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This captivating ability of the Ensemble B-50 to maintain rhythmic and timbral spatial separation between diverse elements of any musical presentation forced me to open both eye and ear. Listening to music through the Ensemble became a physical event. If the music had any energy or beat at all, I found it just about impossible to sit still. My head went to bobbin' and my feet to tappin'. My system, now more than ever, was capable of passing the "Linn Test" (yes, Ivor, even with CDs as a source!). I was able to follow musical lines effortlessly in arrangements often crowded with ideas. Those…
Sidebar 1: System
This section is going to be awkward to describe; within a matter of minutes of hooking up and listening to the Ensemble "Tiger," I knew it would serve as my new reference. Up until that time I had used, and been content with, a pair of Quicksilver monoblocks fed by either the Counterpoint SA-3000 preamp or a Reference Line Model 2000 passive line-control interface (with a Vendetta Research SCP-2B supplying the phono signal). The B-50 displaced those components in one fell swoop, leaving me with my Acoustat Model 2 speakers, strategically placed RoomTunes, and source…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Decription: Hybrid integrated amplifier without phono input. Tube complement: two matched ECC 81s in preamplification stage. Inputs: CD, tape, tuner, video, aux/phono. Power output: 50Wpc (17dBW) into 8 ohms. Frequency range: 5Hz–39kHz. Rise time: 7.5µs at 10kHz. S/N ratio: 92dB. IMD: 0.03% ref 1W. THD: 0.05% ref 1W/1kHz/8 ohms. Output impedance: 0.17 ohms. Input sensitivity/impedance: 300mV/22k ohms (line), 300mV/47k ohms (tape).Dimensions: 14 11/16" (375mm) W by 4 1/8" (110mm) H by 7½" (220mm) D. Weight: 16.5 lbs (7.5kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: T209…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
I was listening to the LP of John Cale's and Lou Reed's tribute to Andy Warhol, Songs for Drella, in Guy's listening room. There was a palpability to the sound which, in all honesty, I had not experienced from Guy's Acoustats before.
"Okay, what's changed?" I asked, after Lou Reed's New York album had finished playing. I could see that Guy's customary Quicksilvers were not powered up, but there wasn't another pair of amplifiers at the speaker end of the room.
"I've connected up the Tiger."
"What Tiger?"
"Here." Guy pointed to a…
I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's "As We See It," where I asked a representative group of Stereophile writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the nature of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the level of what…
As mentioned earlier, the low frequencies sounded shelved down. Whether this was musically bothersome or not seemed very dependent on playback level. At relatively low levels, orchestral double-bass, and kick drum and bass guitar on rock recordings, sounded anemic, while above 90dB or so the bass became more believable (though this will still never be a preferred speaker for playing organ recordings). As mentioned by Martin Colloms last month, the ear is both very sensitive to small differences in bass level and has a sensitivity that varies with playback level. Nevertheless, whether or not…
Sidebar 1: Review System
Equipment used during the preparation of this review included a Mark Levinson No.23.5 power amplifier, the French YBA 2 preamplifier or the Mod Squad Line Drive Deluxe passive control unit, the former feeding the power amplifier via 15' lengths of AudioQuest Lapis unbalanced interconnect, the latter via 1m lengths of AudioQuest Diamond.
Source components included a Linn Sondek/Lingo/Ekos/Troika setup sitting on an ArchiDee table to play LPs, an Aiwa portable DAT recorder and a Revox PR99 to play master tapes, and the VTL D/A processor driven by a Meridian…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) soft-dome tweeter, 3.5" (89mm) pulp-cone midrange unit, two 6" (153mm) plastic-cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: 600Hz, 6kHz. Crossover slopes: 24dB/octave, phase-compensated. Frequency response: 60Hz–18kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity: 82dB/V/m ±0.5dB (equivalent to 91dB/W/m at 2.83V into 8 ohms). Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (minimum 2 ohms). Power handling: 80W continuous below 600Hz, 50W 600Hz–6kHz, 30W above 6kHz.
Dimensions: 10.75" (273mm) H by 22" (559mm) W by 13" (330mm) D.…
Sidebar 2: System
I auditioned the Mark Levinson No.331 amplifier in my 13' by 26' by 12' listening room. A doorway at the back of the room opens into our kitchen, adding a 25' by 15' area. CDs were played on a Krell MD-1 turntable, which drove an Audio Alchemy DTI jitter attenuator using a 75 ohm Silver Starlight digital coaxial cable. This unit fed either an Audio Alchemy DDE v3.0 HDCD$r-based D/A converter over its I2S bus or an Adcom GDA-700 D/A converter. Other sources included Day Sequerra FM Reference and Rotel RHT-10 FM tuners, and a Linn Sondek LP12/Lingo turntable with an…
Measurements
A full set of measurements of the Mark Levinson No.331 was made in its unbalanced mode, though many readings were repeated in the balanced configuration and will be referenced as appropriate below.
Following the 1/3-power, one-hour preconditioning test, the No.331's heatsinks were no more than warm to the touch. The No.331 is noninverting in the unbalanced mode; in the balanced mode, pin 2 is wired as positive. Its input impedance measured 49.3k ohms (112.7k ohms balanced). The output impedance was below 0.02 ohms at 1kHz, 20Hz, or 20kHz, and should not in any way…