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Down With Flat! Letters part 3

Truth out of lunacy
Editor: It must surely be the first time in all my reading of Stereophile that I have found myself in unqualified agreement with something you said! I refer to J. Gordon Holt's "Down With Flat!" editorial (Vol.8 No.4).

Because of this shining bit of truth in your otherwise lunatic outpourings, I have renewed my subscription.—David Meraner, Schenectady, NY

But not your faith, huh?—JGH

More "Down With Flat"
Editor: In the good old days, which lasted until quite recently, HF response would be fairly flat on-axis, but would fall more and more…

Sounding Off!

"Hoom! Hoom-hoom! HOOM!"

It was a sunny morning in Tempe, Arizona. (So what else is new?) "HOOOM!" The death cry of tortured air molecules subjected to Thomas Dolby's "Airhead" track at levels hitherto found only at the ground-zero point of an A-bomb explosion could be heard even before we pulled into the parking lot at Arizona State.

When we got out of the car, my impression that God had created only one bass frequency was confirmed.

"HOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" The sound of ONE HUNDRED HERTZ writ large in the unsullied Arizona air. "Rbrrbrrbrrbrrbrrbrrrrr!" The sound of massive…

Sounding Off! Page 2

"Hoom." We walk closer. "Hoom! Hoom-hooom! HOOOOM!" We step into the auditorium. "HOOOM. BLEETER BLITTER BLATTER BLETTER BLOTTER BLUTTER BLOOTER!" The drummer had more tom-toms than a musical instrument store. "HOOM HOOM HOOM! RBRRBRRBRRBRRBRRBRRRRR! KERBLOOD KERBLOOM!!" It was a good thing that we still had the unused earplugs from the sound-off; I noticed that many other of us refugees from the '60s also had earplugs. The Jeff Beck Band---the amazingly well-preserved Beck with Zappa alumnus Terry Bozzio on drums and Tony Hymas, responsible for some great songs when he played with bassist…

EAR V20 integrated amplifier

The women in my family and extended circle of friends are generally captivated by good sound, but are often appalled by the brutish, monolithic packaging that passes for "styling" in high-end gear. "Not in my living room," is the refrain, often played in a minor key.

But before any of them had even heard EAR's V20 integrated amplifier, my female friends had already been captivated by its style and elegance. A few even allowed as how they'd be willing to let this design come up and see them sometime. There's something about the V20 that transcends high-end audio and borders on modern…

EAR V20 integrated amplifier Page 2

But words can be double-edged. To describe the bass response of a particular component as "lean" might convey tautness, articulation, and muscularity to one person, but to another thinness and a lack of body. And in characterizing the sound of the V20 as "lush," I need to break it down even further—I certainly don't mean to imply anything "lugubrious," in the senses of syrupy, indistinct, or wildly colored.

No—the V20's midrange was seductively lush but extraordinarily articulate. If the sound of the Mesa Tigris integrated tube amplifier that I reviewed in August is a full-bodied yet…

EAR V20 integrated amplifier Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Class-A, push-pull, enhanced triode, self-biasing vacuum-tube integrated amplifier. Tube complement: thirteen 12AX7 and two 12AU7 per channel. Six line inputs, one tape output. Output power: 24Wpc into 4, 8, and 16 ohms (10.8, 13.8, 16.8dBW, respectively). Frequency range: 12Hz-80kHz. THD: 0.5%. Signal/Noise Ratio: 90dB (A-weighted).
Dimensions: 16½" W by 53/8" H by 173/8" D. Weight: 49 lbs.
Serial number of unit reviewed: 98221001.
Price: $4595. Approximate number of dealers: 30. Warranty: 3 years parts & labor, 90 days for tubes.
…

EAR V20 integrated amplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog sources: Rega Planar 3 turntable, Rega RB300 tonearm, Grado Reference Master cartridge; Audio Refinements AM/FM tuner.
Digital sources: California Audio Labs CL-20 DVD player, California Audio Labs Delta CD transport and Alpha 24/96 tube DAC, Audio Refinements CD player.
Preamplification: EAR 834P tube phono preamplifier.
Integrated amplifier: Mesa Tigris.
Loudspeakers: Celestion A3, Joseph RM22si.
Cables: Synergistic Research and JPS Labs interconnects, speaker cables, power cords.
Accessories: Argent RoomLenses, EchoBusters room…

EAR V20 integrated amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

The EAR V20 left Chip Stern's New York apartment in pristine condition, but by the time it arrived at our Santa Fe offices there were visible signs of shipping damage, including dents in one of the protective tube cages. Nothing in the following measurements, however, suggests any operational damage or degradation.

In normal operation, the cages surrounding the EAR V20's tubes get quite warm, but never uncomfortably hot. It's likely that the lower-than-normal operating temperature is due to the choice of multiple small, low-power output tubes in place of a…

No Smiths: Matters of Taste

"What? What??? No Smiths?" asks reader Steven J. Wilder in this issue's "Letters" (p.9), regarding my interjection in the "Honorable Mentions" sidebar of last November's "40 Essential Albums." Hey, I think The Smiths suck—okay, Mr. Wilder? Morrissey's self-absorbed adolescent whining had no place on a list that included music from such grownups as Morrison, Mitchell, and Mingus. I'm not alone in this sentiment. Jon Iverson, www.stereophile.com's webmaster, almost stapled together the pages of Mojo magazine's April 2001 retrospective of Morrissey's and Marr's music so he could skip over it…

Jitter, Bits, & Sound Quality

Jitter is not what digital sound quality induces in the listener; rather it is the instability in the clock signal that controls exactly when the analog waveform is sampled in the original A/D conversion, or when the digital word input into a DAC results in an analog voltage being produced at the chip's output. "So what?" is the response of digital advocates, "As long as a digital one is recognized as a one and a digital zero as a zero, then how can there be any difference in sound?" goes their argument, normally culminating in a fervently expressed "Bits is bits!"

Would that things were…