Art Dudley

SSI 2011

Delphi to Paris in one minute

Art Dudley Apr 06, 2011

Hop hop hop! Who is Richard the bunny visiting today? It’s the Oracle Audio Technologies room, where veteran designer Jacques Riendeau introduced a relatively affordable new turntable called the Paris. Available in a variety of configurationsand colorsthe fully-loaded version of the Oracle Paris offers an acrylic-and-aluminum platter (plus Delrin record clamp), a sophisticated suspension system, a new Oracle-designed carbon-fiber tonearm, and an Oracle MC cartridgeall for $3150 without the cartridge or $5000 with. I was impressed with the Paris samples on display, and Jacques Riendeau has promised that a review sample will follow in short order.

SSI 2011

Running into bunny

Art Dudley Apr 06, 2011

Hop hop hop! Who’s that on top of the DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96 loudspeaker? It’s Richard the bunny, and he’s come to thank Stephen Mejias for staying behind and getting Stereophile’s June issue off to the printers while JA, RD, and I frittered away the hours in sunny Montreal, eating snails, duck livers, and pig-leg shavings. Richard thoroughly enjoyed the DeVore Orangutans. (More on that later.)

SSI 2011

Around the (Voxativ) Horn

Art Dudley Apr 06, 2011

My reputation preceded me: Everywhere I went, people who knew me stopped and asked, “Have you heard the new Lowther yet?” The speaker in question was actually a Lowther-alike from the German firm Voxativ, named the Ampeggio ($29,750/pair), and as I told everyone who askedunsmugly, I hopeI’ve had a loaner pair in my house since mid-March.

Art Dudley Listening

Listening #99

Art Dudley Mar 25, 2011

That was called "love" for the workers in song;
probably still is, for those of them left.Leonard Cohen

It started around 1950, as postwar economies boomed and commercial radio stations multiplied like bunnies: Broadcasters needed reliable, high-quality turntables, so Garrard Engineering and Manufacturingan offshoot of Garrard & Co., England's first Crown Jewelertook up the challenge. They brought their considerable engineering talent to bear on a new design, invested in the personnel and facilities required to make the thing, and released the model 301 motor unit in 1953. It was a huge successand, strangely enough, it still is.

Integrated Amp Reviews Digital Processor Reviews Media Server Reviews

Linn Majik DS-I D/A integrated amplifier

Art Dudley Mar 18, 2011

My quandary on receiving for review the Linn Majik DS-I: What, precisely, is it supposed to do? Does the Majik DS-I contain a hard disk and music-ripping software, so I can use it to store all the music in my CD collection? Does it have a graphical user interface (GUI) that at least matches the one provided by the endearingly free Apple iTunes? Does it include a DAC that allows it to play the music files I've already put on my computer?

Art Dudley Listening

Listening #98

Art Dudley Mar 04, 2011

Now I remember why I'm no longer a car enthusiast. I haven't got the time.

In my youth, when I wasn't driving my beloved car, I was washing it. Polishing it. Waxing its engine compartment. Spraying Armor All on its hoses and bushings. Cleaning its interior vents with cotton swabs, and its shifter boot with Lexol. I did all of my own maintenance and some of my own repairsthose of the latter that didn't require specialized tools, at leastand I kept the car covered with a car cover I bought from a mail-order house, along with lots of other crazy junk.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Wilson Audio Sophia Series 3 loudspeaker

Art Dudley Feb 17, 2011

Two years ago, I was drawn to the Wilson Audio Sophia Series 2then as now, the company's entry-level floorstanderby its good reputation among lovers of low-power tube amplifiers. "Forget the specs," they said. "Sophia is the one to hear." In fact, with its 89dB sensitivity (slightly lower than most of Wilson's other domestic loudspeakers) and mildly challenging impedance curve (less daunting than those of its stablemates, but not by a lot), the Sophia seemed, on paper, no better than average for use with flea-watt amps. But when I tried a pair at home with my 25W Shindo Corton-Charlemagne mono amps, I was impressed: The Sophia Series 2 was, as I suggested in my "Listening" column in the February 2010 issue, the product that will forever mark Wilson Audio's progress toward not merely excellent sound but beautiful sound.

Art Dudley Listening

Listening #97

Art Dudley Jan 25, 2011

At the start of my teaching career, I discovered that it was more difficult to maintain order in a sixth-grade classroom early in the day than at any other time. First thing in the morning the kids were noisy and aimless, and banging my open palm on the chalkboard for their attention worked only once. So I gave my students that which most children crave, consciously or un-: a simple, clear explanation of what I expected of them.

What I expected of themin the short term, at leastwas this: They were required to answer three new questions, written for their benefit on that still-vibrating chalkboard, at the beginning of each and every school day. If the children didn't hand in their answers before the first-period classes began, I would not accept their homework from the night before, thus earning them a score of nothing. On the other hand, a good record of correct or at least entertaining answers to those morning questions would, I promised, be used to nudge upward any borderline report-card grade at the end of each quarter.

Budget Component Reviews Digital Processor Reviews Computer Audio Reviews

Chord Chordette Gem D/A processor

Art Dudley Jan 24, 2011

There's home cooking on one side of the hedge and fast food on the other, and the world moves farther from the former and nearer to the latter with each passing day. So it goes in domestic audio, where virtually every new milestone of the past quarter-century has pointed far more toward convenience than toward quality.

Depressed? Don't be. Those of us in the perfectionist community have a history of dealing with such things, howsoever slowly and inefficiently. (footnote 1). We're getting better at it, too, year by year. An example: Chord Electronics, of sunny southern England, has now brought to market their Chordette Gem D/A converter ($799) which they offer as an affordable means of getting perfectionist-quality sound from computer-music files.

Art Dudley Listening Powerline Accessory Reviews

Listening #96

Art Dudley Dec 20, 2010

When you play recorded music, you have before you a work of art with almost no physical existence at all; reconstituting it requires electricity, which will itself imitate the musical continuum represented by the bumps in the groove or the zeros in the datastream. When you listen to recorded music, you are listening to your household AC, and better AC equals better playback. That sounds obvious to me and you, even as it sends the technocodgers into paroxysms of puritanical indignation.