Fig.6 Wilson WATT 5, vertical response family at 57", normalized to response on optimal axis, from…
search
Vertically (fig.6), major middle-treble suckouts appear in the speaker's balance once you sit above the tweeter axis or below the woofer dustcap. Wes did find that he needed to sit with his ears in this region to get the best balance. As noted above, however, with normal seating, placing the WATT on the Puppy results in just the right listening height. Fig.6 also shows that there is too much top-octave energy above the tweeter axis. Do not listen to the WATT/Puppy standing up!!!
Wes Phillips wrote about the Watt/Puppy 5.1 upgrade in October 1996 (Vol.19 No.10)
Wilson Audio's WATT/Puppy 5.1 is the latest version of that long-time audiophile reference loudspeaker. What's involved in the change? The Puppy Tail—the wire connecting the high-pass outputs of the Puppy subwoofer to the WATT's inputs—has been replaced with a new cable, designed by Wilson to act as "a more perfect electrical interface." The system's list price has risen from $14,990 to $16,290; owners of the WATT/Puppy 5 can upgrade to 5.1 status for $695.
When I reviewed the WATT/Puppy 5 back in…
It was the weirdest orchestral balance I'd ever heard. The gentle woodwind chords that begin Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream were as loud as the climactic "Wedding March" that ends the piece. The radio broadcast was obviously being compressed to hell. Yet, sitting at the wheel of the rented Vauxhall Vectra I was driving down to Cornwall for an old friend's surprise 50th birthday party, I was actually glad for the compression. Had Classic FM broadcast the Mendelssohn with its true dynamic range intact, the quiet passages would have been irretrievably buried in the…
Nothing like scarcity to create demand, right? Well, there's been a scarcity of Nuvistors out there for decades, and hardly any demand. Do you know about the Nuvistor, aka the 6CW4? It was a tiny triode tube smaller than your average phono cartridge. Enclosing its vacuum in metal rather than glass, the Nuvistor was designed as a long-lived, highly linear device with low heat, low microphony, and low noise---all of which it needed to have any hope of competing in the brave new solid-state world emerging when RCA introduced it in the 1960s.
Designed mainly for military and test-equipment…
Nu-Vista 300
Despite its high profile in the Nu-Vista 300's very name, the Nuvistor tube is not the 300's main amplifying device. How many of the little guys do you think it would take to output 300Wpc into 8 ohms---or 600 into 4, or 1000 into 2? Instead, the Nuvistors are used as drivers for what the literature describes as "ultra-low-noise, super-matched pairs of bipolar [output] transistors."
Despite its high profile in the Nu-Vista 300's very name, the Nuvistor tube is not the 300's main amplifying device. How many of the little guys do you think it would take to output 300Wpc into 8 ohms---or 600 into 4, or 1000 into 2? Instead, the Nuvistors are used as drivers for what the literature describes as "ultra-low-noise, super-matched pairs of bipolar [output] transistors."
If your familiarity with Musical Fidelity products begins and ends with the "good for the money" budget-priced X series, leave your preconceptions at the speaker terminals---this is a very…
Yeah, but how does it sound?
Despite their miserable measurements, low power, and apparent instability, the KR Enterprise VT8000s that I reviewed in November were a tough act to follow. I know, that sounds like "despite being dead, he's in pretty good shape." But I compared the two amps before and after the KRs figuratively fell off the test bench. The KRs are like an old brandy, while the Musical Fidelity is like an expensive, fiery tequila---clear and pure, with a rich kick. Choose your enlightenment.
Despite their miserable measurements, low power, and apparent instability, the KR Enterprise VT8000s that I reviewed in November were a tough act to follow. I know, that sounds like "despite being dead, he's in pretty good shape." But I compared the two amps before and after the KRs figuratively fell off the test bench. The KRs are like an old brandy, while the Musical Fidelity is like an expensive, fiery tequila---clear and pure, with a rich kick. Choose your enlightenment.
I spent almost two months alone with the Nu-Vista 300. I don't care if you get a…
Conclusions
The Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300 will probably soon become a collector's item. There are only 500 of them in the world, and when Audio Advisor's allotment of Nu-Vista 300s is gone, there will be no more; last time I checked, there were fewer than 90 left in stock. So if this review has whetted your audiophile appetite, you'd better get busy before it's too late.
The Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300 will probably soon become a collector's item. There are only 500 of them in the world, and when Audio Advisor's allotment of Nu-Vista 300s is gone, there will be no more; last time I checked, there were fewer than 90 left in stock. So if this review has whetted your audiophile appetite, you'd better get busy before it's too late.
But the amp's collectibility alone is not reason enough to buy it. The Nu-Vista 300 combines many of the best attributes of tube and solid-state power amplifiers. Its powerful high-current design is claimed to…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Simon Yorke, Basis Debut turntables; Graham 2.0, Immedia RPM2, Simon Yorke tonearms; Transfiguration Temper Supreme, Crown Jewel SE, EMT TU, Lyra Parnassus D.C.t, Grado Statement phono cartridges.
Digital source: Audio Alchemy DDS•Pro CD transport, DTI•Pro 32 resolution enhancer, EAD DSP-9000 Mk.3 HDCD D/A processor.
Preamplification: Ayre K-1, Herron Audio VTSP preamplifiers; Audio Research Reference, Herron Audio VTPH-1 phono sections.
Power amplifiers: KR Enterprise VT 8000MK monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Amati Homage…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Before being measured, the big Musical Fidelity amplifier was warmed up for an hour driving a 1kHz sinewave at 1/3 power into 8 ohms. This will maximally stress a solid-state amplifier with a class-B output stage; after the 60 minutes of operation the amplifier's heatsinks were too hot to keep my hand on, implying a temperature of well above 60 degrees C.
The Nu-Vista didn't invert polarity, and its input impedance was a highish 64k ohms. The voltage gain into 8 ohms was 30dB, about 3dB higher than normal for a typical American amplifier, with a 0.08dB…
Noise was low, the A-weighted S/N ratio (ref. 1W into 8 ohms) being a good 77.3dB. This figure worsened only slightly, to 71.4dB, with an unweighted, wideband measurement. Distortion levels on continuous tones were very low; I had to drive the amplifier at a high level (125W into 8 ohms) to extract the waveform of the distortion residual from the noise. This (fig.4) is mainly second harmonic. Some third harmonic appeared at 250W into 4 ohms, but at a very low level.
Fig.4 Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300, 1kHz waveform at 125W into 4 ohms (top), distortion and noise waveform with…