Fig.5 Joseph RM33si, sample 2, complex sum of nearfield midrange, woofer, and port responses (supplied…
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Jeff Joseph was perturbed by this measured behavior, as he had found nothing out of the ordinary in this region. Fig.5, for example, shows the complex sum of the outputs of the second sample's midrange unit, woofer, and port, which he, too, had measured using the MLSSA system. A couple of bumps can be seen—one at 125Hz, the same as in fig.4, the other between 50Hz and 60Hz, rather higher in frequency than in fig.4—but these are significantly lower in amplitude than in my graph.
Sidebar: JA's Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Meridian 800 DVD-V/CD/CD-R player, Mark Levinson No.31.5 CD transport, Perpetual Technologies P-3A and Chord DAC64 D/A processors.
Preamplifier: Mark Levinson No.380S.
Power amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks.
Cables: Interconnect: Madrigal HPC-1. Speaker: AudioQuest Gibraltar, Synergistic Research Designer's Reference2. Datalink: AudioQuest SVD-4 S/PDIF, Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU. AC: Synergistic Research Designer's Reference2 (Meridian 800), PS Audio Lab Cable (P300).
Accessories: PS Audio Power Plant P300 at…
Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: We are pleased to see that John Atkinson's tests now agree with ours, showing the smooth transition between woofer and midrange. We're also happy that the sensitivity result hews closer to our 83dB specification. The small remainder might well be accounted for by differences in measurement technique, weighting, and calibration.
Seasoned audiophiles know that sensitivity doesn't tell the whole story when it comes to amplifier-loudspeaker matching. Even on smaller amplifiers, the RM33si actually sounds much louder and more dynamic than one might…
Chip Stern wrote again about the RM33si Signature in January 2003 (Vol.26 No.1):
For audiophiles, love is a sometime thing. It's not that we're so damn flighty or impossible to please; it's just that familiarity breeds, if not contempt, then surely a tendency toward obsessive nitpicking and analysis. A blush of enthusiasm for the new is irresistible to most audiophiles, yet, as we expand our range of reference gear, the scales shift, and we find ourselves focusing more on a component's shortcomings. And since no one piece of gear does it all, this process of calculating relative…
Stereophile Consulting technical editor Robert Harley and I were walking down Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue trying to remember where we'd parked our rental car. We were in town for the Fall 1993 Audio Engineering Society Convention, and had just had dinner with record reviewer Beth Jacques.
"Excuse me, can you lend me $10?" The man in front of us seemed genuinely distressed. "My mother's been rushed to the hospital and my car's stalled and I need the cab fare to see her."
We must have looked skeptical. "I only need $10. If you give me your address I'll send you a check."
The…
We audiophiles are ever hopeful that, however satisfying our present equipment and setup, we can achieve even greater enjoyment with a tweak or an upgrade. And we never stop: It was only 16 years (and three turntables) ago that I bought what I declared would be my last turntable, and there's no doubt that this "dead" format has improved substantially since then. Now, even as we make another (but less paradigm-shifting) format transition, from CD to SACD and DVD-Audio, new two-channel DACs continue to appear that show us how far we still are from wresting all the music from the original "Red…
The Gen.VIII's sound was so open and grain-free, yet so unaggressive, that it seemed to invite me to turn up the volume. Having been satisfied so long with the Mark Levinson No.360S, and with the Weiss Medea and MSB Platinum Plus before it, I was more than a bit disturbed to think that the Gen.VIII could sound so different yet still be accurate. Yet, over the span of months, that's the conclusion I could not avoid.
The Gen.VIII offered as uncolored and transparent a representation as the Weiss Medea (which I thought a paradigm of neutrality a year ago, and still do) and the Levinson No.…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Digital-to-analog converter and analog line controller with remote control. Digital section: 5 digital inputs (2 S/PDIF RCA, 1 S/PDIF BNC, 1 S/PDIF TosLink, 1 AES/EBU XLR). Sampling rates: 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96kHz. 8x oversampling with Theta proprietary FIR filter running on 24-bit DSP processor with 56-bit accumulator (Motorola 56362). Analog input section: 2 stereo, RCA and XLR. Maximum input levels: 10V RMS (RCA), 20V RMS (XLR). Input impedance: 10k ohms. Frequency response: DC-20kHz, ±0.2dB. Dynamic range and signal/noise ratio: 125dB ref.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Heybrook TT2 turntable, SME III tonearm, Ortofon SME30H cartridge.
Digital sources: California Audio Labs CL-20 DVD-V/CD player, Orpheus 0 CD player, Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal player, Sony SCD-XA777ES SACD/CD player; Mark Levinson No.360S, Weiss Medea DACs.
Preamplification: Sonic Frontiers Line-3 preamplifier, Audiolab 8000PPA phono stage.
Power amplifiers: Sonic Frontiers Power-3, Classé CAM-350 monoblocks; McCormack DNA-1 Rev.A.
Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima Studio.
Cables: Interconnect: AudioQuest Anaconda & Python (both…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Continuing a Theta tradition, the Generation VIII's maximum output level was very high, at 9V single-ended and 18V balanced. Its volume control, which operates in accurate 1dB steps, will therefore tend to be used around its -20dB setting in systems with typical gain architectures. Both sets of outputs preserved absolute polarity and featured very low source impedances: 11.5 ohms for the unbalanced RCA jacks, 23 ohms for the balanced XLRs.
Fed CD data, the Gen.VIII's frequency response was absolutely flat (fig.1, top pair of traces), and its de-emphasis…