Where do audiophiles come from? I must have been 11 or 12 when my father took me to my first audio show, at a swank hotel somewhere in San Francisco in the late 1960s. The memories are still vivid: going from room to room, collecting brochures in a white plastic TDK promotional bag, and listening to demos as the salesfolk explained their latest products.
That TDK bag wasn't a safe hiding place for those hi-fi brochures for months afterward, as I shuffled through the pile to read about the H.H. Scott or Harman/Kardon receivers one more time. Experiencing that show and endlessly…
"How could there be a bad song called 'Iron Man,' or 'War Pigs,' or—my cup runneth over—'Rat Salad'?"—Nick Hornby, explaining his youthful fondness for Black Sabbath
Nothing says "Let's fall in love" like a few roses and a card for no reason. Nothing says "I drink too much" like a scab on the forehead. And nothing says "Let's start a fight" quite like a list.
I don't actually like to fight, but I do like lists. Maybe it's because I'm superficial by nature, or because, at age 50, I have too much useless information littering my brainpan—and so I'm forever on the lookout for ways…
Stereophile's readers don't all enjoy pop music, of course—but I think it's safe to say you all have at least some interest in home audio gear. So then, I'll play it safe and apply the same sort of thinking to...
The ten greatest amplifiers ever made
1) Naim NAP250
2) Fi 2A3
3) Conrad-Johnson Premier One
4) EAR 509
5) Audio Note Ongaku
6) Rankin Baby Ongaku
7) Quad II
8) Krell KSA-50
9) DNM PA3ΔS
10) Lamm ML2.1
What I mean by greatest is a product that sounds wonderful, is well made, and has an influence, one way or another, on the rest of the…
With this review I conclude an audiophile's progression through the price/performance ratios of three very musical solid-state integrated amplifiers: the NAD C370 ($699, reviewed in January 2002), the Arcam DiVA A85 ($1499, February 2002), and now the Simaudio Moon i-5 ($2595). In the process I was fascinated to hear how each amp recommended itself to its targeted price point. Likewise, it was most instructive to hear how they spread their compromises around. With a rough doubling of suggested retail price from the NAD to the Arcam, there was a degree of sonic refinement introduced. However…
Then I remembered that certain fine wines need to be swirled around the glass a bit, to combine with the air before they can open up, bloom, and thus reveal their inner substance and defining characters. So I gave the i-5 substantial cook-in time—low-level music signals 'round the clock for a few weeks—and repeated this process a number of times during my auditioning but before my final listening tests. I reckon that you've got to put at least 300-500 hours on this baby before you can form a balanced opinion about its sound. Because of this, the i-5 is meant to be powered up all the time; it…
And when it came to vocals, it was almost surreal how effortlessly the i-5 floated lifelike images, illuminating them without succumbing to the kind of colorations and exaggerations that frequency anomalies might otherwise elicit. On track after track of Tony Bennett's superbly recorded Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues (Columbia/RPM CK 85833), the degree of detail with which an imposing range of male and female vocals was rendered was most impressive—at times it seemed I could overhear the words forming before they were even sung. On "Good Morning, Heartache," the i-5…
Sidebar 1: Specifications Description: Remote-controlled solid-state integrated amplifier with J-FET input devices, MOSFET output devices, five line-level inputs (one audio input bypasses the gain stage), plus tape out and preamp out. Power output: 70Wpc into 8 ohms (18.5dBW), 110Wpc into 4 ohms (17.4dBW). Frequency response: 10Hz-70kHz, +0/-3dB. THD: 0.1% (20Hz-20kHz at 1W). Damping factor: >200. Voltage gain: 30dB. Dynamic headroom: 6dB. Maximum current: 16A peak, 9A continuous. Signal/noise (ref. full output): 97dB. Input impedance: 14k ohms. Input sensitivity: 300mV-3.0V RMS.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment Analog sources: Rega Planar 25 turntable, Rega RB600 tonearm, Grado Statement Master cartridge; Marantz PMD430 portable cassette recorder.
Digital sources: Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player, California Audio Labs CL-20 DVD/CD player and Delta 24-bit/96kHz DAC, Musical Fidelity A3 CD player.
Preamplification: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista, Blue Circle Galatea, VTL 5.5 preamplifiers; Blue Circle BC22 phono preamp.
Power amplifiers: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300, Mesa Baron, VTL MB-450.
Integrated amplifiers: Mesa Tigris, Linn Classik, Musical Fidelity A3…
Sidebar 3: Measurements The Moon i-5's heatsinks were too hot to touch after the one-hour preconditioning period at one-third power into 8 ohms. While I could just keep my hand on the top plate, the amplifier should still be given plenty of ventilation. The amplifier was non-inverting and the maximum voltage gain was 38.8dB into 8 ohms. The volume-control position closest to unity gain was an indicated "23" on the red numeric display, which goes up to "50," and the volume control operated in 1dB steps at the top of its range, coarse 2.5dB steps in the bottom half. The input impedance was…
"I am not in love; but I'm open to persuasion," sings Joan Armatrading in her song "Love and Affection," the track I was playing when I finally realized that my attempts to get a sound from the Apogee Caliper ribbon speakers approaching what I had heard at the 1986 Chicago CES were bearing fruit. And that sentence pretty much describes the creed of the professional audio critic. Each new product that arrives at your door could be the one to pass the J. Gordon Holt "goose-bump" test, to leave the hairs on your arms permanently erect. Did the Caliper full-range ribbons excite my previously…
