So here we are in the year 2000, and despite the fact that it's been scientifically "proven" that cables can't possibly make a sonic difference in your audio system, cable manufacturers continue to…
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We're also told that magnets can't possibly affect human athletic performance or relieve joint and muscular aches and pains. This, too, has been "scientifically" proven. Never mind that professional athletes swear by magnets, and that the disabled and the elderly have been helped as well. "Science" has proven them wrong, but medical magnet sales are exploding. Must be mass hysteria.
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Interconnects and loudspeaker cables using 85 polymer-coated, "grain-optimized" copper strands (interconnects) or 240 coated-copper strands (speaker cables), with microporous Teflon dielectric and polypropylene core.
Prices: $1050/1m pair (interconnects), longer lengths cost an additional $50/0.5m (2000); $700/2.5m pair (speaker cables) (2000).
Manufacturer: Wireworld Cable Technology, 12349 SW 53 Street, Suite 201, Cooper City, FL 33330. Tel: (954) 680-3848. Fax: (954) 680-1525. Web: www.wireworldcable.com.
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Simon Yorke turntable, Immedia RPM2 and Graham 2.0 tonearms, Lyra Helikon cartridge.
Digital source: Musical Fidelity X-Ray CD player, Marantz DR17 CD-R recorder, Ayre D-1 DVD/CD player.
Preamplification: Audio Research Reference and Zanden phono stages, Lyra Arion step-up transformer, Ayre K-1x preamplifier (with phono stage).
Power amplifier: Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300.
Loudspeakers: Sonus Faber Amati, ProAc Future One.
Cables: Phono: Hovland Music Groove. Interconnect: Yamamura Millennium 6000, Silver Audio. Speaker:…
I am puzzled. No, really. I know you find it hard to believe that we sacerdotes of the golden-eared persuasion could ever be perplexed, but I have been pondering the imponderables of ports. Ever since the classic work of Richard Small and Neville Thiele in the early '70s showed how the low-frequency response of any box loudspeaker can be modeled as an electrical high-pass filter of some kind, with the relevant equations and data made available to all, there would seem to be very little reason why all loudspeakers with the same extension should not sound alike (or at least very similar) below…
Based on extensive work with computer modeling, the crossover is not as simple as some, though not nearly as complicated as those found in "flat-amplitude-response-above-all" designs. Though the high-pass leg for the tweeter is basically first-order, the corresponding low-pass drive to the woofer is fourth-order Bessel. This, coupled with the time alignment of the drive-units due to the sloping front baffle, gives what John Bau feels to be the most linear amplitude and phase response through the crossover region; ie, the output of each driver sums to unity on the listening axis and the phase…
Generous it wasn't—the Angelus will never be a first-choice speaker for parties dedicated to destroying brain cells with unhealthy doses of Twisted Sister or Motley Crue. But it gave enough extension to make organ recordings with real low bass (my reference in this respect is an LP including Karg-Elert's Homage to Handel, recorded by Michael Woodward in Liverpool Cathedral, England) musically satisfying. It had also developed sufficient levels of the "purr" on bass guitar and plucked double-bass that I feel necessary to suitably underpin the music.
It is in the midrange, however, that…
Sidebar: 1988 Measurement
Measured nearfield, the Angelus' -6dB point referred to the level at 100Hz was a highish 41Hz, though the rate of rolloff was shallow, implying a somewhat overdamped alignment. The spatially averaged room-response also revealed the low frequencies to be a little lightweight, there being a lack of energy in my room—which normally reinforces the mid-to-upper bass—right up to 200Hz. The rate of roll-off was gentle, however, as there was still significant output, albeit 10dB down, at 31.5Hz (though the woofer was audibly working very hard at this frequency and level…
Sam Tellig wrote about the Angelus in January 1990 (Vol.13 No.1):
After maneuvering the Acoustat Spectra 11s and Epos ES14s down to the basement, I set up the Spica Angeluses again—I'd had them for a few days before the Vandersteens arrived.
Not much bass. I might as well tell you that at the start. If you want deep, rich, full bass at this price point, you have to go to the Vandersteen 2Ci's.
But if you like detail, delicacy, pinpoint imaging, smoothness, and unfatiguing treble, then the $1275/pair Angeluses may be heaven-sent for you.
"They look like bow ties,"…
Sam Tellig wrote again about the Angelus in April 1990 (Vol.13 No.4):
My friend Ben has the right idea.
He's stopped hanging around with audiophiles.
The problem, according to Ben, is all those opinions. Views on this equipment, that equipment—often vehemently held. It can all get a little...well, suffocating.
I know what you mean, Ben.
Take my Spica Angelus speakers. (No, don't take them. I'm keeping them.)
When the august J. Gordon Holt heard I was using Angelus speakers, his reaction was, how could I stand listening to anything that so deviates…
Thomas J. Norton compared the Angelus with the Vandersteen 2Ce in April 1993 (Vol.16 No.4):
It's no secret that at least two of our reviewers are big fans of the Spica Angelus, a loudspeaker which, in price, is a very close competitor of the Vandersteen 2Ce. I had the opportunity to compare the two in the course of this review, and formed a few impressions of my own. Leaving aside the matter of appearance—the "Ming the Merciless" look of the Angelus inspires more extreme reactions than the more conventional appearance of the 2Ce—there are significant sonic differences between the two…