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Pur ti miro presents a certifiably off-the-beaten-track crosscultural instrumental exploration that may strike some audiophiles as a bit weird, at least at first. Yet once you transcend tried-and-true expectations and allow what you hear to (in words immortalized by Grace Slick) "feed your head," you will likely find the timbral contrasts, colors, and expressive power…

There's a scene in the 2002 movie The Pianist in which Adrien Brody's character, the Polish-Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman, is hiding in the ruins of a Warsaw villa. The Nazi officer who discovers him asks what he did before the war. "I was a pianist," Szpilman stammers. The German points to a battered grand piano and orders him to play something. Szpilman hesitates, sits, lifts his trembling hands, and begins Chopin's Ballade No.1 in G minor.

He plays because it's what's left; not to beg, not to resist, but to hold onto the one thing that still…

Audiofest organizer Michel Plante invited Jim Austin, Stereophile's new editor, onto the stage to present the award.

"Tonight I have an honor that I haven't earned," Jim said. "I've been Stereophile's editor for only eight months, and I get to present a lifetime achievement award."

Jim then told the audience that he had asked John Atkinson, a longtime colleague of…

Thanks to engineer/producer René Laflamme, who generously allowed Stereophile the rights to needle-drop a track from 2XHD's Audiophile Analog Collection Vol.3, Marie Saintonge's "Traversia."

I chose this track because it offers percussive textures and both low- and high-frequency details, plus it's well-played music. Saintonge's flute carries the song, with support from acoustic guitar and bass, and various percussion and hand-claps.

For comparison sake, I also made needle-drops of "Traversia" with an Audio…

Empire 108
Empire Scientific's 108 Stereo–Mono moving magnet cartridge puts out 8mV, and with it in my system, Julie London's Julie Is Her Name (Liberty LRP 3006) sounded super-vivid and perfectly period correct: Julie sounded like she did coming out of my parents' Columbia console in 1958. When I played E. Power Biggs's Greatest Hits (Columbia MS 7269), the same thing happened. When I played Patsy Cline singing "Heartaches" (Decca 45 31429), it sounded like Patsy sounded coming out of a juke box.

Feeding the Linear Tube Audio Z10e integrated amplifier, the Empire 108 made my…

The obvious starting point for positioning the Sabrinas was the spot usually occupied by the WATT/Puppies, which is also the spot where the Sasha Vs had worked well previously. But when we first fired the Sabrinas up, Peter commented that they "felt a bit closed in." He was correct. This wasn't a placement issue: After a week and a half or so, they began to open up. I can't explain this, though the very close tolerances in many high-performance dynamic loudspeakers make it plausible that things need to loosen up before they start to sound their best. I let the Sabrinas run in for quite a…

I performed a complete set of measurements on one of the two Goldmund Telos 2800 monoblocks sharing serial number T2_LN000023 with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system. I preconditioned the amplifier by operating it at 1/8 power into 8 ohms for 20 minutes. At the end of that time, the top panel's temperature was 89.8°F/32.1°C. The temperature of the hottest section of the heatsink on the rear panel was 108.9°F/42.8°C.

The amplifier preserved absolute polarity, ie, was noninverting, with both the single-ended and balanced inputs. (The XLR jack is wired with pin…

Description: Solid state mono power amplifier. Output power (IEC60065): 300W into 8 ohms (24.77dBW), 530W into 4 ohms (24.23dBW) at 1% THD. Damping factor: 600 at 1kHz assuming an 8 ohm load. THD+N, unloaded: <0.05%, 20Hz–20kHz at 30V output. Intermodulation distortion (SMPTE), unloaded: <0.05% noisefloor, analog input terminated with RCA shorting caps, unloaded: <3µV, 20Hz–20kHz. Gain: 35dB. Max input level before clipping: Analog input: 1V; digital input: –6dBFS. Max output level before clipping, 1% THD, unloaded: 170V peak–peak. Dynamic range, 22kHz…

Description: Three-way bass-reflex floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive units: 1" (25.4mm) Convergent Synergy Carbon doped silk fabric-dome tweeter in sealed carbon-fiber enclosure, one 7" (178mm) QuadraMag paper pulp composite cone midrange unit in rear-slotted enclosure, one 8" (203mm) paper pulp composite cone woofer in rear-ported X-, V-, & H-Materials enclosure. Frequency response: 27Hz–24kHz, ±3dB average response in-room. Sensitivity: 87dB/W/1m @ 1kHz. Impedance: 4 ohms nominal, 2.23 ohms minimum @ 121Hz. Minimum recommended amplifier power: 50Wpc.
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