ivor Tiefenbrun Page 2

Lander: You've noted that your company is called Linn Products for a reason: your focus is always on the product. Yet the press has often preferred to focus on you personally.

Tiefenbrun: Because I was involved in controversy, people saw me as controversial. Because the industry is about personalities, people thought Linn was about personalities. I set out by challenging conventional wisdom. They said the turntable didn't matter; I said it was critical. They said the speaker was the most important thing; I said it was the last thing to worry about. So I started off in conflict in an…

Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 preamplifier

It takes more than passing courage to make another assault on building the world's best tube preamplifier. You face stiff competition from well-established firms like Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, and Counterpoint. Such units can't be made inexpensively, and you face the steadily growing problem of tube supply: it is getting harder and harder to get tubes that are stable, have predictable sound and performance characteristics, and are long-lived. And you have to show audiophiles who have been burned before that you will still be around when they need service.

You also have to…

Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 preamplifier Page 2

The balance control could have finer increments, and the power supply is hard-wired to the main preamp unit. All in all, however, the ergonomics are very good, and cartridge loading is easily changeable through plug-in resistors or capacitors. I would have liked another high-level input, but then reviewers always want another high-level input—perhaps their only area of consistency.

The Sound: Comparing the SL-1 With the Best
The sound of the Convergent Audio SL-1 is very good indeed (as it should be at $3495)—good enough that it can probably be best reviewed by comparing it to its…

Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 preamplifier Page 3

The Audio Research SP-11 again has the lead, but the C.A.T. is a very close rival. The SL-1 also has a slightly better top-octave performance—at least according to those female members of my family that insist on hearing everything in this region.

The Soundstage—Depth: The original MC-7 had superb, if slightly exaggerated, depth. The improved Motif provides this same depth, but with more detail and less exaggeration. it is perhaps the most musically realistic preamp to date in this performance area. The SP-10/II has a bit less depth, placing instruments a bit more forward.

The…