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If any single link in the audio chain should be free of sonic personality, it's the preamplifier. Though a preamplifier's basic job description is "source selector with volume control," from hi-fi's earliest days preamps have been the designated dashboard: the more dials, switches, and lights, the better. All that control came at the cost of quiet, transparency, and tonal neutrality. Still, the quixotic quest for the mythical "straight wire with gain" continued to lead to minimalist designs, including impractical unbuffered "passive" preamps, in which cable length, thus capacitance, affected…
Successive pressings of Function cycle through Balance, Relative Volume, Phase, Mono/Stereo, Maximum, Fixed, Display, and Input Name, allowing you to customize each input independently for most of those functions. BAT was smart to begin with Balance; unlike Phase (more correctly labeled Polarity on the remote) and Mono/Stereo, the Rex offers no independent means of adjusting the balance, either on the front panel or on the remote. Selecting Fixed lets you set the chosen input for unity gain for use as a pass-through to an A/V system, while Display lets you select the relative volume level…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-chassis, fully balanced, tubed, remote-controlled preamplifier with switchable absolute polarity. Tube complement: eight 6H30 in control module, two 5AR4, four 6C19, two 6H30, two 6C45 in power module. Inputs: 5 XLR. Outputs: 2 XLR (main), 1 XLR (tape). Volume-control resolution: 140 steps, 0.5dB each. Frequency range: 2Hz –200kHz. Maximum gain: 17dB. Maximum output: 50V. Distortion at 2V output: 0.005%. Noise: –100dB unweighted. Input impedance: 100k ohms minimum. Output impedance: 200 ohms. Power consumption: control module, 220VA; power…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn & Criterion turntables, Cobra & Copperhead tonearms, Castellon stand; Graham Phantom tonearm; Lyra Titan, Air Tight PC-1, Koetsu Vermillion, Soundsmith SMMC-1, Ortofon Windfeld cartridges.
Digital Sources: Musical Fidelity kW SACD/CD player, BPT-modified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder.
Preamplification: Manley Steelhead, Einstein Turntable's Choice phono preamplifiers; Musical Fidelity kWP preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Musical Fidelity kW, VTL MB-450 Series II Signature monoblocks.
…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured Balanced Audio Technology's Rex using Audio Precision's SYS2722 top-of-the-line test set-up. I used both pairs of current-source tubes —the 6C45 that MF liked and the 6H30 that he didn't —but a problem developed with the left channel soon after the preamplifier landed on my test bench. When the Rex was first powered up, the gains and responses in the two channels were very closely matched, but after five minutes or so the level of the left channel gradually dropped until it was about 20dB lower than the right, with the signal being very distorted. I…
Scene the First. You are sitting in a concert hall, dead center, row M; the cellist walks on to the stage, sits down and starts to play the prelude to the first of Bach's solo cello suites, that intricate unfolding of a rhapsodic melodic line within the tight framework of an implied chordal structure. Melody, harmony, rhythm—none exist at any one point of time in this most exquisite of Bach's solo instrumental writing, yet the skill of the composer, coupled with the artistry of the musician, allow you to perceive the abstract as reality.
Scene the Second. You walk over to your record deck…
Another gosh-darn write-in competition! Sorry! They're like peanuts (or Campari and tonics). It's almost impossible to stop at just one.
This write-in competition is more narrowly focused than the one in the April 2007 issue (and therefore, perhaps, easier to enter). What inspired it was listening to Jackson Browne's "Fountain of Sorrow" and musing about how finely crafted a song it is. "Fountain of Sorrow" has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It tells a story. It has a point of view, an authorial tone (an attitude toward its subject matter), and, for lack of a better word, a…
Now, don't complain that I've cherry-picked all the good ones! There are the song catalogs of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Boston, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Jim Croce, Dido, Elton John, Carole King, Phil Ochs, Sinead O'Connor, Bob Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and James Taylor. For starters.
I am acutely aware that the chronological center of gravity of my list is 1974. I hope that at least a few readers will make fervent cases for songs written in the past 20 years—my radar might be mis-aimed. Or it could be that the 1970s indeed were a high-water mark for song craftsmanship. Please…
Sidebar: Size Matters
Table 1: Loudspeaker Driver Diameters vs Frontal Areas
Driver Diameter in inches Frontal Area, in square inches Relative Area Increase Over Next Smaller Area Increase Over 4" Driver 4 12.5 - - 5.5 24 92% 92% 6.5 33 37% 264% 7 38.5 17% 308% 8 50 30% 400% 9 63.5 27% 508% 10 78.5 24% 628% 11 95 21% 760% 12 113 19% 904% 15 177 56% 1416%
An 8" driver has four times the frontal area of a 4" driver. A 6.5" driver has 2.6 times the frontal area of a 4" driver, while a 7" driver has three times the frontal area of a 4" driver.
Given the…
5 Great Art Songs of the Rock Age:
The 12 Winning Entries
The 12 Winning Entries
Well, that certainly was something!
To refresh memories: In my February 2008 column I asked readers to submit their lists nominating The 5 Great Art Songs of the Rock Age.
My own list was:
1. "If You Could Read My Mind," Gordon Lightfoot (1969).
2. "Aja," Becker and Fagen, Steely Dan (1977).
3. "Fountain of Sorrow," Jackson Browne (1972).
4. "Hallelujah," Leonard Cohen (1984).
5. "Wysteria," Dan Fogelberg (1972).
This write-in contest generated more than twice the number of…