The Stratus Golds ended up about 30" from my listening room's rear wall (which is faced with books and LPs) and approximately 60" from the side walls (which also have bookshelves covering some of their surfaces). The amplifiers used were all solid-state: a Pass Labs Aleph 3, a Mark Levinson No.333, and a pair of Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks. The preamplifier was primarily the remote-controlled Mark Levinson No.38S, replaced late in the auditioning by the new Levinson '380S. A Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS was used to amplify LP signals from a Linn Sondek/…
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Sidebar 2: 1997 Measurements
The Stratus Gold i was relatively insensitive, 2.83V raising a calculated 84dB on the midrange axis at 1m. Its impedance curve (fig.1) also suggested that it needs to be partnered by an amplifier capable of a healthy current delivery. Not only does the impedance drop to a low 2.72 ohms at 97Hz, but the phase angle is quite severe through the midbass region. This curve, however, does imply excellent low-bass extension, the "saddle" in the curve around 25Hz indicating the tuning of the big port.
Fig.1 PSB Stratus Gold i, electrical impedance (…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description (original Gold): Three-way loudspeaker. Drive units: 10" woofer, 6" midrange, 1" metal-dome tweeter. Crossover frequencies: 250Hz, 2.2kHz. Frequency response: 36Hz-20kHz ±1dB. Impedance: 4 ohms nominal. Power recommended: 10W minimum, rated for amplifiers of up to 250W clipping no more than 10% of the time. Sensitivity: 88dB/W/m.
Dimensions: 13.5" W by 44.5" H by 14.75" D. Weight: 95lbs net.
Price: $2000/pair (1991); $2100/pair (1997). Approximate number of dealers: 40.
Description Gold i: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding…
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree...---Coleridge
A stately pleasure dome decree...---Coleridge
Any resemblance between what you are about to read and any real-life high-end store is, of course, entirely coincidental:
The bank came today and seized the store. They came with a court order, two moving vans, and a team of six movers. After a cursory inventory, they took almost everything: amplifiers, speakers, CD players, VCRs, videotapes, LPs, cables, tools, tone cones, discs, disc dampers, desks, chairs, paintings, calendars, staplers, and note pads. They hauled the Duntech Sovereigns out like old…
Our hero found that the original store wasn't big enough to suit him. He needed six showrooms at least. The smaller, less intimidating systems would be situated near the front door---Rotel, Nakamichi, Luxman, Paradigm; in the middle, a McIntosh room; across the hall, Celestion, Superphon, B&K, Well-Tempered. Each room would be more exotic than the last. One could move from McIntosh to ARC to Rowland to Krell to FM Acoustics. Venturing deeper into the store would take one to higher and more rarefied levels of experience and expense, a retailing ploy akin to that used by adult boutiques…
He sometimes ranted shamelessly for 20 or 30 minutes, often in full view of customers, while his employees stood around staring at the floor. Creditors called to inquire about late payments. Krebs would placate them with promises he probably never intended to keep, then march into the service shop to express his rage. A technician might be elbow-deep in surgery on a large power amp, only to be jolted by the spectacle of a flailing maniac in the middle of the floor. "You guys are a bunch of incompetents! Morons! I'm going to clean house and rid myself of all of you!" This sort of thing became…
It was a wild roller-coaster ride. When a salesman made an especially lucrative deal, or a final payment came in from a big custom installation, Krebs would dance for joy, like the day James "Domino" Jefferson, star forward for the Xanadu Meteors, came in and paid cash for a home-theater system. Krebs was certain that all of Domino's teammates would follow suit. He made partial payments to all parties threatening legal action. He paid some of his back rent. He got chummy with his employees, forgetting for a moment their "incompetence and working-class values." He even offered to take them to…
Letters in response appeared in Vol.14 No.10, October 1991
A critical look at July
Editor:
"Pavane Pour un Dealer Défunt" was clearly the high point of the July issue. What an amazing piece of "fiction." The story could apply to practically any business, not just audio. I have seen several "high-tech" companies follow a similar path, almost to the letter.
---Fred E. DavisHamden, CT
Xanadu revisited
Editor:
Yes, Barry Willis's piece "Pavane Pour Un Dealer Défunt" in the July issue was an entertaining read. Fiction? An imaginative account of the results of…
No High End in Xanadu?
Editor:
I live in Xanadu, and Barry Willis was almost right on the money about his "mythical" high-end stereo emporium. Even in its first incarnation that establishment had two types of customers: Those who bought at no other place and those who wouldn't buy dogfood from them. The word is arrogance. Xanadu is a nouveau riche city that, to a great extent, has been affected by Circuit City---I can get it cheaper somewhere else. In the present economic situation even Xanadu is suffering---something the economic pundits of the area haven't seen in the previous…
Editor:
I live in Xanadu, and Barry Willis was almost right on the money about his "mythical" high-end stereo emporium. Even in its first incarnation that establishment had two types of customers: Those who bought at no other place and those who wouldn't buy dogfood from them. The word is arrogance. Xanadu is a nouveau riche city that, to a great extent, has been affected by Circuit City---I can get it cheaper somewhere else. In the present economic situation even Xanadu is suffering---something the economic pundits of the area haven't seen in the previous…
High-quality digital audio systems require that all digital interfaces in the signal path exhibit signal transparency. The widely adopted AES/EBU and S/PDIF interfaces have been criticized for a lack of signal transparency; here we (footnote 1) address possible problems with such interfaces and present methods for improving the interface standard.
In a correctly functioning (uniformly quantized and sampled) digital audio system, the only observable signal impairments should be attributable to band-limitation and an additive noise residue. Thus, although digital audio's subjective sound…