Guy Lemcoe

The $1200 D-105u, the top of Luxman's CD-player line, is novel in its twin-triode vacuum-tube amplification in the analog output stage. This configuration is said to provide high linearity with low distortion and that hard-to-quantify musicality found in tubed products. In addition, the D-105u incorporates an anti-vibration laser pick-up mechanism and a high-mass magnetic disc clamper, the latter feature said to mass-load the disc center to minimize spindle-motor microvibration, thus improving tracking accuracy for lowest error rate.

I first learned of the Kuzma Stogi at the 1993 Winter CES in Las Vegas. In VPI's room at the Sahara, a portly, black tonearm was sitting proudly atop the new VPI TNT Series 3 turntable. Pointing straight at me from the center of its massive, exceptionally stout frame was a tapered armtube the diameter of a swollen thumb. The fact that this unknown (to me) tonearm was chosen to sit atop a turntable as respected as the TNT told me I was looking at a serious new product. VPI's Harry Weisfeld was standing nearby, beaming as usual, to answer the barrage of questions that sprang from my lips as I leaned over for a closer inspection. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How much?

Acoustat Model Twos have been my reference loudspeakers for almost five years. I remember, on first hearing them in a high-end store in Illinois, how they let the music through in a way new and important to me. I knew I must own them! They seemed, despite their imposing appearance, to step aside when the music came on. The effect was akin to having a door opened onto the performance. One became privy to intimate details captured in recordings which are rarely heard outside the concert hall. Not veils, but flannel sheets were lifted from the sound! If one fussed around enough with placement, the Twos truly disappeared into the soundfield—music came from in front of, to the sides of, between, and behind them as if they weren't there. Focusing them like a fine camera lens on the listening chair created a "sweet spot" which, when I sat therein, raised within me a sense of awe usually associated with things magical. You knew when you entered this space, for it was different from that surrounding it. The musical presentation assumed an almost holographic palpability.

The name "Audio Research" will be familiar to many readers of this magazine. It belongs on the list of that select group of manufacturers who continue to offer the audiophile and music lover equipment which enables him or her to truly enjoy the muse. With equipment of this caliber, one is no longer caught up in the anxiety-inducing process of listening to (evaluating) the equipment used in the presentation of the music. Instead, the listener can focus attention on the much more important message uncovered in the music via the performance and conveyed through the network of transducers, cables, tubes or FETs, more cables, more tubes or FETs, and more transducers, to the brain. If this process has been successful and our sensitivities heightened, our souls will be touched.