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Having read and heard copious praise of the two-chassis Metronome T2i-Signature CD player ($20,600), at times accompanied by claims that it can make CDs sound as good as SACDs reproduced in two-channel mode, I was eager to hear the new one-piece Metronome CD5-Signature player, distributed in the US by Jim Ricketts of tmh audio (above). The CD5-Signature, whose somewhat plain Jane appearance conceals both a tube output stage and variable volume control that can obviate the need for a preamp, retails for a "mere" $18,000. Introduced at the RMAF, it was powered by borrowed-at-the-last-…
I began my Sunday in the Nordost room on the Tower mezzanine. Familiar with the sound of the Nordost Valhalla interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables in my reference system, as well as the benefits of the Nordost Thor power distribution center that I have for review in another publication (and will not be returning), I was wondering how they would sound powering completely different components.
At first I was concerned by the brightness of the Eva Cassidy CD that a show attendee was in the midst of auditioning. He was clearly used to it; he enthused that he had never heard…
Somewhere on the 5th floor, around the corner and through the woods on the way to Grandma’s house, I discovered a lovely woman distributing CD Clarity, a water-based, non-toxic spray said to clean, protect, and restore CDs and DVDs. ("Reduce background noise, improve tracking and enhance musical balance, while cleaning and protecting discs from future scratches," says the label). Developed by the late Dave Herren of Oregon, CD Clarity joins an assortment of highly touted treatments, some of which include products from Walker Audio, Jena Labs, Audiotop, Classic Records, and Optrix. Add…
My photo of the system in the Acoustic Sounds room featured the Manley Labs Snapper monoblock amplifiers. This was the system front-end, comprising (from top to bottom): Funk Firm Vector Turntable with MK3 tonearm and Lyra Dorian phono cartridge; Sutherland Direct Line Stage; Sutherland's new battery-powered Ph3D phono preamp; and Silver Circle Audio Pure Power One 5.0 power transformer. Rack is the Symposium Acoustics Isis.
As mentioned in the introductory post to this blog, Peter "PJay" Smith (above), Bob Cordell, and Darren Kuzma presented gratis "Amplifier and Loudspeaker Listening and Measurement" clinics throughout the show. One of the clinics, which I was unable to attend, interpreted amplifier measurement data supplied by Stereophile's John Atkinson.
I finally made it to the room today just as Peter Smith was concluding his A/B amplifier experiment. Before us sat a classic KT-88 tube amp, similar to one McIntosh would have sold circa 1970. To its right sat a typical, "pretty nice" (according…
My gosh, Björk's new video is just lovely. How many levels of recursion can you spot?
Sting's recording of Dowland lute songs has certainly generated a lot of hooey—ranging from accusations of Sting making commercial move (yeah, recording a disc of lute songs is sooo calculated to run up the charts) to complaints about Sting's "inauthentic" performance.
Goodness gracious, Mr. Sumner—how dare you!
The folks I know in the lute mafia mostly give Sting his props for his effort. I like the disc myself, although I agree with Dial "M" For Musicology that its biggest sin is probably caution. Compared to the egregious crapulousness of most rock crossovers committed by, say…
Texas' political scene is clearly crazy—which is just one more reason why Kinky Friedman might make the perfect Texas governor. The state has clearly elected clowns before, why not try a pro?
At the suggestion of a fellow BAAS (Bay Area Audiophile Society) member, I abandoned futile attempts to cover every room on a given floor, and instead pinpointed systems that had turned my brothers on. In this case, it was the room shared by Flying Mole Digital and Green Mountain speakers.
Fed by an old Sony transport and a relatively inexpensive Birdland upsampling DAC, I heard designer Roy Johnson’s Green Mountain Continuum 3, a time-coherent three-way with 90dB sensitivity, and the Flying Mole DAB-M310 class-D monoblocks. The system sounded best on a track by Jennifer Warnes,…
Gilbert Yeung of Blue Circle Audio never fails to brighten my day. In this case, his electronics did likewise.
The combination of the April Music Stello CDT200 transport; Blue Circle’s BC 501 DAC, BmPH 160Wpc, class-AB, solid-state integrated amplifier, MR1200 power conditioner, BC602 passive conditioner, and full complement of cabling, all feeding Selah Audio 3D speakers, may have produced a more modest presentation than the significantly more expensive, entirely different Artemis Labs/Verity pairing, but shared that system’s lovely tonal balance and excellent pace. As usual,…