Digital Source: Ayre C5-xe universal player.
Preamplifier: Linn Klimax Kontrol.
Power Amplifier: Krell Evolution 600.
Loudspeakers: Hansen Audio Prince V2.
Cables: Interconnect: Stealth Indra & Nanofiber. Speaker: Stealth Dream.
Accessories: Composite Products CF-1000-5 equipment stand & amp stands; Furutech eTP-609 distribution box & RDP panels; RealTraps Mini & Mondo Traps.—Wes Phillips
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I examined the Klimax DS's measured behavior mainly using Audio Precision's top-model SYS2722 system. I primarily used the Linn's balanced outputs, though I did spot checks on the unbalanced outputs. My files for testing digital components are archived as AIF files, but because the Klimax doesn't recognize that format, I first had to transcode them all to WAV files, then copy them over the WiFi network to a new folder, imaginatively titled "Test Tones," which I created on the big NAS drive supplied by Linn for this review. I could then navigate to the folder using…
My very first review of a preamplifier, for British magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review in May 1984, was of the Audio Research SP-10. In my opening to that review, I wrote that, "more than any other component," a preamplifier "should approximate to the late Peter Walker's 'Straight Wire with Gain.'" By this I meant that a preamplifier should not be in the business of effecting dramatic changes, and in any case, dramatic changes are not the kind that prove to be of lasting value. However, I also wrote back then that what I became increasingly aware of while using the SP-10 "was the fact…
"Okay." After first wondering at the eclectic nature of Stephen's music—Jeff Buckley, Neil Young, and Marc Bolan rubbing shoulders with son star Henry Fiol—I set it to Shuffle and set off for the bus stop. On came a track that was too interesting to be techno, too musical to be house, too danceable to be ambient or trance. (I was later told that it was "chill-out" music.) An extraordinarily low-frequency bass line rode along beneath out-of-my-head sound effects and sampled robotic voices: "I love this music...I love this philosophy..." It was "Nightwalker," a track from DJ Trentemøller's…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Remote-controlled, solid-state preamplifier with switchable absolute polarity, rear-panel IR repeater input and loop out jacks, four 12V trigger output jacks, and two-way RS-232 serial port. Inputs: 6 unbalanced (RCA), 2 usable in balanced mode (XLR pin 2 hot). Outputs (1 pair each): balanced XLR (main); unbalanced RCA (main); inverted unbalanced (main); normal-polarity, fixed-output, unbalanced (tape). Left/right gain-control range: –10dB. Frequency response: 5Hz–100kHz, +0/–3dB. Maximum gain: 14dB. Maximum output: 8V. Input sensitivity: 200mV for…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Ayre C-5xe, Pioneer DV-578A universal players; Mark Levinson No.30.6, Benchmark DAC 1 USB, Bel Canto e.one DAC 3 D/A converters; Logitech (Slim Devices) Transporter network music player with Apple Mac mini running OSX for media storage.
Preamplifiers: Mark Levinson No.380S, Ayre K-5xe.
Power Amplifiers: Parasound Halo JC 1, Musical Fidelity 550k Supercharger, Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks; Boulder 860.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Cremona Elipsa, KEF Reference 207/2, PSB Synchrony 1, Magico V3, Monitor Audio Gold Signature GS10.…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Operated with either balanced input and output or unbalanced input and output, the Parasound Halo JC 2 offered a maximum gain of 14dB, as specified. Surprisingly, it offered 20dB gain with an unbalanced input and measured at the balanced output jacks. Both unbalanced and balanced outputs preserved absolute polarity (ie, were non-inverting), with the blue front-panel Polarity LED off. (The XLRs are wired with pin 2 "hot.") Both unbalanced and balanced input impedances were close to specification, at 27k ohms at low and middle frequencies. The input impedances…
John Atkinson returned to the Halo JC 2 in March 2009 (Vol.32 No.3):
One of my references for relatively affordable preamplifier performance is Parasound's Halo JC 2 ($4000), which I reviewed in March 2008, and which was one of Stereophile's Joint Amplification Products of 2008. Wes Phillips has been enjoying the Halo these past few months, but when the review sample of the Ayre KX-R preamp was returned to him in December, so that he could finalize his thoughts on the humongous YG Acoustics Anat Reference II Professional speakers (reviewed elsewhere in this issue), I took the opportunity…
SHELBY LYNNE Just a Little Lovin'
Lost Highways B0009789-02 (CD). 2008. Phil Ramone, prod.; Al Schmitt, eng.; Steve Genewick, asst. eng. AAD? TT: 39:21
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Lost Highways B0009789-02 (CD). 2008. Phil Ramone, prod.; Al Schmitt, eng.; Steve Genewick, asst. eng. AAD? TT: 39:21
Performance ****
Sonics ****
The always-entertaining saga of Shelby Lynne continues unabated, with what seems an endless supply of unexpected twists and turns. Since the late 1980s, Lynne has gone from mainstream country star (complete with hideous Reba-esque hair style) to earnest confessional songstress, then to angry rebel rocker with producer Glenn Ballard, and now solemn tribute artist. Along the way she's famously downed…
My first one-piece stereo—I think I paid $60 for it, including a pair of speakers with pegboard backs—gave me a lot of pleasure when I was young, and I loved it. Everything that came after has been better in every way but one: None has inspired that kind of love. And most have left me wondering if there might be something just a little bit better.
The road to eternal dissatisfaction had a gentler on-ramp in 1972: Component systems, from soup to nuts, were available for just a few hundred dollars—money you could make mowing lawns or stocking shelves. Thirty years later, the…