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"Did you call for the night porter? Smell the blood running warm?" Welcome to Hotel Lanegan; it's as cold, dark, and creepy as a coffin, but there are plenty of guests. The sixth solo album by the former Screaming Trees frontman features Polly Jean Harvey and members of Queens of the Stone Age…

All the great albums, plus extras, by Miles' greatest quintet— E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, Filles de Kilimanjaro, etc.—recorded in a time of…

Fe, Esperanza y Caridad (Faith, Hope and Charity) is so beautifully penetrating, so heavy with warmth and passion and soul, that it's nearly…

Description: Single-ended solid-state monoblock power amplifier. Output power: 200W into 8 ohms (23dBW). Frequency response: –3dB at 100kHz. Voltage gain: 20dB balanced, 20dB or 26dB unbalanced. S/N Ratio: 74dB ref. 1W, 100dB ref. full power. Distortion: <1% THD at 1kHz. Output impedance: approximately 0.1 ohm. Input impedance: 10k ohms. Input Common Mode Rejection Ratio: 60dB.
Dimensions: 16.5" W by 10.5" H by 16.5" D. Weight: 130 lbs each.
Serial number of unit reviewed: 7006/7.
Price: $14,000/pair (1997); no longer available (2000 onward).…

Because the Pass Aleph 1.2s weigh so much, I didn't try to herd them into my video room; instead installing them in my main large room (see Vol.19 No.8, p.117 for photographs). They were saddled with the Dunlavy Signature SC-VI loudspeakers. I tried a passel of power cables—Aural Symphonics Missing Link Cubed Gen.III and Synergistic Research RC/Master coupler (serial numbers 555 and 556, I kid you not). I heard no difference between the two (like Betty and Sue in Pat Sky's version of "Cocaine"), so I settled on the Aural Symphonic AC cables because they were…

A full set of measurements were run on the Pass Aleph 1.2 in unbalanced mode, with selected measurements repeated in balanced mode. Unless otherwise noted, the following measurements reflect unbalanced operation.

The 60-minute, 1/3-power preconditioning test left the Aleph 1.2's heatsinks very warm for several seconds, but not uncomfortable to touch. The amplifier's input impedance measured 10.3k ohms unbalanced, 20.5k ohms balanced. Its voltage gain into 8 ohms is 23.1dB (23.3dB balanced), a little lower than most amplifiers. I wouldn't recommend the…

Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani represent two categories—two eras—of Italian jazz musician. Rava is 67, mostly self-taught, and was famous when almost no Italian jazz musicians were known outside Italy. He has long been acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz trumpet players, but because, before the new millennium, no other Italian approached him in stature…

At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, one company scored a perfect triple on that score. I wandered into Hansen Audio's room, where I met Lars Hansen, heard the Emperor loudspeaker, and was impressed by Hansen's proprietary drivers. The Emperors sure sounded like the real thing, and Hansen himself was a very impressive man, but geeze louise, how likely was it that a company would come out of…

But while the Princes were superb at rendering the sound of instruments in space, they were even better at getting to the music's white-hot emotional…

Description: Three-way, floorstanding, ported loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) soft-dome tweeter mounted on dispersion-optimized 6mm aluminum plate, 7.1" (182mm) laminated-cone midrange unit, 10.6" (269mm) laminated-cone woofer. Crossover: first-order. Crossover frequencies: ca 100Hz, 2.5kHz. Frequency response: 23Hz–23kHz, ±2dB. Nominal impedance: 6 ohms. Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m.
Dimensions: 42" (1066.8mm) H by 14" (355.6mm) W by 20" (508mm) D. Weight: 205 lbs (92.98kg) each, 540 lbs (245.5kg) system shipping weight in crates.
Finishes: Various.
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