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I don't make drastic changes to my audio system from month to month, because then it would be very difficult to tell what component is doing what to the sound. If the following list looks similar to my system list in prior reviews, that's because it largely is. The following equipment was used:

Analog sources: Thorens/Chadwick 125 Mk.II turntable mounted with a Graham 1.5 tonearm, with arm tubes fitted with Denon 103 C/van den Hul, EMT/van den Hul, Fidelity Research FR-1 Mk.III van den Hul, and AudioQuest BH-200 cartridges; in my large listening room, I used a…

The Diamante's impedance magnitude and phase are shown in fig.1. The single rise in the bass, to 15.5 ohms, suggests that the ATL loading does act as a true transmission line rather than as some kind of perverted reflex, though its frequency, 51Hz, implies limited low-frequency extension overall, as SS found during his auditioning. When the speaker is used with an amplifier having a high output impedance, this 51Hz impedance peak will result in an effective boost at this frequency. I suspect that this is why SS found his Atma-Sphere tube amplifier not to be a good…

Editor: I was very pleased that Steven Stone and John Atkinson were impressed with the Diamante. They heard what our many owners and retailers report: that this is a product which does not call attention to itself. My primary design goal is to be true to the music—our speakers must be revealing, yet always enjoyable. After several months of living with our loudspeaker, Steve reported that the Diamante "allows the music to come through, with very little editorializing." Some of the factors that make this possible are dynamic accuracy, dispersion, time coherence, and…

These questions have answers, and the topics they encompass are anything but trivial: they relate to…

Slew rate is usually specified in…

DVD-A
Tchaikovsky: Overture 1812
Telarc DVDA-70541
Duration: 15:43
Original recording: DSD
Bit depth/sample rate: 24-bit/44.1kHz
S/PDIF sample rate: 44.1kHz

Stereo track is only 24/44.1 but the rate of change results are not that different to the equivalent SACD, and the power envelope tests the same to within fractions of a dB.

DVD-A
Walton: Portsmouth Point Overture
EMI 7243 4 92402 9 2
Duration: 5:33
Original recording: analog
Bit depth/sample rate: 24-bit/48kHz
S/PDIF sample rate: 48kHz

Presumably the analog…

I empathize with those readers who have contacted Stereophile asking for some summary of the graphical evidence I presented in "New Media Metrics." I had planned to include a more rounded conclusion to the piece, but, with my word budget almost spent and a guilty conscience at asking John Atkinson to find space for more than 60 graphs, I put a perhaps premature sock in it.

So what messages did all those graphed wiggles convey? Well, let's first admit that, substantial though the exercise was, it can make no claim to represent a statistically significant sample of…

Whew, I thought to myself. Push-pull. Thank goodness—it oughta measure pretty well. I read on.

"The new V12 is created by a stunning combination of the world-famous CAD-805 soundstage, the glorious midrange of the CAD-300-SE, and the supercharged power of the CAD-211-Ms."

Never above a little…

Regarding really deep bass, try track 2 of Peter Kruder's Peace Orchestra 1999 (G-CD 004), the CD with the Band-Aid on the cover and the title printed on it—you can't miss it! The CAD-280SA V12 sounded like...a V12! Powerful, capable, with good roadholding that struck a fine balance with this CD's…