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Description: Three-way, sealed-box, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: push-pull planar-magnetic tweeter and midrange unit, 6" plastic-cone woofer. Frequency response: 45Hz–20kHz, ±4dB (–6dB at 50kHz). Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Sensitivity: 85dB/2.83V/m.
Dimensions: 21.5" H by 9.75" W by 9.75" D. Weight: 23 lbs.
Price: $950/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 24.
Manufacturer: Eminent Technology, Inc., 225 East Palmer Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301. Tel: (850) 575-5655. Fax: (850) 224-5999. Web: www.eminent-tech.com.

I drove the LFT-16s with Arcam's Solo Music and Solo Mini CD receivers, Primare's new DVDI10 DVD-based one-box receiver, and Carat's i57 one-box—more about all of those later. I divided most of my time between the Primare and the Carat. The Primare was ever so slightly lighter in texture and more agile in articulation—or, if you prefer, the Carat was ever so slightly more mellow and cushiony. The Primare was a stainless-steel French Chablis to Carat's oaky California chardonnay—a bit amusing, in view of Carat's French headquarters (the i57 is built in China).…

The very affordable, stand-mounted LFT-16 costs $950/pair and combines a conventional moving-coil woofer with a flat, magnetically driven planar midrange unit and tweeter, and impressed the heck out of JM: "There is much to admire and to enjoy in this idiosyncratically charming hybrid loudspeaker," he wrote. "The LFT-16 has more clarity in the midrange and treble [than the slightly more expensive Renaissance MLP-403.5], and overall a brighter, faster, slightly lighter sound."

The tweeter panel is to the side of the midrange panel, and both are mounted on…

"Bits is bits!" goes the cry from skeptics when audiophiles criticize digital sound. In other words, the digital bits that constitute the music, as they make their way from disc to sound via the technological marvel of digital/analog conversion, are immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous analog fortune. What is often forgotten is the fact that not only must the amplitude—ie, what the bits describe—of the converted analog signal be correct, but the timing of the…

McIntosh MS750 media server
$6000, reviewed by Wes Phillips in January 2008.
Whether the MS750 was playing back a FLAC-encoded, "CD-quality" file or a CD, the player offered a very high measured level of jitter: nearly 14ns, or two orders of magnitude higher than the best players I have measured. Significant spectral spreading can be seen in the spectrum of the McIntosh's output (fig.4), which suggests the presence of high levels of random low-frequency noise affecting the clock-generator circuit, as well as pairs of sidebands at high…

PrimaLuna ProLogue Eight CD player
$2495, reviewed by Fred Kaplan and John Atkinson in July and October 2008.
This tube player's jitter level was a fairly low 406.5ps peak–peak. More significant, the highest-level sidebands that can be seen to either side of the central 11.025kHz tone in fig.9 lie at the power-supply–related frequencies of ±60Hz and ±120Hz. Actual data-related sidebands were much lower in level; if it weren't for the supply-related spuriae, the ProLogue Eight would have very good jitter rejection. While the left channel…

Simaudio Moon Evolution Andromeda Reference CD player
$12,500, reviewed by Brian Damkroger in January 2008.
Playing CDs (the Simaudio also has a useful input for external data), the Andromeda offered low levels of word-clock jitter, at 286ps peak–peak. The spectrum of the player's output is shown in fig.17. The highest-level sideband pair is data-related, lying at 11.025kHz, ±229Hz, though most of the higher-frequency sidebands lie at the residual level. Evident is some slight spreading of the central peak due to random low-…

• I would like to hear a loudspeaker that is tonally accurate, goes as low in the bass as is…

Do you remember that time in Scotland, brother? Senior year in college, studying abroad, away from home for the first time in our lives. Michelle and I had just had another of our huge blowouts, and this time it was for real. I wanted nothing more than to lock myself up in our dingy hostel room until semester was over, to escape from Michelle and all the other faces of…