Sidebar 2: Measurements The Toshiba SD-9200's maximum output level of 2.203V was 0.84dB higher than the CD standard's 2V, and the unit appeared to invert signal polarity. Its output impedance was a fairly low 353 ohms at 1kHz and above, rising inconsequentially to 360 ohms in the low bass. Error correction for CD playback was good, if not up to the standard I have found with some other DVD players. The output didn't suffer from dropouts until track 31 on the Pierre Verany Test CD, which has 1mm gaps in the data spiral.
The frequency response for CD playback was flat within the…
The SD-9200's analog stage seemed bombproof, a maximum-level 50Hz tone resulting in just 0.0014% (-97dB) of second-harmonic distortion (fig.6). This was taken into the standard laboratory load of 100k ohms. The only change when this was dropped to a severely low 600 ohms was the introduction of the third harmonic (fig.7), but at -94dB (0.002%) this will be subjectively irrelevant. Levels of intermodulation distortion, even into a similarly low 1k ohm load (fig.8), were also extremely low.
Fig.6 Toshiba SD-9200, spectrum of 50Hz sinewave, DC-1kHz, at 0dBFS into 100k ohms (linear…
Sidebar 3: the Toshiba in Surround Kalman Rubinson wrote about the Toshiba SD-9200 in July 2001 (Vol.24 No.7)
Recently, an e-mailer told me that reviewing for Stereophile was more of a gift than a job. At the time, I didn't disagree. Now, I do.
The $2000 Toshiba SD-9200 DVD-Audio player is the third in a series of players on whose multichannel performance I am writing Follow-Ups. This is becoming more of a job than evaluating such standard stereo gear as CD players, DACs, amps, and speakers. The user interfaces (read: controls and menus) of multichannel components are…
John Atkinson examines the role of myth and magic in high-end audio. "Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature..."—Michael Faraday
"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."—Jonathan Swift
"The problem with having an open mind," someone said to me recently over Tanqueray'n'tonics, "is how do you keep it clear of garbage?"
"Depends on what you mean by garbage," I pondered.
"You know—the kind of mystic pseudoscience that gives high-end audio…
The letter that triggered this "As We See It": Suckers & Peter Belt's crap
Editor: Not more coverage of Peter Belt's idiotic crap! ("Industry Update," January 1991, pp.53-57) I thought—prayed—we had heard the last from him in the pages of your wonderful magazine. Your continued reporting of Mr. Belt's "improvements" would be taken as a joke if it had appeared in the April issue. As it is, Ken Kessler suggests "The best way to find out whether or not Peter is on to something important is to try the stuff."
I find this to be very irresponsible of Mr. Kessler. If he…
If Canada has emerged as a hotbed of loudspeaker production in the past few years, the folks at Audio Products International must be positively sizzling. Of their three lines—Mirage, Energy, and Sound Dynamics—Mirage is perhaps the best known in the US, with Energy running a distant second. Mirage, at least in their flagship M series, features rather esoteric bipolar designs, while Energy sticks to the more conservative, forward-radiating approach. Stereophile has had extensive exposure to the various Mirages (a review of one of the M-series babies, the M-7si, is scheduled for a future issue…
The crossover network is mounted at the bottom of the cabinet, just behind the inputs. RT reports that John Tchilinguirian sees some performance advantages in outboarding the crossover network, as is done in a number of current high-end loudspeakers, and may make this available in the Veritas if the market seems right for it. The present internal network is a three-way, 24dB/octave, Linkwitz-Riley configuration. The sharp cutoffs inherent in this design minimize off-axis vertical lobing, with a smooth dispersion making vertical listening height less critical. (I did all of my listening with…
Thus began a series of equipment and setup changes designed to wring this problem out. First I replaced the Straight Wire loudspeaker cables with a bi-wire set of Monster M1.5 of the same length. The Monster has a somewhat leaner sound than the Straight Wire, which definitely tightened things up—as did some additional break-in, particularly 18 hours of repeat play of a track that has lots of thumpy kickdrum. But this still wasn't enough. Adding another length of the Monster cable to create a full tri-wire arrangement was another step in the right direction, but still more drastic measures…
The cello on "Superman's Song," from the Crash Test Dummies' The Ghosts That Haunt Me (Arista ARCD-8677), was properly rich, surrounded by a compelling ambience. The guitar was sweet, yet detailed; the voice was in almost perfect balance, the vocal inflections of the lead singer's gravelly voice highly expressive and clear. I did note a minor left-to-right spectral imbalance caused by the asymmetry of a diagonal setup in a rectangular room. The right channel had a slightly lighter sound than the left, but this did not affect the soundstaging—which ranged from good to exceptional with…
Sidebar 1: Specifications Description: Three-way, four-driver, reflex-loaded loudspeaker system. Drive-units: 1" (25.4mm) aluminum-alloy hyperbolic dome tweeter with cotton suspension; 3" (76.3mm) aluminum-alloy hyperbolic dome midrange with cotton suspension; two 8" (203mm) homopolymer-polypropylene and aluminum injection-molded cone woofers with butyl rubber surrounds. Crossover frequencies: 380Hz, 2.5kHz. Frequency response: 30Hz-25kHz, ±2dB; 24Hz-33kHz, ±3dB. Usable bass response: -10dB at 21Hz (anechoic). Sensitivity: 86.5dB/2.83V/1m, anechoic. Impedance: 4.6 ohms, ±1.3 ohms (20Hz-…
