Description: PCI-bus computer soundcard for use in both PCs and Macintoshes with full digital and analog I/O.
Price: $599. Approximate number of dealers: Not known.
Manufacturer: IMM Electronik, Leipziger Strasse 27, 09648, Mittweida, Germany. Web: www.rme-audio.com/english. US Distributor: X-VISION AudioUS, 241 Federal Plaza West, 4th Floor. Suite 406, Youngstown, OH 44503. Tel: (330) 747-3866. Fax: (330) 747-3865. Web: www.xvisionaudio.com.
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Sidebar 1: Specifications
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Other than the addition of a two-channel A/D converter, RME's Digi96/8 PAD is identical to the Digi96/8 Pro I reviewed in the November 2000 and January 2001 issues. I refer readers to those reviews for measurements of its D/A section.
To test the card's ADC, I drove it from the unbalanced analog outputs of my Audio Precision System One DSP. The program used was CoolEdit Pro, which can operate at sample rates of up to 96kHz, the fastest the RME is capable is of. I also used RME's excellent DIGICheck program. The resultant WAV files stored on the host…
I first became familiar with Israeli speaker manufacturer Morel, founded in 1975, back in the late 1970s, when they had a drive-unit plant in the UK. Their drivers have always been well-respected—I was mightily impressed with a sample of their T33 1" soft-dome tweeter when I had the opportunity to measure it a decade or so ago—so when I heard their Octwin 5.2 dual-speaker system at the 2002 CEDIA conference, I asked for a pair for review.
The first samples to take up residence in Stereophile's storeroom used Corian enclosures. For various reasons, I never quite got to the point where I…
Once I had established the best places for the speakers, their tonal balance was a little on the warm, mellow side. The high frequencies seemed free from grain, and even a recording that was rather overcooked in the treble—an uncompressed WAV file of Led Zeppelin's classic "Fool in the Rain," for example, played back from my PowerBook via a FireWire-connected Metric Halo MIO 2882's AES/EBU output—didn't sound too aggressive or bright. And even the Dolby Digital-encoded cymbals on Diana Krall's Live in Paris DVD-V (Verve/Eagle Eye Media EE19012) sounded grain-free and extended.
The 5.2M's…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted, magnetically shielded loudspeaker. Drive-units: two 1.1" (28mm) silk-dome tweeters with neodymium magnets and Hexatech voice-coils, two 5.25" (130mm) plastic-cone woofers with neodymium-ferrite magnets and 3" Hexatech voice-coils. Crossover frequency and slopes: 1.4kHz, first-order. Frequency response: 42Hz-19kHz, +/-1.5dB. Sensitivity: 87dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Power handling: 400W continuous.
Dimensions: 24.8" (630mm) H (44"/1118mm on stands) by 6.9" (175mm) W by 12.8" (325mm) D. Weight: 52…
Sidebar 2: System
Analog source: Linn Sondek LP12/Cirkus/Trampolin/Lingo/Ekos/Arkiv LP player on a Sound Organisation table.
Digital sources: Mark Levinson No.31.5 CD transport; Mark Levinson No.30.6 D/A processor; Classé CDP-10 CD player; Technics DVD-A10 DVD-Audio player; and Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista SACD player.
Preamplification: Linn Linto phono preamp, Mark Levinson No.380S line preamp, Z-Systems rdp-1 digital control center (updated to handle 96kHz sources).
Power amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks.
Cables: Datalinks: Kimber Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU,…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The Octwin 5.2M's voltage sensitivity was just below average, at 86.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. (A single Octave 5.2 will be 3dB lower than this, of course.) And with its paralleled drive-units, the dual speaker's impedance (fig.1) will be half that of a single unit. It remains at or below 4 ohms for most of the audioband, with a minimum magnitude of 3.38 ohms at 220Hz. However, the fact that the electrical phase angle is very low over almost all this range will ameliorate any drive difficulty. The traces in fig.1 are free from the wrinkles that would imply the existence of…
Sidebar 4: Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: I would like to express my thanks and appreciation for such an insightful and well-versed review of our Octwin 5.2M speaker system, and for giving us this opportunity to introduce it to the US market.
For over 25 years, Morel has been designing and manufacturing high-quality drivers for other speaker manufacturers. Only recently, we have decided to re-introduce to the US market consumer products bearing the name Morel. Compared with other high-end manufacturers, Morel is in a very unique situation in that we have our own driver-development…
I had it all wrong. I assumed that the "SLP" in SLP-98P stood for stereo line preamplifier. But Dennis Had, Cary Audio's founder and chief designer, told me that it actually stands for sweet little preamplifier. In a day and age when acme is a word without meaning and the fighting Irish are neither, this strikes me as a risky marketing gambit—but one that may be effective if the name proves true.
For their part, the numbers are more objective: The first preamp in this series, the Cary SLP-90, was designed in 1990. Its successor, the SLP-94, was designed in 1994 (I reviewed it in…
The SLP-98P, for its part, respected voices. I liked the way it made Frank Sinatra sound on that guiltiest of guilty pleasures, "It Was a Very Good Year," from September of My Years (LP, Reprise 1014). The sound of his voice was perfectly textured—more so than with most electronics of my experience—and the musical performance itself had a sense of drama beyond mere soft-to-loud dynamics: Call it a feeling of anticipation, where I had not only a good sense of attack on each note but also apprehension—a sonic equivalent of a visual cue, as in a concert setting, of the expressiveness about to…