Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 4" x 8" coaxial, rectangular, treble-midrange flat ribbon; three 7" long-excursion aluminum-cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: 650Hz, 3.5kHz. Crossover slopes: 4th-order, Linkwitz-Riley. Frequency response: 28Hz-50kHz, ±2dB. Bass tuning resonant frequency: 36Hz. Sensitivity: 89dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 100W continuous, 250W peak.
Dimensions: 40" (1020mm) H by 10.5" (270mm) W by 16.75" (430mm) D. Weight: 88 lbs (40kg).
Finishes: Silver (…
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Sidebar 1: Specifications
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Linn Sondek-Lingo turntable with Linn Ittok tonearm and Spectral moving-coil cartridge; Day-Sequerra Classic, McIntosh MR-78, Sony ST-5000 FM tuners.
Digital sources: Krell KRC-28 CD player, Sony SCD-C555ES multichannel SACD player.
Preamplification: Duntech MX-10 head amplifier, Margulis phono section, Krell KCT preamplifier; Mark Levinson ML-7 preamplifier with L3A MC phono cards.
Power amplifiers: Krell FPB-600c, Mark Levinson No.334, No.436 monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: InnerSound Eros Mk.III, Revel Ultima Salon.
Cables:…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Its measured sensitivity of 86dB(B)/2.83V/m makes the Piega slightly below the average for the speakers I have measured over the past 13 years. Its impedance (fig.1) also drops to 3 ohms in the midbass, which means that it will need to be used with a good current-capable amplifier. The traces in fig.1 are free from the wrinkles that would indicate panel resonances, and investigating the aluminum-sheathed cabinet's vibrational behavior with an accelerometer revealed a well-behaved design, with only a low-level mode at 350Hz evident near the top of the side panel (…
Victor Khomenko, the "VK" of Balanced Audio Technology's VK-5 preamp and VK-60 amplifier, was born in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), and grew up two blocks from the Svetlana tube factory. He attended the prestigious Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and received an M.S. in physics and electronics, specializing in electronic emissions. He spent his early working life in the Russian electronics industry, then emigrated to the US in 1979—with $400, a family, no home, and no job.
His expertise didn't go unrecognized for long. Since 1981 he has been with Hewlett-Packard, working on digital…
Deutsch: Isn't it the case that you're going to end up with roughly twice the parts cost?
Khomenko: Even that's not necessarily true. If you look at the parts cost of the Khomenko-5, a fully balanced differential design, it's not substantially higher than many single-ended designs. There are many different ways of building balanced circuits. The word "balanced" is interpreted in so many ways. Recording engineers talk about one type of balanced interface. If you talk to instrumentation designers, they mean something different. I saw one article in which there was a very clean, simple…
Deutsch: So you probably wouldn't advise audiophiles to tweak Balanced Audio Technology products...
Khomenko: I don't really have a problem with it. If somebody wants to play around with the Khomenko-5 and the Khomenko-60, they can do it, but I doubt very much that they'll improve the sound, because most of that is determined by the basic topology—maybe 90%. Also, we've selected the components very carefully. Is there room for some improvement? Maybe very minor, but I agree with Steve that in most cases [tweaking] will be a step backward (footnote 2).
Bednarski: I would have to…
Khomenko: For a power amp, output power, distortion level, and distortion profile are also important. They give you some idea of what to expect. Some people see a very tight connection between these performance specs and sound; I see it as much looser, but still important.
I'm hesitant to suggest particular measurements, because there are so many techniques to measure each parameter. For example, you can measure output impedance under different conditions with different techniques. Sometimes those techniques produce different results.
Bednarski: I think I understand what…
This letter from Mike Pageau appeared in the April 2001 issue, and triggered the following "As We See It" essay:
Editor: How did Kalman Rubinson arrive at such a glowing review of the Blue Circle BC22 amplifier in February, despite its barely adequate measurements?
Why are all the reviewers from other audio magazines in agreement? Because Blue Circle's Gilbert Yeung is right! Music before numbers! That's why I bought one.—Mike Pageau, mike.pageau@sympatico.ca
"As We See It"
It was the question I'd been dreading: "Yo, JA, in what 'Recommended Components' Class are…
Letters on this subject appeared in the March and June 2001 issues:
Those measurements
Editor: I must applaud Stereophile for its determined efforts in including objective measurements in its coverage of high-end products. Although measurements often cannot discern for us the differences we do hear (I believe in mostly subjective evaluations), there comes a time when I, at least, must decide to purchase a component as a musical instrument, or one that attempts to reproduce a neutral representation of the software presented it.
The previous controversy over the "tailored"…
Although the term "professional" is often used as part of model designations in consumer electronics, the actual overlap between the audiophile consumer market and the real pro market is quite small. There are speakers in common use as studio monitors that no self-respecting audiophile would want to be caught dead listening to, and the typical audiophile loudspeaker would go up in smoke if asked to pump out the kind of volume that pro application routinely demands. To a lesser extent, the same applies to amplifiers: pro is pro and consumer is consumer, and ne'er the twain shall meet.
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