Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Stereophile

Almost 14 years have passed since a review of a Soulution product appeared in the pages of Stereophile.1 Given the Swiss company’s steady ascent in the high-end pantheon, it is high time that we again reached into the German-speaking region of Switzerland north of the Swiss Alps to evaluate another of the reference products from a company equally renowned for its sonic achievements and refined and elegant design aesthetic. Enter the full-function Soulution 727 preamplifier ($74,975),2 whose optional MC/MM phono section ($11,975) will be evaluated in a future issue.3 Because Soulution claims that the 727 “sets benchmarks in terms of noise, phase errors, common mode rejection and distortion,” one would hope that there’s far more than 62lb of classy casework and an easy-to-handle lightweight remote to account for its price. The…

Totem Acoustic was founded in 1987, in Montreal, Canada, by a former high school math teacher named Vince Bruzzese. The company’s first product, the Model 1 loud-speaker,1 impressed me so much I bought a pair. My old pal George Stanwick, who worked at Stereo Exchange, spotted me walking up Broadway through the store’s window, whereupon he ran out and literally dragged me off the street pulling me by the arm—against my mumbled protests. I followed George into Stereo Exchange’s luxurious back room, where, spotlighted in front of me, I saw what looked like an expat’s spin on trad-British “minimonitors.” He busked me saying, “I know how you like Quads and Snells, so I know you’ll like these Totems even more.” I loved George, so I sat and listened patiently—knowing that…

Based on the company’s earlier FLS4 power amplifier, the genes of Audia Flight’s FLS10 can be traced right back to the inaugural Flight 100 model, launched in 1997. In this current model, eight pairs of power transistors are deployed in bridged mode (per channel) across substantial heatsinks, supported by a huge 2kVA toroidal transformer and 144,000μF of supply capacitance. Regulation is impressively stiff, so the FLS10 not only exceeds its 200W/8 ohm rating by delivering 245Wpc into 8 ohms (23.9dBW) but then offers a +2.5dB uplift to 440Wpc into 4 ohms (23.4dBW). Moreover, there’s sufficient capacity in that huge PSU to sustain 265W, 500W, 885W, and a full 1385W (37.2A) into 8, 4, 2, and 1 ohm, respectively, under dynamic conditions (see fig.2). Having established its credentials as “no ordinary…

IF THERE’S ONE WORD THAT BEST describes the sound of the Boston-bred alt-rock quartet known as Pixies, it has to be “dynamics.” It’s a musical milieu Pixies have deftly presented for 37 years and counting, right from the outset of the sinister janglefest known as “Caribou,” the opening track on their inaugural September 1987 EP on 4AD, Come On Pilgrim. From there, short, sanguine, sweet, succinctly titled songs like “Debaser,” “Velouria,” “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” “Gigantic,” “Here Comes Your Man,” “Gouge Away,” and “Where Is My Mind?” have all served to cement the bedrock of Pixies’ planet of sound. Chief Pixies songwriter and vocalist/guitarist Black Francis—born Charles Thompson—recently described it in an interview for Stereophile as this: “Let’s be quiet. Now, let’s be loud. Let’s be whispering. Now, let’s be explosive.”…

Matt Thomas’s hi-fi business has always been personal. He wants to keep it that way—in his curated, personalized sales approach, in choosing esoteric gear to carry, and in his listening preferences and not wanting to get too big. A health crisis was the catalyst for Matt Thomas to start Hearken Audio: A back injury caused temporary paralysis. “For lack of a better word, it was an experience,” he told me in a recent phone conversation. He’s now fully recovered, but the experience changed him. He decided to pursue his passion. He was already an avid audiophile and music lover; he had been for years. After the accident, almost five years ago, he started Hearken Audio, a home-based dealership in Kitchener, Ontario, where he lives with his wife and two teenage…

I measured a different sample of the Soulution 727 preamplifier than that auditioned by JVS. Mine had the serial number 727-0053. I primarily used my Audio Precision SYS2722 system to measure the Soulution,1 repeating some tests with the magazine’s higher-performance APx555. Looking first at the performance of the 727’s line-level inputs, the maximum gain for the balanced and unbalanced inputs to the balanced outputs was a little lower than the specified 4dB, at 3.7dB. The maximum gain from the balanced and unbalanced input to the unbalanced outputs was–2.31dB. With polarity set to “In-Phase,” the preamplifier preserved absolute polarity (ie, was non-inverting) with both the balanced and unbalanced inputs and outputs. (The XLR jacks are wired with pin 2 hot, the AES convention.) The volume control operated in accurate 1dB steps.…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Totem Element Fire V2’s quasi-anechoic frequency and time-domain behavior in the farfield. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone, which has a small,¼" diameter capsule, for the nearfield responses and Dayton Audio’s DATS V2 system to measure the impedance magnitude and phase. While the Element Fire V2’s nominal impedance is specified as 8 ohms, the impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) is higher than 10 ohms over almost the entire audioband. The minimum impedances were 8.05 ohms at 32Hz and 9.2 ohms at 165Hz. As the electrical phase angle (fig.1, dotted trace) is high in several frequency regions, as a result, the effective resistance, or EPDR,1 does drop below 5 ohms from 10Hz…

T+A R 2500 R STREAMING RECEIVER PHONO MODULE In my review of the T+A R 2500 R receiver (August 2024 issue1), I covered many of its features and took as deep a dive as time and column inches allowed. Suffice to say, it’s a very complex device, a near-complete system minus speakers (and a turntable/cartridge system, if you’re into vinyl). It’s a radio (FM and FM-HD), CD player, networked streamer-computer, DAC, analog preamplifier (including analog tone controls), class-AB power amplifier, and power supply, all in one relatively compact and midweight, well-finished metal chassis. It is perhaps the most complete receiver ever made. After I submitted the review, T+A’s Jim Shannon said “Keep it a while.” He offered to send an optional phono preamp module ($920) for installation and review. I…

THERE’S ONLY TWO KINDS OF MUSIC: THE BLUES AND ZIPPETY DOO-DAH.—TOWNES VAN ZANDT Two albums with the same title, by the same artist, basically released one week apart on the same planet? Even considering the dubious history of music-biz capers and catastrophes, the Lights on a Satellite kerfuffle is hilariously surreal. By the time it was discovered, covers were already printed and records were already pressed. It’s so bizarre that it’s tempting to suspect intergalactic powers were involved. Could the ghost of that interstellar traveler, Master Sun Ra, who thought space was the place, have had a hand in this unlikeliest of Saturnian conjunctions? Fortunately, the two versions of Lights on a Satellite are very different. Out of the past, with Ra leading the band, comes the double-LP live recording…

Listening to music inspires us to take action. Upon hearing an I.E.—Instant Earworm—we must then determine the best way we can go about listening to it again (and again) at our convenience. Prior to the free-for-all streaming era, our I.E. follow-through measures typically meant seeking out a specific playback medium for our favorite music, initially based on budgetary constraints. In those formative, pre-employment preteen years, 45s—and/or, depending on how far back we’re talking here, possibly even 78s—fit the literal dollar bill before we could afford to move up the media ladder and begin purchasing LPs en masse. Our then-limited playback options tended to start with those self-contained, close-and-play record players and/or our parents’ living-room consoles before we could afford to acquire separate components for more personal, higher-fidelity listening sessions. We…

BOSE CORPORATION ACQUIRES MCINTOSH GROUP Mark Henninger Bose Corporation recently announced in a press release its acquisition of McIntosh Group, parent company of high-end audio brands Sonus faber and McIntosh, from Dallas-based investment firm Highlander Partners, L.P. With this move, Bose apparently seeks to expand its reach into the high-performance and luxury audio markets as well as developing more advanced automotive audio—and presumably, to increase their earnings. The acquisition marks another ownership change for McIntosh Group, which has undergone various such changes over the last couple of decades, including the latest Highlander Partners owners as recently as in mid-2022. “Over the last six decades, we’ve delivered the best premium audio experiences possible. Now, with McIntosh Group in our portfolio, we can unlock even more ways to bring music to life,”…

Arriving in Japan from the United States is like being turned upside down. This condition lasts for much of the first week. When I visited in November, the time difference between Tokyo and New York was 14 hours. “The floating world” is a term for the pleasure-addled urban culture of Edo-period Japan, but it’s also an apt description for the twilit and not-entirely-unpleasant weirdness of first arriving in Tokyo. Everything seems slightly unreal. I’d come to Japan for several reasons, one of which was simply to spend more time in what for me is the most enjoyable place on the planet. Another was to explore the country’s distinctive listening spaces, which I’ve been thinking and occasionally writing about over the past few years. During that time, listening bars and cafés…

The sensitivity without the grille was high, at 91.5dB/2.83V/1m, but as this is a 4 ohm design, the textbook sensitivity is 3dB lower, at 88.5dB/W/1m. This is still a high value, a significant 2dB above the industry average of 86.5dB. The DC input resistance measured 3.3 ohms, this reflecting both the sum of those two paralleled bass drivers and Wilson’s traditional use of a shunt 20 ohm damping resistor for the low-pass crossover feed to the woofers. When the complex impedance is accounted for in respect of peak current draw, the minimum value is close to 2.7 ohms at 93Hz. Amplifiers capable of driving 4 ohm loads are indicated. Measured with ⅓-octave resolution, the on-axis pair match was held to excellent ±0.5dB tolerance, 200Hz–15kHz. The lower grille had little effect…

Get two mouthy jazz drummers in a room and watch the sparks fly. Talented turntable designer Allen Perkins,1 the brain behind Spiral Groove,2 Immedia’s RPM turntables,3 and various SOTA models, is first and foremost a jazz drummer. Yours truly, after pounding soul-funk beats up and down the East Coast in a silk jumpsuit during the 1980s, played and studied jazz drums for years. Allen, who are some of the greatest jazz drummers? “Buddy Rich, because he showed all of us what exceptional technique looks like,” Perkins responded, over email. “Joe Morello was exceptional like Vinnie Colaiuta is today, but Buddy was the one with the showmanship to dazzle the public.” What about Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, and Philly Joe Jones? They set the course everyone followed. “Elvin Jones, for sure,”…

The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you’re serious about sound quality, you’re supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp. The logic goes that separates reduce interference and offer maximum control over your sound. But there’s an argument to be made that integrated amplifiers are more practical … and potentially better-sounding. The beauty of an integrated amp lies in its synergy. Audio engineers know exactly how the pre and power sections will interact; the two are literally designed to work together. On paper at least, that means optimized impedance matching, and signal integrity that can rival and perhaps surpass separates. How do you know whether a standalone preamp is a great match for a power amp? For most of us, it’s through trial and…

It was October 1990 and Richard Lehnert, at that time Stereophile’s music editor, buttonholed me in our office parking lot. He had an idea for a new feature in which, instead of recommending audio components, which we had been doing since the first edition of Recommended Components in 1963, we should do the same for music. “Rather than a selection of all-time (or year’s) best recorded performances—which are common enough—or a list of audiophile reference recordings—common enough in the audiophile press, at any rate,” he said, “this would be a list of stereo recordings that are both musically and sonically impeccable. In other words, the best, the tops, to die for.” It took me less than a New York minute to sign off on Richard’s idea. We asked the magazine’s…

By the mid-1980s, Elvis Costello was in dire need of a change in musical direction. As he recounts in the extensive new liner notes, he was “playing in a band that suddenly sounded like four strangers.” Seeking inspiration, he decided the path forward was to use his own name, Declan MacManus, in the credits and to indulge his love and respect for American music. Partnering with T Bone Burnett, who co-produced the album, Costello (who had already done a country record in Nashville with 1981’s Almost Blue) convinced guitarist James Burton, bassist Jerry Scheff, and drummer Ron Tutt—all former members of the other Elvis’s TCB (“Taking Care of Business”) band, to sign on for parts of the album. All-star drummers Jim Keltner and Earl Palmer also came aboard. Mitchell Froom…