The process can seem miraculous. A person or…
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A phono cartridge is a mechanical-electrical thing with a single job: tracking a squiggly spiral groove as accurately as possible and converting that mechanical tracking into an electrical signal. (Okay, maybe that's two jobs.) Put your ear near a playing record and you can hear the groove reproduced mechanically. The groove is—forgive the pun—an analog of the electrical signal, etched into the lacquer by the cutting stylus. For most music, the electrical signal is itself an analog of humans with instruments gathered in front of microphones.
The genesis of this project goes back nearly 17 years, when my wife, Joan, and I moved into a brownstone floorthrough in Brooklyn. As we were about to sign the lease, our soon-to-be landlord said, "Oh, one more thing: your upstairs neighbor is a musician." This did not exactly discourage us from signing the lease, however, and soon I began to see a steady stream of musicians trudging up the stairs outside our apartment: Oliver Lake, Sonny Rollins, Pheeroan akLaff, Bob Moses, Marty Ehrlich, and a whole bunch of other people I was reading about in the jazz press. Just who was this guy?
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Sidebar: A Comment on the Statistics
With respect to the authors (who, of course, have probably forgotten more about statistics than I ever learned), I find their statement that the proper use of chi-square test is not a matter of debate is too strict a guideline. I strongly feel that each test should be considered independent. My co-worker Will Hammond is adamant that the randomization of our tests would have successfully counteracted any tendency for dependency among the observations to develop.
Yes, if one person takes the test seven times, he or she doesn't change attitudes…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Dual-mono, class-A, no negative feedback, fully balanced stereo preamplifier with RSR (Reference Soulnote Relays), naked foil resistors, and photocoupler isolation. Inputs: four balanced (XLR), four single-ended (RCA). Outputs: three balanced (XLR), one selectable (XLR or RCA). Maximum gain: 11dB. THD: 0.0015% at 1.5V RMS. Frequency response: 2Hz~1MHz, ±3.0dB. Residual noise: 13µV (20kHz low pass). Maximum output: 21V RMS. Output impedance: 6.8 ohms. Included accessories: Spike board, spikes, spacer (for Spike board floating), power cable.
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Dr. Feickert Woodpecker turntable with inertia platter, Jelco SA-750D tonearm, Stack Audio AUVA Equipment Isolators, Technics SL-1200GAE turntable, Dynavector XX-2 MkII, Ortofon 2M Black cartridges.
Digital sources: Grimm MU2 streamer-DAC, Shanling ET3 CD transport.
Preamplifiers: Grimm MU2, Mola Mola Makua, Manley Steelhead, Lejonklou Slipsik 8.
Power amplifiers: AGD Forte, AGD The Audion MkIII, Mola Mola Ossetra, Soulnote A-3 Core.
Integrated amplifier: MBL C51.
Loudspeakers: Auer Acoustics Versura V1, Focal Scala…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Moving Permalloy phono cartridge with nude MicroLine stylus on boron cantilever. Output: 4.0mV. Frequency range: 20Hz–27kHz. Load resistance: 47k ohms. Recommended capacitance: 100pF. Cartridge weight: 8.0gm. Recommended tracking force: 1.4gm.
Price: $1699; MP-700H version (premounted in SME/Technics-compatible headshell with azimuth adjustment screw), $1799.
Manufacturer: Nagaoka Co., Ltd., Higashine, Japan. Nagaoka Trading Ltd., Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Web: nagaoka.co.jp. North American distributor: MoFi Distribution, 1811 W. Bryn Mawr…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Technics SL-1200GME turntable; Hana SL MK II cartridge.
Preamplifiers: Benchmark LA-4 (line), Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 (phono).
Power amplifier: Benchmark AHB2.
Loudspeakers: Bowers & Wilkins 808.
Accessories: Butcher Block Acoustics equipment rack, Technics turntable cable, various cables and connectors made by Belden, Canare, Mogami, Switchcraft, etc., Fozgometer V2.—Tom Fine
I heard my first genuinely awesome hi-fi through a pair of Tannoy speakers. The 15" Monitor Blacks were installed in wardrobe-sized Siemens cabinets that the owner had wrangled from a decommissioned recording studio in Austria. They were hooked up to a pair of vintage McIntosh mono amps. This happened in Moscow just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I was 21. Discovering that system in the city where I'd grown up was like finding a perfectly stored bottle of 1945 Haut-Brion at a strip-mall Cinnabon.
Five years later, having spent some time pressing my nose against the windows of…
Recently I learned that a diner in Los Angeles had closed. I felt a pang of regret bordering on loss, even though I'd never set foot in the place. The Copper Penny was the La Brea Avenue greasy spoon Tom Waits mentions in the introduction to "Eggs and Sausage," on Nighthawks at the Diner. Apparently, in the back of my mind, I'd imagined that one day I'd sit at the counter at 2am and order a slice of apple pie from a careworn waitress who calls customers "hon." For an hour or so, I'd inhabit the Los Angeles that Waits conjured in 1975. Alas, gone.
One term for this is anemoia, a longing…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I used Audio Precision's APx555 analyzer to perform a complete set of measurements on the Soulnote P-3, serial number 22103002. The P-3 draws just 20W of power at idle and runs cool; its chassis temperature did not deviate from ambient over several hours of testing in a 70°F room. Unless otherwise noted, all measurements were taken from the balanced (XLR) outputs, with the rear-panel GND switch set to SEPARATION, which Soulnote recommends for the best sound quality.
The P-3 has four balanced and four unbalanced line inputs, three balanced outputs (which are…