Wes Phillips was very impressed by this $379 iPod dock when he reviewed it in the October 2008 issue, feeling that it let him access the digital information from his Apple iPod with seemingly perfect transparency. The Wadia, you see, extracts the digital audio data from the iPod without processing it with the player's D/A processor; if you hook up the iTransport's S/PDIF output to a standalone D/A converter, you can get significantly higher sound quality than if you plug the iPod into a normal dock that can access only…
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John Atkinson wrote about the Wadia 170 in June 2009 (Vol.32 No.6):
I first encountered Avalon Acoustics' loudspeakers about 20 years ago. The hi-fi shop I worked for sold Jeff Rowland Design Group electronics, and Jeff Rowland insisted that no loudspeaker better showcased his electronics than the Avalons. Rowland sent us a pair of Ascents, and we were startled by their gem-like, faceted cabinets and remarkable soundstaging. As we packed them up to return them to Colorado, I remember thinking, I could live with these speakers.
Jeff Rowland turned out to be such a fan that he bought half of Avalon from founder Charles Hansen's partner. But Rowland soon…
Another case in point: pianist (and hand-clapper) Pierre-Laurent Aimard's African Rhythms (CD, Teldec 86584), which intersperses recordings of Aka Pygmies performing their own music with Aimard performing compositions by Steve Reich and György Ligeti—a concept that results in a strangely organic sound, since Aimard has chosen works by those composers that mirror the clapping music of the Aka—Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood, for example, which is simultaneously dead simple and fiendishly complicated. A simple but constantly varying pulse is established at the upper end of the keyboard, and…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" concave ceramic-dome tweeter, 3.5" concave ceramic-dome midrange, two 7" Nomex/Kevlar-cone woofers. Frequency range: 28Hz–25kHz. Sensitivity: 88dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended power: 50–200W.
Dimensions: 41" (1040mm) H by 10" (260mm) W by 16" (410mm) D. Weight: 112 lbs (51kg) net each, +400 lbs/pair shipping.
Finishes: Figured Walnut, Quilted Cherry, Curly Maple; others available as premium finishes.
Serial Numbers Of Units Reviewed: 7045, 7046.
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre Acoustics C-5xe universal player, Simaudio Moon Evolution SuperNova CD player.
Preamplifiers: Ayre Acoustics KX-R, Conrad-Johnson ACT2.
Power Amplifiers: Ayre Acoustics MX-R monoblocks, Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties WATT/Puppy 8.
Cables: Interconnect: Shunyata Research Aries & Antares. Speaker: Shunyata Research Lyra.
Accessories: Ayre Acoustics L-5xe power-line filter; Furutech eTP-609 distribution box; APC APCS15 AC line conditioner; Furutech RDP panels, RealTraps Mini…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Assessed with DRA Labs' MLSSA system, the Avalon Indra's voltage sensitivity is specified as 88dB/2.83V/m. My B-weighted estimate on its tweeter axis came in higher, at 90.2dB(B)/2.83V/m. This speaker is both significantly more sensitive than average, and more sensitive than its specification would imply. However, this measurement was taken with the speaker's grille/felt blanket removed, which does affect its high-frequency behavior (see later). The Indra also makes significant demands for current on the partnering amplifier, which can be seen from the graph of…
Stereo Review, the world's most popular audio magazine during most of its time on Earth, was a common target of derision from the hobby's so-called high-end press, not least of all from me. We criticized its nerdy, boring prose, its uniformly positive reviews, and, most of all, its shameless pimping of the notions that measurements reveal all there is to know about a component, and that all competently engineered components sound equally fine.
I began reading Stereo Review and the nearly identical High Fidelity in the 1970s, when still in my teens, and I continued to do so for another…
So let's back up just a little: In the old-guard mags, well-educated if categorically uninteresting writers reviewed audio products in complete ignorance of the stuff's musical performance, yet they wrote about the major-label music recordings of the day with intelligence and candor. In the new-guard mags, amateur writers of varying talent reviewed products based on sound, relying overmuch on recordings that existed only for equipment-testing purposes (footnote 1), and they wrote record reviews that were superficial and ill-informed.
When did the big improvement happen? Did I miss it?…
These are the first interconnects and speaker cables I have reviewed for Stereophile. Each of us has his little niche, and editor John Atkinson likes us to play in the sandboxes we most enjoy. For me, that has usually meant inexpensive speakers and expensive tube electronics. But there's another reason I've tended to shy away from cables.
About 15 years ago, there was an explosion of new cable companies, each of which appeared to be boasting that its innovative designs were right and everyone else's were wrong. Some of these cables were interesting, but many seemed to be nothing…
It's common for audio reviewers to hear new things in familiar recordings, but with the MIT speaker cable, I was noticing new things on my own recording! Near the beginning of "Mansour's Gift," drummer Mark Flynn does some delicate, rapid-fire, upper-register background fills that I had been unaware of before using the MITs. For the life of me, I couldn't tell what percussion instrument he was playing, even though its sound was so arresting. I finally had to call Mark to ask what he'd been playing. (His answer: "Cup chimes hit with the back end of a set of brushes.") The CVT 2s reproduced…