The reference system used to audition the four loudspeakers reviewed here includes the VTL 225W Deluxe monoblock and Krell KSA 200 amplifiers, driven by a Theta DSPro Basic digital processor through the passive Electronic Visionary Systems Stepped Attenuator. The analog front end was a Well-Tempered Turntable and Well-Tempered Arm fitted with a Sumiko Boron vdH cartridge. Phono preamplification was provided by the Precision Audio outboard phono module, connected to the passive attenuator. The phono preamp has enough gain for the moving-coil Sumiko and is able to…
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Sidebar 3: Measurements
Fig.1 shows the satellite's impedance magnitude and phase angle. (Note that electrical phase is presented with inductive angles to the bottom of this graph, the opposite of our usual convention.) Since the impedance is generally above 6 ohms, the System Seven should be an easy load for an amplifier to drive. The narrow impedance peak is centered on the frequency that the midrange begins rolling off.
Fig.1 Triad System Seven satellite, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.)
The System Seven's frequency…
Akeem Olajuwon? Ralph Sampson? Yes, it must be the Twin Towers. No, wait—it's the World Trade Centers!
Such were my thoughts upon first viewing the Altec Bias 550s erect in my living room. So great was the illusion that the dual driver-dirigibles were crowned with two of my toy dinosaurs (that's pronounced "dina-sour" in these parts), suggesting, I hoped, the humanity, humor, and yearning of King Kong's ascent of the Empire State Building—either Fay Wray's or Jessica Lange's version. (Jessica used to live in Santa Fe until just a little while ago—sigh.)
Whoa boy, down to earth—…
Unfortunately, the Altecs as first hooked up displayed abysmal tonal balance, exhibiting an immensely out-of-balance low-frequency heaviness. Thus, I became used to the remote control right off as I strove to even things out. (After running some frequency-response curves, and reporting the results to Altec, it became clear that my pair had been badly misadjusted at the factory before shipment; this report will therefore review two separate pairs, although the second was simply the first pair correctly adjusted.) Here was one of the areas where I feel Altec should have waited a year to study…
What do we get with the speaker thus optimized? On the positive side, I can say that voices, particularly male voices, had astonishing clarity and in-the-room presence, especially at high volume levels. You're not quite aware when listening to other speakers just how anemically a robust male voice is usually presented. At the same time, the male voice does not tread greatly into this speaker's danger area, the below–80Hz range, so there was little excess chestiness.
Female voice, whether classical or popular, was presented with almost as much power, but less grace. The volume levels…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Five-way pentamplified moving-coil loudspeaker. Two 10" woven carbon-fiber (WCF) woofers; one each 8" midbass WCF woofer, 6" WCF midrange cone, 2" diamond-deposited polyamide dome, 1" diamond-deposited polyamide dome. Crossover frequencies: 80Hz, 450Hz, 1.5kHz, 4.5kHz. Amplifier powers: 250, 125, 125, 125, 75Wpc. Remote control (within ±6dB limits) of volume, balance, mute (complete), on/off, subwoofer, bass, midrange, high/midrange, high-level controls. Maximum output: 120dB at 2m, 40Hz–20kHz. Sensitivity: 100mV in for 90dB SPL out. Frequency response…
Editor's Note from 1992: This seminal J. Gordon Holt essay on how the art of recording natural sound became compromised in favor of unmusical artificiality for good commercial reasons was originally published in August 1964, in Vol.1 No.8. Though most people these days listen to classical music from CDs, not LPs, in the intervening decades, recording technology has not changed for the better as much as one might have hoped. Nevertheless, the days of wretched multimiking excess described by Gordon are past, and it's rare to find the music treated with the lack of respect typical of a mid-'60s…
This is a case where the techniques of recording are being used to create, almost from the ground up, something whose resemblance to the real thing is, frankly, a fabrication; the real thing does not exist to begin with. The "hall" is not a concert stage, the placement of the performers is not like that at an actual performance, and the balances and timbres of the instrumental sounds are almost entirely under the control of the recording engineers, who may or may not have the same ideas about such matters as the conductor or the composer. If the recording director knows his stuff, and really…
This "systems" concept reached its culmination with RCA Victor's "Dynagroove" system, which considered everything—from the musical score to the ambient noise in the listener's home—in terms of its effect on the ultimate musical "projection." This vast amount of data was poured into the hopper, as it were, and out came a formula for producing the optimum "projection of the musical ideas" under all these varied and conflicting conditions. The recording director consults with the conductor, to see whether they agree about the meaning of the music, but he is, in effect, the ultimate artistic…
GONZALO RUBALCABA: Discovery
Gonzalo Rubalcaba, piano; Charlie Haden, bass; Paul Motian, drums
Blue Note CDP 7 95478 2 (CD only). Charlie Haden, prod.; David Richards, eng. DDD? TT: 54:06
Gonzalo Rubalcaba, piano; Charlie Haden, bass; Paul Motian, drums
Blue Note CDP 7 95478 2 (CD only). Charlie Haden, prod.; David Richards, eng. DDD? TT: 54:06
Couldn't figure out what jazz release to review this month. Nothing, as Elvis said, moved me; I wanted to get real, real gone this time. I stopped into Nick Potter's Books & Used Records. Nick was waiting for me.
"Ever heard of Gonzalo Rubalcaba?"
"Who?"
"Gonzalo Rubalcaba—28-year-old Cuban pianist. This's his first recording outside Cuba. Lissen to what he does with '…