The 5.2M's…
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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.
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…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Tubed full-function preamplifier with separate power supply and remote control of volume. Tube complement: two each, 6SN7GT, 12AX7, 12AU7. Inputs: 5 (4 line, 1 MM phono). Input impedance: 47k ohms. Output impedance: 800 ohms. Voltage gain: 16dB line, 43dB phono. Signal/Noise Ratio: 88dB (no reference or conditions given).
Dimensions: 12.2" W by 5.2" H by 13.5" D (preamp chassis). Weight: 22 lbs including power supply.
Serial number of unit reviewed: 230477.
Price: $3500 in Jaguar Carnival Red finish; Jaguar Anthracite Black finish adds $200…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Linn LP12 turntable, Naim Armageddon power supply, Naim Aro tonearm; Rega Planar 3 turntable, Rega RB-300 tonearm; ZYX Airy S, Lyra Helikon Mono, Rega Elys, Dynavector DV10x5 cartridges.
Digital source: Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Audio Note AN-S2, Tamura L2-D step-up transformers; Fi, Audio Note M3 preamplifiers.
Power amplifiers: Audio Note Kit One (300B), Fi 2A3 Stereo, EAR 890.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-989, Lowther PM6A (in modified Medallion horns).
Cables: Interconnect: Nordost Valhalla & Valkyrja…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Once I had worked out how to get a signal to appear at its outputs—see AD's comments on the confusing switch labeling—the Cary SLP-98P preamplifier's phono stage offered a gain of 43.4dB (measured at the tape outputs) and an input impedance of 44.4k ohms, both appropriate for moving-magnet cartridges. The RIAA error is shown in fig.1: there is a very slight swayback apparent, reaching ±0.2dB, which will be just audible as a touch of enhanced image depth. More important, note the 0.9dB channel imbalance, which is presumably due to gain differences in the 12AX7 tubes…