Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i Stereophile

Godzilla and I are precisely the same age: We were both born in 1954, Godzilla as an expression of the postwar fears of a nation uniquely aware of the horrors of nuclear armaments, I as an expression of the postwar comfort felt by an American veteran fresh from foreign wars. We both dislike being awakened from our slumber, and we’re both unusually handsome. Like so many Americans of my generation, I love Godzilla—along with Mothra, Rodan, Tobor the 8th Man, Speed Racer, and the Panasonic transistor radio my dad gave me in 1965. During more or less the same stretch of time, Japanese baby boomers came under the spell of Mickey Mouse, The Durango Kid, Elvis Presley, and virtually any piece of audio gear designed and made by Western Electric…

New York City is forever being born. Lately, transnational capitalists are turning Manhattan into both an investment vehicle and playground for their platinum-level appetites. As real estate developments blot the city’s skyline with competing glass-and-metal towers, mom-and-pop businesses collapse under rising rents and a lack of protection from predatory landlords—all the while such New York institutions as the White Horse Tavern, Cafe Edison, Bleecker Bob’s, the Plaza Hotel, the Paris Theatre, and the Chelsea Hotel undergo massive change or disappear altogether. (Thank God for Katz’s Delicatessen!) NYC’s endless churnings, vanishings, and (eventual) rebirths make me yearn for my stable southern roots: North Carolina is my home. Coincidentally, it’s also the home of Cary Audio, whose tube-powered ascendance began in the early 1990s, when New York City was still relatively middle…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the PSB Alpha P5’s frequency response in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. Because the tweeter is mounted at the base of the front baffle, my primary measurement axis was level with the woofer’s dust cap. I left off the loudspeaker’s vestigial grille for the measurements. PSB specifies the Alpha P5’s sensitivity as 87dB, presumably for 2.83V drive at 1m. My estimate was a little lower, at 85dB(B)/2.83V/m. The impedance is specified as 8 ohms with a minimum value of 4 ohms. The solid trace in fig.1 shows that 8 ohms is approximately the Alpha P5’s average impedance, though it is close to 6 ohms in the treble. The minimum magnitude…

Descriptions of the sounds of products from Sutherland Engineering nearly always include “refined.” While that word is certainly justified, it would be more apt to use it as a verb: Ron Sutherland spends more time than any audio designer I’ve known studying and fine-tuning and refining every detail of his work. I have the impression he knows those products so well that when he decides to design a less expensive version of his newest and best models, he knows exactly what to do. The Sutherland Duo phono preamp I reviewed in August 2017 is a case in point. It sells for $4000 and comes within a hair of matching the performance of the $10,000 Phono-Block Refined. It even betters it in a few ways. So when I heard that Sutherland…

I measured the dCS Bartók using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1), using the Audio Precision’s AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital outputs and USB data sourced from my MacBook Pro running on battery power, with Pure Music 3.0 playing WAV and AIFF test-tone files. Apple’s USB Prober utility identified the dCS processor as “dCS Bart\363k USB class 2” from “Data Conversion Systems Ltd,” with the serial number “2.” The Bartók’s USB port operated in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Apple’s AudioMIDI utility revealed that, via USB, the Bartók accepted 16-and 24-bit integer data sampled at all rates from 44.1 to 384kHz. The AES/EBU and coaxial and TosLink S/PDIF inputs all locked to datastreams with sample rates of up to 192kHz. With the Bartók’s volume…

GOOD AND BAD, I DEFINE THESE TERMS QUITE CLEAR. ..—BOB DYLAN The truth of art lies in this: that the world really is as it appears in the work of art.—HERBERT MARCUSE There is, in fact, a path from phantasy back again to reality, and that is art.—SIGMUND FREUD Vertigo In Alfred Hitchcock’s great film Vertigo, filmed in San Francisco in 1957, the protagonist, Scottie, played by James Stewart, becomes obsessed with Madeleine, played by Kim Novak. Scottie, a retired detective, suffers from a disabling case of acrophobia, which becomes a critical if tenuous plot point. Bernard Herrmann’s brilliant score depicts both the passion of the lovers and the powerful, destructive effects of Scottie’s infatuation, which grows as he tails Madeleine around San Francisco; in time it veers into something…

THIS ISSUE: Herb hitches a ride and finds a pot of (audio) gold at the end of the rainbow-in New Jersey. Let’s talk about management styles. If you want to run a successful small business, you must first be happy. If your personal goals are to learn and to discover, and you combine those with an intrinsic need to share your achievements and connect with people in your chosen field, you are likely to succeed. Given those qualities, if your business goal is to provide desirable goods and needed services, you will not fail. You will succeed beyond your wildest dreams if these are your goals and if you hire happy, smart, big-hearted people, with strong creative forces lodged inside their chests. Your entrepreneurial success is complete when your customers…

I measured the Cary SLI-80HS using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). Both the smallsignal and output tubes—all Electro-Harmonix—are numbered or marked L or R, and I installed them as instructed in the manual. Cary recommends checking the output stage bias current when the tubes are first installed and setting it to between 75mA and 85mA with the trim pots on the top panel. When the amplifier was first powered up, the left channel bias measured 79mA, the right 82mA. I checked the bias currents at intervals throughout the testing. They stabilized at 81mA and 82mA, respectively. The Cary amplifier’s maximum voltage gain varied with output transformer tap and output stage mode. In Ultralinear mode, the gain measured 32.65dB from the 8 ohm…

Class-D audio amplifiers: What’s the argument for them? Class-A audio amplifiers: What’s the argument against them? Class-AB amplifiers: Why does everybody make them? Each of these amplifier output architectures has strengths and weaknesses. Each will interface more or less successfully with a given loudspeaker in a given room. Each has a distinctive sonic signature. Consequently, as knowledgeable audiophiles with a laundry list of system-building goals, we are required to choose the amplifier type that best suits our speakers, our room, and our individual musical-aesthetic predilections. So: To set the stage for my descriptions of Schiit Audio’s new Aegir power amplifier ($799), I must begin by summarizing my empirical observations about the sonic qualities of the three most common output-section architectures: class-D, in which the conducting done by the output devices…

Ron Sutherland refers to his Little Loco phono preamplifier as a “transimpedance” amplifier, which means that it amplifies a current rather than a voltage—ie, the input signal is a current and the output signal is a voltage. Phono preamplifiers almost all use voltage-amplification circuitry. However, as a moving-coil cartridge inherently generates an output current, sourced from a very low impedance, it makes sense for a moving-coil phono preamplifier input stage to operate in current mode rather than voltage mode. I measured the Sutherland Little Loco using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see ap.com, and the January 2008 “As We See It”1). However, as the Loco’s input is not referenced to ground and its input impedance is effectively a short circuit, I had to improvise some changes to my usual procedure.…

Fifty years, man! By the time you read this, the dates will have passed during which promoters had hoped to stage a 50th anniversary Woodstock Festival—sadly, they failed in their effort—and Woodstock mania, which found full flower in the selling of pieces of the original Festival stage, will have peaked and died. And yet, the artifact at the center of the era-defining event is not some dubious chunks of wood but this extensive, amazing audio document that the organizers had the foresight to record. A variety of packages is available for the 50th anniversary, ranging from the exhaustive limited-edition 38-disc set (1969 copies released, naturally) to a three-CD recap. In between is a 5-disc vinyl collection and this 10-disc CD set, which is also available as three 24/96 HD downloads.…

I performed a full set of measurements on the Schiit Aegir, using my Audio Precision SYS-2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). Before doing any testing, I preconditioned the Aegir by running it at one-third power into 8 ohms for an hour. At the end of that time, the side-mounted heatsinks were hot, at 114.3°F (45.8°C) toward the rear, a little cooler nearer the front. The Schiit’s voltage gain into 8 ohms was slightly lower than the specified 22dB, at 19.5dB for both unbalanced and balanced inputs, the latter measured with the speaker output taken from the two hot terminals as described in the manual. The amplifier preserved absolute polarity (ie, was noninverting) for both modes of operation, the latter with the positive speaker connection made to…

The Vivaldi—the four-box flagship product from digital audio specialists dCS—is, in my opinion, misnamed. Vivaldi the composer was an asthmatic priest who worked in an orphanage for 30 years and died in poverty. The Vivaldi stack dedicates four separate products to converting into music digital code stored on silver discs (although you can play music—very well I am sure—on just one box, the Vivaldi DAC). 1 Together, those boxes weigh about 148lb and cost some $115,000. The most expensive is the CD/SACD transport; leave that off and you can save 51lb and $42,000. So why not choose a grander composer to name the flagship after? I know: dCS has already produced a Verdi, and a Verdi La Scala—now there’s grandeur—and to call it Beethoven would seem presumptuous. Still, why not…

I performed a full set of measurements on one of the Accustic Arts Mono IIs, S/N M2-1JB1258, using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). I repeated some of the tests on S/N 1259, the sample that Jason Victor Serinus found had developed a hum toward the end of his auditioning. Before doing any testing, I preconditioned the first sample of the Mono II by running it at one-third power into 8 ohms for an hour. At the end of that time the side-mounted heatsinks were hot, at 120.6°F (49.3°C). The top panel was also hot, at 104.1°F (40.1°C). The Accustic Arts’ voltage gain into 8 ohms is specified as 31dB. I measured 30.8dB into 8 ohms with the singleended input; unusually, the balanced…

ANY CLOD CAN HAVE THE FACTS; HAVING OPINIONS IS AN ART THIS ISSUE: Representatives of Audio MusiKraft, Cary, Schiit, Sutherland, dCS, and Accustic Arts share their thoughts about our reviews of their products. Audio MusiKraft Bronze We want to thank Art Dudley and Stereophile magazine for his review of the Audio MusiKraft Bronze cartridge. As pointed out by Art, throughout time, bronze has sporadically been adopted by a handful of high-caliber audio specialists pursuing ultimate musical performance and satisfaction. From the get go, we had one primary objective: to maximally improve the performance envelope of this legendary cartridge. All our initial efforts were directed toward reinventing the weakest link: the external plastic shell. This culminated in the development of a truly unique “all-in-one” design that still to this day has…