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Benchmark DAC1 Pre USB D/A headphone amplifier DAC1 HDR, September 2010

Erick Lichte reviewed the DAC1 HDR in September 2010 (Vol.33 No.9):

I'm trying to live in better balance with my expectations in life. High expectations for myself, the people around me, and the things I buy often leave me unhappy, frustrating, and frustrated, respectively. Slowly, I am learning that the greatest joys in life come when I don't know I'm looking for them.

Such an unexpected joy happened in 2004, when I first used the original Benchmark DAC1 at a recording session I produced with John Atkinson. Using the DAC1 to power a pair of Sennheiser HD600 headphones, I was…

VMPS Tower 11/R loudspeaker

When JA suggested I review one of the "smaller" VMPS loudspeakers, I felt the hot breath of controversy in the air. The recent debate in these pages concerning the "proper" amount of bass required for true high-fidelity reproduction, and the inability of small loudspeakers (according to one camp) to provide it, hadn't yet cooled off, nor showed any sign of doing so. VMPS, a small West-Coast manufacturer most famous for its humongous Super Tower IIa/R (at 6-plus feet and 250 lbs per side, first reviewed for Stereophile by AHC in Vol.9 No.3 and the latest version of which is examined by JGH…

VMPS Tower 11/R loudspeaker Page 2

Organ-music lovers may well constitute the largest potential market for the Tower II/R; the power and extension it brings to reproduction of this difficult instrument is virtually unheard-of in this price range. While it should be clear by now that I would not use the term "fast" to describe the low-end qualities of the VMPS, that is not a characteristic of overriding importance in organ-music reproduction. What is required is low-end reach and output capability, combined with good pitch discrimination at the low end—no "one-note bass," please. The Tower IIs provide these qualities in…

VMPS Tower 11/R loudspeaker October 1988

Tom Norton wrote again about the Tower II/R in October 1988 (Vol.11 No.10):

Since my review of the VMPS Tower II/R (Vol.11 No.5), I have lived with and reviewed a number of small loudspeakers, some of them exceptional. During that time Brian Cheney of VMPS sent along an update to the Towers, which he believed might answer some of my criticisms about the midbass. My follow-up had to wait for the completion of other reviews, but at long last I made the change. It involved substitution of crossover capacitors and can be performed by any dealer or an owner having some skill with a soldering…

VMPS Tower 11/R loudspeaker System Details

Sidebar 1: System Details

I used the VMPSes with several amplifiers. They were not particularly amplifier-sensitive, but of the three which saw the most service in the system—the Aragon 4004, Motif MS-100, and PS Audio 200C (not the latest version).

Other equipment used in auditioning the VMPS included the Monster Alpha Two cartridge in an Eminent Technology II tonearm on a Luxman PD-300 turntable, Klyne SK-5A preamp, several CD players (predominantly the California Audio Labs Aria and Audio Concepts), and Monster M-1 loudspeaker cable and M-1000 and Interlink Reference A…

VMPS Tower 11/R loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 2: Specifications

Description: Four-way, floor standing loudspeaker. Bass loading: reflex (passive radiator). Drive units: two 12" woofers, 12" passive radiator, 5" midrange, 1" soft-dome tweeter, ribbon (leaf) supertweeter. Crossovers (electrical): 600Hz, 4.5Hz, 15kHz. Frequency response: 22Hz–50kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity: 95dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 20–300W.
Dimensions: 43" H by 15" W by 15" D. Finish: oiled walnut. Weight: 95 lbs.
Price: $1575/pair (as reviewed—see text) (1988); no longer available (2008). Approximate number of dealers:…

Listening #72

I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" was an insult. As a child, I saw that phrase on only the cheapest or craziest toys—some stamped out of tin and cupped together by a tab with a fiendish edge, some molded from a distinctively smooth, brittle plastic. The latter included a wind-up bunny on wheels that my father brought home one day: my favorite toy, ever. (It came with a double-barreled dart gun that I seldom used, partly because I loved the bunny too much to shoot it, and partly because the suction-cup darts didn't stick to that kind of plastic in the first place.)

Things…

Listening #72 Page 2

It wasn't until I auditioned, and ultimately bought, the EMT OFD 25 monophonic pickup head ($1500) that I could appreciate Arturo Toscanini's recordings with the NBC Symphony of Respighi's Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome (RCA Victor LM-1768), an LP that had languished in my collection for years. The Miyabi Mono didn't play it with the same intensity of color as the EMT, but the new cartridge was just as dramatic and tactile, making the piano's entrance particularly striking and believable. Individual notes within the many harp and celeste arpeggios appeared and died away with realistic…

The Fifth Element #51

The Gini Systems "LS3/5a" is an unlicensed and inexact replica of the celebrated LS3/5a outside (remote location) broadcast monitoring loudspeaker originally developed by the BBC in the early 1970s. (For a précis of the LS3/5a's history, click here.)

Stereophile reviewed the BBC's 1977 version of the LS3/5a in March of that year. The directory at the bottom of the webpage devoted to that review provides links to coverage of later self-proclaimed LS3/5a incarnations, but not to speakers such as Harbeth's HL-3PES-2, which, although designed as drop-in replacements for BBC-spec LS3…

The Fifth Element #51 Page 2

The first CD I put on was Attention Screen's Live at Merkin Hall (CD, Stereophile STPH018-2). There was quite a contrast to the aggressive sound of the GINI LS3/5as: the Frieds were quite smooth—a bit too smooth for my taste—but at least the hand claps at the end of "Mansour's Gift" sounded sincere rather than hollow, I then put on Anthony Newman and the Graham Ashton Ensemble's Music for Organ, Brass and Timpani (SACD/CD, Sonoma SAC 001), which sounded a bit veiled, and with the tail of the hall acoustic cut off a bit prematurely.

I then put on a new discovery, the John Coltrane…