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Stereophile's Writers on an Audio Quest Page 7

Greenhill: Do you think the store and its sales force has more of an influence than the magazines?

Low: It's so interrelated. Stores tailor what they carry to what's gotten good reviews. Along with the politics of distribution—I talked to a dealer in Albuquerque and he doesn't want to carry his favorite speaker because it's carried by a dealer in Santa Fe who has business practices, he believes, that result in the business in Albuquerque being stolen away. You do get these politics and that's unfortunate. And that has something to do with what kind of speakers are going to be sold in…

Stereophile's Writers on an Audio Quest Page 8

Mitchell: Indeed.

Atkinson: But you can't then leap from there and say, well, all differences must be inconsequential. Compare a Mazda 323 with a Ford Escort: very similar cars, similar wheel base, similar price, similar everything—therefore all cars are the same? Of course not. You've just got two large companies addressing the same market and trying to keep prices down as much as possible. And that's what happened with mass-market amplifiers. But I still think it illogical to start as a basis of truth that there are no differences unless they're proved otherwise. Because measurements…

Stereophile's Writers on an Audio Quest Page 9

Atkinson: Isn't the problem we have with a lot of these so-called "accurate" components that they're only accurate by one narrow definition?

Deutsch: Suppose you had a picture that was exactly the same size as the person's head, but was very unclear and unsharp and was not in color. Now you might say that according to one certain criterion it's very accurate—it's exactly the right size. Then you examine a very small picture which is sharp and perhaps in color. You'd have to say this picture is not accurate—look, the head is this small, the real head is that big. This is not accurate. But…

Happy New Audio Millennium

The January 2000 issue of Stereophile is actually the last to be published in 1999, so, at the risk of adding to your millennial fatigue (footnote 1), it is appropriate to devote much of this month's magazine to navel-gazing. Robert Baird, Chip Stern, David Patrick Stearns, and Larry Birnbaum examine the state of recorded music, while in the first of two articles, Markus Sauer questions the beliefs that underpin the audiophile world. And this "As We See It" offers an overview of what used to be called "high fidelity."

January 1, 2000 is not a date for the numerologists of the audio world…

Happy New Audio Millennium Page 2

Ironically, the 17 years since the introduction of the CD have seen an astonishing improvement in the playback of vinyl LPs. A couple of days before I wrote these words, I visited Brian Damkroger to listen to the Thiel CS7.2 loudspeakers he will be reviewing in the February 2000 Stereophile. The sound of LPs played on his VPI TNT rig was awesome—not a trace of surface noise, enormous dynamic range, and wide, deep soundstaging. Most important, there was a sense of ease to the presentation that had us reaching for LP after LP. It is a rare CD-based system, in my experience, that can compete…

Audio Note M2 Balanced Phono preamplifier

The first time I heard an Audio Note preamp was seven or eight years ago, when I sampled their entry-level M1—a refreshingly musical thing that brought the same kind of color and drama to preamplification that Audio Note's more famous products brought to the driving of speakers. And the M1 cost only $1250 at the time, with phono stage. (Newcomers, please don't wince: That's awfully cheap for what it was.)

Other Audio Note preamps came to call. I tried the somewhat upmarket M2 ($2695 with phono), which sounded like a more refined version of the M1. Then came the very upmarket M3…

Audio Note M2 Balanced Phono preamplifier Page 2

In any event, my listening impressions of the M2 Balanced are distilled from my experiences with it in two quite different contexts. Also, thanks to a loan from Peter Qvortrup, I still had an M3 sample on hand during the first couple of weeks of the M2B review period. I was even able to find my old review notes from when I had the original M1 and M2 in for review at Listener magazine. (I'm well organized in some areas, disturbingly helpless in others.) Thus I can say, with hand on heart: The new, $4400 M2B is closer in sound to the $7500 M3 than to the $1250 M1. Much closer.

I…

Audio Note M2 Balanced Phono preamplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Tubed stereo preamplifier. Tube complement: two 6DJ8/6922/7308 dual triodes (line stage), one each 6DJ8/ECC88, 12AX7A/ECC83, 12AU7A/ECC82 (phono stage), one 6X5WGT full-wave rectifier (power supply). Inputs: 5, including phono. Frequency Response: 20Hz-20kHz, ±0.5dB (phono and line). Input impedance: 47k ohms. Output impedance at 1kHz: 600 ohms balanced, 150 ohms unbalanced. Line amplifier gain: 23dB balanced, 17dB unbalanced. Phono preamp gain: 53dB (to tape outputs). Line stage inverts polarity.
Dimensions: 17.5" W by 5.5" H by 15.75" D.…

Audio Note M2 Balanced Phono preamplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog sources: Linn LP12 turntable, Naim Armageddon power supply, Naim Aro tonearm; Rega Planar 3 turntable, Rega RB-300 tonearm; Tubaphon TU3, Lyra Helikon Mono, Miyabi 47, Rega Elys cartridges.
Digital source: Sony SCD-777ES SACD player.
Preamplification: Audio Note AN-S2, Tamura L2-D phono step-up transformers; Fi, Audio Note M3 phono preamplifiers.
Power amplifiers: Fi 2A3 Stereo, Audio Note Kit One, EAR 890.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-989, Lowther PM6A in modified Medallion horns, Linn Sizmik subwoofer.
Cables: Interconnect: Audio Note AN…