DOWNLOADING & RIPPING: CD COPYRIGHTS EXPLAINED

SEPTEMBER 2005 MORDAUNT-SHORT’S PERFORMANCE 6 LOUDSPEAKER HI-TECH STYLE, UNUSUALLY SMOOTH SOUND COMPUTER AUDIO WAVELENGTH’S USB DAC

EQUIPMENT REPORT SPECIAL: SPEAKERS from TOTEM, ALMARRO, OPERA, & CABASSE BEL CANTO’S UNIVERSAL PLAYER SIMAUDIO’S MOON ROCK AMP GRAHAM’S NEW STATEMENT TONEARM $5.99 US $8.99 CAN JOHN SCOFIELD JAZZ GUITAR MEETS RAY CHARLES

www.stereophile.com AS WE SEE IT Jim Austin

The Absolute Experience

’ve never lived in New York City, Augie’s was what it was (to paraphrase on the honest delivery of the notes. but I’ve visited often, especially the Popeye and Robert Penn Warren), Where Augie’s imposed itself strongly—by Upper West Side, where my wife’s Smoke is precisely what its owners have nature, not design—on the experience of grandparents lived for many years. chosen to make it: a great place to listen listening to live jazz, Smoke provides your There’s a little jazz bar there, on to live jazz. beverage of choice and a comfortable Broadway near 106th Street, aka Smoke’s owners have thought hard seat—often a sound-absorbing, overstuffed IDuke Ellington Boulevard. about the bar’s acoustics. Thanks to deep sofa—then gets out of the way, allowing Augie’s Jazz Bar, as it was called until carpet, velvet curtains, and who knows the musicians to communicate directly its demise late in the last century, is what else, those acoustics are very good. with you. That, most audiophiles would apparently famous. Smoke, a movie star- Some outstanding jazz musicians play the agree, is the best thing a music medium, ring Harvey Keitel, with a screenplay by now-smokeless Smoke, which can make whether electronic or architectural, can the prolific and serious novelist Paul for an amazing experience in such a small do. If there’s such a thing as a high-end Auster, is rumored to be based on the life place; Smoke seats fewer than 100 souls, jazz bar, Smoke qualifies. of the bar’s original owner. I’d wager. Slide Hampton has played Last call is past, the music is over, and Augie’s was a special place, with a sort there. I’ve heard that Wynton Marsalis the bartender is sweeping the floor. So of authenticity that is all too rare these has, too. Jane Monheit is listed on Smoke’s let’s stagger home to your listening room, days. Augie’s never gave the impression where many of the same considerations that it was designed by marketers, or any- BY ABANDONING THE apply. Not unlike the smoke, noise, and one else, for that matter. Augie’s just was. distortion at Augie’s, many home fac- For a jazz bar, authentic means several QUIXOTIC QUEST FOR tors—the recording, the medium, your things. First, it means noise and bad system, the domestic environment— acoustics. Glass, or something else that THE SOUND OF LIVE impose themselves between you and the vibrates in sympathy with the loud low musicians…who, being far away, busy, or notes, is an absolute requirement. People PERFORMANCE, WE ALLOW dead, can hardly be expected to deliver a must talk too much during sets. It helps if truly live experience, especially at this the place is far too hot. And there must OURSELVES TO hour. An excellent high-end music sys- be enough cigarette smoke to shorten APPRECIATE THE ART tem can minimize some of those inter- your life by a measurable amount. mediaries, but not all of them. Augie’s had all this and more. The OF THE RECORDING Smoke is a better place to hear music place reeked of authenticity, atmosphere, than Augie’s ever was, yet Augie’s deliv- and stale cigarettes. A night of good jazz ENGINEER AND THE ered a sensory experience that Smoke at Augie’s was an unstructured, even bru- can’t match, and wisely doesn’t try to. tal assault on the senses. Eyes burned. HISTORY OF RECORDED Good recordings, similarly, deliver rich Noses dripped. It was an unforgettable sonic experiences, the musical value sup- experience, one you’re unlikely to repli- SOUND. plemented by what you might call aural cate in very many places, and especially in history. West Coast jazz from the late a climate-controlled listening room. website (www.smokejazz.com) as a regu- 1950s and early ’60s, for instance, has its Augie’s is no more, having passed into lar, along with Jim Willis and dozens of own pleasing sound, distinct from the history along with the rest of the 20th other great musicians. As I write this, after sounds of other times and places. Indeed, century. But, like a phoenix, a new jazz midnight on a Saturday night in June, the individual engineers have their own bar rose from Augie’s many overfilled Eddie Henderson Quartet should be into unique sounds, an aspect of this hobby ashtrays, and the new place is as much a their last set of the night, assuming they I’m just beginning to explore. By aban- product of the new century as Augie’s started on time. doning the quixotic quest for the sound was of the middle of the old one. Smoke, Smoke’s formula—contrived but low- of live performance, we allow ourselves as the new owners dubbed the place after key atmosphere, a choreographed appear- to appreciate the art of the recording the aforementioned film, was much less ance of authenticity, good acoustics—is engineer and the history of recorded smoky than Augie’s ever was—even likely to seem familiar to most modern sound. There’s a lot more going on in a before July 2003, when smoking in New audiophiles, who know better than most quality music recording than the music, York City bars was banned. how contrivance—even obsessive control— and all have been preserved for posterity Smoke is contrived where Augie’s is essential to the production of com- on well-cared-for original LPs and good- was authentic, but it’s contrived in the pelling aural experiences. Where Augie’s quality modern reissues. best possible way. The new owners have was an old, classic tube amp of a place, Forget about communing with the kept a good bit of Augie’s-like atmos- Smoke is the jazz-bar equivalent of a well- musicians; with even the best high-end phere even as they’ve substituted care- designed modern solid-state amplifier: not equipment, the most we can ever hope ful, understated design for the old clinical or sterile, but with a good bit of for is to get close to the recording. And place’s unplanned idiosyncrasy. Where science behind it and a definite emphasis that is not a bad thing at all. ■■ www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 3 SEPTEMBER 2005 VOL.28 NO.9 FEATURES Copying and Sharing Recorded Music 55 Laurence Borden brings us the Dos and Don’ts of Copyright Law.

John Scofield 65 Jazz guitar meets Ray Charles. 65 By Robert Baird EQUIPMENT REPORTS 72 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6 loudspeaker (Paul Messenger) 81 Cabasse Artis Baltic II loudspeaker (Michael Fremer) 81 Cabasse Artis Thor II powered subwoofer (Michael Fremer) 95 Almarro M0A loudspeaker (Robert J. Reina) 103 Bel Canto PL-1A universal player (Kalman Rubinson) 113 Lamm LL2 Deluxe preamplifier (Art Dudley) 72 125 Simaudio Moon Rock monoblock power amplifier (Brian Damkroger) 133 Ray Samuels Audio Emmeline SR-71 headphone amplifier (Wes Phillips) FOLLOW-UP 139 Musical Fidelity X-CanV3 headphone amplifier (Wes Phillips) 143 Channel Islands Audio D-100 monoblock power amplifier 81 (John Atkinson) 143 Lamm ML2.1 power amplifier (Art Dudley) 144 Totem Acoustic Forest loudspeaker 125 (John Atkinson)

6 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 K KEN K SIGN UP FOR ESS HO LE OT B R & WES P H BRI HI ING Y VISIT STEREOPHILEWWW.STEREOPHILE.COMGH O -E U H ND ILLI ’S E-MAILN NEWSLETTER.PS STEREOPHILE EW SEPTEMBER 2005 S COLUMNS 3 As We See It Jim Austin shares his insights on the live and the “staged” atmosphere of music. 11 Letters This month readers write in to answer Art Dudley’s Bluegrass quiz from July (correctly), suggest we get some younger writers to review music, debate (again) blind testing, and ask for our writers’ and editors’ credentials… Get on your Soapbox! Visit www.stereophile.com. 15 Industry Update High-end audio news including dealer-promoted seminars, plus: D&M Holdings acquires Boston Acoustics, Mission joins IAG, Audiophile Systems to stop distribution of Nagra and Verity Audio, and news from Marantz Europe’s annual trade seminar. Want to know more? Go to the “News Desk” at www.stereophile.com for up-to-the-minute info. 23 Sam’s Space 23 Sam Tellig visits Italy; home of the Opera and Unison loudspeaker fabrica. 31 Analog Corner Michael Fremer gets a van-load of vinyl and auditions the Graham Phantom tonearm. 39 Listening This month Art Dudley takes on the Wavelength Brick: a D/A converter for your computerized music. 47 Music in the Round Kalman Rubinson listens to some “New Music” and auditions “AC power gadgets” and power supplies from the likes of American Power Conversion, Environmental Potentials, and Belkin. 153 Record Reviews September’s “Recording of the Month” is Not In Our Name a new installment in the very unfrequent recorded history of Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. In classical, we have two new recordings of Mahler’s Symphony 8 and an acclaimed new recording of a Vivaldi opera. In Rock/Pop, there are a pair of new blues records and John Hiatt’s latest, Master of Disaster. And in jazz, three new records by Bill Frisell receive an active listen. 165 Manufacturers’ Comments 31 This month we hear from Graham Engineering, Wavelength Audio, Bel Canto, and Simaudio about our reviews of their products. 170 Aural Robert Both labels had recordings of Louis Armstrong. They both had pieces of Duke Ellington’s recorded legacy. What happens when two bitter competitors become one? Robert Baird finds out how the Sony BMG merger is going to affect your record collection.

INFORMATION 168 Audio Mart 161 Manufacturers’ Showcase 167 Dealers’ Showcase 153 167 Advertiser Index www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 7 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Old guitarists after reading my review? If after, then the double-blind testing and subjective evalu- Editor: review was worth publishing. If before, then ation, I dutifully listened to the entire The bluegrass guitarist mentioned in Art why didn’t you warn me? —Michael Fremer debate between John Atkinson and devot- Dudley’s July 2005 “Listening” column ed meter-reader Arny Krueger (www. (p.45), who took an eight-measure solo Amplifiers & measurements stereophile.com/news/050905debate). on the fiddle tune “Panhandle Country” Editor: Nope. Granting that Mr. Krueger is in the 1963 Bill Monroe concert, is Del Although I am one of the few classical not a polished speaker, and that the McCoury. Chris Foray musicians I know who actually cares audience’s questions were for the most [email protected] about the quality of reproduced sound, I part inaudible, charity does not allow have never considered my ears to be me to concede to Mr. Krueger even one Yes! Del McCoury is correct! [Other sugges- golden. Still, I can confidentially differ- of his points. tions from readers included Ed Mayfield, entiate realistic-sounding equipment Mr. Krueger is an engineer. Now, I Clarence White, Lester Flatt, and Peter from crap. I attended the debate at don’t mean to pick on engineers, but as Rowan—Ed.] Chris, please send me your Home Entertainment 2005 between one member of the debate audience physical address so that I can send you the Doc John Atkinson and Arnold Krueger (if observed, engineers are so intent on get- Watson LP for being the first to correctly identi- one can term any verbal interchange ting the correct answer that they often fy the guitarist. Thanks for reading my column. with Krueger a debate, or even a discus- fail to examine the assumptions implicit —Art Dudley sion). I was fascinated to learn of John’s in the problem. That’s a job for a physi- experience with the Quad 405 amplifier cist. Consequently, they often lose sight Old guys’ music because it exactly mirrored mine. Also, of the purpose of the gear they test: to Editor: like John, I’d previously spoken Peter play music. I tend to agree with Dominic Perry, who Walker’s name only with hushed rever- If Mr. Krueger had had a more liberal complained in the April issue (p.13) ence, and had owned some of his stuff education, he would know that double- about the lack of reviews in Stereophile of over the years. [An MP3 recording of the blind testing is only one method of con- music “geared to the younger genera- debate is available at www.stereophile.com/ ducting an experiment. It is equally valid, tion.” I haven’t been able to claim mem- news/050905debate.—Ed.] and the method of choice in the social bership in anything like a young genera- In the late 1970s I was in Waterloo, sciences, to observe a phenomenon at tion for many years, but I still love to Ontario, to perform a recital for the length, record one’s observations, then hear what the new bands are up to. Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music extrapolate those observations to the While much of the new stuff seems Society. The Director of that organiza- world at large. The science, Mr. Krueger, is in heavy on visuals and light on musician- tion, Jan Narveson, is one of Canada’s comparing one’s predictions to what actually ship, it should still be fairly easy to find true musical heroes, in terms of his vast happens in the world at large. Double-blind some good “new” music to review. A and almost single-handed contribution testing is only one means to this end, and fine beginning would be with artists like to his community’s cultural life. Jan also not the most important one, at that. Steve Vai, John Mayer, Eric Johnson, happens to be a close friend and col- I’m trying hard not to be condescend- Jonny Lang, and Susan Tedeschi. Per- league of Stanley Lipshitz, a very promi- ing, but I’ve heard the same tired, old haps what is needed is a young (under nent member of the double-blind-test- arguments parroted over and over so 30) music editor on your staff. New ing, measurements-is-everything crowd. often that my patience wears thin. blood brings new ideas, and perhaps Jan had recently acquired a Quad 405, Nevertheless, I will try once more to some new “younger” subscribers ready and proudly played it for me through his make my points clear. for real high-fidelity audio. Dave Drake KEF 105As, which I also owned at the First of all, the ABX test is an exam- Blue Hill, ME time. I told him that I found it more ple of a forced-choice experiment. It assumes [email protected] than a little harsh, and further, that I’d that a person can come to a conclusion never heard an amplifier whose sound after one short observation or a series of Amplifiers & Yugos was even in the same ballpark as this short observations. That is not always Editor: one’s. His response was, “I guess some- true, or we wouldn’t have the term Just read Michael Fremer’s report on the thing is wrong with every other amplifi- “buyer’s remorse.” It often occurs that Kora Explorer 150SB integrated amplifi- er you’ve heard, because Stanley checked we can go for days, or even years, before er (June p.85). This thing is the Yugo of this one out and said it works perfectly.” noticing a flaw in something. the audio world. Why did Stereophile Maybe Stanley measured the wrong Second, the process may not measure even bother to print the review? There things. Robert Silverman what you think it is measuring, or the are too many good products out there Vancouver, BC measuring process itself might be conta- that need to be reviewed. Gary Kozak minating the results. JA explained this in [email protected] Amplifiers & blind testing detail during the debate. It is worth Editor: mentioning that, at one time, a very Gary, did you consider the Kora Explorer Thinking there might be something new prominent magazine tested amplifiers by 150SB “the Yugo of the audio world” before or to be said in the perennial argument over passing their output through an equalizer and

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR should be sent as faxes or e-mails only (until further notice). Fax: (212) 886-2809. E-mail: [email protected]. Unless marked otherwise, all letters to the magazine and its writers are assumed to be for possi- ble publication. In the spirit of vigorous debate implied by the First Amendment, and unless we are requested not to, we publish correspondents’ e-mail addresses. Please note: We are unable to answer requests for information on specific products or sys- tems. If you have problems with your subscription, call toll-free (800) 666-3746, or e-mail [email protected], or write to Stereophile, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 11 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR comparing the resulting signal to that How difficult can it be to set up a blind publish its staff’s and its contributing from a standard unit. Laughable today, test for amplifier power cords? Take an authors’ credentials such as any national- but at the time, it was thought to be the amplifier and change out power cords as ly recognized formal training in any field epitome of pure “science.” frequently as the listener chooses without pertaining to the magazine (electronics, Third, I have noticed that very few him knowing what cord you changed to, audio, etc.)? Jack Stunkel Jr. “objectivists” are aware that their or if you changed it at all. Record not [email protected] reliance on meter readings can be dan- only whether or not he heard a differ- gerously circular. They assume that their ence, but which sounded better. Do this Why do we need to do that, Mr. Stunkel? I meter readings can detect any inaccura- with a number of listeners, taking what- loathe the tendency for some magazines to cy. Why is an amplifier accurate? ever time is required, and see if there is “argue by credential.” Either you appreciate Because the instruments do not show any statistical significance. (Does JA know what I publish or you don’t. If you don’t, then any distortion. Why don’t the instru- what that means?) Can they actually it doesn’t really matter how many letters I have ments show any distortion? Because the detect a difference in power cords, and if after my name, does it. And Mr. Sanford, my amplifier is accurate. so, can they determine which sounds bet- formal training is in science and the teaching of I could go on, but I rest my case. ter on a consistent basis? science, not journalism or marketing. Not that Is there a place for comparative test- If you can’t demonstrate it statistically, that matters, either. —JA ing? Of course there is. I often use it in then why should I spend $3000 on a designing and modifying my equipment. power cord? Of course, if you demon- Is there an index? It is the only practical way to quickly strate that there is no difference, then Editor: evaluate changes. Still, it can lead you Stereophile will lose all of its advertisers Does Stereophile have a master index for astray, step by step, unless you occasion- manufacturing expensive power cords. products that have been reviewed? Greg ally compare the equipment with the JA stated how much more he enjoyed Address withheld only real standard, live music. the music after replacing his Quad 405 To his credit, Mr. Krueger listens to with an M&A tube amplifier. He did not Every product that has been written about in live music, a lot of it. His measurements blind-test the Quad 405 against the Stereophile from November 1962 through may have some validity. I don’t know. M&A, so how does this support his posi- December 2004, whether in a full Equipment His mistake is in assuming that his tion against blind testing? There are Report, a Follow-Up, or in one of our regular method is the only real and appropriate many things that influence what we columns, is listed in the Master Index, available test for musical accuracy. Bob McIntyre hear. Ninety-nine percent of people who at www.stereophile.com/images/masterindex. Toledo, OH trade in a $2000 amp for a $5000 amp More than 1500 of these reviews, along with [email protected] are going to like the way it sounds bet- numerous articles and columns, are available in ter, even if the electronics in each box our free online archives. —JA Blind tests & psychoacoustics are identical. This is the way minds Editor: work. It costs more, so it has to be better. Fisher mods John Atkinson’s edifying anecdote con- In my opinion, Stereophile’s editor is Editor: cerning the objectivist vs subjectivist doing a real disservice to the magazine’s Hardly a month goes by when I don’t debate in the July issue (“As We See It,” readers by promoting snake oil, such as have a Fisher 500-C receiver in my lab p.3) suggests a psychoacoustic phenome- power cords that cost more than McIn- to restore, in my “retirement” job of fix- non that I hold trust in: the auditory fac- tosh amplifiers. When I hear him try to ing vintage audio for Audio Classics of ulties deployed to discern distinctions discredit the validity of blind tests, I have Vestal, New York. I concur with Peter between hardware are not the same as to conclude that his education must have Breuninger (June, p.117) that the Fisher those deployed when one seeks delight- been in journalism or marketing rather 500-C and its clone with an AM tuner, ful immersion in the musical experience. than in electronics or engineering. Like the 800-C, are excellent products even As such, while I readily concede my it or not, audio electronics are about sci- by today’s standards. own inability to make correct and con- ence, scientific methods, and engineer- I do several minor modifications to sistent judgments during blind tests, I ing. John Atkinson really needs to spend improve reliability, as well as replace sev- experience no dissonance maintaining a some time studying psychoacoustics. eral small German-made electrolytic clear preference for one piece of hard- Based on the new paradigm, how can capacitors that fail 100%, becoming ware over another after spending ample anyone feel comfortable buying an audio leaky and noisy and degrading perfor- time engrossed in music that stirs my system? I still read that people think mance even when the receiver still soul. Matthew Posillico McIntosh amps sound “too warm” and works. Especially troublesome is the 1μF Garden City, NY Krell sounds “too cold.” These are some blocking capacitor in the stereo decoder. [email protected] of the best amplifiers ever made, and I I rebias output tubes to 30mA (as contend that it is a real stretch to find stated in Peter’s review) and add an Blind testing & disappointment anything about either to criticize other inrush limiter. Power-switch failure is Editor: than the Krell being hot (and perhaps hav- common in these receivers, as high I’m very disappointed to discover John ing a shorter life due to the high temper- inrush current at turn-on makes a spark Atkinson’s position on blind testing (“As atures). Tube amps? Don’t get me started. inside the power switch that eventually We See It,” July 2005, p.3). As he is the For the record, I’ve been a serious burns out switch contacts. The limiter editor of Stereophile magazine, it is now audiophile for 37 years. I continue to be eliminates this spark, thus preserving even more difficult for me to respect amazed at the garbage I read in these the switch. anything that I read in the publication. publications, and now I see that it is com- Tuner alignment, chassis cleaning, To deny the validity of blind testing is to ing from the top. I’m sick about what has contact cleaning everywhere, ignore science. Blind testing is objective happened to this hobby. David Sanford tube/lamp replacement as necessary, science. To ignore its value is equivalent [email protected] and the receiver is as good as new! to believing that the world is flat, that Qualified? Richard Modafferi there is no truth in evolution, that man Editor: Vestal, NY didn’t land on the moon. Would it be possible for Stereophile to [email protected]

12 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 INDUSTRY UPDATE

CALENDAR US: MASSACHUSETTS ate Boston Acoustics as a distinct brand, Jon Iverson “but with the benefit of D&M’s sales, Those promoting audio-related semi- More consolidation in the audio biz: technology, and cost synergies by lever- nars, shows, and meetings should fax D&M Holdings, owner of Denon, aging product distribution channels, (do not call) the when, where, and Marantz, McIntosh Laboratory, product development, and back-office who to (212) 886-2809 at least eight ReplayTV, Rio, and Escient, took integration.” According to BA’s Kotsatos, weeks before the month of the event. another big gulp in June and made a D&M “will be able to help us grow our The deadline for the November 2005 move to acquire Boston Acoustics. brand outside North America. And they issue is September 1, 2005. Mark the Boston Acoustics was founded in will provide us with marketing know- fax “Attention Stephen Mejias, Dealer 1979—interestingly enough, not in how to substantially increase our table Bulletin Board.” We will fax back a con- Boston, but in Peabody, Massachu- radio and music system business.” firmation. If you do not receive confir- setts—and quickly found success in the mation within 24 hours, please fax us home loudspeaker market, creating UNITED KINGDOM & CHINA again. such classic bookshelf designs as the Paul Messenger A70 and the diminutive A40. In the late The future of leading UK loudspeaker Attention All Audio Societies: We 1980s, the company expanded into the brand Mission has been resolved after don’t have room every month to print car-audio and custom-installation mar- languishing for two months in admin- all of the society listings we receive. If kets and then on to OEM design and istrative limbo. Mission will join you’d like to have your audio-society manufacturing. In recent years, after a Wharfedale, Quad, and the soon-to- information posted on the Stereophile long courtship, BA also acquired loud- be-relaunched Audiolab as part of the website, e-mail Chris Vogel at vgl@ speaker manufacturer Snell Acoustics. Chinese-owned International Audio atlantic.net and request an info-pack. D&M Holdings says it will make the Group (IAG), which has its UK head- purchase through its domestic sub- quarters in Huntingdon. Please note that it is inappropriate for sidiary, D&M Holdings US. The com- The story began in April, when Fun- a retailer to promote a new product pany will acquire Boston Acoustics for damental-e Investments plc suffered a line in “Calendar” unless this is associ- $17.50/share in cash, for a total of downturn in its share price and ated with a seminar or similar event. approximately $76 million. BA’s stock announced that it would dispose of hit its one-year high closing price of Symphonix Ltd., the company that had CALIFORNIA $16.25 on June 7. been trading as Mission in the hi-fi ❚ Thursday, September 15, 7–9pm: The companies report that the acqui- speaker marketplace. Shortly there- AudioVision San Francisco (1603 sition has been approved by the Board after, Symphonix was put into formal Pine Street) will host an evening semi- of Directors of Boston Acoustics, and is Administration (receivership) while a nar and demonstration featuring Geoff subject to the approval of the company’s purchaser was sought. The two-month Poor of Balanced Audio Technology shareholders and the satisfaction of interregnum has weakened trade con- and Albert Von Schweikert of Von other customary closing conditions, fidence in the Mission brand, but it’s Schweikert Audio. Refreshments will including the receipt of required financ- understandable given the complexities be served, and a drawing will be held ing. Boston Acoustics founder Andy involved in the takeover. for a free pair of Von Schweikert VR-1 Kotsatos, his wife, and the Kotsatos fam- IAG won the takeover battle, but not loudspeakers. For more info, visit ily trusts, and Daeg Partners LP, have without fighting off three other con- www.audiovisionsf.com. RSVP: (415) agreed to vote their shares (approxi- tenders. The deal was further compli- 614-1118. mately 33.2% and 4.8% of BA’s voting cated because the assets were spread ❚ Saturday–Sunday, November 19–20: stock, respectively) in favor of the trans- around several companies and coun- The Southern California Audio, action, which was expected to close by tries. Although Symphonix owned the Video, and Music Expo, sponsored August 31, 2005. intellectual copyright of Mission’s cur- by Vacuum Tube Valley Web maga- D&M says the acquisition adds “a rent product range, the actual brand zine, will take place at Embassy Suites premium speaker line and the ability to name was rented from NXT plc, as was in Pasadena/Arcadia. For more info, deliver to customers a complete home the factory from which the operation visit www.vacuumtube.com. entertainment solution.” Through its was run. Because almost all production various brands, the company distrib- was carried out overseas, the tooling COLORADO utes A/V receivers, amplifiers, was with OEM suppliers in Malaysia ❚ Friday, September 30: The Rocky CD/DVD players, DLP projectors, and China, who were owed money and Mountain AudioFest ’05 opens at plasma monitors, and digital media who were holding stock. It’s no surprise Denver’s Marriott Tech Center, 4900 management systems. D&M claims that it took some time to tie up the South Syracuse, and runs through Sun- that the new deal also provides “a right deal and finalize the sale. day October 2. The show is sponsored strong foothold in the automotive IAG has not only purchased the by the Colorado Audio Society, Audio- OEM business along with the ability to Mission business from the Symphonix gon, webzines sixmoonsaudio.com, leverage all five premium brands— Administrators, it has also bought the enjoythemusic.com, and positive-feed- Denon, Marantz, McIntosh, Boston Mission brand name from NXT plc, back.com, and manufacturers Wel- Acoustics, and Snell—in that business.” though it will not be saddled with the D&M adds that it is planning to oper- substantial overhead of the Mission www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 15 INDUSTRY UPDATE borne Labs and Red Rock Audio, factory. IAG is expected to continue requiring more and more effort just to and there will be more than 70 the existing Mission product range, and maintain their current positions, the demonstration rooms. For information ultimately to relocate production to its logical decision is to focus efforts on and the exhibitor list, visit own million-square-foot factory in those lines producing the best return. www.audiofest.net. Shen Zhen, in southern China. This is particularly important in a small Mission should make a good fit with company like ours, where one is MICHIGAN IAG. Whereas long-established brands always working with limited resources. ❚ Saturday–Sunday, October 15–16, such as Wharfedale and Quad are well Those resources must be deployed 12–6pm: Superior Sight & Sound regarded by older customers, Mission’s where they will do the most good.” (West Bloomfield) will conduct a semi- appeal has always been strongest Warzin continued: “Keeping up nar to present the dCS single-box CD among younger, more design-con- with the rapid growth of both Arcam player and new transport-DAC combo. scious consumers. While it’s too early and dCS required our full attention. For more info and to RSVP: (248) 626- to say what will happen to the current Continuing to distribute Nagra, Veri- 2780 or e-mail soundsuperior@hot Mission staff, the fact that the head- ty…when we knew we couldn’t apply mail.com. quarters of IAG and Mission are less our best efforts to those lines, simply than a mile apart will enable staff to wouldn’t be fair to those companies, VIRGINIA transfer without having to relocate. our dealers, or the end users.” ❚ Friday, September 23, 5:30–8:30pm: Warzin also told us that the same Deja Vu Audio (McLean) will cele- US & SWITZERLAND issues that had led to Audiophile Sys- brate their 10-year anniversary. Owner Wes Phillips tems’ decision to concentrate on Vu Hoang will demonstrate the latest We had lunch in June with Anthony Arcam and dCS had led the firm to Deja Vu horn designs as well as the Chiarella, president of Specialty Sound drop the British Acoustic Energy line shop’s usual retail lines. Refreshments and Vision, LLC, Audiophile Systems’ of loudspeakers. “[We] love the speak- will be served. For more info, visit rep firm for the New York metropoli- ers, love the people, but it’s really hard www.dejavuaudio.com or call (703) tan area, and were surprised to learn to make it in this market with an 734-9391. that Audiophile Systems was to stop imported speaker line when there are distributing the Swiss Nagra electron- so many wonderful speakers manufac- CANADA ics and Canadian Verity Audio loud- tured in the US and Canada.” ❚ Wednesday–Thursday, October speaker lines on July 1. Warzin emphasized that there “is 19–20: Sound Plus (600 W. Broad- The decision wasn’t caused by absolutely no dispute between Audio- way, Vancouver) will host their eighth unhappiness with the sound quality of phile Systems and Nagra or Verity. . . . annual Home Entertainment Experi- either product line, but rather by the We are actually doing everything we ence. For more info, visit www.sound impact of the weakening dollar and the can to ensure that all our current Nagra plus.ca. difference in the expectations of the and/or Verity dealers can continue to American consumer, according to sell the products. Fortunately, Nagra Chiarella. “Both lines offered products has always had their own office in the that were reliable and well made,” he US, which handled the distribution of told us, “and we had a great distribu- their professional products. So it was a tion network—not to mention great simple matter for that office to take on reviews in Stereophile and elsewhere— the home audio products as well. And but we just weren’t selling these superb Verity, being located in Canada, also products. Why? Well, part of it was the has easy access to the US market. In currency exchange rate. Four years ago, fact, most of our Verity shipments were the Nagra VPA type II monoblocks made direct from the factory to the US sold for $14,400/pair, which was a retailer. So, from the point of view of great price, but at $25,000/pair, it just the end user, very little has changed.” wasn’t really a gamer. The same was Warzin also wanted to point out that true with Verity’s prices—the competi- Audiophile Systems will continue to tion from American-built products distribute Nottingham turntables—“a gave those prices low perceived value.” line that takes very little effort and Gary Warzin, president of Audio- seems to just keep spinning (pun phile Systems, agreed with Chiarella intended)”—and will continue to ser- that the declining dollar was an issue, vice the Nagra and Verity gear it has but not, he clarified, the key issue: “A put into the marketplace. far more important factor was the Following our original publication of amount of work required vs the return this story at www.stereophile.com/ on our investment (both in terms of news/062705audiophile, we received a effort and capital). When you have clarification from Nagra CEO Gérard lines like Arcam (which is growing at Beuchat, the full text of which can be 40% a year), and dCS (which is in a found at www.stereophile.com: truly unique position in offering digital “Nagra and Audiophile Systems have technology that has consistently been indeed decided to stop working together. years ahead of the competition), and Nagra Hi-Fi products will now be distrib- contrast that with lines that seem to be uted by Nagra USA. Tel: (615) 726-5191. www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 17 E-mail: [email protected]. Nagra Stereophile magazine. The new solid- key market for Nagra, both for profes- USA is a subsidiary of Nagra Switzerland state amplifiers, the Pyramid Mono- sional and audiophile lines, and we and is already in charge of the distribution block and the Pyramid Stereo, are intend to maintain our position and of our professional recorders. enjoying a great start and are being further strengthen our presence.” “It is true that the exchange rate delivered all over the world. between US$ and [the] Swiss Franc led “Regarding the demonstration EUROPE to a price increase in the USA. Howev- machines and the stock at Audiophile Paul Messenger er, now that Nagra has full control over Systems: This will be dealt with by Speaking at Marantz Europe’s annual pricing, the retail price of the VPA (stan- Nagra USA, who will take back all the trade seminar, the company’s market- dard version) is less than US$20,000. existing stock from Audiophile Sys- ing manager, Bert Kiggen, described The price of $25,000 is a mistake on tems. As a consequence, the price posi- the last 12 months as the toughest in Audiophile Systems’ website. tion of our products will not be recent history for the hi-fi industry, at “The Kudelski Group has three main changed. The US has always been a least in Europe. Nor do prospects for activity sectors: conditional access the immediate future look very excit- solutions for digital television, where ing—Kiggen quoted a recent survey by Kudelski is the world leader; physical GfK, Europe’s leading market-data ana- access solutions for public sites (with a lysts, that suggests that consumer pur- world No.1 position in ski resorts and chase intentions are currently very low. No.3 worldwide in parking solutions); Marantz is one of the few AV brands and Nagra Audio products. Nagra PHOTOS: PAUL MESSENGER that still operates across a global stage Audio has been a world leader in the and is therefore better placed than most professional audio industry for more to see the big picture. Today it’s part of than 50 years, and still is today. The the industry’s newest multinational, company has received numerous pres- D&M Holdings, a US conglomerate tigious awards, among which are two that owns Denon and McIntosh, Oscars and one Emmy. among others, and recently bought “Today our very successful Hi-Fi Boston Acoustics [see related story—Ed.]. range is being extended to offer a full While this coming-together of erst- range of devices. Almost all our prod- SA-15S1player and PM-15S1 amplifier while rivals might seem potentially prob- ucts have been rated as A or A+ by (under turntable). lematic, D&MH itself seems to be a INDUSTRY UPDATE somewhat permissive parent, preferring Clearaudio-sourced turntable. The for- Such statistics at least indicate that to stay in the background and let the mer have proved so successful that home audio should continue to have a brands continue to operate autonomous- they’ve been supplemented by two less viable future for many more years. The ly. Functions such as “back office” admin- costly variations, the SA-15S1 player traditional countries might be showing istration have been integrated, and some and PM-15S1 amplifier—also two-chan- signs of saturation, but plenty of newly sharing of manufacturing platforms is nel only, and selling for about half the emerging territories with populations envisaged, but each brand remains price of the original models. having disposable incomes are coming responsible for its own product-develop- A traditional part of the Marantz along to take up the slack. However, to ment, sales, and marketing policies. Europe seminar is Brand Ambassador what extent these newer markets will For example, despite D&MH hav- Ken Ishiwata’s address on the state of opt for traditional two-channel hi-fi ing acquired Boston Acoustics, consumer electronics worldwide. Ken components is harder to assess. Though Marantz will continue to distribute stressed the continuing relevance of the stats provide only a very broad other speaker brands: Mordaunt-Short home audio, with figures showing that overview, the patterns suggest that in Europe and the US, B&W in Japan. the global decline of home audio prod- while Asia has some enthusiasm for sep- And in Europe at least, Marantz has ucts has slowed to a mere 1% per year. arate components, the rest of the world decided to remove its products from Sales in Western Europe have also virtu- seems to favor mini- and microsystems. Internet sellers, believing it’s important ally stabilized, though things don’t look With its huge population and rapid to focus on those who deal with cus- so good for such leading markets as economic growth, China looks most tomers face to face and can therefore Japan and the US, where the current likely to provide the best immediate provide proper service support. downturn is expected to continue before market for hi-fi brands. Furthermore, Marantz used the seminar to intro- leveling off in the medium term. If these as Ishiwata pointed out, the Chinese duce 25 new products, upgrading or mature markets continue to underper- seem to like big things and respect replacing two-thirds of its line. Bert form, overall stability will be achieved established brand names—VW is the Kiggen noted that home theater sales through continuing growth in the less best-selling car make in China, and had proved rather disappointing over developed parts of the world. While both BMW and Mercedes have the long haul, but that two-channel had Western Europe remains the largest opened factories there. Tastes and aspi- begun to grow again. Last year Marantz market, Asia (excluding Japan) and the rations vary considerably from one introduced several upmarket two-chan- rest of the world together now account country to another, in audio equip- nel components: an SACD/CD player for something like 40% of total sales of ment as well as automobiles. For and partnering amplifier, and a classy consumer electronics by volume. example, Suzuki and Santana are the INDUSTRY UPDATE

leading car brands in India, that other Short’s Performance stand-mounted Eastern mega-economy. model wasn’t yet ready, but was Ishiwata stressed that the continuing impressed by the force-canceling Perfor- prosperity of serious hi-fi depends on mance 9 subwoofer, which was ready. I making components that create in con- also like the look of the Architect wall- sumers a desire to own them. He point- mounted speakers. Wall-mounts actual- ed out that the Swiss watch industry, ly have some acoustic advantages, but heavily damaged by Japanese competi- their performance is often compromised tion in the 1970s, successfully reinvent- by inadequate mounting arrangements. ed itself by applying quality design and Mordaunt-Short has invented a clever marketing skills. He feels this provides clip arrangement that should give supe- a model that could serve for hi-fi. rior mechanical integrity. He may have a point, though I’m not Last on the seminar’s agenda was a wholly convinced that the analogy is apt— fascinating demonstration of something I’ve never figured out why people buy called Opsodis. Though not primarily aimed at the hi-fi stereo sector at all, it’s interesting nonetheless. The name, an acronym for Optimal Source Distribu- tion, refers to a processor-speaker sys- tem developed by Japanese engineer Dr. Takashi Takeuchi while he was working at the Institute of Sound Vibration Research at the UK’s Southampton University. Essentially a single-box, “3- D” surround-sound system, it’s by no means the first attempt to introduce such a device. But the theory behind the Opsodis—using powerful digital signal processing to cancel out crosstalk—is Innards of the Mordaunt-Short Performance 9 subwoofer, excluding the box solid enough, and the movie soundtrack and drive electronics. demonstration was very impressive when I sat in the sweet spot, though rather less so anywhere else. expensive watches—it must be a vanity A senior UK engineer who’d heard and/or fashion thing. There’s something the system in Southampton was also similar about buying a quality car, though impressed by its capabilities with binaur- driving one certainly brings its own plea- al source material. Not only was the sur- sure and satisfaction. There’s pleasure to round effect rather good, the system be had in owning a finely crafted hi-fi seemed surprisingly transparent, and rel- component, too, but it’s much more a pri- atively free from the phasey effects I’ve vate than a showoffy sort of thing. come to expect from such an approach. I might regard the pair of B&W “Single-box” is perhaps overstating 800D loudspeakers currently occupy- things somewhat—said box is very wide. ing one end of my living room with a Think of two three-way floorstanders respect bordering on awe (they really placed on their sides, tweeters inward are that good), but my non–hi-fi but still about 3' apart, the larger, lower- friends tend to be shocked by their frequency drivers still farther apart. An sheer bulk and Dr. Who Dalek-like Opsodis system won’t be cheap, but it’s appearance. My hi-fi system is essen- an elegant and discreet solution. tially a tool that serves to get me closer The Yamaha VSP-1, based on tech- to the music that gives me pleasure; if nology the Japanes company licenses anything, I tend to get apologetic about from 1-Limited, has already enjoyed its more wacky excesses. In my opin- some single-box surround-sound suc- ion, hi-fi’s current stagnation has much cess. The Opsodis offers a very differ- more to do with the music business, ent, even complementary, alternative. which seems to be run by accountants Whereas a VSP-1 will work best in a rather than creative enthusiasts. room of regular shape with reflective The seminar also involved Mordaunt- walls and ceiling, the Opsodis will give Short, which Marantz Europe distrib- the best results when the room reflec- utes. The speaker brand has shown great tions are as well damped as possible. vigor since the Audio Partnership Marantz isn’t yet committed to exploit- takeover (see my review of the Perfor- ing the Opsodis commercially, but is mance 6 loudspeaker in this issue). I was clearly taking a long hard look at a very disappointed to discover that Mordaunt- interesting new technology. ■■

20 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 SAM’S SPACE Sam Tellig

Sam Visits the Opera

ear the Arsenale in Venice, principal owner of Opera Loudspeak- Opera Loudspeakers are engineered by there is a stone bust that is ers. My Italian was good enough to Dr. Bon and voiced with the consulta- said to be the exact image catch some of the conversation. tion and final approval of Opera’s of Dr. Mario Bon. “This is the vertical radiation pattern owner, signor Giovanni Nasta. “No question about it,” for the Opera Tebaldi speaker’s double Like me, Dr. Bon is a serious eater. declared Nick Green the dipole,” Il Leone explained. (Consult Dr. Bon about restaurants in NUK distributor of Opera Loudspeakers Earlier that day, Dr. Bon and I had Venice, but signor Nasta knows more and Unison Research electronics.1 “It’s him. The bust dates back to around 1600. You wouldn’t want to meet him if it was 400 years ago in the Adriatic and you were about to engage in bat- tle with the Venetian fleet.” PHOTOS: SAM TELLIG Nick didn’t have his camera handy and can’t remember the exact spot. Next time we’re in Venice together, we might search the area. Dr. Mario Bon, stone-faced physics researcher at the University of Padua, is a native-born Venetian. He told me that some of his forebears were doges—one of whom might have been set in stone near the Arse- nale. Dr. Bon lives not far from St. Mark’s Square. His quarters are expensive, cramped, and not so con- venient, he said. There’s alta acqua (high water), when Venetians don rubber boots and walk on wooden Two Giovannis: Giovanni Sacchetti, left, and Giovanni Nasta, right, and the factory’s famous olive tree. planks. One slip and you’re over your ankles in water. “There is no good grocery store been walking along the quay, in front about wine.) My wife, Marina, and I nearby, only stores that sell bottles of of St. Mark’s Square, when a huge were on our own in Venice for one water to tourists for €4,” Dr. Bon cruise ship pulled in—a formidable evening. Dr. Bon recommended Trat- lamented. “When I want to walk floating fortress. toria alla Madonna. Coming from St. somewhere and I am in a hurry, I “My customers!” Dr. Bon enthused, Mark’s Square, you cross the Rialto sometimes bump into tourists with taking an especially deep and bracing Bridge, turn left, then take the first their heads up in the air looking at the breath of fresh Venetian sea air. alley on the right. Ecco. No reserva- landmarks.” Customers? For Opera Loudspeakers? tions. Come early or prepare to leave If you bump into the burly Dr. Bon, “No, not signor Nasta’s customers. late. There’s usually a long line. you might mistake him for a gondolier My customers.” The Madonna is touristy—this is on his lunch break. Nick Green calls I don’t suppose cruise-ship passen- Venice, after all—but many of the him Il Leone di Venezia—the lion of gers seek out Italian hi-fi. But they do tourists seem to be Italian. The waiters Venice. Dr. Bon appears reticent, crave glassware, and they buy art. Mario are pleasant and talkative—not always rather gruff—but his sense of humor Bon and his wife, Maria, run the San the case in Venezia. If you chat with quickly comes to light, including a Gregorio Art Gallery in Venice. You your waiter in Italian, he or she might sense of irony passed down through can have a look without visiting Venice do something nice, like bring you a generations of Venetians. There’s no at www.sangregorioartgallery.com. taste of a primo you hadn’t ordered, or bull with Dr. Bon. Like so many people I’ve met in sneak you an extra shot of complimen- Dr. Bon always has a notepad Italy—hi-fi people especially—Dr. Bon tary grappa while your wife is in the and/or a textbook at hand. Aboard looms larger than life. There’s person- ladies’ room. Grazie, Dr. Bon. the vaporetto, on our way to dinner, ality. Character. Charisma. And who Marina and I prefaced our Italian he sat beside signor Giovanni Nasta, better to design loudspeakers than a spring vacation with a visit to the burly Venetian physics researcher? (His Worldwide Meeting of Opera and Unison, held in their joint near 1 The US and Canadian distributor for both is Richard specialty is superconductors, and I fabrica Kohlruss, of VMAX Services. don’t mean Maestro Riccardo Muti.) Treviso, about a half hour from Venice. www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 23 SAM’S SPACE

I try to time our spring vacation so we Maria Callas, meet your rival least a large listening room. A McMan- can attend this annual gathering. The I reviewed and recommended the sion will do. The Caruso was further meeting feels more like a family get- Opera Callas loudspeaker in the April from completion, but I did hear a brief together than a business conference— 2004 Stereophile (Vol.27 No.4). It’s a demo. Now talk about room-filling and indeed almost everyone knows John Marks fave, too. The Callas is sound! Enrico Caruso was the first one another. There are no PowerPoint styled and voiced in the classic tradi- worldwide recording sensation. Think presentations as there sometimes are tion of Italian stand-mounted loud- of it—an opera singer as pop star! in…ahem, Vicenza. speakers and stays, unchanged, in the There were also new developments There is also obligatory wine tast- Opera loudspeaker line. from Opera’s older sister company, ing, with signor Nasta always ready to Last year, Opera extended the Callas Unison Research. In the past few years, quiz you as to which of two vintages line with the floorstanding Callas Div- Unison—established in Vicenza more you prefer. In fact, the Opera-Unison ina and Diva models. I reviewed the than 20 years ago by Giovanni Maria fabrica is like no other. There’s a bar Callas Divina in April. I haven’t caught Sacchetti—has become known for its and cafe, a wine cellar (in one corner up with the Diva yet. affordable Unico series of integrated of the factory), two listening rooms, Opera usually names speakers after amplifiers and CD players. Each Unico and a home theater. My wife and I get individual performers such as Caruso, model uses at least one tube. The Uni- to meet distributors from all over the Tebaldi, Pavarotti. I’m still waiting for son integrated amplifiers employ world, and journalists, too. Ezio Pinza, Mario Del Monaco, MOSFET output transistors, which From Opera’s German distributor I Giuseppe di Stefano. This nomencla- are closer in sound quality to tubes learned that you can buy a DVD player ture could give people the wrong im- than to bipolar transistors, according to for less than it costs to gas up your pression, though. Opera loudspeakers signor Sacchetti. Audi or Opel. He worries what this are not for classical listeners only. Gio- Unison began by offering all-tube, might be doing to consumers’ percep- vanni Nasta is a big fan of Frank Sina- single-ended triode amplifiers—the tions of value. I heard a lot of other tra, Dean Martin, and Louis Prima. purest of the pure—even though SET stuff, too. When Giovanni Nasta was- Opera speakers are voiced listening to amps might not measure so well and n’t listening, I discussed single-ended a wide variety of music, including lots give certain hi-fi writers (and editors) triode tube amps and horn loudspeak- of jazz. And yes, home theater too. the snits. Almost all Unison Research ers with Aruldas, the Opera distributor This spring, Opera introduced a new products that have been put in produc- in Dubai. Aruldas urged me to order a Tebaldi, named after Renata Tebaldi, tion have stayed in production. This pair of Hedlund horn cabinets from Maria Callas’s chief rival. (The two were includes the Performance integrated Hong Kong. Winky, the Hong Kong born a year apart and, except for once, amp, recently revised and revived after distributor, gave a wink. never appeared on the same stage a hiatus of several years, and which I More to the point, I saw and heard together.) The new Tebaldi is a massive reviewed in May. what I think is the finest power ampli- floorstanding speaker that will retail Unison’s design engineer is Dr. fier I have encountered to date. You here for around $20,000/pair. It wasn’t Leopoldo Rossetto, professor at the thought the best amplifier in the world quite finished when we heard it, but University of Padua (Dr. Bon’s univer- was something from Oz or from close enough. sity, too). (If you’re talking about elec- Brooklyn, New York…or maybe that On the Tebaldi’s narrow-baffled, trical engineering, the other place in $350,000 Wavac amp that had Mikey leather-covered front panel are a 1" Italy is Pisa. Don’t mention Pisa at all afremer? Maybe the best amplifier ScanSpeak tweeter and two 6" SEAS Opera and Unison.) ever comes from Italy. Io rido il mio mid/bass drivers. On the rear panel, The difference between Italian elec- diavolo ride. I laugh my evil laugh. there are four ScanSpeak tweeters trical engineers and other electrical I also found something more afford- (same tweeters found on the front). engineers is that Italians are Italian first able: a new loudspeaker model from These rear-firing tweeters are described and engineers second. This is a gener- Opera, the SP Callas, already in pro- as “wide-ranging” cones and kick in alization and an oversimplification, of duction for just under $3000/pair. above 1kHz. Here’s where things get course, but with people like Dr. Ros- These days, that’s a song. really interesting. There are four drivers setto and Dr. Bon and signor Sacchetti, on each speaker’s inside-facing side what comes through is the culture, the wall: two 8.7" aluminum-cone active humanity, the realization that no one CONTACTS woofers and two 8.3" passive-radiator person and no one company can have woofers. The drivers on the left all the answers. OPERA LOUDSPEAKERS AND speaker’s side face the drivers on the Signor Sacchetti: “Measurements UNISON RESEARCH, via Barone 4, right speaker’s side. These drivers alone cannot assure a musical result and 31030 Dooson di Casier (Treviso), should be out of sight from a central- might, in fact, lead to the opposite.” Italy. Tel: (39) 0422-633547. Fax: ly-sited listening chair. The sound, as Professore Rossetto: “Some of my stu- (39) 0422-633550. Web: demonstrated during the meeting, dents are incredulous that I design with www.operaloudspeakers.com, was full-range and forceful for sure. tubes, and antique-type tubes whose www.unisonresearch.com. Agile and fleet-footed, too, with designs date back to the 1920s and excellent pinpoint imaging. 1930s. I tell them that it is like water and VMAX SERVICES, P.O. Box 570, If you crave something even bigger wine. Water might be healthier for you Chazy, NY 12921. Tel: (800) 771- but along the same line, the new than wine. But, given the choice, which 8279. Fax: (514) 931-8891. Web: Caruso will come in at around would you rather drink? Which has the www.vmax-services.com. $30,000/pair. You’ll likely need a most character, the most life?” palazzo to show off this speaker, or at Signor Nasta: “Italians have to offer

24 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 SAM’S SPACE our hearts and minds. Our hands, too.” protest and Now, from Unison Research, put the speak- comes the Reference Valve Amplifier. ers back into A pair of these humungous their proper monoblocks—each weighs over 200 places. I lbs—will set you back about $40,000. addressed the You want the stands, too, with casters, stone-faced and matching drop-dead wood finish. Dr. Bon. Signor Sacchetti told me that signor “Heh-heh.” Nasta told him and Dr. Rossetto to (With a laugh build the Reference without regard to Unison Research’s new Reference Valve power amplifier--each with four 845 tubes like that, I to deliver 80 watts of single-ended triode power. cost. They did. When signor Nasta should be Ital- saw the costs, Mount Vesuvius erupt- ian.) “Now ed again, but no matter—the deed was that’s a soundstage.” done. (Signor Nasta was born in a vil- “What are those lage near Napoli with a hillside view coins on top of the of Vesuvius.) loudspeakers?” Dr. This was no five-minute audition Bon inquired. “Are on my part. I’d timed our vacation to they there to im- Italy so I could have an entire day on prove the focus?” my own at the fabrica, to hear what “No, Mario, they was new. Meanwhile, Marina did are just a joke.” I what she loves to do: shop. No bet- paused for effect. ter city in Italy than Treviso— “But maybe not.” upscale, yet free of tourists. Scuzi. I Dr. Bon’s stone love Italy. Have you visited face nodded sagely. Bologna? Brescia? Marina and I travel to Italy at least once, often The Opera SP twice, sometimes thrice a year. Callas at home I had the listening room all to Richard Kohlruss of myself. Because I was so intrigued, VMAX Services, the for the most part I listened through US distributor, ship- Opera SP Callas loudspeakers, which ped a pair of Opera cost $3000/pair—affordable, after all. SP Callases to arrive But first, the amps. Each Reference shortly after our Valve uses four 845 output tubes— return home. The radio transmitting tubes, actually—in speaker has been in parallel to deliver a rated 80W of production for several SET power into 8 or 4 ohms. Take months. The Italian your favorite flea-watt wonder—3W, hi-fi rag Suono fea- 5W, or 10W. Now imagine 80W. It tured it on its front could easily drive the prototype of Dr. Leopoldo Rossetto with Unison Research’s new Reference Pre valve cover, and a writer the massive Opera Caruso. preamplifier. Note the 300B tubes. from the magazine “We considered push-pull for told me why: fantastico. more power,” signor Sacchetti told Wicked person that I am, I played a The SP Callas comes with some me, “but our signature sound is sin- trick. Knowing that Dr. Bon and signor untidy nomenclature. “Callas” refers gle-ended. And, at the end of the day, Nasta would soon arrive, with signor to the Callas series, while “SP” is vesti- it sounded better.” Sacchetti not far behind, I brought for- gal for “Super Pavarotti,” which the I’m no recording engineer or record- ward the Opera SP Callas speakers as Callas SP replaces and resembles in label owner—or a typical audiophile, for far as possible into the listening room— terms of its very unusual internal cabi- that matter. I don’t seek obsessive detail. about 6' from the central listening chair net construction. Listening mainly to classical music, I and 12' apart. I fiddled with the posi- Unlike Luciano Pavarotti or Sam Tel- want tonal color. Truth of timbre. Subtle tioning until I’d achieved a spectacular lig, the SP Callas is thin. Nick Green, harmonic shadings. I want to be “in” the soundstage with pinpoint imaging— the UK distributor, is fluent in Italian hall where and when the recording was every instrument, every soloist in its, his, and often serves as a translator and made. I want Jascha Heifetz alive again. her place. For laughs—or maybe not—I interpreter, so he’s the one who often Being also a jazz buff, I want Louis placed $1.20 across the front edges of answers questions. The idea, as Nick Armstrong alive again, too. That’s what the SP Callases—a quarter in each cor- explained, was to have a floorstanding I got with the Unison Research Refer- ner, a dime in the middle. Did that speaker with a super-slim cabinet that ence Valve Amplifier (already in pro- enhance the sound? Io rido il mio diavolo would take up less floor space than a duction) and matching Reference Valve ride. I awaited signor Nasta and Dr. Bon. two-way stand-mount with stand. The Preamplifier (which will appear soon). They were astonished by my speaker SP Callas measures just 39.4" high by The line-level-only preamp uses 300B positions. I rushed signor Nasta into the 5.75" wide by 10.25" deep. The rear baf- tubes. Figure another $20,000 or so. listening chair before he had time to fle is very narrow—just 2.75". An inte-

26 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 SAM’S SPACE

the rear baffle is one 1" fabric tweeter, Unico, the SP Callas might be the Italian different from the one on the front. All speaker to go with it. I tried the Lavardin divers are custom-made for Opera by IT, too—more resolving, leaner, equally SEAS. The speaker is described as a two- compelling. The Unico SE was more way with a crossover at about 2kHz, a full-bodied, richer, more romantic. frequency range of 40Hz–20kHz, a sen- As at the factory, the SP Callas sitivity of 88dB/W/m, and a nominal seemed more dynamic, much more impedance of 4 ohms dipping to a mini- powerful than its size and specifications mum of 3.5 ohms. suggested. This is a small floorstanding One of the SP Callas’s most intrigu- speaker, after all, but it sounded big, with ing features is its cabinet. Opera generous bass extension in my listening describes the inside as an “asymmetric room—down to about 40Hz. Below that, twin cavity.” The two 4.5" mid/bass the bass fell off very rapidly, as Dr. Bon drivers are loaded into a chamber, and had suggested it would. I have one this cavity is connected, via a port tube, caveat: If I really pushed the volume to a second, slightly larger cavity below. level, I could get the deep bass to fall This lower chamber vents in turn, via a apart. The cabinet may be ingenious, but second port, down to the gap between it’s still small. Tellig’s Law: You can have the cabinet and the plinth. excellent sound for not much money; “It is unusual in acoustics to get some- you just can’t have a lot of it. thing for nothing,” said Nick Green. The SP Callas is like signor Nasta “But in this case there seems to be an himself—warm, expressive, generous. exception to the general rule, because Not surprising; he decides on the final the twin-asymmetric chamber allows voicing. The SP Callas performed nice deep-bass response from those two superbly in the nearfield in my listen- small drivers.” Nick knows of no other ing room. Maybe that rear-firing speaker brand that uses this system. tweeter had something to do with it, but I never felt that the high frequen- cies congregated around the front-fir- UNLIKE LUCIANO ing tweeter—a frequent problem when using speakers in the nearfield. PAVAROTTI OR SAM And in the farfield? I had only another two days, but I took the SP TELLIG, THE SP CALLAS Callases into our living room, where I can’t listen in the nearfield—furniture IS THIN. forbids. I placed the speakers about 3' from the front walls, 1' from the sides, SP Callas: great looks, surprising bass from two and listened from about 12' away. 4.5" mid/bass drivers. At home, I used the Unison Not surprisingly, the soundstage was Research SE integrated amplifier more distant because it was more distant. gral wooden plinth, 8.25" wide by 12" ($2695 with phono stage), along with The SP Callas doesn’t need nearfield deep, is slotted to allow the downward- a chain of XV3 components from placement. Indeed, Dr. Bon and signor firing port to do its thing. A steel T- Musical Fidelity. A Musical Fidelity X- Nasta did not design and voice the speak- shaped support attaches to the plinth to RayV3 CD player served as a transport. er with nearfield placement in mind—but stabilize the speaker. I had a fine time placing the SP it worked that way. In any event, I’d try The standard finishes are mahogany, Callases in my upstairs listening room, to get the SP Callases as far as possible cherry, and an oak-like finish called until a heat wave set in and shortened from the back wall so the rear-firing Durmast. Fit and finish are fantastico— my listening time. Drat! After 28 years, I tweeters can work to best effect. Opera works closely with a nearby fur- know this room—what works well, and Io rido il mio diavolo ride. How much niture factory. A grille cover is supplied, where. I got the SP Callases about 10' better does it get? but you’ll want to put it aside and enjoy from the front wall and about 5' from Well, speakers get bigger. Play loud- the drivers in the nude along with the me. I spread them more than 10' apart er. Have more authoritative bass when leather-covered front baffle, which and toed them in aggressively, which is you crank up the volume. But if you needs no grille to look great. Each speak- to say in front of me. Never mind how it listen in a room of small to medium er has twin connector terminals con- looks—what matters is how it sounds. size—and especially if you dig mainly nected by straps. Should you use them, I was able to replicate, more or less, classical and jazz—the Opera SP Callas nice as they are? Or is my old friend the soundstage I’d heard at the fabrica. is a pure joy to listen to. The midrange Roger Skoff, formerly of XLO, correct? Once again, I was taken aback by how sounded just right and the treble was I scoffed at the time, when Roger sug- good the Unison Research Unico SE extended, sweet, and ever so slightly gested using jumpers made of XLO integrated amplifier sounds—not as good soft—as I’ve come to expect from Ital- speaker cable. Now I think he was right. as the Unison Reference Valve Amplifier, ian loudspeakers. The look and the On the Callas’s front baffle are two of course, but very, very good. A standard finish are bound to ensure a wife- 4.5" polypropylene-cone mid/bass dri- Unison Unico would likely work well in acceptance factor of 100%. vers and one 1" fabric-dome tweeter. On most listening rooms. If you bought a Bravo, Opera Loudspeakers. ■■

28 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 ANALOG CORNER Michael Fremer

The Phantom Tonearm

ecords? You want to thoughtfully executed design that logi- damped design consisted of an inner talk about records? I cally addressed all of the basics of good tube of stainless steel alloy and an outer have at least 7000 and tonearm performance—geometry, reso- tube of aluminum.) The arm’s name you can have them! changed from the 1.5 to the But you can’t come 1.5t (tungsten), then the over and cherry- 1.5t/c (ceramic), and on to the pick“R what you want. You have to take 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2. Each upgrade them all,” said the gent who’s sat next changed the arm’s sonic per- to me at Avery Fisher Hall for the past formance for the better, most- four years. Somehow, the subject of PHOTOS: MICHAEL FREMER ly in terms of low-frequency LPs hadn’t come up till then, maybe weight, solidity, and exten- because he shows up at every New sion. Even critics of the 1.5’s York Philharmonic concert with a bag sound gave it top marks for full of CDs from Tower Records. parts and build quality, which When I explained that many of his is hardly surprising—Bob Gra- LPs might be valuable, he said, “If ham is a big admirer of SME you keep them and enjoy them, that’s and its founder, Alastair your business, but if you sell any, we Robertson-Aikman. (For an split the money. How’s that?” outstanding overview of the That was fine with me. So one Sat- original Graham 1.5, see Dick urday a few weeks ago I drove down Graham 2.2 armwand (left) versus Phantom armwand (right). Olsher’s review in the August the Garden State Parkway in a mini- 1991 Stereophile, Vol.14 No.8; van with my friend Nick. We hauled available online at www. away 7000 classical LPs, most of stereophile.com/analog which appear to have never been played. sourcereviews/400/.) Few evinced spindle marks on the The original arm’s detrac- label, fingerprints on the surface, or tors complained mostly of its even dust—nothing to indicate that lack of deep bass. Bob Gra- they’d ever been removed from the ham responded that he’d paid inner sleeve. particular attention to reduc- The collection was built on great ing the amplitude of the musical performances, not on audio- arm/cartridge combination’s philia, so the representation of Mercury inevitable low-frequency res- Living Presence, RCA Living Stereo, onant peak by carefully tuning and the like was proportional to the and decoupling the counter- percentage of great performances, not weight, and that some listen- the percentage of great-sounding ers were mistaking the result recordings on those labels. There were Phantom without armwand, showing stainless steel for an absence of deep bass. plenty of EMIs, some Deccas and Lyri- support stub. Graham also rightfully point- tas, and some awesome 45rpm Nim- ed out the difference between buses, but who cares? This was a lifetime nance control, rigidity, dynamic stabili- the 1.5’s nimble, detailed, well-textured or two’s worth of amazing music, carefully ty—with effective, sometimes ingenious bass and the bloated bottom end of collected, that I’m sharing with Nick, a ideas, while providing exceptional ease some of the competition’s arms. Still, his 22-year-old senior at the Berklee College and flexibility of setup. Over time, later upgrades of the 1.5 focused on and of Music who’s big into hard-core punk designer Bob Graham came up with improved the arm’s bottom-end perfor- rock, free jazz, classical—and vinyl. “I’m all ways to significantly improve the 1.5’s mance. Clearly, the detractors had been about the vinyl,” is how he puts it. performance, including the replace- on to something: the original 1.5 was When I suggested we sell some of the ment of its brass side weights with somewhat meek in the bottom end. records because we can’t possibly listen heavier ones of tungsten, an improved The 2.2 retained the 1.5’s attractive bass to them all, he said, “Come back in 20 bearing with a more massive cap, vari- qualities while dramatically improving years and I’ll tell you what’s left to play!” ous changes in internal wiring, a far the original’s weight and extension. more rigid and better-grounded The original 1.5 offered impressive The Graham Phantom mounting platform, and a new, sophis- overall performance and was particu- materializes ticated ceramic armwand. (The original larly adept at resolving inner detail. The Graham Engineering 1.5 tonearm, wand had hardly been an afterthought: I’ll never forget the first album I originally introduced in 1990, was a its heat-bonded, constrained-layer- played after installing the 1.5: Joni www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 31 Mitchell’s Court and Spark. The arm You have to examine the Phantom Like the 1.5, the Phantom uses an revealed, for the first time in my lis- yourself to appreciate the differences inverted bearing fixed to a threaded top tening experience, the dimensions of between it and the original. There are cap that screws into the cup assembly, the isolation booth in which Mitchell conceptual and mechanical similarities which also makes a convenient well for had recorded her lead vocals. This was not a musically important detail, but it indicated the arm’s exceptional THE GRAHAM ARM REVEALED THE DIMENSIONS powers of resolution. Every tonearm design, be it tradition- OF THE ISOLATION BOOTH IN WHICH JONI MITCHELL al gimbaled bearing, unipivot, duo- pivot, constrained unipivot, or the so- HAD RECORDED HER LEAD VOCALS. called linear tracker (tangential tracker is more accurately descriptive, considering the design’s goal), has inherent advan- between them, but while the Phantom the damping fluid. The bearing itself is a tages and limitations. The designer’s job, superficially resembles the original 1.5, small-radius (>0.005") tungsten-carbide once he or she has chosen the means by it is an entirely new tonearm. Graham tip riding in a 0.01"-radius sapphire cup. which the stylus will be moved across carefully thought through his original The Phantom has a threaded post for and through the record grooves, is to design and concluded that its basic con- adjusting the vertical tracking angle maximize the strengths and minimize cepts were still sound—the new arm dif- (VTA) that’s similar to the 1.5’s, but big- the weaknesses of that choice. fers from the old mostly in Graham’s ger, beefier, and smoother. When Bob Graham finished v. 2.2 execution of those concepts, and in The Phantom also has a removable, and realized that his original design terms of sheer scale, along with the pri- Lorzig-ceramic armwand similar to the could be taken no further, he set about mary invention of lateral magnetic sta- 2.2’s, but far more rigid, precise, and designing what he thought would be bilization. Graham redesigned the arm easier to replace. The armwand has a an even better arm. After two years of literally from the inside out, beginning wider diameter and is progressionally work, the Phantom B-44 has arrived with the pivot and working outward, extruded to suppress standing waves, ($4300). Like the original 1.5, the part by part. Overall, the Phantom is and the tube features a glossy, propri- Phantom’s parts quality and fit’n’finish bigger and more massive. The only part etary overlay of glass that damps vibra- rival those of any tonearm made any- remaining from the 1.5 is the butt end: tions and looks better than the 2.2’s where in the world, and surpass most. the DIN jack block. tube. The new connection mechanism

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RECOMMENDED ANALOG CORNER is far more robust and secure, with a result, the cantilever is deflected, as it will exert trying to get back down to protruding post of stainless steel that fits tracking-force consistency cannot be its rest position. The farther above the deeply into the wand before being maintained and the cartridge generator record surface you measure VTF, the screwed in and held under tension at system’s linearity is compromised. greater it will be compared to what two points. The clearance between you’ll measure at the record post and wand is said to be about surface, which is where you 0.001"; lateral play is nil. want it to be accurate. If you The electrical contact pins are of have an accurate VTF gauge, high-copper-content phosphor measure your arm’s VTF as bronze, to both maintain tension and close to the platter surface as avoid deformation. The wand’s inter- possible, and then again with nal wiring has been improved from the gauge sitting on a thick the 2.2’s, and is now precision-twist- magazine to lift it above the ed by machine and layered to isolate platter. The reading will be the channels from each other, before significantly higher the far- being encased in a silicone jacket. ther you raise the gauge, as The entire package is then inserted as Bob Graham demonstrated a unit into the wand, with the result to me with his 2.2. of another level of damping. The Phantom’s tracking Gone are the outriggers that force remained constant at all helped stabilize the 1.5 during play Graham Phantom unipivot bearing housing. Note Magneglide™ heights. That’s because the opposing magnets and pivot structure with integral and kept the arm’s center of gravity anti-skating mechanism. arm is neutrally balanced—the below the pivot point to create a stable system’s center of gravity is at balance system, much as in a laboratory the pivot point, not above or balance scale. This good design is typ- The reason you are advised to mea- below it. The arm wants to remain ical of most arms, but it creates a condi- sure vertical tracking force (VTF) at wherever it is in the vertical dimen- tion wherein the arm, when deflected, the record surface and not above it is sion, rather than try to fight its way tries to return to a resting position (as because most tonearms are stable-bal- back to a specific rest position. Gra- when trying to track a warped record) anced. The higher above the record ham says that the amount of mass used instead of following the warp. As a surface you lift the arm, the more force in the design, and especially the distrib-

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musicdirect.com » 800-449-8333 ANALOG CORNER ution of that mass, contribute to the The magnets’ magnetic forces act to shell. The biggest difference—which I arm’s stability while playing an LP. laterally stabilize the arm at the pivot heard easily, unmistakably, and imme- Unfortunately, neutral balance point and give it the feel of a traditional diately—was in the bottom octaves, works both vertically and laterally, gimbaled arm. Even while playing a where the Phantom delivered lightning meaning that the arm would list one way or the other and then remain there, depending on its lateral weight THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE WAS IN THE BOTTOM distribution—not good. Graham’s new Magneglide system solves the problem OCTAVES, WHERE THE PHANTOM DELIVERED while providing an easy means of adjusting both azimuth angle and anti- LIGHTNING STRIKES OF DEEP, FAST, skating force. The Magneglide system consists of ULTRATIGHT BASS. an ABEC-7 grade horizontal bearing assembly—the same as SME uses for the main bearing of its V arm—of very low record, the arm will not roll. An adjust- strikes of deep, fast, ultratight bass. mass. The bearing’s actual mass is ment screw lets you change the angle at Massive attacks dissipated as quickly as 10gm, but since a large percentage of which the two magnets meet, and thus they’d struck, leaving no residue. this mass, including the ball-bearing sets azimuth by changing the angle of I was moved to dig out Reference itself, is located at or near the center of magnetic attraction; an assembly of rod, Recordings’ famous Däfos (45rpm LP, rotation, its effective mass is much less. weight, and thread attached to the bear- RR-12), originally issued in 1983—I This assembly never “sees” the unipivot ing assembly adjusts the antiskating wasn’t even in this business back then. bearing—its only contact with the main force by physically deflecting the A new generation of analog fans bearing assembly is magnetic, via oppo- assembly from the position in which it deserve to hear this collaboration by site-pole neodymium magnets: one on would normally rest based on magnetic Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira the assembly, one on the unipivot bear- attraction alone. There is no physical and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey ing housing, and both precisely located contact between antiskating mecha- Hart—especially The Beast, an enor- horizontally from the pivot point. nism and bearing. Plus, the Magneglide mous drum that Hart toys with, bangs, bearing never makes contact or inter- and, during “The Gates of Däfos,” even IN HEAVY ROTATION feres with the unipivot bearing. As the sends crashing to the floor. arm traverses the record surface, both The Phantom’s performance was 1) Kathleen Edwards, Back to the main magnet and the one mount- dazzling on this audiophile warhorse Me, Rounder LP ed on the Magneglide move, tracking and on all of the other discs I played, 2) The White Stripes, Get Behind it without contact and thus, hopefully, guiding the Lyra Titan to new perfor- Me Satan, V2 CD without lag. mance heights—and not just at the very 3) Spoon, Gimme Fiction, Merge With the exception of the Mag- bottom. The Phantom is to the Gra- 180gm LP neglide azimuth adjustment, the ham 2.2 what Arnold Schwarzenegger 4) The Mars Volta, Frances the Phantom sets up like the 2.2 in terms is to Wally Cox (youngsters: do a Mute, Gold Standard Labora- of VTA, VTF, antiskating, and geom- Google search). That analogy may be tories 150gm LPs (3) etry, which means setup is both con- over the top, but those who felt the 5) Lightnin’ Hopkins, Lightnin’ in venient and repeatable—important original Graham was somewhat meek New York, Candid- features for a tonearm that lets you and reticent will have no such reserva- Navarre/Pure Pleasure 180gm easily switch armtubes. If you want tions about the Phantom. LP more details about Graham’s inge- The Phantom’s bottom octaves had 6) COB, Moyshe McStiff and the nious remote gauge for adjusting full weight, as well as the articulation Tartan Lancers of the Sacred overhang and zenith, see Dick Olsh- and speed of the 2.2—but more than Heart, Radioactive 180gm LP er’s original review of the 1.5. that, the Phantom delivered a harmon- 7) Abbey Lincoln, Straight My biggest concern was the effect ic vividness and sense of musical envel- Ahead, Candid-Navarre/Pure the Magneglide assembly might have opment that even the 2.2 doesn’t quite Pleasure 180gm LP on the Phantom’s lateral tracking and get. There was a greater expression of 8) Lou Donaldson, Lou Takes Off, responsiveness. Given the benefits of bloom and air, with no loss of detail or Blue Note/Classic 200gm neutral balance and what seemed to control. Every performance parameter Quiex SV-P LPs (stereo & be the pivot’s true vertical stability, I seemed expressed with greater confi- mono) figured that any tradeoff would prob- dence and authority, including image 9) John Lennon, Mind Games, ably be worth it. solidity and stability. Capitol/Mobile Fidelity 180gm The 2.2 was always an arm I could LP The Sound of the Phantom respect and—more important to a 10) Sonny Boy Williamson, The Because the Phantom is designed to reviewer—rely on, but I never fell in love Real Folk Blues, Chess/Speak- be a drop-in replacement for the 1.5 with it. That emotion seemed reserved ers Corner 180gm LP and its successors, I was able to spend for the Immedia RPM-2 tonearm, an hour listening to the combo of 2.2 which is one reason I had both the 2.2 Visit www.musicangle.com for and Lyra Titan cartridge and then, 15 and the Immedia installed on a Yorke full reviews. minutes later, listen again, this time dual armboard. The Immedia has a with the Titan in the Phantom’s head- lusher, richer balance than any of the

34 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 ANALOG CORNER

earlier Grahams, as well as a more open, platters, armboards, and playing sur- pristine, and liquid top end and a greater faces are not standardized, some sense of musical flow. But the Phantom turntables and cartridges may require easily overtook the Immedia’s superb the addition of a spacer between the overall performance, with greater stabil- cartridge and the Phantom’s headshell ity, weight, transient articulation, speed, in order to get the optimal range of and, especially, a see-into-it transparen- VTA adjustment. Graham provides a cy that is one of the Immedia’s most spacer made of Richlite, a composite of attractive qualities. (Immedia’s Allen phenolic resin and wood fiber that Perkins told me at the 2005 Consumer incorporates some of the blue damping Electronics Show that he’s working on material also used in Graham head- his own brand-new tonearm.) shells. Bob Graham says the spacer The 2.2 could sound a bit on the offers such outstanding damping prop- mechanical and medicinal side of neu- erties that he recommends trying it tral and analytical; the Phantom is even if you don’t need it. The Lyra more like an exuberant figure skater Titan didn’t need it, and once I had it who not only gets all the technical dialed in I wasn’t about to start over, moves right, but also manages to exude but I did try Graham’s Nightingale car- an emotional intensity that borders on tridge with and without the spacer and reckless abandon. The Phantom gener- can’t say I heard any difference. ates musical excitement even as it The Graham 2.2 remains an out- scores points on the compulsories. standing tonearm, so moving on to the Any worries I may have had about the Phantom wasn’t the revelation that first Phantom’s tracking abilities were quickly hearing the 1.5 had been all those years erased. The arm admirably acquitted ago. But the new Phantom is now the itself on difficult musical passages and pivoted arm to beat, based on my lis- test tracks alike. It allowed the Lyra Titan tening experience and its physical and to track the next-to-last, highly modulat- sonic performance and ease of use. ed antiskating track on the Hi-Fi News There are some other tonearm con- Analogue Test LP without any buzzing; tenders that I have yet to hear, such as more important, the combination’s tech- the Swiss DaVinci Audio Labs Grandez- nical performance on musical torture za and the Basis Vector, Basis designer tracks was flawless, particularly on diffi- A.J. Conti won’t send me a sample of the cult-to-track inner-groove orchestral latter because he doesn’t believe in can- crescendos and female vocal sibilants. So tilevered armboards—never mind that smooth and effortless was the Phantom’s every arm I’ve reviewed has been on sibilant performance that I was reminded one, and no one has complained about of Shure’s 1973 Audio Obstacle Course: Era the results I’ve heard. I also wouldn’t III LP (TTR-110), which includes Sergio mind giving a listen to one of the Mendes and Brasil ’66’s “Mais Que Schröder arms, but Frank Schröder Nada,” recorded at increasingly higher apparently can’t keep up with demand— levels. I hadn’t played that cut in a long a review is the last thing he needs. What- time, but I remembered never being able ever those arms’ sonic merits—they’re to track its sibilants properly at the higher said to be considerable—the Phantom’s levels. The Phantom and Titan sailed switchable armwands makes it an ideal through it without smear. choice for stereo/monophiles. Watching the Phantom confidently The Phantom, with all accessories, navigate a badly warped copy of Clan- including Graham’s unique alignment nad’s Crann Ull (Tara 3007) convinced jig, will set you back $4300. Is it me that Bob Graham’s claims of the worth upgrading from the 2.2 or one Phantom’s neutral balance are justi- of the older Graham arms? I was fied. The Phantom tracked as if guided expecting a modest improvement by lasers. when I dropped the Phantom into my The Graham Phantom is a tonearm system, but the differences were not whose pure, effortless sound I can respect subtle. (This will be especially true if, and love. Because it’s a true unipivot but, like me, you have a full-range system unlike most such designs—which rely on that goes down to 20Hz or below.) a second pivot point or a constraining Only after the immediately obvious system with added contact points—it improvements had settled in did the doesn’t flop over, it feels good in the hand subtler ones—those having to do with while retaining all of the benefits of a musical flow and a sense of certainty, preloaded, single-point-bearing unipivot those that kept me listening long into design. It’s also easy to set up. the night, night after night—begin to Because the heights of turntable assert themselves. ■■

36 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 LISTENING Art Dudley

Tubes, Computers, & Music

’m beginning to understand why some companies, especially in the pro newer, lower-cost USB D/A convert- some people enjoy writing about audio field, had already brought er: the Brick, a simple but nice-looking crazy tweaks like electron coun- upgraded soundcards to the market— black box with an outboard power sup- seling and magic listening trous- but he may have been the first to create ply, priced to sail out the door at $1750. ers: When an idea is that new, it such a thing for the audio perfectionist: Significantly, Rankin doesn’t pro- brings with it the chance for some “Most of those products go from the mote either of his USB converters as a Igifted but heretofore unappreciated USB connection standard to an mere accessory for casual listening, but journalist to rise through the ranks and S/PDIF environment, and then to an rather as the keystone of a user’s pri- describe it to an anxious world. By mary digital listening contrast, when a defeated and baggy system. “A computer is old establishment writer sets out to smarter than any trans- describe a CD player or amplifier, port,” Rankin says, “and the product is surely the millionth computers are only get- such thing to come down the pike, ting better. When a and before long the readers com- transport reads a disc, if plain: We used to like you, but you don’t there are any errors, try very hard to excite us anymore. they’re passed on to the Here, then, is news that isn’t crazy: DAC: The transport Wavelength Audio, the company that certainly doesn’t reread made its name as a pioneer in the the track until it gets it decidedly retro field of single-ended right. But a computer triode amplifiers, is now among the has more than enough first to make a perfectionist-quality memory to buffer and digital-to-analog converter specifical- reread tracks, and ly for use with personal computers. ensure error-free rips. Wavelength has designed two of the With a computer you things, in fact, and both have tubed can put a whole song output stages. into memory—30 megs Of course, it’s my job to tell you uncompressed—and why you might want or even need cache it out to the USB such a thing—and for once, that’s easy: port, no problem.” The market for compact discs appears Then there’s the Not just another brick. to be taking on water, while the mar- matter of timing: Any ket for downloadable music is sailing D/A converter and its briskly, if not always smoothly, ahead. datastream source must At least, that’s what spurred Wave- input receiver, but I didn’t want to do be synchronized with one another, and length Audio’s Gordon Rankin to that. I designed my converter to go in a system of digital separates, that’s develop and market a computer-driven straight from the USB connection to usually accomplished by having the D/A converter. the Philips TDA1543 chip.” converter lock on to the word-clock “Literally one month before the Rankin’s first such product, the pro- signal contained in the datastream 2004 CES,” Rankin says, “I saw an arti- totype of which was completed barely from the transport. According to cle on the Internet about how much in time for that CES (“On the first day Rankin, the S/PDIF environment is healthier the music-downloading of the show we were still putting more prone to unwanted variations in industry is than the traditional record pieces of wood on its enclosure,” he the frequency of the incoming word- industry.” Rankin, who has a back- says), was the Wavelength Cosecant clock signal, which the converter is ground in mainframe computer ($3500), a USB D/A converter that always trying to track. But with a USB design, had recently built a custom uni- was something of a hit from the start. controller generating its own word- versal serial bus (USB) hardware con- Even so, Rankin admits that, at the clock signal, the frequency remains troller for a company that was itself time, he didn’t see all of the Cosecant’s steady. “In USB,” Rankin says, “the bit developing a sound-to-PC interface, potential. “I was surprised: Even at clock and the word clock are almost a and he was inspired to build a similar CES, I had older guys—not just the given: There are only a few frequen- device to deliver the music stored on a younger downloader types—coming cies it has to deal with, and if it sees a person’s computer hard drive to his or up to me and suggesting applications standard PCM signal coming in, it her high-end audio system. Rankin for the Cosecant.” says, ‘What’s this? 44.1kHz? Fine—let’s wasn’t the first to make that leap— Now Wavelength has introduced a go!’ It doesn’t waver.”

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 39 There are other reasons Rankin approach, suggesting that digital filters bit Philips converter chip. Current-to- prefers using a computer over a tradi- are an unnecessary evil in the first voltage conversion is done passively, tional transport: “A computer lets you place, and that oversampling, in partic- using 1%-tolerance film resistors, and do more with your music system than ular, creates more problems than it the output voltages go directly to a a transport does. It can stream radio cures. “I have a degree in mathemat- 12AU7 dual triode tube. broadcasts from the Internet. It can let ics,” he says, “and one thing I firmly That tube is configured as a reactor- you record, compile, and annotate col- believe is that none of these [consumer follower, which Rankin says is similar lections of your favorite music. It can audio] products, with the possible to a cathode follower, except that it play movies. And a computer’s perfor- exception of dCS, has the processing uses a BAC1 instead of a resistor as a mance can be upgraded without capabilities to actually do the math current source: The follower buffers changing the hardware. they need to do. But more important, I the output (in the keeps impedance low “The great thing is, you can buy a don’t want to destroy the intent of the sense of the word). The power supply, dead-quiet laptop computer, add a original music. My approach is: no which is driven by a high-quality wall large FireWire hard drive, and wind up math in, no math out.” wart, uses a pair of Linear Technology with a killer transport for less than So much for what’s not inside a voltage regulators to feed various por- $1250. If you want something more Wavelength Brick; the components tions of the circuit, and contains no expensive than that, I think you’re that actually made the cut are a fascinat- fewer than 10 ultra-high-quality Black wasting your money.” ing mix of old and new playback tech- Gate capacitors. Beyond having a USB controller nologies. First there’s Gordon Rankin’s I can say with hand on heart: instead of an input receiver chip, the custom USB controller, which requires Installing the Brick is a breeze. Simply Brick shares a number of similarities no special drivers, and which works plug in the wall wart, use a USB cable with the other D/A converters in the with any computer that uses a 1.1-spec to connect the Brick to your PC or Wavelength stable—key elements of or better USB audio connection— Mac, and, assuming your computer is which are Gordon Rankin’s fondness meaning that Windows 98se and already booted up, run the appropriate for simplicity and purity, and his dis- above, Macintosh OS9 and above, and routine so the Brick can be recognized dain for oversampling filters. Like Junji Linux 2.4.22 or above will all make and addressed for what it is. (An EEP- Kimura of 47 Laboratory, whose Shi- friendly neighborhoods for the Brick. ROM within the Brick’s USB con- garaki 4715 D/A converter I wrote The controller gathers the input data- about in the March 2003 Stereophile, stream and buffers it, and sends it out in 1 BAC = Big-Ass Choke, custom-made for Wavelength Rankin opts for a zero-oversampling I2S format to the above-mentioned 16- Audio by Magnequest. LISTENING troller contains all the information But before you assume the worst Panel > Audio Devices, and there it your computer requires: No additional from our friends on the other side of was: “WA Brick USBDAC.” It worked software is necessary.) An interconnect Styx (the river, not the poodle-rockers), without a hitch. pair of the usual sort takes the Brick’s let me say from the get-go: Within one One other note: The Brick is analog output to the preamp or inte- second of connecting the powered-up designed so that its USB controller and grated amp of your choice, and the Brick to the USB port of my grimy, D/A chip are powered up all the time, only other thing you should be aware despised, five-year-old Gateway, itself but when the computer is turned off or of is that the Brick’s output voltage running the lustily and rightly hated in “sleep” mode, the filament and rail appears to be about 10–15% lower Windows XP, the Found New Hardware voltages are removed from the 12AU7 than average. By the way, the Brick dialog box appeared on the screen. I tube and a relay mutes the analog out- does not invert absolute signal polarity. went to My Computer > Control put, so no pops or thuds are heard For my first trial, Wavelength through the music system that it’s Audio loaned me a fully tricked out connected to. Apple Mac mini G4 system with So then: Given a Wavelength Brick 1GB of RAM and v.10.3.8 of Mac’s and a hard drive full of music, do you OS X. I used the cable supplied with really need anything else? I suppose the Brick for the USB connection, that all depends—the greatest variable and ran a long pair of Nordost being, How did all that music get on your Valkyrja interconnects from its ana- hard drive in the first place? log outputs to the line-level inputs of The best and most obvious answer my Fi preamp. The Mac mini was is I put it there myself. So it goes with Gordon Rankin’s spare computer, Gordon Rankin—who, as I men- which he’d already equipped with 32 tioned above, had already ripped a GB of music burned from his own number of selections from his own collection, and because his tastes and music library onto the hard drive of mine have a number of points in the Mac mini on my desk. I won- common—XTC and the Clash were dered, quite naturally: Do those well represented—I was up and run- songs sound as good coming from ning, listening to music I knew and the computer and the Brick as they loved, in less than half an hour. Inside the Wavelength brick. do when I play my own CD copies? LISTENING

I DON’T MIND HAVING PRICKLE ALERT! CHEAP, EASY ACCESS he last time I wrote about digital music technology in Stereophile—my TO INDIVIDUAL SONGS, SO equipment report on the dCS Delius D/A converter and Verdi La Scala transport in our January 2005 issue—I wasn’t prepared for the negative I CAN PREDICT WHETHER response I received from some quarters. Not that I was surprised or Teven terribly dismayed by the drubbing I took for my opinion of the musical I’LL WANT TO OWN A performance of DSD—I’m very impressed with it, other people aren’t, and that’s all well and good—but I was astounded when a couple of very agitated fellows CERTAIN ALBUM OR NOT. accused me of being an apologist, of all things, for upsampling. My crime: I wrote about it. Here’s the thing: When I describe an audio product in my column or in a The differences I heard between Stereophile equipment report, I do my best to explain—really explain, from the the two formats on XTC’s “Books Are ground up—the technologies that make it special. So it was with the dCS com- Burning,” from Nonsuch (CD, Geffen ponents, which hang their hat on the upsampling peg. Because of that, and GEFD-24474), were the sort of dif- because I think it’s more fun to discuss technology than it is to slog through ferences I might expect to hear from page after page of blather about “colorations” and “soundstaging,” in my two different CD players, or perhaps review I wrote about upsampling. I researched the snot out of it, during the two different D/A converters. Both course of which I learned that there is something less than a consensus as to were acceptably good: I enjoyed the how or why it works (or whether it actually does), even among its most ardent song as well through the Mac mini supporters. And I did three things: and Brick driving my preamp as I did 1) I noted that very fact; with the actual CD spinning in the 2) I found the small area where the different explanations converged and Linn Unidisk SC, which has come fashioned the information that remained into a working definition; and, back to roost for a short time. While 3) in describing the perceived benefits of the technology, I did something auditioning the computer system, I that any decent journalist does: I attributed. Which is to say, I asked people listened carefully for cymbal decays questions, and then, when I wrote out their responses, I made sure to say during loud passages, and subtle spa- things like “According to so-and-so” and “So-and-so believes…” In trying to tial cues. (I’m by no means an imaging understand the design process, I solicited the opinions of the designers as to freak, but such things can reveal prob- what they believe is and is not important, is and is not the right thing to do, in a lems with low-level detail, phase dis- product such as this. tortion, and good ol’-fashioned noise.) What I got in response was spittle like, “Dudley’s promoting upsampling: I heard nothing that troubled me, and Somebody needs to rope him in.” (By the way, why is it that whenever the a lot to like—such as the nicely pastymen get angry, they show it by referring to other men by their last names fleshed-out sound of Colin Mould- only? It sounds like Junior High gym class—and that, my friends, gives me the ing’s electric bass, which remained creeps in a major way.) The responders’ motives were obvious: They happen to nimble and on pitch. When listening be experts, and I had made the mistake of failing to acknowledge that in our to the regular CD I did get the pages. (Can’t you just picture it? “This new product uses a cathode follower— impression that the snare drum and but I have to caution all of my readers that FatBoy, JourneyFan, and tambourine were struck with greater CoolDude69 say that a cathode follower is a no-no!”) The world of audio is force, but the difference wasn’t great their forum, their lily pad, from which they hold forth, and any amount of time enough to tip my overall satisfaction spent reading the opinions of someone else is time that could have been spent one way or the other. listening to the King of the Pond. Interestingly, those roles were Guys, guys, guys: If you’re interested in domestic audio, please read anything entirely reversed with the next com- and everything you can get your hands on, and judge for yourselves. If you’re parison I made: the CD of the Chief- smart enough to plug in an amplifier, you’re smart enough to decide for your- tains’ Long Black Veil (Columbia self which sources of information are credible or not. 62702-2). Again, both digital formats Two final points: were enjoyable, although in a blind 1) I stand behind everything I wrote in my review of the dCS Delius and test I might have said my own CD Verdi La Scala: My description of the technologies at work, like my description was the more compressed of the two: of my opinion of the products’ performance, was accurate; and, The computer-delivered version was 2) just because I’m writing about USB vs S/PDIF or nonoversampling vs rhythmically sharper, and voices—such oversampling or digital vs analog or rock vs classical or charcoal briquettes vs as Sinead O’Connor’s, on her nice propane doesn’t mean that I’m taking a side, unfairly or otherwise: It means I performance of “He Moved Through write for a living, and I’m describing someone’s product, someone’s point of the Fair”—had a little more presence view. Maybe it resonates for me, maybe it doesn’t. Who knows? At the end of and texture. the day, that shouldn’t even be important to the person who wants only to lis- I tried something unfair: Gordon ten, who wants only to find the greatest musical enjoyment—or who just wants had the Clash’s Super Black Market Clash to have a little fun reading about it. —Art Dudley (Columbia 63895) on his Mac, so I played “Justice Tonight/Kick it Over” and enjoyed it greatly. Then I dug out my 10" vinyl copy (Black Market Clash,

42 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 LISTENING

Epic 4E 36846) and compared the two: music available from iTunes is com- As far as sheer involvement was con- mendable—obscure gems like Shiny cerned, the computer wasn’t em- Beast (Captain Beefheart), Vintage Vio- barrassed in the least, although all the lence (John Cale), and The Spirit Cage percussion (and I lump Paul Simonon’s (Martin Newell and the Cleaners from

THE COMPUTER-DELIVERED VERSION WAS RHYTHMICALLY SHARPER, AND VOICES HAD A LITTLE MORE PRESENCE AND TEXTURE.

electric bass in with that, since that’s Venus) are all available at the click of a more or less how he approaches the mouse—the selection of orchestral and instrument) had greater impact off the chamber music betrays a shallow, Sun- vinyl. After that, I couldn’t resist the day-brunch approach to the classics. temptation to be even more unfair, and But let’s be real: The “Blackberry to spin my original 12", 45rpm version Blossom” file was only about 2.6MB, of same (CBS 12-8087), and the bass and a single movement of the was soooo much deeper and more Beethoven was scarcely more than forceful that I had to laugh out loud. (I that; storing an uncompressed version didn’t know my Quads could do that!) of the same piece would require more Then there’s the little matter of than 10 times the storage space. downloadable music. I don’t have any use for background Before I go any further, I assure you music—but I don’t mind having cheap, that this isn’t just another attempt to easy access to individual songs, so I use an unfair comparison—a really can predict whether I’ll want to own a unfair one this time—to get a cheap certain album or not. I can put up laugh: I realize that the playing back of with limited fidelity if it means being compressed music files is not what the able to buy great songs like “The Girl Brick’s designer sees as a primary use of My Dreams” (Bram Tchaikovsky), for his product. Still, it’s incumbent on “A Million Miles Away” (the Plim- any vintner to acknowledge that at souls), or “Too Many People” (Paul least some of his product will wind up and Linda McCartney) without also being mixed with Sprite and spilled to having to buy the junk they came the sounds of “La Macarena.” packaged with. And, as an amateur So I did it. I opened an iTunes musician, I’m often asked to learn account of my own and downloaded individual songs by artists to whom $15 worth of music onto the Mac. I’m otherwise indifferent. That’s a (Hope you like bluegrass, Gordon.) privilege I’d rather not pay more than The results, though less than stunning, 99 cents for. Personally. were at least minimally satisfying. I And I’m intrigued by the promise bought “Blackberry Blossom,” by the of audiophile-quality downloads, Tony Rice Unit, and while it sounded such as the ones hinted at by airless and undynamic, and while a lot www.MusicGiants.com. (See www. of nice details went AWOL—such as stereophile.com/news/051605music the cool syncopated bass lines Tony giants for Wes Phillips’ recent piece plays on his guitar behind David Gris- about that forthcoming service.) By man’s mandolin solo—I was nonethe- that time, maybe something faster less able to get something out of it. I than 56k dial-up service will be avail- tapped my foot, and at one point even able in Cherry Valley. caught myself playing air Dobro along So for me, the Brick remains a wait- with Jerry Douglas. and-see sort of thing, but one with Classical music suffered more. I exceptional promise. I was genuinely downloaded the Emerson Quartet’s excited when I got it up and running performance of Beethoven’s String with Gordon’s Mac—a rare instance of Quartet 11, but the sound was so lack- a new audio product being really fun— ing in drama, nuance, and texture that and I can see myself nudging in that the recording was suitable for nothing direction, even as I spend more time more challenging than background and money on step-up transformers music. Then again, maybe that’s the and monophonic records for the sys- point: While the variety of popular tem in the next room. ■■

44 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 MUSIC IN THE ROUND Kalman Rubinson

New Music Please

ooking back to see which of seems to be only the truth. I’m an old nel. I first played Mahler’s Symphony the multichannel discs I’ve enough fart to know that there’s a gap 5, conducted by Yuri Temirkanov reported on that have made a between my own musical interests and (WLA-WS-76-SACD), on my city sys- splash in the market, I detect those of most of the music-buying tem, which was still kludgy at the time, an ominous trend. Most are public. But whether or not I like a par- and it sounded murky. The two-chan- reissues of classic perfor- ticular musical genre is irrelevant; to nel tracks were better, but the overall mances,L including all the RCA Living promote the new media, we need truly level was 6–10dB lower than the norm, Stereo and the Mercury Living Pres- high-resolution, multichannel record- and the sound was somewhat distant. ence SACDs, as well as a number of ings of all types of music. The accompanying booklet explains classic jazz and rock albums (including Here’s where the DualDisc may that everything was recorded in two- yet more editions of Kind of Blue, Dark have an impact, though I dislike how it channels: “This is a pure DSD record- Side of the Moon, and Brothers in Arms). has been managed so far (see this col- ing done with a single pair of micro- This phenomenon reveals a numb- umn in the May 2005 Stereophile). By phones arranged in the classic Blum- ing conservatism on the part of produc- pushing the market toward a single lein configuration.” There’s no men- ers and record buyers. Some listeners format, DualDisc has already put mul- tion anywhere of multichannel. Same want to rediscover, by hearing them tichannel releases into many homes for the same forces’ recording of better, the awe they felt when they first and increased public awareness of Shostakovich’s Symphony 7, conducted heard these admittedly great record- multichannel music. Thrust upon us by by Alexander Dmitriev (WLA-WS-77- ings. That’s not only a peculiarly SACD)—yet both discs have multi- “audiophile” experience, it’s probably channel tracks complete with center also characteristic of aging listeners and surround signals. who associate these records with sig- The solution, in response to some nificant events in their own pasts. website postings, came from Robert Most music buyers wouldn’t consider Greene (The Abso!ute Sound’s “REG”). purchasing another copy of some- The levels are low, said Greene, to thing they already have, regardless of allow for a wide dynamic range with blandishments brandished on the no compression, in the full awareness cover. But producers recognize the that digital overload is absolute. conservatism of those who do, and, Greene also mentioned “the surround considering the low cost of remaster- sound, which was done via a method ing to multichannel compared with I developed myself.” I asked for more, the cost of recording and promoting but as he plans to file for patent pro- new music, see reissues in multichan- tection, all Greene would divulge was nel sound as a no-brainer. This, along that his method “is based on a combi- with retailers’ understandable reluc- nation of acoustic and psychoacoustic tance to stock two copies of the same principles…intended to enhance the album in different formats, con- realism of the Blumlein stereo with- tributes to keeping multichannel music the needs of high-definition video, out altering its essential integrity.” out of the mainstream and virtually new multichannel media—HD DVD I then took the hybrid discs to my invisible to most record buyers. and Blu-ray—loom on the horizon, and country place in Connecticut to play The mass market—not our relatively they, too, can help. More and more them through my multichannel sys- tiny market of audiophiles—is what consumers have some sort of surround tem, which includes Paradigm Stu- determines which technologies last. system, and they will be indignant if dio/60 loudspeakers. Both discs need We must hope that whichever format their music-only recordings do not to be played at fairly high volumes to survives the present and future wars take advantage of it. hear the quietest parts, and demand a has attractive “trickle-down” options potent combination of amplifiers and for us. This is critical—grateful as I am Faux 5.0 speakers to cope with the loudest parts. for these reissues, they represent the Fortunately for some of us, the stream That done, they sound full, warm, and cutting edge of neither sound quality of classical multichannel releases con- a bit distant in overall presentation nor modern music-making, and they tinues. Among these, the most interest- while packing a tremendous dynamic condemn the high-end consumer to a ing and surprising are two SACD/CD wallop. That Kavi Alexander placed his life of musical antiquarianism. Of hybrid discs from Water Lily Acoustics, Blumlein pair well above the audi- greater concern is that this keeps an independent audiophile label run by ence’s ear level is apparent in multi- telling the record companies that the recordist Kavi Alexander. These live channel playback, particularly in how mass market doesn’t care about multi- recordings of the St. Petersburg Phil- the rear-seated brass and percussion channel sound, which, I’m sorry to say, harmonic are sorta-kinda multichan- emerge above the instruments in front. www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 47 MUSIC IN THE ROUND

These recordings also have outstanding especially if we can get to hear Nott’s raising. Depth behind the speakers is detail in the bass, particularly the tim- takes on more modern works. merely okay, but that lapse and a few pani, bass drum, and double basses. from the violins are trivial. This record- Listen to the conclusion of the Adagiet- A musical and sonic event ing cannot replace the great recordings to of Mahler’s Symphony 5 and you can The faux multichannel from St. Peters- of the cantata, such as Thomas Schip- hear the bow-on-string sound of the burg and the discrete multichannel pers’, on multichannel Sony Classical fiddles even as they fade to silence. At from Bamberg were recorded in actual SACD—without the film, it lacks the the other end of the dynamic scale, the concert halls and are both successful, continuity and coherence of drum-thwacks in the first movement but the most exciting recent symphon- Prokofiev’s artfully constructed concert of Shostakovich’s Symphony 7 and the ic recording I’ve heard was taped in a work. But on its own or supporting the orchestral climaxes in the Mahler’s Berlin church. Frank Strobel’s recon- film, the restored score of Alexander Stürmisch bewegt are completely without struction of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky is an obligatory acquisition for hash or compression. If your system is Nevsky is trumpeted as the “World Pre- lovers of big orchestral multichannel up to it, these recordings will sound miere Recording” of the complete sound. Bravo! very loud, but less than you might score composed for Sergei Eisenstein’s expect because we are so conditioned 1938 film (SACD, Capriccio SACD 71 More power play to associating creeping distortion with 014). Unfortunately, the original I’ve bent your ears about AC power great loudness. Not here. soundtrack recording is overdubbed gadgets before. It’s important, and I Robert Greene’s 5.0-channel pro- with speech and sound effects and is have reason to be a bit paranoid about cessing gives a wide, deep view into plagued by the technical limitations of it. The arrival of very hot weather in and over the orchestra, and pretty overmodulation, distortion, wow, and early June adds voltage sags to my much demands five full-range speakers compression. Temirkanov’s 1993 concerns about line noise, adequate or very precise bass management. Con- recording for RCA was a noble current, and surge protection. As I sidering their dynamic demands and attempt based on transcriptions from mentioned in this column in May, my the distribution of bass and ambience the original film, but without access to first line of defense was a whole- in the rear channels, these recordings Prokofiev’s original manuscript, notes, house surge protector. By installing it will sound pretty muddy on a typical and sketches, which languished in in the garage, closer to my house’s HT or two-channel minimonitor sys- Moscow’s museums and archives. main ground than to any other AC tem. The performances themselves devices, I maximized the probability are good, especially the Shostakovich, that surges would take that path of though both are on the straitlaced least resistance and spare my valu- side. While I found the sound power- able components. Many whole- ful and seductive, I’d likely turn else- house protection devices are avail- where for the music. able, and most electricians will be happy to inexpensively install one. Nott, a new name My electrician quoted <$200 for a One place I’d turn is to a Mahler 5 SquareD device, labor included. from Jonathan Nott and the Bam- To my electrician’s amusement, I berg Symphony (SACD, Tudor asked him to instead install an Envi- 7126). Nott, a young British conduc- ronmental Potentials EP-2050 Wave- tor, has succeeded Horst Stein as the form Correction Absorber ($500, Bamberg’s music director, and also www.ep2000.com). This fancily leads Paris’s Ensemble Inter/Con- named gadget provides protection temporain. His reading of the work from AC-borne noise by means of a is far more flexible and nuanced tracking filter, and from damaging than Temirkanov’s, though his voltages by clamping and absorbing orchestra and this recording of it—up Prokofiev’s cantata based on this music surges and dissipating them as heat. It close, but with clarity and space—lack has long been available, but its scoring, does this without a large inductance the weight so abundant on the Water to say nothing of the sequence and that can be saturated in use, but Lily discs. selection of passages, is quite different. nonetheless maintains a low impedance So it was no surprise to discover that All I can say is, Wow. Led by Strobel, path (less than 1 ohm) for noise and Nott and the Bambergers are remark- the recording is an appropriately cine- surge voltages. In addition to its propri- ably successful in Schubert’s Sym- matic experience. The Berlin RSO etary tracking-filter and surge-absorp- phonies 2 and 4 (SACD, Tudor 7142) delivers, by turns, romance, drama, and tion circuitry, the EP-2050 apparently and Bruckner’s Symphony 3, 1873 ed. outright tragedy as they dig into all the uses a device that has been castigated by (SACD, Tudor 7133). Bruckner’s sym- music cues, many of which do not some for its mortality, but championed phonies, for all their size, need the appear in the cantata. The blockbuster by others as the most rapid voltage- same clarity of line required by Schu- sound boasts excellent dynamics, solid clamping device: the MOV (Metal- bert and less of the mass fundamental bass, and a spacious and open sound- Oxide Varistor). The EP-2050’s circuit- to Mahler. The sound was clear, imme- stage. Some of the cues are simply ry smooths and absorbs current pulses diate, and well-balanced, with minimal shawm fanfares or bells tolling, but all that the MOV might generate, and its but useful rear ambience, and fully are deliciously vivid. The stage width is two LEDs monitor the MOV’s func- revealed Nott’s subtle sculpting. This tremendous, and a few surround tional integrity. series of discs has outstanding promise, effects from the rear channels are hair- Does it work? Fortunately, neither

48 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 nature nor the power company has so nents do not, and the home theater craze shows Belkin unveiled Pure/AV, a line far provided a critical test of the EP- has stimulated many manufacturers to of premium products specifically 2050’s protection function, but an develop more suitable UPS boxes. focused on home theater and audio sys- examination of my house’s line volt- tems. The line includes age on an oscilloscope revealed a A/V interconnects, power smoother, cleaner 60Hz signal than conditioners and filters, before. I could not detect anything on and video processors. the amplifier output, but that’s as I Their Home Theater Bat- would expect. Nonetheless, the EP- KALMAN RUBINSON tery Backup with AVR 2050’s LEDs give me great reassur- Technology ($599.99) ance every time I’m in the garage. offers sinewave battery Up in the music room, however, a backup, surge protection few voltage sags were sufficient to trig- (5500 joules), and auto- ger the undervoltage protection of the matic voltage regulation Panamax M5510 and M4400-20A that (120VAC, ±8%). It has supply AC power to my system. The surge-protection in/outs Panamax power protection did its job of for three A/V coaxial “Protect or Disconnect,” and while the lines, a phone line, and a room lights only blinked, the system network connector. Six shut down! Considerations of an unin- The APC S15 filtered, isolated, protected, and regulated superbly and UPS/AVR AC outlets terruptible power supply (UPS) began the EP-2450 was icing on the cake. and two surge-protected- to dance in my head. Consumer UPS only AC outlets are pro- boxes have been around since the PC rev- Belkin, way back, was a rack-jobber vided. Total capacity is 1200VA/640W, olution, but few can put out a smooth of cables and gadgets. They have since and the backup time is up to 40 minutes, sinewave. Most do no better than a grown into a monster (so to speak), depending on load. Full specs are avail- coarsely stepped approximation or, worse, offering almost every imaginable elec- able at www.pureav.com. a square or triangular waveform. Switch- tronic accessory and connector for com- After an 8-hour initial battery charge, ing power supplies, common in comput- puters, audio and video systems, and the HTBB passed all the self and manual ers, often like the latter, but the linear video games. At the 2005 Consumer tests, so I hooked it up to run everything power supplies of most audio compo- Electronics and Home Entertainment in the system except the subwoofer, MUSIC IN THE ROUND power amp, and plasma monitor. There especially as I’d defeated the HTBB’s capacity of 1440VA/900W with a bat- were not enough AC receptacles for optional audible alarms. tery life of 7.5 minutes (full load) or 20 those items, and they would have The only faults I could find were that minutes (half load). The S15’s larger exceeded the HTBB’s recommended the HTBB vibrated briefly when pow- rated load makes for shorter quoted load. Besides, in the case of a sag, I’d ered up, then hummed a bit. It hummed times than for the Belkin unit, but in rather have the power amp recycling a bit more when on battery power. It also practice it lasted a lot longer. What fur- while the source components remain on, ran slightly warm, with or without a ther distinguishes the APC S15 from to prevent loud source-switching pulses load. Belkin’s documentation says noth- the Pure/AV HTBB is the former’s being sent through the speakers. ing about AC filtering or noise isolation wider range of features and controls, as My system’s noise level seemed a bit between the outlets, so the HTBB is evi- well as extensible external power and higher than with the Panamaxes, but dently not a full-service power-manage- isolated EMI/RFI filtration for each of the overall level of performance was as ment system. The Pure/AV line includes its outlet banks. The S15 is a compre- before. The Belkin’s load gauge read switching and filtering devices that hensive power source, conditioner, and 50% when I bit my lip and pulled the match the HTBB’s elegant appearance controller, and costs $1499. HTBB’s captive power cable from the and that should reduce the line noise and Clustered around the S15’s front-panel wall outlet. Lo and behold, the system chassis hum. Overall, Belkin’s Pure/AV display are LED indicators and four but- kept playing merrily without so much Home Theater Battery Backup with tons for Status, Setup, and Up/Down as a burp from the speakers. A small AVR Technology looks good, does the navigation. The two-line alphanumeric indicator confirmed that the HTBB job, and, with a little Googling, can be display is used to set up audible alarms, had switched to battery power. The found for less than its $600 list price. Just delayed power up/down, thresholds for music kept playing for 20 minutes or make sure that the current and load rat- over/under voltage, etc., and to display so as I watched the battery gauge ings match your needs; the AVR load is in/out voltage, in/out frequency, battery decline. Then, before the HTBB could limited to 85% of total capacity. status, load/runtime, serial number, tech- be completely exhausted, I plugged it The American Power Conversion nical-support URL and phone number, back in. Had it been a real emergency, S15 is another story. APC (www etc. Plug it in and turn it on, and it goes I’d have noticed the loss of other utili- .apcav.com) is the leader in the uninter- through a fascinating series of self-tests, ties and had plenty of time to safely ruptible-power-supply business, but all revealed onscreen. shut down my system. Had it been a the S15 is their first foray into the high The S15’s rear panel sports 12 AC brownout or a brief interruption in end. At more than 57 lbs, the S-15 is as outlets in four banks, each bank physi- power, I might not have noticed at all— hefty as most power amps, and has a cally and electrically isolated, with surge MUSIC IN THE ROUND

protection, voltage regulation, filtering, AC. Still, the eVo6 loved being run off Critics Say It’s— and battery backup on all lines. Surges the S15. Gone was that nearly sublimi- are limited to no more than 40V over nal gray coloration in the upper normal line voltage—much lower than midrange, as well as the intermittent the more common 330V threshold. chassis vibration that seemed to be the theBEST Also on the rear are a port for external Bel Canto’s response to low line volt- sounding batteries, a data port for logging/con- age. For all my protestations that I was trol, filter modular in/outs for data and into power conditioning solely for rea- satellite radioever. sons of safety and security, the S15 made the bridged eVo6 into an even THE APC S15 MADE THE better power amplifier—a super amp. There was just one thing: noise. With BRIDGED eVo6 INTO AN all three amps, the noise I heard when I put my ear to a speaker’s tweeter was (But we already knew that.) EVEN BETTER POWER greatly reduced when they were run- ning off the APC S-15. I know some If you’re serious about music, AMPLIFIER. noise is always there, but if it can be you need to hear the Polk detected only within 6" of the tweeter, Audio XRt12 Satellite Radio that’s okay. However, at the suggestion of Environmental Potentials’ Doug tuner. We built it from the phone lines, coax in/outs for antenna, satellite, and cable modem lines, a DC Joseph, and to satisfy my own curiosity, ground up for better XM trigger in/out, a circuit breaker, and an I connected an EP-2450 Home Theater sound quality and more. IEC cable receptacle. The phone and Power Supply ($800) between the S-15 cable in/outs include splitters. Finally, and the amps. This lightweight, full-size The XRt12: there’s a ventilation fan, a substantial chassis has eight unisolated AC outlets, Wonderfully Easy To Use ground terminal, and a wiring-fault which can pass 20 amperes of HF-fil- Built To Polk Audio’s LED. If the last lights up, your building tered, ground-filtered, surge-protected Exacting Standards wiring is faulty (missing ground, AC. It also has a filtered and surge-pro- Offers Maximum Reliability And Value reversed polarity, etc.) and should be tected coaxial line. It ain’t cheap, but Gives You More Than 150 Channels corrected by a qualified electrician. dammit, it reduced amp noise to effec- 100% Commercial-Free Music The S15 has too many features to tive inaudibility! With any of the three detail here, but I must mention that amps, I had to put my ear right on the Hear for yourself why the voltage regulation is accomplished tweeter shield of a B&W 802D—and even then, I often wasn’t certain I heard CNET says the Polk Audio electronically and without the hys- teresis or rebound problems with anything. Whatever noise there was was XRt12 sets slower, motor-driven compensation. below the noise floor of the room, and “…a new standard for I used the S15 in my main city sys- quieter than I have ever heard—or not satellite radio sound quality.” tem: loudspeakers and power amps at heard. Not only that, but the EP-2450 one end, the rest of the electronics at performed the same trick with the nois- Try the XRt12 in your the other. I connected the S15 to vari- ier Belkin HTBB. home audio system, ous combinations of power amplifiers Of course, knowing this, I subse- 100% risk free. running, at high levels, either three quently found both systems sounded If you’re not delighted, we’ll Revel Studio or two B&W 802D cleaner and more detailed at low levels come pick it up and give you speakers. The power amps were the Bel with the EP-2450, but that’s a biased Canto eVo6, the Simaudio Moon W-8, observation. If, despite other efforts, a full refund. and the Classé Omicron monoblocks— you’re still troubled by HF noise, partic- heavy loads indeed. ularly with high-sensitivity speakers, the Order your XRt12 Satellite The S15 didn’t care. Whether run- EP-2450 might just be what you need. Radio tuner by calling ning the 300W Omicrons or the 800-861-5753 or… 250Wpc W-8, or even the W-8 and Next time in the Round the eVo6 together, the sound was as I’d promised a report on Rocket’s R- tight and powerful as it was with direct DES parametric subwoofer equalizer, go to: AC feed from the wall. Furthermore, but things go awry with even the best yanking the cable from the wall made of efforts. I had some trouble with an absolutely no difference. APC had said early sample I got at the 2005 Con- .com the S15 could run the eVo6 for 95 min- sumer Electronics Show, and although utes, the W-8 for 110 minutes, or both it ain’t clear whether the unit or my for 72 minutes, and though I ran each use is at fault, another has just arrived. of them for less than an hour, I believe Other things in the pipeline include a it. Perhaps I’m narrow-minded, but I multichannel power amp, yet another didn’t expect any magical transforma- universal disc player, and, briefly, fur- tions in the sound—all competent elec- ther adventures with the APC units in tronic components should be capable Connecticut. And lots more multi- of optimum performance with clean channel music. ■■

52 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 BY LAURENCE A. BORDEN

THE DOS AND DON’TS OF COPYRIGHT LAW Copying AND Sharing

RECORDED MUSIC BEN FISHMAN

he introduction in 1982 of the compact disc ers. Action-based films have also benefited from breathtak- ushered in the age of digital audio. ing, digitally enhanced special effects. Even those of us who Audiophiles now have lots of new digital still prefer LPs must acknowledge—reluctantly, perhaps— toys and technologies at their disposal, the incredible impact that digital has had on our hobby.1 including SACD, DVD-Audio, MP3 play- Unfortunately, digital technology has a dark side. The ers, hard-drive–based CD players, and digi- ability to make perfect digital copies of music, in con- tal equalization and room correction, to name a few. junction with the ability (via the Internet) to share such Videophiles have similarly benefited from digital technolo- copies with hundreds of thousands of people, has created gy, with an armamentarium that includes high-definition Ttelevision, DVD-Video, Blu-ray, HD DVD (the latter two 1. I would like to acknowledge helpful discussions with many friends and col- leagues, in particular John Dieffenbach, JD; Damin J. Toell, JD; and Gregory still on the horizon), DLP, LCoS, and D-ILA, among oth- Silberman, JD.

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a copyright-infringement nightmare of epic proportions told what they can and cannot do with their CDs; their atti- for the recording industry (and, potentially, the film tude seems to be, “It’s my CD, and I’ll do with it as I darn industry). The industry has responded by taking legal well please!” Interestingly, a CD does not actually belong to action against file-sharing programs (eg, Napster and the individual who purchased it—at least not entirely so. It Grokster), as well as against some of those individuals is useful to consider a CD (or DVD) as two separate enti- who download music without permission of the copy- ties, one tangible, the other intangible. The purchaser of a right holder. These actions, in combination with some disc owns the physical disc itself (ie, the polypropylene, alu- recently enacted legislation, are likely to have a profound minum, etc.), and can do with it as she wishes: use it as a effect on our use of recorded music and movies. My goals coaster, play Frisbee with it, or smash it in an act of politi- in this article are twofold: to explain 1) the basics of copy- cal defiance (if such is her bent). However, the purchaser of right law as they apply to the copying of CDs and DVDs, the disc does not own its contents—the music or movie— which belongs instead to the copyright holder. (As a general rule, the purchas- IT IS CLEAR THAT MANY INDIVIDUALS RESENT BEING TOLD er of a creative work does not obtain WHAT THEY CAN AND CANNOT DO WITH THEIR CDS. rights to the copyright, except in those instances where there is a special provi- sion granting transfer of those rights.) and 2) why these laws are so critical to the future of audio Thus, one entity owns the physical disc, another the con- and video technology. tents. Because the owner of the disc does not own its con- tents, there are restrictions as to what he or she can do with What is a copyright? those contents; copyright law establishes those restrictions. We live in a physical world, which we learn about and Like it or not, that’s the law. experience through our senses. In contrast, copyrights inhabit a world that is only partly tangible; this world goes Fair use by the fancy term intellectual property. (The other three com- If the exclusive rights held by copyright holders smell to you ponents of intellectual property are patents, trademarks, like a monopoly, you’ve got a good nose. Copyrights and and trade secrets.) In general terms, copyrights cover what patents are legal monopolies, granted by the government for may be described as creative works, including: literary finite periods of time.3 Although the rationale behind grant- works; musical works (including lyrics); dramatic works; ing a monopoly was to encourage artists to share their cre- pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures; ations with the public, it was recognized hundreds of years sound recordings; and architectural works. The purposes of ago that absolute exclusivity might hinder free expression. copyrights constitute something of a delicate balancing act. For example, it would be difficult for a scholar to comment On one hand, copyrights protect the artistic expression of on a book if she were unable to quote a relevant passage. In ideas; on the other, they serve the public good by providing response to this problem arose the notion of “fair use,” the an incentive for artists to make their works public. key element of which is that certain forms of copying of lit- The US Constitution provides Congress with the erary or musical works are not infringement, provided that power to grant copyrights and patents, and the First US the copying is “for purposes such as criticism, comment, Congress passed the first US copyright act in 1790. news reporting, teaching . . . scholarship, or research.”4 Copyright laws have changed considerably in the inter- A few points about fair use should be noted. First, fair use vening centuries; the last major overhaul took place in is not granted automatically. Rather, someone must first 1976, with numerous smaller modifications occurring since then. The specific laws governing copyrights are contained in Title 17 of the US code.2 IF THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS HELD BY COPYRIGHT The rights provided to the holder of a copyright HOLDERS SMELL TO YOU LIKE A MONOPOLY, depend to some degree on the nature of the protected YOU’VE GOT A GOOD NOSE. work. In the case of recorded music, the copyright holder has the exclusive right to make copies, to dis- tribute copies (by sale, transfer of ownership, rental, etc.), claim infringement by another, and the alleged infringer and to perform the copyrighted work publicly (either in would then claim the right of fair use. Ultimately, a federal concert or by playing the recorded version on the radio). court must decide whether the copy falls within the bounds The operative word here is exclusive: That is, only the copy- of fair use. In reaching this decision, the Courts consider a right holder, or those authorized by the copyright holder, number of factors, including 1) the purpose of the use, 2) the have the right to copy, distribute, etc., the recorded music. nature of the protected work, 3) the proportion of the work Copying or distribution by anyone other than copyright that is being copied, and 4) the effect of the use on the poten- holder, or those authorized by the copyright holder, con- tial market for the copyrighted work. It bears repeating that stitutes an act of copyright infringement. Those who fair use is intended to promote education, commentary, and infringe a copyright are subject to civil and/or criminal the like; it is not intended to allow carte-blanche copying. penalties, depending on the nature of the infringement. The second point, which is relevant to the Digital (Certain exceptions are discussed below.) From numerous Internet discussions in which I have 3. Based on legislation enacted in 1998, the duration of copyrights for works cre- participated, it is clear that many individuals resent being ated by individual authors is equal to the life of the author plus 70 years. For works made for hire (ie, works created by employees or under contract, such as films and newspaper articles), the duration is 95 years. 2. www.copyright.gov/title17. 4. Ibid.

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Millennium Copyright Act (see below), is that while the calling for its repeal.8 What exactly is the DMCA, and courts themselves have at times spoken of fair-use “rights,” why does it have everyone so hot under the collar? fair use is not a right in the sense of the right to vote. Rather, The impetus for passage of the DMCA was largely the fair use may better be thought of as a defense against charges Internet, as it became possible for even those without tech- of copyright infringement.5 However, some have argued that nical backgrounds to readily share digital copies of music fair use is an essential right because it balances the monopoly with hundreds of thousands of other people. Indeed, the afforded copyright holders. Internet has been described by a copyright official as “the world’s biggest copying machine.”9 The DMCA contains Personal copies and the Audio Home Recording Act many provisions, but the one most germane to the copy- For many years after passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, ing of discs is stated as follows: “No person shall circum- home taping of music was not deemed to have any special vent a technological measure that effectively controls status “beyond the normal and reasonable limits of fair access to a work protected under this title.” use.”6 In other words, the home taping of music recordings In plain English, it is illegal to make a copy if doing so was entitled to fair-use exemption if its intended use was, entails bypassing copy protection. The implications of this for example, commentary or education. In 1992 Congress are considerable, because DVDs and an increasing number passed the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), which of CDs are copy protected. If copy-protected CDs become permits the manufacture and use of analog and digital the norm, not only will it be illegal to burn a copy to, for recording devices, provided that they are not used for example, a CD-R; it will similarly be illegal to copy music commercial purposes. Is this important? You bet your to a computer or MP3 player. Needless to say, this will drastically affect how the public listens to music. THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT HAS GENERATED The battle cry of the anti-DMCA CONSIDERABLE ANGST IN THE AUDIOPHILE AND legions is that the DMCA removes their VIDEOPHILE COMMUNITIES. fair-use rights. And yet, the DMCA states that “Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or sweet CD burner it is! It is the AHRA that allows us to defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use.” The make backup copies of CDs for our own use. For exam- $64,000 question thus becomes, does the DMCA remove ple, because of the AHRA, it is not an act of copyright fair-use rights? infringement to make a backup copy of a CD for use in This question has been addressed in a few recent deci- your car or truck, or to protect the original from your kid’s sions in both Federal District Court and the US Court of peanut-butter-and-jelly–encrusted fingers. However, as Appeals (the latter is one step below the US Supreme we’ll see later on, some recent additions to the law may, in Court).10 In one case, an individual posted on his website a certain instances, effectively supersede the AHRA. copy of and a link to DeCSS, a program designed to cir- Two other provisions of the AHRA are of less interest to cumvent Content Scrambling System (CSS), the encryption audiophiles but nonetheless bear mention. First, digital technology used on DVDs to prevent copying and unau- copying devices must be equipped with the Serial Copy thorized viewing. Another case dealt with Advanced eBook Management System (SCMS), which prevents unlimited Processor, a product that allowed a user to remove use serial copying of copyrighted material. When SCMS is restrictions from Adobe Acrobat PDF files and from files incorporated into a digital recording device, the device can formatted for the Adobe eBook Reader, thereby allowing make unlimited first-generation copies of original prere- the files to be copied. Still another case involved software for corded material. However, SCMS prevents the recopying copying DVDs. While the primary foci of the various cases of those copies.7 Second, the AHRA provides compen- sation to copyright holders for lost revenues resulting from home taping, in the form of royalty payments IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE A COPY IF DOING SO paid by the manufacturers of digital recording devices. ENTAILS BYPASSING COPY PROTECTION. The AHRA thus serves both the copyright holders and the purchasers of recorded music. One last word about the Audio Home Recording Act: differed, they had in common a claim that the DMCA vio- As its name implies, the law pertains solely to audio. The lated fair-use rights. AHRA does not grant permission to copy videotapes or In all three decisions, the courts took a consistent and DVDs. firm stance that the DMCA does not violate fair use. The courts’ reasoning, in a nutshell, was that fair use does not Digital Millennium Copyright Act guarantee the right to make a copy in the same format as the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), enact- original, nor in the most convenient or manipulable format. ed in 1998, has generated considerable angst in the audio- phile and videophile communities. In fact, opposition to it 8. http://anti-dmca.org. has been so widespread that it has generated a movement 9. Hon. Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, Copyright Office of the United States, The Library of Congress. See Vic Sussman, “Policing Cyberspace,” U.S. News & World Report (23 January 1995): 54. See also A.L. 5. 203 F.Sup.2d 1111. Melville, “The Future of the Home Recording Act of 1992: Has it survived the 6. H.R. ReP.NO. 94-1476 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5669, 5679. Millennium Bug?,” www.bu.edu/law/scitech/volume7/Melville.pdf. 7. Interestingly, computers are not considered digital recording devices under the 10. To the best of my knowledge, this issue has never been addressed by the AHRA. Accordingly, one can circumvent the SCMS copy protections that Supreme Court. Thus, it is possible that the decisions of the lower courts will appear on second-generation copies simply by copying them to a computer. one day be overturned.

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Even though the DMCA prevents the making of digital sion. First, it does not apply to a copy the purchaser makes. copies, it does not prevent one from making a copy of a pro- For example, if one purchases a CD and then makes a copy tected audio disc by using the analog outputs of the CD (or copies), as permitted by the AHRA, one cannot give player, or even by holding a microphone in front of one’s away or sell the copies. Second, there need not be any speakers. Similarly, it does not prevent one from copying a money exchanged for a copyright to be infringed. For movie recorded on a DVD by pointing a video camera at a example, if one were to copy a book in its entirety and give monitor displaying the movie stored on the DVD. the copy to a friend as a gift, one would most likely have Needless to say, many audiophiles find these alternatives committed an act of infringement. Ditto for a CD. In other unacceptable, and are likely displeased with the courts’ deci- words, if you have ever burned a CD for a friend, you have sions. Indeed, when I have pointed out these alternatives on broken the law. While the recording studios are not thrilled various Internet discussion groups, about the nicest com- by this practice, they have tended to turn a blind eye to it. ment I have received was being told that I was ludicrous. But now it’s time to turn to the heart of the matter. (Some went so far as to question the legitimacy of my birth.) What keeps record labels up at night is the downloading and sharing of MP3 files. Each day, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of songs are shared via THE LAW IS A STRANGE AND WONDERFUL THING. peer-to-peer (P2P) programs, the vast majority with- SOMETIMES, IT’S NOT SO WONDERFUL. out having obtained the permission of the copyright holders. But it is an act of copyright infringement to share copyright-protected music over a peer-to-peer Ultimately, audio and video enthusiasts need to come to network without the copyright holder’s permission. Like it terms with the distinction between what they want and what or not, anyone who shares music over a P2P network is fair use allows. What they want is perfect digital copies. committing an act of copyright infringement, unless one However, as the Courts have made clear, fair use does not uses a commercial service such as Apple’s iTunes. As the guarantee this right. As I described above, the primary intent public is now grasping, most of the music that has been of fair use is to promote education, commentary, and the like, downloaded over the last five or so years has been down- none of which is prevented by the DMCA—one can still loaded in violation of US copyright law. It should, however, make copies, albeit not perfect digital copies. be noted that this does not apply to “streaming” audio, the But how about the AHRA? If the AHRA permits the mak- use of which is not an act of copyright infringement, pro- ing of audio copies, how can the DMCA prevent it? While vided certain requirements have been met. these two laws seem to be at odds with one another, they actu- While a full description of the legal issues regarding P2P ally are not. The first point to be noted is that the AHRA does networks is beyond the scope of this article, a few key not grant the “right” to make an audio copy. For example, if points bear mention. In what is probably the most famous manufacturers of analog and digital recording devices decided case to date, the owners of the Napster P2P program were to stop making these products, thus preventing one from mak- found liable of vicarious or contributory copyright infringe- ing audio copies, one could not claim that one’s Constitutional ment. Because the owners of Napster were unable to com- rights had been violated. Instead, the AHRA merely exempts ply with a court order to eliminate from their centralized one who makes an audio copy from being charged with copy- files those songs protected by copyrights, they were ulti- right infringement (provided that the copy is not for commer- mately forced to cease operations. Since that time, a new cial use). The second part of the explanation is that even class of file-sharing programs has appeared. Unlike Napster, though the DMCA is contained within Title 17, violation of these new programs (eg, Morpheus, Grokster, and the the DMCA is not an act of copyright infringement. Instead, violation of the DMCA is a separate violation. As such, were AS THE PUBLIC IS NOW GRASPING, MOST OF THE MUSIC one to bypass copy-protection software and THAT HAS BEEN DOWNLOADED OVER THE LAST FIVE OR make a copy of a CD, one might be exempt SO YEARS HAS BEEN DOWNLOADED IN VIOLATION OF US from a charge of copyright infringement COPYRIGHT LAW. (per the AHRA), but still be guilty of violat- ing the DMCA. The law is a strange and wonderful thing. Sometimes, it’s not so wonderful. newly reformed Napster) do not contain centralized index- es of the music files. The owners have argued before the Distributing copyrighted works courts that because of this architecture, they lack the ability As mentioned above, the holder of a copyright has the exclu- to prevent sharing of copyrighted music files—a defense sive right to distribute the protected work. However, just as similar to that used in the famous Betamax case. the AHRA is an exception to the exclusive right to copy, so Thus far, the courts have found these programs to be not there exists an exception to the exclusive right to distribute. guilty of copyright infringement. However, all eyes are now Title 17’s “First Sale” provision is intended to limit the copy- on the Supreme Court, which is currently deciding a case right holder’s control over the disposition of the protected involving a suit brought by MGM Studios against Grokster. work to the first sale. That is, once one buys a painting, a The ensuing decision will almost certainly be of monu- book, a CD, or another protected work, the purchaser gains mental importance in deciding the future of P2P programs. the right to sell, give away, or otherwise dispose of the work. However—and this cannot be overstated—the Supreme If the work is sold to another, that individual then gains the Court is addressing the legality of Grokster itself (and, by right to dispose of the work, and so on. extension, related programs), not the actions of those who There are some important caveats to the First Sale provi- use such a program. In other words, even if Grokster is

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found to be not guilty of infringement, this will in no way court decision12 somewhat limited these powers, this still exonerate those who use it or a similar program to share smacks of Big Brother. Until such time as the DMCA is music without the permission of the copyright holders. found to be unconstitutional, the most useful approach is In an attempt to control illegal P2P file sharing, Senator probably to write to one’s congressional representative to Orrin Hatch introduced before Congress a bill common- express one’s dissatisfaction and urge that the law be either ly called the “Induce Act.” This act would hold technolo- repealed (unlikely) or modified (possible). And while you’re gy companies responsible if their devices are used to at it, be sure to mention the Induce Act, which has the poten- commit copyright infringement. Were this bill to pass, tial to be even harder on consumers than the DMCA. commonly used devices such as CD burners, MP3 play- The Supreme Court’s decision on Grokster may change ers, and TiVos, as well as a variety of software, all of which the entire picture. If Grokster (and, by extension, other P2P have been employed for lawful copying, might end up programs) is found to be guilty of vicarious or contributory being removed from the market. The implications of this infringement, it might spell the beginning of the end of unau- can hardly be overstated. Because the principal parties thorized P2P file sharing. Naturally, such a decision would involved in modifying the bill—the technology and enter- delight the studios. Interestingly, this might actually be good tainment groups—were unable to agree on a draft, in for law-abiding audiophiles—with illegal P2P file sharing effectively controlled, the studios may be far less concerned with backup copies WERE THE “INDUCE ACT” TO PASS, COMMONLY USED and the like. With a little luck, they DEVICES SUCH AS CD BURNERS, MP3 PLAYERS, AND TIVOS, might even allow digital outputs on SACD players, and slow down lawsuits AS WELL AS A VARIETY OF SOFTWARE, MIGHT END UP based on violation of the DMCA. Of BEING REMOVED FROM THE MARKET. course, if the Supreme Court decides in favor of Grokster, all bets are off—the stu- dios will presumably push for more and October 2004 the Senate Judiciary Committee decided to more restrictive legislation, and will seek to control digital postpone a final review. I fear that we have not seen the datastreams with every means at their disposal. last of the Induce Act. While it is easy to blame the studios for their anticon- sumer attitudes and for not embracing the Internet, the Concluding remarks source of the problem is, ultimately, those who break the Digital technology has been a blessing and a curse. While it law. It is my hope that this article will encourage audiophiles has in many ways revolutionized audio and video recordings, to further investigate the relevant laws, to share the infor- it has also turned out to be a copyright nightmare. Due to a mation with others, and to encourage others to respect combination of users’ ignorance of and lack of respect for the copyrights. Perhaps, with a bit of luck, this will lead to a law, and predominantly as a result of the downloading of reduction in the level of copyright infringement. Otherwise, MP3 files, copyright infringement has grown to levels that I fear that more and more of the privileges we’ve grown to could not have been imagined 10 years ago. This situation enjoy will be taken away. has fostered a battle between copyright holders (ie, the stu- dios and record companies) who want to protect their intel- Postscript: The Supreme Court issued its decision in MGM vs. Grokster lectual property, and the users of protected materials, many on June 27, 2005. In a unanimous decision the Court ruled that the lower of whom feel they are being denied their rights and/or are Court (ie, Court of Appeals) had incorrectly applied an earlier decision being punished for the misdeeds of others. The film and (Sony vs. Universal Studios; commonly referred to as the Betamax decision) music companies are using every means at their disposal to when it dismissed the case in favor of Grokster. Specifically, the Supreme prevent illegal copying, targeting both P2P providers and, Court explained that the fact that the products sold by Grokster and more recently, individuals who participate in the act of unau- StreamCast Networks, Inc. could be used for legitimate, non-infringing pur- thorized file-sharing. This latter action in particular has had poses does not provide an automatic safe haven from charges of copyright the unfortunate consequence of making the studios seem infringement. Specifically, the Justices noted the existence of numerous doc- like the town bully, thus serving to increase the antagonism uments suggesting that Grokster and StreamCast solicited and encouraged felt by those who purchase their products. Irrespective of the use of their products for the unauthorized exchange of copyright-pro- whether one approves of the recording studios’ business tected music and video, and opined that the Betamax ruling will not pre- methods, the fact remains that copyright infringement is clude liability where the evidence “…shows statements or actions directed rampant, and that the studios are within their rights to pro- to promoting infringement…” tect their intellectual property, just as any business owner is In a concurring opinion, six of the nine Supreme Court Justices also con- within her rights to protect against shoplifting. sidered whether Grokster’s and StreamCast’s products are capable of “com- As a further means of preventing illegal file sharing, the mercially significant non-infringing uses.” Based on the evidence before studios are also limiting the consumer’s ability to gain access them, three Justices ruled that the products did have such uses, and three to digital data. This is being accomplished by copy-protecting ruled that they did not. (The remaining three were silent on this issue.) The discs, not allowing digital outputs on SACD players (and pos- case will now be returned to a lower court, where it will be decided in light sibly not on HD DVD players, once these are introduced), of the Supreme Court ruling and the specific facts of the case. ■■ and by using the DMCA.11 The DMCA not only prevents the copying of protected discs, it also provides copyright 11. There seems to be a widely held belief that this legislation was “paid for” by holders with subpoena rights, forcing Internet providers to the film studios. I will leave the political commentary to the more seasoned Stereophile writers. identify the names of those subscribers who are believed to 12. Recording Industry Association of America vs Verizon Internet Services, have engaged in copyright infringement. Although a recent Inc., 351 F.3d 1229 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 63 JOHN SCOFIELD PAYS TRIBUTE TO RAY CHARLES CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU COURTESY OF VERVE RECORDS BY ROBERT BAIRD

ohn Scofield has gotten used to the static. The receiving the most radio airplay and attention. Anyone who guitarist played and recorded with Gerry thought Sco had gone pop before will be damn sure now. Mulligan and Chet Baker in the early 1970s, Fortunately, the man has grown used to the chatter. Charles Mingus in the late ’70s, and was part of “I think he sang his ass off,” he says, flatly and unapolo- Miles Davis’ band from 1982 to 1985. But getically, of Mayer. “I think it’s the most grooving track on more than any other jazz luminary of his vin- the record. The arrangement was conceived before John tage, Scofield has come under fire lately for came on, and the fact that he’s ‘a multiplatinum rock star’ [in being an unbeliever. His jazz-heretic rep began a throaty, cynical tone] of course had no effect on me, because with the 1997 release of A Go Go, a funky fusion collabora- who the hell would want to sell records? What jazz artist in tion with Medeski Martin & Wood, and gained steam in his right mind would ever think about selling records? I find 2000J with Bump, on which he partnered with funk/jam acts that disgusting.” Soul Coughing and Deep Banana Blackout. Here is a simple truth about Scofield that both his fans and Now Scofield’s tempting the jazz furies with his tribute his detractors need to swallow and be done with: If you dislike to Ray Charles, That’s What I Say: John Scofield Plays the Music fusions of jazz and other musical movements then some of of Ray Charles. What’s really vexed the jazz crowd about this what this master guitarist (and nice guy) does will be less a fas- latest project is the appearance of heartthrob and Dave cinating facet of his playing than a hateful heresy. Again, it’s Matthews knockoff John Mayer, who sings and plays guitar something he seems to have stopped losing sleep over. on Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson’s “I Don’t Need No “The whole thing is ridiculous. Just say ‘I only like this cer- Doctor.” Predictably, this is the track on the album that’s tain kind of music,’ or just say you don’t like it. That’s cool.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 65 CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU JOHN SCOFIELD

But to say that something is or isn’t some- thing else? I mean yeah, okay, let’s just say it’s not jazz. But what is it? And what is SCOFIELD BEGAN jazz? It leads you to all those questions, which you don’t want to go down. When THE PROCESS you define yourself you limit yourself, OF MAKING and who wants to do that?” It’s that amenable attitude and clear THAT’S WHAT I SAY resolve that allowed the guitarist to keep BY LISTENING TO an open mind when Verve Records chief “EVERY RAY CHARLES Ron Goldstein brought him the idea of making a record of covers from the Ray RECORD I COULD Charles songbook. GET MY HANDS ON.” “If it comes to funky jazz, Ray Charles is it,” Scofield says over the phone from his home in upstate New York. “I started, like we all did in the ’60s, with Ray Charles. If you wanted to learn to play soul music, and learn about it, and blues, pretty soon you came up with Ray Charles, and it’s been like that ever since. “I think it’s a natural culmination [for me] too. I’ve always been interested in the merging of soul and rock and funk and jazz, and Ray did it a long time ago, in his own way, completely differently from what I’ve been doing. “[At first] I thought, ‘Wow, isn’t it for- tuitous—not that Ray died, but that a record company would think it’s a good time to do something in a commercial way that was also something that I really loved?’ It hit home for me and resonated in a musical way. ‘There are so many ways we could treat this stuff, and these are cool tunes’—that was the basis of it. “I knew I was going to get some flak for it, but I said, ‘What the hell.’ Some people will give me shit because they think it’s trying to cash in on something— I’ve already seen reviews that said that—but you can’t cash in Bout You/I Got a Woman”; as for the instrumentals, on good music. Cash in on Ray? How could you do that?” “Unchain My Heart (Part 1),” with just the quartet, falls into a moody, funky, organ trio–like groove. cofield began the process of making That’s What The album opens with an instrumental version of I Say by listening to “every Ray Charles record I “Busted,” by famed Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard. could get my hands on.” A list of tunes that he’d It’s one of four songs Scofield chose from Charles’ unex- want to include emerged, and then began the pected but hugely influential odysseys into the songbooks process of matching up guest vocalists and of country music: Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, tunes, which Scofield basically did in his head. Vo l .1 and Vo l . 2 (1962), and Country & Western Meets Rhythm & Other than Mavis Staples, who wanted to sing Blues (1965). Also here are Buck Owens’ “Cryin’ Time,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” none of the singers Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me,” and Don Gibson’s “I Shad a problem with the tunes Scofield selected for them. Can’t Stop Loving You.” The last is one of the songs—along The final list of vocalists is a distinguished one headed by with several by Hank Williams, including “Your Cheatin’ Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), Aaron Neville, Staples, and gui- Heart”—that eventually became as well known from tarist Warren Haynes. Tenor-sax veteran David “Fathead” Charles’ versions as from the original hits. Newman, who for many years played in Charles’ band, is, “Unbelievable!” Scofield says about Charles’ country with Haynes, one of the two chief instrumental guest stars. records. “I think it’s a lesson for all of us in this country, The core band on all tunes consists of Scofield, Larry where racial issues define everything, that here’s this thing Goldings (Hammond B-3 organ), Willie Weeks (bass), and that went way past that and took this supposedly white Steve Jordan (drums), who coproduced the album with Sco. music, by a supposedly super-rootsy African-American per- That’s What I Say is as much a vocal record as a guitar former, and it all came together and it was just natural and workout, its 13 tracks split almost evenly between vocals wonderful. And I think the message might be that people and instrumentals. On the vocal side, one highlight is Dr. are a lot closer than they might seem culturally. ’Cause Ray John working his greasy, growling way through “Talkin’ sang these tunes—’course he made R&B of them, but the

66 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU JOHN SCOFIELD country element is still there. And they’re both Southern musics. That’s really important, I think.” JOHN SCOFIELD The album’s showstopper is “What’d I Say,” with five lead That’s What I Say: John Scofield Plays the Music of vocalists each taking a verse. Soul great Isaac Hayes also adds Ray Charles John Scofield, electric & acoustic guitar; Larry Goldings, piano, Wurlitzer an uncredited vocal cameo to this big production number. electric piano, Hammond B-3 organ, vibes; Willie Weeks, bass, Ampeg baby But early on, there’s a quiet moment when “Cryin’ Time,” bass; Steve Jordan, drums, cocktail drums, tambourine, background vocals. featuring just Scofield and Goldings, is arranged as the open- With: Aaron Neville, Mavis Staples, vocals; David “Fathead” Newman, tenor sax; Warren Haynes, vocals, bottleneck guitar; John Mayer, vocals, guitar; Dr. ing to “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” The album closes with John, vocals, piano Scofield, who’s still playing the same Ibanez AS-200 he’s Verve B0004360-02 (CD). 2005. John Scofield, Steve Jordan, prods.; Joe Ferla, eng., mix. DDD. TT: 65:27 1 used for the past 20 years, playing alone on Charles’ “Georgia Performance ★★★ ⁄2 On My Mind,” a tune he says he “had” to include. Some lis- Sonics ★★★★ teners have cited those tracks as examples of the guitarist holding ith his roots in R&B and back, choking down on his skills in blues and a sound that order to fit in with the band and W can often drift into better serve the material. twang, guitarist John Scofield “I guess they have a point, in makes an ideal candidate to dig that I didn’t play a million notes into some of the nuggets of Ray because it didn’t seem, especially Charles’ repertoire of R&B, blues, with the singers, appropriate. And and country. A good start is a hip this is a fine line that you tread basic ensemble, and this one when you’re playing melodically. includes drummer-coproducer Am I holding back or am I play- Steve Jordan and bassman Willie ing melodically? Weeks. Jordan is a former Scofield “Sometimes you can hear peo- bandmate and both are top cross- ple—‘You know, he’s trying to play over guys, having played individu- melodic but he’s not making it.’ ally with the Rolling Stones, Sonny And then you hear Lester Young Rollins, and others. Then there’s or Miles, and to me it’s like, that’s keyboardist Larry Goldings, who the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. was part of Sco’s jazz-funk bands So that’s part of my style, trying to and is a rhythm-section dynamo play like that.” and a crafty soloist. Add some ace guests, from singers While it’s debatable whether Scofield was holding back Mavis Staples, Dr. John (Mac Rebennack), and Aaron or not, there’s no debate that he let another hot string-ben- Neville to Ray Charles’ former tenorman, David der into the henhouse in the form of Warren Haynes, of “Fathead” Newman, and you’ve scored. blues power trio Gov’t Mule, with whom he duets on The album is split about 50-50 between instrumentals “Night Time is the Right Time.” and tracks with vocals. The latter seem the most natural, for “Warren just kills it, and he played slide on that tune, the obvious reason that Charles sang almost all his materi- which made for a nice change. And I was also playing al. But Sco and gang make the instrumental tracks work, through a Leslie [amplifier] for the whole tune, which gave too. In the funky opener, “Busted,” a brief, tender look at a real, like, organ kind of guitar sound. So we tried to get “Cryin’ Time,” and a slow, gritty “Let’s Go Get Stoned,” the different sounds.” guitarist bends and morphs his wiry, dirty sound until it Speaking of different sounds, Scofield was also tapped to sounds darn near like singing. The last is one of several work on Sony/BMG Legacy’s Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz tracks where emphatic horn parts add appreciated juice. Guitar, a 4-CD boxed set that has just been released. All of the singers take part in “What’d I Say,” for a total “They wanted to have one current player on the group of of 18 musicians on this track. After Scofield’s guitar intro producers, and we got to sit and pick tunes—which is crazy, over buoyant rhythm leads to Newman’s welcoming horn because you can’t pick one best tune for any great artist. It got shouts, Neville, Dr. John, Warren Haynes (Allman nuts. ‘No, it’s got to be this one—no, this one, not that one.’ Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule), and pop-blueser John Mayer Also, stuff didn’t make it because we only had four CDs— let loose in turn, the leader’s guitar romping amid rollick- everybody has stuff, even pet favorites, that didn’t make it.” ingly vocal asides. More a simply fun session (and, yes, moneymaker) than On “I Don’t Need No Doctor,” Mayer deftly trades phras- any kind of milestone in jazz history, That’s What I Say is also es with Scofield. Staples is ideal for the plaintive “I Can’t Stop a solid extension of the funky fusionesque path that Loving You,” and Neville for that pop classic of unrequited Scofield’s been on since the late 1990s (with the exception love, “You Don’t Know Me.” Haynes’ gritty “Night Time is of last year’s jazz-only session, EnRoute). In the near future the Right Time” evokes Charles without imitation, and Dr. he plans to tour on and off with the EnRoute band, as well John’s “I Got a Woman” is appropriately upbeat. as with a new group he’s forming with Boston singer Meyer Though That’s What I Say is weighted on the side of Statham to play the Ray Charles material. He says he had backbeat rhythms and grooves, Scofield is still a jazz gui- some of the same sensations working on Progressions that he tarist at his core; his solos aren’t just collections of riffs but did on his own record. And, oh yeah, anyone who thinks are packed with meaty thoughts. Goldings delivers like- he’s sold out can… mindedly. And engineer Joe Ferla captures the goings-on Nah, he’s not gonna get down in that mud. “They’re splendidly; all the spark and heat come through clean, both American music as reflected through the guitar. It detailed, and balanced. —Zan Stewart makes me proud to be a guitar player.” ■■ www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 69 EQUIPMENT REPORT Mordaunt-Short Performance 6

Paul Messenger LOUDSPEAKER

ood is not an engineering material. It might look pretty, but it’s inconsistent and therefore unpredictable. So we smash cheap wood into sawdust and then glue it all together again to create something that can be machined. This is called medium-density fiberboard, or MDF. We then thinly slice some classy hardwood—hopefully harvest- ed from sustainable sources—and use it to cover the ugly MDF.W This might have made sense back when Chippendale was making furniture, but it seems strangely old-fashioned in our age of plastics and composites. I haven’t seen wood trim on a TV set for more than a decade. Why is it still the norm for loudspeakers? The elimination of wood is presumably at least part of the rationale behind the Performance 6, a striking new upmarket speaker from British brand Mordaunt- Short. Superficially, it does seem surprising that so few speaker designs replace wooden enclosures with more modern materials, though I guess cost factors are a crucial ingredient. Whereas MDF construction is these days largely a matter of DESCRIPTION Three-way, port- programming a CNC machine, composites often involve significant tooling; on loaded, floorstanding, magnetically the relatively small scale of high-end speaker manufacture, the per-unit cost of shielded, triwirable loudspeaker. this can be quite large. Drive-units 1" Aspirated Tweeter Tech- Apart from the tiny, cast-alloy satellites found in many A/V packages, nonwood nology, aluminum-dome tweeter, 4" speakers, from such makes as Wilson-Benesch and Wilson Audio Specialties, tend continuous-profile aluminum-cone to be costly. While the $6500/pair asked for the Performance 6 hardly puts it in midrange driver, two 6.5" continuous- the beer-budget class, the price is a lot lower than you might think from a glance profile aluminum-cone woofers. at the speaker. But then, Mordaunt-Short has long been known for offering good Crossover frequencies: 350Hz, 3kHz, material value for money, as the following potted history shows. Indeed, partly damped second-order filters. Fre- because of its close association with the budget sector, interesting upmarket M-S quency range: 35Hz–32kHz. Sensitivi- models such as 1980’s Signifer and 1988’s 442 have tended to be overlooked. Its ty: 89dB/2.83V/m. Impedance: 4–8 striking styling should help the Performance 6 avoid a similar fate. ohms. Power rating: 15–250W. DIMENSIONS 48" H by 9.5" W by History, potted 17.5" D. Weight: 66 lbs. Mordaunt-Short has been through many changes since the late Norman Mordaunt FINISHES Brilliant Silver, Granite founded his speaker company back in the 1960s. Early Mordaunt models, such as Gray. the Arundel, were relatively expensive, but things changed gear when Rodney Short SERIAL NUMBERS OF UNITS joined in 1967. Short lengthened the firm’s name by adding his own, injected a chunk REVIEWED 0011A, 0011B. of capital, and took aim at the emerging mass market. Brothers Michael and Chris PRICE $6500/pair. Approximate Short took over in the 1970s, and Mike Dedman designed the Carnival, Festival, and number of dealers: Not known. Pageant models, which became some of the most popular budget speakers around. MANUFACTURER Mordaunt-Short, That tradition continued through the 1980s, with the acquisition of Epos and Gallery Court, Pilgrimage Street, founder-designer Robin Marshall. In the 1990s, Mordaunt-Short was bought by the London SE1 4LL, England, UK. Tel: TGI Group, where it operated alongside Tannoy and Goodmans. As the millennium (44) (0)207-551-5449. Fax: (44) approached, TGI began to move out of loudspeakers, and sold M-S to The Audio (0)207-940-2233. Web: www.mor Partnership (TAP) and Epos to Mike Creek. daunt-short.co.uk. US distributor: A little more than 10 years old, TAP is one of British hi-fi’s recent success stories. Marantz America, 440 Medinah It grew out of leading budget retail chain Richer Sounds, and began by working Road, Roselle, IL 60172. Tel: (630) closely with Far East suppliers to create “budget audiophile” electronics under the 741-0300. Fax: (630) 741-0301. relaunched Cambridge Audio brand. Since buying Mordaunt-Short and starting the Web: www.marantz.com. Opus multiroom operation, TAP now employs 70 people in its London headquar-

72 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 ERIC SWANSON www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 73 ters and, indirectly, rather more in the mance range is the floorstanding 6, rate, removable grilles for each drive- Far East. which is equally suited to two- and unit are supplied; only the tweeter grille A major link with the past is design multichannel applications. Other models is permanently affixed. engineer Graeme Foy, who worked in the range include the Performance 5 I would have described the Perfor- alongside Robin Marshall on Epos and center-channel and the Performance 9 mance 6’s appearance as individual and M-S speakers in the 1990s. Foy’s first powered subwoofer; a stand-mount unique had it not been for the almost task with TAP was to create a number variation on the Performance theme is simultaneous arrival of the South African of budget-priced stereo and multi- also on the way. Vivid Audio B1 speakers. I described and channel models for Mordaunt-Short. The most striking feature of the Per- contrasted the two approaches in a Sep- That done, he was given his creative formance 6 is its enclosure, with its tember 2004 “Industry Update” report, head to design the far more ambitious glossy metallic finish, and artful—indeed, and can’t help feeling that each goes Performance range, with the intention beautiful—shape. My samples were some way toward validating the other. of establishing new performance painted a discreet Granite Gray; Brilliant It’s curious the way “design congruity” benchmarks through the use of Silver is also available. All surfaces are seems to emerge among loudspeakers: advanced materials and engineering. elegantly curved, and the whole thing is readers with memories as long as mine strongly tapered so that it’s slim and very may well recall how, back in the mid- Performance shallow at the top, slightly wider and 1970s, KEF and B&W almost simultane- The core of Mordaunt-Short’s Perfor- considerably deeper at the base. Sepa- ously introduced their R105 and 801

MEASUREMENTS

estimated the Performance 6’s voltage sensitivity at Summing their outputs gives a notch at 34Hz, the frequen- 88dB(B)/2.83V/m, which is slightly but inconsequen- cy of the saddle centered on that frequency in the imped- tially below the specified 89dB. The speaker’s imped- ance magnitude trace (fig.1). The port’s output peaks ance (fig.1) mostly ranges between 4 and 8 ohms, between 27Hz and 80Hz, with a slight offset toward the Iwith a minimum value of 3.6 ohms at 33.5Hz. Probably higher frequency, and is refreshingly free from resonant the point hardest to drive lies at 27Hz, where a fairly low modes in the midrange. 5.2 ohms is combined with a –39.4º capacitive phase angle; fortunately, with the exception of classical organ recordings and some techno, music has very little energy in this region. The impedance is free from the wrinkles and glitches that would indicate the presence of cabinet resonances. Investigating the cabinet’s vibrational behavior with an accelerometer revealed very little in the way of resonances. About all I could find was a mode on the curved side panel at 227Hz (fig.2), though this was at a very low level. There is a slight bend in the impedance traces between 100Hz and 200Hz, and I do wonder if this is associated with the unusual dip seen in the outputs of the two Fig.2 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, cumulative spectral-decay plot calculated from the output of an accelerometer fastened to the woofers in this same region (fig.3, blue and green traces). cabinet side panel level with the lower woofer (MLS driving voltage These traces also show that the two woofers differ slightly to speaker, 7.55V; measurement bandwidth, 2kHz). in their tuning frequencies, the lower woofer (green) extending very slightly lower than the upper unit (blue).

Fig.3 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, acoustic crossover on tweeter axis at 50", corrected for microphone response, with the nearfield responses Fig.1 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, electrical impedance (solid) and of the midrange unit, summed woofers, and port (black), with the phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.) response of the upper woofer (blue) and lower woofer (green).

74 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 MORDAUNT-SHORT PERFORMANCE 6 models, radical designs that both featured the 4" midrange and 1" tweeter also the edge termination, both in the separate bass “bins” supporting compact, include notable innovations. diaphragm and the surround. M-S has separate mid/treble head units. The The bass and midrange drivers have developed what it calls V-Form Tech- parallels between the Mordaunt-Short inverted-dome diaphragms finished in nologies to create “an ideal impedance Performance 6 and the Vivid Audio matte silver and mounted beneath gen- differential into the surround,” aided by B1—not only the molded enclosures erous scalloped trim rings. This a variable-thickness/shape roll surround. but also the three-way metal diaphragm arrangement conceals the fact that the A complex motor assembly is used to configurations—are too obvious to drivers are not actually mounted to the maximize magnetic flux linearity. ignore, though happily there are also front panel at all, but affixed to rods A major reason for using a 4" mid- plenty of differences in details. that poke forward from the much range driver from 350Hz to 3kHz is to The Performance 6 is a full three- stronger rear spine of the speaker. Rub- help achieve consistent sound distribu- way design with four aluminum- ber gaskets separate the chassis from tion right across the audioband. This diaphragm drive-units arrayed up the the front baffle, providing a measure of driver uses most of the same techniques front above a flared reflex port. The mechanical decoupling. as the 6.5" cone, but has a neodymium twin 6.5" bass cones might look famil- The bass-driver diaphragms are rein- magnet to minimize the bulk of, and iar enough to anyone who’s seen M-S’s forced against flexure by a ring of little therefore any reflections from, the motor Avant models, but they’ve actually pressed ribs just in from the edge, and assembly. Elaborate heatsinking is also undergone considerable refinement; considerable attention has been paid to incorporated to assist power handling.

The twin woofers cross over to the midrange unit just sides (fig.5). This graph also reveals a beautifully con- above 300Hz—the individual outputs of the drive-units trolled horizontal radiation pattern, with contour lines and port are plotted in the ratios of their radiating diam- evenly spaced out to more than 60º off axis and no trace eters in this graph. The midrange unit itself has a couple of the usual flare at the bottom of the tweeter’s passband. of cone resonances visible in its output one and two This will contribute both to an uncolored room sound and octaves above the 3.2kHz crossover to the tweeter, but stable stereo imaging. In the vertical plane (fig.6), a deep these are well suppressed. The tweeter dome resonance suckout in the upper crossover region develops more than can be seen to lie at a high 26.5kHz. 5º below the tweeter axis, which suggests that a high lis- Fig.4 shows the Performance 6’s response averaged tening chair will be better than a low one. across a 30º horizontal window on the tweeter axis at 50", spliced to the complex sum of the individual nearfield low- frequency responses. While impressively flat overall, there is a slight shelving down of the mid-treble and a mild shelving up of the upper bass. The latter is almost entirely due to the nearfield measurement technique, which assumes a 2pi acoustic environment, which means that the LF extension doesn’t perhaps go quite as deep as implied by the 34.5Hz port tuning frequency—I note that PM found that the speak- er’s bass, “though agile…lacks a little ultimate weight.” The Mordaunt-Short’s top octave appears to lack energy on axis, but this suckout does fill in a little to the speaker’s Fig.5 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90–5° off axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90° off axis.

Fig.4 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50", averaged across 30° horizontal window and corrected for micro- Fig.6 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, vertical response family at 50", phone response, with the complex sum of the nearfield midrange, normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: woofer, and port responses, taking into account acoustic phase and differences in response 10–5° above axis, reference response, distance from the nominal farfield point, plotted below 300Hz. differences in response 5–20° below axis.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 75 MORDAUNT-SHORT PERFORMANCE 6

The tweeter is arguably the most daunt-Short has worked hard to create an the lock-nuts has compromised their interesting of the drivers. An original enclosure of structural foam that has sim- ability to be properly tightened. The and creative variation on the dipole and ilar stiffness and significantly better self- spikes can only be tightened, somewhat tube-loaded themes, the whole assem- damping than wood composites. They’ve inadequately, with the fingers. While bly is roughly 9" deep and features a fat also taken advantage of the foam’s mal- I’m all for crafting attractive forms and metal rod behind the diaphragm that’s leability by varying its thickness and den- carrying consistent motifs through a perforated by a logarithmic spiral of sity. Apparently, 100,000 accelerometer design, I don’t feel this should be at the thin, differentially tuned pipes. The measurements and more than 10,000 expense of function. purpose is to create a flat acoustic hours of mechanical design time, includ- However, it would be unfair to impedance at the rear of the tweeter ing Finite Element Analysis, were used to dwell on such a minor quibble in dome while also allowing through finalize the Performance 6 enclosure. reviewing an attractive and carefully some noncoherent treble output to add A 22-lb steel baseplate (invisibly) thought through design that boasts far air and spaciousness. The elegantly forms the bottom of the enclosure, more than its share of clever ideas and tapered rod is located within a rubber ensuring fine overall physical stability innovations. The only important ques- decoupling jacket and pokes some and secure accommodation for the tion is how the speaker sounds; ie, how inches out through a hole in the back of floor-coupling spikes. This plate also well all the technological sophistication the enclosure, creating a striking styling acts as a massive mechanical ground for supports the listening experience. motif that is echoed in the custom- mounting the components of the com- made terminals and footer spikes. plex crossover network, which is basi- Listening There are good engineering reasons for cally second-order throughout with I don’t measure speakers to anything using a curved, molded speaker enclo- added compensation components. This like the depths plumbed by John sure. Curved surfaces are inherently more network is fed by three pairs of binding Atkinson, whose much more detailed stiff and avoid parallel reflecting surfaces, posts, mounted low on the rear panel. technical analysis is included in the thus minimizing the creation of focused The spikes themselves are effective “Measurements” sidebar. But I do find internal standing waves. The material enough, though it’s a shame that carry- that a few very basic in-room measure- itself is also very important, and Mor- ing the same styling motif through to ments are useful, to make sure speakers

measurements, continued

As suggested by the speaker’s flat on-axis response, the Performance 6’s farfield step response (fig.7) reveals that each drive-unit’s step smoothly integrates with that of the next lower in frequency. The individual step responses (fig.8) confirm that the tweeter (red trace) and midrange (blue) are connected in inverted acoustic polarity, the woofers (green) in positive polarity. The farfield cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.9) is beautifully clean, suggesting a lack of treble grain to the Mordaunt-Short’s sound. This is a beautiful-looking speaker that is equally beauti- fully engineered. Great things are coming from the UK these days. —John Atkinson

Fig.8 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, step response on tweeter axis at 50" of the tweeter (red), midrange unit (blue), and woofers (green). (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth.)

Fig.7 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, step response on tweeter axis at 50" Fig.9 Mordaunt-Short Performance 6, cumulative spectral-decay plot at (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth). 50" (0.15ms risetime).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 77 MORDAUNT-SHORT PERFORMANCE 6 are working properly and to help find reminded me of where the music was the best place to site them to achieve a ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT coming from. The top end was clean, good tonal balance. smooth, and transparent, if a little lack- Hooked up to my regular Naim- ANALOG SOURCES Linn Sondek ing in ultimate sweetness and delicacy, based system, positioned about 3.5' LP12 turntable, Rega RB1000 and the rear venting of the tweeter from the wall behind them and 4' from tonearm, Linn Akiva cartridge; Mag- undoubtedly assists soundstage spa- the sidewalls, and measured under num Dynalab MD 102 tuner. ciousness. A degree of overall time farfield averaged conditions, the Perfor- DIGITAL SOURCES Naim CDS 3, smearing did slightly soften transient mance 6 delivered an in-room response Burmester 001 CD players. dynamic expression, although the total that was exceptionally flat and smooth— PREAMPLIFIER Naim NAC552. dynamic range was very wide. even through the bass region, where POWER AMPLIFIERS Naim One of the biggest pitfalls in reviewing room interactions invariably introduce NAP500, Yamaha MX-D1, Leak loudspeakers lies in how the ear/brain some unevenness. However, it’s debat- Stereo 20 (restored). reacts to and ultimately accommodates able whether true flatness under these LOUDSPEAKERS B&W 802D, change. Another problem is that, imme- conditions is exactly what’s required. Tannoy Kensington. diately after one installs a new pair of The overwhelming majority of speakers CABLES Naim Audio interconnects; speakers, they are invariably judged opt for a slightly down-tilted trend from Vertex AQ Moncayo, Chord Signature, against their immediate predecessors, bass to treble in their in-room response, speaker cables. especially in terms of tonal balance. A as the best subjective compromise; in ACCESSORIES Mana, Naim support third potential problem—probably the this regard, its averaged room response furniture; Vertex AQ platforms. most challenging—is the way the sound suggests that the Performance 6 will —Paul Messenger of a speaker gradually “breaks in” over sound a little more thin, dry, and bright the first few days of use. than usual. Before setting up the Performance I tried moving the speakers closer to Signature cables seemed to do the trick 6s, I’d spent some days with a pair of the wall behind them to add a little admirably. While this didn’t change B&W 802Ds, which cost more than more subjective weight and warmth, the character of the system dramatical- twice as much as the M-S here in the but this tended to create a cancellation ly, it supplied just enough warmth and UK.1 It was no surprise, then, when suckout in the upper bass. The best richness to improve significantly the the Performance 6 failed to excite, at compromise in my room found the Per- speaker’s all-around listenability. The least at first. After a few days, however, formances, after much moving around, presence-region openness remained the strengths of the Performance 6 about 3' away from the wall. But rooms very evident, yet the top-end exposure began to assert themselves. It might vary considerably; in situ experimenta- seemed less troublesome, and there lack the bass weight and authority of tion will be essential for anyone serious- was a subtle increase in bass warmth. the larger B&W, and it doesn’t match ly considering these speakers. However, the Performance 6 made the 802D’s dynamic drama or the Once I’d got the Performance 6s posi- no attempt to hide or disguise aggres- sheer sweetness of B&W’s costly dia- tioned correctly, several observations sively recorded material—for example, mond tweeter. But the M-S was the immediately vied for my attention. First where significant compression had more neutral of the two by a significant and most obvious was the speaker’s rather been applied. This might prove some- margin—its coloration was very low— bright yet beautifully open tonal balance. thing of a handicap, depending on and it delivered two-channel images Most speakers dip out a little through the one’s taste in music, media, and listen- with a superb freedom from boxiness. presence zone, round about the transition ing levels. I’d describe it as a more And if the bass didn’t quite plumb the from midrange driver to tweeter, so that vinyl- than CD-friendly sound, and ultimate depths, it was still consistently voices—especially human speech—sound a found it thoroughly enjoyable when crisp and even, and beautifully agile. little “hooded” and “shut in,” almost as listening to speech and classical music though a hand were partly obscuring the on the BBC’s FM stations. Conclusions mouth and suppressing consonants and Switching and swapping out various The Mordaunt-Short Performance 6’s sibilants. That was not at all the case with other gear showed how effectively the tonal balance is unusually smooth and the Performance 6. Interestingly, I discov- Performance 6 could track these impressively neutral, though careful ered something very similar when changes to reveal these components’ selection of ancillaries will be necessary reviewing the Vivid Audio B1 for a UK underlying characters. The sweetness to keep it from sounding a little too for- magazine nine months ago, which sug- of the venerable Leak Stereo 20 tube ward and bright—especially as the bass, gests that a key advantage of a small amp, the warmth and weight of the though agile, is dry and lacks a little ulti- midrange driver is its ability to effectively Burmester CD player, and the crisp mate weight. Imaging is impressively fill-in the presence zone. clarity of Yamaha’s digital power amp, free from boxy effects and coloration is The Performance 6 tended to were all clearly revealed. very low, though the complex crossover emphasize fricatives a little, which Imaging was superb, the Perfor- network might well explain the slight aided intelligibility when the system mance 6s showing a brilliant freedom lack of dynamic expression. This is an was played at low and very low levels, from boxiness that was somehow more exceptionally stylish loudspeaker that is but sounded a little aggressive at high reminiscent of dipole panel speakers beautifully finished, stuffed with inno- volumes. Indeed, using my favorite than conventional monopole enclo- vations, and sells at what must be con- Vertex AQ Moncayo speaker cables, sures. The sound showed no tendency sidered a realistic price. ■■ the Performance 6 did sound a little to hang around the speaker positions; 1 Kalman Rubinson is working on a review of the too dry and bright. Substituting Chord only actually looking at the speakers B&W. —Ed.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 79 EQUIPMENT REPORT Cabasse Artis Baltic II & Thor II

Michael Fremer LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM

ARTIS BALTIC II Three-way, floorstand- ing loudspeaker with integral 80Hz high- pass filter. Drive-units: ca 1" Teonex- dome tweeter, ca 5" coaxial polypropy- lene-diaphragm midrange unit, ca 9" Duocell-diaphragm coaxial lower midrange unit. Crossover frequencies: 600Hz, 3.8kHz (all 12dB/octave). Fre- quency range: 80Hz–22kHz. Sensitivity: 93.5dB/2.83V/m). Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Minimum impedance: 3.2 ohms. Power handling: 200W. Peak power handling: 1400W. DIMENSIONS 48.5" (1245mm) H by 12.5" (320mm) W by 16.5" (425mm) D. Weight: 35.5 lbs (16kg). SERIAL NUMBER OF UNITS REVIEWED 200213041018 (pair). PRICE $8000/pair.

ARTIS THOR II Reflex-loaded powered subwoofer. Drive-unit: 12" Duocell-cone woofer. Inputs: 2 low-level, 2 high-level. Low-pass filter range: 40–180Hz. Phase: switchable, 0/180°. Frequency range: 22–200Hz. Maximum power output: 250W. Peak output power: 750W. DIMENSIONS 22" (565mm) H by 15" (385mm) W by 23" (590mm) D. Weight: A pair of Artis Baltic IIs eyeball an Artis Thor II subwoofer. 53 lbs (24kg). SERIAL NUMBER OF UNIT REVIEWED 200213041018. proper speaker installation can take a full day and sometimes PRICE $2500 each. part of a second, even in a familiar room. But by the time the sun sets on Day One, the system should be almost there—wher- BOTH ever there is. FINISHES 10 combinations of paint and But imagine, at the end of Day One, the following scenario: paint/wood veneers. APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF DEALERS Three exhausted, chain-smoking tech types dart frantically 60. Warranty: drivers, 5 years; electronics, around the room. One moves a pair of subwoofers, one tweaks a 2 years. halfA dozen or so unmarked potentiometers mounted in a small aluminum box; MANUFACTURER Cabasse, 210 rue the third supervises these changes, then listens for what seems like the 150th René Descartes, BP 10, 29280 Plouzané, time. Then, for what also seems the 150th time, collective consternation and France. Tel : (33) 02 98 05 88 88. Fax: shaken heads. After a heated three-way exchange, Trial No. 151 begins. (33) 02 98 05 88 99. Web: I don’t know exactly what’s just been said because neither I nor my wife speak www.cabasse.com. US distributor: French, but I have a pretty good idea—I’m hearing what they’re hearing, and it Cabasse America, 328 South Second ain’t subtle: the presentation is to sonic coherence what pulled pork is to a pig. Street, Millville, NJ 08332. Tel: (856) 327- 8220. Fax: (856) 327-8341. Web: There’s blat but nothing resembling bass, and any rhythmic connection between www.cabasse-usa.com. After-sales dept.: the music coming from the satellite and the blat from the passive subwoofers 2125 Stillwater Drive, Suite 109, Beau- seems purely coincidental. mont, TX 77705. Tel: (409) 722-6727. The then-US importer, who earlier in the day let me know with a swagger that Fax: (409) 962-8554. he was packing heat (or, for all I know, a plastic facsimile thereof), is in a foul

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 81 CABASSE BALTIC II & THOR II mood. He nods to me and we step out- was no point in reviewing a product of the system, the Artis Baltic II ($4000 side, perhaps to escape the smoke. that just wasn’t working—not to men- each) paired with Cabasse’s newest Once out of earshot of the three techs, tion one that apparently was not, con- powered subwoofer, the Artis Thor II he utters an ethnic slur or two before trary to what I’d been led to believe, ($2500 each). Even under show condi- engaging in a tirade. When he’s fin- quite finished. The time was the mid- tions, I could tell that the coherence ished, I remind him that, having for- 1990s and the speaker system was an issue had been resolved and that this gotten to bring cables, the installation earlier version of the Cabasse “eyeball” was a serious system well worth team has borrowed my lot of very speaker-and-subwoofer system that’s reviewing. But it took a while to, um, expensive balanced wires and reversed the subject of this review. get the ball rolling. their pin orientations using soldering You might think that, after that hell- techniques that had me humming ish day 10 years ago, I’d have preferred Speaker in the round “Mary Ann with the Shaky Hands.” to keep my distance, but the “eyeball” Founded by Georges Cabasse in 1950, In the end, I pulled the plug and told part of the experience had been mem- Cabasse got its start building drivers everyone to pack up and go home, orably good. Then, at last year’s and loudspeakers for the Cinemascope which I’m sure was a relief to all. There CEDIA Expo, I heard the latest version multichannel sound system developed

MEASUREMENTS

he Artis Baltic II “eyeball” had a high estimated The traces in fig.1 are free from the small glitches that voltage sensitivity of 90.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. Its would imply the existence of cabinet resonant modes. I impedance (fig.1) dropped to or below 4 ohms in couldn’t find any such resonances on the spherical enclo- the lower midrange and mid-treble but was other- sure, though the pedestal did vibrate a little in the lower Twise quite high. The speaker should not, therefore, be dif- midrange. The saddle centered on 89Hz in the imped- ficult to drive, though its use of a series capacitor to roll off ance-magnitude trace suggests that this is the tuning fre- the lows below 80Hz results in a combination of 6.7 quency of the small port mounted on the side of the eye- ohms magnitude and –45º electrical phase angle at 73Hz, ball. With this high a reflex-tuning frequency, the Baltic II which might tax underpowered amplifiers. definitely needs to be used with a subwoofer. The Artis Thor II’s crossover applies low-pass filtering to only the subwoofer; the satellite outputs are not high- pass filtered. Fig.2 shows the responses of the Thor II sub- woofer’s woofer and port, taken in the nearfield with the crossover control set to its highest frequency, 180Hz. The setting appears to be the subwoofer’s approximate –6dB point, while the port appears to be tuned to 28Hz. The upper-frequency rollouts of both radiators are free from the out-of-band spikes and discontinuities that would lead to coloration. The colored traces on the left of fig.3 show the Thor II subwoofer’s overall output with its low-pass filter set to

Fig.1 Cabasse Artis Baltic II, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.)

Fig.3 Cabasse Artis Baltic II, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50", averaged across 30° horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with the nearfield lower-midrange (red) and port (blue) responses, with their complex sum (black), as well as the complex sum of the Thor II’s nearfield woofer and port responses, taking into account acoustic phase and distance from the nominal Fig.2 Cabasse Artis Thor II, nearfield woofer and port responses with low- farfield point, with the low-pass filter set to 180Hz (pink), 120Hz pass filter set to 180Hz. (yellow), and 40Hz (green).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 83 CABASSE BALTIC II & THOR II by the film industry to lure patrons back to theaters following the intro- duction of television. Today the Cabasse line is diverse, though the triaxial TC22 compound driver, or “eyeball,” that’s the basis of the Artis Baltic II has become the company’s most recognizable drive-unit. This unique, miniaturized marvel—a three-way coincident-source driver— is available as a wall-mounted unit, An exploded view of the complex Artis Baltic II’s triaxial design. on a lightweight sculpted wooden stand (as reviewed), or as part of a full- range floorstander. You can grasp the ingenuity of the design from the Integrated into a ported, composite range from 80Hz to 22kHz and features “exploded” drawing—it’s not simply enclosure made of Rohacel—a specially an integral 80Hz, high-pass filter (all three nested drivers but a complex jig- processed, extremely rigid aerospace crossover slopes in the driver are saw puzzle of them. material—the Artis Baltic II covers the 12dB/octave). The outer convex white

measurements, continued

180Hz (pink trace), 120Hz (yellow), and 40Hz (green). All things being equal, I suspect that MF’s comments on The level control was kept the same for these measure- the speaker’s elevated presence region perhaps stem ments, which means that it needs to be raised at the from the relative lack of lower-midrange energy rather lower settings to keep the bass balance uniform. To my than from the mid-treble balance, and that it was this lack surprise, the 80Hz setting produced a response not signifi- that exacerbated his problems with integrating the satel- cantly different from the 40Hz one, which is perhaps one lites with the subwoofers in his room. reason Michael Fremer had problems with his initial A speaker’s perceived response, of course, depends not setup. The black trace below 300Hz is the complex sum of only on its on-axis behavior but also on its dispersion, the Baltic’s nearfield midrange (red) and port (blue) out- which will affect the balance of the reverberant soundfield puts. The satellite rolls out below 100Hz, which implies in the listening room. Fig.4 shows that the Baltic’s horizon- that setting the subwoofer’s control to 80Hz would give tal radiation pattern is uniform in the midrange but main- the optimal crossover to the Thor II, provided the latter’s tains that uniformity only within a narrow (±15º) window level was increased appropriately. But as MF found this at higher frequencies. A presence-region suckout develops not to be the case, it is possible that his room acoustics at greater off-axis angles and the speaker becomes more interfered with the integration of the two units, which is directional at high frequencies than I would have expect- why he had to set the frequency a little higher. ed. In large rooms, the Baltic might well sound rather dull. Though the eyeball’s port output peaks at the port’s In the vertical plane, plotted only to ±15º away from the tuning frequency, the midrange unit’s minimum-motion tweeter axis (fig.5), the speaker’s symmetrical design point, which is where the back pressure from the port res- leads to a similar dispersion to the horizontal pattern. onance holds the diaphragm motionless, lies 10Hz lower, So far, I have discussed the quasi-anechoic measure- at 78Hz. The Baltic II’s response trend at higher frequen- ments of the Baltic II and Thor II, taken either in the cies is marred by a peak at 600Hz and a lack of energy in nearfield or with the satellite far above the ground, on a the octave-wide region above that frequency. The treble is high stand. By contrast, fig.6 shows the Baltic and Thor’s basically flat, with small peaks balanced by small valleys.

Fig.4 Cabasse Artis Baltic II, lateral response family at 50", normalized to Fig.5 Cabasse Artis Baltic II, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90–5° off axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90° off 15–5° above axis, reference response, differences in response 5–15° axis. below axis.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 85 CABASSE BALTIC II & THOR II ring radiator, which covers the lower derived from concentric sources), in midrange (80–600Hz), is a long-throw which all directional frequencies design made of a material Cabasse emanate from a central location, identifies as Duocell but otherwise seems obvious. But Cabasse showed doesn’t detail. The outer driver’s unusu- me a detailed PowerPoint presenta- al reverse surround is hidden from view tion that concluded that coincidental- within the spherical enclosure. The ly generated direct and reflected inner white convex ring sounds result in greater transparency (600Hz–3.8kHz) looks similar to the and a larger sweet spot when com- outer one but is made of polypropylene pared to stacked multidriver systems, or Kaladex, depending on where you whose reflected sound will, of neces- look in Cabasse’s literature. Finally, the sity, be more disjointed. tweeter, approximately 1" in diameter, The system has a specified voltage uses a dome made of a DuPont Mylar, Cutaway view of the Baltic II. sensitivity of 93.5dB, but with a nomi- either Teonex or Kaladex (also depend- nal 8 ohm impedance curve that drops ing on where you look). below 4 ohms in places. Cabasse calls its version of the coin- Source, or SCS. The conceptual ad- The multilanguage “instruction cident source the Spatial Coherent vantage of a point source (here manual” accompanying this $13,000

measurements, continued

response in MF’s listening room. To produce this graph, I in the lower midrange—just before the subwoofers, set to 1 averaged 120 ⁄3-octave measurements for each speaker, MF’s preferred control positions, come in. The bass is flat 1 taken at nine positions on a grid centered on the position down to the 31.5Hz ⁄3-octave band, with a relatively quick of Mikey’s ears in his listening chair. Though the upper rollout below that region. midrange and treble are well balanced, with good fre- The Baltic II’s step response on the tweeter axis (fig.7) quency extension, there is still an apparent lack of energy is complex, the drive-units’ steps arriving at the measuring microphone at successively later times. Some ringing can also be seen, which manifests itself in the speaker’s cumulative spectral-decay graph (fig.8) as ridges of delayed energy between 600–700Hz (the region where the on-axis response has its peak) and 3.8kHz. I suspect that the small peak in the on-axis response at this fre- quency correlates with MF’s comment that, when played back at high levels, “the system’s sound became some- what glassy, bright, and a bit forward.” As Michael Fremer found, the Cabasse Artis Baltic II’s and Thor II’s measured behaviors made setup a tricky business, though it’s fair to point out that he did ultimate- ly get satisfying performance from this idiosyncratic sys- tem. —John Atkinson

1 Fig.6 Cabasse Artis Baltic II & Thor II, ⁄3-octave, spatially averaged response in MF’s listening room.

Fig.7 Cabasse Artis Baltic II, step response on tweeter axis at 50" (5ms Fig.8 Cabasse Artis Baltic II, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 50" (0.15ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth). risetime).

86 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 CABASSE BALTIC II & THOR II system more closely resembles what and phase. Though the eyeball is band- do, going so far as to mark each record comes with a $399 home theater in a width-limited to 80Hz and the sub’s and CD for it; but without a phase box. Basically a one-sheet, it’s entirely crossover adjustment has a position switch, I’m in the hands of the master- inadequate, and unacceptable for any marked “80Hz,” setting it there left ing engineer. high-end audio product, especially a what sounded like a gaping hole sat-sub system as difficult to set up as between the two units; bumping up A hard act to follow this one is. Even companies that man- the sub’s nominal crossover point to Context plays a bigger role in audio date dealer installation, such as Linn, around 110Hz provided a far more sat- reviewing than many reviewers are provide better documentation. Cabasse needs to do better. THE CABASSE ARTIS SYSTEM LET ME FEEL THE Speaker on the floor The Artis Thor II powered subwoofer BOW HAIRS BEING DRAWN AGAINST THE STRINGS is a large, gracefully curved, side-vent- ed box finished in attractive veneers. WITHOUT UNNATURAL EDGE OR HARSHNESS. Its 250W, class-AB amplifier drives a 12" Duocell cone that fires at the floor. The system accepts both line- and isfactory blend. There was definitely an willing to admit—after the perfor- speaker-level inputs, and features pass- interaction between crossover point mance put on by the Wilson Audio through facilities for both. Level, low- and subwoofer level that had to be MAXX2s, any loudspeaker entering pass crossover frequency, and phase massaged in order to achieve an ideal my system would be at a distinct disad- (switchable between 0° and 180°) can blend. Once I was satisfied with the vantage. But, after the Wilsons’ depar- be adjusted with controls on the side- crossover point, I began listening to ture, once my ears and head had mounted control panel. The Thor II’s familiar material with the bass dialed cleared out and I’d given the Cabasse rated frequency response is 22–200Hz out entirely, then slowly increased the Artis speakers a chance on their own (including the port contribution). level until there was sufficient bottom- terms, I was more than satisfied with end weight, but not too much—a bal- their performance. I kept them in my Eyeballs to the wall ance not all that easy to achieve. system for almost two months, and Not surprisingly, the Artis Thor II subs Like any other sat-sub system, the their long-term listenability was out- worked best when placed very close to Cabasse Thor-Baltic combo is ripe for standing. Any doubts I’d had about where every loudspeaker I’ve reviewed abuse. Better too little bass than too their ability to create a subjectively in this room has ended up: about 38" much. While the system has the poten- coherent, top-to-bottom sonic presen- from the front wall. The centers of the tial to drive audiophiles crazy—especial- tation were quickly dispelled—quite the subs’ floor-firing cones ended up on ly those who thrive only on certainty—I opposite of my previous exposure! the strip of masking tape that marked found that, once the system was dialed The system’s tonal balance was where the front baffles of the Wilson in correctly, I left it alone. In the end, I smooth, airy, and—especially—texturally Audio Specialties MAXX2s had been felt that, in order to avoid hearing rich, with a fast yet buttery finish that (see review in the August 2005 Stereo- “bass,” as opposed to instruments creat- didn’t hide detail and was free of sharp phile). This placement dictated that the ing bass, I had to run the system slightly spikes. The presentation had an almost Artis Baltic IIs be placed behind the leaner than what I thought sounded planar-magnetic transparency, open- Thor IIs, somewhat farther away from like neutral. But overall, I was happy ness, and resolve, with the suggestion of the listening position than usual and with the blend and never found myself a slight but broad presence-region ele- closer to the front wall. But because fiddling with it. vation (or a sharp dip above it)—the the eyeballs are bandwidth-limited to The only change came when kind that’s easily ignored over time and 80Hz and above, and because my Cabasse America’s Dale Fontenot paid doesn’t interfere with proper timbral room has no serious bass bumps, that a visit. He was gratified to find that I’d presentation, but that adds an almost worked out fine. I got subjectively done a reasonably good, if not perfect, imperceptible sense of liveliness. smooth extension to below 30Hz. job of placing and blending the system, Violinist Daniel Gaede and pianist Rather than passing the signal but suggested reversing the polarity of Xuesu Liu’s very revealing The Tube through the subs and then out to the the entire system by flipping the Baltic Only Violin was an ideal demo record satellites, I ran both the Baltics and IIs’ speaker-cable leads and sliding the for this system (180gm LP, Tacet L117). Thors directly from the amplifier, Thor II subwoofers’ phase switches to These subtly miked performances of which is the most direct connection. 180°. That made what I’d thought was a works by Tchaikovsky, Ysaÿe, Elgar, Cabasse provided a pair of Cardas very fine-sounding system into an Massenet, Schubert, Schumann, and Golden Reference AC cords to power exceptionally fine-sounding one, with Kreisler for violin and piano, subtly the subs. improved spaciousness. (But how could miked and recorded without the use of Getting the subs and eyeballs to I have known about the tweak when transistors, revealed the Artis system’s blend acoustically was a bit trickier the instructions don’t even suggest try- smooth and relaxed personality as well than choosing where to put them, and ing it?) Of course, the improvement as its ability to resolve fine textural gra- definitely required an experienced lis- depended on the absolute polarity of dations. I couldn’t ask for a rendering tener to dial in correctly. Basically, the the recording being played. But that’s a of a solo violin that was more convinc- user becomes the speaker designer, conceptual observation; I don’t pay ing harmonically, texturally, and spa- choosing bass level, crossover point, attention to polarity. Some audiophiles tially. The Artises let me feel the bow

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 89 CABASSE BALTIC II & THOR II hairs being drawn against the strings Drake’s guitar had a sparkling yet deli- of the strings (woody but not warm), without unnatural edge or harshness. cate attack, the strings a warm, resiny and the brash but not piercing brass. The piano, somewhat more distantly richness, and his voice the intimacy, Whatever the Artis system gave up in miked, was presented effectively three-dimensionality, and believability ultimate weight it more than made up focused, believably sized, and with a that are produced only when the many in unerring, irresistibly natural musical sophisticated balance of percussive components that define the male voice flow. I recognized the instruments. They touch, reverberation, harmonic com- convincingly jell. sounded right. plexity, and effective decay, all of which One evening I made a CD-R for a Beyond their pleasing spectral bal- helped to create the illusion of actually friend of an original pressing of Fritz ance, the Artis Baltic IIs and Artis Thor being in its presence. Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s IIs had a pulse-like rhythmic agility Another piano disc that sounded 1954 recording of Strauss’s Also sprach and a sense of musical “whole” more particularly pleasing was Hold Me to Zarathustra (RCA Living Stereo LSC- commonly heard from single-driver This: Christopher O’Riley Plays Radiohead, 1806). I was pleased with the weight horn systems, but with far better recorded in summer 2004 by Da- and authority of the organ, the balance extension and less coloration. This sys- Hong Seetoo in a church in Palo tem will not bowl you over in the short Alto, California (CD, World Vil- run, nor did I find its sound particular- lage/Harmonia Mundi 468034). See- ly vivid or draw-me-in inviting—but if too comes from the audiophile side ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT what you hear on first encounter pleas- of the pro-audio fence—he used to ANALOG SOURCES Simon Yorke S7, es you, my experience indicates that, work for Fanfare International’s Vic- Nottingham Audio Deco turntables; chances are, it will satisfy you over the tor Goldstein, and he knows what Immedia RPM-2, Graham 2.2, Phan- long term as well. Even immediately good sound is. He captured it on this tom, Nottingham Ace-Anna tone- following two months of Wilson disc. The Baltic-Thor combo scored arms; Lyra Titan, Lyra Helikon, Lyra Audio MAXX2 dynamite, I continued points with me for its credible pre- Dorian mono, London Jubilee car- to enjoy all varieties of music through sentation of both the solo piano and tridges. the Cabasse Artis system—right up the church space. The piano managed DIGITAL SOURCE Musical Fidelity until I had to move on to the next a rich, woody warmth without Tri-Vista SACD player; Alesis Master- review sample. sounding muffled or thick. link CD-R recorder. The system’s freedom from conges- PREAMPLIFICATION Manley Steel- Shortcomings? tion and its lack of boxlike colorations head, Aesthetix Rhea, Musical Fidelity While the Baltics and Thors could play rendered human voices eerily palpable. kW phono preamplifiers; Musical loudly, their balance was far more I picked from a bunch of recently Fidelity kWp, Aesthetix Calypso pre- effective, pleasing, and relaxing at arrived CDs a new one by Judy Collins, amplifiers. moderate SPLs. Pushed too hard, the Portrait of an American Girl (Wildflower POWER AMPLIFIERS Musical Fideli- system’s sound became somewhat WFL 1305). The old gal’s voice still ty kW, Audio Valve Baldour. glassy, bright, and a bit forward—proba- sounds as supple and open as a 25-year- LOUDSPEAKERS Wilson Audio Spe- bly due to that one minor response old’s (she’s 66), but for some reason, cialties MAXX2. anomaly somewhere in the upper Collins, who also produced, decided to CABLES Phono: Cardas Neutral Ref- mids. But I had to push it to higher- bathe herself in ghostly amounts of erence, Audience Au24, Hovland. than-normal SPLs to get that. reverb, which hardly sounded necessary. Interconnect: AudioQuest Sky, Trans- The Artis system’s biggest short- The Baltic IIs and Thor IIs managed to parent Audio Reference, Harmonic coming was its dynamic scaling. While float a solid yet delicate, unclouded Technology CyberLight LAM Photon microdynamics—those small dynamic vocal image within the wall-to-wall Transducer. Speaker: Transparent gestures that give recorded music life— reverberation field. A recently released Audio Reference, Acrolink Mexcel were rendered with great detail and vinyl edition of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the 7N-S20000. AC: Shunyata Research, delicacy, perhaps even somewhat bet- Irving Berlin Songbook (2 LPs, JPS. ter than the Wilson MAXX2s, the Verve/Speakers Corner MG VS-6005- ACCESSORIES Sounds of Silence Artises faltered somewhat when asked 2) produced a most thrilling and trans- Vibraplane active, Era Audio Harmo- to express the grandest musical ges- parent 3-D Ella in the room, though the nizer of Space isolation platforms; tures. Don’t expect realistic symphonic Cabasses’ resolve was sufficient to tell Finite Elemente Pagode, Continuum dynamic scale; but then, only big rigs me that my original Verve pressing, Audio Labs magnetic levitation costing a lot more do that correctly though noisier, offers greater clarity, equipment stand; Shun Mook Audio (including of course, the MAXX2s). transparency, and focus. This was proba- LP Record Clamp, Locus Damp- The Baltic-Thor combo was also bly the result of the tape having been a Clamp, Hagerman Audio UFO slightly deficient in its ability to project copy, at least one generation down, and clamp/strobe; Loricraft, VPI HW-17F realistic stage height—but again, only suffering from signs of aging. record-cleaning machines; Audio- dharma Cable Cooker; Walker Audio Well-recorded male voices also 1 It’s indicative of how few albums Drake sold during had fine weight and body and were Precision Isolated Power Motor his brief life and up until this mid-1970s disc that it free of excess chestiness, which made Drive; Shunyata Research Hydra 2 & was pressed from only the third stamper made from the first mother produced by only the second lacquer a sample of the third UK Island Hydra 8 power conditioners, APC S cut from the master tape—and, for all I know, the first pressing of Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter1 15 power conditioner with battery lacquer was chucked, which would mean that even backup; ASC Tube Traps, RPG BAD & first pressings may have been generated from the sec- (ILPS 9134), with its chamber-music- ond lacquer. Having never seen a pink-label original, like orchestrations, sound ethereal; Abffusor panels. –Michael Fremer I don’t know.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 91 CABASSE BALTIC II & THOR II when compared to the floor-to-ceiling the subjective smoothness of the Artises’ stages produced by the MAXX2s and frequency and power responses (not flat, many planar-magnetic and electrostatic but free of peaky behavior) and the open designs. Same with center image fill, space they freed up in my room (espe- where I’ve heard greater solidity and cially after the unusually voluminous across-the-stage integration. Wilson MAXX2s), I often felt as if there were no speakers present at all. The con- cerns I had about getting hovering, THE EYE- AND ungrounded, flying-saucer–like sonic images from the Baltic IIs vanished once EAR-CATCHING the Thor IIs were properly dialed in. COMBINATION OF While the Baltic-Thor combo didn’t produce the kind of wall-to-wall, floor- CABASSE’S ARTIS BALTIC II to-ceiling sonic pictures managed by some other larger, more expensive AND THOR II speakers, it compensated with an unusually open, airy, coherent sound CONSTITUTES A that I found addictive. Recordings of solo performers and small ensembles UNIQUE AND were nearly ideal in every way. FASCINATING SLICE The system’s mild dynamic limita- tions were also compensated for by its OF SPEAKER almost full-range (and self-powered) bass performance, though some may find it TECHNOLOGY. slightly dry and a touch mechanical— especially if you can’t avoid the tempta- tion to crank it up to stomach-popping But the Artis system’s rhythmic levels. The Baltic II’s 93.5dB sensitivity swagger, and especially its tuneful bot- means that less powerful and therefore tom-end punch, were noteworthy. less expensive amplification, including While the Thor II’s performance was tubes, can be used. That makes the punchy, it was anything but “one-note Artis system’s $13,000 price with two bass.” When properly blended with the subwoofers somewhat easier to take in Baltic II, the Thor II’s low-frequency the context of a complete system’s cost. performance was nimble, well-defined, Be prepared to spend a lot of time texturally believable, and most tuneful. positioning the Thor IIs and adjusting Jazz and rock were particularly well their crossover frequency and level in served by the system. These speakers order to get an effective blend with the MBL Radialstrahler were unerringly “musical”—but if Baltic IIs. And remember that the foot- – the 3-dimensional experience – you’re not careful with how high you print of the two components will be set the subwoofer level, all bets are off. greater than that of many full-range all the beauty speakers. The tall Baltic II makes sense and magic Conclusions for a home theater, where most people of natural sound Keep your eye on that eyeball and you put the subwoofer in a corner and for- might find it difficult to get beyond the get about it. But for a two-channel sys- Cabasse Artis system’s unusual looks. tem, a frame allowing the TC22 eyeball Still, the design seems to make perfect to be suspended at ear height directly technical sense. A few visitors claimed above but isolated from the Thor II to be able to aurally “see” the sub- would probably be more space-effi- woofers and eyeballs, but after two cient. In a two-channel system, you’ll months with the system, I became con- need to place the Thor IIs where they vinced that one’s own eyeball can need to go, then hope you can find deceive. Presented with such an unusu- room for the Baltic IIs so they can pro- al combo of speaker versions of R2D2 duce the desired soundstage. and C-3PO, the eye can overwhelm Overall, the eye- and ear-catching the ears and create a false impression. combination of Cabasse’s Artis Baltic II Lights-out listening convinced me that and Thor II constitutes a unique and this system had legs as well as eyeballs. fascinating slice of speaker technology, The absence of a baffle and the pres- and a nearly full-range system at what I ence of what sounded like an exception- consider to be a very reasonable price. MBL of America ally coherent and concentrated wave Don’t miss the chance to hear it prop- Phone: (001) 480 563 4393 launch produced a spacious, wide-open erly set up: when you do, you may well e-Mail: [email protected] soundfield across the room. Because of be sold on it. ■■ www.mbl-hifi.com

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 93 EQUIPMENT REPORT Almarro M0A

Robert J. Reina LOUDSPEAKER

DESCRIPTION Two-way, reflex- loaded dynamic speaker with inte- gral stand. Drive-unit: 4" cone unit with a neodymium magnet run full- range, 6.5" honeycomb-cone woofer with neodymium magnet. Frequency range: 45Hz–20kHz. Sensitivity: 90dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 6 ohms. Maximum power handling: The Almarro M0A loudspeaker. 60W. DIMENSIONS 15.6" (400mm) H by 7.8" (200mm) W by 13.25" (340mm) ne of my favorite parts of attending Stereophile’s Home Enter- D. Weight: 19.8 lbs (9kg). Stand: tainment shows—aside from seeking out the sexy new gear and 22.6" (580mm) H by 10.9" (280mm) pressing the flesh of readers—is the “Ask the Editors” panel dis- W by 15.6" (400mm) D. Weight: 15.4 cussions. What begins as a Q&A session usually turns into a lbs (7kg). free-for-all, as the outspoken and opinionated likes of Sam Tel- FINISHES Black, matte or gloss. lig, Michael Fremer, Ken Kessler, and John Marks barely give SERIAL NUMBERS OF UNITS room for wallflowers such as Art Dudley and yours truly to REVIEWED P220002/3. express our opinions—except when editor John Atkinson asks each of us, in turn, PRICE $1200/pair with steel stands, O to cast our votes for the “most interesting rooms to visit.” At both the HE2004 matte black finish; $1350/pair with and HE2005 “Ask the Editors” panels, one company was recommended by a aluminum stands, gloss black finish. number of Stereophile writers, me included: Almarro Products. Approximate number of dealers: 12. Never heard of Almarro? That’s another thing I like about our HE shows. They MANUFACTURER Almarro Products, give manufacturers who are not household names in the US a chance to show 1938 Nakadaira Kanae Iida, Nagano their wares, demonstrate (hopefully) good sound, and shout to our readers: “We 395-0801, Japan. Tel: (81) 265-52- are a real company! These are real products! You can buy them through our deal- 1788. Fax: (81) 265-24-6783. US dis- er network!” At HE2004 and HE2005 Almarro produced some of the best sound, tributor: Almarro USA, 1800 Fumia in my opinion. What was more remarkable was that the good sound was created Place, San Jose, CA 95131. Tel: (408) with very affordable gear. And what was most remarkable was that the sound was 375-3799. Web: www.almarro.com. produced by speakers, push-pull amplifiers, and single-ended-triode (SET) ampli-

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 95 (SET) amplifiers—all designed and Yoshihiro Muramatsu created Net- prototype of this model that I’d heard manufactured by Almarro. work in 1980 from another small at HE2004 and that had first attract- company he’d started in 1975. And in ed me to Almarro. Background 1999 Muramatsu (having learned his The M0A is a two-way, rear-vented Almarro Products is a subsidiary of craft from his father) inherited his satellite speaker with a 4" full-range Network Supply Corp., which spe- father’s woodworking factory. drive-unit and a 6.5" woofer, both with cializes in the design and manufacture Almarro’s current product line neodymium magnets. That’s right—the of electronic communication devices. comprises six loudspeakers 4" driver is technically not a tweeter, Network employs 13 in design and ($600–$4500/pair), two SET stereo but runs full-range. According to production and is located on the sec- power amplifiers ($800 and $1500), designer Yoshihiro Muramatsu, the ond floor of a supermarket in and a push-pull stereo integrated lack of a crossover on the smaller driv- Nagano, Japan. The company’s 25- amplifier ($2250). I chose the M0A er, together with the overlap of the year relationship with electronics speaker ($1200–$1350/pair, depend- woofer’s and the small driver’s ranges, parts suppliers in Japan enables it to ing on finish and including integrat- has more clarity and smoothness than a buy high-quality parts at low prices. ed stands)—after all, it was an early typical two-way dynamic design. A

MEASUREMENTS

s Bob Reina explained, the Almarro M0A is decep- output features the usual reflex notch at the port tuning tive-looking because what appears to be its stand frequency, while the port’s output peaks appropriately at is actually part of the speaker’s acoustic design. I the same frequency. However, a second peak can be therefore measured it attached to the stand. I esti- seen in the port’s response at 200Hz, the frequency of matedA the M0A’s voltage sensitivity as 88.5dB(B)/2.83V/m. the impedance anomaly, which coincides with a suckout Though this is slightly below the specified 90dB, it is still in the woofer’s response. This behavior is classic evi- higher than average. The M0A’s impedance magnitude dence of some sort of internal air-space resonance and, (fig.1) is quite different between the bass, where it averages all things being equal, might be expected to lead to a 5 ohms, and the treble, where it rises from 6 ohms at 1kHz lack of clarity in the lower midrange. I note that BJR com- to more than 20 ohms above 12kHz. Using a tube amplifier with this speaker, with its typically high source impedance, will tilt up the speaker’s high frequencies by an audibly sig- nificant result compared with a typical solid-state design. There is a wrinkle in the impedance traces at 200Hz, which implies that some sort of resonance exists at this fre- quency. However, investigating the vibrational behavior of the cabinet’s panels with an accelerometer uncovered no resonances other than one at a low level at 94Hz on the rear panel (fig.2). The cabinet’s side panels were acousti- cally inert. The saddle centered on 41.5Hz in the impedance- magnitude trace suggests that this is the tuning frequen- cy of the large-diameter port on the speaker’s rear panel, Fig.2 Almarro M0A, cumulative spectral-decay plot calculated from the output of an accelerometer fastened to the center of the cabinet’s which loads the woofer, not the 4" cone “tweeter.” This is rear panel (MLS driving voltage to speaker, 7.55V; measurement confirmed by the nearfield responses of the woofer bandwidth, 2kHz). (fig.3, red trace) and port (fig.3, green). The woofer’s

Fig.3 Almarro M0A, acoustic crossover on tweeter axis at 50", corrected for microphone response, with the nearfield responses of the Fig.1 Almarro M0A, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 tweeter (blue), woofer (red), and port (green) plotted below ohms/vertical div.) 300Hz, 400Hz, and 1kHz, respectively.

96 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 ALMARRO M0A honeycomb is used for the woofer in on solid-state, but feels the speaker is fanatic from settling for anything else. order to minimize resonance and max- compatible with the technology. With This intoxicating sound is built around imize linearity throughout its range. both solid-state and push-pull tube a rich, delicate, holographic midrange The speakers come with integrated amplification, I preferred the more with uncanny resolution of low-level stands; in fact, they’re packaged already detailed sound of the M0As sans detail and microdynamics. Transients bolted to the stands. The bottom of the grilles; I heard no difference in tonal are delicate and natural, with superb speaker cabinet opens into the stand’s balance, grilles on or off. rendition of soundstaging and record- interior, which functions as part of the ing-venue ambience. The overall tex- woofer cabinet. Technically, the M0A Sound tural presentation is warm and relaxed. is a floorstanding speaker masquerad- To describe the sound of the Almarro On the minus side, SET amplifiers ing as a bookshelf speaker. M0A, I first need to digress briefly on tend not to be the last word in high- Muramatsu recommends listening what constitutes the typical single- level dynamic slam or high definition to the M0As with their grilles off with ended-triode “sound.” In every SET at either frequency extreme. SET SET amplification, and grilles on with system I’ve heard, there has been a cer- junkies tend to listen more to Joni push-pull tube amps. He has no views tain “magic” that prevents the SET Mitchell and string quartets than to

mented on some warmth in this region. against definition and control. The big surprise for me was to discover that the M0A’s Higher in frequency, fig.4 shows the Almarro’s actual two drive-units are not driven by a conventional crossover. farfield response, averaged across a 30º window on the Instead, what I referred to as the “tweeter”—the 4" cone “tweeter” axis. The fact that two drive-units cover the unit—extends down to 125Hz (fig.3, blue trace), rolling off region below 1kHz leads to an apparent shelving-down of below that frequency with the second-order, 12dB/octave the treble region, which might have contributed to BJR’s slope typical of a sealed-box loading. I expect that this driv- comments about the speaker’s “relaxed” high frequencies, er’s limited cone excursion at lower frequencies con- particularly when compared to more conventional designs. tributes to the lack of dynamic range noted by BJR in his But note how flat the M0A’s treble is overall, at least below auditioning. The woofer and port extend almost two 10kHz and above the deep, narrow suckout at 1.2kHz. octaves below the “tweeter,” with the woofer duplicating Fig.5, a plot of the M0A’s lateral dispersion, reveals that its output up to the upper midrange. The woofer’s this on-axis notch tends to fill in to the speaker’s sides, midrange output is uneven, and it rolls off steeply above 1kHz. The 4" unit’s output is smooth from the lower midrange through the mid-treble, but its response in the top two octaves is ragged, broken by peaks and dips. Below 300Hz, fig.4 combines the complex sum of the three nearfield responses, scaled in the ratio of their radiat- ing diameters and allowing for acoustic phase and the dif- ferent distances of the sound sources from a nominal point in the speaker’s farfield. As BJR found in his auditioning, the M0A offers good bass extension, though the lack of the usual nearfield hump in the upper bass suggests a rather overdamped alignment, which trades off bass weight

Fig.5 Almarro M0A, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90–5° off axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90° off axis.

Fig.4 Almarro M0A, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50", averaged across 30° horizontal window and corrected for microphone Fig.6 Almarro M0A, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response, with the complex sum of the nearfield tweeter, woofer, response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in and port responses, taking into account acoustic phase and response 15–5° above axis, reference response, differences in distance from the nominal farfield point, plotted below 300Hz. response 5–15° below axis.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 97 ALMARRO M0A

Kraftwerk and Nine Inch Nails. range.” On Dana Fuchs’s rock ballad top jazz guitar was rich, vibrant, and The preceding paragraph pretty “Strung Out,” from Lonely for a Lifetime subtle. On every track of this 1950s much sums up the sound of the Almar- (CD, Q&W 1009), the rock goddess’s mono recording, Smith sounded as ro M0A: the speaker sounded like a high-energy belts on the chorus gave natural as I’ve heard a recorded archtop SET amp. I never actually drove the me the chills I get when I see this mas- guitar, despite the fact that the guitar M0A with a SET amplifier, and the terful singer-songwriter live. Male pickup was plugged right into the mix- sound was the same whether I used my vocals were no slouch, either—on “Too ing board—an unusual recording tech- Creek solid-state amplification or my Proud,” from his Give It Up to Love nique for the era. On John Rutter’s tube Audio Valve/Audio Research (CD, JVC JVXR0012-2), Mighty Sam Requiem (CD, Reference RR57-CD), push-pull combination. McClain sounded sweet, silky, yet the voices of the male and female cho- Female vocals were to die for with appropriately raspy and chesty, risters were precisely layered across the the Almarros. Madeleine Peyroux’s although the lower midrange did have wide, deep soundstage, and the low- “Hey Sweet Man,” from Dreamland a slightly thick quality when McClain level dynamic articulation was com- (CD, Atlantic 82956-2), had me melt- sang in his lower register. pletely continuous and organic. ing into a puddle in Peyroux’s rich, The Almarro’s midrange also let jazz John Atkinson’s recording of Kohji- seductive, holographic splendor. From and classical recordings shine. On The ba’s Transmigration of the Soul, from Festi- my listening notes: “the most satisfying Johnny Smith Quartet (LP, Roost LP 22- val (CD, Stereophile STPH007-2), vocal speaker I’ve heard in this price 3), this underrated master of the arch- begins with a wailing voice walking up

measurements, continued

though the 4" unit’s relatively large radiating diameter gives looking back at fig.4, there are none of the higher-frequency rise to an uneven, generally poor radiation pattern above notches that would be present if that were the case. 3.5kHz or so. The 1.2kHz notch also fills in for microphone Why would the Almarro M0A’s designer use this very positions below the “tweeter” axis (fig.6) and worsens for unconventional approach to system design? One factor is positions above that axis, suggesting that it might be due to that, without a crossover, the speaker’s step response interference between the overlapping drive-units. However, (fig.7) has an excellent right-angle shape, though this is overlaid with both high- and low-frequency oscillations. Looking at the steps of the individual drive-units (fig.8, taken with an anti-aliasing filter different from that used for fig.7, which exaggerates the attacks of the leading edges), the high-frequency ringing is associated with the step of the “tweeter” (red trace), while the lower-frequency ring- ing emanates from the woofer alone (blue). The M0A’s waterfall plot (fig.9) reveals that the LF ringing is associated with the on-axis notch at 1.2kHz; the suckout must therefore be characteristic of the woofer’s behavior, not an interference effect. The Almarro decays cleanly in the low and mid-treble, but its top two octaves are marred by ridges of resonant energy. Fortunately, most of this energy lies above 10kHz, where the ear’s sensitivity begins to decrease. The Almarro M0A offers a mixed bag of measurements, Fig.7 Almarro M0A, step response on tweeter axis at 50" (5ms time but overall its performance mostly overcomes what might be window, 30kHz bandwidth). thought to be the limitations of its unconventional design. The exception, of course, will be its limited dynamic range— you can ask for only so much from a 4" drive-unit run full- range—and its poor dispersion in the treble. —John Atkinson

Fig.8 Almarro M0A, step response of tweeter (red) and woofer (blue) on Fig.9 Almarro M0A, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 50" (0.15ms tweeter axis at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth). risetime).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 99 ALMARRO M0A to the stage from the rear of the hall. the chorus on “How Am I Different,” and percussion were relaxed and sweet, Soprano Kendra Colton was chillingly from Aimee Mann’s Bachelor No. 2 or though perhaps lacked a bit of top-end wonderful, and every bit of the size and The Last Remains of the Dodo (CD, air. This recording’s dynamics were shape of Santa Fe’s St. Francis Auditori- Super Ego SE 002). Although every very convincing—especially the bom- um was audible through the M0As. vocal and instrumental timbre was in bastic bass drum at the finale. As this Cellos were simultaneously woody and place on this highly processed electric recording combines high-level drama warm, with just the requisite amount of recording, the powerful crescendos with extensive use of pianissimo pas- rosiny “scratch.” This recording showed during the song’s catchy bridge tended sages and open space, any dynamic off the Almarro’s high-frequency capa- to flatten out a bit. compression was not as noticeable as bilities as well. During my early listen- My comment about Nine Inch with some high-energy rock recordings ing sessions with the speaker, I thought Nails notwithstanding, for some rea- I tried. it lacked extreme high-frequency exten- son I kept wanting to crank up head- sion; detail seemed to decrease as the banging rock music to ridiculous vol- Comparisons frequency climbed. I was wrong. The umes with the M0A. On Hole’s high- I compared the Almarro M0A high-frequency detail was there, but it ly compressed Celebrity Skin (CD, ($1200/pair) with the Amphion Heli- was relaxed and did not call attention to Geffen DGCD 25164), the punchy um2 ($1000/pair), the Nóla (née Alón) itself. The piccolo on Transmigration of the recording really burned at 90–95dB Li’l Rascal Mk.II ($600/pair), and the Soul was extended and airy, but also levels. On Sun Never Sets in Dramaville, Epos M5 ($650/pair). sweet and not overly etched. Violins the inaugural release of Ultra High The Amphion Helium2 was silky, were also extended in the upper register, Frequency, my latest fave indie band airy, and detailed, with a more articu- but naturally sweet as well. Similarly, on (CD, Mugshot MUG0001), Frank late and extended top end than the George Crumb’s Quest (CD, Bridge Fussa’s rich, forceful vocals provided Almarro M0A. The speakers’ 9069), the closely miked and highly the glue that bonded the high-octane midranges were equally rich, detailed, dynamic bells were extended through- guitars, which are distorted but natu- and natural, but low-level passages out their upper harmonic range. rally rich. were easier to follow on the Amphion. The M0A’s midbass was slightly The single disc that brought the key The Almarro’s low-level dynamics warm, though with no recording did characteristics of the Almarro together were as good as the Amphion’s, but the this warmth detract from my enjoy- was the André Previn recording of latter’s high-level dynamics were ment of the music. The string bass on Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony (LP, somewhat more realistic. the Crumb sounded woody, natural, EMI SLS 5119). The transients of the The Nóla Li’l Rascal Mk.II also has and relaxed. With electronic music, piano were delicate, articulate, and a detailed midrange; its highs were the prominent bass synth on Sade’s uncolored throughout the instrument’s more extended than the Almarro’s, Love Deluxe (CD, Epic 53178) was range. The upper registers of the piano but less delicate. The speakers’ levels slightly warm, but also was quick, of inner detail were about the same; forceful, and linear, with no sense of the Nóla’s midrange had a bit more overhang. On the Rutter CD, the neutrality, but less body than the organ-pedal notes were warm but ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT Almarro’s. The Nóla had better mid- also natural. Although the organ bass definition and bass extension, and pedals did not shake the room on ANALOG SOURCES VPI TNT IV turn- more forceful high-level dynamics, this recording, I’d be curious to see table, Immedia RPM tonearm, Koet- but overall seemed less refined. JA’s measurements of the M0A’s su Urushi cartridge; Rega Planar 3 The Epos M5’s rich, warm midbass lower bass limits—it seemed to go turntable, Syrinx PU-3 tonearm, was tighter than the Almarro’s, but the quite deep for a satellite speaker. Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood, Aurum two speakers’ levels of midrange detail I was very impressed with the Beta S cartridges. were in the same league. Although the M0A’s transient capabilities. On all DIGITAL SOURCES Lector CDP-7T, Almarro’s bass extension was better, recordings, the transients were rapid, California Audio Labs Icon Mk.II the Epos won in high-level dynamics. yet relaxed and never etched. There Power Boss, Creek CD53 Mk.II CD And the Epos’ high frequencies were was also quite a good sense of pacing. players; Pioneer DV-333 DVD player. more extended than but not as delicate On Gary Wilson’s “She Makes Me PREAMPLIFICATION Vendetta and detailed as the Almarro’s. Think of Endicott,” from his mid- Research SCP-2D phono stage, Audio 1970s album Mary Had Brown Hair Valve Eklipse line stage. The Finish (CD, Stones Throw STR2097), the POWER AMPLIFIER Audio Research Almarro Products has done a superb interaction of Wilson’s bell-like Fend- VT100 Mk.II. job of producing an attractive, engag- er Rhodes piano and quick, punchy INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER Creek ing speaker that’s a superb value and Fender bass gave a nice sense of jump 5350SE. performs well with a wide range of to this jazz-funk instrumental. CABLES Interconnect: MIT MI-350 musical programming. Moreover, fans Although the Almarro’s high-level CVTwin Terminator, MI-330SG, Termi- of SET sound will appreciate similar dynamic capabilities were re- nator. Speaker: Acarian Systems qualities in the M0A, even if a solid- spectable, they never approached the Black Orpheus. state amplifier is used. To this new- speaker’s subtle, low-level dynamic ACCESSORIES Various by ASC, Bright comer to American shores, I say, strengths. The difference was most Star, Celestion, Echo Busters, Sala- “Well done.” I look forward to audi- noticeable on highly modulated for- mander Designs, Simply Physics, tioning other Almarro products in the tissimos on rock recordings, such as Sound Anchor, VPI. —Robert J. Reina future. ■■

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 101 EQUIPMENT REPORT Bel Canto PL-1A

Kalman Rubinson UNIVERSAL DISC PLAYER

DESCRIPTION Universal disc play- er, two-channel and multichannel: CD, CD-R/RW, SACD, DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW, VCD, SVCD, data discs with MP3 and MPEG files. Audio decoders: Dolby Digital, DTS, MP3. Digital audio outputs: TosLink, BNC, RCA, XLR. Analog audio outputs: 5.1-channel RCA, 2-channel XLR. Video out- puts: progressive or interlaced com- The PL-1A is a universal player that matches the appearance of all the Bel Canto Design components. ponent (RCA), S-video, composite (RCA). RS-232 control port. Audio output: 200mV RMS (1kHz, –20dB, recently had a house guest who is a music lover and amateur pianist but all analog outputs). THD: 0.001%. who had never heard of the SACD or DVD-Audio formats. I explained Signal/noise: 118dB. Frequency what they were and demonstrated examples of both, to his amazement. He response: 4Hz–44kHz (DVD sample then blew them off, saying that my system always sounds great and that the rate of 96kHz), 4Hz–88kHz (DVD average person couldn’t or wouldn’t afford the kind of equipment I have. sample rate of 192kHz). Dynamic But when I told him that there were universal players available for less than range: 108dB. $200 at retail and that, in fact, the player I was using was based on a trans- DIMENSIONS 17.5" (450mm) W by port drawn from a similar mass-market product, his interest was piqued. Of course, 5.25" (135mm) H by 15" (385mm) I I didn’t emphasize that one’s expectations may not be the same, or that the boys D. Weight: 23 lbs (10.5kg). designing the high-end stuff do make it sound different and, usually, much better. SERIAL NUMBER OF UNIT Heck, I’ll do whatever I can to hook a music lover on these new formats, even if REVIEWED PL1A-04046. their future is uncertain. Once he’s hooked, audiophilia will have him forever. PRICE $7500. Approximate number What I used to reel him in was Bel Canto’s PL-1A universal player ($7500), a of dealers: 40. less expensive version of Bel Canto’s first player, the PL-1 ($9499). Both are MANUFACTURER Bel Canto Design, based on a Pioneer transport, and though the PL-1A lacks some of the fancy video 212 Third Avenue North, Minneapo- features of the PL-1, it retains all the functions and enhancements that relate to lis, MN 55401. Tel: (612) 317-4550. audio performance: balanced stereo and digital audio (AES/EBU) outputs, the Fax: (612) 359-9358. Web: facility to turn off the video output circuitry, and the ability to play almost any 5" www.belcantodesign.com. silver disc you might have. Bel Canto describes the PL-1A as including “a combi-

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 103 BEL CANTO PL-1A nation of innovative analog output Description signals and for adding an audio delay stage and D/A conversion design, low- Out of the box, the PL-1A made an (58ms) when video processing makes jitter internal slaved-clock DVD drive excellent first impression. All the nec- that necessary. It’s all tidy and intuitive. operation, a superb power supply and essary controls and access are incorpo- The only foible, which may have been careful parts selection. Both audio and rated into the now-familiar Bel Canto unique to my sample, were ticks that video architectures have isolated power motif: a central, black oval inside a con- accompanied the closing of the drawer supplies with 16 power-regulation sec- toured front panel of brushed alu- and reading of a disc and were just tions. Multiple independent low-jitter minum. This motif is repeated by a barely audible over the speakers. clocks and 108MHz/12-bit video smaller aluminum oval below the cen- The rear panel bears the inputs and DACs using proprietary video filtering tral disc drawer. Round, silvery buttons outputs listed in the product descrip- provide a level of performance that is to the right of the drawer control the tion, plus a power switch, IEC power simply stunning.” We’ve heard those Power/Standby and transport opera- connector, and knockout panels for terms before; as ever, the proof is in the tions. To the left of the drawer, the Bel various factory-installable video performance, with music and on the Canto logo accompanies buttons for options to and beyond those included test bench. progressive- or interlaced-scan video in the PL-1. The remote control and

MEASUREMENTS

hooked up the Bel Canto PL-1A to a TV in order to comparisons. Absolute polarity was preserved for all three reset its defaults. I then disconnected the TV for the media, and the source impedance was a low 20.5 ohms measurements, relying on the front-panel display. The from the unbalanced jacks and twice that from the bal- maximum output level at 1kHz was the same for CD anced XLRs, as expected. Error correction for CD playback, andI DVD playback, at 2.13V from both the balanced and assessed with the Pierre Verany test CD, was disappoint- unbalanced output jacks. It was 1.5dB lower for SACD ing, the PL-1A playing glitch-free through data-spiral gaps playback, however, which will be very audible in direct of only up to 0.5mm in length. It wouldn’t play at all the tracks whose gaps were 0.75mm or longer. The PL-1A’s frequency responses for CD playback, with and without de-emphasis, are shown in fig.1. Both are flat up to 10kHz, with an inconsequential 0.25dB rolloff at 20kHz. This graph was taken from the balanced L/R out- put jacks; the response from the unbalanced RCA jacks was identical. With hi-rez media (fig.2), the ultrasonic behavior was slightly different for SACD than for DVD-A. 96kHz-sampled DVD-A had more energy than SACD in the 20–40kHz octave, but with then a sharp rolloff above 43kHz, while SACD continued its gentle low-pass rolloff to reach –7.7dB at 90kHz. Channel separation (not shown) was superb at better than 130dB in the midrange. The rather complicated-looking graph in fig.3 combines 1 four different ⁄3-octave spectra, three representing a dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFS, the fourth a dithered Fig.1 Bel Canto PL-1A, CD frequency response at –12dBFS into 100k ohms, with de-emphasis (bottom) and without (right channel dashed, tone at –120dBFS. With 16-bit data (top trace below 0.5dB/vertical div.).

1 Fig.3 Bel Canto PL-1A, ⁄3-octave spectrum of dithered 1kHz tone at Fig.2 Bel Canto PL-1A, SACD frequency response at –3dBFS into 100k –90dBFS, with noise and spuriae, 16-bit CD data (top below 6kHz), ohms (bottom at 30kHz) and DVD-A frequency response at –12dBFS 24-bit DVD-A data (bottom at 10kHz), DSD data (top above 6kHz); 1 into 100k ohms (top at 40kHz). (Right channel dashed, ⁄3-octave spectrum of dithered 1kHz tone at –120dBFS, with noise 0.5dB/vertical div.) and spuriae, DSD data (bottom at 1kHz). (Right channel dashed.)

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 105 the setup menus (which I viewed on a player, as well as handy-dandy 5" LCD panel I found on two additional the Web) seem to be standard Pioneer stereo inputs (FM issue with Bel Canto logos attached; tuner, phono pre- evidently, there was no need to rein- amp). That should vent the wheel. have made it easy The PL-1A arrived along with Bel to differentiate the Canto’s Pre6 preamp and eVo6 and PL-1A’s capabili- eVo4 power amps. All were immediate- ties through each ly installed in my main system, which output and to dis- was being expanded from two to five tinguish them channels. The Pre6’s flexibility let me from other players. simultaneously hook up the PL-1A’s The former proved 5.1-channel RCA, balanced stereo, and harder than the The PL-1A is a more extensive and cleaner redesign of the Pioneer digital audio outputs (via the Theta hookup itself. mechanism than the McCormack UDP-1 or the Moon Orbiter Gen.VIII), so that I could switch among (see MITR, March 2005). them while listening to CDs. With Sound SACDs and DVD-As, I could choose What struck me about the PL-1A’s clarity and integrity. Whether the signal between the single-ended and balanced sound, first with Sonic Frontiers and was sent to the Revel Studio or B&W outputs. The Pre6 also had enough Classé electronics and later in the context 802D loudspeakers, the sound was nei- inputs for another stereo/multichannel of an all–Bel Canto system, was its overall ther laid-back nor forward, but “there”:

measurements, continued

6kHz), the noise floor is basically that of the dither in the ly due to the recorded dither (fig.4). As a result of its low recording, not the Bel Canto’s circuitry. Extending the PCM noise and excellent linearity, the player’s reproduction of word length to 24 bits and playing back the test signal on an undithered 16-bit sinewave at –90.31dBFS (fig.5) a DVD-A (bottom trace above 2kHz and below 300Hz) dropped the noise floor by almost 18dB in the treble, sug- gesting that the PL-1A’s D/A circuitry offers around 19-bit performance, which is excellent. DSD-encoded data on the provisional Sony test SACD gave a spectrum with almost as high a dynamic range as 24-bit PCM in the midrange, but less so in the top two audio octaves (due to the start of the format’s aggressive noiseshaping) and in the bass (where it has a higher ran- dom noise component). However, DSD can be seen to readily resolve the tone at –120dBFS. One anomaly visi- ble in this graph is that both DVD-A and SACD gave a peak at 300Hz in their spectra. I have no idea what this is due to, given the PL-1A’s commendable absence of power-supply-related spuriae. The Bel Canto’s DACs offered superbly low linearity Fig.5 Bel Canto PL-1A, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at error with hi-rez media, and with CD, the error was entire- –90.31dBFS, 16-bit CD data.

Fig.4 Bel Canto PL-1A, right-channel departure from linearity, 16-bit CD Fig.6 Bel Canto PL-1A, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at data (2dB/vertical div.). –90.31dBFS, 24-bit DVD-A data.

106 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 BEL CANTO PL-1A wide across the front, deeply extended the recording venue, and to neither Listening to Tony Faulkner’s two- from the speaker plane back, and with a restrain nor exaggerate dynamics. channel recording of Mark-André transparency that let the music and musi- Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s extra- Hamelin playing Alkan’s Les Quatre cians engage and startle, as they can in ordinary Handel Arias, with Harry Bick- Ages (CD, Hyperion CDA66794), I concert. That said, it was necessary to do a et and the Orchestra of the Age of could hear the pianist’s exquisite modu- lot of equipment swapping to get a han- Enlightenment (SACD, Avie 0030), lation of touch despite the avalanche of dle on the PL-1A independent of its Bel was a case in point. Whether in two or notes played—each was a discrete pearl Canto brethren, particularly in view of many channels, the small ensemble was that I could appreciate for its attack, my awareness of the eVo amps’ ever-so- right at home, occupying a space on the tone, and decay. When I A/B’d this slightly dry upper midrange. other side of my speakers that seemed recording through the PL-1A’s direct After mixing and matching other similar in size to my actual living room. balanced stereo output and through the amps and preamps and comparing the Lieberson stood in front of my speakers Theta Gen.VIII, the difference PL-1A with various other players, it and just left of center between them, wrought by employing a DAC costing seemed to me that the PL-1A was as and sang at a level appropriate to that more than the player was inconsequen- good-sounding a player as I have heard. I space. This meant that her occasional tial. Not that there wasn’t a difference— kept coming back to that rather unexcit- forte lines were loud, but with no sense the Gen.VIII’s output was a bit silkier ing but fundamentally essential property of limiting, image shift, or, most impor- in the highs—but it was tiny, and notice- of neutrality. The PL-1A seemed to tant, of imposed tonal character other able only with intent concentration, favor no portion of the audio spectrum than what would be heard live. As Walt excellent program material, and the at the expense of any other, to impose no Frazier might say, it was thrilling and B&W 802Ds’ extraordinary diamond bias on the ambience and acoustics of chilling. tweeters. Midrange, bass, dynamics,

clearly revealed the three voltage levels that describe the Distortion at full scale was superbly low, at 0.0011% signal, while extending the bit depth to 24 bits gave an (fig.7), and didn’t change significantly as the load imped- excellent sinewave shape (fig.6). ance dropped to below 1k ohm. Though the second har- monic was the highest in level in the left channel and the third harmonic the highest in the right, at –100dB or lower this difference will be insignificant. Reducing the signal level to –90dBFS dropped the noise floor (fig.8), revealing that the floor in fig.7 was actually that of the analyzer—and even at this very low level, the distortion harmonics are still almost 40dB down from the funda- mental, which is excellent DAC performance. Intermodu- lation distortion was also very low (fig.9). Finally, I used the Miller Audio Research Jitter Analyzer to examine the PL-1A’s susceptibility to word-clock jitter. The solid trace in fig.10 shows a narrowband spectrum of the PL-1A’s analog output while it played back a 24-bit, 11.025kHz tone recorded on a DVD-A, with the LSB tog- gled on and off at 229Hz. There are no sidebands visible Fig.7 Bel Canto PL-1A, spectrum of 24-bit, 1kHz sinewave at 0dBFS into 4k ohms, DC–10kHz (linear frequency scale).

Fig.9 Bel Canto PL-1A, SACD frequency response at –3dBFS into 100k ohms (bottom at 30kHz) and DVD-A frequency response at –12dBFS Fig.8 Bel Canto PL-1A, spectrum of 24-bit, 1kHz sinewave at –90dBFS into into 100k ohms (top at 40kHz). (Right channel dashed, 4k ohms, DC–10kHz (linear frequency scale). 0.5dB/vertical div.)

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 107 BEL CANTO PL-1A etc., were pretty much standoffs. of that system couldn’t quite take the ly immersive mix of “Hold Me Now” The PL-1A did even better when Bel Canto’s full measure. Nonethe- solidly filled all the space in the room even more was demanded. I could less, in this very different environ- and in my head—I could feel it with my play and enjoy Fritz Reiner and the ment, the PL-1A distinguished itself, body as well as my ears. Yet unlike Chicago Symphony’s recording of what I’ve heard from the players Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade named in the next paragraph, there (SACD, RCA Living Stereo 66376-2) THE PL-1A DID EVEN was no loss of detail with the PL-1A, at higher levels without hearing the despite the mammoth weight and glare and subtle hardness that can BETTER WHEN impact of the music from all sides. creep into this vintage recording. Of Compared side by side with the course, this also exposes the breathing, EVEN MORE WAS McCormack UDP-1 universal player wheezing, and signs of personal effort ($3495) and the Simaudio Moon as the CSO turns itself to this mighty DEMANDED. Orbiter universal player ($7200), the performance. Similarly, this benefits PL-1A ended up in the middle in recordings of cutting-edge quality that terms of price, weight, size, and con- demand to be played at realistic SPLs, particularly in the bass. First, in stereo cept, although all are based on a Pio- such as Michael Tilson Thomas and and without bass management, the neer mechanism. I preferred the two the San Francisco Symphony’s Mahler PL-1A’s taut low frequencies made more expensive players to the McCor- Ninth (SACD, San Francisco Sym- my Paradigm Studio/60s perform as if mack, which seemed a bit too smooth phony 60007)—I could turn up the they were Virtual Studio/100s—in and lacking in dynamics, despite its wick until my system ran out of steam other words, a size bigger. Second, in weightier bass. Considering the price without uncovering heretofore multichannel, with or without bass difference and the very satisfying sub- inaudible gremlins. In fact, this subtle management, the Paradigm Servo15 jective performance of the UDP-1, it performance needs to be played at high subwoofer seemed tighter and more would be hard for me to push a PL-1A levels, whether in stereo or multi- powerful, though less separable from on anyone—but if you make the com- channel, in order to get the emotional the rest of the system. parison on a neutral and potent system, belt from it that more overt readings I can listen to Polyphonic Spree’s you might discover that your pockets make too obvious. Together We’re Heavy (DVD-A, DTS are deeper than you thought. I then took the PL-1A up to my Entertainment 69286-011189-9) only The Orbiter and the PL-1A were multichannel system in the country, in small snatches—I find the music tougher to compare; their prices are where it fit right in, though maybe cheap and derivative. But through the only $210 apart, their audio specifica- not quite as well—the overall quality Bel Canto, the seductive and powerful- tions nearly identical. Both were excellent with all disc formats in stereo or multichannel, but the Bel Canto was consistently a bit purer and measurements, continued cleaner when wide dynamics and high levels were needed, especially via its at 230Hz and its harmonics, but two PL-1A is a well-engineered player that balanced outputs. That said, I could strong sideband pairs can be seen at will extract what DVD-A and SACD distinguish the two players from each ±15.6Hz (purple “1” markers) and have to offer, and will perform impec- other only in the Sonic ±1350Hz (purple “6”). The actual jit- cably when playing back CDs. Frontiers–Classé–Revel/B&W sys- ter level was 232 picoseconds —John Atkinson tem, not in the McCormack-Bryston- peak–peak, which is very low. Reduc- Paradigm rig. The marginally less ing the word length to 16 bits expensive PL-1A would seem to be (grayed-out the ideal choice for predominantly trace) intro- audio use in a high-end system. I wish duced some I still had the Linn Unidisk 1.1 data-related ($10,995) on hand for direct compar- sidebands as isons—it’s probably the only universal expected (indi- player I’ve heard that deserves to go cated with red head-to-head with the Bel Canto. circles) and On the other hand, I preferred the increased the jit- Simaudio Moon Orbiter as a video ter level to source. Negotiating the test patterns on 273ps, but this is Digital Video Essentials and the HQV still very low in Benchmark Disc, the Bel Canto was absolute terms. slightly more susceptible to jaggies, Clearly, the Bel motion artifacts, and cadence changes Canto PL-1A than was the Orbiter when both were offers excellent used via their component outputs. Still, rejection of data Fig.10 Bel Canto PL-1A, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output to say that the Orbiter’s DVI output word-clock jitter. signal (11.025kHz at –6dBFS sampled at 44.1kHz with LSB toggled at 229Hz, 24-bit DVD-A data). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; was “better” is somewhat unfair. It’s Overall, the frequency range, ±3.5kHz. Grayed-out trace is 16-bit CD data. the original Bel Canto PL-1, not the

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 109 PL-1A, that has the more sophisticated Faroudja DCDi video processing and

SDI output and is clearly the choice for those with stringent video demands. 0RVFRGH ,V%DFN

Conclusions Is the Bel Canto PL-1A the perfect audio player? Impossible to say. Of my :SFRI6HGXFWLYHO\5HILQHG two systems, one is relatively warm and *ORULRXVO\'\QDPLF7UXH+\EULG6RXQG one relatively live, but neither needs a tone control, and the PL-1A’s neutrality did the trick for both. Some folks like a big, bold, forward sound; for them, the Bel Canto may strip the gilt from the lily. Some folks have very unaggressive, almost timid systems; the PL-1A could push these over the edge into dull. But with relatively neutral equipment and room acoustics, the Bel Canto PL-1A almost disappeared as an influence on the sound and was equally transparent with all formats. Sort of like Goldilocks’ final choice: just right. ■■ 0RVFRGHFRP ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT 3:578%( -RLQ8VDW7KH5RFN\0RXQWDLQ$XGLR)HVW MAIN SYSTEM DIGITAL SOURCES Sony XA-9000ES 0DUULRWW7HFK&HQWHU'HQYHU&R SACD/CD player, Simaudio Moon 6HSW2FWREHUZZZDXGLRIHVWQHW Orbiter universal player, Theta Gen.VIII DAC. PREAMPLIFIERS Bel Canto Pre6, Sonic Frontiers Line-3. POWER AMPLIFIERS Bel Canto eVo6 & eVo4, Classé Omicron monoblocks. LOUDSPEAKERS B&W 802D, Revel Ultima Studio (LCR), Paradigm Stu- dio/20 (surrounds). CABLES Digital: Stereovox HDVX. Interconnect: Crystal Cable Cinemax multichannel, AudioQuest Chee- tah/DBS balanced. Speaker: Audio- Quest Mont Blanc/DBS biwire. AC: JPS Aluminata. MULTICHANNEL SYSTEM DIGITAL SOURCES McCormack UDP-1, Denon DV-5900 universal players. PREAMPLIFIER McCormack MAP-1. POWER AMPLIFIER Bryston 9B-STT. LOUDSPEAKERS Paradigm Referen- ce Studio/60v3 (LCR), Magnepan MGMC-1 (surrounds), Paradigm Servo-15 subwoofer. CABLES Interconnect: Harmonic Technology Harmony Rainbow, Crys- tal Cable Cinemax multichannel, Kubala-Sosna Fascination. Speaker: Kubala-Sosna Fascination/Anticipa- tion. AC: Kubala-Sosna Emotion. —Kalman Rubinson

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 111 EQUIPMENT REPORT

Lamm Industries LL2 Deluxe Art Dudley PREAMPLIFIER

DESCRIPTION Tubed line-level Lamm LL2 Deluxe preamplifier stereo preamplifier. Tube comple- ment: two 12AU7A, two 6DJ8, one 6X4. Inputs: 3. Tape loops: 1. Fre- n the first morning in June I opened all the windows in my lis- quency response: 1.5Hz–400kHz, tening room and played Classic Records’ LP reissue of Dvorák’s –3dB. Input impedance: 50k ohms. Cello Concerto (RCA Living Stereo LSC-2490), with Piatig- Output impedance: 250 ohms. Input orsky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The sunny weath- sensitivity: 0.127V RMS, +2%. Rated er put me in a fine mood, and so did the sound of my music output voltage, 20Hz–20kHz: 1.0V system, which made me feel prouder than usual: Was ever a RMS. Harmonic distortion: <0.03% Linn record player more expertly adjusted? Wasn’t I smart for at 2V RMS. Phase inverting: No. keeping those Lamm monoblock amplifiers? Could a pair of Quads possibly DIMENSIONS 19.25" (495mm) W O sound better than mine? by 5" (130mm) H by 13.75" While I reveled in the otherworldly realism of my hi-fi, a different sound (350mm) D. Weight: 20 lbs (9kg). caught my attention: the liquid twitter of a barn swallow, whose nest was under SERIAL NUMBER OF UNIT the eave outside my window. He made his call four or five times before taking off REVIEWED E10091. again, and from several feet away, even heard through a screen window—the kind PRICE $4990. Approximate number of material most audiophiles would reject as a loudspeaker grille, for being too of dealers: 11. “opaque”—he sounded considerably more real, more there, than the music that was MANUFACTURER Lamm Industries, coming from my speakers, which now sounded like wallpaper paste by compari- Inc., 2621 E. 24th Street, Brooklyn, son. My enjoyment of Dvorák and Piatigorsky wasn’t spoiled, but the little bird NY 11235. Tel: (718) 368-0181. Web: refreshed my perspective and reminded me that, although this hobby is all about www.lammindustries.com. lying to myself, I should hope never to get too good at it.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 113 LAMM LL2 DELUXE

Don’t be surprised, then, if this get preamplifier—but the greater truth most other such products. “I lose a lot equipment report seems a little more lies not in the word budget but in the of business,” Lamm says, “because peo- sober than most. word Lamm’s: The company’s president ple ask me for a preamp with remote and chief designer, Vladimir Lamm, is control, and I say, ‘No. No. No!’ My The first millivolt is the most among the most resolute people I’ve company exists to make the best sound important met in domestic audio, and I dare say humanly possible, and anything other Lamm Industries, of Brooklyn, New his concept of an affordable preamp than that…” York, makes two different line-level has room for fewer concessions than He didn’t finish his sentence. He preamplifiers. Their flagship is the L2 most. Cheaper parts? No. Reduced sta- didn’t have to. Reference, a $14,390, two-box affair bility? No. Any diversion from the There’s no hint of otherworldly that uses vacuum tubes for rectification topologies he believes are the best? No. greatness in the Lamm preamplifier’s and regulation, and transistors for gain, Lose the phase switch and the balanced outward appearance: With its rack- and which I’ve heard only in unfamil- outputs? Maybe… style front handles and standard iar systems: trade shows and the like. The same point of view applies to dimensions all around, the LL2 looks For its part, the LL2 is Lamm’s bud- the convenience features found in the same as hundreds of other preamps

MEASUREMENTS

he Lamm LL2 Deluxe preamplifier offered a maxi- midrange and treble, this rising to 3.3k ohms at 20Hz, pre- mum voltage gain of 17.97dB, this the same from sumably due to the finite size of the output coupling capac- both the Line and the Direct inputs. The unity-gain itor. As a result, the preamp’s frequency response suffered setting of the volume controls was 11:30. The LL2’s from a premature low-frequency rolloff into the low 600- Tinput impedance measured 50k ohms in the bass and ohm load (fig.1, lower pair of traces). Into the higher 100k- midrange, dropping slightly to 45k ohms at 20kHz, which is ohm load (fig.1, top traces), the response is flat from 10Hz still within the specification. The LL2 preserved absolute to 50kHz and just 1dB down at 200kHz. This graph, taken polarity; ie, was noninverting. with the twin volume controls set to their maximum posi- The LL2’s output impedance was a low 245 ohms in the tions, shows excellent channel balance. At the controls’ unity-gain setting, the right channel was 0.25dB higher than the left, however. Channel separation (not shown) was better than 90dB below 4kHz in the L–R direction, but significantly less good from R to L, at 63dB at 1kHz. Provided it is used into high-impedance loads, the Lamm LL2 offers enormous dynamic range. The unweighted, wideband signal/noise ratio, taken with the input shorted and the volume control at its maximum, is good rather than great at 72.6dB, this figure increasing to 95.2dB when A-weighted. But, as shown by fig.2, which plots the THD+noise percentage against output voltage, the LL2 can swing more than 60V into 100k ohms before clipping! The clipping point (1% THD) drops to 40V (!) into 10k ohms and 2.4V into 1k ohms, though it is fair to note that the last load is way below what the Lamm will Fig.1 Lamm LL2 Deluxe, frequency response at 1V into (from top to be required to drive in real life. The important point to bottom at 200Hz): 100k ohms, 600 ohms (0.5dB/vertical div.). draw from fig.2 is that the Lamm’s distortion remains below its noise floor up to 3V into 100k ohms and 1.5V

Fig.2 Lamm LL2 Deluxe, distortion (%) vs 1kHz output voltage into (from bottom to top at 10V): 100k, 10k, and 1k ohms. Fig.3 Lamm LL2 Deluxe, THD+N (%) vs frequency at 3V into 100k ohms.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 115 LAMM LL2 DELUXE from places such as Fairfax, Virginia the Direct pair has the theoretical lator (LM317K), chosen because and Minnetonka, Minnesota. Only the advantage of two fewer switches in the Vladimir Lamm says that the use of LL2’s decidedly purist approach to vol- path, and so is intended for use with switching devices for tube filament reg- ume adjustment—separate controls for the listener’s primary music source. ulation brings increased levels of hum the left and right channels, allowing The first active device seen by the and a reduction in signal/noise ratio. the user to adjust side-to-side balance signal in each channel is a 12AU7 tube, All the parts in the Lamm LL2 without an extra potentiometer in the which the designer selected for its appear to be of extremely high quality, signal path—distinguishes its faceplate comparatively low μ (amplification fac- their expense made more acute by from the herd. tor). In the LL2’s circuit, that double what the designer describes as an ardu- But once you notice that little detail, triode is used as a single triode, with its ous process of hand-selection and you begin to wonder where they’ve two halves in parallel. The two halves hand-matching. Noble film poten- put the source selector knob. Well, of the second double triode, a 6DJ8 tiometers (with mechanically detented there isn’t one. The music signal from tube, are wired in shunt-regulated controls); Dale resistors; Roederstein, the LL2’s three pairs of input jacks goes push-pull (SRPP) mode, a topology Electrocube, and Cornell-Dubilier to a very-high-quality two-position known for its distortion-canceling capacitors; and new-old stock Sylvania switch that directs one pair of signals— properties, relatively high gain, and— tubes abound, and the alloy chassis is from the jacks labeled Direct—straight best of all in a preamp that might be exceptionally solid. As hinted above, to the volume pots, then on to the first called on to drive long interconnect there are no provisions for remote con- gain stage. The other side of that cables—its commendably low output trol—which is utterly fine with me— switch feeds a second, identical switch, impedance. although concessions to easy living do which gives the choice between the The LL2’s power supply starts with a include a front-mounted mute switch remaining two stereo inputs, called custom-made Plitron toroidal trans- and two pairs of output jacks, for use Line 1 and Line 2, and then carries on former, feeding a rectifier tube (6X4) with a subwoofer or other such luxury. to yet another switch, for the tape loop. and subsequent choke-plus-cap filter. Consequently, although all three input Voltages are maintained by a non- Setup and listening pairs address the same active circuitry, switching, linear, solid-state series regu- Using the one-box Lamm in my sys-

measurements, continued

into 10k ohms, which are around the maximum voltages it As I am coming to expect from Vladimir Lamm’s designs, will be asked to deliver with typical power amplifiers. At the LL2 offers excellent audio engineering. Its measured 3V into 100k ohms, the THD remains below 0.01% across performance indicates that the preamplifier is best used almost the entire audioband, with just a small rise appar- with power amplifiers offering a load impedance of at least ent above 10kHz (fig.3). 20k ohms; Lamm’s own power amps offer a load of 41k Of greater subjective importance than the level of distor- ohms, which will be fine. —John Atkinson tion is its spectrum. Fig.4 shows that, even into a low 8k ohm load, the LL2 offers almost pure second-harmonic dis- tortion, which, even if it were higher than the –75dB seen here (0.02%), would still be subjectively benign. Increasing the load impedance to 100k ohms drops the second har- monic to –90dB (0.003%, not shown). Intermodulation distortion was also acceptably low (fig.5), even given the small decrease in linearity at the top of the audioband revealed by fig.3.

Fig.4 Lamm LL2 Deluxe, spectrum of 1kHz sinewave, DC–10kHz, at 1V Fig.5 Lamm LL2 Deluxe, HF intermodulation spectrum, DC–24kHz, into 8k ohms (linear frequency scale). 19+20kHz at 1V peak into 8k ohms (linear frequency scale).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 117 LAMM LL2 DELUXE tem was a snap. As with the same mud, while at the company’s power amplifiers, flipping same time not lack- the power switch activates the LL2’s ing in color, texture, protection circuit, so its output is or body—had to do muted while the tube filaments begin at least partly with to heat and the power-supply capaci- its speed, which is tors charge. That carries on for about not a quality people a half a minute, during which time always associate the power indicator light flashes on with tube electron- and off. When the circuits have stabi- ics. I don’t mean lized, the light stops flashing and the speed in the rhythm- amplified signal is available at both and-pacing sense, pairs of output jacks. Also as with the although that per- Lamm amplifiers, the designer rec- formance aspect ommends a 45-minute warmup was also superb in before peak performance is reached. I the Lamm, but followed that recommendation to a T rather the thing’s throughout the time I had the LL2 in Detail of the inside of the Lamm LL2 Deluxe. ability to respond to my system. an input signal, After letting the Lamm LL2 run in amplify it with for a few hours with some nameless great faithfulness, disc, the first thing I gave my attention amp. The LL2 not only sounded very then get the hell out of the way. to was Peter Schreier and András slightly more open than the Fi on that It was while auditioning LPs Schiff’s 1989 recording of Schubert’s one, but allowed the music-making to through the LL2, with the help of a Die schöne Müllerin (London 430 414-2). sound more human, and more like Linn Linto phono preamp, that I put The performance was nothing short of something was happening in front of my finger on another quality that made hypnotic through the Lamm. In con- me, not just being retold. I remember this preamp—and, I think, the Lamm trast with the way I’ve heard lesser elec- in particular thinking that the staccato ML2.1 amplifier as well—so uniquely tronics handle this disc, the piano notes at the beginning of the third musical: Through them, each note had sounded not like a small, quiet instru- movement had a great deal more a realistic sustain, followed by a similar- ment, but like a large, dynamic one that force—I could feel them—with the ly realistic decay—and after that there just happened to be recorded from a Lamm LL2 in the system, so much so was real space, real noiseless nothing, greater distance than the singing voice. that I shut the system down, reinstalled until the attack component of the next Musical flow and apparent pitch accu- racy were both first-rate, and Schreier’s voice had peerless sonic presence and AS WITH THE LAMM AMPLIFIERS, THE DESIGNER emotional expressiveness. Peerless except for one, that is: my Fi RECOMMENDS A 45-MINUTE WARMUP BEFORE preamp, which also uses 6DJ8 tubes, and which sold for $5000 a decade or so PEAK PERFORMANCE IS REACHED. ago. In fact, the two products were close enough in performance—both were tuneful, uncolored, and remarkably big- my Fi preamp, warmed it back up, and note. With most electronics that space sounding—that I doubt I could reliably listened again for confirmation. I was is filled up with noise or overlong note tell them apart in a blind listening test. right: The Lamm gave the sounds of decays, which not only diminish the With smaller-scale music in particu- the notes more body, more feel, and sense of rhythm and pacing in recorded lar, such as well-recorded contempo- especially more movement. music, but make the artistry of the per- rary bluegrass, I could hear almost no As to the difference between the formers less dramatic and more difference between my reference and Direct and Line inputs: If it’s audible, homogenized by filling in and smooth- the Lamm. On the fine Tim Stafford it’s excruciatingly subtle. Did the ing over all of the pores, so to speak. song “Find Me Out on a Mountain acoustic guitar solo in the Grateful I’ve heard other preamps that were as Top,” from Blue Highway’s Midnight Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band,” from free of overhang, of between-note dis- Storm (CD, Rebel REB-CD-1746), Workingman’s Dead (CD, Warner Bros. tortion as the Lamm LL2; but in virtu- both the Lamm and the Fi gave the lead 1869-2), sound a little more forceful ally every such instance, it seemed the vocal excellent presence and whole- through the Direct inputs? I don’t notes themselves had also been ness, and the song flowed well, with know—but the difference was so small scrubbed clean of much of their har- good snap and no dragging. Was the Fi as to barely show up on my radar. By monic character. the very tiniest bit richer on the string comparison, the difference between, I’d been hearing that effect through bass? Might’ve been—but for all intents say, correct and inverted absolute phase the Lamm amplifiers for months, but I and purposes, the two ca-$5k preamps is a great deal more noticeable. first noticed it while listening to the sounded the same on that one. This may be a hard position to recording of Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” The above-mentioned Dvorák LP defend, but I have the feeling that the Sonata made in 1960 by Henryk benefited greatly from the Lamm pre- LL2’s cleanness—its lack of murk and Szeryng and Artur Rubinstein (LP,

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 119 LAMM LL2 DELUXE

RCA Living Stereo LSC-2377). The the time of the LL2’s introduction, same thing carried over to full orches- sales of the less expensive version have tral music: On my favorite recording of gone from approximately 15% of the Wagner overtures, with Hans Knap- total—itself not a terribly high percent- pertsbusch and the Munich Philhar- age—down to almost nothing. You may monic (LP, Westminster/Speakers read into that whatever you like, but I Corner WST-17032), the way in take it as evidence that, once a person which Knappertsbusch shaped the has decided to spend over $4000 on a lines in the Tannhäuser overture—more stereo preamplifier, spending an addi- so toward the end of the piece—was tional $300 is not such a big deal. more obvious and affecting with the Which raises the always-interesting Lamm preamp in the system. With the question of value—and which brings to best qualities of the Lamm amplifiers mind an irony: In terms of its musical now apparently compounded by those and sonic performance, the Lamm LL2 of the Lamm preamp, I heard a real preamplifier doesn’t tower over the gain in expressiveness, and in my own other high-quality line-level preampli- feeling of involvement with the music, fiers in quite the same way that the as compared with my reference. Lamm ML2.1 power amplifier seems to tower over its competition. On the Conclusions other hand, the LL2 is arguably a much A side note before moving on: You’ll better value for money: In relative have noticed from the heading that this terms, I’ve heard more expensive pre- equipment report is about something amps than this, but I’ve never heard called the LL2 Deluxe—which implies one that performs better; in absolute that there’s also an LL2 non-Deluxe. terms, judged for its musicality, the And there is. For the sum of $4690, quality of its parts and construction, which is $300 less than the price of the and its sheer design ingenuity, the model reviewed here, you can buy the Lamm LL2 is worth every penny same thing, except that is has only half they’re asking for it. the power-supply capacitance as this To say it more plainly: $4990 is not at one. Also, in the non-Deluxe version, all unreasonable for a preamp this good. none of the Vishay film capacitors in More so than other hi-fi compo- the signal path are bypassed with Elec- nents, a preamp is a personal choice: It trocube polystyrene capacitors—as they will probably be your primary way of are here. Everything else is exactly the interacting with the system as a same, so much so that an LL2 bought whole, and its selection depends a in non-Deluxe dress can be upgraded great deal on finding the balance you somewhere down The Road. But want between ergonomics and per- Vladimir Lamm points out that, since formance. Taken as such, the Lamm LL2 is not for the audio enthusiast who demands home-theater–like ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT luxury from his music system, or who wants at his fingertips various adjust- ANALOG SOURCES Linn LP12 turn- ments—phase inversion, mono blend- table, Linn Lingo power supply, Linn ing, channel reversal, even bass and Ekos tonearm, Miyabi 47 cartridge; treble lift. Even the LL2’s volume- Rega Planar 3 turntable, Lyra control setup is distinctively purist: Helikon Mono cartridge; Linn Linto You’ll either prefer it to everything phono preamplifier. else—as I do—or you’ll want some- DIGITAL SOURCES Naim CD5x CD thing else. No sense spending this player, Linn Unidisk SC universal kind of money if the latter is the case. player. But if you want a smartly engi- PREAMPLIFIER Fi. neered and apparently rugged piece of POWER AMPLIFIERS EAR 890; equipment that plays music at least as Lamm ML2.1 monoblocks. well as anything else I’ve heard, you LOUDSPEAKERS Quad ESL-989. really should go out of your way to CABLES Interconnect: Audio Note give it a listen. Like the ML2.1 ampli- AN-Vx, Nordost Valhalla, Linn. fier, the Lamm LL2 Deluxe is one of Speaker: Audio Note AN-SPx, Nor- those rare preamps that you buy not dost Valhalla. just because it sounds good, but ACCESSORIES Mana Reference because it makes more music. ■■ Table, Reference Wall Shelf under turntables. —Art Dudley

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 EQUIPMENT REPORT Simaudio Moon Rock

Brian Damkroger MONOBLOCK POWER AMPLIFIER

DESCRIPTION Solid-state monoblock power amplifier. Inputs: 1 unbalanced (RCA), 1 balanced (XLR). Outputs: 2 pairs of binding posts. Maximum output power: 1000W into 8 ohms (30dBW), 2000W into 4 ohms (30dBW), 4000W into 2 ohms (30dBW). Volt- age gain: 33dB. Frequency response: 10Hz–280kHz, +0/–3dB. Signal/noise ratio: >120dB ref. full Cue “Also Sprach Zarathustra” – Simaudio’s 220lb, 1000W, $18,500/each Moon Rock monolith. power. THD: <0.01%, 20Hz–20kHz, at 1W. Input impedance: 24.9k ohms. Input sensitivity: 1050mV for or years, I thought of Simaudio gear as good-sounding, attractive, full output. Output impedance: 0.01 and modestly priced, often describing it to friends as “really good for ohm. Damping factor: 800. Slew the money.” The $5500 Moon Eclipse CD player, which I reviewed rate: 160V/μs. Power consumption in our April 2001 and April 2003 issues, stretched the “modestly at idle: 60W. priced” descriptor a bit, but its sound justified the price, and I adopt- DIMENSIONS 19" (485mm) W by ed it as a reference. Simaudio expanded the Moon series and even- 16" (405mm) H by 21" (535mm) D. tually discontinued its older, less expensive Celeste brand, but, I Weight: 220 lbs (100kg) net, 243 lbs thought, its products could still be described as “really good for the money.” (110kg) shipping. F SERIAL NUMBERS OF UNITS Lots of mass, lots of power, lots of money… REVIEWED E315766, E316536. During the mid-1990s, Simaudio’s Pacific Rim dealers began to beg for a mas- PRICE $37,000/pair. Approximate sive, hugely powerful amp to tap the exploding market in that region, so the number of dealers: 70. Warranty: 10 Simaudio engineers came up with the Moon Rock monoblock. At 220 lbs, years transferable. 1000W, and $18,500 each, the Rock was—and remains—a departure from Sim’s MANUFACTURER Simaudio, 95 “really good for the money” identity. Simaudio’s vice-president of marketing, Chemin Du Tremblay Street, Unit 3, Lionel Goodfield, admitted that they “had been considering a completely insane Boucherville, Quebec J4B 7K4, Cana- preamp to go with it, but we’ve shelved that to focus on developing the new da. Tel: (450) 499-2212. Fax: (450) line.” The new Moon Evolution series, which consists of the approximately 499-2212. Web: www.simaudio.com. $10k/each Andromeda CD player, P-8 preamplifier, and W-8 power amp, was

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 125 shown at the 2005 Consumer Elec- ate lots of power is to combine higher- Brown op-amps, which are outside the tronics Show and is slated for rollout voltage power supplies with greater global-feedback loop. Next is the differ- this summer. numbers of paralleled output devices. ential amp itself, which uses two The Rock’s architecture, in contrast, matched J-FETs, followed by the volt- …and lots of technology comprises two 250W amps, pseudo- age gain, pre-driver, and driver stages. The Moon Rock distinctly differs not bridged, one forming each phase of the Next is the output stage, and it, too, is only from other Simaudio amps, but differential topography. Lionel Good- unusual. It consists of nine pairs of from its competitors as well. Just as the field admitted to me that this approach Motorola MJL21193/94 bipolar devices, rest of the world is adopting a tall, carries some baggage, but “It’s simple. each decoupled by a 1500μF capacitor. svelte, narrow look for big amps, the Lower-voltage amplifiers allow you to The result, according to Simaudio, is an Rock emerges as a massive near-cube. use more linear devices and tighter-tol- amp that’s both faster and capable of While other manufacturers perch their erance parts.” generating much more current than is amps on spikes, the Rock is embedded Each Moon Rock is essentially four typical. The Rock’s spec sheet cites big in a solid slab of granite resting on elas- amplifiers in one. Signals are fed to an numbers: 95 amps peak, 45 amps con- tomer feet. The standard way to gener- input buffer consisting of two Burr- tinuous, and a slew rate of 120V/μs.

MEASUREMENTS

preconditioned the kilowatt Simaudio Moon Rock this source impedance and that of the loudspeaker is by running it at 300W into 8 ohms for an hour. After small. This can be seen in fig.1, where the top trace 30 minutes the chassis was warm but the heatsinks shows the Rock’s response into our simulated speaker were too hot to touch, suggesting that they are load. It varies by just ±0.15dB. This graph also shows Ismaller than required to pass the FTC heat test. How- the amplifier’s extended high-frequency response in ever, this will be of little consequence in actual use. balanced mode, which doesn’t reach –3dB until More important, the distortion level at this power out- 164kHz. The result was the same with unbalanced put had hardly increased with the rise in temperature. drive, giving rise to excellent reproduction of a 10kHz Starting at 0.0028% with the amplifier cold, the distor- squarewave (fig.2). tion still measured only 0.0029% at the end of the pre- The Simaudio’s signal/noise ratio was superbly low, conditioning period. at 84.9dB (unweighted, wideband, ref.1W into 8 The voltage gain into 8 ohms was the same from both ohms), this figure improving to 93.8dB when A-weight- the balanced and unbalanced input jacks, at 28.8dB, and ed. Given its very high maximum output power, this neither input inverted absolute polarity. (The AES jack amplifier has enormous dynamic-range capability—bet- appears to be wired with pin 2 hot.) The input imped- ter than 16-bit digital. ance was a reasonably high 25k ohms unbalanced and Fig.3 shows the THD+noise percentage in the ampli- 50k ohms balanced over most of the audioband, these fier’s output as the output power rises from 100mW to dropping a little at 20kHz, to 15k ohms unbalanced and the clipping level into loads ranging from 2 to 8 ohms. 42k balanced. This should not be a problem with high- No fewer than 1080W are available into 8 ohms at the quality preamplifiers. 1% THD+N point (30.33dBW), with 1.6kW available Despite its balanced topology, the Rock’s output into 4 ohms (29dBW). The AC wall voltage had dropped impedance was low, at 0.11 ohm in the bass and from 125V to 119.1V at this point, so it’s possible that midrange, rising very slightly to 0.15 ohm at 20kHz. As a the amplifier will give out even more power when fed result, the modification of the amplifier’s frequency from a regulated AC supply. With continuous drive into response by the usual Ohm’s Law interaction between 2 ohms, the Rock’s 12A fuse blew at 1.81kW (26.6dBW), which is why the trace in fig.3 stops before reaching the 1% line.

Fig.1 Simaudio Moon Rock, balanced frequency response at 2.83V into (from top to bottom at 2kHz): simulated loudspeaker load, 8 ohms, 4 ohms, 2 ohms (1dB/vertical div.). Fig.2 Simaudio Moon Rock, small-signal 10kHz squarewave into 8 ohms.

126 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 SIMAUDIO MOON ROCK

Other details: The Moon Rock is THE MOON ROCK did. There was absolutely no evidence entirely hand-built, critical resistors are of strain, regardless of what I threw at matched to within 0.01% and others to IS ENTIRELY them—the sound had a relaxed, effort- within 0.1%, and the power supply, less feel. output, and ground wiring isn’t wire at HAND-BUILT. This relaxed, flowing quality was 1 all, but ⁄8"-diameter rods of high-puri- deceptive—like a quiet, stable car that’s ty copper. The power supply starts a lot faster than it feels—and it led me with a pair of huge 1.1kVA transform- Thiel CS6 loudspeakers were con- to occasionally underestimate the ers but then, extensively and separately, stants throughout. The CS6’s imped- Rock. For example, it sounded almost filters and regulates the power to 46 ance is low, between 2 and 4 ohms lazy, but actually wasn’t slow or soft at specific points in the circuit. across the audioband, so it takes a all. With dynamic program material, stout, well-designed amplifier to suc- the music was vivid and explosive. Is it all worth it? cessfully control and drive it. Based on With soft, intricate interwoven lines, I I used the Simaudio Moon Rocks with their prodigious specs, I expected the was touched by the delicacy and sweet- a wide range of other gear, but my Moon Rocks to work well, and they ness of the music’s detail. Sharp tran-

It can be seen from this graph not only that the Though some higher-order harmonics are present Simaudio has very low noise but also that it offers (fig.6), these are still below –100dB (0.001%). At very low levels of distortion at normal operating pow- higher powers the third harmonic increases and the ers. Fig.4 plots the THD+N percentage against fre- second makes an appearance (fig.7). But even at the quency at 9V into 8, 4, and 2 ohms. The rise in THD in very high continuous-output current at the power the mid-treble and above is due to a decrease in the level featured in this graph, there are no traces of amplifier’s open-loop gain margin, but there is still spuriae at power-supply frequencies, which is com- very little distortion evident. The content of this distor- mendable. And even just below visible waveform clip- tion is primarily third-harmonic in nature (fig.5).

Fig.5 Simaudio Moon Rock, 1kHz waveform at 20W into 4 ohms (top), Fig.3 Simaudio Moon Rock, distortion (%) vs 1kHz continuous output 0.0033% THD+N; distortion and noise waveform with fundamental power into (from bottom to top at 1W): 8, 4, and 2 ohms. notched out (bottom, not to scale).

Fig.4 Simaudio Moon Rock, THD+N (%) vs frequency at 9V into (from Fig.6 Simaudio Moon Rock, spectrum of 50Hz sinewave, DC–1kHz, at bottom to top): 8, 4, and 2 ohms. 380W into 8 ohms (linear frequency scale).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 127 SIMAUDIO MOON ROCK sients were exactly as sharp as they precision and control in how they as simple as a solo piano. I spent an should be, no more, no less. In every reproduced Beverly Sills’ vocals in La evening listening to Vladimir Ashke- case, the Rocks just seemed to sit there, Traviata (LP, Angel SCLX-3780). In nazy’s reading of Beethoven’s five impervious to whatever was happening this performance Sills spans wide piano concertos, accompanied by in the performance. ranges of pitch and volume, often Georg Solti and the Chicago Sympho- To test their power and control, I ny (LPs, London/Decca R215010). cued up André Previn and the London Every aspect of the piano’s character, Symphony Orchestra’s performance of THE ROCK SOUNDED from the impact and pacing of the Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony (LP, hammers hitting the strings to the EMI SLS 5117), a challenging, often LIKE A REALLY GOOD PURE reverberation of the soundboard, was discordant work with wave after wave faithfully reproduced. Gradations in of complex, percussive passages. Dif- CLASS-A AMP. dynamic shadings were as apparent at ferent instruments, including a game- the frequency extremes as they were lan-like mix of percussion and a through the midrange, and Ashke- bizarre early (1928) electronic key- combining both in breathtaking transi- nazy’s subtle nuances of fingering and board instrument, the Ondes tions. The Rocks reproduced these rhythm were resolved within both the martenot, enter and exit at various transitions precisely, conveying their softest and the loudest passages. times, locations, and levels. When a power without ever blurring the tex- Lionel Goodfield told me that system accurately reproduces the vari- ture of her voice or the surrounding decoupling the output transistors gave ous instruments’ complex textures and ambience—even as the volume grew the Rock an “aura of class-A opera- dynamics, these passages explode and and energized the hall more and more. tion”—even though the amp actually tumble like spectacular, well-coordi- As impressive as Sills’ transitions switches to class-AB above 25W—“but nated fireworks. Any incoherencies in were, I was even more impressed that, mated with nearly unlimited power how a system reproduces dynamic in these dramatic passages, I could and extended to the frequency transients, however, will stand out clearly hear her superimposing on the extremes.” And that’s exactly how it crudely, blurring some of the firework notes small variations in pitch and vol- sounded—like a really good pure class- streaks, or making them seem slower ume. This ability to resolve and por- A amp. and disconnected from the others—or tray inner detail, regardless of what Genuine class-A amps, such as the the initial transients may seem sharp was happening elsewhere in the per- Mark Levinson No.20.6s I use as refer- while the notes are threadbare outlines formance, is something I’ve heard ences, are known for their gorgeous that never solidify or bloom. The only with the Moon Rocks and with midranges. The Moon Rock’s Rocks held everything together beauti- Classé Audio’s Omega monoblocks— midrange was luscious, and the solo fully; when I closed my eyes, I could both of them hugely powerful super- oboe lines in Rafael Kubelik and the visualize sharp, clear cascades of Tech- amp designs. Chicago Symphony’s reading of nicolor streaks painted across a three- Details like Sills’ vocal nuances are Dvorák’s Symphony 9, “From the New dimensional panorama. often very subtle, but they significantly World” (LP, Mercury Living Presence The Rocks also demonstrated their enhance the realism of even something SRW 18021), were great examples.

measurements, continued

ping on an oscilloscope, the Moon Rock demonstrat- performance and enormous capabilities of dynamic ed very low levels of intermodulation distortion range. —John Atkinson (fig.8). Simaudio’s Moon Rock offers both superb measured

Fig.7 Simaudio Moon Rock, spectrum of 1kHz sinewave, DC–1kHz, at Fig.8 Simaudio Moon Rock, HF intermodulation spectrum, DC–24kHz, 750W into 4 ohms (linear frequency scale). 19+20kHz at 1.5kW peak into 4 ohms (linear frequency scale).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 129 SIMAUDIO MOON ROCK

They were quiet and well back in the very accurate tracking of notes’ super- soundstage, but still immediate and fast leading edges. The best example quite lifelike—and absolutely beauti- of this was a performance of Delibes’ ful. I could detect the burst of air that Lakmé by the Orchestra and Chorus of preceded and initiated each note, then the Opéra-Comique, Paris (LP, follow the rapid swelling of the warm, Seraphim SIC-6082). It’s lovely woody glow as the instrument began throughout, and one of the most nat- to resonate. ural-sounding recordings I own, with The Rock’s performance at the fre- wonderfully dimensional images on quency extremes was also excellent, any good system. But when, through but this was another area where its the Moon Rocks, I heard tenor purity and ease were deceptive. My Charles Burles (as Gerard) left alone first impression was that its sound on stage midway through Act I, I was was “all midrange,” soft and rolled- dumbstruck. I hate to commit the sin off on both ends. But when I listened of reviewer hyperbole, but hearing this closely, or made direct comparisons passage through the Rocks made me to the Levinson No.20.6 or my VTL feel foolish about ever having used the Ichibans, it was obvious that wasn’t word holographic in past reviews. the case. My initial impression just I was impressed by the Moon Rocks. reflected the fact that the Rock’s Their performance was outstanding in “class-A aura,” as Goodfield put it, most respects, and even where I had spanned the entire frequency range. doubts, they were usually addressed The Rock’s bottom end was with a bit more listening. In a few cases, The Moon Rock Reference Monoblock: 1000W into 8 extended, tight, and powerful. It was ohms, 2000W into 4 ohms, and 4000W into 2 ohms however, I noticed things about the also the most articulate I’ve heard to probably classifies as “Ultra High Output.” Rocks’ presentation that I couldn’t date, and made startlingly obvious quite reconcile. The first two, which I the differences among timpani, bass often hear from class-A amps, were a drum, double bass, and cello. ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT slightly warm tonal balance and a faint Leopold Stokowski and the Czech liquid texture. John Atkinson’s mea- Philharmonic Orchestra’s recording ANALOG SOURCE VPI TNT HR-X surements should shed light on the of Stokowski’s Bach Transcriptions (LP, turntable & tonearm; Lyra Titan, tonal-balance question; I couldn’t pin it London/Super Analog KIJC-9118) Grado Statement Reference car- down. Overall, the Rocks sounded was a great example. The differences tridges; Sutherland PhD, Ensemble slightly warm, as if the upper bass had a between the bass drum’s big, echoing Fonobrio phono stages. bit of extra bloom. And indeed, when I boom and the timpani’s rounded, DIGITAL SOURCES Burmester 001, listened closely to that region, it did more complex, organic sound were Ensemble Dirondo, Cary 300/303 CD sound particularly vivid. But when I like night and day—even the first players. would then concentrate on another split-second of their initial impacts PREAMPLIFICATION Burmester 011 region—the upper midrange, for exam- had distinctly different characters. preamplifier; VTL 7.5 active line ple—it would sound particularly vivid. And I’ve not heard any combination stage; Placette, Sonic Euphoria pas- Similarly, I was never sure if I was hear- of amp and speaker illuminate indi- sive line stages. ing a slight liquid texture, or if it was vidual double basses as well as the POWER AMPLIFIERS VTL S-400, just something my mind created when Simaudio-Thiel setup did on the Bach VTL Ichiban, Mark Levinson No.20.6. confronted with the Rocks’ uniquely Transcriptions, or as dramatically show- LOUDSPEAKERS Thiel CS6. effortless sound. case the different pacing and textur- CABLES Interconnects and speaker The third area was soundstage ing of the players’ bowing techniques. cables: Nirvana S-X Ltd., Audience depth. The Rocks did a great job of re- The Moon Rock’s high-frequency Au24, Nordost Valhalla, Silversmith creating individual images and, via performance, too, was excellent, but Silver. AC: Audience PowerChord, ambience retrieval, models of the orig- often hard to get a fix on because of Synergistic Research Designers’ Ref- inal recording environments. But the the amp’s smoothness and low level erence. models themselves, the overall size and of distortion. Listening to the upper ACCESSORIES MIT Z-Center power- shape of the soundstages—particularly registers of Ashkenazy’s piano in the conditioning & distribution system; depth—differed just enough from my Beethoven concertos, I went back FIM 880 AC outlets; Finite Elemente expectations, or from what I hear from and forth—first thinking that the Reference equipment stand; Finite the Levinson No.20.6s or VTL Rocks were a bit too soft, then decid- Elemente Ceraball, Nordost equip- Ichibans, to nibble at the edge of my ing instead that they were dead on, ment footers; Audio Tools equip- perception. All of these amps sized and that any additional emphasis on a ment, CD racks; VPI 16.5 record- individual images similarly, but the note’s attack would make them cleaning machine; VPI, Disk Dr. Rocks seemed to squeeze them slightly sound a touch too hard. record-cleaning fluids; Immedia SPT closer together, sometimes almost to Another indication of the Moon stylus-cleaning fluid; Zerostat static the point of crowding them. Rocks’ superb high-frequency exten- eliminator; Nordost ECO3, Audience Speaker placement, room configu- sion was the holographic nature of Aural Illuminator CD cleaner & treat- ration, and associated gear can all their image portrayal, which requires ments. —Brian Damkroger affect soundstage depth, but I did a

130 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 lot of fiddling and could never get the Rocks’ depth to where I thought it should be. In some cases this was just a difference in perspective, as would be the case in different seats or differ- ent halls. In others, however, it result- ed in small inconsistencies among all spatial parameters—image and sound- stage size, image location, ambience cues, listener perspective, etc.—that prevented my system from complete- ly “disappearing.” This was a relative- ly minor glitch, however, and one that might not have even registered had I been dealing with a lesser piece of gear.

Summing up The Simaudio Moon Rock mono- block amplifier is audacious, with size, power—and cost—that are over the top. Its unusual architecture defies indus- try norms, and it’s a huge departure from Simaudio’s traditional customer

SIMAUDIO SET OUT TO BUILD AN AMPLIFIER AS GOOD AS ANY OUT THERE, AND THEY’VE DONE IT. base and identity. But it vindicates and backs up all of this with its perfor- mance. It’s simply inadequate to say that the Moon Rock excelled at just about everything I could think of to assess. It’s more accurate to say that the pair of them almost always “van- ished” to leave the music to exist on its own, or to describe them as a straight wire with gain—but such overused phrases don’t do justice to their excellence. The Moon Rock costs a lot more than I can afford. But even at $37,000/pair, it’s really superb, and may even be “really good for the money.” That wasn’t the manufactur- er’s goal, however, and for you and me it’s not the point. Simaudio set out to build an amplifier as good as any out there, and they’ve done it. If you’re shopping in the stratosphere and choosing among the very best avail- able, you need to audition the Sim- audio Moon Rock. ■■

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 131 EQUIPMENT REPORT

Ray Samuels Audio Emmeline SR-71

Wes Phillips PORTABLE HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER

Ray Samuels Audio Emmeline SR-71s

DESCRIPTION Battery-powered he Emmeline SR-71 portable headphone amplifier ($395) is small headphone amplifier. Frequency but not light. Housed in an extruded-aluminum chassis with a bolt- range: 10Hz–100kHz. Input imped- on faceplate and a rear panel and battery cover that attaches with a ance: 50k ohms. Input sensitivity: thumb-screw, it measures 3.5" by 2.5" by 1.5" and weighs 11oz. That 500mV–4V peak–peak. Voltage gain: sounds light, especially compared to some of the headphone amps I’ve 6dB. Output impedance: 16 ohms at carted around in the past—not to mention their four–D-cell extended 2kHz. Output stage current device: power supplies—but in the iPod era, it’s the portable equivalent of a 250mA. bulky class-A power amp. So why would anybody be willing to lug it around? DIMENSIONS 3.5" (90mm) W by T Because the SR-71 is the portable equivalent of a class-A power amp. Besides, 2.5" (65mm) H by 1.5" (40mm) D. the darn thing is addictive. Weight: 11oz (315gm). SERIAL NUMBER OF UNIT I’m confessing a confession REVIEWED 6124. If you’re not familiar with Ray Samuels Audio’s naming strategy, it can be a tad PRICE $395. Approximate number of confusing—every RSA product is called the Emmeline something or other. “That’s dealers: 1 (sold direct). because all of my products have to be good enough to bear the name of my beau- MANUFACTURER Ray Samuels tiful daughter,” Ray Samuels explained. “And then I name each of them after an Audio, 8005 Keeler, Skokie, IL 60076. airplane, because I worked in the aviation industry for so many years.” Hence, this Tel: (847) 673-8739. Web: portable amp is the Emmeline SR-71, in a nod to the US Air Force’s iconic, blis- www.raysamuelsaudio.com. teringly fast reconnaissance plane.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 133 RAY SAMUELS EMMELINE

The Emmeline SR-71 is a dual- using? He isn’t saying—and he’s erased line pluses but offer about 200 hours of mono design that uses op-amps for its the parts ID and painted the chip red use (or so I’m told—I have only about 6dB gain stage and has a buffered out- to keep it a secret. 100 hours on them and they’re still put stage that delivers, Samuels says, The rear panel unscrews with going strong). 250mA, which pretty much drives any thumb wheels, to allow you to drop in headphone you might consider wear- two 9V batteries. The faceplate sports My heart’s in a pickle, 1 ing in public. Because the SR-71 is two ⁄8" stereo minijacks (signal input it’s constantly fickle tiny, its signal paths are short—always a and headphone, of course), a volume If you want a portable headphone good thing. Parts quality is high: dou- knob (connected to a sweet-sounding amplifier to take to the gym, slip into ble-sided FR4 mil-spec PC boards pot), and a power switch. Battery life is your cycling jersey, or tote along on with oxygen-free copper traces, 1% around 40 hours for conventional cells, your 10km runs, the SR-71 probably Vishay surface-mount resistors, and 60 for alkaline-plus batteries. Late in isn’t what you’re looking for—it’s a bit tantalum and film capacitors in the the review process I found a source of too bulky to easily slip into your run- power supply. What’s that? You want inexpensive 9V lithium cells, which ning shorts. No, it’s “portable” in the to know which op-amp Samuels is cost more or less the same as the alka- sense that it can fit into your briefcase

MEASUREMENTS

he measurements were performed using a fresh The SR-71’s frequency response was flat from 10Hz to set of alkaline batteries. I measured the Emmeline 100kHz, and only just starts to roll off at 200kHz (fig.1). SR-71’s maximum gain as 15.54dB, significantly This response was taken with the volume control set to higher than the specified 6dB. Its input impedance its 12:00 position; note the 0.25dB channel imbalance. Twas a usefully high 23k ohms from 20Hz to 20kHz. I also With the volume control set to its maximum setting, the found its output impedance to be less than 1 ohm, which channels were perfectly matched. The channel-separa- is well below the specified 16 ohms, but perhaps con- tion graph (fig.2) reveals crosstalk increasing at high fre- tributes to the amplifier’s excellent bass quality. DC offset quencies with the 6dB/octave slope typical of capacitive on the amplifier’s output was negligible. coupling between the channels. However, the separation is better than 80dB below 1kHz, which is excellent. Noise levels were very low, the SR-71’s unweighted, wideband signal/noise ratio ref. 1V output measuring 86dB. Switching in an A-weighting filter increased this ratio to a superb 108.3dB. The decreasing slope of the traces below 1V in fig.3, which shows how the THD+noise percentage present in the Emmeline’s output varies with increasing output voltage, shows that even with the low noise level, the actual distortion is even lower. The exception is into 100 ohms, where the distor- tion starts to rise above 200mV before hard-clipping at 4.5V (1% THD), this higher than required to drive typical headphones to deafening levels. Fig.4 plots the THD+N percentage against frequency into 100k ohms and 150 ohms, taken at 2V, a level where Fig.1 Ray Samuels Emmeline SR-71, frequency response at 600mV into fig.3 indicates that the distortion is starting to rise above 150 ohms (0.5dB/vertical div.). the noise floor. The distortion is very low below 1kHz, but

Fig.2 Ray Samuels Emmeline SR-71, channel separation (10dB/vertical Fig.3 Ray Samuels Emmeline SR-71, distortion (%) vs 1kHz output voltage div.). into (from bottom to top at 1V): 100k, 10k, 1k, and 100 ohms.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 135 RAY SAMUELS EMMELINE or travel bag along with your iPod, sun- to invent new uses for the SR-71: It Cardas 6" mini-to-mini connector, glasses, and PDA. In fact, think of your sounded good—really good. A $400 head- plugged in my beloved Etymotic ER- PDA as your litmus test—if you’re trav- phone amp ought to sound good, of 6S headphones with their 48 ohm eling too light to take your Palm Pilot, you won’t want to carry your SR-71. On the other hand, the ’71 turned THE EMMELINE SR-71 SOUNDED GOOD— out to be good enough to use with my big rig, so I’ve used it around the REALLY GOOD. house, both in my main review system and in the bedroom, when I’ve needed to listen to music and audiobooks after course, but I fell into the trap of thinking impedance, and fell completely into my wife has fallen asleep. I’ve never of the SR-71 as a portable audio product the pixilated world of Gong’s Yo u (CD, established a bedside headphone sta- and was delighted to discover that it’s EMI 66552-2). I was plunged into the tion before, but when a headphone just plain great. Still, the first question tale of Zero the hero as he journeyed amp weighs only 11oz and doesn’t remains: How good is it as a portable? through Planet Gong to the other side require an AC cord, you can improvise Mighty darn fine—grin-like-an-idiot of the sky and…well, I guess you had as needed. fine, not to put too fine a point on it. I to be there. But whether or not I can There’s another reason I was willing connected it to my iPod Mini with a take you there, the SR-71 took me there,

measurements, continued

starts to rise above that frequency due to the circuit’s 1kHz at 1V into 8k ohms. The measured THD (actual sum decreasing open-loop bandwidth. (There is less gain mar- of the harmonics) is just 0.0013%, with the third harmon- gin available as the frequency rises to allow negative ic the highest in level at –100dB (0.001%). But note that feedback to operate.) Even so, the distortion remains even though they are at very low levels, the fifth, seventh, below 0.02% even into 150 ohms. and ninth harmonics can be seen (circled), offering per- Fig.5 shows the spectrum of the SR-71’s output driving haps the only clue that this is a portable device, where such factors as output-stage bias current have to be weighed against potential battery life. Intermodulation distortion, however, was very low (fig.6). Overall, the Emmeline SR-71 offers excellent mea- sured performance, and my own positive experience of using the amplifier to drive Ultimate Ears UE-5C in-ear headphones echoes WP’s enthusiastic comments. —John Atkinson

Fig.4 Ray Samuels Emmeline SR-71, THD+N (%) vs frequency at 2V into (from bottom to top): 100k and 150 ohms.

Fig.6 Ray Samuels Emmeline SR-71, HF intermodulation spectrum, Fig.5 Ray Samuels Emmeline SR-71, spectrum of 1kHz sinewave, DC–24kHz, 19+20kHz at 1V peak into 8k ohms (linear frequency DC–10kHz, at 1V into 8k ohms (linear frequency scale). scale).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 137 RAY SAMUELS EMMELINE plunging me deep into Gong’s When I can’t fondle the hand was Jarrett, quietly (well, not that qui- swirling, trippy world, complete with I’m fond of, I fondle the hand etly) moaning and grunting along synth washes, pixie voices, Mike at hand with his playing. It’s been a long time Howlett’s bass guitar, and Steve Although Ray Samuels designed the since Jarrett last recorded a solo-piano Hillage’s incisive guitar histrionics. SR-71 to work as a portable, he insists disc; I’d fallen out of the habit of Ohhh yeahhhh. that its performance puts it in the ignoring his vocal accompaniment. If you think that iPods and other Perhaps you’d portables have to have tinny, disem- rather not listen to bodied sounds, you haven’t heard Jarrett vocalize, but it uncompressed AIFF files played is on the recording, through a big rig—or the SR-71. With and the SR-71 deliv- the Emmeline portable amp and rela- ered it as distinctly tively flat headphones, such as the separate from the Etymotics or the AKG K-501s, music sound of the piano. took on body and a detailed individu- In other words, the ality that the portable player palpably amp got the details lacked on its own. The SR-71 right, which is its job. revealed just how good bass response Ray Samuels was can be with headphones. Music right to insist that I regained much of the bloom and connect the SR-71 to physical impressiveness that it has high-end separates. when reproduced through full-range The same qualities SR-71s showing their batteries. loudspeakers. that make it a great portable amp served it well in my house— THE SR-71 REVEALED same league as dedicated home head- including its dual-mono nature, which phone amps, such as his own Emme- gave it great channel separation, and its JUST HOW GOOD BASS line HR-2 ($875). Encouraged by independence from the AC grid, him, I connected the SR-71 to a which rendered it as quiet as a tomb. RESPONSE CAN BE Musical Fidelity combo of X-3V3 CD And it sure wasn’t wimpy. Connect- player and X-DACV3 D/A converter, ed to the Musical Fidelity player-DAC WITH HEADPHONES. with an Audience Au24 mini-phone- combo, it delivered Jarrett’s muscular plug-to-stereo-RCA cable. abstractions with all the power and The first disc I auditioned was Keith punch that he has in concert—and that’s The SR-71 also enchanted me with Jarrett’s Radiance (CD, ECM 1960/61), saying a lot. its unhyped midrange. Taut bass lines which was, in many ways, a revelation. sucked me in initially, but the amp had The piano sound was clear and crisp, Against the X-Can a way with voices that kept me listen- with superb attack and richly delineat- As I already had the SR-71 connected ing, hour after hour. Take Grey De ed decay trailing each note. Once to the Musical Fidelity components, it Lisle’s The Graceful Ghost (CD, Sugar again, I was drawn completely into the seemed a good idea to compare it to Hill SUG-CD 3985), which has an performance. Then I heard a raspy MF’s X-CanV3 headphone amp, which analog warmth that enhances De noise—a discharging capacitor? a Sam Tellig reviewed in the December Lisle’s crystalline soprano. Without the momentary short? 2004 issue and which has become my SR-71, my Mini delivered the uncom- It repeated—and again. No, I sud- in-home reference. At $449, the X- pressed AIFF vocal files with clarity denly realized, it wasn’t the SR-71, it Can is only slightly more expensive 1 but without incisive detail; the Ray than the SR-71, and boasts both a ⁄4" Samuels amp restored De Lisle’s headphone jack and RCA inputs and breathy, silvery luster. ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT feed-through. I then pulled out my trusty old On the Jarrett disc, the X-CanV3 HeadRoom Supreme (discontinued DIGITAL SOURCES Musical Fidelity matched the SR-71’s taut bass impact but still available from www.head X-RayV3 CD player, X-DACV3 D/A con- and crystalline attacks. Actually, the X- phone.com for $359), which in 1993 verter, Apple iPod Mini. CanV3 had a bit more bass extension, represented the state of the art of HEADPHONE AMPLIFIERS Head- but the biggest difference was that the portable headphone amplification. Room Supreme, Musical Fidelity X- MF allowed me to hear more of the The Supreme didn’t have quite the SR- CanV3. way the piano notes leapt into the hall’s 71’s bottom-end warmth and punch, HEADPHONES AKG K-501, Etymotic ambience. It wasn’t simply that there but the big shock was how much ER-6S, Sennheiser HD-600 (with Ste- was more ambience, but that the hall brighter and grainier the Supreme fan Audio Art Equinox cables), sound and the sound of the notes with- sounded. What a difference a dozen Sennheiser HD-650. in that hall sound were more inter- 1 years can make—and the ’71 is smaller INTERCONNECT Cardas ⁄8"-mini-to- twined with one another. That’s likely 1 and lighter to boot. It’ll be interesting ⁄8"-mini jumper, Audience Au24 mini- just a convoluted way of saying that the to try the same comparison with phone-plug-to-stereo-RCA cable. SR-71 probably lost some of that com- HeadRoom’s new Micro (stay tuned). —Wes Phillips plex detail—edited it out, you might say.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 139 Another difference between the two amps was that the Musical Fideli- ty was more comfortable driving my combo of Sennheiser HD-600 head- phones and Stefan Audio Arts

I HAVE YET TO HEAR A PORTABLE HEADPHONE AMP THAT SOUNDS AS GOOD AS RAY SAMUELS’ LITTLE WONDER.

Equinox cable. The SR-71 could drive the HD-600s, but not to the highest levels I wished, whereas the X-CanV3 achieved volumes that were far greater than was good for my hearing. It’s not that I want to deafen myself, but there are times when you need that little bit extra, whether you’re monitoring a recording project or just getting stupid with Steve Hillage’s Strat-strangling. As with most things in life, which headphone amp is best almost certainly depends on what you need it to do. If you’re going to be listening through Sennheiser HD-600s or HD-650s (or AKG-1000s, for that matter) and you’re going to be listening at home, the X-CanV3 remains hard to beat.

When I’m not facing the face that I fancy, I fancy the face I face However, while I do listen at home, and do listen a lot through HD-series Sennheisers, I frequently find myself listening on the road, or in other rooms of my house. Having a head- phone amplifier of extremely high quality that I can slip into my shirt pocket and take where I need it is a The luxury of top performance at moderate prices real plus. What makes it even better is that We are continually earning recognition for the highest performance to the SR-71 sounds so very good, in price ratio of all cable companies. Our customers tell us our cables are addition to being easy to carry. I have sonically equal to (or better) than those of any of the competition and at yet to hear a portable headphone amp very moderate prices. that sounds as good as Ray Samuels’ At our website, read about our new innovations in the descriptions of little wonder. There’s a place for a our newly introduced MK II models, or call to talk to a real person about headphone amp that’s as well made them. Call or visit our website for product information, including and easy to listen to as the Ray literature that demystifies the hype in wire and cable technology. Samuels Audio Emmeline SR-71, and www.latinternational.com that place is wherever I happen to be. That makes it a whole lot better than a Toll Free 800 321 2108 email [email protected] “better” headphone amp that’s where I can’t use it. ■■ L A T International is a subsidiary of L A T International Enterprises, Inc. 317 Provincetown Rd Cherry Hill NJ 08034

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 141 FOLLOW -UP John Atkinson & Art Dudley

Channel Islands Audio running—with none D-100 monoblock power of the downside. amplifier —John Atkinson When I measured the tiny CIA D- 100 for Wes Phillips’ review in Lamm ML2.1 August (p.113), I found that while monoblock this class-D power amplifier met its power 100W power specification into 8 amplifier ohms, it failed to do so into 4 or 2 My parents’ first ohms. I thus recommended that the house, which they amplifier not be used with speakers bought three years whose impedances dipped below 4 after I was born, cost ohms. CIA’s Dusty Vawter1 $11,000—a factoid addressed this point in his “Manufac- Fig.1 Channel Islands Audio D-100, revised sample, distortion (%) vs 1kHz I’ve always been able turer’s Comment” in that issue continuous output power into (from bottom to top at 1W): 8, 4, and to cough up at will, (p.141): “the low figures shown at 2 2 ohms. no matter how many and 4 ohms are not due to lack of breakfasts I forget. headroom, but are a result of prema- My parents’ second ture current limiting. This has been home, which had addressed in our current production two floors and a model, and the D-100 is very com- coal-burning fur- fortable driving difficult loads.” nace, cost $13,000. I asked Vawter to send me samples Some years later I of the revised D-100; when they spent $900 on the arrived, I hoisted them onto my test first car I bought (a bench. Again, with no signal present, Plymouth Duster); the amplifier’s output still featured many years later I around 250mV of ultrasonic noise, spent a little less than this resulting from the switch-mode $22,000 on my most output stage. But I noticed a differ- recent one (a Subaru ence when I started the 60-minute Forester). I still have Fig.2 Channel Islands Audio D-100, original sample (top) and revised conditioning period, running the D- sample (bottom), THD+N (%) vs frequency at 2.83V into (from my first guitar 1 100 at ⁄3 power into 8 ohms. Whereas bottom to top): 8, 4, and 2 ohms, with sixth-order low-pass filter at amplifier (a 1966 the original sample had started out 30kHz in front of analyzer. Fender Vibro- cold with about 0.05% THD+noise Champ, bought as a (including the ultrasonic spuriae), this store demo model increasing to 0.1% after an hour, the I then connected a sixth-order low- for $50 in 1970), and I did, in fact, new sample began at 0.027% and pass filter set to 30kHz between the spend a month’s salary on my wife’s increased only very slightly, to output of the amplifier and the analyz- engagement ring. More or less. 0.0285%: a promising beginning. It also er in order to eliminate the ultrasonic Which leads me to an interesting yet was a little warmer at the end of the noise, and examined how the D-100’s mildly embarrassing bit of news: I’ve hour than the first sample had been. percentage of small-signal audioband just bought a $29,290 pair of amplifiers. I then measured the power available THD+N varied with frequency. The Keeping current: I’m not paying at clipping (1% THD+N) into loads results are shown in fig.2 as the lower the full $29,290, of course: Lucky for ranging from 8 ohms down to 2 ohms pair of traces. The upper traces show me, journalists are considered a part of (fig.1). The amplifier delivered 110W the results of this measurement for the the audio industry, so most manufac- into 8 ohms (20.4dBW), but now original sample. The second sample is turers offer us an industry accommodation 200W into 4 ohms (20dBW) com- clearly very much better—10 times bet- price, which is considerably less than pared with the original’s 105.5W ter into all loads! what a store would charge. (17.2dBW), and 300W into 2 ohms With its adjusted current limiting, Still, one of the ways I’m financing (18.75dBW) compared with 55W the Channel Islands Audio D-100 now my purchase of the Lamm ML2.1 (11.4dBW). meets its specified output power into mono amps2 (I’m buying both of them) lower impedances. I withdraw my caveat about using it into such loads. 2 Lamm Industries, Inc., 2621 E. 24th Street, Brooklyn, 1 The D-100 costs $1599/pair. Channel Islands Audio, The D-100 is a nice little amplifier that NY 11235. Tel: (718) 368-0181. Fax: (718) 368-0140. 567 W. Channel Islands Blvd., PMB 300, Port Huen- Web: www.lammindustries.com. The original review eme, CA 93041. Tel: (805) 984-8282. Fax: (805) 984- appears to offer the benefits of a can be found at www.stereophile.com/amplification 8283. Web: www.ciaudio.com. switching output stage—small size, cool reviews/1004lamm.

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 143 FOLLOW-UP is to sell almost all of the other ampli- goes down, and internal heat builds up impressed us in the past, but even then, fiers I’ve accumulated over the past few to the point where damage can occur. much of quality can get overlooked. So years—another embarrassment. The But if you use a liquid of any sort to when Totem Acoustic’s Lucy Lentini only one of those I’m keeping is my Fi clean the tubes—a tissue slightly damp- suggested at the 2004 CEDIA Expo 2A3 Stereo, which is special. ened with a very small amount of alco- that it was high time I gave room in my Which is also why I’m buying the hol is acceptable—you must keep the home to a pair of the Canadian manu- Lamms: As I said in my review of them amp switched off until the surface of facturer’s Forest speakers, which Larry in the October 2004 Stereophile, they the glass is thoroughly dry. Greenhill had raved about in our April make music like nothing else. In fact, Incidentally, although the ML2.1’s 2001 issue (www.stereophile.com/ the Lamm ML2.1 is the finest audio otherwise superb owner’s manual loudspeakerreviews/378), I had no amplifier I’ve heard to date. doesn’t mention the fact, Vladimir choice but to say yes. This is not to say they’ve been com- Lamm recommends that each amplifi- The floorstanding Forest cost pletely trouble-free. During their tenth er’s single 6N6P—a uniquely Russian $3000/pair when it was reviewed four month here, the right-channel ML2.1 dual-triode tube that’s used as an out- years ago, and its price has increased by began making a quiet popping noise put driver—should be changed once a just $195/pair in that time.3 Commend- through its speaker. Then, after a few year. Failing to do so won’t harm the able. It combines a 1" aluminum-dome minutes of that mischief, it went silent ML2.1 in any way, but it will prevent tweeter from SEAS with an Acoustic altogether—although the power indica- the amp from sounding its best. Technology International 6.5" tor light continued to glow. The The last watt is important, too: midrange/bass driver, both mounted in immediate problem was traced to a I’m sure I haven’t even heard my a 3'-tall cabinet less than a foot wide and 1.25-amp internal fuse that had blown, ML2.1s at their best, because my Quad a foot deep. The woofer is reflex-loaded albeit not spectacularly, so I replaced it. ESL-989 loudspeakers keep them run- with a 1.35"-diameter port on the cabi- Then, assuming that the noise and sub- ning closer to their last watt than their net’s rear. A second hole near the base sequent fuse failure had been caused first, and my more efficient Lowther allows the lower part of the cabinet to be by a naughty refrigerator on an adja- Medallions tell me what the amps are filled with sand. I auditioned the speaker cent household circuit, I plugged that capable of playing only from the upper on and off for about seven months, and the left-channel amp into a differ- bass through the lower treble. And using the Totem Claws, which support ent outlet and returned the first unit to while 90Hz to 12kHz might have the speaker on three ball bearings. active duty on the front line. Then the passed for “full-range” back in the My system comprised my long-term popping and blowing happened all 1930s, it doesn’t cut it anymore. Still… reference amplifiers, Mark Levinson over again. When I first became enamored of No.33H monoblocks, hooked up to The problem turned out to be one the single-ended triode trend, I the Forests with AudioQuest’s battery- of the two 6C33C tubes (the tube thought: One of the best things about polarized Kilimanjaro speaker cable marked V2 is this single-ended ampli- this movement is the possibility that (the smoothest-sounding cables I have fier’s single output tube, while V1 is its any reasonably clever person might be ever used, but don’t ask to me to regulator). I replaced it, and never had able to build the best amp on earth for explain why). Preamp was the new another problem with that particular a comparatively small amount of Mark Levinson No.326S, connected to amp. But I went through all of the money: This needn’t be a rich man’s the power amps with 15' runs of above with the other Lamm—the evil, thing. I still believe that. But howsoever Madrigal CZ Gel-1 balanced intercon- left-hand one, as some religions see it— he’s done it, Vladimir Lamm has side- nects. Digital source was either a Mark just a few weeks later. stepped it all, at least for the time being. Levinson No.31.5 CD transport or a What gives—or, more to the point, He obviously knows something that I Technics DVD-A10 DVD player, what gave? No one knows for sure, but don’t know, and that most other people hooked up to my No.30.6 D/A designer Vladimir Lamm says that the don’t know, about the way electronic processor via Kimber Kable Orchid 6C33C tubes used in the ML2.1 usual- devices can be used to play back music, AES/EBU or AudioQuest SVD-4 ly last at least two to three years—“but and I’m happy to pay him his due, liter- S/PDIF datalinks, respectively. The sometimes, these things happen…” He ally and figuratively, for the work he’s No.30.6 was connected to the preamp offered two bits of very good advice done: As it turns out, the things he’s with balanced 1m lengths of Audio- for prolonging the life of my 6C33Cs, figured out are important to me. Quest Cheetah. I also used my Apple the second of which applies to virtually And to the few distant family mem- PowerBook to play back uncom- any tube amp: bers and scattered old friends who read pressed 16-bit AIF files via an Apple 1) When setting and maintaining this magazine I say, “No, I don’t have AirPort feeding the Levinson DAC. the plate current adjustment, remem- the money I owe you. Obviously.” And for a regrettably brief period of ber that 0.31VDC is the maximum— —Art Dudley time I used the sample of Ayre’s new not the center of an allowable range. C-5xe universal player that Wes “If this adjustment is allowed to exceed Totem Acoustic Forest Phillips reviewed for Stereophile in July. 0.33,” Lamm says, “the tube will not loudspeaker Among Larry Greenhill’s positive last long. Never exceed that number!” One of the problems with a magazine comments in April 2001, I noted the 2) Keep the tubes clean, and avoid like Stereophile, whose review focus is of handling them with your bare hands— necessity on the new, is that long-stand- which can transfer skin oils and dirt to ing, well-designed models can get short 3 The Forest costs $3195/pair. Totem Acoustic, 9165 Champ D’Eau, Montreal, Quebec H1P 3M3, Canada. the glass envelope. If the glass is shrift. We do try to give second and Tel: (514) 259-1062. Fax: (514) 259-4968. Web: allowed to get dirty, heat dissipation even third listens to products that have www.totemacoustic.com.

144 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 FOLLOW-UP following: “The Forest’s highs were Putting on the G-minor fugue that stage was wide, deep, and stable. Of transparent and beguiling, with no opens Suite 3, a favorite of mine for course, this work may be richly scored, brightness, steeliness, or metallic edge. more than 30 years, I could hear a stable but it doesn’t have brass or woodwind, The Forest’s dynamics were remark- piano image well defined between the so might not reveal any problems a able. …I can’t think of any other speak- speaker positions. The sound of the speaker might have in the low treble. ers for $3000 or less that image as piano was uncolored, and yes, there was Accordingly, I played the definitive well.” To which, back then, I had a beguiling ease to the high frequencies. Decca recording of Benjamin Britten’s added the conjecture, based on my I then dropped into the CD trans- The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra measurements, that “This speaker port Vernon Handley and the Royal (XRCD, JVC JVCXR-0226-2), with should be decidedly easy on the ear.” Philharmonic’s recording of Sir the English Chamber Orchestra con- Listening to Ivo Janssen’s exploration Granville Bantock’s A Celtic Symphony ducted by the composer. As much as I of Bach’s English Suites on piano (CD, (CD, Hyperion CDA66540). I heard love this 1963 Kingsway Hall record- Nederland Bach Collegium VOID nothing amiss or unbalanced: upper ing, I have to admit its highs are a bit 9806), I must confess that at first I had strings were silky smooth, double bass- “chromium-plated.” And that’s what nothing to add to LG’s summary. es rich and full. And again, the sound- the Totem Forests told me, with per-

MEASUREMENTS

he Totem Forest’s sensitivity is low, at an estimat- quency. As I wrote in 2001, this resonance is too high to ed 86dB(B)/2.83V/m, but its impedance graph be heard and will not be excited by restricted-band- (fig.1) reveals it to be an easy load for the part- width CDs. But it will ring with SACDs and DVD-As hav- nering amplifier, dropping below 8 ohms only in ing content at that frequency, as well as with LPs played Tthe lower midrange, and then to 7.2 ohms. In the mea- back with an MC cartridge. In these cases it might have surements sidebar that accompanied LG’s 2001 review, I an unpredictable effect on sound quality. It is fair to mentioned the presence of various high-Q cabinet reso- note, however, that I didn’t hear any problems with hi- nances; these affect the impedance plots by producing rez digital media. small glitches in the midrange, at 270Hz, 520Hz, and 700Hz. Fig.2, a waterfall plot calculated from the output of a plastic-tape accelerometer fastened to the Forest’s front baffle below the woofer, clearly reveals the pres- ence of these resonances, as well as some pumping of the cabinet wall at the port tuning frequency, though these are all quite low in level. Adding the sand and lead shot to the cabinet’s lower chamber reduced the amplitude of the two lower resonant modes, but not the one at 700Hz, suggesting that it is actually an air- space mode. The quasi-anechoic response of the 2005 sample, serial number FC3320 (fig.3, red trace), is very similar to Fig.2 Totem Forest, cumulative spectral-decay plot calculated from the that of the 2001 sample, serial number MI-195B (fig.3, output of an accelerometer fastened to the front baffle beneath the blue). The bass is flat down to 45Hz and the mid-treble woofer. (MLS driving voltage to speaker, 7.55V; measurement is shelved up by a couple of dB. The metal-dome tweet- bandwidth, 2kHz.) er’s ultrasonic diaphragm resonance lies at a high 26.5kHz, but produces a 20dB-high peak at that fre-

Fig.3 Totem Forest, anechoic response on-axis at 50", averaged across 30º horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with the Fig.1 Totem Forest, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 complex sum of the nearfield woofer and port responses plotted ohms/vertical div.) below 300Hz: 2001 sample (blue), 2005 sample (red).

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 147 FOLLOW-UP haps a slight exaggeration. The cym- voice on Editor’s Choice, for example, Music Systems & Home Theatre bals and other HF-rich percussion did not sound colored, as it had done instruments, as well as the flute and with the Tetra. Even so, I wondered if piccolo, were all projected a bit for- the Forest’s cabinet modes were the ward in the soundstage. This speaker’s cause of the lack of clarity I was not- treble balance is definitely on the for- ing, so I tried something I had not had ward side, alleviated by its smoothness time to do back in 2001: fill the speak- and lack of grain in this region. er’s lower compartment with a damp- Despite its small stature, the speaker’s ing material. bass balance was generous, even a bit New, Meridian G Series in Stock! too much so. The double basses on the G68 Processor and New G68J, Britten sounded more gruff than I was TOTEM’S FOREST MAY G98 DVD Player expecting, for example. LF extension G07 & G08 CD Player 1 was impressive, the 32Hz, ⁄3-octave LOOK UNPREPOSSESSING, Introducing Sony's New band on Stereophile’s Editor’s Choice CD State of the Art Front (Stereophile STPH016-2) being clearly BUT ITS SONIC Projector QUALIA 004 & audible, though the bands in the upper Rear Projection 006 bass sounded softer than I was used to, PERFORMANCE IS SIMPLY on display and the lower midrange occasionally lacked a bit of clarity. Listening to the SUPERB. cabinet walls with a stethoscope while I played the stepped toneburst track from Editor’s Choice revealed some lively cabi- I loaded up the cavity in the base of net resonances in the two octaves each enclosure with 30 lbs of a mixture between 250Hz and 1kHz. of dry sand and lead shot, which almost In our original review, I had found a doubled the speaker’s mass. I then number of high-Q resonances in the placed a 20-lb bag of lead shot atop each midrange that seemed to be due both cabinet. Wow. Now the softness in the to panel resonances and internal air- low frequencies was replaced by defini- McIntosh MC 501 Monoblock space resonances. Because they are of tion and authority. The basses in the Power Amplifier in Stock! high Q (quality factor), such reso- Britten had full weight and well-defined nances can easily “fall between the leading edges. Jerome Harris’s acoustic notes” in Western music and thus not bass guitar on Rendezvous (CD, be excited. And they were not any- Stereophile STPH013-2) sounded thing like as severe as those I had about as good as I have heard it, com- found in the Tetra 505LTD in bining excellent pitch definition with August—Richard Lehnert’s speaking good weight. Yes, the treble was still a

CA-M400 Power Amplifier New on Display! LINN Products measurements, continued www.jsaudio.com 1 Fig.4 shows the spatially averaged ⁄3-octave response produced by the pair of Accuphase • Analysis Plus • Bryston Forests in my listening room. It correlates nicely with my listening impressions: Billy Baggs • Classé Audio • Cardas • Dali Dynaudio • EAR • Jeff Rowland • Grado extended low frequencies coupled with a slightly excessive mid-treble, but other- Kimber Illuminati • Kimber Select wise impressively flat overall. —John Atkinson Mark Levinson • Linn • Meridian Digital Meridian Reference • Monster Cable Magnum Dynalab • Niles • Pioneer Elite Pioneer Elite Plasma • REL • SME Sony Qualia • Sony XBR • Sony Plasma Stewart Filmscreens • VPI One year 100% trade up policy • Select pre- owned products available Equipment trade-ins accepted

4919 Saint Elmo Avenue Bethesda, Maryland 20814 301.656.7020 1 Fig.4 Totem Forest, ⁄3-octave, spatially averaged response in JA’s listening fax: 301.656.7741 room. e-mail: [email protected] Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 149 FOLLOW-UP bit forward, but this was offset by the players I have around the house, has You just can’t play “Rocky Mountain gain in clarity. Time for some hard rock. been growing on me ever since, due Way” at anything less than head-bang- “Clarity,” the first track on John partly to Mayer’s tasteful Fender Strat- ing SPLs, and I’m pleased to report that Mayer’s Heavier Things (DualDisc, ocaster chops, but also to the intelli- the Forests didn’t crap out, even with Aware/Columbia CH 93903), starts gent arrangements. “Come to Bed,” for my wife yelling at me from her office with an underdamped kick drum that example, combines a waltz-time cho- down the hall to turn it down. Yes, that sounds more like a decaying sinewave rus with some Stax-styled horns, all all this was coming from a pair of 6" oscillator. Before I added the ballast and underpinned by a sweeping bass-guitar woofer cones was evident from the played the disc on the Technics DVD- line that was given full measure by the furring-up of the low frequencies at Audio player feeding a 48kHz data- mass-loaded Forests. high levels. But with what sounded stream from the DVD side to my Mark The Forest was superb at differentiat- like a predominance of second har- Levinson No.30.6 D/A processor, the ing between similarly toned bass instru- monic, this didn’t interfere with the drum sounded indistinct and boomy. ments. From the distinctive tone of Flim Forest’s ability to sound convincing in With the sand and shot weighing down Johnson’s five-string Alembic backing up the bass. This, of course, was in my the speakers, the sound could now be James Taylor on “Copperline” to John moderate-sized room (approximately definitely identified as a kick drum, Mayer’s bassist’s Precision Bass on “City 26' by 16'). In a larger room, the overlaid with a hoot probably due to the Love”—more great J.J. Johnson drum- Forests would have to work hard too sound being processed with a narrow work—to Nathan East’s acoustic five- much of the time. bandpass filter. And the newfound low- string on Eric Clapton’s “Rollin’ and Summing Up: I very much enjoyed frequency clarity of the Forests allowed Tumblin’ ” to Duck Dunn’s different my time with Totem’s Forest. It may to me to decide definitively that J.J. Fender P-Bass behind David Hidalgo’s look unprepossessing, but its sonic per- Johnson’s more traditional pat’n’purr “Neighborhood” and Joe Walsh’s classic formance is simply superb. Its lack of kick-drum sound, which begins “Only “Rocky Mountain Way”—and yes, that is grain, its excellent dynamics (within the Heart” on this disc, accompanied by a Booker T. and the MG’s backing up East limitations mentioned earlier), its tightly tuned snare that sounds more L.A.’s and Cleveland’s favorite sons!—all extended low frequencies and well- like timbales, is an object lesson in how from Eric Clapton Crossroads Festival defined stereo imaging, as well as its these drums should be recorded. (DVD-Video, Reprise R2 970378), were small footprint, make it a contender for The Mayer album, which I bought all reproduced as being unambiguously audiophiles with smaller listening strictly to see how compatible the different. Which is just how a speaker is rooms. Very highly recommended. DualDisc medium was with all the supposed to perform, right. —John Atkinson RECORD REVIEWS

RECORDING OF THE MONTH CHARLIE HADEN LIBERATION MUSIC Not In Our Name ORCHESTRA

n Charlie Haden’s distinguished half-century career in This edition of Haden’s LMO contains fewer famous music, his recordings as a leader have sometimes been names than earlier bands, but it may be the tightest. The overpraised. But the albums of his Liberation Music group toured Europe for most of the summer of 2004, then Orchestra (LMO) are enduring achievements. They do went into a studio in Rome and recorded Not In Our Name. not come often. The first, self-titled release was in The sound is nicely detailed and dynamic, especially con- 1970. Twelve years later came The Ballad of the Fallen. sidering the challenges of recording larger jazz ensembles. IDream Keeper appeared in 1990. Now there is a fourth. Several of those not-yet-famous players are extraordinary. Charlie Haden’s politics are explicitly leftist. Earlier LMO Every solo of Miguel Zenón is like fountains of flame. albums contained such pieces as Trumpeter Michael Rodriguez “Song for Ché,” and “Hymn of the generates luminous breathy poetry. Anarchist Women’s Movement,” The two tenors, Tony Malaby and from the Spanish Civil War. (How Chris Cheek, are very different in many current jazz musicians care level of aggression, but both are about the Spanish Civil War?) The compelling. Matt Wilson is one of new recording, Not In Our Name, is the most accomplished drummers a direct cry of protest against the in jazz. And when was the last time outcome of the 2004 election in you heard a great tuba solo? Joe the US and the policies of the cur- Daley strains and moans and tri- rent administration. umphs on “Lift Every Voice.” Any art with a narrowly political And every individual solo state- message is unlikely to survive the ment here is enlarged in meaning specific issues of its time. LMO by the orchestral context provided recordings are exceptions. One rea- by Carla Bley. She even transforms son is that Haden’s causes are in fact “Amazing Grace” without killing not narrow, but broadly humanistic. it, making it throb with fervor and Some of LMO’s most affecting per- then opening it up for a string of formances are jazz interpretations of Charlie Haden, bass; Carla Bley, piano, arranger, con- inspired solos, beginning with secular (“We Shall Overcome”) or ductor; Seneca Black, Michael Rodriguez, trumpet; Haden’s dramatic darkness. The Miguel Zenón, alto sax; Chris Cheek, Tony Malaby, religious (“Amazing Grace”) spiritu- tenor sax; Curtis Fowlkes, trombone; Ahnee Sharon two pieces that open the album, als whose relevance is timeless and Freeman, French horn; Joe Daley, tuba; Steve Haden’s title track and Pat universal. As Haden puts it, “Our Cardenas, guitar; Matt Wilson, drums Metheny’s “This Is Not America,” Verve B000494902 (CD). 2005. Charlie Haden, Carla opposition to the inhumane treat- Bley, Ruth Cameron, prods.; Gerard de Haro, eng. are targeted and specific (Bley ref- ment of this Universe remains.” DDD? TT: 68:55 erences “Dixie”), but Dvorák’s Performance ★★★★ Another reason is that LMO albums Sonics ★★★★ “Goin’ Home” is inclusive. Bley’s stand on their own as deeply con- earth-tone chords prepare for the ceived and brilliantly executed writ- poignant flickering of Rodriguez’s ten and improvised music. trumpet and the outpouring and That concept and execution always start with Carla Bley. release of Zenón’s alto sax. The album ends with the Adagio Her meticulous, idiosyncratic arrangements have defined (from Adagio for Strings) of Samuel Barber, a piece that is both the sharp edges and the rich, complex textures of all without solos but whose shifting time signatures and reso- four LMO albums. For Not In Our Name, as Haden says, nant voicings are clearly jazz, and whose somber strength “Carla makes it happen, man.” Her 17-minute “America the offers closure. Beautiful” medley is the most complete example here of Haden found the title for this album on a European tour how she makes powerful statements through telling twists in 2003, when he saw the slogan on banners hung from bal- and juxtapositions. The traditional Samuel Augustus Ward conies of apartment buildings in Italy and Spain. “Not in patriotic theme is introduced but interrupted by a Miguel our name!” is a fitting proclamation that transcends ideolo- Zenón alto-sax explosion that cries “Wait!” The theme is gy for all who renounce “the inhumane treatment of this then reinstated in an altered version by composer Gary Universe”—be they citizens of the United States who decry McFarland, segues to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the the devastating collateral damage inflicted by the policies of African-American national anthem, then opens out into the current administration, or Muslims horrified by terror- Ornette Coleman’s “Skies of America” (skies blasted by ists who slaughter innocents in the name of Islam. thunder and lightning), before the circle closes with a return Not In Our Name is a “Recording of the Month” not only to Ward’s ponderous song, now voiced in an aching minor because of its full creative realization but because, in the key. The ironic atonality of the ensemble horns scrapes presence of its seriousness of purpose and its passion, the away the last vestiges of complacency to leave a sadder, other recorded music released this month is likely to sound wiser, deeper beauty that knows dissonance. rather frivolous. —Thomas Conrad www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 153 RECORD REVIEWS

perhaps failed to give it the refinement it needed. Forget all that, Rattle seems to say. Every phrase forms its own coherent, rhythmically buoyant world in his recording; classical he also goes to great pains to show thematic relationships between Parts One and Two, as if to head off any suspicions MAHLER that they’re a shotgun wedding of apples and oranges. And Symphony 8, “Symphony of a Thousand” he’s momentarily convincing, particularly since his excellent soloists—especially sopranos Christine Brewer and Soile Christine Brewer, Soile Isokoski, Juliane Banse, sopranos; Birgit Remmert, Jane Henschel, mezzo-sopranos; Jon Villars, tenor; David Wilson-Johnson, baritone; Isokoski and tenor Jon Villars—are in articulate, impassioned John Relyea, bass; City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus & Youth Chorus, form. The choruses make a trim, tight sound, even if they London Symphony Chorus, Toronto Children’s Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Sir Simon Rattle miss the sonic depths that come with even larger forces EMI 5 57945 2. (CD). 2005. Stephen Johns, prod.; Mike Clements, eng. TT: 77:36 making awesome sounds without anyone having to resort to Performance ★★★★ Sonics ★★★★ vocal forcing. Certainty, for Nagano, seems to be the enemy, as he Sylvia Greenberg, Lynne Dawson, Sally Matthews, sopranos; Sophie Koch, downplays the music’s backward references to the Elena Manistina, mezzo-sopranos; Robert Gambill, tenor; Detlef Roth, bari- Wunderhorn symphonies. Instead, he underscores those odd tone; Jan-Hendrik Rootering, bass; Rundfunkchor Berlin, MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Windsbacher Knabenchor, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; harmonic details in the Veni, creator spiritus (details that Rattle Kent Nagano rather sweeps under the rug) that throw ambiguity into the Harmonia Mundi 901858.59 (2 CDs). 2005. Martin Sauer, prod.; Philipp swirling masses of sound and look directly forward to the Knop, eng. TT: 88:15 Performance ★★★★★ dissonances of Symphony 10. What do they mean? Sonics ★★★★ Moments of spiritual doubt? Or Mahler looking even beyond Goethe’s exalted realm? utwardly, these two simultaneously released Tempo comparisons between the two recordings are recordings of the ultimate special-occasion sym- telling. In the opening of Part One, they’re identical. But in phony, Mahler’s Eighth, the “Symphony of a Part Two Nagano grows more expansive, giving more a OThousand,” are anything but a close contest. Simon sense of progressing into increasingly higher realms than Rattle’s EMI recording, made with his old Birmingham Rattle. Though only one of Nagano’s soloists, soprano forces, has everything: a clean, clear performance, nicely Lynne Dawson, is on a level with Rattle’s, the audible vocal focused sound picture, excellent soloists, and a performance labor among the others, such as Jan-Hendrik Rootering, so intelligent, decisive, and attuned to Mahler’s logic that it conveys poetic effort of spiritual upward mobility, giving an leaves few if any mysteries—and it fits on a single disc. Why, earthly tension to music that can seem relentlessly rarefied. then, am I more interested in revisiting Kent Nagano’s less The fact that Nagano wants to explore the music at the cogent, less well sung recording, spread over two specially expense of integration means that even the ultragrand final priced discs? I suspect that seasoned Mahlerites will feel the moments are strangely fitting layers of sound. What the same thanks for Nagano’s emphasis on messy questions recording needs is an SACD release that will give its occa- over tidy answers. sionally murky recording from Teldec Studio Berlin greater For all its majesty, Symphony 8 remains, more than any- depth of field, and more reason to buy the Mahler 8 on two thing else by the composer, a source of secret ambivalence discs instead of one. —David Patrick Stearns among Mahler’s faithful. Though Part One is a marvelously exploded, emotionally straightforward setting of Veni, creator spiritus, the composer devoted all of Part Two to the esoteric VIVALDI final scene of Goethe’s Faust, which dramatizes all manner of Bajazet celestial realms that may make more sense to German-speak- ing audiences who have the source material in their blood, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, Bajazet; David Daniels, Tamerlano; Patrizia Ciofi, Idaspe; but can leave the rest of us wondering why, having gotten the Viveca Genaux, Irene; Marijana Mijanovic, Asteria; Elina Garanca, Andronico; point in the first 10 minutes, the Europa Galante, Fabio Bondi Virgin 5 45676 2 (2 CDs, DVD). 2005. Nicolas music goes on for 55. However Bartholomée, prod.; Frédéric Briant, eng. DDD. TT: elevated and glorious it may be, 2:26:26 Performance ★★★★★ Part Two contains nothing that Sonics ★★★★★ Mahler didn’t do better in his Wunderhorn symphonies (1–4) his stunning work is one of the and Das klagende Lied. Of course, 50 operas composed on the many of Mahler’s works cross- subject of the bloody rivalry reference each other, if usually T between the Tartar tyrant with a greater sense of site-specif- Tamerlane, whose methods of intim- ic purpose, but the orchestral idation included constructing towers introduction to the Eighth’s Part made of his enemies’ heads (120 Two borrows one of the great towers of 750 heads in Baghdad orchestral climaxes of Symphony alone) and the proud Ottoman sul- 7 with minimum reworking. Is it tan Bajazet, who, after being impris- meant to be a symbolic quota- oned by Tamerlane, opted for suicide tion? Or just a good idea that bore rather than submission. In the opera, repeating? Mahler was delighted Tamerlane, though promised to the with the speedy spontaneity with which he wrote the Eighth, princess Irene, loves Bajazet’s daughter, Asteria, who tries but also seemed so entranced with the piece’s concept that he to kill the tyrant twice. Asteria loves and is loved by

154 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 RECORD REVIEWS

stunning as her free middle and top. Viveca Genaux dazzles Andronicus, a confederate of Tamerlane’s; Idaspe is a con- with her perfect coloratura as Irene in two arias composed fidante of Andronicus. for Farinelli; one wishes her role were larger. Patrizia Ciofi’s The opera is a pastiche: The recitatives for all the charac- Idaspe contains the opera’s highest-lying music; she handles ters and arias for Bajazet, Idaspe, and Asteria are by Vivaldi, it with ease, a pinched very high note aside. And Elina either written specifically for this opera or adapted from Garanca makes the most of Andronico’s music, delivering it earlier operas (Bajazet, premiered in 1735, was one of with princely abandon. Vivaldi’s last works for the stage); some arias by Hasse, Praise cannot be high enough for Fabio Biondi and his Giocomelli, and Carlo Broschi (brother of the famous cas- Europa Galante, who play with such verve and such smooth trato Farinelli), reworked by Vivaldi; and three arias by tone that all issues about “early music performance” are nul- Vivaldi that have been chosen by conductor Fabio Biondi lified. The horns, though they appear seldom (most arias are where they were missing from the score. With the excep- accompanied by strings in various formations), are played tion of the last three mentioned, though, it must be remem- with great security and genuinely grand tone. The sound is bered that the work was entirely overseen by Vivaldi; it is ideal, aside from a slightly different acoustic for the recita- assuredly “his.” tives. A bonus DVD featuring each of the singers perform- Conductor and cast throw themselves into this recording ing in rehearsal an entire aria (two for Bajazet) is great fun. with a theatrical passion rarely encountered on CD: only What are you waiting for? —Robert Levine René Jacobs’ recent Così fan tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro come to mind, and they, by nature, are more stageworthy. Recitatives are spat out in this vicious story, and the arias— many of the simile type (I’m a turtledove; I’m like a ship on rock/pop a storm-tossed sea)—are put across as if they are relevant. Bajazet, sung and acted to perfection by Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, touches the heart with his desperate, second- MARCIA BALL & TINSLEY ELLIS act “Dov’è la figlia,” in which he thinks his daughter has Alligator Blues betrayed him by marrying Tamerlano; elsewhere, he sings with noble mien and fluent coloratura. David Daniels may MARCIA BALL: Live! Down the Road Alligator AL4903 (CD). 2005. Dale Price, Kyle Porter, prods.; Sloan Tash, eng. have too beautiful a voice for Tamerlano, but his delivery is AAD? TT: 76:17 forceful, grand-mannered, and tough, and the singing itself Performance ★★★★ is ravishing. Marijana Mijanovic sings the role of Asteria Sonics ★★★★★ forcefully and with great dignity, her dark, lower register as TINSLEY ELLIS: Live! Highwayman

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Alligator AL 4904 (CD). 2005. Tinsley Ellis, Bruce Iglauer, prods.; Timothy Powell, eng. AAD? TT: 79:07 began her solo career as a country singer before surren- Performance ★★★★ Sonics ★★★★★ dering to her Gulf Coast roots to develop a style combin- ing New Orleans R&B, blues, and Cajun tunes into an lligator Records has documented much of the histo- irresistible gumbo driven by her hard-driving piano play- ry of Chicago blues, dating back to its first Hound ing and easy-swinging, party-time vocal delivery. Dog Taylor release in 1971. The company has a par- Live! Down the Road shows why Ball has built a fanatical Aallel history of presenting a new generation of stars, following across the country. Recorded at the Sierra who’ve expanded the blues form into hybrids with rock and Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California, the set is roots music. Two of those artists, Marcia Ball and Tinsley a fire-breathing showcase of Ball’s talents as a keyboard Ellis, have built loyal followings on the club and concert cir- player, vocalist, and honky-tonk bandleader: 14 tunes cuits but have generated only modest sales of a series of played with deep emotional intensity by a crack band aug- well-crafted studio mented by an air-tight horn section. Ball touches on most albums that lack only of her oft-requested numbers, from “Big Shot,” “La Ti the untrammeled Da,” “That’s Enough of That Stuff,” and “Let Me Play spirit of their live with Your Poodle,” to the swamp pop classic performances. Both “Crawfishin’ ” and her showstopping rendition of Randy have just released Newman’s “Louisiana 1927.” Austin sidekick Angela powerful live albums Strehli joins in to sing “It Hurts to Be in Love.” This is a that finally document great introduction to Ball, as well as the live document her what all the excite- longtime fans have been waiting for. ment is about. The Atlanta-based Tinsley Ellis, a guitarist whose talent Marcia Ball has should already have earned him a spot in the blues-rock been a legendary pantheon next to the most revered names in the business, performer dating is beginning a second tour at Alligator with Live! back to her days Highwayman. This album is less of an overview of his style with the fabled than a compendium of his hottest crowd-pleasers, ranging Frida and the from the searing opener “To the Devil for a Dime” to the Firedogs, a signature band from the era when Austin, blues-based rock modes of Jimi Hendrix (the title track) and Texas, was, in Doug Sahm’s words, “Groover’s Paradise” Eric Clapton (“Hell or High Water”). Ellis pulls out all the and not the bastion of corporate expansion it is today. Ball stops, playing taut single-line solos and using wah-wah

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Sonics ★★★★ contributes tasty slide on “Ain’t Ever Goin’ Back,” and for BILL FRISELL: Unspeakable “Old School,” Hiatt tries his hand at the lyrics and melodies Bill Frisell, guitars; Briggan Krause, baritone sax; Steven Bernstein, trumpet; Curtis of classic honky-tonk country. Fowlkes, trombone; Tony Scherr, guitar, bass; Adam Dorn, synthesizer; Kenny Wollesen, drums; Don Alias, percussion; Hal Willner, turntables, samples; The 858 Throughout, Hiatt’s hound-dog voice is a wonder: strug- Strings: Jenny Scheinman, violin; Eyvind Kang, viola; Hank Roberts, cello gling before going thin on “Find You At Last,” then Nonesuch 79828-2 (CD). 2004. Hal Willner, prod.; Eric Liljestrand, eng. DDD? TT: 72:45 rebounding for one of his most playful vocal performances 1 Performance ★★★ ⁄2 ever, in the delightful “Wintertime Blues.” A silly piece of Sonics ★★★★ ragtime and blues, the song contains stanzas that Hiatt obvi- PAUL MOTIAN: I Have the Room Above Her ously has a ball singing: “Three hours of daylight and all of Paul Motian, drums; Joe Lovano, tenor sax; Bill Frisell, guitar them gray / The suicide prevention group has all run away ECM 1902 (CD). 2005. Manfred Eicher, prod.; James A. Farber, eng. DDD. TT: 59:56 1 / I’m running out of groceries / I ain’t got no rubber shoes.” Performance ★★★★ ⁄2 While “Wintertime Blues” is this album’s biggest depar- Sonics ★★★★ ture from Hiatt’s well-worn songwriting modes, it’s okay— he’s become a consummate artist, few songwriters have as t is only a slight oversimplification to say that there are cur- proud a song catalog, and even fewer are as motivated to rently three categories of jazz guitarists: the traditionalists, continue to write and perform, let alone seek out a band of the experimentalists, and Bill Frisell. His electric guitar notes 25-year-olds to kick their behinds. —Robert Baird Iare like pure crystals of light that are resonant with human ache and singing. Often with the aid of auxiliary electronics, Frisell delays and multiplies those notes and washes them like life-giving rain over an astonishing variety of musical projects. jazz Frisell is universally respected yet also a paradox—his greatest work has come not as a leader but as a sideman. His BILL FRISELL three most recent recordings hold true to this pattern. Three New Albums In 2002, Frisell was commissioned to create music for an elaborate art book dedicated to a series of eight small abstract paintings by Gerhard Richter. The package con- BILL FRISELL: Richter 858 Bill Frisell, guitars, electronics; Jenny Scheinman, violin; Eyvind Kang, viola; Hank tained poems, essays, excellent reproductions of Richter’s Roberts, cello works, and a CD by Frisell with one piece of music for each Songlines SGL SA1551-2 (SACD/CD/CD-ROM). 2005. David Breskin, prod.; Joe painting. That CD, remastered in DSD and including CD- Ferla, eng. AAD. TT: 44:42 Performance ★★★ ROM copies of Richter’s eight paintings, has now been

Great Recordings of the Century Defining Moments in the History of Recorded Sound 160 CLASSIC RECORDINGS FEATURING LEGENDARY ARTISTS FROM THE EMI CLASSICS CATALOGUE

10 newly–remastered titles including Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess 7

directed by Simon Rattle, Bach’s Mass in B minor conducted by Otto 2 Klemperer, Beethoven‘s Late String Quartets with Alban Berg 76811

Quartet, opera arias sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Bach’s 4

sonatas & partitas played by Itzhak Perlman. 7243

For a complete listing of available Great Recordings of the Century titles, please visit www.angelrecords.com/GROC.

www.angelrecords.com © 2005 Angel Records

160 www.Stereophile.com, March 2005 RECORD REVIEWS released as a standalone on the Songlines label. and incises Frisell’s guitar on the air. Yet Unspeakable is one of It has been said that writing about music is like dancing Frisell’s least important recordings in several years because it about architecture. In Richter 858, Frisell, using his own gui- never transcends its polished, kick-ass cleverness. The best tar through signal-processing devices and three acoustic piece is the shortest and simplest, “Hymn for Ginsberg.” stringed instruments, is trying to write and play music about I Have the Room Above Her is a collectively inspired com- painting. The connections between Frisell’s music (austere, mingling of three articulate, intuitive voices. It demonstrates start/stop, quirky) and Richter’s oil-on-aluminum paintings how brilliantly Frisell responds to imaginative concepts (intense suites of color) are mysterious, perhaps knowable framed by others, how he adopts them as his own and deep- only to Frisell and his three violinists. Painting #5, for exam- ens and expands them. Here the concept begins with drum- ple, is paler, more uniform, more subtle in its gradations mer-leader Paul Motian, whose compositions mark out the than the others in the series. Yet Frisell’s music for it is full territory in which this rapt, concentrated, three-way collabo- of fidgety, plucked violins and stark details. Even when ration occurs. there is an apparent possible relationship between sight and Over Motian’s flickering energies and provocative ges- sound—such as when the scrapings of cello and viola suggest tures, Joe Lovano plays as quietly and moodily and re- the long strokes of Richter’s squeegee across his aluminum flectively as he ever has on record. He takes up Motian’s “canvas”—the music is not especially interesting or appeal- thematic hypotheses and creatively proceeds from them, in ing. Richter 858 is a noble failure. a flow that includes the transfiguring cross-talk of Frisell’s While Unspeakable uses the same three-person string sec- guitar pinpoints, until it no longer matters where a concept tion, it could not be a more different Frisell album. Here the began because its evolution is everything. “Harmony” is strings are just one among many coloristic and textural and representative: Motian’s shifting accents rise and fall like rhythmic elements (turntables, samples, synths, horns) that melodies, and Lovano follows the song’s long, graceful line, Frisell orchestrates for an exercise in groove-based eclecti- a lyrically meandering progress interrupted, one minute in, cism. Hal Willner had a major influence on this project, as by Frisell. His single rich chord announces his claiming of producer, composer (10 of the 14 tunes), and manipulator of that line for himself. Any snatch of music restated in turntables and samples. But Frisell’s guitar is the focal point of Frisell’s glistening language takes on permanence. the complex mix, and when a player of his creative resources It does not matter very much why Frisell’s strongest decides to get down and boogie, the fun is real. The album recordings are not under his own name—not when he par- will make great demo material in hi-fi stores. Eric ticipates in such major works as I Have the Room Above Her, Liljestrand’s engineering, on tracks such as “1968” and “Alias,” whose full realization would be unimaginable without his gets the shuddering bumps and snaps of bass and percussion, luminous intelligence. —Thomas Conrad

MANUFACTURERS’ SHOWCASE ADVERTISING MANUFACTURERS’COMMENTS

Graham Engineering Phantom of exotic materials, in key places where the end, the work all of us in analog Editor: nothing less will do the job properly, design strive for is for even more enjoy- The Phantom tonearm, as Michael Fre- adds to the performance goal. In speci- ment from the countless thousands of mer correctly states, was developed after fying only the best in aerospace and vinyl performances out there still wait- we discovered that the 2.x-series arms medical machinists to produce our parts, ing for a new level of discovery. I hope had been tweaked, modified, and we are very picky (and are often the Phantom will bring it that much stretched to the physical limits of what reminded of this by our vendors!), even closer than ever before. Bob Graham could be done within the framework of to the point of designing specially con- Graham Engineering the original concept. Anything else that structed and lined packing boxes for the could be made better would require a component parts in their various inter- Wavelength Audio Brick fresh start, and so, with some new con- mediate steps of handling, from Editor: cepts in mind, and taking note of feed- machine shop to metal polishers to I would like to thank Stereophile and Art back I’d received from those who, like anodizing and plating shops. Dudley for taking a look at my Brick Michael, had auditioned the 1.x and 2.x Assembly is overseen with care and USB DAC. I was a little hesitant about a arms carefully, I addressed the areas of detail, I’m proud to say, by two of my review of an entirely new technology, the earlier designs that I felt could be daughters, Helen and Tigist. Their atten- but I think Art came to the same conclu- made better. tion to detail and their skilled, nimble sion I did when I received an e-mail Besides the obvious areas of reso- fingers are responsible for the high build shortly after he received my care pack- nance control and structural rigidity, I quality that we strive for, and which age. “HOLY SH--, GORDON, THIS wanted to get rid of the problems inher- Michael has kindly noted. Likewise, I THING IS AMAZING!!!!!! Have I said ent in Stable Balance arm design, yet I want to give credit to my wife, Justine, ‘holy sh--’ yet? Holy sh--.” didn’t want to give up the advantages of for her unerring skills in listening. (I I remember feeling the same way a true unipivot to do it. And so, one day would never want to release an audio after finishing the Cosecant before CES while driving to work, the first concept product without making sure it passed 2004. Ah, this will be okay, a novel con- of Magneglide™ occurred to me. But the female listening test.) She would tell cept . . . What the heck!!!!!!!! I was grab- that first notion—never actually con- me when we had it right and, just as bing people off the street. structed—was a rather clumsy arrange- important, when we didn’t. Justine also One thing about an idea like this is ment of parts, and a far cry from what coined the term Magneglide and came up that you could dedicate an entire issue to was to become, finally, our newest and with the Phantom logo styling. And she the possibilities. There are tons of appli- best tonearm. was there, urging me on, when I would cations—remote devices, ripping, front That was over two years ago. It took wonder what I could do next to straight- end, you name it. For that reason I keep a long time, working through various en out a little problem, or to make the a Web page constantly updated with prototypes, finally to realize the perfor- new design a little better. information and directions of use for mance I had envisioned. In particular, Not mentioned in the review are computer audio products; please visit the concept of Neutral Balance was some options that are available for the here for items of interest: www.wave key, along with Magneglide, all of Phantom. First, we offer an SME-style lengthaudio.com/usbdac.html. which is in Patent Pending status. The mounting-base option that will allow the One thing that has become very idea of pure magnetic Phantom to fit in most SME installa- interesting is CD quality. When you stabilization/damping and total free- tions. Also being offered is a slightly rip (copy) a CD in iTunes, the pro- dom from mechanical links to the anti- longer armwand replacement, the Phan- gram gives you the average speed at skating system were goals I just had to tom-L (L for Longer), which, at an ad- which it is capable of doing an error- achieve! As a bonus, the combination ditional 13mm in length, is designed free read. In my case, having a 24x CD of the tungsten bearing point and mag- especially for the VPI HR-X, or any drive, I can almost determine how netic coupling point forms a pivoting other turntable where additional platter well a CD will sound on a standard axis that can easily be placed parallel clearance is necessary. We also make transport by how fast it is ripped into with the offset angle of the headshell, armboards for the HR-X as well as for iTunes. A really well-done CD will rip thus forcing the arm pivot in a true other VPI, Clearaudio, SME, and Linn between 15 and 20x (using a 24x CD); vertical direction over warps. (For turntables. (The Linn requires new sus- a poor CD with lots of errors may rip more technical information, please visit pension springs for the heavier Phantom at 4–5x. With errors on a CD and www.graham-engineering.com.) arm, which we plan to offer in the near transport, the CD can sound com- I remember the first time I heard it. future.) The Phantom will fit into previ- pressed, as Art noted. On a computer, When my wife and I played the B-44 ous Model 2.2 and earlier tonearm once the CD is ripped to the hard (the model number I had placed on the installations; in addition, we are working drive, that track is now completely working prototypes) for the first time, with other key turntable manufacturers, error-free and sounds much better we were surprised at how much of an such as Basis Audio, VPI, Continuum, than on most transports. improvement the various design fea- Brinkmann, and Clearaudio, who will Just today I upgraded to iTunes 4.9 on tures, working together, made. That first offer Phantom armboards for use in my music server and now have the abili- evening’s listening went on for hours, as their products. ty to listen to podcasts. Though not real- record after record confirmed the Naturally, I am so happy that Michael ly high-end audio, it is one more way of improvements that had been so desired Fremer perceives the same performance having fun with the technology, which in this new design. and musical pleasures my wife and I first will forever be updating and becoming As Michael mentions in his discus- heard so many months ago. That he better without the need to change your sion, the Phantom B-44 uses the most likes the arm so much is high praise, hardware. When was the last time you carefully made parts; in addition, the use indeed, and very, very appreciated. In got a software update for your transport

www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 165 MANUFACTURERS’ COMMENTS MANUFACTURERS’ COMMENTS

or CD player? J. Gordon Rankin to elaborate on three subjects that arose HIS IS AN Chief Scientist & Owner during the review process. T Wavelength Audio, Ltd. First, concerning JA’s precondition- ... ing process, which resulted in the CCESSORY Bel Canto PL-1A heatsinks becoming “too hot to touch”: A Editor: running the Rock at 300W continuous We wish to thank you and Kalman into an 8 ohm load for 30 minutes non- Rubinson for your efforts in reviewing stop is virtually impossible when listen- the PL-1A. Indeed, the overall clarity ing to music. and integrity that Kalman experienced Second, the extra bloom in the upper with the PL-1A conveys our design midrange—the “slightly warm tonal bal- goals for this and our other products. ance” and “faint liquid texture” that BD The PL-1A has been designed to reveal heard—are characteristics we strived for the best from every digital source avail- in the Rock’s design. These are traits that able today. We are confident that it are more common to high-quality ampli- succeeds in this for two-channel audio fiers with significantly lower output CD and SACD and multichannel audio power and well-designed pure class-A or video sources. I am pleased that biased amplifiers with huge power-sup- both Kalman’s subjective testing and ply capacitance. The Rock operates in TTHISHIS IS IS A A John Atkinson’s measurements bear pure class-A mode up to 25W of output; this out. typically, 90% of all listening occurs in One note on the video quality of the this range. Furthering the cause, so to NNECESSITYECESSITY PL-1A: I would respectfully suggest speak, each and every output device in that any artifacts seen when using the the Rock is fully decoupled; the end !! analog component-video out are a result is the “uniquely effortless sound” result of the video monitor used and that is often present in quality class-A how it handles analog input vs the digi- amplifier designs. tal DVI inputs. When we have used the Finally, concerning soundstaging PL-1A analog component outputs into depth, there are several points we’d like a top-quality video monitor and associ- to shed some light on. Soundstaging is ated video processor, the result has very dependent on an audio compo- been artifact-free. nent’s ability to be phase-accurate, and For those who have a video monitor this is certainly not an issue for the with DVI or HDMI digital inputs, the Moon Rock. Furthermore, the master- PL-1A can be supplied with a profes- ing process plays a pivotal role in a sional-quality DVI output. A pro-stan- musical recording’s soundstage; hence, a dard SDI digital video output is also deeper soundstage doesn’t always equal available for the PL-1A. The only differ- an accurate soundstage. The question ence between the PL-1A and the PL-1 is then would be, is it possible that the in the video options that come standard Rock’s portrayal of soundstage depth is on the unit. indeed the more accurate one in com- Thanks again for another perceptive parison to other amplifiers? Concerning review. We are glad that KR enjoyed his system setup, we’re quite certain that time with the PL-1A. John Stronczer BD knows how to properly set up a President, Bel Canto Design, Ltd. system with regard to speaker place- ment and room configuration. As well, • Improve Acoustics Simaudio Moon Rock we feel strongly that no individual Editor: piece of associated equipment is at fault Impressive specifications and “superb here. However, at this level of detail • Control Noise measured performance” are great and resolution, all componentry has to Stereophile’s attributes, but the listening experience be perfectly matched, as you are no Accessory of is what really matters. Brian longer operating under a magnifying the Year Award Damkroger’s time with the Moon glass but rather a microscope, whereby Rocks clearly demonstrates how exhil- the slightest mismatch can have more arating a musical experience this ampli- noticeable effects than typically less fier can provide. resolving systems. When we initiated the design of the Hand-assembling a pair of Moon Rock, we took a cost-no-object approach Rock amplifiers is a true labor of love with the goal of creating the finest- that requires a great deal of time, includ- sounding high-powered audio amplifier ing extensive and fanatical parts match- available. Based on our many extremely ing. It is quite obvious that Brian put his satisfied customers across the globe, in heart and soul into the review process conjunction with BD’s thorough and for these amplifiers; for this, we at insightful editorial and John Atkinson’s Simaudio Ltd., are very grateful. Thank • measurements, it’s safe to say we you, Brian, thank you, John, and thank 1-888-ECHO BUST 631-253-0001 achieved our goal. you, Stereophile! Lionel Goodfield www.echobusters.com I would like to take this opportunity VP Marketing, Simaudio Ltd.

166 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005 AURAL ROBERT Robert Baird

Size Does Matter

n summer, when there are leaves on 2004 the two oldest and largest catalogs BMG Catalog Worldwide. “We find the trees and much female loveliness of American music have been, for the tremendous opportunities, specifically to behold in Bryant first time ever, when it comes to jazz, country, and Park, at lunchtime I under one when you look at Dolly Parton, Willie tend to venture more roof thanks to Nelson, Chet Atkins, Duke, or Louie. than my usual handful a joint ven- When you look at specific genres, if we ofI blocks away from our ture. Logic wanted to do a blues compilation from Manhattan offices. The would seem to the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, and you look at other day, on my way to get dictate that the combination of the catalogs on this BBQ near Times Square— that should side and that side, it’s tremendous. The BBQ in NYC? Not bad, mean that a other area we think meshes beautifully is believe it or not—I happened number of Broadway, because both RCA and to walk past an ominous interesting Columbia have such a long and incredi- sight: the National Debt projects, reis- ble history in the Broadway catalog.” Clock, coldly ticking away. sues in partic- The first venture into combining the Forget the right and the left. ular, will now Broadway holdings, scheduled for Forget Red and Blue. Forget begin to release October 18, is a four-CD box who did or did not perpetrate 9/11. One emerge from the new company—or covering the life and work of Stephen fact is indisputable: This country is in what one ’Phile wag has called “one big Sondheim, who turns 75 this year. A debt big-time. unhappy family.” Willie Nelson project based on his for- The sight of those whirring numbers Sure enough, ays into the Great had an oddly chilling finality. It was like not long ago the American Songbook is seeing the Statue of Liberty buried to mailroom deliv- tentatively scheduled her waist in sand at the end of Planet of ered one of the first for early 2006. the Apes. We did it to ourselves. fruits of the Sony- But just when I Wondering how we’re ever going to BMG grafting: The thought a merger might get out of this mess, what miracle prod- Essential Duke weed out all the nitwit uct or service will wipe away our ever- Ellington. As Elling- ideas major labels are widening imbalance with China, I ton fans know, the famous for, there arrives began—naturally enough, given my val- bulk of his legacy is the new Drive Time ues and chosen profession—to think found in his RCA series from another about content, that sexy/bland, and Columbia cat- lumpily titled post- post–Internet-bubble term that means alogs, which meant merger entity, Sony films, music: what we’ve got to sell. that to get Elling- BMG Masterworks. The intrinsic value of America’s intel- ton recordings of The idea here is collec- lectual and artistic output, long apparent the Blanton-Webster era, you bought tions of bleeding chunks of classical to foreign investors, became foreign- RCA; for his 1950s records, such as music from Sony-BMG’s vast holdings, owned in the 1980s, during the last two- Ellington Uptown or Ellington at Newport, excerpted and compiled as soundtracks term Republican presidency and deficit you gave your ducats to Columbia. for specific driving environments. The crisis, when Sony swooped in and What a pleasure it now is to have the first four are Autobahn, Pacific Coast High- bought Columbia Records, and the Johnny Hodges tour de force “Jeep’s way, Blue Ridge Parkway, and Route 66. I’m German music-publishing giant Ber- Blues” in the same set as the timeless all for making classical music sexier to telsmann purchased RCA Victor. 1940 original of “Harlem Airshaft” (or, fortysomethings with the cash and Since then, both companies, once bit- if you must, “Take the ‘A’ Train”). New leisure to cruise in their European-built ter competitors like everyone else in the entries in the Essential series, from Ravi touring sedans, but these are more like record business, have fallen on hard Shankar and Taj Mahal, follow the same comedy records or a much less clever times. To hear them tell it, those hard formula. Hopefully, Louis Armstrong, What’s Opera, Doc? Rossini’s William Tell times are the fault of the bogeymen of whose recording catalog in some ways Overture finale and Wagner’s Ride of the downloading and piracy. I’m more apt to mirrors Ellington’s, will be next. Color Valkyries as the openers for Autobahn? The vote for the theory that the biz allowed me, for one, impressed…and repeating, famous lilting theme from Beethoven’s the download genie to escape and spirit “It’s about time!” Symphony 6, “Pastoral,” as track 1 of away their content for free. They did it “One of the key strategic initiatives Pacific Coast Highway? Elmer Bernstein’s to themselves. behind the merger was to combine the The Magnificent Seven theme to start gettin’ Whatever the reason, given the catalog assets underneath the Legacy your kicks on Route 66? record business’ weakened state, con- umbrella,” says Jeff Jones, Executive Vice I can almost hear that old debt clock solidation was inevitable, and since President Legacy Recordings/Sony beginning to tick a little faster. ■■

170 www.Stereophile.com, September 2005