Doug Sax on CD:
We've never had anything for the home like the Compact Disc before. Using digitally coded pits read by a laser, it achieves noise-free reproduction without wear. Although less than 5" in diameter, it can contain over one hour of uninterrupted music—and that music will have an impressive dynamic range with a full frequency response. CD is the first new storage medium of any viability since the compact cassette, and its parentage is indeed the same, the ever impressive Philips. Unlike the cassette, the CD has no ability to record.
Its impressive list of…
Bass constitutes one of the least understood aspects of sound reproduction. Opinions vary greatly on matters of bass quality, quantity, and perceived frequency range or response. Moreover, the bass region is subject to the most unwanted variation in practical situations due to the great influence listening-room acoustics have on loudspeaker performance. Every room has its different bass characteristic, and changes in the position of speakers or listener also constitute major variables at low frequencies. What constitutes good bass?
Limits: For this discussion, the bass range has been…
A quick look at the treble really shows this up. For most purposes, the 5kHz range from 15kHz-20kHz may be discarded, and very often is, by a combination of source spectrum, microphone, filters, and loudspeakers, many of which are quite ineffective above 12kHz. Compare that 5kHz half-octave bandwidth of upper harmonics and noise with just 50Hz worth in the bass range below 100Hz. This latter span is a whole octave of fundamental bass playing, in most works representing the foundation for musical composition. Rock could hardly exist without it. Every 10Hz of good, even, controlled bass…
As a result, a more distant, quiet source sounds "thinner" and "lighter" in tonal quality due to these clearly audible changes in subjective frequency response. For most of us, it comes so naturally that we are not really aware of it. Thus one classic interpretation of the action of a volume control is the control of distance. Reducing the reproducing level alters the loudness and the simultaneously perceived tonal balance, giving the imprecision that the musicians are farther away. While this view is valid for classical program played at a natural level, the argument is weakened when…
In a room 13' wide, 17' long, and 9 ½' high with an average low-frequency loss, this means the speakers will sound tolerably well-balanced if placed with their radiating centers about 2' from the floor and 3 ½' from the side walls, plus 2 ¾' from the back. Note that these three dimensions are unequal, with the deliberate intention of avoiding a coincidence in spacing to these three local boundaries. Interferences from the energy reflected by the local boundaries is thus spread over a range of frequencies, reducing their effects. While interference produces sharp notches in the frequency…
For those who frequent the audio discussion groups on the Internet, the method by which Stereophile selects products for review seems to be a continuing source of fascination and conjecture. Supporters of fledgling manufacturers—whose products these Webcrawlers just happen to own—rail against the rule that products to be reviewed in the magazine must have at least five US dealers. Some suggest that Stereophile's selection of review products is all about catering to advertisers and friends in the industry, a process that seems intended to exclude their favorite products from consideration.…
SP16L: If Audio Research's VS55 and VS110 amplifiers have the prototypical "tube amp" look, their companion SP16L line-stage preamp hardly looks like a preamp at all, and certainly not like one from Audio Research. Unlike the traditional AR preamps, this one has no knobs, just six soft-touch buttons for Power, Input selection, Processor Bypass, Volume up/down, and Mute. A set of green LEDs indicate status, including the level selected. (I half-expected the LEDs to flash up and down with the volume of music.) All of these functions, plus Mono/Stereo, are available on the remote control. There…
When the VS110 was returned to me, I checked the bias voltages, and all were spot-on. More important, the right channel no longer had a high noise level, and, as far as I could tell, sounded the same as the left. The VS110 was problem-free for the rest of the review period. The SP16L functioned flawlessly at all times. Sound
A principle long recognized in audiophile circles is that a given component's contribution to the sound of a system depends not only on the component's overall sound quality (ie, the extent to which it's transparent to the signal), but also on the way it…
A somewhat dubious perk associated with being a reviewer is that you're sent CD samples from audiophile record companies—"dubious" because, more often than not, I don't much care for the music and/or the performances on these recordings, and end up listening to them mostly out of a sense of duty. There are, however, exceptions. A recent exception was a release from Fidelis Records, a company I had not heard of before, of Tchaikovsky's The Seasons, arranged for piano trio by Alexander Gedike and performed by the Tchaikovsky Chamber Music Society. Violinist Atis Bankas, cellist Teymour…
Sidebar 1: Specifications VS110: Tube stereo power amplifier. Tube complement: eight 6550EH, five 6N1P. Power output: 100Wpc (impedance not stated) (20dBW). Bandwidth: 10Hz-40kHz, -3dB. Frequency response at 1W: 0.8Hz-40kHz, -3dB. Input sensitivity: 1.1V RMS (28dB voltage gain into 8 ohms). Input impedance: 100k ohms. Damping factor: 11. Output polarity: noninverting. Overall negative feedback: 12.7dB. Risetime: 10µs. Hum & noise: <0.2mV RMS, 103dB below rated output (IHF weighted, input shorted). Power-supply energy storage: 332 joules.
Dimensions: 17.5" W by 7.9" H by 19" D…
