Description: Super "Acoustic Resistive Matrix" (ARM)-loaded, powered subwoofer. Inputs: 2 line-level, unbalanced (RCA) phono inputs with 0dB and +12dB sensitivities, 1 line-level, balanced XLR input, 2 speaker-level inputs using Neutrik Speakon connectors, one balanced, one unbalanced. No signal-sensing auto on/off. Drive-units: two downward-firing, long-excursion, heavy-duty 10" paper-cone woofers made by Volt. Crossover: low-pass filter (defeatable) using REL Active Bass Control (ABC) in 24 semitone increments, 22-96Hz, 12dB/octave slope; no high-pass filter…
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Linn Sondek-Lingo turntable, Ittok tonearm, Spectral moving-coil cartridge.
Digital sources: Krell KRC-28 CD player, Sony SCD-C555ES SACD/CD multichannel player.
FM tuners: Day-Sequerra Classic, McIntosh MR-78, Sony ST-5000.
Preamplification: Mark Levinson ML-7 preamp with L3A MC phono cards, Duntech MX-10 head amp, Margulis phono section, Krell KCT preamp.
Power amplifiers: Mark Levinson ML-2 monoblocks & No.334, Krell FPB 600C.
Loudspeakers: Quad ESL-989; James EMB-1200 and Velodyne DD-18 subwoofers.
Cables:…
It has become accepted lore in audiophile circles that the 44.1kHz sampling rate adopted for Compact Disc is too low. Some writers have argued that, as a 20kHz sinewave will only be sampled about twice per cycle, it will not be reconstructed accurately, if at all.
Now, it may be true that 44.1kHz is too low a sampling rate, but certainly not for this reason. H. Nyquist, a researcher at Bell Labs, many years ago proved mathematically that as long as the sampling frequency is at least twice the highest frequency of interest in the signal to be sampled, the waveform will be accurately…
Yes, I know---there are tens of thousands of happy CD player owners. But you should now start to see why there are subjective shortcomings. Take the first assumption, that the signal had no components above half the sampling frequency. Real music inconveniently has a spectrum that extends up and up, well above the traditional "20 to 20k" audio bandwidth. Before it can be sampled, the music signal has therefore to be viciously filtered to avoid the particularly audible nasties of "aliasing"---such a benign word to describe one of the more unpleasant-sounding distortions---and the design of…
Reader's Letters in Vol.9 No.8 (December 1986) in response to the footnote question:
Thiotimoline #1 Editor: In response to JA's request for the name of Isaac Asimov's "mythical chemical substance" ("Zen and the Art of D/A Conversion," Vol.9 No.6), it is thiotimoline, a supposedly ultra-hydrophilic molecule. It was first reported in "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline," published in the March 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in The Analog Anthology #1 (Davis, 1980). Thank you for this opportunity to combine two of my interests, audio and science…
"To be natural," Oscar Wilde said, "is such a very difficult pose to keep up."
When we refer to any recording as "sounding natural," we are, of course, employing an oxymoron. There's nothing about the process that is "natural"—except, perhaps, the use of a good-sounding venue and the choice of sympathetic musicians. Microphones don't "hear" music in the same way that ears do, and, far from being neutral, are actually chosen for their sound.
For instance, if one is recording violins, the polar distribution of radiated power along the axis of the violins' top plates is such that it…
Festival Artistic Director Heiichiro Ohyama had asked for the shell to be moved, having found the sound as heard from the hall too dull. Moving the shell closer did, in fact, make things brighter and better focused in the seats. This presented a dilemma for us, though, since none of the sonic improvements were audible to our microphones—only the ways in which the nearfield sound had been affected for the worse.
Moreover, it raised a philosophical question: Who had a right to the best sound—the audience on the night of the performance, or the thousands of people who would (we hoped)…
Notes on the Engineering
As with our previous two Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival recordings, we used four microphones: two outrigger B&K omnis were hung by their leads from the ceiling, 8' from the stage and 13' from the floor. A central pair of B&K cardioid microphones was mounted on a stereo bar, and hung by their leads from the center of the ceiling 11' above the level of the stage and the same 8' back as the omnis. The two cardioids were used in what's called an ORTF configuration: the mikes angled at 115 degrees, their tips spaced about 7" apart. The ORTF microphone…
As with our previous two Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival recordings, we used four microphones: two outrigger B&K omnis were hung by their leads from the ceiling, 8' from the stage and 13' from the floor. A central pair of B&K cardioid microphones was mounted on a stereo bar, and hung by their leads from the center of the ceiling 11' above the level of the stage and the same 8' back as the omnis. The two cardioids were used in what's called an ORTF configuration: the mikes angled at 115 degrees, their tips spaced about 7" apart. The ORTF microphone…
The Music
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Sextet in D Major for Violin, Two Violas, Violoncello, Double Bass, and Piano, Op.110 (1824)Listeners should not be misled by this work's high opus number: Mendelssohn wrote the Sextet when he was barely 15. It acquired this opus number when it was published in 1868, more than 20 years after his death. When Mendelssohn completed the Sextet on May 10, 1824 (which was, coincidentally, three days after the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony), he was at the end of his apprentice period and on the verge of achieving his mature voice: the Octet for…
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Sextet in D Major for Violin, Two Violas, Violoncello, Double Bass, and Piano, Op.110 (1824)Listeners should not be misled by this work's high opus number: Mendelssohn wrote the Sextet when he was barely 15. It acquired this opus number when it was published in 1868, more than 20 years after his death. When Mendelssohn completed the Sextet on May 10, 1824 (which was, coincidentally, three days after the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony), he was at the end of his apprentice period and on the verge of achieving his mature voice: the Octet for…
Thus it is with Brahms here: The Piano Quartets in G Minor, Op.25 and A Major, Op.26, were published in 1862. Unusual for Brahms at the time, they are large-scale works that did not start out as symphonies—but how different they are from one another! Neither is exactly easy—Brahms, with his sonorous, wide-span chords, rhythmic displacements, and the like, never is—but the G Minor work usually comes off better in performance. Its granitic solidarity and dramatic contrasts are self-evident, and performers usually subordinate such things as the lyrical, lilting second movement to the sterner…