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…
LOS LOBOS: El Cancionero Mas Y Mas
Warner Archives/Rhino RS 76670-2 (4 CDs). 2000. Los Lobos, Luis Torres, T Bone Burnett, Ry Cooder, Mitchell Froom, Hal Willner, others, prods.; Larry Hirsch, Tchad Blake, Bob Schaper, John Paterno, others, engs. AAD? TT: 5:01:49
Performance *****
Sonics **** The bar had stopped selling beer at least two hours ago, and it was now probably three hours after the band should have quit playing. Yet there they were—Louis Perez, David Hidalgo, Conrad Lozano, Cesar Rosas, and Steve Berlin—still onstage, feeding off a sweat-drenched, beer-soaked,…
TERRY EVANS: Blues for Thought
PointBlank/Charisma/Virgin 39064 2 (CD only). Ry Cooder, prod.; Mark Ettel, eng. AAD? TT: 49:18 Terry Evans and Bobby King sang backing (and some lead) vocals for Ry Cooder for years in the studio and on the road. Cooder returned the favor a few years back by producing Live and Let Live!, the duo's first album on their own. It was a stunner: punchy, gutbucket blues and R&B with vocals pitched at a level of commitment unrivaled until Mighty Sam McClain came along last year. Did Live and Let Live! sound good? Recorded live in the studio, you could see…
Prejudice is bad—whether it's directed at people, places, or things. You know how it goes: digital is "bright," analog is "warm," solid-state is "brittle and etched," tubes are "smooth and soft" dynamic drivers are "low-resolution," electrostats and planars are "high-resolution" copper wire is "smooth," silver is "bright," etc. While putting everything that crosses your path into one box or another makes life simpler and seemingly more organized, the truth, musical or otherwise, usually gets mutilated in the process. Not that we all don't have preferences—but those are not the same as…
The 175, though not designed by the senior Manley, is based on the basic circuit guidelines outlined in his book on tube design, The Vacuum Tube Logic Book. The power supply features a solid-state rectifier bridge and a pair of 3800µF caps—meat'n'potatoes stuff. The power tubes are more unusual: 807s—inexpensive, relatively low-power radio transmitter devices (no longer in use for that purpose) that feature ultra-wideband response said to reach from above 125MHz down to DC. Using the 807s (similar to KT66s, according to Manley's book) as power tubes is tricky, because their wide bandwidth…
