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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…

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…

"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…

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.…

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.…

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…

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…

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 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…