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According to the glossy leaflet, the Lizard Wizard on show at the Heathrow Renaissance Hotel is, to quote verbatim: "a PMC amplifier that handles High Quality loudspeakers superior, without the everyday type amplifiers air disturbance [acoustic aliasing distortion]." No I'm not sure either, and the rest of the blurb is similarly opaque. Clearly translating Hungarian into English (or even American!) has its pitfalls, and I didn't get much further chatting face-to-face, either. What is certain is that this colourful amplifier looks cute and is incredibly compact—the actual electronics…
Exceptionally tall speaker engineer Karl-Heinz Fink, and his more diminutive partner Lampos Ferekedis, stand each side of their remarkable prototype BMR technology demonstrator (balanced-mode radiator; see the December 2005 Stereophile). These two, forming a "gang of four" with original inventor Dr Graham Bank and marketing man John Vizor, have licensed the BMR technology from NXT, and the prototype, using a 3.4" BMR unit upwards from 400Hz, via an active crossover, clearly showed the considerable potential of this radical driver, which in effect automatically reduces the radiating…
A fabulous and fascinating exhibition of classic historic hi-fi equipment made a visit to the ballroom of the Hi-Fi News Show a must. The complete history of Lowther-Voigt seemed to be on display, and a Voigt Corner Horn was actually playing music, from a "vintage" (first-generation) CD player via a compact Pye tube amplifier.
On display in the ballroom at the Hi-Fi News Show: an original early-'50s Corner Ribbon speaker from the Acoustical Company, later to change its name to Quad.
Perhaps the amplifier that had the most influence on modern tube-amp design was the D.T.N Williamson, shown here in an example made by Goodsell of Brighton.
On display in the Hi-Fi News Show ballroom were classic Lowther and Voigt drivers (bottom left is an AC mains-energized field-coil Voigt).
Not mentioned earlier in this report was the fact that there were actually two shows taking place simultaneously this past weekend. For the best part of 20 years, the September Hi-Fi News-sponsored show, usually held at hotels close to Heathrow airport, was the premier UK event. The last few years, however, have seen a steady decline. The decision was therefore made to locate the 2006 Hi-Fi News event at just one hotel, the Renaissance, which…
Mark Mortimer's review of Einstein and the Old One makes an interesting point—just because we "know" stuff our ancestors didn't doesn't actually make us smarter. We "know" without comprehending.
Sounds like a good book, too.
Bill Thompson explains how DRM supersedes copyright law and chills creativity.
Ten years ago, John Horgan wrote The End of Science, arguing that scientists had already solved most of the big mysteries of the universe, Has a decade of scientific progress tempered that belief?
This just in: Jerome Harris dropped me a line announcing a concert tour with Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, and Ben Surman. Unfortunately, it won't be playing anywhere I can go see them, but if you're lucky, you can catch one of these dates.
Lineup:
Bill Frisell: electric guitar, banjo
Jack DeJohnette: drums, electronic percussion, piano
Jerome Harris: bass guitar, voice
with Ben Surman, audioscaping
Featuring the provocative, evocative, playfully textural music from Jack and Bill’s new CD The elephant sleeps but still remembers (Golden Beams) available: online…