Innehållsförteckning för Dec-17 från Stereophile

I spend my days comparing cartridges and speaker stands, arguing about imaging and microphone placement, speculating about DAC filters, and lately, sometimes, very secretly listening to headphones connected not to commercially available headphone amplifiers but directly to the outputs of basic tubed and solid-state power amplifiers. No person in his right mind would or should try this—it’s too easy to destroy a pair of delicate, expensive headphones. But for me, it’s been worth the risk. My unauthorized experiments have been revelatory, and I have learned two things: 1) The sounds of today’s best headphones are considerably more nuanced, weighty, transparent, and microscopically descriptive than I ever imagined. For me, this makes it obvious that 2) All of the regular headphone amplifiers I knew of were masking, blurring, and obscuring recorded…

Before performing any measurements, I ran one Pass Labs XA60.8 (serial no. 28984) for an hour at one-third its specified maximum power of 60W into 8 ohms—thermally, the worst case for an amplifier with a class-B or -AB output stage. By the end of the hour, the top panel was warm, at 96.4°F (35.8°C), and the side-mounted heatsinks were a little hotter, at 109.1°F (42.8°C). (Temperatures were measured with a Mastercool infrared thermometer.) The XA60.8 ran a little cooler than the XA60.5 I reviewed in January 2014, probably due to its larger heatsinks.1 I performed a full set of measurements using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”2). The voltage gain at 1kHz into 8 ohms was 25.3dB for both the balanced and unbalanced…

I measured the Heed Audio Quasar phono preamplifier using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com, and the January 2008 “As We See It” at www.stereophile.com/content/measurements-maps-precision). As always with phono stages, I experimented with the grounding between the preamp and the Audio Precision system to get the lowest level of noise. I ended up floating the Audio Precision’s outputs from ground and connecting the Quasar’s grounding post to the analyzer ground. The Quasar preserved absolute polarity with both moving-coil and moving-magnet settings and inputs, and from both its High and Low outputs. There are internal jumpers to set the gain for the MC input, meaning that the gain and, hence, signal/noise ratio and overload margin can be optimized for a specific MC phono cartridge. The MM input gain is set…

This review began when I ran into Gary Yacoubian, president of SVS, in a crowded hallway at Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel, during the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show. He smiled and introduced himself. “Larry, I enjoyed your review of our SB13-Ultra.1 If you liked that subwoofer, we have something coming soon that should really interest you. I can’t say anything more now.” He’d gotten my attention. But it wasn’t until the next year’s CES that I learned about SVS’s newest and largest subwoofer, the SB16-Ultra, which deploys a 16" driver and a radically different magnet structure, voice-coil design, and control interface. On paper, its greater power and bass extension seemed a good match for the demands of my large listening room. I requested a review sample. What it is Yacoubian’s infomercial…

Headphone listening has always been an important part of my audiophile life. In recent years I’ve been using at home Audeze’s large, open-back, circumaural LCD-X headphones, which I bought after reviewing them for the March 2014 issue;1 and a pair of small Ultimate Ears 18 Pro in-ear monitors,2 which provide much better isolation on my subway commute to Stereophile’s offices in Manhattan. I was intrigued by Audeze’s iSine in-ear models, which were introduced in November 2016 and are unique in using planar-magnetic drive-units mounted outside the ear.3 I thought about reviewing a pair of the affordable iSines, but before I could get around to it, I heard that Audeze was to launch a cost-no-object version, the LCDi4, priced at a substantial $2495/pair. Aspiration got the better of frugality, and I…

PEACHTREE AUDIO NOVA300 DAC–INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER Come back, baby. You’ll find a million poems deep in your destitute soul. —Richard Hugo, “Second Chances” The poet Richard Hugo (1923–1982) was known by his students for suggesting that every poem has two subjects: the thing that triggered the writing of the poem in the first place—the writer’s Grecian Urn, if you will—and, beyond that, whatever eventually becomes the finished poem’s actual subject. Hugo observed that the latter often isn’t known to the writer when he or she begins work, but reveals itself over time. I think the same can be said of a good review (by good I mean an interesting and useful review, not necessarily a positive one): A critic can set out to evaluate something as small as a piece of…

THE DREAM SYNDICATE How Did I Find Myself Here? Anti-/Epitaph 87530-1 (LP). 2017. Dream Syndicate, Chris Cacavas, prods.; Adrian Olsen, Bruce Olsen, engs. ADA? TT: 45:48 PERFORMANCE  SONICS  Psychedelic warriors the Dream Syndicate returned in 2012 after two decades off, their original 1981–89 tenure still celebrated. Nostalgia for ’80s and ’90s Amerindie rock was running high, and the band didn’t disappoint in concert, sometimes doing complete performances of such classic albums as their first, The Days of Wine and Roses (1982). Now completing the circle is How Did I Find Myself Here?, for which guitarist-singer Steve Wynn, original drummer Dennis Duck, latter-day bassist Mark Walton, and M3 guitarist Jason Victor clearly set out to do more than simply revisit old glories—they extend and elaborate on an already estimable legacy. Along…

I’ll inch out on a limb here and say that most audiophiles are also collectors of recordings. How people collect recordings is an endless fascination of mine—I ask friends, acquaintances, interview subjects, and even students in a music class that I teach. The sum of their answers makes me something of an expert on the ways in which people consume music. There are, I grant you, a certain number of audiophiles, gearheads—whatever you want to call them—who really do collect only gear. Swapping out new speakers every year or so is an expensive hobby, but if you have the means, then to each his own. Stereophile’s late contributing editor Wes Phillips called them geekazoids. For the geekazoid, music is only a means of testing the gear. He’s interested only in…

Brooklyn-based Grado Labs has been in business for 64 years, manufacturing moving-iron phono cartridges, headphones, and, for a while, even a unipivot tonearm with a wooden armwand, as well as the sophisticated, S-shaped Signature Laboratory Standard arm. The company’s founder, Joseph Grado, who well deserves the appellation “legendary,” died in 2015, at the age of 90. He began as a watch builder at Tiffany & Company, and started making phono cartridges in 1953, as the hi-fi boom took off. He retired in 1990 and sold Grado Labs—still located in the same Brooklyn building where he’d begun in 1953—to his nephew John Grado Jr., who by then had put in more than a decade at Uncle Joe’s company, pretty much running it after Joe had returned to what he liked best:…

The mice in the walls call summer to close while nets come down and leaves turn dead red, but by the time you see this there’ll be holiday music in the air … and some generous soul might, just might, sneak a few looks through this issue of Stereophile to see what gifts to buy before the tree goes up and presents are opened—and all will be nice! And what better way to serve those possible givers of audio gifts—and, at the same time, honor our hobby’s most deserving designers and manufacturers—than with our annual Product of the Year awards? When it’s all said and done, some of us will remember 2017 not only as the year when the vinyl renaissance became more entrenched and MQA began making serious inroads,…

I measured the Outlaw Audio RR2160 using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see the January 2008 “As We See It”1). After I’d run the amplifier for an hour with both channels driving 1kHz at one-third power into 8 ohms, its top panel above the internal heatsinks was very hot, at 122°F (50°C). The maximum voltage gain at 1kHz from the speaker terminals into 8 ohms measured 42.1dB for the line inputs. The line inputs preserved absolute polarity (ie, were non-inverting), as did the phono input set to both MM and MC and all the digital inputs. The line-input impedance was a usefully high 48k ohms at low and middle frequencies, dropping inconsequentially to 39k ohms at 20kHz. To my surprise, the volume control for the headphone output is in series…

John Atkinson asked me to review the dCS Network Bridge ($4250), which was designed to be paired not just with the dCS Vivaldi DAC ($35,999) running the current v.2.02 software, but with any DAC. This meant I was forced to endure several months with the state-of-the-art Vivaldi as a replacement for my reference dCS Rossini ($23,999). Oh, how I suffered. Computer playback paled next to the Network Bridge. Michael Fremer, in his January 2014 review of dCS’s four-piece Vivaldi system ($114,996),1 of which the Vivaldi DAC is part, called it “the best non–digital-sounding digital system I’ve heard.” John Atkinson, in his measurements for that review, credited the system with “the best digital playback I have experienced.” I determined a review strategy. My main focus would be the Network Bridge, with…

I didn’t measure the Audezes’ frequency response, as I don’t have the necessary simulated head and torso, and estimating the optimal response of headphones is far from simple.1 However, I used my Audio Precision System One to measure the Audeze LCDi4s’ impedance and electrical phase. The solid trace in fig.1 shows the impedance magnitude with the headphones inserted in my ears. The impedance is a constant 26.7 ohms across the audioband, and the phase angle is 0° up to 10kHz, suggesting that the planar-magnetic drive-unit behaves as a pure resistor up to 10kHz, with the slightly positive angle above 10kHz due to its residual inductance. 1 See Sean Olive, Todd Welti, and Elisabeth McMullin, “Listener Preferences for Different Headphone Target Response Curves,” presented at the May 2013 AES Convention; downloadable…

As musical movements go, rock and jazz seem to be running out of new ideas, most of the stylistic pathways in both genres having been explored to their logical conclusions. In rock in particular, every stream of inspiration has been followed past its headwaters, every droplet of inspiration wrung from established forms. Jazz, however, seems to be finding new energy in reinvigorating old forms, and none more prominent or promising than the big band. Groups such as John Hollenbeck’s Large Ensemble and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, each comprising 18 players, have brought exciting new dimensions to a musical form that, with few notable exceptions (eg, Woody Herman, Gil Evans, Charles Mingus), was left for dead with the emergence of bebop after World War II. Seven years ago, Christian McBride—perhaps…

CLASSIC SAVOY BE-BOP SESSIONS 1945–49 Dexter Gordon’s All-Stars, Jay Jay Johnson’s Beboppers, Allen Eager Quartet, Stan Getz Quartet, Sonny Stitt/Kenny Dorham/The Be Bop Boys, Kai Winding’s New Jazz Group (Kai’s Kats), others Mosaic MD10-264 (10 CDs). 2016. Teddy Reig, orig. prod.; Steven Lasker, Paul Reid III, Jack Towers, Rudy Van Gelder, orig. transfers; Michael Cuscuna, reissue prod.; Jonathan Horwich, Steve Marlowe, restoration, mastering. A–D. TT: 10:23:55. PERFORMANCE  SONICS  When it comes to reissues of classic American jazz, no one else even comes close to the care and time Mosaic Records has put into their comprehensive sets of LPs and CDs over the past 35 years. In terms of presentation (the famed black boxes), liner notes, session info, and best possible sound, Mosaic sets the standard for jazz reissues. The continuing…

DENMARK: AARS Paul Messenger I mentioned in an April 2017 report that cast iron makes an exceptional loudspeaker enclosure material because of its very effective self-damping due to a high content of carbon in graphite form, its only real disadvantage being its high density and, thus, mass. Jern APS (http://audioform.dk; “jern” is Danish for “iron”) now makes five versions of its original Jern14 loudspeaker, four of them designed to be used with REL T/5i subwoofers, and the company’s number of related components continues to grow. The latest example, the w8000, is actually a quite slim, on-wall, two-way speaker. It’s also entirely circular—partly, perhaps, because such a shape is very difficult to execute in wood! There’s also a cast-iron tweeter waveguide that’s aimed at the DIY market, adding a useful combination…

Everything you know is wrong. —The Firesign Theatre The Swissonor TA10, a contemporary tonearm designed for the Thorens TD 124 turntable (1959–1970), challenged me to set aside some of the things I thought I knew about phonography. On at least one of those counts, it succeeded. Handmade in Switzerland and modeled on the Thorens TP 14 tonearm of the 1960s, the TA10 ($3990) improves on its predecessor with an effective length of 240mm, which Swissonor says is the longest that can be achieved with a stock TD 124 armboard (the TP 14’s effective length was only 210mm), and replaces the non-universal plug and socket of the TP 14’s removable headshell with the more common SME standard found on most contemporary headshells, pickup heads, and tonearms. The TA10 also replaces the…

While it hasn’t always made money or hit records, the music business has never been short on ideas. Most are nonsense, but every once in a while—the gramophone, onstage monitors, Les Paul’s overdubbing—the biz comes up with a winner. Many of the craziest ideas I’ve heard in 30 years of writing about music have been expounded on at the South by Southwest Music Festival, held each year in Austin, Texas. At SXSW, hope springs eternal. Secrets are whispered. Buzz bands gain momentum. Rumors ripple through crowds. Everyone has visions of morphing into a mogul. There’s an intoxicating energy to it all. Last March, in the midst of mingling and rattling on about the Loudness Wars or the soulless hell that pop music has become, Scott Ambrose Reilly, a fine fellow…

Years ago, when I was young and foolish (instead of old and foolish, as now), I was hanging out with a friend at a strip-mall strip club in a small southeastern city. A youngish lady approached our table in G-string and pasties and did a tableside dance. My friend’s jaw scraped the floor; I, noting her lack of enthusiasm, was unmoved. The stripper noted my impassivity and stated, with irony that at the time I somehow missed, “You’re a hard man.” John Atkinson, too, is a hard man, at least when it comes to audio gear. When, in January 2014, he reviewed the Pass Laboratories XA60.5 mono- block amplifier, he concluded, “It is the best-sounding amplifier I have ever used.”1 High praise. But years later, when a pair of the…

As a kid growing up in Milford, Michigan, my big brother always had the classiest clothes, latest records, and sharpest gear. He danced in Cuban-heeled leather boots, I climbed trees in lace-up Keds. He spun Rolling Stones vinyl on a fabric-wrapped Zenith portable with detachable speakers, I blasted the Beatles from a tinny transistor radio. Ten years my senior, big bro drove a Buick bomb (which, late one night, mysteriously caught fire in the garage) and had a girlfriend, Gail, whose plump cheeks and smart clothes embodied modern mid-century Midwestern appeal. I like to think that my brother and I have both aged gracefully. And lately, he’s taken to high-end hi-fi with a passion. Those descriptors look mechanical and artificial on the page. The Quasar was anything but. First, I…

Back in May 2014, I reviewed NAD’s Masters Series M50 Digital Music Player ($2499) and M52 Digital Music Vault ($1999 with 2TB storage).1 At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, NAD announced the M50.2, which is almost identical to the original M50 but now incorporates two 2TB hard disks, arranged as a 2TB RAID array, to ensure data integrity, and adds TosLink and coaxial digital inputs, Bluetooth with aptX for streaming music from a smartphone or tablet, and two single-ended analog inputs—all for $3999, or $499 less than the combined cost of the two earlier products. Like the M50, the M50.2 offers WiFi and Ethernet connectivity, and has a CD drive, accessible via a slot on the front panel under the color TFT touchscreen, that can be used to play CDs,…

JONAS KAUFMANN L’Opéra Arias by Berlioz (The Trojans, The Damnation of Faust), Bizet (Carmen, The Pearl Fishers), Gounod (Romeo and Juliette), Halévy (The Jewess), Lalo (The King of Ys), Massenet (The Cid, Manon, Werther), Meyerbeer (The African), Offenbach (The Tales of Hoffmann), Thomas (Mignon) Jonas Kaufmann, tenor; Sonya Yoncheva, soprano; Ludovic Tézier, baritone; Bavarian State Orchestra, Bertrand De Billy Sony Classical 8898539072 (CD). 2017. Christopher Adler, prod.; Philip Krause, eng. DDD. TT: 74:00 PERFORMANCE  SONICS  Having just reviewed a mediocre recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Kaufmann singing the tenor and mezzo-soprano/baritone songs, both stressfully and neither interestingly, I approached this CD of French arias with a tiny chip on my shoulder. It was knocked off with the first aria, Roméo’s “Ah, lève-toi soleil,” which is sung…