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The sensitivity of the TZ-C700 center channel is 91.3dB. This is respectably high, and significant only in that it will require just under twice as much power as the 2.3-dB-more-sensitive TZ-F700 to produce the same output level. For reasons we could not determine, the TZ-C700 cut in and out during the impedance measurements (it still functioned normally in normal operation), so no impedance curve is presented here. However, since the TZ-C700 and TZ-F700 use the same IRIS driver, it's reasonable to assume that, above 450Hz, the TZ-C700's impedance is at least similar to that of the larger…
It was the subhead that caught my eye: "Today's super-rich just don't seem interested in $300,000 stereos." Clunky writing, sure. But at least it gave some idea of what the next 2000 words were about, and spared the pain of having to read further.
Had they soldiered on, readers of the July 9th edition of the New York Times could have picked from a lineup of the usual suspects. There was the litany of examples of stupid-high prices. (Tube amplifiers at $34,000/pair! An electrostatic speaker system for $70,000!) There was the we're-dying-out-here quote from a member of the industry (…
My dogs were killing me. It was the end of the second day of the 1985 Summer Consumer Electronics Show, which I was visiting on behalf of English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review. I had been dutifully tramping the capacious corridors of Chicago's McCormick Center and the rooms of the (now demolished) McCormick Inn, looking for signs of musical life amid the huge promotion for the 8mm tape format, which was being heavily touted at CES as the future of both video and audio (!) reproduction. Even trade-paper headlines shouting "Audio: Not Just Video Peripheral!" failed to lift my spirits…
Let's say you play a CD on a poor-quality CD transport and store the digital audio data in a massive computer memory. You then repeat the process, but this time play the CD into the memory from the finest CD transport extant (say, the Mark Levinson No.31). A week later you feed the two sets of data from the massive memory into a digital processor and listen to the music. Would the CD transports' sonic signatures be removed from the signal? Could you hear a difference between the transports a week later?
I believe that the two reproductions would sound identical. Because the…
After being connected to a transport, the Lens will show a number on the display's right-hand side. This number indicates the transport's speed accuracy, measured in Parts Per Million (ppm). We're not talking about the transport's jitter, but its average deviation from the standard output frequency. Because of crystal oscillator tolerances, some transports run slightly faster or slower than the correct frequency. The highest deviation Genesis has seen is 250ppm speed error, with 50ppm being a typical value. The Mark Levinson No.31 read 8ppm speed error, the Sonic Frontiers SFT-1 had 45ppm…
On the subject of the RAM delay, the Lens poses a problem for a Home Theater system: the audio will be out of sync with the video. Genesis addresses this problem with a "LaserDisc" mode that bypasses the RAM. Instead of using the memory for jitter elimination, a dual-PLL input receiver takes over to reduce jitter in the incoming datastream. This feature also lets you hear the effect on the reproduced sound of removing the RAM buffer.
The Lens gets its name from its function: focusing incoming data to a precise point at the Lens output circuit. That data could be jittered and have an…
All transports and jitter-reduction boxes Paul McGowan examined use an inverter gate to generate the negative-polarity or cold half of the AES/EBU output signal. Because all gates introduce what's called "propagation delay," the AES/EBU output's negative phase lags the positive phase very slightly (by the amount of the gate's propagation delay). This delay between phases reportedly introduced jitter in the digital processor the AES/EBU signal was driving. The new output driver chip subjects each phase to the same number of gates, thus introducing no time lag between phases. The difference in…
What I did enjoy, however, were the musical benefits of this higher resolution. Subtle nuances that were lost or barely hinted at without the Lens were suddenly vivid, palpable, and alive. Ralph Towner's superbly recorded acoustic guitar on Beyond Words had more inner detail of the kind that you hear from the live instrument. The Lens's superior resolution made the guitar more lifelike and real, and less like a canned reproduction.
In addition to revealing more timbral detail, the Lens also made instruments more separate and distinct. The presentation provided a greater impression of…
It didn't. The Mark Levinson No.31 still sounded better than the Sonic Frontiers SFT-1 and Parasound C/BD-2000, for the same reasons it sounded better without the Lens. Moreover, the SFT-1 was still more forward-sounding than the No.31 or C/BD-2000, and the Parasound transport's softish bass and more laid-back presentation remained with the Lens in the signal path. The Lens, however, reduced the magnitude of the differences between transports, leaving only traces of their musical characteristics. How the transports' jitter signatures got through the Lens's RAM and ended up at the DAC, where…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: De-jittering device with "resolution enhancement" dither generation. Inputs: AES/EBU, RCA coaxial, BNC coaxial, TosLink optical, ST-Type optical. Outputs: AES/EBU, RCA coaxial, ST-Type optical. Display readout: CD subcode data (track time), transport speed accuracy (in parts per million), output word length (16 or 20 bits), dither mode, signal lock, input sampling frequency.
Dimensions: 19" W by 2" H by 8" D. Weight: 12 lbs.
Serial number of unit tested: 111115.
Price: $1800 (1996); no longer available (2003). Approximate number of dealers…